The Academic Team

Andrea Minto is Jean Monnet Professor in Law and Economics and holds the Chair in Digitalisation in EU Financial Studies (EUDIFIN). Since 2018 he is Tenured-Associate Professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice under the auspices of the prestigious “Rientro dei Cervelli Programme”.
He has been granted a Visiting Professorship at the University of Southern Denmark (Syddansk Universitet - Juridisk Institute), where he coordinates the Bachelor and Master programs in Law & Economics and is responsible for the courses “Banking and Financial Markets Law” and “Law and Economics: Method Argumentation and Theory of Science”.
Besides this, he works as Senior Policy Adviser and Researcher at the Deutsche Bundesbank Eurosystem (Directorate General Financial Stability), on topics such as FinTech, shadow banking and regulatory arbitrage.
Between 2014 and 2018 Andrea Minto was Assistant Professor in Law and Economics at Utrecht University School of Law and Utrecht School of Economics (USE).

Andrea Minto’s research interests reside at the intersection of Law, Economics and Finance.
He has written extensively on topics relating to economic law, European and comparative financial regulation, company and business law, FinTech and financial innovation.
His work came out in high-impact journals such as Journal of Financial Regulation (Oxford University Press), Capital Markets Law Journal (Oxford University Press), European Journal of Risk Regulation (Cambridge), European Company and Financial Law Review (De Gruyter).

Dr Katrin Auel is Associate Professor and Head of the research group ‘European Governance and Public Finance’ at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, Austria. After completing her studies at the University of Konstanz, she held positions at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, the University of Hagen, the University of Oxford and the European University Viadrina. She has also held visiting posts at Waseda University, Tokyo, Stanford University (in Oxford), Science Po Grenoble, and as an associate researcher at Sciences Po, Paris. Her research focuses on Europeanisation, EU multilevel governance and legislative studies with a specific interest in the parliamentary communication function and the role of national parliaments in the EU. Recent publications have appeared in JEPOP, P&G, JCMS, BJPIR, JEPP and CEP.

Mirèl ter Braak currently holds the position of senior policy advisor Innovation & Fintech at the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM). The AFM supervises the conduct of the entire financial market sector: savings, investment, insurance and loans. By supervising the conduct of the financial markets, the AFM aims to make a contribution to the efficient operation of these markets. The mission of the AFM on Innovation & Fintech is to ensure that the AFM accommodates technological innovation in the financial sector to the extent that it contributes to a sustainable financial wellbeing in the Netherlands. This implicates that the AFM also focuses on the risks related to innovation and fintech.

Mirèl’s main tasks and responsibilities include creating an overview of innovative and fintech concepts with an impact on the sector and the AFM, accommodating innovative players by addressing bottlenecks and reducing (unnecessary) barriers and if necessary propose adjustments to the legal framework, either to reduce unnecessary barriers or address associated risks. Further, Mirèl is responsible of the AFM’s international activities and contributions regarding innovation and fintech.

Monica Billio is Full Professor of Econometrics at the University Ca’ Foscari of Venice. She holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University Paris Dauphine. She held visiting research positions at University Paris IX Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University of Orleans and Bank of France. Prof. Billio has published more than 100 technical papers in refereed journals, handbooks, and conference proceedings in the areas of econometrics and financial econometrics, with applications to risk measurement, volatility modelling, financial crisis and systemic risk. She is participating to many research projects financed by the European Commission, Eurostat and the Italian Ministry of Research (MIUR). She has been scientific coordinator of the SYRTO project, EU-FP7 project devoted to systemic risk measurement and she is now local coordinator of two H2020-EE-CSA project on Energy Efficiency (EeMAP and EeDaPP). The results of these and other research projects have appeared in peer-refereed journals including Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Journal of Financial Econometrics, Journal of Banking and Finance and European Journal of Operational Research. Prof. Billio is actively involved in the organization of several scientific meetings and, in 2002 she co-established a new series of international workshops devoted to credit and financial risks (CREDIT), which has now reached the eighteenth edition (http://www.greta.it/credit/credit.htm). She is regularly on the program committees of the major international conferences and workshops of her fields and serves on the editorial board for the journal Computational Statistics and Data Analysis and Econometrics and Statistics. She is currently member of the Board of Directors of the European Financial Management Association (EFMA) and member of the Scientific Committee of the Italian Association Financial Industry Risk Managers (AIFIRM).

Thomas Droll is Head of Section in Deutsche Bundesbank’s DG Financial Stability and responsible for policy questions as regards non-bank financial intermediation, Fintech, BigTech and Crypto-Assets/stablecoins. Since joining the Bundesbank in 2006 he has worked on a wide range of financial stability topics and was involved in negotiations on several European and national regulatory dossiers. He currently represents Deutsche Bundesbank in several international and European working groups (inter alia: FSB Workstream on SFTs, FSB Data Experts Group, Chair of the ESRB Expert Group on margins and haircuts) and directs Bundesbank staff involved in the FSB Financial Innovation Network. He is a fully-qualified German lawyer.

Leonardo Gambacorta is the Head of the Innovation and the Digital Economy unit at the BIS. Before taking up his current position, Leonardo was Research Adviser (2014-2018) and Head of Monetary Policy (2010-12) in the Monetary and Economic Department. He was also Head of the Money and Credit Unit (2007–09) and Head of the Banking Sector Unit (2004–06) of the Research Department of the Bank of Italy. He was a visiting scholar at the National Bureau of Economic Research (2002–03). He holds an MSc in Economics from the University of Warwick and a PhD in Economics from the University of Pavia. His main interests include the monetary transmission mechanisms, the effectiveness of macroprudential policies on systemic risk, and the effects of technological innovation on financial intermediation. He is a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

Prof. Dr. Eduard Ivanov is professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow (Russian Federation), and visiting professor at the DIREITO GV in São Paulo (Brazil), at the Faculty of Law of the University of Münster (Germany), at the Faculty of Law of the University of Nice (France), and at the International Anti-Corruption Academy. He is an expert and published author in the fields of compliance, combating corruption, terrorism, and money-laundering. He taught courses on Legal Regulation of Combating Money Laundering, Financing of Terrorism and Corruption and AML/CFT and Anti-Corruption Compliance. Prof. Ivanov was also a chair of the Law Schools Global League’s Study Group on Combating Corruption. In 2013 and 2014, the Group conducted comparative research on anti-corruption laws and legal practices in Brazil, Germany, India, Italy, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Turkey. In 2002–08, Professor Ivanov served as head of various departments in Rosfinmonitoring (Russian Financial Intelligence Unit) and was responsible for financial investigations of money laundering and financing of terrorism as well as international cooperation. In 2005–08, he was a co-chair of the Working Group on Typologies in the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism and a member of the FATF Working Group on Typologies. In addition to teaching in academic institutions, since 2002, Professor Ivanov has also provided trainings for compliance officers of the leading Russian and foreign banks and companies on the topics of anti-corruption and AML/CFT compliance.

Prof. Dr. H. van Meerten is a professor International Pension Law at Utrecht University and a Dutch bar admitted lawyer. He deals with EU and Dutch Pension Law. Hans has extensive knowledge of the various aspects of EU-legislation and processes. One of his special areas of expertise is the EU legislation regarding pensions and the cross-border activities of financial institutions. He focusses mainly on the IORP II and the PEPP. Hans wrote and invented as a civil servant the legislation regarding the Dutch pension institution, the Premium Pension Institution (PPI). He was also involved in the Brussels negotiations on the Services Directive, the IORP I, the Solvency II Directive and the EU Treaty negotiations of Nice and the European Constitution. Hans publishes regularly in (inter-) national (peer reviewed) journals on EU Law, retirement, financial legislation and supervision. Most of his publications can be downloaded here.  Hans assists many financial undertakings in and outside the court. Specialties: EU Law, IORP, PEPP, Solvency II.

Loriana Pelizzon is Program Director Systemic Risk Lab and Chair of Law and Finance, Research Centre SAFE, Goethe University Frankfurt, and Full Professor in Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Loriana Pelizzon graduated from the London Business School with a doctorate in Finance. Loriana is Full Professor of Economic Policy at the Ca 'Foscari University of Venice and she is Director of the Systemic Risk Lab at SAFE, a center of research at Goethe University Frankfurt. She is the author of numerous articles published in international finance Journals and has won numerous awards for both research and teaching. She is involved in several European projects, she was co-ordinator of the EFA doctoral institution and member of the executive committee. Loriana is a member of the EU independent group of experts in the banking union and is an expert for the EU commission on digital money and blockchain technology. Since 2018 she is a member of the Advisory Scientific Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board. Loriana is ranked top 1% female economist (last 10 years).

Emanuele Spina is a Senior Expert in Banking Resolution at the Single Resolution Board, Brussels. In such capacity he leads teams in the resolution planning and crisis management activity. He has been directly involved in the management of the banking crises cases across the Banking Union, in particular in Italy, Cyprus and Latvia. He is a qualified lawyer at the Bar of Milan with more than 10 years’ experience in the field of banking and financial law. After working in law firms in Milan he moved to London and obtained his LL.M degree in Banking and Finance, followed by the appointment as Head of EU Affairs for a major Italian banking association, for which he opened and led the operations of the Brussels office, in the aftermath of the financial crisis. He is guest lecturer at the Universities of Venice, Utrecht, Leuven, Amsterdam, and speaker at conferences of public bodies (EBA, SRB) or for the banking industry. In 2018 he was Adjunct Professor in Banking Law at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

Julia Wörz is Head of the Central, Eastern and Southeastern European Analysis Unit at the Foreign Research Division (Economics Analysis and Research Department) of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) and Equalities Officer at OeNB. She is also external lecturer at the University of Innsbruck. Prior to joining the OeNB, she had been staff economist at The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw). Julia Wörz holds a doctoral degree in economics from the University of Vienna and received the venia docendi from the University of Innsbruck in 2012. Her main research interests are European economic integration, international trade, competitiveness, economic growth and macroeconomic forecasting.