CRAFT Workforce Development Workshop

The Center for Research Toward Advancing Financial Technologies, CRAFT will be hosting a Workforce Development Workshop on Wednesday afternoon, February 22, 2023.

Come learn about career growth strategies and the hiring practices of fintech leaders.

The workshop will consist of 2 panel discussions, one led by industry, the other by students from Stevens and RPI.  Panelists include CRAFT's industry partners from Bank of America, Charles Schwab, CME, and Vanguard.  

Through this workshop, the we hope to gain valuable insights from industry/HR leaders on how CRAFT can best support workforce development, access to talent initiatives, and best practices on hiring procedures.   

Wednesday, February 22, 2023
University Center, Tech Flex Conference Room. Zoom options available for 3:15 and 4:15 sessions.

>> Please RSVP for the event

Agenda

2:30 pm - 3:15 pm - Registration, Coffee/Tea, Networking
Tech Flex Conference Room

3:15 pm - 4 pm Session 1 - State of the Industry Panel Discussion
>> Zoom Option
An Industry/HR leaders panel discussion on the “state of the industry.” Centered around topics such as current and changing in-demand skill sets in the finance market, what skills your firm is looking for, how can CRAFT produce talent your firm is interested in, recommendations for Fintech courses, hiring challenges, talent development, inflation and costs, factors driving workforce compensation, student recommendations etc. 
Dax Hill, Senior Innovation Manager, Vanguard
Eric Leininger, Executive Director, Financial Research & Product Development, CME Group (moderator)
Krupakar Pasupuleti, Tech Executive, Cloud Development and Enablement, Bank of America

4 pm - 4:15 pm Coffee Break

4:15 pm - 5 pm Session 2 - Fireside Chat
>> Zoom Option
A “fireside chat” between industry/HR leaders and 3-4 students from Stevens and RPI. Students will lead the discussion and ask questions based on career trajectory perspectives. This may include items such as job fairs, the hiring process, desirable resume characters, best practices to secure a position, the interview process, how to stand out amongst competition, valuable courses or academic experience, extracurricular activities, advice on becoming a fintech innovator, etc.  
Noah Porcelain, Stevens UG Student
Agathe Sadeghi, Stevens PhD Student
Cole Paquin, RPI MS Student
Pierce Phillips, RPI MS Student
Dax Hill, Senior Innovation Manager, Vanguard
Eric Brubaker, Senior Manager R&D, Charles Schwab
Eric Leininger, Executive Director, Financial Research & Product Development, CME Group
Mike Purewal, Data Scientist, Bank of America

5 pm - 5:30 pm - Break
Please walk back down the path to the Babbio Buidling. Enter Babbio, take elevators up to the 4th floor.

5:30 pm - 6 pm Session 3 - Hanlon Financial Systems Center Tour/SSMIF Presentation
Hanlon 1 Lab
Presentation on the Hanlon Financial Systems Center laboratory, a staple of the finance program at Stevens. Ionut Florescu, Director of the Financial Analytics program & Director of theHanlon Financial Systems Lab at Stevens.
Presentation by SSMIF, Student Managed Investment Fund. Yash Jalan and Mary Savelyev.

6 pm - 7 pm - Networking/Reception
The evening will conclude with a light reception, refreshments, and networking. At Babbio 4th floor lounge.

Meet our Panelists

Eric Leininger, Executive Director, Financial Research & Product Development, CME Group
Eric joined CME Group in March of 2020 during the depths of the COVID-19 crisis. With the rest of the world, he grappled with the new virtual working reality while he met the team in Chicago, New York and London. It is rumored that he found his bearings to help the Financial RPD team cover the broad remit of initiatives and content of Listed Rates, BrokerTec, Equity Indexes and Alternatives including our contracts and indexes on cryptocurrencies. Today the team has grown to 8 individuals and are busy on the next wave of initiatives including TBA futures, ESTR futures, Event Contracts, and additional evolving strategic launches.

Mike Purewal, Data Scientist, Bank of America
Mike is a Capital Markets data scientist and AI product leader with 10+ years in Risk, Sales & Trading. He is a thought leader on using AI in finance including setting strategic direction for a large financial institution, advising start-ups and presenting at industry conferences. His expertise is in utilizing data assets and AI to create business value by collaborating across business, quant and tech.

Dax Hill, Senior Innovation Manager, Vanguard
Dax is a Senior Innovation Manager within Vanguard's Investment Management Fintech Strategies team. The mission of IMFS is to explore emerging technologies that can dramatically improve investment performance or make capital markets work better for our investors; and embed a culture of innovation across our division.

Krupakar Pasupuleti, Tech Executive, Cloud Development and Enablement, Bank of America
Krupakar is responsible for moving BofA forward in modern and cloud native technologies, making our developers productive and happy so they can deliver innovation at the speed of thought and delivering the best digital experience for our customers through the power of cloud. He has significant experience in financial services and high technology, having worked in Amazon for 5 years prior to Bank of America and spent over 2 decades in financial services building large scale, high revenue, intelligent trading systems.

Eric Brubaker, Senior R&D Manager, Charles Schwab
Eric Brubaker is a Senior Manager at Charles Schwab with 30 years of industry experience. Eric has been instrumental in starting several new initiatives for Schwab, most recently the N.E.R.D. program and R&D organization. Eric has passion around Financial Literacy and teaches Introduction to Finance at the company.

For questions, contact:

Jesse Lisnow
Operations Director, CRAFT
[email protected]