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Piyush Tantia

Research Director – Financial Design

Piyush Tantia leads domestic and international financial design projects for ideas42, a non-profit behavioral economics R&D lab housed at Harvard University. In that role, Piyush works closely with leading academics from Harvard, MIT and Princeton to apply cutting-edge behavioral economics research to improve the design and delivery of financial products with the goal of maximizing social impact. Since early 2009, Piyush has been leading a series of projects applying behavioral insights to foreclosure mitigation. The key projects have explored strategic default, what borrower psychologies drive low response to outreach, how to design better loan modification offers and how to best utilize counseling in foreclosure mitigation. Other projects include designing and testing an economically self-sustaining “financial health check” for consumers, understanding the market for financial advice, generating ideas for consumer finance policy, developing a concept for a behaviorally informed “good bank” as well as various microfinance product pilots internationally.Prior to joining ideas42, Piyush was a Partner in Oliver Wyman’s Retail and Finance & Risk practices, and now serves as a Senior Advisor to Oliver Wyman. During his 14 years at Oliver Wyman, he worked on projects spanning a vast array of retail financial services businesses including prime and subprime credit card, home equity, prime and subprime mortgage, deposits, retail distribution, microfinance, and unbanked/ underbanked. He tackled a wide range of issues including strategy, customer and product value management, credit process, distribution and risk management. Piyush holds a B.S. in Economics, magna cum laude, with a concentration in Management from the Wharton School and a B.S in Engineering, magna cum laude, with a concentration in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania.