Ben Soccorsy | Founder, Bolinas Advisors
Ben Soccorsy is the Founder of Bolinas Advisors and a senior advisor to BCG and Nyca Partners. A banking, payments, and fintech executive with more than two decades of experience, he has led and scaled open banking, digital payments, and data-access businesses at Mastercard and Wells Fargo. Ben advises banks, technology platforms, and fintech innovators on open finance and digital banking strategy, and supports growth across fintech ecosystems through his advisory roles. He previously served as Executive Vice President at Mastercard and as SVP and Head of Digital Payments and Open Banking at Wells Fargo, where he helped shape the modern U.S. open banking landscape.
Breno Braga | Senior Fellow, The Urban Institute
Breno Braga is a Senior Fellow and economist at the Urban Institute, where he leads research on household financial well-being and consumer debt. He directs the Debt in America project and co-created the American Affordability Tracker, national data platforms that help policymakers and industry better understand financial stress and inequality. His work integrates real-time data and policy analysis to examine how financial systems and regulation shape economic opportunity for American families.
Brian W. Jones | President, Merrick Bank
Brian W. Jones is President of Merrick Bank, where he oversees the bank’s operations, strategy, and risk management. Merrick Bank is a leading credit card issuer and merchant acquirer in the United States, serving millions of cardholders and extending billions in credit nationwide. Brian joined Merrick Bank in 2005 and previously served as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Prior to Merrick, he held leadership roles in financial services and technology organizations, including Credit Suisse and Zions Bancorporation. Brian holds a B.S. in Finance and a J.D. from the University of Utah, as well as an LL.M. from Baylor University.
Jonah Crane | Stripe, Head of Global Regulatory and Policy Development
Jonah Crane is a regulatory and public policy executive focused on building stable regulatory infrastructure to underpin innovation, and developing public policy strategy that reflects business strategy. Prior to joining Stripe, Jonah was a partner at Klaros Group, where he helped clients develop business strategies, partnerships, and governance frameworks to achieve their strategic goals and meet regulatory expectations. Jonah is an Advisory Board member at the Digital Dollar Project, and participates in the Bretton Woods Committee’s working groups on stablecoins and tokenization. He also serves as Regulator in Residence at the Fintech Innovation Lab in New York City and is a mentor at Queen City Fintech. Jonah previously served as a Senior Advisor and Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Treasury Department, policy advisor to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, and M&A lawyer at Milbank LLP in New York City.
Jordan Wright | Atomic, CEO & Co-Founder
Jordan Wright, serial fintech entrepreneur and CEO and Co-founder of Atomic.
Kent Landvatter | FinWise Bank, Executive Chairman
Kent Landvatter is the Executive Chairman at FinWise Bank. He leads a team of professionals who dedicate themselves to serving the banks’ mission of financial inclusion for all. A veteran of the financial services industry with a career spanning over four decades, Kent joined FinWise Bank in 2010. Previously, he presided over three industrial banks, two of which were de novos including World FinancialCapital Bank (nowComenityCapital Bank) and Goldman Sachs Bank USA. Kent earned his MBA from the University of Utah.
Matt Bisanz | Mayer Brown, Partner
Matt Bisanz is a bank regulatory partner in Mayer Brown’s Washington, DC office. He counsel fintechs and innovators on all major aspects of the operations of an insured depository institution, its affiliates, and its partners. He also advises clients on novel bank charters, new bank product design, Dodd-Frank Act and other prudential banking compliance issues, and balance sheet optimization transactions. Further, he has experience counseling clients on various insolvency, derivatives, and regulatory reporting issues and is a certified public accountant.
Paul LaRusso | Akoya, CEO
Paul LaRusso is the CEO of Akoya, a technology platform that helps financial institutions and fintechs give consumers greater control over their financial data. Founded to accelerate secure, reliable data access across the financial services industry, Akoya enables connections that protect privacy, strengthen security, and build trust at scale. Before joining Akoya, Paul spent more than a decade at JPMorgan Chase, where he oversaw the firm’s open banking strategy and built the infrastructure enabling millions of customers to share their data securely. In addition, Paul helped shape industry-wide standards as Board Co-Chair of the Financial Data Exchange (FDX). He holds an MBA from Georgetown University and a BA from Bucknell University.
Prashant Fuloria | Fundbox, CEO
Prashant Fuloria, CEO of Fundbox, has brought product and technology leadership to innovative teams and businesses for over 25 years. As an early member of Google's product management team, Prashant helped build Google AdWords, established the company’s first global payment network, and led all product initiatives across APAC. He then went on to become an early product leader at Facebook, where he spearheaded monetization initiatives across advertising and commerce. He later led the engineering and product teams at Flurry, the largest mobile analytics platform of its time, and also served as the SVP of Ads & Data at Yahoo. Prashant holds a PhD and MA in Business, a PhD Minor in Operations Research, and an MS in Statistics, all from Stanford University. He earned a BTech from IIT Delhi, where he was awarded the President’s Gold Medal.
Renaud Laplanche | Upgrade, CEO & Co-Founder
Renaud is the co-founder and CEO of Upgrade, Inc., a fintech company offering mobile banking and responsible credit to everyday consumers. Under his leadership, Upgrade has delivered over $42 billion in affordable credit to 7.5 million customers in just over 6 years and kept bringing product innovation to market, with new product offerings in BNPL, credit card, mobile banking, home improvement financing, personal loans and auto finance. Upgrade was ranked the fastest growing company in the Americas by the Financial Times in 2021 and is one of the most valuable private US fintech companies with a valuation that reached $7.3 billion in its latest financing round.
Rhett Roberts | LoanPro, CEO & Co-Founder
Rhett Roberts is the Co-Founder and CEO of LoanPro. As a serial entrepreneur with a Bachelor of Science in Investment Finance, he has a deep understanding of the needs of fintechs, banks, credit unions, and any lender or credit provider. With over 20 years of experience in financial services, building LoanPro has been the primary professional passion of his life. Since founding the company with his brothers, the platform is trusted by over 600 customers including Best, Egg, SoFi, Intuit, and others. Today, LoanPro manages more than $58B in loans, processing $2B+ in payments monthly. Rhett also serves as a board member of the Fintech Committee at the University of Utah.
Sima Ghandi | CFES, Co-Founder
Sima J. Gandhi is a seasoned tech executive and serial entrepreneur with nearly 20 years of experience launching disruptive products and building category-defining companies. Sima is one of the few executives with operating expertise and policy experience -- enabling her to bring unique perspectives to companies operating in heavily regulated industries. She is currently the President and founder of Alton Strategies, a boutique policy and business advisory firm that advises companies on regulatory, policy, go-to-market, and m&a strategies. She is also a Senior Advisor at FS Vector, where she founded the Coalition for Financial Ecosystem Standards. Sima holds a JD and LLM in tax law from New York University. She graduated from Stanford University with a BS in engineering and a BA with honors in Science, Tech, and Society.