Jo Ann Barefoot is CEO & Co-founder of the Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR), host of the global podcast show Barefoot Innovation, and Senior Fellow Emerita at the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Business & Government. She has been Deputy Comptroller of the Currency, partner at KPMG, Co-Chairman of Treliant Risk Advisors, and a staff member at the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. She serves on the boards of Oportun and FinRegLab, and on advisory bodies for FINRA, the Milken Institute, and the California Blockchain Working Group. She formerly served on the board of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. She is Co-founder of Hummingbird RegTech.
In 2021, Jo Ann was named Fintech Woman of the Year by Finovate and selected to the Forbes list of 50 Over 50. She is also in the Fintech Hall of Fame. She previously served on the CFPB’s Consumer Advisory Board and chaired the board of the Financial Health Network. She has published nearly 200 articles and speaks each year to thousands of people throughout the world.
David Ehrich is Co-founder and Executive Director of AIR, a non-profit at the intersection of technology, innovation and regulation, which is working toward a digital-native redesign of the regulatory system.
David has worked in banking and payments for over 20 years, including at McKinsey; American Express where he was a GM in the prepaid group; and JPMorgan Chase where he was the head of credit card strategy. David was National Lead for BankOn and the architect of the Bank On National Account Standards for accounts with no overdraft fees. He is Co-founder of Petal, a NYC-based fintech credit card startup pioneering the cash-flow underwriting for consumers who lack credit histories.
David has served on several nonprofit boards and is a storyteller having performed with The Moth. He is a fintech advisor and investor, and previously was a member of the Consumer Advisory Board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. David has an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and a B.S. from Cornell University.
Nick Cook is Chief Innovation Officer at AIR. Based in London, he was previously the Director of the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Innovation Division, including the agency’s RegTech and TechSprint initiatives, its data and analytics strategy, machine learning endeavours, and the “Innovate” program (encompassing the Regulatory Sandbox, innovation and digital policy, and industry-facing direct support services). At AIR, Nick heads the TechSprint program and the nascent AIR Fair Finance Accelerator, working with partners and the innovation ecosystem to define its scope ...
Kisha Perkins joined the Alliance for Innovation Regulation (AIR) as the Chief Program Officer responsible for program strategy, project design and delivery, planning, staffing, resource management, and quality control of all programs. Prior to joining AIR, Kisha held several leadership roles during a 12-year stint in consulting, supporting large financial institutions in solving complex, multi-faceted consumer compliance challenges. Kisha led project execution and delivery teams that advanced consumer remediation initiatives, consent order deliverables and technology-focused solutions.
Randy Repka is the Chief Growth Officer at AIR and is based in Stowe, Vt. Since coming aboard at the beginning of 2020, Randy has planned and produced an array of regulatory Techsprints in partnership with both U.S. and non-U.S. agencies. In addition to consulting with regulators and financial firms on innovation techniques and solution- building, she published “How To Produce a TechSprint: A Manual for Regulators,” and has developed many templates and resources designed to help organizations stand up and manage their own TechSprints.
Lexi was a founding member of the original three-person team, along with Jo Ann Barefoot and David Ehrich, that launched AIR in 2019. As Chief of Staff, she oversees numerous operational, administrative, human resources and strategic activities, as well as marketing, communications and events. As AIR was getting off the ground, Lexi led activities relating to branding, public relations, website management and content creation. She provides ongoing leadership in managing rapid growth focused on productivity, program management and communications. She plays a role in AIR’s public policy work and leads ...
Joe leads AIR’s editorial processes. He writes and edits thought leadership materials such as white papers and articles, as well as content for the website and marketing. He collaborates with the Global Head of Communications in managing AIR’s brand awareness and public relations, and provides support for the organization’s digital content platforms. He also writes AIR’s weekly news feature, Seen & Heard. A journalist by training, Joe was previously Washington Bureau Chief of the American Banker, the preeminent daily news outlet focused on the U.S. financial services industry.
A seasoned TechSprint leader, Shelley spent 16 years at the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority before coming to AIR in January 2022. Starting in 2015, she was part of the FCA’s Regtech team, designing and leading TechSprints and developing the regulator’s approach to interacting with the global Regtech ecosystem. Specializing in innovation for vulnerable consumers, Shelley has designed programs that look at the barriers faced by digital financial services consumers, and at how both regulators and firms can design better products for inclusion.
Mesha plays a critical role in developing AIR’s events strategy. She helps lead the planning, logistics and execution of conferences, TechSprints, webinars, issue panels and other convenings that advance innovation initiatives. An experienced events organizer, Mesha has managed and marketed conferences for over six years, including in a previous role as project manager for the Financial Health Network. Consistent with AIR’s mission, Mesha is motivated to make a positive difference, and sees the big picture of how innovation in the regulatory sector impacts people served by ...
Ethan joined AIR’s TechSprints team in late 2022. He works with a diverse group of partner organizations and other stakeholders to develop, launch and facilitate TechSprints and other innovation-focused programs. A mechanical engineer by training, Ethan combines objective, data-driven thinking with innovation management experience centered on human outcomes. Before joining AIR, he used hackathons, design thinking and other approaches to spur innovation initiatives at numerous private companies, including Constant Contact, AMICA Mutual Insurance and J.J. Keller ...
As Crypto Lead, Bob brings vast experience and knowledge dealing with both financial innovations and traditional finance to a wide array of AIR projects. He lends expertise to regulators and other policymakers on the impact of cryptoassets and blockchain technology on financial markets, provides support for crypto-related TechSprints and other initiatives, and advises financial sector clients from Visa to the World Bank to fintech startups through the consulting firm that he founded, Chakra Advisors LLC. Bob is a resource on key concepts, including tokenization, crypto miners’ impact ...
Aye Diallo joined the Alliance for Innovative Regulation in 2022 as TechSprint and Innovation Program Manager where she works with global partners to conceive of and implement TechSprints and other initiatives aimed at using digital technology to solve financial and regulatory problems. Prior to joining AIR, Aye worked as a program developer and project manager leading efforts to create a more equitable startup community through Gender Equality in Tech (GET) Cities Chicago. She then worked in D.C. at a public relations firm, using economic analysis ...
Grace Mathebula joined AIR in October 2022 as a TechSprint Manager, based in Gauteng, South Africa. She manages TechSprints and sprint-related projects that help regulators and others innovate in the areas of financial inclusion, among other things, working with partners and the AIR team to meet program objectives. As a senior PMP-certified project manager and certified SCRUM Master, she has over 14 years of experience managing projects and programs in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and data analytics. For most of that time, she focused on credit risk process ...
Joe joined AIR in November 2021 as its first Global Head of Marketing and Communications. He leads marketing activities across all channels with a strategic focus on increasing AIR’s brand awareness, expanding its reach and optimizing communications for the greatest impact. His focus areas include website management, social media marketing, email marketing, speaking appearances, podcast promotion, public relations, fundraising materials and event support. Joe has over a decade of marketing experience in the graphics and publishing sector from his previous roles ...
Katie, who joined AIR in 2022, leads and supports TechSprint-related initiatives and other innovation programs across the organization. She has always been passionate about mission-driven work, including protecting vulnerable customers and the environment, which are both AIR priorities. Prior to working at AIR, Katie had a long career in traditional financial services. During 15 years at American Express, she filled many leadership roles across numerous business areas, including Prepaid Cards, Customer Experience and Travel. Her most recent roles primarily focused on managing the ...
Tracy served as the head of bank supervision from 2017 to 2021, leading a 350- person team that conducts prudential and consumer protection supervision across a portfolio of community, regional, foreign and large complex organizations.
Over the course of her 30+ year career at the Fed, she held a range of roles throughout banking supervision, starting with commissioned examiner. She distinguished herself with her forward leaning work on consumer protection, fintech, suptech and climate risk.
She is known for her strategic leadership capabilities, managerial courage and critical thinking. She is a senior leader with demonstrated ability to drive change, lead through uncertainty and build consensus.
During her tenure at the Federal Reserve, she was on the forefront of driving change to keep pace with the changing financial services landscape:
+ Formed the Federal Reserve System’s (FRS) first fintech team in 2015 and led FRS supervision initiative to study developments in fintech. SF Fed viewed as leader in adapting to fintech-driven changes.
+ Served as the FRS representative on the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s Task Force on Financial Technology.
+ Established and sponsored FRS suptech initiative to leverage new technologies in the conduct of bank supervision.
+ Formed the FRS’s first climate risk team in 2020 to study the financial impact of both physical and transitional risks related to climate change. + Led FRS team charged with developing recommendations for Main Street Lending Program to better serve small businesses, CDFIs and MDIs. + Led FRS team to provide fintech lenders access to the Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility.
Thomas J. Curry is a former partner in Nutter’s Corporate and Transactions Department and former co-leader of the firm’s Banking and Financial Services group. He advises clients in a wide range of policy, regulatory, governance, and other matters. He chairs the Milken Institute’s Fintech Advisory Committee and is a foundation board member of the Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR), which will help regulators integrate technology into every stratum. Prior to joining Nutter, Tom served as the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency until May 2017. He most recently served as an expert consultant for the International Monetary Fund.
A true FinTech pioneer, Shamir Karkal played a crucial part in building the infrastructure that would pave the way for online banking. He started out as a programmer and systems engineer before joining management consultancy McKinsey & Company.
In 2009, he co-founded Simple, the first bank of its kind in the United States, and later headed the Open Platform at BBVA. Shamir was drawn to serve smaller companies, co-founding Sila in 2018 with the goal of empowering financial innovations.
Shamir studied physics and computer science at Bangalore University and is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. He lives with his family in Portland, Oregon. Shamir is a frequent speaker at conferences, on industry podcasts, and quoted as an industry expert and thought leader in the media.
Kabir backs early-stage entrepreneurs who want to fundamentally transform the financial sector and improve people’s economic outlook. At Flourish, he leads global policy and ecosystem building efforts, makes investments in the US and emerging markets, and incubates new areas of work. Kabir has developed a portfolio of investments in regtech and banking technology, backed startups in frontier markets in South Asia. Kabir has a deep background in emerging markets, having cofounded a program at CGAP and the World Bank that laid the foundations of digital financial services in emerging markets.
Cantwell F. Muckenfuss III is a Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School and a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP where he focuses on the representation of financial institutions. Mr. Muckenfuss is a founder, member and past Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of City First Bank of D.C., N.A., a community development bank in Washington, D.C. He is also Chairman of the Board of City First Enterprises, Inc., the nonprofit controlling shareholder of City First Bank. Mr. Muckenfuss received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and his law degree from Yale Law School.
John provides a wide range of regulatory and compliance solutions for financial services, fintech and cryptocurrency firms. He was most recently General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Circle Internet Financial, Inc., a global crypto finance company that is seeking to help change the global economy. Mr. Beccia previously served as Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Boston Private Financial Holdings, Inc., a publicly traded bank holding company. He was also Assistant General Counsel for Investors Bank & Trust Company and Chief Regulatory Counsel and Research Director for The Financial Services Roundtable where he was responsible for all regulatory affairs and assisted with legislative efforts for the trade association. Mr. Beccia has served as Chairman of the In-House Counsel Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Banking Law Committee and is currently an Adjunct Professor of Boston University School of Law. Mr. Beccia has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Providence College, a J.D. from Roger Williams University School of Law, and a LLM in Banking and Financial Law from Boston University School of Law.
Richard Berner is Clinical Professor of Management Practice in the Department of Finance, and, with Professor Robert Engle, is Co-Director of the Stern Volatility and Risk Institute. Professor Berner served as the first director of the Office of Financial Research (OFR) from 2013 until 2017. He was counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury from April 2011 to 2013. He served as chief or senior economist at Morgan Stanley, Mellon Bank, Salomon Brothers, Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He received his BA from Harvard College and his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an advisor to FinRegLab, MacroPolicy Perspectives, HData, and the Alliance for Innovative Regulation, and is a member of the Milken Fintech Advisory Committee and the IMF panel of experts for financial stability.
Chris Brummer is a Georgetown law professor, lecturer, and author. He has earned an international reputation as a premier thought leader in financial services and the law, and a tireless advocate of diversity and inclusion. Chris started his career at Cravath Swaine and Moore LLP, and now serves as the Faculty Director of the Institute of International Economic Law. For over a decade, he has also lent his expertise to nonprofits and policymakers, and offered his insights as to how firms and governments can best understand and react to new developments and challenges in the financial system. Aside from working as a professor and spearheading multiple initiatives and organizations related to financial regulation, he also serves as both a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Subcommittee on Virtual Currencies and the Consultative Working Group for the European Securities and Markets Authority’s Financial Innovation Standing Committee. Chris holds multiple degrees, including a J.D. with honors from Columbia Law School and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He is also the author and/or editor of several books, including Fintech Law in a Nutshell and Cryptoassets: Legal, Regulatory and Monetary Perspectives. He is the founder of Washington DC’s Fintech Week and the host of the Fintech Beat podcast.
Described by Chambers as "a recognized dean of the consumer finance bar," Jerry Buckley has, over a 40 year career, established himself as an acknowledged leader in financial services law. A founding partner of Buckley LLP, Mr. Buckley assists his clients — banks, mortgage companies, credit card issuers, insurance companies, broker dealers, fintech lenders, investment banks, and private equity investors — with business formations and acquisitions, risk management, and enforcement matters involving federal and state regulators. He has extensive experience with electronic signatures and serves as General Counsel of the Electronic Signatures and Records Association. He is co-author of The Law of Electronic Signatures and Records. Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Buckley served as Republican Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, where he participated in drafting most of the laws that serve as the foundation for today’s consumer finance law ─ the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Truth in Lending Act amendments, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Community Reinvestment Act, and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. For many years, Mr. Buckley has been a leading advocate for updating and modernizing the nearly 50 year old regulatory regime that is slowing down financial innovation. Several years ago he wrote a widely read article in the American Banker urging development of “dynamic disclosures,” to offer far more useful information to consumers than is provided under the cumbersome and voluminous static disclosures currently provided. He recently took the lead in a pro bono project producing a white paper on “Regulatory Hurdles to Fintech Innovation,” based on interviews with innovation leaders in each of the federal financial regulatory agencies. Mr. Buckley serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at the American University Washington College of Law. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, he received the Senator William Proxmire Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers in 2015.
Agnes Bundy Scanlan, Esq., is the President of The Cambridge Group LLC, a strategy and risk management advisory firm. The Cambridge Group provides regulatory risk consulting, operational expertise on consumer banking regulations, interim staff augmentation, training guidance, and more. Based on her unique experiences, Agnes is recognized as a strategic partner and trusted advisor who provides hands-on advice to execute and implement solutions successfully.
Recently, Agnes was senior advisor for Treliant, where she counseled financial services firms on various challenges, including strategy, governance, regulatory, compliance, and risk management matters.
Previously, Agnes served as the Northeast Regional Director of Supervision Examinations for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”). As Regional Director, Agnes oversaw the regional staff, and represented the CFPB Supervision mission on all matters relating to conducting consumer financial protection supervision and examinations at a variety of complex depository financial institutions and non-depository consumer financial services companies. The 32 financial institutions and 25 companies under her regulatory authority had assets totaling over $6 trillion.
Earlier, Agnes was the chief regulatory and compliance officer, and global chief privacy officer at TD Bank. She worked in similar roles at Bank of America and its predecessors. Agnes also served as counsel at Goodwin Procter and for the United States Senate Committee on the Budget.
Agnes is an independent director for Truist Financial Corporation’s Board of Directors and NewTower Trust Company. She is a fellow of the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers, a commissioner for the American Bar Association’s (“ABA”) Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession, and, is the chair of the ABA’s Business Law Section’s Privacy Subcommittee. Agnes was selected for inclusion in Boston Business Journal’s Most Powerful Women, and in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. She is the former vice chair of the Smith College Board of Trustees, former chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors’ Consumer Advisory Council, former (and founding) chairman of International Association of Privacy Professionals, and former chair of FannieMae’s Housing Impact Advisory Council.
Agnes holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a A.B. from Smith College. She is a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Bar of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Last year, Agnes completed Harvard University’s certification course on Cybersecurity: Managing Risk in the Information Age and MIT’s certification course on Artificial Intelligence.
Andrew Burt, an internationally recognized expert on the intersection between data privacy, security and artificial intelligence, is Chief Legal Officer at Immuta, where he leads the company's Legal Engineering team. The team, comprised of lawyers with deep expertise in data science, focuses on automating compliance and oversight activities within the Immuta software platform.
Before joining Immuta, Andrew served as Special Advisor for Policy to the head of the FBI Cyber Division, where he was the lead author on the FBI’s after action report on the 2014 attack on Sony. A frequent speaker and author, he has published articles on technology and law in The New York Times, The Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review, where he is a regular contributor.
Andrew is a visiting fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a certified cyber incident responder. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. with first class honors from McGill University.
Fabrice Coles is a Senior Manager, Global Public Policy, at PayPal. He is an attorney and a former senior Capitol Hill staffer who is committed to sustainable financial inclusion at scale. Prior to his current role, Fabrice spent a decade working in and with the United States Congress. Most recently he was a VP for Government Affairs at the Bank Policy Institute. Prior to that, he served as the Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus and as an economic policy advisor in both the House and Senate. Fabrice has also served at the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. He holds a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law, an LLM in Securities and Financial Regulation from Georgetown University Law Center and an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.
Jotaka L. Eaddy is the founder and CEO of Full Circle Strategies, LLC - a social impact consulting firm committed to advancing transformative change and global impact.
Described as the “Olivia Pope of Silicon Valley” by Forbes Magazine, Jotaka is a dedicated and seasoned strategist with more than 20 years of experience in policy, advocacy, and movement building.
Within her current practice, Jotaka works with clients including corporate, non-profit, foundations, technology and government organizations seeking to advance policy, ideas, and change. Jotaka has led regulatory, legislative, and social impact initiatives at the federal and state level for leading non- profits and within the C-Suite of leading technology companies, helping to bridge the gap between Washington DC and Silicon Valley.
Most recently Jotaka served as Vice President of Policy; Strategic Engagement, and Impact for LendUp. Within her capacity, Eaddy served as a member of LendUp’s Executive Management team and represented LendUp's regulatory, legislative, and social impact initiatives at the federal and state level. Eaddy's team was responsible for measuring how LendUp's products benefited consumers, such as saving customers more than $200 million in fees and interest, and creating a series of financial education courses that have been viewed more than 2.1 million times.
As one of the few black women that has served in the C-Suite of a Silicon Valley based company, Jotaka is a passionate advocate for increased diversity and impact metrics in the tech sector. Committed to social impact and social justice; Jotaka serves as a board advisor to several tech start-up companies including Maker’s Row, Inc.; Gauge, Inc., Tech Dojo, and Hustle, Inc. From 2009-2014, Eaddy served as Senior Advisor to the President and CEO and Senior Director for Voting Rights for the NAACP. Within that capacity she directed external affairs and strategic initiatives on behalf of the Office of the President and CEO and led the NAACP’s strategy to defend and expand voting rights. Under Jotaka’s leadership – the NAACP played a pivotal role in a wide array of voting rights initiatives including: changing the Delaware State Constitution to expand voting rights to people with felony convictions, stopping the spread of voter suppression laws such as photo id, and secure the voting rights of more than 300,000 citizens with felony convictions in the state of Virginia through an executive order signed by the Governor.
In addition to domestic advocacy, Jotaka has lobbied within various international forums including the United Nations Human Rights Council, African Union, the Organization of American States, and Council of Europe, among others.
In 2004, Jotaka directed the national lobby and international advocacy campaign against the juvenile death penalty in the United States. Those efforts contributed to the 2005 landmark US Supreme Court decision Roper v. Simmons which abolished the juvenile death penalty in the United States and was supported by an amicus brief signed by more than 50 nations.
A noted speaker and advocate, Jotaka has traveled extensively, serving as a guest lecturer and strategist on human rights and social impact at various institutions and universities covering 49 states and 25 countries.
As a student at the University of South Carolina, Ms. Eaddy served in a number of leadership capacities, including tenure as student representative on the University’s Board of Trustees. As a student senator, she authored legislation and coordinated strategies that resulted in the passage of the University of South Carolina’s student resolution calling for the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House Dome. Most notably, Ms. Eaddy was elected Student Body President, becoming the first black woman to be elected to the position in the University of South Carolina’s 213-year history and the first black woman elected to such a position in the state of South Carolina.
Eaddy is the receipt of several honors and awards including: SF Times Bay Area Most Influential Women in Business, 40 under 40 Silicon Valley Tech Diversity, Rainbow Push Outstanding Public Service Award, Root 100 Most influential African Americans, Essence Magazine Woman to Watch, My Carolina Association Outstanding Black Alumni, Midwest Academy Heather Award, Empower Magazine Political Rising Star, University of South Carolina College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Young Alumni, among others.
She serves on several boards including: University of South Carolina Alumni Association (Board of Governors), Marijuana Policy Project, and Board Advisor to Gauge, Inc., Makers Row, and Hustle, Inc.
Jotaka’s work has been highlighted in several publications including: Forbes Magazine, TechCrunch, Inc., Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Guardian, Essence Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Black Enterprise Magazine, Root 100 Most Influential African Americans, Politics365.com, MSNBC, CNN, Al Jazeera America, Aspire Network, Huffington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, BET, The Nation Magazine, Democracy Now, the Art of Activism, Black America Web.com, the American Prospect, among others.
Judith Erwin is the former CEO of Grasshopper Bank, the first digital commercial bank in the United States.
Judith was on the founding executive team for Square 1 Bank in 2005, responsible for venture capital services globally. Square 1 successfully went public in 2014 and was later sold to Pacific Western Bank. She previously worked at Imperial and Comerica.
After 35 years in banking, Judith knew it was the time to make significant changes in the commercial banking industry. Her strategy was to build a bank from scratch providing both a modern technological framework and intuitive user experience for the digital entrepreneurs Grasshopper serves. Grasshopper Bank opened its doors on May 13, 2019 becoming the first US digital commercial bank, first new bank in NY in ten years, and first de novo with a female CEO, female CTO, and female CFO.
Amy has over 25 years of experience shaping banking and consumer financial protection law and regulation. Amy was Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) from February 2013 to November 2017 where she served on the agency’s executive committee and oversaw all of the agency’s legal activities and licensing functions. Amy led the OCC’s strategic initiative on responsible innovation resulting in the establishment of the Office of Innovation and the fintech national bank charter. Previously, she held a number of positions in the US Congress, including Chief Counsel to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs where she led the Committee’s work in responding to the financial crisis, including the Dodd-Frank Act, and Minority General Counsel to the House Committee on Financial Services. Amy currently serves as a senior advisor to FS Vector, an advisory firm that helps innovative financial companies with their compliance, business strategy and policy needs. She is on the board of directors for Varo Money, a challenger mobile bank, and FinRegLab, a newly established nonprofit that tests new technologies and data to inform public policy and drive more inclusive financial services.
Christopher Giancarlo is Senior Counsel to the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher and the former Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Mr. Giancarlo also served as a member of the Financial Stability Oversight Committee (FSOC), the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, and the Executive Board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). Before entering public service, Mr. Giancarlo served as the Executive Vice President of GFI Group Inc., a financial services firm. Under his leadership, the CFTC published primers on virtual currencies and smart contracts, oversaw the launch of the first bitcoin futures contracts and created LabCFTC as the agency’s stakeholder in the digital evolution of derivatives trading markets.
He recently launched a non-profit, The Digital Dollar Foundation. The Digital Dollar Project is a partnership between Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and the Digital Dollar Foundation to advance exploration of a United States Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The purpose of the Project is to encourage research and public discussion on the potential advantages of a digital dollar, convene private sector thought leaders and actors, and propose possible models to support the public sector. The Project will develop a framework for potential, practical steps that can be taken to establish a dollar CBDC.
Chris has over 45,000 followers on Twitter as @giancarloMKTS where he is known as “CryptoDad.”
Daniel Gorfine is an experienced regulatory, public policy, strategic communications, and business executive, and the founder of Gattaca Horizons LLC, a boutique advisory firm. Gorfine has substantial in-house, government, and think tank experience across the technology and financial markets & services sectors, and was previously appointed by the Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to serve as the federal agency’s first Chief Innovation Officer and Director of LabCFTC. In that capacity, Gorfine developed and led the Commission’s new technology innovation and regulatory modernization effort focused on informing policy and helping the Agency keep pace with modern, digital markets. Gorfine served as a senior agency representative on FinTech and crypto-asset issues, worked with staff and Members of Congress, coordinated with domestic and international regulators, and provided expert testimony before Congress. He also currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center teaching FinTech Law & Policy. Prior to the CFTC, Gorfine was Vice President, External Affairs & Associate General Counsel at OnDeck where he spearheaded efforts to create a new industry trade association and business standards. Gorfine also previously served as Director of Financial Markets Policy and Legal Counsel at the Milken Institute think tank, and earlier in his career worked at the international law firm Covington & Burling LLP. He also served a clerkship with U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C. Blake in the District of Maryland. A graduate of Brown University (A.B.), Gorfine holds a J.D. from George Washington University Law School and an M.A. from the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.
Yvette is Executive Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer at State Street.
Yvette began her career with the Federal Reserve before transitioning to corporate leadership roles with Citigroup, Barclays, and most recently Wells Fargo, where she was Executive Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer. With Wells Fargo, she spearheaded innovations in RegTech-supported risk management platforms, overhauled consumer protection frameworks, and strengthened the compliance function by enhancing data and analysis. A member of the Wells Fargo Management Committee and Chair of the Regulatory and Risk Management Committee, she worked closely with the CEO and other senior executives to develop business strategies that met goals for growth while complying with US and global regulatory requirements.
Her influence and leadership within business and compliance realms have been recognized with notable awards. In 2016 and 2017 she was included in Black Enterprise’s Most Powerful Executives in Corporate America. In 2015, 2016 and 2017, she was recognized by American Banker on its “The 25 Women to Watch” list. In 2016, she was honored as one of the “Most Influential Women in Business” by the San Francisco Business Times. And in 2015, the San Francisco League of Women Voters named her one of the “Women Who Could be President.”
Yvette also holds or held leadership roles with several industry and nonprofit associations, including:
As a Board Director, she brings expertise in corporate governance, risk management, and regulatory compliance along with strengths in strategic planning and execution. Her successes in operational turnaround, enterprise framework restructuring, and global team management are valuable in helping organizations navigate risk, change, and growth.
Prior to joining Wells Fargo in 2012, Yvette held progressively challenging roles with Barclays Capital, culminating as Managing Director and Global Head of Operations Compliance, Financial Crime Risk Management. Previously she headed Citigroup’s Markets and Banking North American Anti-Money Laundering program and directed its Corporate Global Anti-Money Laundering monitoring, testing, and surveillance activities.
She began her career with the Federal Reserve Bank in New York and went on to hold supervisory and senior roles with the Federal Reserve System in Washington DC and in San Francisco.
Yvette holds an MBA, with a concentration in Financial Institutions and Markets, from Syracuse University. She earned a BS in Finance at SUNY Institute of Technology.
Howell Jackson is the James S. Reid, Jr., Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. His research interests include financial regulation, consumer protection, international finance, and federal budget policy. Professor Jackson has co-authored three books—Financial Regulation: Law and Policy (2nd ed. 2018), Analytical Methods for Lawyers (3rd ed. 2017), and Fiscal Challenges: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Budget Policy (2008)—and the author of numerous scholarly articles. Professor Jackson frequently consults with public officials and regulatory agencies on financial regulation. He is also trustee of College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF) and affiliated TIAA-CREF investment companies. Before joining the Harvard Law School faculty in 1989, Professor Jackson practiced law in Washington, D.C., and was a law clerk for Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall. He received his JD and MBA degrees from Harvard University in 1982 and a BA from Brown University in 1976. Additional information on Professor Jackson’s outside activities is available at https://helios.law.harvard.edu/Public/Faculty/ConflictOfInterestReport.aspx?id=10423.
Wendy Jephson is Co-Founder of LetsThink where we are Making Decisions Better with People, Data & Technology.
Former Head of Research & Ideation for Market Technology at Nasdaq, Wendy was responsible for leading a unique team of experts that combines behavioural science, financial domain knowledge, and advanced analytics to bring diverse thinking and cross-industry experience to solving some of the biggest challenges in financial services.
Dual qualified as a commercial lawyer and Business Psychologist with domain expertise in healthcare and financial services, in her role as Co-Founder Wendy was instrumental in the original vision, growth phase and the recent acquisition of Sybenetix by Nasdaq.
As Head of Research & Ideation at Nasdaq Wendy brought in scientific research methods to the ideation and development processes further enhancing already world class ways of working. Known for making the complex simple Wendy and her team worked closely with Market Technology clients using behavioural science methodology to dive deeply into complex challenges facing the financial and other industries. The team continues to design innovative technology for marketplaces and Conduct Risk that can deliver efficiency, consistency and greater resilience to our organisations.
Recognised as a leader in her field, Wendy regularly delivers keynotes to Regulators, Buy and Sell-side organisations and leading universities around the world on topics as diverse as AI, Surveillance, Technology Design, Cognitive Engineering, Organisational Resilience and Conduct and Culture.
Dan Kimerling started Deciens because of the realization that there was (and, other than Deciens, is) no Venture fund focused on supporting fintech companies at the seed stage. Having helped to start three companies and invested in over forty, he thought that this was a major problem for founders trying to re-shape a sector that is over 20% of global GDP. As Founder and Managing Partner at Deciens Capital, Dan is responsible for all aspect of the firm, including raising capital, sourcing and executing investments, and collaborating with portfolio companies. As part of this, he is on the board of several portfolio companies. The firm build’s on his successful angel track record, including Tala, Truelink Financial, Starcity, SimpleLegal (acquired by Onit), and Fuze Network (Acquired by Ingo Money). Until September 2017, Dan was a senior executive at Silicon Valley Bank responsible for API Banking, Open Platform, and Global Research and Development. He joined Silicon Valley Bank in July of 2015 through the acquisition of Standard Treasury, which he co-founded and served as the CEO. Standard Treasury - a YCombinator company - was the leading provider of API solutions to the financial services community and was named one of the 10 technology companies to watch by The American Banker in 2014. Because of his work on bringing cutting edge technology to banks, Dan was named to the 2015 Forbes' 30 under 30 list. Before starting Standard Treasury, Dan was the first employee and Chief Operating Officer of Giftly, a stored value technology company acquired by GiftCards.com in May 2013. While leading the company, Business Insider named Giftly one of "The 20 Best Start of 2011" and Dan one of the "25 Hot Young Stars In Silicon Valley". Giftly's mobile app was also named by "Best of the App Store" by Apple in 2012. Before Giftly, Dan was a journalist and analyst at TechCrunch, the leading technology website on the Internet until its acquisition by AOL in 2010. He also helped to run their well-regarded conference business for two years. Earlier in his career he was an award winning policy scholar, being named the Anne Armstrong Leadership Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a Jeff Metcalf Fellow at the Hudson Institute. He graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA and MA (both with honors) and studied mathematical (analytic) finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of business for a year as a Booth Scholar. Outside of his work at Deciens Capital he is also the Co-Founder and a Principal at Gutenberg Capital, a Real Estate investment company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He lives with his wife and their dogs in San Francisco CA and Santa Fe NM.
Arjan Schütte is the founder and a managing partner of Core Innovation Capital, a mission-driven venture capital fund investing in financial services companies that empower everyday Americans. His investments include Ripple, Oportun, SynapseFI, Fundera and TIO Networks. Arjan is a sought-after consumer finance expert and a passionate advocate for market-based financial inclusion. He blogs for Forbes, and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Economist, among others. He has spoken everywhere from SxSW to Stanford, from Money2020 to the White House. Arjan served as member of the CFPB’s Consumer Advisory Board and is a Senior Advisor to the Financial Health Network (formerly CFSI), the nation’s leading authority on financial health, which he helped start in 2004. He currently serves on boards including SynapseFI, and PadSplit, and as observer to boards including Fundera, Mosaic, Hugo, and PayJoy. Previous boards include Ripple, and TIO Networks. A number of Arjan’s investments have been successfully excited, including Oportun (IPO), TIO Networks (by PayPal), AccountNow (by Green Dot), CircleLending (by Virgin Group), L2C (by TransUnion), and RentBureau (by Experian). Prior, Arjan spent a decade as an entrepreneur in several venture backed startups as a technology leader and general manager including Pierian Spring Software, Cognitive Concepts (acquired by Houghton Mifflin), Capella Learning (NASDAQ: CPLA), and DoTheGood. Arjan earned his Master’s from the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as an Interval Research Fellow, and his Bachelor’s in Philosophy and Communication at Lewis & Clark College. He commutes between Los Angeles and San Francisco, when he’s not doting on his his wife and two young children, learning the piano or cooking.
David Silberman has been involved in consumer finance issues from a wide range of perspectives for over three decades. As President and CEO of Union Privilege, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, he led the development and oversaw the delivery of a range of consumer financial products and services to union members. After leaving Union Privilege, David served as General Counsel and Executive Vice President of the Kessler Financial Services, a privately-held company providing marketing and advisory services to financial institutions and their affinity-group partners. Following the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, David joined the implementation team for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and was named the Associate Director for the Division of Research, Markets, and Regulations. In 2016-2017, David also served as the Acting Deputy Director for the CFPB. Mr. Silberman retired from the CFPB in 2020, and now serves as a Senior Advisor to the Center for Responsible Lending and the Financial Health Network’s Financial Solutions Lab. He also has been named an adjunct professor at Georgetown’s School of Public Policy and at Harvard Law School, from which he graduated. Mr. Silberman began his legal career as a law clerk to Chief Judge David Bazelon of the D.C. Circuit and Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Laura Spiekerman is a cofounder and CRO at Alloy. Alloy's API enables financial services companies to better manage their digital onboarding and identity requirements, increasing conversion and reducing fraud for banks and fintechs alike. Alloy works with both fintech companies and banks, including Marqeta, Petal, Brex, Radius Bank and others. Prior to Alloy, Laura lead Business Development & Partnerships at an ACH payments startup and was on the Research & Investment team at Imprint Capital Advisors (acquired by Goldman Sachs). Laura is a proud Barnard College alumna and lives in Oakland, California.
Matt Van Buskirk is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Hummingbird Regtech. Hummingbird gives superpowers to the people fighting financial crime by reducing paperwork, providing smart, data-rich analytics, and enabling collaboration for compliance professionals and law enforcement agents. Before launching Hummingbird, Matt was the Director of Regulatory Affairs at Circle.com, an international consumer payments startup leveraging blockchain technology. He was previously a consultant with Treliant Risk Advisors, a Washington-based management consulting firm specializing in the financial services industry, and a regulator with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Thrift Supervision. His speaking credentials include the American Bankers Association Regulatory Compliance Conference, the Monetary Authority of Singapore's Fintech Festival, Money 2020, Finovate Europe, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Homeland Security's annual AML conference.
Raul Vazquez is the CEO of Oportun, a high-growth, mission-driven Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and provider of inclusive, affordable financial services that empower people to build a better future. Based in Silicon Valley, Oportun serves individuals who other lenders consider “unscoreable” and has made over 3.2 million loans totaling over $7.3 billion across 12 states. Oportun’s customers have saved an estimated $1.5 billion in interest and fees compared to the alternatives typically available to them. Raul joined Oportun in 2012 after having held various senior leadership roles at Walmart, including EVP and President of Walmart West, President and CEO of Walmart.com, and EVP of Global eCommerce for developed markets. He is a board member of the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders (NALCAB), and also serves on the Board of Directors of Intuit. Raul has previously served as a board member for Staples, as a member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Consumer Advisory Board, and is the past of Chair of the Federal Reserve Board’s Community Advisory Council. Mr. Vazquez was named the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2018 National Award winner in the Financial Services category. Under his leadership, Oportun was named by Time Magazine as a Genius Company in 2018 and recognized as one of 50 businesses inventing the future. Mr. Vazquez led Oportun through a successful IPO in September of 2019, and the company is listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol “OPRT.” Mr. Vazquez is a graduate of Stanford University with BS and MS degrees in industrial engineering and earned an MBA at the Wharton School of Business.
Colin Walsh is the CEO and co-founder of Varo Money, which is on track to become the first mobile-centric national bank in U.S. history. Colin founded Varo with a specific vision: to help millions of people improve their financial lives. Colin is uniquely positioned to lead the mobile bank revolution and has more than 25 years of experience in consumer banking at large global financial institutions. He led Europe’s largest credit and charge card business as an Executive Vice President at American Express. Colin also led the UK’s largest mortgage and savings businesses at Lloyds Banking Group, and served as Managing Director for the firm’s retail bancassurance, credit, debit and merchant acquiring businesses. Under Colin’s leadership and with an experienced team, Varo is building the best banking company in the country for consumers looking to build their financial health. The team recently launched No Fee Overdraft, the first-ever service of its kind to remove fees on overdrafts. Varo has raised $179M and serves more than 1 million registered customers across the country.
Lifetime entrepreneur with experience in text analytics, cyber forensics, and cross-border ventures. Co-founder of Basis Technology and investor in Customer Matrix, Diffeo, Lucidworks, Luminoso, Polyswarm, Recorded Future, Tamr, and Zoomd. Advisor to Diffeo, PolySwarm, and Thrive Bioscience. Delivered key enabling technology to Amazon and Google for their Japan market launches, and to Bing and Yahoo for their Asian expansion. Worked with the US Intelligence Community on high volume, multilingual DOMEX, HUMINT, OSINT, and SIGINT. Non-profit experience as business development director of the Free Software Foundation and director of the Unicode Consortium. Spent formative years at MIT as a student, teaching assistant, and research assistant at the AI Lab and Project MAC.
Josh has spent 20 years moving from the architecture of the internet to the architecture of money, and how people think about it. Currently, Josh is dedicating his time to his family, and growing herd of goats, cattle and sheep on his farm in rural Oregon. Prior to this Josh was the founder and CEO of Simple.com. At Simple, he used his background in systems engineering, quantitative analysis, and behavioral economics to design a retail banking experience designed to help people feel confident with money. He has an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, a BSc in Mathematics and Statistics and almost a medical degree from the University of Melbourne.
Kareem Saleh is the founder and CEO of FairPlay, the world's first Fairness-as-a-Service company. Financial Institutions use FairPlay’s APIs to embed fairness considerations into their marketing, underwriting, pricing, and collections algorithms as well as to automate their fair lending compliance. Previously Kareem served as Executive Vice President at Zest.ai, where he led business development for the company’s machine learning-powered credit underwriting platform. Prior to Zest.ai, Kareem served as an executive at SoftCard, a mobile payments startup that was acquired by Google. Kareem also served in the Obama Administration, first as Chief of Staff to the State Department’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, where he helped manage the 50-person team that negotiated the Paris Climate Agreement, then as Senior Advisor to the CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) where he helped direct the U.S. Government’s $30B portfolio of emerging market investments with responsibility for transaction teams in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Kareem is a Forbes contributor and a frequent speaker on the application of AI to financial services. He is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and an honors graduate of the University of Chicago.
David Schwartz is Chief Technology Officer at Ripple. David is one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger. Prior to joining Ripple, David Schwartz was Chief Technical Officer for WebMaster Incorporated, a Santa Clara software developer. He developed encrypted cloud storage and enterprise messaging systems for organizations like CNN and the National Security Agency (NSA). Known as “JoelKatz,” he is a respected voice in the digital currency community.
Gary M. Shiffman is an applied micro-economist and business executive working to combat organized violence, corruption, and coercion. He received his BA from the University of Colorado in Psychology, his MA from Georgetown University in National Security Studies, and his PhD in Economics from George Mason University. His academic work is complimented by his global operational experiences, including his service as a U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer in the Pacific Fleet with tours in the Gulf War; as an official in the Pentagon and a Senior Executive in the US Department of Homeland Security; as a National Security Advisor in the US Senate; and as a business leader at a publicly-traded corporation. Currently, Dr. Shiffman serves as the CEO of Giant Oak, Inc., a machine learning and artificial intelligence company building software to support professionals in the fields of national security and financial crime. He dedicates time to Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, teaching the next generation of national security leaders. Dr. Shiffman recently published The Economics of Violence: How Behavioral Science Can Transform Our View of Crime, Insurgency, and Terrorism with Cambridge University Press in 2020.
Experienced Executive and Advisor managing technology risk as a transformational Chief Technology Officer (CTO), First-ever CTO of City of New York, Financial Services CTO, successful entrepreneur, an expert in technology risk and audit, regulatory technology, intelligent automation and data governance. Ms. Tantoco has an impressive track record in enterprise transformation at scale, as Senior Product Manager at Palm, CTO at Merrill Lynch and UBS, and holds four US patents on intelligent workflow. Appointed New York City’s first-ever Chief Technology Officer, Tantoco led the Mayor’s Office of Tech and Innovation and groundbreaking initiatives in smart city tech. Most recently, Tantoco co-founded Grasshopper Bank. raised $131M in seed and capital funds, building a digital bank from scratch. Tantoco is currently a Board Member and Advisor, consultant, and speaker on artificial intelligence, regulatory tech, and fintech.
Matt Van Buskirk is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Hummingbird Regtech. Hummingbird gives superpowers to the people fighting financial crime by reducing paperwork, providing smart, data-rich analytics, and enabling collaboration for compliance professionals and law enforcement agents. Before launching Hummingbird, Matt was the Director of Regulatory Affairs at Circle.com, an international consumer payments startup leveraging blockchain technology. He was previously a consultant with Treliant Risk Advisors, a Washington-based management consulting firm specializing in the financial services industry, and a regulator with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Thrift Supervision. His speaking credentials include the American Bankers Association Regulatory Compliance Conference, the Monetary Authority of Singapore's Fintech Festival, Money 2020, Finovate Europe, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Homeland Security's annual AML conference.
Douglas W. Arner is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law, RGC Senior Fellow in Digital Finance and Sustainable Development and Associate Director of the HKU-Standard Chartered Foundation FinTech Academy at the University of Hong Kong. In addition, he is Associate Dean (Taught Postgraduate and Development) of the Faculty of Law at HKU and co-founder of HKU’s Asian Institute of International Financial Law, as well as Faculty Director and co-founder of the LLM in Compliance and Regulation, the LLM in Corporate and Financial Law, the Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE), and the East Asian International Economic Law and Policy Programmes. Douglas is a Visiting Professor and Senior Visiting Fellow of Melbourne Law School of the University of Melbourne, a non-executive director of NASDAQ and Euronext listed Aptorum Group, an Advisory Board Member of the Global Impact FinTech (GIFT) Forum and of the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE), and co-founder and an executive board member of the Asia Pacific Structured Finance Association. In 2020 he was awarded an inaugural Hong Kong Research Grants Council Senior Fellowship to study the role of digital finance in financial inclusion and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Douglas has published eighteen books and more than 200 articles, chapters and reports on international financial law and regulation, including most recently Reconceptualising Global Finance and its Regulation (Cambridge 2016) (with Ross Buckley and Emilios Avgouleas) and The RegTech Book (Wiley 2019 (Janos Barberis and Ross Buckley). His recent papers are available on SSRN at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=524849 , where he is among the top 50 authors in the world by total downloads, as well as among the top 15 law authors. Douglas led the development of Introduction to FinTech – launched with edX in May 2018 and now with over 100,000 learners spanning almost every country in the world – and the foundation of the edx-HKU Online Professional Certificate in FinTech. Douglas was an inaugural member of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council (2013-2019) and Director of the Duke-HKU Asia America Institute in Transnational Law (2005-2016) and has served as a consultant with, among others, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, UN, APEC, Alliance for Financial Inclusion, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He has lectured, co-organised conferences and seminars and been involved with financial sector reform projects around the world. Douglas has been a visiting professor or fellow at Duke, Harvard, the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, IDC Herzliya, McGill, Melbourne, National University of Singapore, University of New South Wales, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Zurich, among others.
F. Christopher Calabia became Chief Executive of the DSFA on 1 October 2021. Chris joins the DFSA as an experienced supervisor with expertise in global standards and innovation. Prior to his appointment, Chris worked from 2017-2021 at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the Senior Advisor for Supervisory & Regulatory Policy in Financial Services for the Poor. He led the Foundation’s global initiatives to promote regulations and technology that expand the use of digital financial services among underserved women and the unbanked. Chris’s career in supervision began as a bank examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1993. Over the next 24 years, he held a number of supervisory and policy roles, including serving as the senior supervisor for one of the largest U.S. banks and later as the Senior Vice President of Regional, Community, Foreign Institution, and Consumer Compliance Supervision, overseeing 200 U.S. and foreign firms. Externally, Chris co-led the International Monetary Fund’s 2016 evaluation of the U.K.’s post-crisis approach to banking supervision on secondment. He was also seconded to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in Switzerland from 2003-2005 to support revisions to the global capital framework. Chris is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist, a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy (M.A.L.D.), and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Virginia (B.A.). More recently he earned certificates in Digital Money and Blockchain. He speaks fluent German, some Japanese and French, and is looking forward to learning Arabic.
I am a frontier digital economy and financial market leader, passionate about evidence-based policymaking, data that show insights and tell stories, and the use of technology and innovative processes to achieve social and economic equality. My specialization is the ideation of new processes and solutions to address complex problems, influencing the strategies of multiple stakeholders to enhance their synergies and impacts.
I have 15 years of high-impact engagement in over 60 countries in the fields of banking, payments, telecom, and technology, and extensive experience in public sector policy development, public-private partnerships, advocacy, empirical research, and academia. From central bank governors to the C-suite executives, I work with leaders who are committed to making our economies more sustainable and equitable, and our societies more inclusive. With them, and with teams of economists, researchers, product managers, designers, data scientists, coders, business strategists, and policy and regulatory experts from around the world, I craft and deploy smart, transformative solutions to accelerate change.
I have undertaken engagements with clients such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Better Than Cash Alliance, the New York State Department of Financial Services, Facebook, Mastercard, Visa, the World Bank, USAID, the Bank for International Settlements, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), fintech startups, and many central banks and finance ministries from over 120 countries. Former employers include the GSMA, the World Bank, the United Nations, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), and the consulting firm BFA Global. For two years I taught a course on "Digital Approaches to Development" at the Fletcher School, Tufts University.
As an independent consultant, I am currently leading the digital transformation of the New York State Department of Financial Services, while I collaborate as a senior fellow with the University of Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance developing their new SupTech workstream. I also lead the RegTech for Regulators Accelerator (R2A) - which I founded in 2016. R2A is a multimillion, multiyear programme that partners with global standard-setting bodies, financial sector authorities, and vendors across the globe harnessing new technologies and data science to reengineer market supervision, regulation and policy analysis.
I hold a PhD in Law & Economics, and am fluent in English, French, Italian, and Spanish.
Mr Hubert Danso, CEO and Chairman: Africa investor (Ai), Chairman: AiSWPFF, Chairman, African Union Continental Business Network (CBN), African Green Infrastructure Investment Bank Advisory Board (AfGIIB).
Mr Danso is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Africa investor (Ai) Group – a pan African Infrastructure Investment Holding Company for institutional investors. He also serves as the Chairman of the CFA New York Society Global Asset Owners’ Advisory Council, the Chairman of the African Sovereign Wealth & Pension Fund Leaders Forum (AiSWPFF), and is the current Chair of The African Union Development Agency’s (AUDA) Heads of State Continental Business Network (CBN).
Mr Danso is also the Chair of the African Green Infrastructure Investment Bank Advisory Board (AfGIIB) and a member of HRH The Prince of Wales A4S Advisory Board.
Mr Danso Chairs Ai’s AfricaPLC e-Trade and Fintech platform, leads Ai’s Pension and Sovereign Wealth Infrastructure Co-Investment Platform and also advises institutional investors, governments and development finance institutions on major infrastructure and private equity investments in Africa.
Mr Danso was instrumental in establishing the NEPAD-AUDA 5% Agenda Institutional Infrastructure Investment Initiative, between African Heads of State and Africa Pension and Sovereign Wealth Fund leaders, to invest 5% of Assets Under Management (AUM), to investable African infrastructure investment projects, developed through Institutional Investor-Public Partnerships (IIPP's) - as successfully employed by pension fund infrastructure investors from Canada and Australia.
Lesly Goh (LinkedIn Profile), transitioned to World Bank Senior Technology Advisor after serving as the Chief Technology Officer role. She is a Fellow at Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) Judge Business School and Senior Fellow at National University of Singapore (NUS) Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Lesly is appointed as Professor of Practice by ZheJiang International Business School (ZIBS). Her expertise is in leveraging emerging technology to deliver agile solutions for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at the intersection of technology and policy frameworks. For almost 30 years, her experience on FinTech, AgTech, RegTech, GovTech spans across both the private and public sectors. She focused extensively on the practical application and scaling tech innovation with Blockchain, AI, IoT, 5G and Edge Computing. Examples of Disruptive Technology to address Development challenges:
She served as the Senior Technology Advisor for the following Development initiatives:
Lesly’s experience in the private sector covers a broad spectrum ranging from Capital Markets, Retail Banking, Commercial Banking, Asset Management, Development Banks and Financial Data Providers. She is a member of the Ethics Committee of AFTECH (self-regulatory organization) for Indonesia Financial Authority (OJK).
She is on the Advisory Board for Harvard College Project for Asa and International Relations (HPAIR) with the mission to connect the top leaders of today and tomorrow in a dynamic forum of exchange. Lesly was a mentor/advisor for several FinTech startups in Asia and a Fellow at Singapore University of Social Sciences. Lesly has been an advocate for Women in Technologies and academia for students in STEM such as DigiGirlz from her background in Computer Engineering and Mathematics. She was also a key contributor for Cloud Platform in the working group with IFC and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for the ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN initiative). Lesly is a strong supporter of Singapore Smart Nation and serves as Board Member of Singapore GovTech.
Lesly is a certified Data Architect and worked on many high-profile Data and AI initiatives in highly regulated industries such as Financial Services, Healthcare/Life Sciences and Smart Cities. For almost 30 years, she specialized in Advanced Analytics such as BI/Analytics, Data Mining, Data Visualization, Machine Learning, Pattern Matching, Forecasting model, and Semantic Analysis. She brings a balance of technology specialty and business strategy from the Management Consulting background at Deloitte.
Paula Hunter is the Executive Director for the Mojaloop Foundation. Paula manages the business affairs of the Mojaloop Foundation with responsibility for strategic planning and direction, membership development, budgeting, evangelism for the Foundation and its mission, and outreach to strategic partners. She has almost two decades of executive technology association management experience beginning in 1999 when, while working for Compaq, she was a founding board member for the ASP Industry Consortium. Ms. Hunter recently served as Executive Director of the NFC Forum, a nonprofit standards organization. Her experience also includes key roles in several technology companies, ranging from small start-ups to large multi-national corporations.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian is President and CEO of Women’s World Banking, the global nonprofit devoted to giving more low-income women access to the financial tools and resources they need to achieve security and prosperity. Ms. Iskenderian has led the Women’s World Banking global team, based in New York, since 2006 and also serves on the Investment Committees of its two impact investment funds.
Previously, Ms. Iskenderian worked at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank, and the investment bank Lehman Brothers. Ms. Iskenderian is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a member of the Women’s Forum of New York and the UN’s Business and Sustainable Development Commission.
Ms. Iskenderian holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in International Economics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Her upcoming book, There’s Nothing Micro About a Billion Women: Making Finance Work for Women” will be published by MIT Press in March 2022.
Sopnendu Mohanty is the Chief Fintech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Hejoined MAS in August 2015 and is responsible for creating development strategies, public infrastructure and regulatory policies around technology innovation. Since 2015, Singapore has become one of the top global fintech hubs covering a wide range of financial asset classes including adjacent technology innovations in areas such as insurance, digital assets, blockchain, artificial intelligence, reg-tech and green-finance.
Before joining MAS, Sopnendu spent more than 20 years in various leadership roles in technology, finance and innovation with most of his career with Citigroup. Sopnendu is a member of multiple advisory committees of multilateral global agencies, associations, universities, and governments. He is an avid speaker, global thought leader in FinTech, and advocate of accelerated transformation to a digital economy for solving financial inclusion and sustainability challenges.
Laura Clavijo is the Head of Innovation at Colombia’s Financial Superintendency and leader of an encompassing initiative to foster technological innovation in the financial sector, including the implementation of the first regulatory sandbox in the Latin American region. Before undertaking this innovation challenge, she has worked for almost a decade with government and multilateral agencies (IDB and IMF) in research and implementation of public policies for financial sector development. Laura holds a Masters and BA in Economics from the Universidad de los Andes and a Master in Public Administration from Columbia University in New York. More recently, Laura has collaborated as guest speaker for University of Cambridge's Online Fintech Course.
Anju Patwardhan is Managing Partner at CreditEase Fintech VC Fund. Prior to this, Anju worked in banking for over two decades with Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) in global and regional leadership roles.
Anju is a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) fintech steering committee, Fintech Faculty at Singularity University, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Banking and Finance. She serves on several international boards including the Gulf International Bank (Saudi Arabia), University of the Future (India), OCBC Bank’s Digital Advisory Council (Singapore), board nominee of the PIF (Saudi Arabia), and various fintech companies in the US/UK.
She was a 2016 Fulbright Fellow & Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, and Distinguished Careers Institute Fellow at Stanford in 2017 and 2018. While at Stanford, she published papers on the use of technology to support financial inclusion and also collaborated on launching a fintech course for the MBA students.
She was also on the advisory board of the Government of Estonia’s e-Residency program. She was also an Innovation Fellow at the National University of Singapore, and Fintech Industry expert at UC Berkeley.
She is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Management and has additional qualifications in board directorship, risk management and art appreciation.
Dr. Daniel Schydlowsky served as Superintendent of Banking, Insurance and Private Pension Fund Administrators of Peru (SBS), August, 2011 - November, 2015. He concurrently served as President of the Association of Bank Supervisors of the Americas (ASBA), as Chairman of Governing Council of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), as Member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), and as Vice President of the Association of Insurance Supervisors of Latin America (ASSAL). In October, 2015, he was awarded the inaugural Edward W. Claugus Award for Excellence in Regulation of Micro Finance.
From 2001 to 2006, Dr. Schydlowsky served in the administration of President Alejandro Toledo as Presidential Counselor for Economic and Financial Affairs, as President of Peru´s Development Finance Corporation, COFIDE, as member of the board of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru, and of the Andean Development Corporation. He also served as Vice President of The Latin American Association of Development Finance Institutions, ALIDE.
Dr. Schydlowsky has had a long and distinguished academic career. After leaving government, he has served for two years as Senior Program Fellow, Corporate Responsibility Initiative, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. During 2010, he was Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor in Latin American Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and concurrently Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government of the Harvard Kennedy School. He was previously Professor of Economics at Boston University (1972-1990) and at The American University in Washington D.C. (1990-2001) and also a Visiting Scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at Tel Aviv University and at the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzlia. He also continues to be an Associate of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University and a Distinguished Scholar at Boston University´s Global Development Policy Center.
Since leaving government, he has served as consultant to the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Inter-American Development Bank on matters of financial inclusion and digital finance. In earlier years, he has been a consultant to different international organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the World Bank, UNDP and USAID. He has worked in most Latin American countries as well as in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Romania and South Africa.
He has published eight books and ninety-three professional articles on economic issues in numerous professional journals. Professor Schydlowsky holds a BA and MA in Economics and an LLB from San Marcos University, Peru, and an MA and PhD in Economics from Harvard. He was awarded a Doctorate honoris causa by San Marcos University, Peru, in November, 2015.
Mr. Trojan is ‘Global Advisor to the Digital Economy’ and is an international disruptive technology and commercial/SME/consumer lending expert, thought leader and speaker. He is Founder and CEO of Token Insights and Financial Services Insights, his advisory firms that specialize in global strategy, FinTech, RegTech, and regulatory/legislative affairs, including secured transaction reform. From 2012-2017, Mr. Trojan was the CEO of the Commercial Finance Association (CFA) now SFNet, the global trade organization representing 250+ banks and finance companies in the asset-based lending, supply chain finance, trade finance, and factoring business. CFA members represented approximately $600 Billion in this type of financing each year.
In addition to his work as Sherpa/Co-Sherpa on various APEC/ABAC regional work streams, Mr. Trojan also serves as official Observer on several UN-aligned Working Groups (Secured Transactions, MSME Finance, Digital Assets, Factoring, and Warehouse Receipts), was appointed to advise the US Secretary of Commerce on its Trade Finance Advisory Council, and engages regularly with the international community on capacity building. He has also mentored several FinTech accelerators including The Venture Center and Iconiq Labs and continues active engagement in the FinTech/RegTech start-up community.
Previously, Mr. Trojan held various senior positions at CIT, a global $65+ billion secured/asset-based lending, factoring and equipment leasing company, including chief of staff and senior operations advisor to the Vice Chairman.
Anna is the Senior Program Officer for Regulatory and Consumer Protection Technologies at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Her role is to leverage technology to enable financial regulators in managing the risks posed by emerging financial services models without impeding the innovation required to drive financial inclusion. Anna has 20 years’ experience in public policy with an expertise in financial regulation, digital financial services and consumer protection. In her most recent senior leadership role, Anna built the innovation unit at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. This included developing the world’s first ‘Regulatory Sandbox’, creating an international network of financial regulators to promote pro-innovation regulation (the Global Financial Innovation Network) and developing policy on issues like cloud computing, machine learning and crypto assets. Anna was the accountable executive for FCDO-funded technical assistance programs to Nigeria and was a member of UK Financial Services Investment Board and Fintech Delivery Board. This role builds on a broad career across a range of public sector organizations, including the UK Government, European Commission and the Scottish Parliament. Anna has a Batchelor’s Degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) from the University of Stirling.
Deborah Young is the founding CEO of The RegTech Association, a global non-profit industry member body focussed on accelerating adoption of RegTech solutions and creating a global centre of excellence. Since helping to establish the Association in 2017, she has led the growth to 180 organisations including 130 RegTech firms. The cohort also includes top tier banks, global technology companies and consulting firms. She has advocated for the industry with Government, regulators, investors and trade agencies. Deborah has led the recognition of Australia as the third highest concentration of RegTech producers in the world and is a sought after advisor on the global RegTech industry.
Deborah sits on the Australian Federal Government FinTech Advisory Committee, NSW Government ICT Procurement Task Force, The National Blockchain Roadmap RegTech Committee and is a member of ASIC’s Digital Committee & UTS Business School Women’s MBA Network Committee and a regular speaker, presenter and designer of RegTech programs for the association and its partners and engages with regulators globally.
Deborah is an accomplished chief executive, non-executive director, mentor and strategic business consultant. She has over 20 years' experience as a senior executive across financial services, including investment banking, private equity, venture capital, superannuation and insurance spectrums. Deborah holds an Executive MBA (Global) from UTS Business School and was named as one of the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence in 2019 for Innovation.
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