David Smilow has more than 20 years experience in the financial services industry. Mr. Smilow founded TeleBank in 1989, serving as CEO through 1998 and Chairman until its sale to E*Trade in 1999. Under his guidance, TeleBank increased from $50 million in assets to over $5 billion and became the largest Internet bank worldwide. Prior to founding TeleBank, Mr. Smilow was a fixed income portfolio manager and trader at Goldman Sachs and Drexel Burnham Lambert. Mr. Smilow is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Johns Hopkins University.
Tracey Hecht is a writer/director and founder of several small design businesses. She has been creating stories and beautiful images for the past twelve years through all of these pursuits. Her feature-length film Life in Flight debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008 and starred Patrick Wilson and Lynn Collins.
Laura Norén is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at New York University where her interests focus on the relationship between design and social behavior, especially as mediated by digital technologies. She is particularly interested in exploring the visual presentation of social data on the internet. In addition to her work with theysay, she edits a blog sponsored by the American Sociological Association launching 1 January 2009 that will analyze and critique the use of information graphics as mechanisms of publication in the social sciences. Prior to matriculating at New York University she worked in architectural lighting design and has recently co-founded a web design and development company, 7L Studio. She earned undergraduate degrees from MIT before moving to New York.