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Moody's Economy.com Staff
Moody's Economy.com has over 100 employees. Our senior staff has responsibility for the firm's client support, analytical research, modeling, and financial, marketing, and technology operations. Our senior staff members are profiled below.
Client Services
Monica Mercurio is director of Client Services for Moody's Economy.com. From the company's West Chester PA office, she oversees the Client Services Group, which is responsible for supporting clients, prospects and staff members worldwide. She has been with the firm since 1998. Monica holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Villanova University.
Data Services
Jean-Marc Rollet is director of data services at Moody's Economy.com. He oversees day-to-day activities of the company's Data Group, fielding client questions, acquiring datasets, participating in contract negotiations, and researching better ways to present data in an understandable format to clients. He joined Moody's Economy.com in April 1999 and has more than16 years of experience in his field. Mr. Rollet holds an MBA from West Chester University.
Karl Zandi is managing director of Data Services for Moody's Economy.com. He is responsible for all commercial and technical aspects of the company's data operations. Karl holds a bachelor's degree from West Chester University.
E-Commerce Technology
Mark Gershman is a managing director at Moody’s Economy.com. His responsibilities include the design, implementation and management of all technological aspects of the business. He also ensures that the strategic, creative and service elements of the company’s projects are successfully implemented. He has held a number of positions within the firm, including economist, director of internet services, and chief technology officer. Before joining Moody’s Economy.com in 1994, he served in the United States Army and then operated a consulting business as he pursued his education. Mr. Gershman received his M.A. in economics and MBA from the University of Delaware, where he also received his B.S. in economics.
Salvatore Vanore is senior director of e-commerce for Moody's Economy.com, responsible for the firm’s internet and e-commerce operations. Mr. Vanore manages the team of developers who build and maintain the company’s web sites and applications. He has been with Moody’s Economy.com since 1998. Before becoming senior director in 2008, he held several positions in the e-commerce department, including director, associate director, senior application developer, and web architect. Mr. Vanore holds a bachelor’s degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Executive
Janet Alioto is chief client officer of Moody's Economy.com. Ms. Alioto oversees all aspects of product quality and client satisfaction. Based in the West Chester PA office, she works closely with other senior staff members to ensure that the highest standards of quality and timeliness are maintained. Before joining Moody’s Economy.com in 1996, she had more than 20 years of management experience in the economics industry. Ms. Alioto holds a B.A. from Temple University.
Paul Getman is executive director of Moody’s Economy.com. Paul oversees the company’s business affairs and strategic planning. With more than 20 years of experience in consulting and research on economic issues, Paul has testified before government agencies and regularly gives speeches on the U.S. outlook for industry and trade groups, nonprofit organizations, and senior corporate management.
Paul has an M.A. in economics and has completed all but the dissertation requirements of a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Mark Zandi is chief economist and cofounder of Moody’s Economy.com, where he directs the company’s research and consulting activities. Moody’s Economy.com, a division of Moody’s Analytics, provides economic research and consulting services to businesses, governments and other institutions.
Mark’s research interests include macro, financial and regional economics. His recent research has studied the determinants of mortgage foreclosure and personal bankruptcy, analyzed the economic impact of various tax and government spending policies, and assessed the appropriate policy response to bubbles in asset markets. Mark also conducts regular briefings on the economy. He is quoted often in national and global publications, is frequently interviewed by major news media outlets, and is the author of Financial Shock, an exposé of the subprime financial crisis.
Dr. Zandi received his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, where he did his research with Gerard Adams and Nobel laureate Lawrence Klein, and received his B.S. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Marketing
Brett Hampson is a solutions specialist at Moody's Analytics, specializing in Moody's Economy.com services. He provides marketing coverage for the Midwest United States as well strategic accounts. Brett has been with Moody's Economy.com for five years. He received his B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan University.
Robin Heid is a solutions specialist at Moody's Economy.com. She works with consumer credit, banking, retail, energy, manufacturing, and real estate companies as well as with federal, state and local governments on the East Coast. She began her economic consulting career at DRI and WEFA in the late 1980s. Robin holds an MBA from Villanova University and a bachelor's degree in economics from American University in Washington DC.
Steve Kiley is an Account Manager for Moody's Analytics. He oversees and develops specific small-business accounts. He holds an MBA from Villanova University.
Michael Kubiak is a solutions specialist for Moody's Economy.com. Michael manages existing client relationships and new customer development for the Western and Mountain states. He has more than 25 years of experience in the economic information industry. Mr. Kubiak holds an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Mike McDermott is a solutions specialist at Moody’s Economy.com. Michael works with financial, corporate and government organizations in New England and New Jersey and with select New York accounts. Before joining Moody's Economy.com, Michael worked at Standard & Poor's DRI. He has more than 14 years of experience in the economic information industry. Michael holds a B.A. from Framingham State College and is a Master Sergeant (Ret.) with the U.S. Army Retired Reserves.
Raj Sheth is a solutions specialist for Europe, the Middle East and Africa a Moody's Economy.com. Raj works with clients in a range of industries, specialising in economic services, and helps banks manage their consumer credit portfolios. Raj earned an MSc in economics from the London School of Economics and graduated from Bombay University, where he studied business and financial accounting.
Robert Stewart is a solutions specialist for Moody’s Analytics. Mr. Stewart has extensive experience working with public and private sector clients. He holds an M.A. in economics and has completed all but the dissertation requirement of a Ph.D. from Temple University.
Research
Juan Carlos Calcagno is a senior economist at Moody's Economy.com and a member of the Credit Analytics Group. Dr. Calcagno is an expert applied econometrician involved in developing and updating econometric models to forecast credit risk under different economic scenarios. Before joining Moody's Economy.com, Juan Carlos evaluated public policy at Mathematica Policy Research. Juan Carlos holds a Ph.D. in economics and education from Columbia University and a B.S. in economics from the National University of Cordoba in Argentina.
Celia Chen is a director of the Moody's Economy.com research staff, specializing in housing economics. Celia manages the Moody’s Economy.com regional house price forecast models, develops proprietary housing market indicators, and writes extensively about housing issues. Based in the West Chester PA office, Dr. Chen also edits Précis State and has participated in numerous consulting projects, including econometric modeling of regional house price forecasts, consumer lending, and mortgage lending.
Celia speaks regularly at Moody’s client conferences and has provided economic commentary on Wall Street Radio, Bloomberg and CNBC. Celia completed her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, with a concentration in econometrics and international finance. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Barnard College.
Steven Cochrane is managing director of Moody's Economy.com. Steve oversees the U.S. regional forecasting service and directs the research and development activities of the research staff. He oversees the forecasts for all 50 states and developed the Global Cities service. He also edits the Regional Financial Review, the monthly publication that analyzes U.S. macro, regional, industry and international trends. An analyst with Moody's Economy.com since 1993, Steve has been featured on Wall Street Radio, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and CNBC. He earned a Ph.D in regional science at the University of Pennsylvania, a master's degree at the University of Colorado at Denver, and a bachelor's degree at the University of California at Davis.
Alfredo Coutino is a senior economist for Moody's Economy.com. Dr. Coutino is responsible for analysis, modeling and forecasting for Latin America. Based in the West Chester PA office, he is in charge of real-time coverage of Latin America for the Dismal Scientist web site. He is also a regular contributor to the World Workstation. He has been a speaker at United Nations conferences and at the American Economic Association and has published papers on applied econometrics with Nobel laureate Lawrence Klein. Dr. Coutino received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Madrid after completing doctoral studies at Temple University.
Cristian de Ritis is a director at Moody's Economy.com. He performs consumer credit modeling and analysis with the Credit Analytics group and contributes to the analysis for CreditForecast.com. Before joining the Moody's Economy.com West Chester PA operation, Cris worked for Fannie Mae and taught at Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC. He received a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from Johns Hopkins University and graduated summa cum laude from Michigan State University with a bachelor's degree in economics.
Marisa Di Natale is a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com. Ms. Di Natale is responsible for state and metro area forecast models, analysis of the U.S. labor market, and Précis Metro editing. Her areas of specialization include the New York economy and the banking and securities brokerage industries. Previously, she was an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington DC, where she analyzed monthly employment statistics. Ms. Di Natale received an M.A. in applied economics from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in international relations from Boston University.
Gus Faucher is director of macroeconomics for Moody's Economy.com. Gus edits the firm’s flagship Précis Macro publication, covering the U.S. economy, and helps run the Moody’s Economy.com computer model of the U.S. economy. He covers U.S. fiscal, regulatory and monetary policy, and is a frequent contributor to the U.S./Canada edition of the Dismal Scientist web site. He also covers the Massachusetts and Utah economies. Gus gives regular talks on the U.S. economic outlook. He is a frequent guest on CNBC, Fox Business Network, and CN8 Money Matters Today, and is often quoted by international, U.S. and regional news outlets. He has also appeared on the CBS Evening News and public radio's All Things Considered and Marketplace.
Gus was a senior economist for six years at the U.S. Treasury Department and taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, with concentrations in labor economics and public economics. He received an A.B. in economics from Cornell University.
Ed Friedman is a director of Moody's Economy.com. He covers the states of Texas and Minnesota, provides monthly summaries of the U.S. financial industry, and maintains a high-frequency econometric model used to estimate current-quarter GDP. Dr. Friedman also edits monthly regional and macroeconomic publications, is participating in a project to expand metropolitan area forecasting to foreign cities, and manages the work of junior personnel. Now based in the company's West Chester PA office, he previously worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, supervising the collection of data on cross-border transactions in securities. Dr. Friedman received a Ph.D. in international economics from Yale University. His bachelor's degree in mathematics is from Dartmouth College.
Michael Helmar is director of industry services for Moody's Economy.com. He is responsible for industry forecasting and analysis and for the Industry Workstation. His regional work includes monitoring the economies of Nevada and North Carolina and editing the Midwest regional publication. Mr. Helmar formerly was director of research at the Delaware Economic Development Office. He also worked for the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at Iowa State University, where he was involved in agricultural policy research and analysis and authored several papers on global agricultural policy liberalization. Mr. Helmar received his master’s degree in agricultural economics from the University of Nevada, Reno.
Scott Hoyt is senior director of consumer economics for Moody's Economy.com. He is responsible for the firm’s consumer forecasts and analysis, and is a regular contributor to the Dismal Scientist web site and to Moody’s Economy.com conferences. He is the lead analyst for CreditForecast.com and is the editor of ConsumerFlow.com. He has done custom modeling for credit and consumer sector clients. His areas of expertise include consumer spending, retail sales and industry performance, consumer credit, and other aspects of consumer behavior.
Before joining Moody’s Economy.com, Dr. Hoyt spent five years as an economist for J.C. Penney, where he did extensive work in the company's credit department. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and his B.A. summa cum laude from Bates College.
Tony Hughes is senior director of Credit Analytics at Moody's Economy.com. His main responsibility involves managing the company's credit analysis consulting projects for global lending institutions. An expert applied econometrician, Dr. Hughes also oversees the development of Moody’s CreditCycle and manages the data and forecasting products CreditForecast.com and CreditForecast.co.uk. His varied research interests have lately focused on problems associated with loss forecasting and stress testing credit portfolios.
Now based in the U.S., Dr. Hughes previously headed the Moody's Economy.com Sydney office, where he was editor of the Asia/Pacific edition of the Dismal Scientist web site and was the company's lead economist in the region. He retains a keen interest in emerging markets and in Asian/Pacific economies.
A former academic, Dr. Hughes held positions at the University of Adelaide, the University of New South Wales, and Vanderbilt University, and has published a number of articles in leading statistics and economics journals. He received his Ph.D. in econometrics from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Sophia Koropeckyj is a managing director for Moody's Economy.com. Sophia oversees the firm's publications and consulting projects, edits many of the publications, trains new staff members, and gives presentations to clients and trade groups. She covers labor markets, auto-related industries, and the Midwestern economy. Based in West Chester PA, Sophia has been with Moody's Economy.com since 1994. Previously, she worked as an economist for the Great Lakes Trade Adjustment Assistance Center and WEFA. Sophia has completed all but the dissertation portion of her doctoral studies in economics at the University of Michigan. She earned a master’s degree in finance at Drexel University and a bachelor’s degree in economics and history at the University of Pennsylvania.
Juan Licari is a senior economist at Moody's Economy.com. Dr. Licari is a member of the Credit Analytics group and specializes in financial economics. Juan leads consulting projects with major industry players, builds econometric tools to model credit phenomena, and has implemented several stress testing platforms to quantify portfolio risk exposure. He has a leading role in the development and implementation of credit solutions and is actively involved in communicating these to the market. Dr. Licari holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and graduated summa cum laude from the National University of Cordoba in Argentina.
Mark McMullen is director of government consulting at Moody’s Economy.com. He covers the fiscal condition of state and local governments and the role that state budgets play in the broader economy. He has developed numerous statistical models investigating public sector topics, including the Moody’s Economy.com state revenue forecasting system. Before joining Moody’s Economy.com in 2000, Mark worked at the Center for International Comparisons and the Congressional Budget Office. Mark holds an M.A. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, where he has completed all but the dissertation portion of his doctoral studies. He received his B.A. in economics from Pomona College.
Daniel Melser is a senior economist in the Moody's Economy.com Sydney office. Dr. Melser is mainly involved in the Credit Analytics arm of the company, undertaking consultancy work involving the nexus between macroeconomic modelling and credit market performance. He has also been involved in modelling and analysis of housing markets globally and covers the economy of South Korea. Dr. Melser worked in official statistics as a consultant and in academia, and he has published papers in a number of leading international journals. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of New South Wales, specializing in economic statistics, and did his undergraduate studies in New Zealand.
Tu Packard is a senior economist at Moody's Economy.com and chief editor of the World Workstation. Ms. Packard holds an M. Phil. and an M.A. in economics from Columbia University and a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College. She has published peer-reviewed papers on the international business cycle, prototype models for economies in transition, monetary policy for developing countries, external liberalization, global financial crises, country risk analysis, and early-warning indicators. She has more than 20 years of experience in international economic consulting for clients that include the United Nations, the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, business enterprises, and academic institutions.
Virendra Singh is a senior economist with Moody’s Economy.com. He specializes in international economics and econometrics, and his recent work has focused on trade, capital flows and currency issues. Dr. Singh is responsible for the Moody’s Economy.com global macroeconomic modeling and forecast. He writes on a variety of issues for the Dismal Scientist web site and the Regional Financial Review. Before joining Moody’s Economy.com, Dr. Singh worked at the World Bank, the U.S. Treasury Department, and Global Insight. Dr. Singh received his Ph.D. in economics from Temple University and his M.A. in economics from the Delhi School of Economics.
Aaron Smith is a senior economist for Moody's Economy.com and associate editor of the North American edition of the Dismal Scientist web site, producing real-time online commentary and weekly analysis on the U.S. macroeconomy. Based in West Chester PA, he helps oversee the U.S. Dismal team, which generates forecasts for high-frequency economic indicators. He conducts regular briefings on the economy and is frequently quoted in national and global news outlets. Mr. Smith received his B.A. in economics and business administration from Coe College, where he graduated summa cum laude and researched asset bubbles and capital markets.
John Stapleford is a senior economist in the Moody's Economy.com West Chester PA office. He focuses on urban and regional economic analysis and conceptual frameworks. He is a professor emeritus of economic development at Eastern University and former director of the University of Delaware’s Bureau of Economic Research. He has a Ph.D. in urban and regional economics from the University of Delaware and a master’s degree from the University of Southern Illinois.
Ruth Stroppiana is chief international economist at Moody's Economy.com. Based in London, Dr. Stroppiana is responsible for European-related research on the Dismal Scientist web site. Ruth formerly directed Asia/Pacific economics in the Moody's Economy.com Sydney office as the company’s lead economist in the region. She has extensive experience in analyzing countries in the Asia/Pacific region and Europe and has been quoted by a wide range of global news outlets. Dr. Stroppiana received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Queensland, Australia.
Ryan Sweet is a senior economist with Moody's Economy.com. He is a member of the U.S. macroeconomics team in West Chester PA, responsible for forecasting high-frequency economic indicators. Mr. Sweet is also a regular contributor to the Dismal Scientist and Consumer Flow web sites. He received his master's degree in economics from the University of Delaware and his bachelor's degree in economics from Washington College.
