The Wharton School announced the creation of the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance on Thursday, a new financial technology center which is one of the first of its kind.
The center, created with support from 1991 Wharton graduate and Stone Ridge Holdings Group CEO Ross Stevens, will support research in financial technology, or FinTech. The creation of the center makes Wharton one of the only business schools in the world to have a research center solely dedicated to “the multibillion dollar FinTech industry."
“With FinTech morphing from a buzzword into the rocket fuel of financial innovation, information technology is poised to revolutionize financial services,” Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett told PennToday. “The Stevens Center will bring together the best thinkers from academia and industry to ensure that Wharton continues to chart the future of finance.”
Finance professor and department chair David Musto has been appointed as the center’s faculty director.
“I have known Ross since we were classmates in graduate school together and I am very much looking forward to working with him again to make the Stevens Center a game changer both for Wharton and for financial services,” Musto told Penn Today.
The Stevens Center will give faculty and students the chance to participate in research to examine the impact of the growing technology industry on the financial sector. Companies will work with the Center to create small student research projects, and students will be able to network with FinTech leaders who visit as guest speakers or practitioners-in-residence.
The Center is not the only new Wharton initiative to be spearheaded in recent months. 1986 Wharton graduate Joshua Harris donated $10 million to the school towards the creation of the Joshua J. Harris Alternative Investments Program in Feb. 2019, which will promote research in private equity, hedge funds, venture capital, and investment management.
The Stevens Center will hold its inaugural event on April 3, featuring global FinTech leaders such as CommonBond CEO David Klein and 1992 Wharton graduate and Square Capital Executive Jackie Reses.
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