Blu Putnam
Chief Economist and Managing Director
CME Group

Blu Putnam is the Chief Economist and Managing Director at CME Group, the largest operator of futures and options exchanges around the world. He is responsible for leading economic analysis on global financial, commodity, and agricultural markets.

Blu’s career has ranged from central banking to investment research to portfolio management.

Blu earned his Ph.D. in economics from Tulane University in New Orleans. He has six books on international finance and portfolio management to his credit as well as many academic articles, in such journals as The American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, American Statistical Association, and the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, among others. Blu has been a visiting or adjunct professor at The Wharton School, Stern School of Business at New York University, the Business School at Columbia University, and St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

Curtis Dubay
Chief Economist
U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Curtis Dubay is the Chief Economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He tracks the condition of the economy, analyzes the impact of public policy on economic growth, and runs the Chamber’s Chief Economists Committee. The committee consists of chief economists from member businesses. It helps the Chamber formulate economic policies and provides analysis to policymakers in Washington, D.C.

Previously, Dubay was senior economist at the American Bankers Association where he worked on tax issues and followed the economic trends affecting the banking industry. Prior to ABA, he was a research fellow in tax and economic policy at The Heritage Foundation. There he researched and published on tax and economic policy issues.

Earlier in his career, Dubay worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in the firm’s transfer pricing division structuring international transactions, and before that at the Tax Foundation where he authored three widely recognized and cited reports: Tax Freedom Day, State-Local Tax Burdens, and The State Business Tax Climate Index.

Dubay has researched and published frequently on a wide range of tax and economic issues. He is regularly quoted by the press and has appeared often in the media, including on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, and C-SPAN. He has testified before Congress several times and been cited in newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and Politico.

Dubay received his master’s degree in economics from the University of Connecticut and his bachelor’s degree in economics and leadership studies from the University of Richmond. He resides in Washington, D.C., with his wife and three sons.

Michael Fratantoni
Chief Economist, Senior Vice President, Research and Industry Technology
Mortgage Bankers Association

Michael Fratantoni is Mortgage Bankers Association's Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of Research and Industry Technology. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing MBA's industry surveys and benchmarking studies, economic and mortgage originations forecasts, industry technology efforts, and policy development research for both single-family and commercial/multifamily markets. Additionally, Fratantoni is a member of the Board of Directors of MISMO, the membership committee of MERS, and the Smith Enterprise Risk Consortium’s (SERC’s) Advisory Council.

Prior to joining MBA, Fratantoni worked in risk management and senior economist roles at Washington Mutual and Fannie Mae. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in economics from The College of William and Mary, and has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Washington, and Johns Hopkins, George Washington, and Georgetown Universities.