What is the future of our financial system? As the global economy becomes more interconnected and digitised, the foundations of finance are being reshaped. Market shocks cross borders in minutes, tariffs disrupt entire economies, and cryptocurrencies operate beyond traditional oversight. Meanwhile, the impact of technology, climate change, and shifting models of property and employment are challenging long-held assumptions.
The Future of Finance will explore the growing vulnerabilities in this system and provide informed, cross-sector dialogue to help us achieve a more resilient and inclusive financial future.
Join leading experts, policymakers, and innovators from government, industry, and academia for an essential conversation about the shifting dynamics of money and power. This event will highlight the strategies needed to ensure stability, drive smarter decisions, and respond to the challenges of a rapidly changing world.
Can't make it to the event? View the Livestream below.
5pm: Doors Open
5.30pm - 7.30pm: Main Event
For those who cannot attend in-person, the event will be livestreamed via the Melbourne Connect Vimeo Channel.
Moderator: Imogen Crump
Imogen Crump is a journalist and editor with around 30 years’ experience with news organisations including the BBC and ABC with a focus on public service journalism. She’s now at the University of Melbourne as editor of the research news website, Pursuit. Throughout her career she has covered conflict in the Middle East, riots, terrorist attacks, presidential elections, coups, Olympic Games and research discoveries. She has a particular interest in the impact of mis- and disinformation on democracy, public discourse and political debate.
Chancellor Ms. Jane Hansen AO
Chancellor Jane Hansen AO is the 23rd Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, appointed on 1 January 2023.
Chancellor Hansen was first appointed to the Council in January 2016 and served as Deputy Chancellor from 1 January 2018 to the 31 December 2022.
Chancellor Hansen is CEO and Chair of the Hansen Little Foundation. She is also Chair of the New Campaign Advisory Board and a member of the Humanities Foundation Advisory Board for the University of Melbourne. Chancellor Hansen also serves on the Board of Opera Australia and The Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation. She is a Company Director with more than 25 years in investment banking, strategy and management experience internationally, working formerly as a mergers, acquisitions and corporate finance specialist at Macquarie Bank and First Boston/Credit Suisse.
She holds a Bachelor of Economics from Monash University and a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in History, from the University of Melbourne, and a Master’s degree in Finance and Business Administration from Columbia University, New York.
Chancellor Hansen was awarded the Fellow of the University of Melbourne in 2018, in recognition of exceptional contributions or service to the University and the community engaged with the University. She was also awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the community, to education and cultural institutions, and through philanthropic support for charitable foundations in 2020.
Professor Paul Kofman
Professor Paul Kofman is Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics and Sidney Myer Chair of Commerce. He is responsible for all faculty matters and is a Professor of Finance.
He holds a PhD in Economics (1991) from Erasmus University Rotterdam and came to Australia in 1994 as a Lecturer in Econometrics at Monash University. He joined the University of Melbourne in 2001 as a Professor of Finance after appointments at the University of New South Wales and the University of Technology, Sydney. He was Head of the Department of Finance from 2006 until 2010, then progressed to Deputy Dean in 2010. He was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics in 2012.
Paul has undertaken consultancy work for the European Options Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, the Central European University, several Dutch investment banks, the Dutch Centre for Actuarial Statistics, and the Australian Office of Financial Markets.
His main research interest is in quantitative finance and the ethics of finance; the latter of which he continues to teach. With his colleague and co-author of the book A Matter of Trust Clare Payne, they introduced Ethics in Finance as one of the first online subjects at the University of Melbourne. With Associate Professor Sean Pinder, Paul designed and developed the first Coursera MOOC specialisation, 'Essentials of Corporate Financial Analysis and Decision Making', in partnership with the Bank of New York Mellon.
Paul has also published papers in international trade, econometrics, and actuarial journals, including the Financial Analysts Journal, the Journal of Applied Econometrics, the Journal of Banking and Finance, the Journal of International Economics, and the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. He has received numerous research grants including ARC discovery and linkage grants. He is an associate editor of the Journal of International Money & Finance.
Paul was one of the founding directors of the ARC-funded Financial Integrity Research Network which to this date provides a strong, cohesive and efficient approach toward supporting research and research training in the Australian finance academic community.
Professor Ian Harper AO
Ian Harper is a professional economist best known for his work in public policy. He is a member of the Monetary Policy Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia, chairs the Australian Statistics Advisory Council and advises Kearney Australia New Zealand as a member of its Advisory Group.
For six years until November 2023, Ian was Dean & Director of Melbourne Business School and Co-Dean of the Faculty of Business & Economics at The University of Melbourne. Prior to that, he was a founding partner of Deloitte Access Economics for seven years.
From March 2014 to March 2015, Ian chaired the Australian Government’s Competition Policy Review and, prior to that, served as inaugural Chairman of the Australian Fair Pay Commission from December 2005 to July 2009. From May to December 1995, Ian chaired the Melbourne Metropolitan Hospitals Planning Board for the Victorian Government.
Ian was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2000 and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors in 2009. In 2016 he was elected a Distinguished Public Policy Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia and in 2024 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Economics by The University of Queensland. Ian was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours List with the citation, “For distinguished service to education in the field of economics, and to public and monetary policy development and reform”.
Professor Allan Fels, AO
Professor Allan Fels is an esteemed Australian economist, lawyer, and public servant known for his significant contributions to competition policy, consumer protection, and mental health reform.
Professor Fels completed a Law/Economics degree at the University of Western Australia before earning his PhD in Economics from Duke University. He served as a Senior Lecturer in Economics at Monash University before becoming a Professor of Administration and Director of the Monash Graduate School of Management. Throughout his career, he has authored numerous publications in the field of competition law and policy.
Beyond academia, Professor Fels has held influential positions in various government bodies. Notably, he was the Chairman of the Trade Practices Commission (TPC) and the Prices Surveillance Authority. His work in promoting fair competition and consumer protection earned him the prestigious Order of Australia (AO) in 2001. Following his tenure at the ACCC, Professor Fels became the Foundation Dean of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) from 2003 to 2013.
Nigel Dobson
Nigel Dobson is the Banking Services Lead at ANZ. The Banking Services portfolio has responsibility for developing and implementing ANZ’s payment platform strategy, supporting the enterprise and our partners. This includes enterprise functions including design, build and operate across the banks payments services in 30 countries.
Nigel manages delivery and operations teams in Melbourne, Singapore and Bengaluru. Nigel also leads the bank's Digital Asset Services strategy and associated activities, including fostering partnerships and industry pilots. Nigel is currently a director of Australian Payments Plus and is a Fellow of Blockchain Australia.
Prior to this role, Nigel spent 4 years in senior Transaction Banking roles at ANZ, including Global Head of Payments and Cash Management and Global Head of Transaction Banking Products. Nigel joined ANZ in July 2009 from Citi in Hong Kong where he was Regional Head of Trade and Transaction Services. Nigel had spent a total of 19 years at Citi in various senior Markets and Transaction Services roles in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. Nigel has a Bachelor of Economics from Victoria University, New Zealand.
Prof. Nadia Massoud
Nadia is an internationally recognised Professor of Finance at Melbourne Business School (MBS), known for her award-winning research and teaching on financial intermediaries, blockchain, and digital currency. She joined MBS in 2014, previously holding positions at York University's Schulich School of Business and the University of Alberta, and served as Associate Dean of Research from 2014 to 2016. Nadia has consulted extensively for financial institutions and the Bank of Canada, where she helped design an advanced system for currency circulation, and has served as an expert witness for the Canadian federal government. She holds a PhD in Economics/Finance from Queen’s University and a Master’s in Economics from the University of Waterloo. Her research, widely published in top journals, focuses on corporate governance and banking regulation.
Prof. Talis Putnins
Prof. Tālis Putniņš is the Co-CEO and Chief Scientist at the DFCRC, leading the research and education strategy for the Centre. Talis is an internationally recognised authority on digital finance, with over 15 years’ international research experience. He is a Professor of Finance at the University of Technology Sydney and has published widely in distinguished journals, including on market design, financial market microstructure and market integrity/misconduct.
His work focuses on leveraging technology to enhance financial market functionality and integrity. Tālis has served as an advisor to government agencies, stock exchanges, fintech startups, and financial institutions globally. Talis’ recent research focuses on digital finance tools, such as decentralised markets and the tokenisation of assets. He has also served as an expert witness in legal cases.
Tālis holds a Bachelor of Finance and a Bachelor of Engineering (Information Technology and Telecommunication) with First Class Honours and the University Medal from the University of Adelaide. In 2010, Tālis was awarded a PhD in Finance from the University of Sydney and was promoted to a professorship in 2015.
He has held visiting and honorary positions at Columbia University, New York university, the University of Edinburgh and Stockholm School of Economics in Riga.
Simon O’Connor
Simon is the recently appointed Director of the Sustainable Finance Hub at The University of Melbourne, a multidisciplinary initiative that aims to shape a financial system where capital flows to activities that benefit people and planet, housed within Melbourne Climate Futures and Melbourne Biodiversity Institute.
Simon has operated at the intersection of economics, finance and sustainability for over two decades with extensive international experience driving the development of responsible investment and sustainable finance through roles across finance, corporate and not-for-profit sectors.
As former CEO of the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA), he led a network of 500 organisations representing over US$30 trillion in assets for over a decade, advancing a more sustainable financial system across Australia and New Zealand.
Simon is non-executive director of Bank Australia and a member of the Australian Minister for the Environment's Nature Finance Council. Simon was previously the inaugural Chair of the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative, Chair of the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance, member of the National Advisory Board on Impact Investing in New Zealand and was an architect in the establishment of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
Alan Oster
For the past 33 years Alan has held the position of Chief Economist for NAB.
In that role he has been responsible for Nab’s local and global economics and financial market forecasts
He was also responsible for building the Nab’s, much watched, Monthly Business Survey. Also, more recently, Alan led Nab’s internal use of their balance sheet data to build economic insights in near real time terms. That data is now shared with the Government, the RBA, the ABS and economic departments in the public service. It includes data on consumer transaction behaviour (including by age and incomes), business cash flows and unemployment data on Nab customers. It is also now published on a monthly data.
Prior to joining NAB, in 1992, Alan was the “Senior Advisor” (an SES position) responsible for the Commonwealth Treasury’s forecasting and modelling areas. Overall, he was at Treasury for 15 years – including four years as Treasury’s representative at the OECD in Paris.
As such Alan has a widely held reputation as an expert in economic forecasting and monetary policy issues.
Finally, Alan is a widely respected commentator on economic issues both in the public area and much sort out privately for his advice and suggestions on policy issues.
Alan has now retired from his formal duties with Nab (from end March 2025) but is currently exploring new opportunities in the economic space.
