James Annable earned his B.A. in Economics from Kenyon College and his Ph.D, also in Economics, from Princeton University. Subsequently he taught at MIT (1969-74). He was a senior economist and chief of the section tasked to figure out the stagflation crisis at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (1974-79) and held a senior position at the Congressional Budget Office (1979-81). He has written a book, The Price of Industrial Labor: The Role of Wages in Business Cycles and Economic Growth, which he immodestly considers the best economic analysis of the U.S. stagflation episode. Switching to the private sector (1981-2006), Annable became Chief Economist and a member of the Management Committee of First Chicago, which ultimately merged with JP Morgan Chase where he was Economic Advisor to CEO Jamie Dimon. From 1994 to 2014, he served as Permanent Secretary of the Federal Advisory Council – a body created by the original 1913 Act establishing the Federal Reserve System and tasked with advising the Board of Governors on a range of topics including monetary policy. Currently, Annable is a director of Kemper Insurance, where he chaired the compensation committee for more than a decade. He is a former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Goodman Theatre of Chicago.

Originally from Israel, Shani Schechter earned her B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago. Subsequently she joined the Economic Research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in the midst of the Great Recession, where she worked on GDP and Labor models supporting FOMC discussions and coauthored several publications on unemployment. Given some disillusionment with the impact and relevance of mainstream economics, she pursued an MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, graduating with concentrations in Finance and Analytic Management. Simultaneously, she served as Deputy Secretary of the Federal Advisory Council – a statutory organization tasked with advising the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on a range of topics including monetary policy. There she worked with James Annable, then Secretary of the Council and whom she eventually succeeded. The experience rekindled her interest in the power of macroeconomics and the central role of the Fed and financial institutions within the economy, leading her to co-found the GEM Project with Annable. Currently she works at Morgan Stanley within Global Treasury. She remains an avid musician, most recently playing violin with Civic of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.