Kristen Fanarakis is an associate director of MI Finance, leading the small business policy and innovation initiative, which analyzes the macroeconomic trends and policies affecting small businesses and offers policy recommendations and solutions aimed at fostering an environment of inclusive prosperity. Her work engages and educates policy stakeholders to address the challenges small businesses face.

Prior to joining the Milken Institute, Fanarakis helped co-lead the University of Maryland’s Center for Financial Policy, a think tank focused on topics at the intersection of financial markets and regulatory policy. While in this role, she also launched her own small business, Senza Tempo, a Los Angeles-made, sustainably-minded women’s luxury apparel brand. As a founder, she regularly wrote, spoke, was quoted in the press on a variety of policy issues facing the apparel industry, advocated for domestic manufacturing, and testified to the California State Senate on behalf of other domestic apparel brands. Prior to this, she spent over a decade working on Wall Street in foreign exchange trading and investment management for such firms as Merrill Lynch and Citibank. She holds a BA in economics and political science from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill and an MBA from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business. She also holds an MS in international economics from Suffolk University.