Shaping the Future - Milken Institute

panelists
Craig Courtney is Special Adviser in Innovative Finance at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). Since
joining GAIN in 2006, he has been responsible for designing and implementing a successful resource mobilization
strategy that has attracted more than $300 million through government and private-sector foundation contributions.
From 2008, he has spearheaded the Innovative Financing Program, which is aimed at attracting new sources of capital,
such as social investment funds, to new financing modalities. He also leads advocacy and communications activities.
Prior to joining the GAIN management team in Geneva, Courtney worked in the investment banking industry for 20
years in both Asia and Europe, including stints with HSBC and ABN AMRO. He has an M.B.A. from Cornell University and
a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Davis.
Janet Cowell is Treasurer of North Carolina. Elected in 2008, she oversees the state’s investments, including $60
billion in pension fund investments for public employees; $12 billion in short-term cash investments for state agencies,
universities, community colleges and trust funds; and $4 billion in 401(k) and 457 supplemental retirement funds.
Cowell’s office manages the issuance of several billion dollars of debt each year and helps cities, towns and counties by
monitoring their financial condition while providing professional technical assistance on audit and financial reporting.
Cowell serves as chair of the State Banking Commission and on North Carolina’s state education and community college
boards. She has also been a state senator and Raleigh councilwoman. Previously she worked as a financial analyst with
HSBC Bank and Lehman Brothers. Cowell received an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and
a master’s degree in international studies from Penn’s Lauder Institute.
Matthew Crakes is Managing Partner and Portfolio Manager of Greenheart Capital Partners. Prior to founding
Greenheart Capital Partners, Crakes was a managing director at Shumway Capital Partners (SCP) from 2005 to 2009.
During his tenure at SCP, he was head of the Global TMT and EM/Asia teams, responsible for covering significant
emerging markets exposure in SCP’s portfolios. He previously served as a managing director in high-yield cable/
telecom research at Merrill Lynch from 1999 to 2004. He also worked at Wasserstein Perella as a research associate,
covering the wireless industry. He served as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army, working in military intelligence from 1993
to 1995, and in the Airborne Infantry from 1984 to 1986. Crakes received a B.S. in finance and economics from Indiana
University and an M.B.A. from the University of Southern California. He attended graduate school at Fudan University in
Shanghai.
Gordon Crovitz is the Co-Founder of Journalism Online, the creator of Press+, which enables publishers to charge
for access to their websites and other digital products and provides consumers with a single account for their digital
news. He is a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, where he writes a weekly column called “Information Age,”
and former executive vice president of Dow Jones & Company. He was chairman of Factiva, editor and publisher of
the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong and editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe in Brussels.
He is a director of or advisor to numerous technology-based media and information companies, including ProQuest,
Blurb, YouNoodle, Peer39 and Tracked.com. Crovitz received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and law
degrees from Yale Law School and Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes scholar.
Jason Cummins is Head of Economic Research at Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP, a position he has held
since 2004. Before joining Brevan Howard, he was a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board, where he led the
macro forecasting team. He started his career as an assistant professor of economics at New York University. Cummins
holds a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from
Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.
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