She is currently Chief Operating Officer at CivicReach, a technology company building voice AI tools for local government. Previously, Lindsay was Director of New York Ventures, a venture capital fund backed by New York State’s economic development agency. She also worked as a Principal at Prolog Ventures, a health and wellness-focused venture fund, and practiced as a startup and venture finance attorney at law firms in New York City and Raleigh. Lindsay has held advisory and consulting roles with a number of early-stage companies and enjoys ecosystem-building in the larger tech community, especially among traditionally underrepresented founders and employees. 

She also serves as a professor of the practice in the strategy and entrepreneurship area at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, creating and teaching courses on economic development as well as developing experiential learning programs for undergraduate and MBA students.

Before this role, LaChaun worked at Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, and the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative where she managed the deployment and adoption of the newly launched City Leader Guide for Equitable Economic Development with mayors across the country and internationally.

LaChaun has also served as the associate director for practitioner communities with the Ash Center’s Innovations in Government Program, where she managed a network of the 45 largest cities and urban markets in the United States. She was previously the associate director for NCGrowth, where she led programs in economic development and managed teams that supported local startups and businesses in rural areas.

LaChaun earned a B.A. in international studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a concentration in global economics, trade and development. She later earned an MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler and an MPA from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. LaChaun has a certificate in Management, Leadership, and Decision Sciences from Harvard Kennedy School. In addition, LaChaun studied at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, studying Asian business and management, and Chinese government and politics.

Mathieu Despard is a Consultant with the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis and an adjunct Assistant Professor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served on the Academic Research Council for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2021 to 2023. His research focuses on household financial well-being among low- and moderate-income households including financial technology, digital behavioral interventions, social welfare and tax policy, employment, student debt, medical debt, savings, and wealth building.

He has published 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and 68 research reports and briefs. His work with colleagues has been cited in the 2025 Economic Report of the President, an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, and in news articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Times (London), Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Forbes Magazine, Money, and CNBC. Mat has taught graduate courses in social work and business for 17 years.

Prior to his academic career, he worked for 16 years primarily with nonprofit organizations serving low- and moderate-income households. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he earned his MSW and his PhD degrees.

Eastman received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Pennsylvania State University and his doctoral degree in risk management and insurance from the University of Georgia.

Dr. Evan Eastman is the Independent Life and Accident Insurance Associate Professor in the Department of Risk Management/Insurance, Real Estate and Legal Studies at Florida State University’s College of Business. At the undergraduate level, he teaches risk management and insurance, life and health insurance, and property-casualty insurance options. His research primarily focuses on accounting discretion in the insurance industry.

Eastman received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Pennsylvania State University and his doctoral degree in risk management and insurance from the University of Georgia.

Kristin Economo is the Chief of Staff for Skills and Development at Red Hat, where she focuses on enterprise-wide strategies for skills development and career opportunity. With 15 years of experience spanning tech, financial services, healthcare, and education, Kristin has led impactful talent development initiatives with a focus on equity and access. She has spearheaded global career sponsorship and mentoring programs at Red Hat, designed corporate returnship programs with reacHIRE and Fidelity Investments, and secured major grants to support career pathways at Seattle Colleges. Her work focuses on breaking down systemic barriers to advancement and fostering inclusive career mobility.

Kristin’s commitment to expanding career opportunity began during her time at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she earned a BA in International Studies and volunteered as a college access mentor for immigrant youth. She also holds an MBA and MA in Education from the University of Michigan.

Cameron Ellis is the Hentges Fellow in Finance and an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa.  His research primarily focuses on how households manage risk and causal policy analysis.

Ed joined Ownership Works in November 2024 as a Senior Director on the Client Advisory Services team. He is responsible for leading the organization’s Hands-on Guidance team, which provides both investors and companies with the practical models, tools, and resources to implement shared ownership programs.

Ed spent his 12-year professional career in management consulting with Bain & Company. He was a Partner in Bain’s Consumer Products and Customer Practices. His client work focused on corporate and M&A strategy, end-to-end brand growth strategy, value creation transformation, operating model reimagination, and customer experience transformation. In addition to his client work, Ed was deeply involved in developing cutting-edge mentorship and coaching programs for Bain. Born and raised in France, Ed worked in Brussels, San Francisco, New York, South Africa, and Nigeria.

Ed believes deeply in Ownership Works’ mission. Growing up in a privileged environment in Paris, he was always acutely aware of his responsibility to pay forward what he received by creating a fairer economy with equal access to opportunity. Through his consulting work, Ed developed a passion for reinvigorating corporate culture and making every job more fulfilling. He sees shared ownership programs as a unique tool to achieve both goals.

Ed holds an Executive Certification from the MIT Sustainability in Action Program, a Master of Science degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Master of Science degree in Mathematics, Physics and Economics from École Polytechnique (Paris)

Tim Freeman joined the Harvard Growth Lab as a Research Fellow in 2021. Tim specializes in local and subnational economic development, partnering with governments and stakeholders to craft growth strategies and navigate the process of change at the local level. His work bridges policy and practice, integrating economic analysis with on-the-ground policy implementation.

Tim’s experience spans both domestic and international contexts, with recent projects in Wyoming, the Amazon states of Colombia, and the state of Meghalaya in India. He has also collaborated with the Bloomberg Center for Cities to support local economic transformation efforts. He received his A.B. in Economics with a minor in Finance from Washington University in St. Louis and holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID, 2021) from the Harvard Kennedy School.

CivicReach provides towns, cities, counties, and agencies across the country with 24/7, multilingual, and extraordinarily helpful AI agents that can assist residents with whatever they need over the phone. Chip has been a social technologist for over ten years – building technology to improve the lives of hospice patients, voters, caregivers, and travelers. He is the former CTO of Tastemakers Africa and has a BS in computer science from Case Western Reserve University. He is also the co-organizer of Triangle Tech Night – large gatherings for the Research Triangle’s tech community.

Dr. Kyeonghee Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Risk Management/Insurance, Real Estate and Legal Studies at Florida State University’s College of Business. Her primary research focus is to understand the implications of market imperfections and regulation for financial institutions. She is especially interested in life and health insurance companies. Kim’s research interest also extends to topics in population health, using nationally representative survey data on health (e.g., National Health Interview Survey, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and Medical Expenditure Panel Survey).

Kim earned her bachelor’s in business administration from Yonsei University and her Ph.D. in actuarial science, risk management and insurance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Professor Korgaonkar’s research examines how household credit in the United States is shaped by capital markets, labor markets, and regulation. He studies the intermediation of residential and commercial mortgages, and the sources and nature of agency frictions in these settings.

His work has been accepted for publication to Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis; Management Science; and Journal of Financial Intermediation. It has been presented to audiences at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), the American Finance Association (AFA), and the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (AREUEA).

Before joining the McIntire faculty in 2019, Professor Korgaonkar was an Assistant Professor of Real Estate at Pennsylvania State University’s Smeal College of Business.

Jeff Korzenik is the Chief Economist for Fifth Third Commercial Bank. As Chief Economist, Jeff provides research and analysis
that impacts the Bank’s key markets as well as business leaders and policymakers throughout the country. He is an award-winning author whose writings have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, Newsweek, Forbes and many other national and regional publications, and Jeff has appeared regularly on CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox Business News.

Jeff’s insights are also featured in the Empowering American Cities initiative, a collaboration with Fifth Third and the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Empowering American Cities delivers local economic information for business leaders looking to grow their companies and their communities. It explores data on why some cities thrive while others fall behind, helping to identify policies and business practices that are working or not working.

Policymakers have sought Jeff’s expertise on a variety of topics leading to his testifying before state legislatures and on Capitol
Hill. Most recently, Jeff has been recognized as a leading expert on private sector models for hiring people with criminal records
and advancing public safety through employment. His book, “Untapped Talent,” published by HarperCollins in 2021, is widely
recognized as the authoritative text on the subject.

Jeff earned both a bachelor’s degree in economics and a certificate of proficiency in Near Eastern studies from Princeton University.

Jeff serves as a member of the Board of Advisors of the Peabody Essex Museum.

Camelia Kuhnen is an expert in household finance, labor and finance and neuroeconomics. Her work has an interdisciplinary nature, with the over-arching theme of trying to understand how people make financial and economic choices that concern them as individuals or as decision makers in firms.

Dr. Kuhnen is director of research at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at UNC Kenan-Flagler.

She is a faculty affiliate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

She serves as department editor at Management Science and associate editor at the Journal of Finance. Previously she was an editor at the Review of Corporate Finance Studies and associate editor at the Review of Financial Studies.

Dr. Kuhnen is the incoming president of the Society for Experimental Finance and is a director of the American Finance Association. Previously she served as president of the Society for Neuroeconomics.

Prior to joining the faculty at UNC Kenan-Flagler, Dr. Kuhnen served on the faculty of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

She received her PhD in finance from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and two bachelor’s degrees – in finance and neuroscience – from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Elena Loutskina, Professor of Business Administration and Peter M. Grant II Bicentennial Foundation Chair in Business Administration, teaches in the Finance area. Loutskina’s research focuses on financial intermediation. She originally started her work by exploring the impact of securitization on management of financial and nonfinancial companies. Over time, her research interest expanded to exploring more dimensions of commercial banks strategic management. Her papers have addressed topics in consumer finance, mortgage markets, small business lending and regulation of financial intermediaries. Her work has been published in top academic journals in the area of finance including the Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Economics.

Alongside numerous academic conferences, she was invited to present her research at the Federal Reserve Bank, Federal Reserve Board, International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and Banque de France. She was a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, ECB, and Office of Financial Research. Her research has been cited in the Financial Times, as well as received Best Paper Awards and a number of grants, including from Kauffman Foundation and from Banque de France.

Since joining Darden she has taught a number of classes, including core “Corporate Finance,” “Impact Investing,” “Entrepreneurs Finance and Private Equity,” “Venture Velocity” and “Due Diligence in Seed Funds.” She received faculty teaching awards and was recognized by students and the dean’s office for her teaching accomplishments. In 2019 she received the most prestigious UVA Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award.

Prior to joining Darden in 2006, Loutskina taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels at Carroll School of Management, Boston College, where she received the Donald J. White Teaching Excellence Award.

Professor McCartney is an Assistant Professor of Commerce at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

His research investigates how social interactions, civic engagement, and politics connect household finance, real estate, and urban economics. His work has been published in Journal of Urban Economics; Management Science; and The Review of Financial Studies. It has also been presented at the AFA Annual Meeting, AREUEA Annual Conference, MFA Annual Meeting, NBER Summer Institute, SFS Cavalcade, and UEA Annual Meeting and appeared in Al Jazeera, The Globe and Mail, and The New York Times.

He teaches Financial Management, a core class covering financial statement analysis, the time value of money, and the weighted average cost of capital, in the M.S. in Commerce Program at McIntire.

Before joining UVA in 2022, he was an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University. He earned his Ph.D. in Finance from Duke University and his B.S. in Actuarial Science from Purdue University.

Paolina C. Medina is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Bauer College of Business of the University of Houston.

Tim O’Brien is a Senior Manager of Applied Research at the Growth Lab at Harvard University. Over the last 10 years, Tim has led place-based research collaborations with countries, states, and cities across five continents and helped to build the Growth Lab’s frontier-setting portfolio of research, teaching, and student engagement. Tim’s research projects aim to diagnose challenges to inclusive and sustainable growth and co-design local solutions.

Most recently, Tim has managed projects on Ethiopia, South Africa, Morocco, the State of Wyoming, and the City of Hermosillo (Mexico). Tim received his Master’s in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to his work as an economist and researcher, Tim was trained as a mechanical engineer at Northwestern University (B.S.) and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi.

She has several research projects looking at income inequality and the role of firms. She also has researched ESOP (employee share ownership plans) and employee stock options and their impact on labor productivity, wages and turnover.

Her research agenda is concentrated at the juncture of finance and labor economics. She is interested in how decisions studied in finance impact employee stakeholders – specifically how those effects are reflected in firm performance and, hence, corporate finance decisions.

Her work has been published in the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies and Journal of Financial Economics.

Paige worked at The Center for Clean Air Policy, an independent, nonprofit think tank working on climate and air quality policy at the local, U.S. national and international levels.

She received her Ph.D. and MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and her B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Christina Piard is the Upskilling Talent Manager for Wolfspeed, responsible for managing strong, results-based programs and partnerships with community colleges, military bases and other organizations focused on upskilling vocational talent interested in semiconductor factory roles. Christina has had a career focused on education, workforce development and community engagement.

Before joining Wolfspeed in October of 2022, Christina was the Director of Corporate Engagement at Central Carolina Community College. She also worked as the Director of Community Engagement for Congressman G. K. Butterfield. Christina has also held roles with Duke Corporate Education, the US Department of Labor and began her career as an elementary school teacher.

Christina received her undergraduate degree from the Pennsylvania State University and her Master’s degree from Duke University.

His research focuses on household finance and wealth inequality. Sakong received a BA in economics from Harvard University and a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Professor Parinitha (Pari) Sastry is an assistant professor of finance at Columbia Business School. Her research focuses on climate change, financial intermediation, and real-estate markets. She received her B.A. from Columbia University and her finance Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has worked previously at the Department of Treasury, Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, Brookings Institution, and New York Fed.

Lulu Wang is an assistant professor in finance at the Kellogg School of Management. His research interests include household finance, industrial organization, and corporate finance. His recent research studies competition between card payment networks. Prior to getting his PhD, he worked for two years on the global equities team at Bridgewater Associates. He obtained his PhD in Finance at Stanford GSB.

Dr. Tingyu Zhou is the Dean & Kathy Gatzlaff Associate Professor of Real Estate in the Department of Risk Management/Insurance, Real Estate and Legal Studies at Florida State University’s College of Business. Zhou’s research interests include real estate economics and finance, and she has published research in numerous journals, including Real Estate Economics, Journal of Real Estate Economics and Finance, Regional Science and Urban Economics. She currently serves on the board of directors of the Global Chinese Real Estate Congress and associate editor of International Real Estate Review.

Zhou earned a B.A. in economics and MBA in finance, both from the University of Macau. Her Ph.D. in finance is from the University of Connecticut.