Hosted by the Wharton Future of Finance Initiative and powered by Ripple, the FinTech Lecture Series brings Wharton students face-to-face with leading voices shaping the future of finance. Through candid conversations, the series offers a unique window into how regulation, innovation, policy, and technology intersect in real time.
Speakers have included senior officials from the Department of Justice and the CFTC, legal experts from top firms like Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, and executives from trailblazing fintech companies like Circle. Topics span digital assets, crypto enforcement, AI in financial services, decentralized finance, and more, giving students exposure to the issues that matter most in the financial landscape.
The FinTech Lecture Series connects classroom insights to the real-world decisions defining tomorrow’s financial system. Scroll below to see past lecturers.
2025-2026 School Year
Gordon Grant, Portfolio Manager and Head of Derivatives at Bitwise Asset Management.
Richard Shorten, Founder and General Partner of Silvermine Capital Advisors,; Co-Founder and Chairman of GlobalStake and Chief Alchemist at Lucky Friday Labs.
Josh Boehm and Dana Syracuse, Partners in the FinTech practice at Paul Hastings’s New York office
Rostin Behnam, Distinguished Fellow at Georgetown University’s Psaros Center for Financial Markets & Policy and 15th Chairman of the CFTC
Jesse Thomas, Head of Data Science at Advent International for the FinTech Lecture Series.
Dan Awrey, the Beth and Marc Goldberg Professor of Law at Cornell Law School
2024-2025 School Year
Heath Tarbert, President of Circle and 14th Chairman of the CFTC
Jenn Sasso, Partner at MoloLamken LLP
Hester Peirce, Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Callum Sproule, IP practice at Cravath, Swaine & Moore
Timothy Massad, Research Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and former Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission
2023-2024 School Year
Jorge Herrada, Director of the CFTC’s Office of Technology Innovation
Sanjeev Bhasker, U.S. Digital Currency Counsel with the Department of Justice
Heath Tarbert, President of Circle and 14th Chairman of the CFTC
Scott Bennett, Partner at Cravath, Swaine, and Moore LLP
Fireside Chat: Bloomberg’s Matt Levine in Conversation with Professor Jeremy Siegel
John Coates, Deputy Dean and Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School Author of the newly published book, The Problem of Twelve
Waleed Y.W. Haj Hasan, Fellow at The Wharton School
Chris Brummer, the Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Financial Technology at Georgetown University Law Center and the Faculty Director of Georgetown’s Institute of International Economic Law.