Expert Fiscal Policy Consultants

I write analysis on geoeconomics and the dollar at Hegemoney.com I am the Chief Economist at Column, a nationally chartered bank and technology company in San Francisco. For thirteen years I served as a senior economist at the Departments of Treasury, State, and the CIA. I am also a former FX strategist and derivatives trader. I have years of experience in sanctions, international currencies, financial infrastructure (SWIFT, international payment systems), tech, and macro conditions around the dollar.

Meet Dhriti Mukherjee Pipil – Trade Economist, Consultant, Speaker & Educator Dhriti Mukherjee Pipil is a Delhi NCR–based international trade economist, consultant, researcher, and speaker, specialising in trade finance, foreign trade policy, and agricultural trade. She is the Founder of Global Trade Institute (GTI), an institution focused on building export-ready professionals and businesses through practical trade education. She currently serves as a Senior Research Fellow at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), where her work examines India’s agricultural trade policy, export restrictions, price volatility, and supply chain dynamics. She is also an empanelled faculty with Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), delivering specialised sessions on export finance and international payment systems. Dhriti is a Leadership Member at the Women in International Trade Business Council (WIITBC) under the International Trade Council (ITC), and serves on the Economic Advisory Board of the Economic Transformation Council, contributing to trade-led policy discourse. With over a decade of experience in banking and trade finance, her expertise spans export finance, cross-border payments, foreign exchange markets, trade risk management, WTO frameworks, and emerging digital trade finance systems. She holds professional certifications from the Indian Institute of Banking & Finance (IIBF) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). Her work bridges policy, practice, and pedagogy—offering consultancy in export strategy, trade finance structuring, compliance, and market entry. She actively mentors MSMEs and startups, enabling them to navigate global markets with operational clarity. Dhriti has authored peer-reviewed research in journals such as Economic & Political Weekly and The Indian Economic Journal, alongside policy contributions to The Hindu BusinessLine, Down To Earth, Policy Circle, AgroSpectrum, and global platforms including the World Trade Centre. She is a regular speaker at national and international forums, including the Economist Intelligence Unit (2025), International Trade Council (2025), WTO Chairs Programme, and Indian Economic Association. Through her work, she seeks to reduce information asymmetry in global trade and build a more inclusive, resilient, and knowledge-driven export ecosystem.

James is a CPA, IRS Enrolled Agent, and Tax Resolution Specialist at CanvaTax (canvatax.com), where he helps individuals and businesses resolve complex tax issues including IRS debt, back taxes, and penalty relief through programs like the IRS Fresh Start Initiative. With hands-on experience navigating IRS negotiations and tax compliance, James provides practical, results-driven guidance to clients facing financial uncertainty.

CA Prateek Mittal is a seasoned financial expert and IBBI Registered Valuer with over two decades of experience in business valuations, corporate finance, and strategic advisory. As the Director of Valuations at [FinVal Research & Consultancy](https://finvalresearch.in), he specializes in delivering high-authority compliance and advisory solutions, including ESOP valuations, corporate guarantee valuations, and startup advisory. A thought leader in the evolving corporate landscape, Prateek frequently publishes insights on cutting-edge industry shifts, from integrating AI and Big Data into valuation practices to navigating ESG compliance risks and supply chain crises. Alongside his valuation expertise, he serves as a Virtual CFO, helping businesses optimize their financial strategies, secure fundraising mandates, and drive operational efficiencies. --- ### Key Media Angles & Topics I Can Comment On: * Regulatory & Compliance Valuations: Deep dives into ESOPs, Corporate Guarantees, and international accounting standards. * The Intersection of Finance & Tech: How AI, big data, and automated tools are transforming modern valuation models. * Startup Ecosystem & Fundraising: Strategic structuring, mid-market growth challenges, and investment readiness. * Risk Management: Evaluating ESG compliance risks and implementing Virtual CFO frameworks during economic volatility.

Dr. Hitanshu Pandit is an applied microeconomist and quantitative researcher specializing in labor, urban, and health economics. He is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Northeastern University and uses big data, administrative records, and causal inference methods to study how policy changes affect workers, firms, and communities. His research covers minimum wage policy, youth employment, Medicaid and behavioral health, congestion pricing, and place-based policy, and he is also studying how AI is reshaping white-collar work and global hiring. His work is designed to produce rigorous, practical insights for policy, business, and public debate.

Graduate of Plekhanov Russian University of Economics; certified Data Science specialist by IBM, certified Business Analyst by Microsoft, certified Project Management specialist by Google, with additional certification in IPO Process and Market Valuation Strategies and Data Visualization from the University of California. Political strategist, government affairs analyst, and media commentator specializing in international politics, electoral strategy, strategic communications, crisis communications, disinformation analysis, digital risk, and reputational risk. Worked with political parties, campaign teams, and candidates in Russia, and contributed to projects related to political and electoral processes in USA, Belarus and Armenia. Professional experience includes candidate positioning, message development, media strategy, communication planning, campaign monitoring, digital risk assessment, and advisory support in politically sensitive and high-pressure environments. Curator of the international intelligence network Thirteen Order, focused on political risk monitoring, information analysis, digital threat assessment, security coordination, and the development of monitoring frameworks and preventive response mechanisms for public and electoral contexts. Provides commentary on major international political developments, including the U.S. presidential election cycle, with a focus on narrative competition, public perception, influence operations, and the role of digital information ecosystems in shaping institutions, media systems, and public opinion.

An expert in public policy, housing policy, and community economic development with a passion for identifying new solutions.

Eric Bowie is the founder of Smart Money Bro and creator of the 4 Step Financial Reset, a financial framework designed to help working professionals organize their finances and build long-term wealth. He reaches a large audience across multiple platforms, including more than 725,000 YouTube subscribers and 50+ million views, a LinkedIn network of more than 24,000 connections, and more than 8,000 subscribers to his financial newsletter. Eric is the author of two books, Manage Your Way to Millions and How to Buy a Great Used Car with Cash, both focused on practical financial decision-making and long-term financial stability. He has been investing in the stock market for more than 30 years and has owned and managed real estate for more than 25 years. Professionally, Eric has spent more than two decades in federal government service, including nearly 20 years in federal contracting where he manages large financial agreements and enforces financial structure and accountability. Through his content, writing, and financial education platform, Eric focuses on the structural side of personal finance — helping households bring order to income, spending, debt, and investing so they can eliminate financial chaos and build lasting wealth. Eric regularly provides commentary on household finance, financial behavior, wealth-building strategy, debt elimination, and why many high-income households still feel financially stressed.

Eric Epstein is a former senior federal agency counsel with more than three decades of experience drafting, implementing, and defending major federal legislation and regulations. Before retiring from federal service, he served as Senior Policy Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, where he was a principal advisor to executive leadership, the Attorney General, and White House officials on complex regulatory, legislative, and national enforcement matters. Over a 32-year career, he drafted and helped implement major federal firearms and explosives regulations and legislation, including the firearms trafficking provisions of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and ATF’s “Ghost Gun Rule,” which was later upheld by the United States Supreme Court. He spent 15 years in the field working alongside ATF agents and investigators on criminal and regulatory cases, providing firsthand operational insight into how federal laws are enforced in practice. He also represented ATF before industry leaders at trade conferences and executive meetings, giving him direct experience with how federal regulatory policy affects manufacturers, importers, retailers, and other regulated entities. Throughout his career, he authored dozens of federal regulations and rulings, advised members of Congress on statutory language, and worked closely with the U.S. Solicitor General in Supreme Court litigation. His work shaped administrative records, national enforcement policy, and compliance strategy across regulated industries. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award, the highest honor for career federal employees, as well as the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award. Mr. Epstein is the founder and CEO of Commentari, an AI-based platform that helps individuals and organizations analyze legislation and agency rulemakings and draft substantive public comments grounded in the Administrative Procedure Act. His work focuses on regulatory and legislative strategy, public comment impact, and litigation risk in federal policymaking. He provides commentary on federal rulemaking, legislative drafting, administrative law, regulatory litigation risk, firearms and explosives legislation and regulation, and how federal agencies develop, defend, and enforce major policy decisions. He is available to provide clear and practical insight into complex regulatory and legislative developments. He is based in the Washington, D.C. area.

As the CEO and Founder of Crusaders for Change® (C4C), LLC, our team delivers a specialized approach to financial stewardship that focuses on the human heart and the emotional weight of money as much as the numbers. Led by a team of Accredited Financial Counselors®️, we have built a dedicated space where genuine financial healing and long-term freedom are achievable for families from all walks of life. Within the corporate and organizational sector, we developed our signature Financial Wellness Program to directly combat the "silent tax" of financial stress that often plagues the workplace. By addressing these stressors through professional counseling and support, we partner with businesses to improve employee retention, boost productivity, and foster a culture of total well-being. Our commitment to community impact is further realized through our proprietary Community Financial Empowerment Series®, where we offer transformative educational workshops and personalized one-on-one counseling designed to help individuals regain confidence, clarity, and control over their financial futures. We also engage a global audience through the Yahweh’s Money® Podcast, which provides spiritual and practical stewardship guidance, and the Tickle My Money Bone!® platform, which utilizes humor and comedy to demystify complex financial topics and break down the barriers of money-related anxiety. With over two decades of professional experience and a highly decorated history of leadership, our mission remains centered on equipping families and organizations with the tools to transition from financial overwhelm to a future of abundance, resilience, and intentional peace.

Stepan Kazaryan is a Business Management Consultant focused on digital presence, professional evaluation, and how public information shapes decision-making in modern business environments. His work centers on helping organizations and professionals understand how they are perceived before direct interaction occurs. In search-driven systems, evaluation often happens silently and quickly. Stepan advises clients on building structured digital foundations that support credibility over time. His approach emphasizes clarity, consistency, and responsible positioning rather than short-term visibility tactics. He works with executives, founders, and professional service providers who recognize that digital footprints influence trust, partnerships, and opportunity flow. By aligning websites, public profiles, and third-party references, Stepan helps create stable professional narratives that reduce uncertainty during evaluation. Rather than focusing on reactive measures, his advisory framework prioritizes preparation. This includes analyzing how search results present a name, how information connects across platforms, and how inconsistencies affect perception. The goal is to strengthen long-term positioning in a way that feels natural and sustainable. Stepan frequently writes and speaks about digital identity, credibility signals, and the structural factors that influence professional trust in online environments. His perspective reflects a broader shift in how professionals are assessed in the age of search and public information accessibility. Through disciplined strategy and steady execution, Stepan Kazaryan helps clients maintain clarity in environments where perception often forms before conversation begins.

Email me directly at: atarki@eca-partners.com  We are a world-class Executive Search firm. Our strength lies within our process driven and systematic approach. This enables us to connect star-candidates with opportunities that are right for them – faster! We also have a network of thousands of independent top-tier management consultants.A few of my pieces in HBR and Forbes are included here below. As always, I'd appreciate hearing any comments and feedback on these.

I have a passion in Maltese economic and legal ecosystem, with over a decade of experience navigating citizenship, residency, and tax legislation. As the founder of FreeMalta.com and MaltaInsider.com, I’ve pioneered the "Infrastructure of Truth" concept - replacing outdated governmental and institutional data with high-velocity, real-time benchmarks. My expertise covers Maltese Citizenship by Merit, MPRP residency frameworks, and cross-sector salary, cost of living benchmarking. I recently overhauled outdated Maltese legislative data on global platforms (including Wikipedia) to ensure transparency for international investors and expats. I provide data-backed insights for journalists looking for the ground truth on Malta’s evolving regulatory landscape.

Jere Salmisto is the founder of CalcFi, a free personal-finance calculator platform where every formula traces to a primary public source — IRS publications, Federal Reserve series, Treasury tables, Bureau of Labor Statistics, CFPB, and HUD. He also runs Autonomatica, a studio building quantitative-automation systems, backtesting pipelines and rule-based decision tools. Before CalcFi he was CEO at Topair Nordic (industrial sales and operations) and led B2B commercial execution across multiple companies. That operator background shapes how he writes about finance: numbers must reproduce by hand, sources are cited on the page, and tools are free forever. Available for commentary on consumer finance, paycheck/tax/mortgage math, retirement planning, systematic trading logic, finance-tool usability, and anything business and motivation-related. Independent researcher (ORCID 0009-0000-0916-8684). Curator of CalcFi Open Data — 34 free CC-BY-4.0 financial and macro time series mirrored daily from FRED, BLS, BEA, US Treasury, FDIC, EIA, World Bank, and CoinGecko. Archived with permanent DOIs at Figshare (10.6084/m9.figshare.32332290), Zenodo (CERN-backed), OSF, Kaggle, and Mendeley Data. A methodology paper on k-anonymized calculator-run aggregates is currently under SSRN review. Finnish/Estonian founder commenting on published IRS, CFPB, Fed, and BLS primary sources. Not a licensed US CPA or tax attorney.

Lindsey Turk is a writer and researcher specializing in the behavioral economics of shopping, consumer culture, and the luxury goods market. She holds an MPS in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University and a BA in Psychology from Boston University. She has professional experience in quantitative and qualitative research, government consulting, and consumer-facing roles at companies including Apple. Through her platform, The Shopping Mindset, Lindsey examines why people buy what they buy. She explores the psychology of consumer decisions, how marketing shapes perception, and what luxury signaling actually means in a world of synthetic substitutes and shortening trend cycles. Her work sits at the intersection of economics, cultural commentary, and fashion. She is available to comment on consumer spending behavior, retail trends, luxury market dynamics, and the psychology behind purchasing decisions.

I have been doing SEO for the last two years, and during this time I have successfully ranked many websites on Google. I learned SEO from seosly.com, where I gained a strong understanding of SEO fundamentals as well as advanced concepts. Currently, I am implementing all the knowledge and strategies I have learned on my own website, 8thpaycommissionsalarycalculator.com, with the goal of improving its performance and making it rank higher on Google.

Hello, I'm Shampaigne Graves, a Dallas-based Women's Consumer Expert at Women's Research Solutions and the founder of BOLDIFI®, an accredited audio-first microschool built for aspiring female founders. My proprietary WCR4™ Method gives organizations a research framework that goes beyond demographics to decode the psychological, social, and generational forces behind women's purchasing decisions. My commentary has appeared in Newsweek, Daily Mail, Observer, Scripps News, NTD News, and MSN, covering everything from Purchase Panic at checkout to women's ethical conflicts with AI advertising, luxury spending shifts, and technology adoption gaps.

Sharita is a certified financial consultant and small business advisor who helps women entrepreneurs manage their personal and business finances, create consistent cashflow, and gain access to capital. She is passionate about empowering and educating her clients to achieve their financial goals and wellness.With over ten years of experience, Sharita has collaborated with various educational institutions, municipalities, and organizations, such as the University of Houston, Fulton County, and the U.S. Department of State, to deliver impactful financial literacy programs and workshops. She has also been recognized as the 2020 National Financial Educator of the Year and received two Texas Proclamations for her work. Sharita is a regular contributor to major publications and media outlets, and a proud alumna of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program.

Pedro Ferreira is a Professor at Heinz College and at the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. His research work focuses on how people use technology to consume experience goods and influence others to do so. These are inextricably linked to how firms behave and how public policies affect market structures. Ferreira’s work focuses on the application of robust empirical identification methods to analyze large datasets obtained from organic in-vivo large-scale network-centric randomized experiments. His research spans two interrelated applied areas -- the impact of information and communication technologies on education and peer-influence and consumption in the media industry. Ferreira is co-founder and co-director of CMU's Initiative for Teaching and Education Analytics (iTEA).

Jussi Viljanen is a senior-level SEO consultant and the founder of Gainline Ltd, with 10+ years of experience helping businesses grow through search. He works hands-on with a deliberately limited number of clients at a time - no middlemen, no juniors - so each one gets a senior practitioner from strategy through execution. His focus is Ecommerce SEO & B2B search engine optimization: getting companies found at the moment a buyer is actively looking for a solution, and measuring success by lead quality and revenue rather than vanity traffic metrics. He pairs data-driven, semantically structured SEO with visibility in AI-powered search as well. Jussi has delivered results across a range of B2B sectors, from 3D modeling and insurance brokerage to SaaS and professional services, where even modest gains in organic visibility have led to high-value new client relationships. He also specializes in international SEO, helping global companies enter the Finnish market and Finnish businesses expand abroad. He's available to comment on: technical and B2B SEO, lead-focused search strategy, how AI and generative search are reshaping organic visibility, international and local SEO, and the realities of running an independent, premium consulting practice. More at https://jussiviljanen.com/en/.