NEW YORK, March 17, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Wall Street Journal today announced Timothy F. Geithner, U.S. secretary of the Treasury, will be the keynote speaker at the Future of Finance Initiative, a conference the Journal is hosting next week to address the financial crisis. Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia and G-20 leadership member, will address attendees on the first evening at the Park Hyatt in Washington, D.C., where the gathering will be held on March 23-24.
The conference, moderated by the Journal's financial editors and reporters, will be a working session convening top leaders and experts from across the finance industry who will identify the key principles for reforming the global financial system ahead of the G-20 Summit in London.
"The Future of Finance provides a forum for the world's top financial leaders to exchange views at a crucial moment," said Robert Thomson, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal and editor-in-chief of Dow Jones & Company. "We're anticipating that Mr. Geithner will offer perspective into the new administration's goals and that Prime Minister Rudd will provide an important preview of the G-20 Summit."
The participants in The Future of Finance Initiative will spend a portion of the conference working in small, off-the-record groups, each to be facilitated by a Wall Street Journal editor and chaired by distinguished experts to identify principles and priorities in key areas. Some of these issues include regulatory structure, derivatives, controls on private pools of money, global coordination and financial industry compensation. The groups will report back their findings to the entire forum, who will then vote to rate the principles. The results will be published in a special report in The Wall Street Journal and on WSJ.com.
The Future of Finance Initiative will feature the following financial leaders:
* Roger Altman, chairman and chief executive officer, Evercore Partners * Cliff Asness, managing and founding principal, AQR Capital Management, LLC * Alan S. Blinder, professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Princeton University * Paul Calello, chief executive officer, Investment Bank, Credit Suisse * James S. Chanos, founder and managing partner, Kynikos Associates * H. Rodgin Cohen, partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP * Gary D. Cohn, president and co-chief operating officer, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. * Craig S. Donohue, chief executive officer, CME Group, Inc. * Robert Engle, Nobel Laureate and professor of finance, NYU, Stern School of Business * Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., president and chief executive officer, TIAA-CREF * Peter R. Fisher, managing director and co-head of fixed income, BlackRock, Inc. * Gregory J. Fleming, senior research scholar, Yale Law School * Timothy F. Geithner, U.S. secretary of the Treasury * Robert Greifeld, chief executive office, The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. * Glenn Hutchins, co-founder and co-chief executive, Silver Lake * Robert M. Kimmitt, former deputy U.S. secretary of the Treasury * Authur Levitt, former chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission * Bill Miller, chairman and chief investment officer, Legg Mason Capital Management, Inc. * Ira M. Millstein, partner, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP * Eric Mindich, founder and chief executive officer, Eton Park Capital Management, L.P. * David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and managing director, The Carlyle Group * Robert E. Rubin, former U.S. secretary of the Treasury * Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia * Myron S. Scholes, Nobel Laureate and professor emeritus of finance, Stanford University * Steven A. Schwarzman, chairman, chief executive officer and co-founder, The Blackstone Group * Robert J. Shiller, professor of economics, Yale University * Eraj Shirvani, chairman, International Swaps and Derivatives Association * Damon A. Silvers, associate general counsel, AFL-CIO * Robert K. Steel, former president and chief executive officer, Wachovia Corporation * James S. Turley, chairman and chief executive officer, Ernst & Young * Laura Tyson, S.K. and Angela Chan professor, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley * Meredith Whitney, chief executive officer and founder, Meredith Whitney Advisory Group
The sessions will be hosted by Wall Street Journal experts Thorold Barker, editor, Heard on the Street column; Dennis K. Berman, deputy bureau chief of Money & Investing; Kenneth A. Brown, editor of Money & Investing; John Bussey, Washington bureau chief; Nikhil Deogun, deputy managing editor; Paul A. Gigot, editorial page editor; Kate Kelly, reporter; Alan Murray, deputy managing editor and online executive editor; Gerald F. Seib, assistant managing editor; and David Wessel, global economics editor.
For more information about the Journal's Future of Finance Initiative, please visit https://futurefinance.wsj.com.
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The Wall Street Journal, the flagship publication of Dow Jones & Company is the world's leading business publication. Founded in 1889, The Wall Street Journal has a print and online circulation of more than 2 million, reaching the nation's top business and political leaders, as well as investors across the country. Holding 33 Pulitzer Prizes for outstanding journalism, The Wall Street Journal provides readers with trusted information and knowledge to make better decisions. The Wall Street franchise has more than 700 journalists world-wide, part of the Dow Jones network of nearly 1,800 business and financial news staff. Other publications that are part of The Wall Street Journal franchise, with a global audience of 3.8 million, include The Wall Street Journal Asia and The Wall Street Journal Europe. The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com is the largest paid subscription news site on the Web with 10.9 million users each month. In 2008, the Journal was ranked No. 1 in BtoB's Media Power 50 for the ninth consecutive year. The Wall Street Journal Radio Network services news and information to more than 340 radio stations in the U.S.
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