Featured Speakers

Martin J. Gruenberg
Martin J. Gruenberg is the 20th chairman of the FDIC, receiving Senate confirmation on November 15, 2012 for a five-year term. Mr. Gruenberg served as vice chairman and member of the FDIC Board of Directors from 2005 until his confirmation as chairman. He served as acting chairman from 2011–2012, and from 2005–2006.

He joined the FDIC Board after broad congressional experience in the financial services and regulatory areas. He served as senior counsel on the staff of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs from 1993–2005 and advised the Senate on issues of domestic and international financial regulation, monetary policy, and trade. He also served as staff director of the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy from 1987–1992.

Dr. Charles Krauthammer
Named by The Financial Times as the most influential commentator in America, Charles Krauthammer writes a syndicated column for The Washington Post which appears in more than 400 newspapers worldwide and for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.

Krauthammer is a contributor to FOX News, appearing nightly on FOX's evening news program, Special Report with Bret Baier.

His latest book, Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics, is a Number 1 New York Times bestseller. As of August, it had sold more than one million copies.

Born in New York City and raised in Montreal, Krauthammer was educated at McGill University (B.A. 1970), Oxford University (Commonwealth Scholar in Politics) and Harvard (M.D. 1975). While serving a chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, he published several scientific papers, including the discovery of a form of bipolar disease which continues to be cited in the psychiatric literature.

In 1978, he quit medical practice, came to Washington to help direct planning in psychiatric research in the Carter administration. In 1980, he served as a speechwriter to Vice President Walter Mondale. He joined The New Republic as a writer and editor in 1981. Three years later his New Republic essays won the 1984 National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism, the highest award in magazine journalism.

From 2001 to 2006, he served on the President's Council on Bioethics. He is president of The Krauthammer Foundation and chairman of Pro Musica Hebraica, an organization dedicated to the recovery and performance of lost classical Jewish music. He is also a member of the Chess Journalists of America.

John E. Silvia, PH.D.
John Silvia is a managing director and the chief economist for Wells Fargo. Based in Charlotte, N.C., he has held his position since he joined Wachovia in 2002 as the company’s chief economist.

John serves as a member of the Business Advisory Council at the Walker College of Business at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., and on the President’s Council for Charlotte’s Central Piedmont Community College. He has previously served as a board member of the British American Business Council of North Carolina and served on the Economic Development Board for the State of North Carolina, a special appointment by the governor. He also served on the Business Advisory Committee for the City of Charlotte.

Spyro Karetsos
Spyro Karetsos is the principal and director of Enterprise Risk Management at Vanguard Group. He leads a team of risk professionals responsible for implementing Vanguard’s enterprise risk management framework.

Before joining Vanguard, he was global co-head of the Goldman Sachs Operational Risk Management department responsible for the global operational risk management and measuring programs. Before Goldman Sachs, Karetsos spent 10 years in the Federal Reserve System, where he worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and became an assistant vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.