To understand AMERICATALYST events, it’s helpful to know a bit about our history. The precursor to AmeriCatalyst LLC, established in 2010 in Austin, Texas is the Amsterdam-based EuroCatalyst BV, established in 2000. Both firms specialize in market positioning and business development for companies operating or investing in the housing ecosphere. As a veteran executive in North American and European mortgage markets, I have hands-on experience in the granular aspects of eighteen housing finance markets around the world. 

From 2000 to 2009, EuroCatalyst was a leader in establishing cross-border mortgage operations throughout the EuroZone for investment banks, banks, servicers, mortgage lenders, and fintech firms. I also advised institutional investors on the underlying dynamics of each market and the related risks in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and covered bonds. This institutional experience widened my perspective on the fragility of mortgage markets and the systemic risk posed by specific MBS and related derivatives in a global marketplace. In my work throughout Europe from 1996 to 2002, I came to believe that the forces of globalization would amplify this systemic risk, leading mortgage markets to collapse. 

In 2001, I tried to convince the U.S. Federal Reserve, the IMF, the European Central Bank and the World Economic Forum to hold a summit about the potential for the implosion of mortgage markets. At that time, however, no one wanted to hear my thesis that mortgage markets were the epicenter of the global economic faultline and were likely to implode, that we would never really recover (we would only adapt) and that the backlash and aftermath would lead to nationalism around the world. After all, the party was just getting started. So in 2002, Shirley Jackson left her 20-year role as the Deputy Managing Editor at the Japan Times in Tokyo to join the executive team at EuroCatalyst, and we created that conference ourselves. 

We gave the event purpose, prioritizing its content over its profit. We made it invitation-only, curating a powerful community of senior participants that spanned the highest levels of global industry oversight, to issuers and investors, and CEOs from all sectors of primary and secondary mortgage markets in a peer-to-peer environment. We limited participation to enhance the intimacy of collaboration. We made it interactive, giving the audience a voice synchronized with the stage. We gave it a soundtrack, using music, multimedia and art to further editorialize the sessions. We made it intellectually challenging, taking everyone out of their comfort zone to elicit a dialogue that just didn’t happen anywhere else. We made bold written predictions in our event narratives each year that, in retrospect, have been far more accurate than most economists and unparalleled in terms of accurately predicting and previewing the next big thing. And finally, we asked the experts to debate topics in the context of globalization. Why? Because the forces of globalization have created a world increasingly beyond our control and understanding. The rest, as they say, is history. 

EUROCATALYST was held across Europe from 2002 to 2009. In 2005 we launched an additional event in London called EUROPESERVICING to prepare European lenders for the crisis that we knew was coming. In 2009, we brought EUROCATALYST to Austin, Texas and from 2010 onwards established the annual AMERICATALYST event. Our last event was AMERICATALYST 2020, ENTROPY: Surviving the New Abnormal.  Held in Dallas, the event ended three days before Covid hit. The following year, Shirley Jackson passed away. Despite many requests for AMERICATALYST to return, truly the last thing our industry needs is yet another conference – even if ours has been considered among the best, and certainly the most influential in the industry. We’ve done that. Were I to return, it would be in an entirely different format. Our 2024 Extreme Climate Summit, “Going to Extremes,” is that evolution. I hope you’ll join me for what promises to be the most important event I’ve ever created on a topic that will define the destiny of our industry.

If you would like to learn more about our history, click on one of the links below, or click here to read “Our History” from the beginning.