ERIK BANKS has held senior risk management positions at several global financial institutions, including XL Capital, where he was Partner and Chief Risk Officer of the Bermuda reinsurer's derivative subsidiary, and Merrill Lynch, where he spent 13 years managing credit and market risk teams in Tokyo, Hong Kong, London and New York. Mr. Banks, an Adjunct Professor of Finance at the University of Connecticut, has written a dozen books on risk management, emerging markets, derivatives, merchant banking, and electronic finance.

RICHARD DUNN became the youngest member of Merill Lynch's Executive Committee in 1998. Concurrent with this appointment, he was made Head of Market and Credit Risk and was instrumental in the Wall Street "bail out" of hedge fund LTCM. Prior to this, Mr. Dunn was Co-Head of Merrill's Equity Division, Head of European Debt, and Head of Asian Debt and Equity. His training was in debt and equity derivatives. Mr. Dunn holds a Masters in Economics from the London School of Economics, speaks Japanese, French and Italian, and is an avid snowboarder.