Explore the Heartland’s future in the aftermath of COVID-19

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Panelists: 

Tammy Edwards - Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City

Tammy Edwards leads the Community Engagement & Inclusion Division for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. She is a member of the Bank’s Management Committee, which is responsible for the Kansas City Fed’s strategic planning and policy direction. Ms. Edwards also serves as the Bank’s Director of the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion.

Tammy Edwards

Tammy Edwards leads the Community Engagement & Inclusion Division for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. She is a member of the Bank’s Management Committee, which is responsible for the Kansas City Fed’s strategic planning and policy direction. Ms. Edwards also serves as the Bank’s Director of the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion.

The Community Engagement & Inclusion Division addresses community and economic development challenges faced by underserved populations, fosters the development of women and minorities in banking, manages diversity and inclusion strategies and programs across business lines and facilitates the Bank’s community engagement initiatives. As the regional headquarters of the nation’s central bank, the Kansas City Fed and its branch offices in Denver, Oklahoma City and Omaha serve the seven states of the Tenth District: Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Colorado, northern New Mexico and western Missouri.

Ms. Edwards joined the Bank in July 2008 after holding various leadership positions at Sprint Corporation. She earned an undergraduate degree in marketing and a M.B.A. in finance from the University of Missouri – Kansas City.

Ms. Edwards is very active in several civic and community organizations. She currently serves on the boards of the Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey, Kansas City Scholars, the Kansas City Workforce Investment Board, Kansas City Public Television, and the Jacob and Ella Loose Foundation. She is an active member of St. James United Methodist Church, the Greater Kansas City Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, the University of Missouri - Kansas City’s African American Leaders Council and the Central Exchange.

Tammy Edwards Bio

Jamie Metzl - Futurist and author of Hacking Darwin

Jamie Metzl is a leading technology and healthcare futurist and geopolitical expert, a science fiction novelist, a faculty member of Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine, and a member of the Human Genome Project-write consortium.

He is the author of the recent bestseller: Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity

Jamie Metzl

Jamie Metzl is a leading technology and healthcare futurist and geopolitical expert, a science fiction novelist, a faculty member of Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine, and a member of the Human Genome Project-write consortium.

In 2019, he was appointed to the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on human genome editing. Jamie previously served in the U.S. National Security Council, State Department, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee and with the United Nations in Cambodia.

Jamie appears regularly on national and international media discussing global issues and his syndicated columns and other writing on international affairs, genetics, virtual reality, and other topics are featured in publications around the world.

He is the author of a history of the Cambodian genocide, the historical novel The Depths of the Sea, and the genetics sci-fi thrillers Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata, and the recent bestseller, Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity.

Jamie is a founder and Co-Chair of the national security organization Partnership for a Secure America and a board member of the International Center for Transitional Justice, the American University in Mongolia, and Parsons Dance. 

An avid ironman triathlete and ultra-marathoner and former White House Fellow and Aspen Institute Crown Fellow, Jamie holds a Ph.D. in Asian history from Oxford, a JD from Harvard Law School, and is a Phi Beta Kappa Magna cum Laude graduate of Brown University. www.jamiemetzl.com

Jamie Metzl Bio

Simon Johnson - Professor, MIT and co-author of Jump-Starting America

Simon Johnson is the Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he is also head of the Global Economics and Management group and chair of the Sloan Fellows MBA Program Committee.

Simon Johnson

SIMON JOHNSON is the Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he is also head of the Global Economics and Management group and chair of the Sloan Fellows MBA Program Committee. He co-founded and currently leads the popular Global Entrepreneurship Lab (GLAB) course – over the past 20years. MBA students in GLAB have worked on more than 500 projects with start-up companies around the world.

He is the coauthor, with Jon Gruber, of Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream. 

Johnson is on leave as a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C. From 2012 to 2019, he was a member of the FDIC’s Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee.  From July 2014 to 2017, Johnson was a member of the Financial Research Advisory Committee of the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR), within which he chaired the Global Vulnerabilities Working Group.

Johnson has been a member of the private sector Systemic Risk Council since it was founded by Sheila Bair in 2012; this group is now chaired by Sir Paul Tucker. From April 2009 to April 2015, he was a member of the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisers. In March 2016, Johnson was the third distinguished visiting fellow at the Central Bank of Barbados.

“For his articulate and outspoken support for public policies to end too-big-to-fail”, Johnson was named a Main Street Hero by the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) in 2013. In April 2015, the Washington Examiner placed Johnson at #11 on their list of New Voices for 2015. In November 2015, Johnson joined the advisory council of Intelligence2 Debates.

Over the past decade, Johnson has published more than 300 high impact pieces in the New York Times, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New Republic, BusinessWeek, The Huffington Post, The Financial Times, and Project Syndicate. 

“The Quiet Coup” received over a million views when it appeared in The Atlantic in early 2009. His book 13 Bankers: the Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown (with James Kwak), was an immediate bestseller and has become one of the mostly highly regarded books on the financial crisis. Their follow-up book on U.S. fiscal policy, White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters for You, won praise across the political spectrum. Johnson’s academic research on economic development, corporate finance, and political economy is widely cited.

From March 2007 through the end of August 2008, Johnson was the International Monetary Fund's Economic Counsellor (chief economist) and Director of its Research Department. He also helped to found and run the NBER Africa Project; four volumes were published by the University of Chicago Press in 2016.

Johnson holds a BA in economics and politics from the University of Oxford, an MA in economics from the University of Manchester, and a PhD in economics from MIT.

IMPORTANT: For any media or appointment requests to Professor Johnson please be sure to copy Michelle Fiorenza: fiorenza@mit.edu.

Simon Johnson Bio

Ross DeVol - President and CEO, Heartland Forward

Ross DeVol is President and CEO, Heartland Forward. Heartland Forward’s goal is to promote regional innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems that foster job creation, wage gains and economic growth for the American Heartland.

Ross DeVol

Ross DeVol is President and CEO, Heartland Forward. Heartland Forward’s goal is to promote regional innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems that foster job creation, wage gains and economic growth for the American Heartland.

Heartland Forward will pursue its mission through independent, data-driven research, action-oriented convenings, such as the Heartland Summit, and impactful policy recommendations. Heartland Forward works with universities, colleges, the business community, public policy leaders and philanthropy to analyze resources supporting the startup community and identify workforce and talent gaps.

DeVol is former chief research officer for the Milken Institute where he spent nearly 20 years, an economic think tank headquartered in California. He oversaw research on international, national and comparative regional growth performance; access to capital and its role in economic growth and job creation; and health-related topics. He has been ranked among the “Superstars of Think Tank Scholars” by International Economy magazine.

Ross DeVol Bio

Fred Teng - President of the America China Public Affairs Institute

Fred Teng is President of the America China Public Affairs Institute. He also serves as the Senior U.S. Representative of the China-United States Exchange Foundation; an Executive Council Member of the Center for China and Globalization; a visiting Professor of the Sichuan University. He is a Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, a Counselor of the EastWest Institute, a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and a Centennial Society member of the Economic Club of New York. Most recently, Mr. Teng was elected as an independent board member of USA Badminton, the national governing body for the sport of badminton in the United States.

Fred Teng

Fred Teng is President of the America China Public Affairs Institute, a 501(c)3 independent non-partisan nonprofit organization. The mission of the organization is to advocate constructive policies on the major issues relating to the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China.

Mr. Teng also serves as the Senior U.S. Representative of the China-United States Exchange Foundation; Executive Council Member of the Center for China and Globalization; a visiting Professor of the Sichuan University. He is a Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, a Counselor of the EastWest Institute, a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and a Centennial Society member of the Economic Club of New York. Most recently, Mr. Teng was elected as an independent board member of USA Badminton, the national governing body for the sport of badminton in the United States.

Mr. Teng served over seven years as the Chief Executive Officer of NewsChina magazine, which he launched the publication worldwide on newsstands and digitally online. Mr. Teng has served as senior management in the financial services, telecommunications, technology, and media industries.

He served as Senior Vice President of Multicultural Radio Broadcasting Inc. and General Manager of Sino Television. He was a partner and President of DVS New York, LLC. He was in charge of Multi-Culture Marketing Communications and Public Relations of AT&T’s International Consumer Long Distance division. At Oppenheimer & Co, he launched the firm’s service into Asia. At Merrill Lynch, he focused and coordinated new financial products and services.

Mr. Teng served in a variety of leadership roles with non-government organizations, including as the Chairman of the largest Public Television, WNET/thirteen’s New York Community Advisory Board, the Chairman of the Hong Kong Association of New York, the President of the Asian Financial Society, the President of the Chinese American Planning Council, Co-Chairman of the President's Council of the China Institute in America, the President of the Organization of Chinese Americans, the Vice Chairman of the National Asian Pacific Center on Aging, and the Capital Campaign Chairman for the Chinatown YMCA.

Fred Teng Bio

Moderator: 

Amos Smith - Global Business and Foreign Affairs Executive

Amos L. Smith is a global business and foreign affairs executive from the United States, specializing in international trade and government relations. He is the President of Walton International in Nashville, TN and the founder of TRUMAN. 
 
Amos additionally serves as the Chairman of the Finance Committee with the U.S. Heartland China Association. 

Amos Smith

Amos L. Smith is a global business and foreign affairs executive from the United States, specializing in international trade and market expansion.

Amos has collaborated with numerous multinational market-leading firms and executive leadership on worldwide projects; including extensive work in trade facilitation, market strategy, government relations, and conflict management.

Amos is currently the president of Walton International, a firm concentrating on connecting companies and their executives to alternative market and investment opportunities, both foreign and domestic.

Amos additionally serves as the Executive Director of the Global Chamber Nashville, assisting regional organizations in expanding global possibilities to foreign markets and connections in Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa.

Previously, Amos served as the International Trade Coordinator at Cargill Cotton in Memphis, Tennessee as well as Global Business Analyst with Tractor Supply Company in Nashville, Tennessee.

Amos holds a Global Masters degree in International Relations from Webster University and a Bachelors degree in Political Science and Philosophy from the University of Mississippi. He has lived, worked or conducted research in: Austria, Belgium, England, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, Switzerland, and Thailand.

Amos and his family live in Nashville, Tennessee.

Amos Smith Bio

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