Steve Wozniak to Headline BBVA Compass’ Series of Economic Forums

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak will offer his perspective on the digital economy to BBVA Compass clients this spring as he headlines the bank’s economic forums.

A titan in the tech industry, Wozniak designed Apple’s first line of products and founded the company with Steve Jobs. He will kick off the annual BBVA Compass Economic Forums this week in Dallas and will also speak in Fort Worth,Houston, Birmingham and Phoenix. The forums, focused this year on technology and the economy, are an extension of the bank’s efforts to team with individuals and organizations that can offer expertise to the bank’s clients in a useful and sophisticated way.

“Wozniak helped revolutionize the personal computer industry, and his perspective is hugely important to us as the banking industry is undergoing its own digital transformation,” said BBVA Compass Chairman and CEO Manolo Sanchez. “But beyond that, we’re bringing to our clients a guy whose ingenuity helped changed the world — literally — and just being in the same room with him and hearing what he has to say will be invaluable.”

The bank launched its popular economic forum series in late 2012, and last year featured former U.S. President George W. Bush. Other headliners have been former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers; Erskine Bowles, the White House chief of staff under former President Bill Clinton; and former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, Bowles’ Republican co-chair on President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

BBVA Compass Chief Economist Nathaniel Karp will also provide economic insight at the events. The bank has developed a robust Economic Research team with expertise across several geographies and areas of study.