University of Illinois Gies College of Business expert faculty have teamed up with experts across the Illinois campus to develop a series webinars that deal with specific risks businesses may face as a result of the pandemic: cyber risks, insurance risks, and banking risks.

The third in the series of webinars will be held at 1 p.m. July 17, Liquidity Management in the Great Lockdown. Crisis on Main Street?

How are companies managing their liquidity in the COVID-19 crisis? We will talk about the dash for cash that has been happening since March and the importance of bank credit lines as a source of liquidity for large companies. We will discuss how a liquidity crisis in the corporate sector can trigger a wave of bankruptcies that has the potential to create a full blown financial crisis. We will also discuss the role of government policies such as the Main Street Lending Program in mitigating the risk of such a crisis. Finally, we will speculate about what may happen to US companies in the near future, given what we know about the propagation of the disease and how people are reacting to the slow reopening of the US economy.

Heitor Almeida is the Stanley C. and Joan J. Golder Corporate Finance Professor and academic director of iDegrees at Gies College of Business. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago. Before joining Illinois in 2007, Professor Almeida was an associate professor of finance in the Stern School of Business at the New York University. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research has been cited by Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Financial Times and by prominent policy authorities such as the president of the European Central Bank. His research has received numerous awards such as the Journal of Finance’s Brattle Prize and the Jensen Prize of the Journal of Financial Economics, and has received more than 14,000 citations by other researchers.

Additional webinars include:

Cyber Threats in the Age of COVID-19 | June 9, 2 PM
The emergence of COVID-19 has increased our dependence on the internet and has created opportunities for cyber bad actors to cause disruption to people and businesses. This talk explores what new threats – and new emphases on old threats – have emerged over the last few months, and how average citizens can better protect themselves.

Robert Brunner is associate dean and chief disruption officer at Gies College of Business. He joined the College in 2017 and also serves as professor of accounting and director of the University of Illinois-Deloitte Foundation Center for Business Analytics. Brunner previously worked in the University of Illinois’ Department of Astronomy, Beckman Institute, Department of Statistics, and Informatics Institute, among others. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s in physics from Purdue University and a master’s and PhD in astronomy from Johns Hopkins University.

David Nicol is the Franklin W. Woeltge Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at U of I where he serves as the director of the Information Trust Institute. He researches means of improving cyber-security in critical infrastructures (e.g. the electric power grid) and founded Network Perception, a startup that licenses software used to analyze the cyber-security of complex computer networks. Prior to joining Illinois in 2003, he served on the faculty of Dartmouth College and the College of William and Mary.

Coronavirus and Insurance Coverage | June 23, 11 AM  
The financial impact of COVID-19 has businesses looking at their insurance coverage, and many are discovering that the coverage they purchased may not be what they needed. Understanding what type of insurance coverage you have and what you may need is essential. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a catastrophe to deliver that understanding. This webinar will explain how to assess your risks, and it will review the types of commercial insurance products, what they cover, what they do not – and why. It will also outline the solutions that insurers and policymakers are considering to provide relief to businesses. Register online.

Lynne McChristian is the director of the Office of Risk Management & Insurance Research at Gies College of Business, where she is also a senior instructor teaching insurance and enterprise risk management classes. Prior to joining the College in 2019, she was on the faculty at Florida State University and served as executive director of FSU’s Center for Risk Management Education & Research. McChristian’s corporate career includes more than 14 years working in the Florida office of USAA. She has also been a consultant with the Insurance Information Institute and the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, which are insurance industry trade groups. McChristian has a bachelor's in journalism from Marquette University and a master's in mass communication from the University of Arkansas.