Session Title: A Candid Discussion With Fintech's Leading Voices
Thursday, February 5th
2:30 pm – 3:10 pm
Location: Grand Ballroom

Alex Johnson is the founder of Fintech Takes, a media brand focused on the intersection of financial services, technology, and public policy. In his 2x weekly newsletter and weekly podcast, Alex explores the ideas and companies changing the way that money works, with plenty of analogies and pop culture references along the way!

Prior to founding Fintech Takes, Alex spent 20+ years in various marketing, strategy, and market research roles at companies, including Cornerstone Advisors, FICO, Mercator Advisory Group, and Zoot Enterprises. He is a recognized expert in fintech and his analysis has been featured in American Banker, The Wall Street Journal, and NBC Nightly News.

Alex Lives in Montana and spends his spare time hiking and chasing his young children around.

Session Title: CFPB Section 1033 Rulemaking and the Conflicting Positions Taken by Fintechs and Traditional Banks
Wednesday, February 4th
2:40 pm – 3:40 pm
Location: TBD

Session Title: CFPB Section 1033 Rulemaking and the Conflicting Positions Taken by Fintechs and Traditional Banks

Wednesday, February 4^th

2:40 pm – 3:40 pm

Location: TBD

Ben Soccorsy is a banking, payments, and fintech executive with more than two decades of leadership experience across Mastercard and Wells Fargo, where he built and scaled open banking, digital payments, consumer lending, and data-access businesses. He is the founder of Bolinas Advisors, where he advises banks, technology platforms, and fintech innovators—including Stripe, Visa, and Early Warning—on open finance, payments, and digital banking strategy. As an LP Advisor at Nyca Partners, Ben supports portfolio companies in accelerating growth with financial institutions. Prior to Bolinas Advisors, Ben served as Executive Vice President at Mastercard, leading global teams across its open banking divisions—Finicity in the U.S. and Aiia in Europe—with responsibility for strategy, data access, sales, and strategic partnerships. Before Mastercard, Ben was SVP and Head of Digital Payments and Open Banking at Wells Fargo, where he helped establish the modern U.S. open banking ecosystem. He co-founded and co-chaired the Financial Data Exchange (FDX) board, and represented the bank on the board of Akoya. He also led Wells Fargo’s foundational work on Zelle, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and real-time payments, and served in multiple industry leadership roles, including the Zelle Advisory Board.

Session Title: Data Innovation for Financial Well-Being: Insights from Consumers, Credit Markets, and Fintech Adoption

Wednesday, February 4^th

1:40 pm – 2:10 pm

Location: Auditorium

Breno Braga is a Senior Fellow and economist at the Urban Institute, where he directs major research initiatives on household financial well-being and consumer debt. He leads the Debt in America project and co-created the American Affordability Tracker, two national data platforms that help policymakers, journalists, and industry identify emerging financial stress and inequality. His work combines real-time data and policy analysis to uncover how financial systems, regulations, and market design shape economic opportunity for American families.

Session Title: Building Sustainable Partnerships in the New Era of BaaS

Thursday, February 5^th

1:45 pm – 2:30 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Brian Enneking is Chief Operating Officer at First Electronic Bank, a Utah industrial Bank dedicated to building a financial services industry that is inclusive and effective for the diverse range of consumers, businesses, and partners that rely on it. Brian has spent more than 30 years in the financial services industry, holding a wide variety of positions, including Head of Risk and Chief Credit Officer for Orchard Bank, President of Lending at Genesis Financial Services, head of Marketing and Consumer Experience at Encore Capital Group, and CEO of Jump Start Finance, a finance company dedicated to making childcare accessible and affordable to all families.

Session Title: Building Sustainable Partnerships in the New Era of BaaS

Thursday, February 5^th

1:45 pm – 2:30 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Brian W. Jones is President at Merrick Bank. He is also Head of Risk & Regulatory and a member of the Executive Council for Merrick Bank Corporation’s parent company, CardWorks, Inc.

Since its founding in 1997 as an FDIC-insured Utah Industrial Loan Bank, Merrick Bank is now recognized as a top-15 credit card issuer and top-15 merchant acquirer in the U.S., serving nearly 3 million cardholders and extending nearly $6 billion in credit; and a leading consumer finance provider to marine, RV, powersports, and horse trailer dealers throughout the country.

As President, Brian is responsible for all aspects of Merrick Bank’s operations and procedures and the overall direction and administration of its programs, products, and services, including the bank’s financial performance, credit quality, business development, regulatory compliance, risk management, and operations.

Brian has been with Merrick Bank since 2005 as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Prior to Merrick, he held various leadership and management positions at public and private financial services and technology companies including Credit Suisse and Zions Bancorporation.

Brian holds both a B.S. in Finance and a J.D. from the University of Utah, and an LL.M in Litigation Management from Baylor University.

Session Title: Generative AI in Fraud Prevention: What's Needed Today

Wednesday, February 4^th

1:10 pm – 2:00 pm

Location: TBD

Corentin Claisse is a go-to-market specialist for Fraud and Identity solutions at Plaid, In his role, he works with fintechs, financial institutions, and enterprise partners to help them manage risk, reduce fraud, and enable trusted digital experiences.

Corentin brings a wealth of experience of helping complex institutions adopt new technology to manage risk and grow their businesses. Most recently, he was an Enterprise Account Manager at Riskified, where he helped large companies improve their risk management and fight fraud. Prior, Corentin led partnerships at fintech companies like Public.com and PayPal’s Honey.

Session Title: What’s Next in Open Banking?

Thursday, February 5^th

11:55 am – 12:35 pm

Location: Main Stage

Dan Murphy is the Founder of Sunset Park Advisory. Previously, he was the Open Banking Program Manager at the CFPB, where he played a key role in the 1033 rulemaking. Prior to his role at the CFPB, Dan was the Policy Manager at the Financial Health Network, where he focused on consumer data rights, public benefits delivery, and other financial health issues.

Session Title: Charters - What's Next?

Thursday, February 5^th

4:00 pm – 4:40 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

As the Senior Vice President, Special Advisor NA for Visa Inc., Deirdre Cohen supports the development and delivery of a robust BIN sponsor portfolio and alternative licensing paths for the North America market.

Cohen joined Visa in 2016 as the Senior Vice President, Head of NA Acquiring, leading a team of Account Executives supporting Visa’s acquirer partners. She was responsible for business development for Acquirer Solutions and the Global Acquiring Center of Excellence. For the past two years, she focused on developing and operationalizing a servicing model supporting acquirers, processors, and merchants globally. Recently, she transitioned to her current role, focusing on BIN Sponsorship and alternative licensing.

Before joining Visa, Cohen had over 20 years of experience in financial services, with more than 15 years in the acquiring industry at Wells Fargo Bank, where she was a Senior Vice President. Her roles included financial operations, gateway management, and international acquiring, including establishing Wells Fargo’s Visa acquiring license in Canada. Her focus was on business management, strategy, and development of Wells Fargo’s acquiring sponsorship and Payment Facilitator/Service Provider businesses.

Cohen is active with the Electronic Transaction Association (ETA) and represented Visa as the ex-officio member of the ETA Board.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from Smith College and an MBA from San Diego State University. Actively involved in non-profit organizations focused on children and education, she has served on the board of Kids’ Country and mentored high school students for Build.org. Currently, she is a member of the Bay Area Board for Generation Citizen. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her three children, practicing her Italian language skills, and hiking the Bay Area hills.

Session Title: Charters – What’s Next?

Thursday, February 5th

4:10 pm – 4:40 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Erik Rettig leads Policy & Regulatory Affairs at Intuit, where he focuses on shaping policy frameworks that support fintech innovation, digital financial services, and access to capital for entrepreneurs. Prior to Intuit, Erik worked at Small Business Majority, advancing policy initiatives to expand access to financial services and economic opportunity for small firms. Earlier in his career, he held roles on political campaigns and Capitol Hill. Erik serves on Federal Reserve Board's Business and Consumer Payments Advisory Council, the Advisory Council for the Center for American Entrepreneurship, and is an Advisory Board Member of the NextGen Chamber of Commerce.

Session Title: What Makes a Successful Bank-Fintech Partnership in the New World of BaaS?

Wednesday, February 4th

1:10 pm – 2:00 pm

Location: TBD

Esty Scheiner is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Shiboleth.ai, a Y Combinator–backed company transforming consumer compliance through artificial intelligence. Esty leads Shiboleth’s work helping leading technology-focused banks and fintech’s use AI to automate and strengthen compliance. A former Security Engineer at Invoca and a certified CISSP and OSCP, Esty brings deep expertise in cybersecurity, compliance, and regulatory technology. She began her career in ethical hacking and, by the age of nineteen, was leading a six-person R&D team. Today, Esty works with financial institutions and regulators to advance the responsible use of AI in compliance, governance, and oversight.

Session Title: What’s Next in Open Banking?

Thursday, February 5^th

11:55 am – 12:35 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Ethan Geiling leads Strategic Financial Institution Partnerships for Plaid, the leading financial data network. Ethan’s team works with financial institutions to make data sharing reliable, secure, and valuable for everyone in the digital financial ecosystem. Before Plaid, Ethan worked at Chase across strategy, product, and partnerships teams within the consumer and community banking division. Ethan began his career at Prosperity Now, a nonprofit focused on improving the financial health of Americans.

Ethan holds an MBA from Yale School of Management and a Bachelor’s Degree from Northwestern University. He is based in New York City.

Session Title: Systemic Impact of the GENIUS Act

Thursday, February 5^th

4:40 pm – 5:05 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Ethan is a seasoned financial services advisor who helps clients navigate the complexities of launching and scaling innovative financial products. At FS Vector, he leads and coordinates bank–fintech partnership programs, working closely with state and federally chartered banks, fintechs, digital asset companies, technology providers, and other ecosystem partners. He brings deep expertise in supporting innovators from concept to launch, providing end-to-end leadership across regulatory and compliance strategy, product design, and operational readiness.

Prior to joining FS Vector, Ethan was a Manager in the Advisory practice at BDO USA, where he led anti-money laundering program assessments and consultations on unique compliance issues related to fintech partnerships. Earlier in his career, he was a member of the Financial Crimes Regulatory Compliance group at HSBC Bank USA.

Ethan received a B.A. in Political Science and an M.B.A. from the University of Delaware, and a J. D. from the Delaware Law School of Widener University.

Session Title: The Future of Instant Payments: How FedNow, RTP, and Stablecoins Are Reshaping Finance

Thursday, February 5^th

11:15 am – 11:55 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

Flavia Naves is a distinguished legal and compliance executive who has played a pivotal role in shaping the growth and innovation of financial services companies at every stage of development. Blending strategic insight with operational expertise, she is recognized for her entrepreneurial mindset, ability to anticipate regulatory shifts, and proven track record of driving businesses forward in highly complex markets. Widely connected across the banking, money transmission, and payments sectors, Flavia is a trusted advisor to industry leaders and a respected voice before state and federal regulators. Currently Of Counsel at Hathaway & Kunz in Cheyenne, Flavia advises companies on corporate strategy, licensing, and regulatory compliance, while also serving as a Commissioner on Wyoming’s Stable Token Commission—an appointment that underscores her leadership at the forefront of financial innovation. Her career includes senior leadership positions at global companies such as Circle, Intuit, and Worldpay, where she helped advance transformative initiatives in fintech and payments. Flavia earned her law degree from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais and further specialized with a certificate in U.S. legal studies from Widener University Commonwealth Law School.

Session Title: What's Next in Open Banking?

Thursday, February 5^th

11:55 am – 12:35 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Jane Barratt is Chief Advocacy Officer and Head of Global Public Policy at MX. Jane serves as FDX Board Co-Chair and has been a member of the FDX Board of Directors since 2021. She is a personal finance expert and champion of financial strength. In her role, Jane collaborates with financial institutions, regulatory bodies, policymakers and the financial ecosystem to ensure people have better financial outcomes through permissioned and secure data-driven innovation. She is a financial educator through LinkedIn Learning. Prior to MX, Jane was CEO of GoldBean, an education first investment advisory platform; and spent two decades driving growth for Fortune 500 companies.

Session Title: Heterogeneity and Optimal Loan Pricing

Wednesday, February 4^th

1:10 pm – 1:40 pm

Location: Auditorium

Jānis Skrastiņš is an Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business. He is an empirical financial economist whose research examines how contractual, organizational, technological, and institutional designs shape credit markets and, in turn, how credit markets affect real economic outcomes. His work explores three core dimensions: how access to credit influences labor mobility, fertility, and mortality; how contract and organizational design affect credit allocation and capital distribution; and how financial technologies such as machine learning, instant payments, and open banking transform inclusion and competition. A secondary strand of his research investigates the role of courts and unemployment insurance in shaping resilience and risk-taking. His studies have been published in leading journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Financial Studies, and Management Science.

Session Title: Payment Rails & Commerce are Evolving: Implications for Banks & Fintechs

Wednesday, February 4^th

3:40 pm -4:30 pm

Location: TBD

Jason is a leading member of KPMG's Fintech practice. He has assisted a number of fintech companies in payments, lending, and digital assets with complex M&A and IPO transactions. He has also led several projects involving financial reporting and technical accounting matters.

Session Title: The Future of Instant Payments: How FedNow, RTP, and Stablecoins Are Reshaping Finance

Thursday, February 5^th

11:15 am – 11:55 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

Jason is the CEO of Alloy Labs, a consortium of community and midsize banks working together to operationalize innovation through startup partnerships and strategic investments. He co-hosts Breaking Banks, the largest fintech podcast in the world. Jason is a frequent speaker on financial innovation, regulation and compliance as competitive advantage. He served on the fintech advisory boards for the City of Chicago, the AARP, the Financial Health Network Innovation Lab, and the SXSW Accelerator. Jason teaches at the Pacific Coast Banking School, University of Wisconsin Graduate School of Banking, the Digital Banking School at the University of Wisconsin and Graduate School of Banking at Louisiana State University.

Session Title: Systemic Impact of the GENIUS Act

Thursday, February 5th

4:40 pm – 5:10 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Jess Cheng is a Chambers-ranked partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises fintech companies on sophisticated regulatory, transactional, and product development projects involving payments innovation.  Jess has deep experience crafting business-minded legal solutions to novel and complex issues at the intersection of technology and financial regulation, including from her previous role as deputy general counsel at enterprise crypto company Ripple.  Her prior experience also includes serving as senior counsel at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, where she led the drafting of modernized payments regulations and interagency policymaking on digital assets and stablecoins, and as an officer at the New York Fed, a provider of central bank payment services and master accounts.

Jess is a member of the American Law Institute. She is also an active member of the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section and serves as the Chair of the Tokenized Payment Instruments Task Force. 

Jess holds a BA in economics from Yale University and a JD from Columbia Law School.

Session Title: Embedded Everywhere: How Small Business Lending Is Disappearing Into Software

Thursday, February 5^th

3:30 pm – 4:00 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

John leads partnerships at EverCommerce for two of its brands; Invoice Simple and Joist. He's launched partnership strategies and teams previously at MoveMate, Communitech, and Air Canada. John holds a bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from University of Waterloo and an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Session Title: What's Next in Open Banking?

Thursday, February 5^th

11:55 am – 12:35 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

John Pitts is the Vice President of Government Relations, Public Affairs, and Social Impact at Affirm. John advocates for financial services based on consumer-first principles to deliver financial products that improve lives. He has consulted on financial services and consumer protection laws and regulations in the United States, Canada, the UK, the European Union, and Australia.

Before joining Affirm, John was Global Head of Policy at Plaid, a financial data company, where he was a leading expert on Open Banking. Prior to Plaid, John served as the Deputy Assistant Director for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. John started his career as an attorney with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.

Session Title: Is Agentic AI the Next Leap Forward for Financial Services?

Thursday, February 5^th

9:35 am – 10:15 am

 Location: Grand Ballroom

John is the Founder and CEO of Spring Labs, the first fully AI-first conversation intelligence & automation platform for financial institutions. Spring Labs works with leading banks, sponsor banks, and fintechs to help them better understand what their customers are telling them. The company also hosts the annual AI-Native Banking and Fintech Conference in Salt Lake City.

Before Spring Labs, John spent his career building other tech-forward consumer fintechs, first as an early employee and Head of Analytics at Enova (NYSE: CSH), and later as the co-founder and Chief Risk Officer at Avant. He has been recognized for his pioneering work in financial technology by inclusion in Inc’s 30 Under 30 and Crain’s 40 Under 40 lists.

Session Title: Charters - What's Next?

Thursday, February 5th

4:00 pm – 4:40 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Jon Auxier is the Chief Banking Officer at Mercury, where he leads the company’s lending business and banking strategy. Jon will also serve as the CEO and President of Mercury Bank (pending regulatory approval).

Prior to joining Mercury, Jon held several key leadership positions at SoFi Technologies, including CFO of SoFi Bank and Corporate Treasurer. In these roles, he served as a primary architect for the company’s transition from a scaled fintech lender to a publicly traded, chartered financial institution. He was instrumental in maturing the firm’s financial infrastructure, which has enabled the bank to scale beyond $40 billion in assets since its 2022 launch.

Throughout his earlier career at Green Dot, Goldman Sachs, and Ernst & Young, Jon led treasury and finance initiatives that strengthened financial discipline and enabled significant growth across fintech and traditional financial services environments. He is recognized for his ability to bridge technological innovation with regulatory rigor to build durable, high-growth financial institutions. Jon holds a B.S. in Economics from the University of Utah.

Session Title: Charters – What’s Next?

Thursday, February 5th

4:10 pm – 4:40 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

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 andtokenization. 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.

Session Title: Payment Rails & Commerce are Evolving: Implications for Banks & Fintechs

Wednesday, February 4^th

3:40 pm – 4:30 pm

Location: TBD

Joyce Zhang Gray leads Commercial Fintech Growth in North America at Visa, driving net new revenue for Visa among its highest-growth partner segment. She is the founder and former CEO of Alariss Global, a fintech that served clients on every continent with teams across North America, Asia, and Europe. She began her career working for the Federal Reserve during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, has worked in China, Singapore, Kenya, and Bhutan, and was the first employee of Human Interest, a fintech unicorn. She is a Term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the board of the Harvard Alumni Association.

Session 1 Title: Mitigating AI Risks: A How-To Framework for Banks & Fintechs

Wednesday, February 4^th

3:40 pm - 4:30 pm 

Location: TBD

Session 2 Title: Is Agentic AI the Next Leap Forward for Financial Services?

Thursday, February 5^th

9:35 am - 10:15 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

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.

Session Title: Is Agentic AI the Next Leap Forward for Financial Services?

Thursday, February 5^th

9:35 am to 10:15 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

Karin Lockovitch is a 25-year banking and financial services risk and compliance executive. She is a Partner and Head of Oliver Wyman’s Retail Banking and Consumer Compliance practice, and is based in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Karin provides advisory services for banks, non-bank lenders and insurance providers, fintechs, and de-novo bank/banks-in-formation, where she advised on the design, build, and maturity of enterprise risk and compliance programs and bank charter applications.

Prior to joining Oliver Wyman, Karin held positions as the Chief Risk and Chief Compliance Officer for several banks and non-banks, including Chief Risk Officer for loanDepot, Executive Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer for Bank of the West and Zions Bancorporation and the Senior Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer for SunTrust’s (now Truist) Consumer and Small Business division.  She also spent 15+ years working in and advising on Industrial Loan Corporation (ILC) chartered financial institutions, where she has been part of 3 ILC charter applications (2 thus far approved).

Karin has deep experience working with all U.S. regulatory agencies, having experienced many significant regulatory changes and events through her career, including leading the implementation of notable regulatory changes and the remediation of major enforcement actions. She has led and advised large risk and compliance organizations through the build and maturity of Compliance Management Systems and related programs (issue management, regulatory change management, third-party risk, risk assessment, monitoring and testing) and governance frameworks, Consumer Protection and Fair and Responsible Banking programs, Customer Complaint programs, Community Reinvestment Act programs, Anti-Money Laundering programs, Employee Ethics and Integrity programs, Volcker rule, Reg W and Reg O compliance programs, and the implementation and adoption of the line of defense model. 

Karin regularly speaks, facilitates webinars and roundtables, and provides thought leadership on banking regulatory compliance and risk topics. Through her career she has chaired and served on many risk and compliance committees through the Consumer Bankers Association, the American Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the Risk Management Association, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and the Utah Bankers Association.

She served as a U.S. banking delegate to the Basel Committee’s Supervision and Implementation Group (SIG) 2018 workshop on risk governance and culture, non-financial risk management and operationalization of the line of defense model. Most recently, she lead the annual Chief Compliance Officer Survey sponsored by Oliver Wyman and the Risk Management Association and has written and spoken on topics related to trends and innovations in fair lending, managing risks related to technology and AI innovation, the evolution of the line of defense model, and key regulatory topics including fees, 1071 rule, 1033 rule, the new CRA rules and expanding consumer protection/UDAAP practices.

Karin holds an MBA from the University of Utah and a BA from the University of Massachusetts. She is a Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager (CRCM).

Session Title: Transaction Fee Mechanism on Blockchain: From Incentives to Harm-Proofness Opportunities

Wednesday, February 4^th

4:10 pm – 4:40 pm

Location: Auditorium

Ke Wu is an Assistant Professor in the EECS Department at the University of Michigan. Her research lies at the intersection of theoretical cryptography and game theory, focusing on incentive-compatible and provably secure decentralized protocols and mechanism design. She received her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, advised by Elaine Shi, and is a recipient of the Stellar Academic Research Grant (2024).

Session Title: Changing Perspectives: What Consumers Want, and How Fintech Can Reach Them

Thursday, February 5^th

5:10 pm – 5:30 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Kelli Keough is the EVP, Group Business Unit Leader for Spend, Invest, Protect and Save at SoFi. Prior to SoFi, Kelli was the Head of Online Investing and Head of Product for Wealth Management at J.P. Morgan Chase where she led the launches of J.P. Morgan’s U.S. and international digital investing and private banking platforms and their self-directed brokerage business and automated investing platform. Prior to J.P. Morgan Chase, Kelli served as SVP at Charles Schwab, where she led the business and client experience, digital platforms and education for Schwab’s active trading, self-directed and global trading clients. Kelli was a professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin before starting her 25-year career in financial services. Kelli holds a BA in Psychology from Yale University, and a MA and PHD in Social Psychology from Stanford University. She also holds FINRA Series 7, 24, 99 and 63 licenses and serves as Board Director of Commonwealth, a nonprofit focused on improving financial wellness and opportunities for underrepresented groups.

Session Title: Building Sustainable Partnerships in the New Era of BaaS

Thursday, February 5^th

1:45 pm – 2:30 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

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 Financial Capital Bank (now Comenity Capital Bank) and Goldman Sachs Bank USA.

Kent’s unique vision for FinWise was cultivated by his vast experience in banking and serving in non-profit organizations where he saw firsthand the power of partnerships. Through partnering with the right companies along with the proper integration and use of technology, Kent saw the opportunity for banks to operate more efficiently, lower lending and origination costs, better assess credit quality, ultimately expanding the reach and convenience of banking to moreAmericans.

 Under his leadership, FinWise Bank has been ranked by Independent Banker Magazine the top performing community bank in America in 2021 and 2022. FinWise Bank has also been ranked as the #1 SBA lender in New York in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, FinWise Bancorp, the parent company of FinWise Bank became public and is listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol FINW.

 Kent earned his MBA from the University of Utah, where he graduated as a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, the scholastic honor society for collegiate business schools. He is active in his industry and community where he has served as the Board President of NeighborWorks Salt Lake (currently serving as a member of its Finance Committee), a board member of the Utah Bankers Association, the Chairman of the Utah Association of Financial Services, and as a board member of Junior Achievement of Utah and the University of Utah Business Alumni Association.

Session Title: Building Sustainable Partnerships in the New Era of BaaS

Thursday, February 5^th

1:45 pm – 2:30 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Kiah Lau Haslett is the creator of Fintech Takes Banking about banking at Workweek, where she nerds out about all things banks. She thinks about how banks make decisions and how technology is changing banks. She spent six years at Bank Director, first as managing editor and then as their banking & fintech editor overseeing the FinXTech platform, and was a financial institutions reporter at S&P Global Market Intelligence for eight years. Kiah has a bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Nebraska.

Session Title: Cash Flow Underwriting: The future is here now.

Wednesday, February 4^th

2:40 pm – 3:30 pm

Location: TBD

Kimberly Gartner leads partnerships, customer success, and enterprise sales at Prism Data, the leading a cash flow underwriting infrastructure and analytics platform powering the next generation of risk scoring. Prism enables clients to unlock maximum value from deposit account transaction data to expand credit approvals, reduce losses, and drive new growth. Kimberly began her career at Sears Credit and brings several decades of financial services experience, including roles at the Financial Health Network and as a co-founder of Canary, a global employee relief fund platform.

Session Title: Welcome

Wednesday, February 4^th

1:00 pm – 1:10 pm

Location: Auditorium

Kurt Dirks is Dean of the David Eccles School of Business and Professor of Leadership at the University of Utah. He joined the U on July 1, 2024. He is an experienced academic leader, a renowned researcher, and award-winning professor. His academic expertise is on the topics of leadership and trust within organizations.

A first-generation college student, Dirks earned BBA and MS degrees from Iowa State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Based on this personal experience, Dirks has strong belief in the role public universities, like the University of Utah, play in providing a transformative education for those who seek opportunity. He is also committed to the school being an integral part of the Utah business community and in advancing the proud legacy of the school and its alumni.

Prior to coming to the University of Utah, Dirks was the Bank of America Professor of Leadership at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. Earlier in his career, he was on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.

He served in multiple senior leadership roles at WashU, including stints as acting provost, senior advisor to the chancellor for leadership, vice chancellor of international affairs, and at the business school as senior associate dean and interim dean. This included founding the Bauer Leaders Academy at WashU, the Bauer Leadership Center at the Olin Business School, and developing the IITB-WashU EMBA program in India.

As a scholar, Dirks’ research on trust has been published in leading scholarly outlets such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and the Academy of Management Review, and has been covered in popular media such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Business Week, Fortune, and CNN.com. According to Google Scholar, Dirks’ work has been cited over 30,000 times, which is among the top 2% of scholars in the field.

Dirks is married and has a son and daughter.

Session Title: Charters - What's Next?

Thursday, February 5^th

4:00 pm – 4:40 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Session Title: Is Agentic AI the Next Leap Forward for Financial Services?

Thursday, February 5^th

9:35 am – 10:15 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

Maik Taro Wehmeyer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Taktile, the leading AI-powered Decision Platform built to empower financial institutions to make faster, more accurate decisions in risk management. Over the last few years, Maik and his Co-Founder, Maximilian Eber, have transformed their vision of improving automated risk decision-making into a disruptive and category-defining product that has transformed the way banks and fintechs around the world approach building and experimenting with automated decisions - recently completing a $54M Series B Round to continue scaling both the organization and the product to expand across use cases and industries.

Today, Maik steers the global vision and executive team for Taktile, bringing deep expertise at the intersection of machine learning and financial services. He is a member of the AI Alliance at the EU Commission and a founding member of the German AI Association. Maik firmly believes that by improving decision-making processes across industries, we can build a better future for businesses and the customers they serve.

Session Title: Systemic Impact of the GENIUS Act

Thursday, February 5th

4:40 pm – 5:10 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

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.

Session Title: The Future of Instant Payments: How FedNow, RTP, and Stablecoins Are Reshaping Finance

Thursday, February 5th

11:15 am – 11:55 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

Nilesh Dusane is the Global Head of Institutional Payments at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he leads global initiatives for modernizing how value moves across financial systems. He works closely with financial institutions, central banks, market infrastructures, and payment providers to harness the power of cloud, data, and AI in building the next generation of trusted, secure, interoperable, and resilient networks that move money and information at global scale.

Session Title: Building Sustainable Partnerships in the New Era of BaaS

Thursday, February 5^th

1:45 pm – 2:30 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Obrea is one of the most sought-after and highly regarded payments and lending lawyers in the financial services industry. Obrea specializes in financial services regulation, privacy and payments systems. She counsels clients on complex regulatory issues related to credit, debit and prepaid cards and emerging payment systems, such as mobile payment systems and person-to-person payments. Obrea is the go-to regulatory and transaction counsel for emerging companies and large financial institutions, retailers and technology companies, including institutions and companies with a focus on private equity. She is known for providing innovative solutions and value to her clients, who benefit from her strategic insights, deep financial services experience and understanding of the industry.

Obrea is recommended by Chambers USA, where she has been lauded for her skill in the legislative and regulatory issues of consumer finance, and she is also listed in Chambers FinTech. She is the president of the American College of Consumer Financial Services and previously served as chair of the Privacy and Data Security and Truth in Lending subcommittees for the American Bar Association Consumer Financial Services Committee.

Session Title: What’s Next in Open Banking?

Thursday, February 5^th

11:55 am – 12:35 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

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. He also held senior leadership roles as Head of Product for Digital Servicing, managing Chase’s digital communications and servicing platforms, and as Product Owner for Mobile, where he led the strategy and launch of the bank’s first mobile banking apps. 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.

Session 1 Title: Cash Flow Underwriting: The Future is Here Now

Wednesday, February 4^th

2:40 pm - 3:30 pm 

Location: TBD

Session 2 Title: A Candid Discussion with Fintech's Leading Voices

Thursday, February 5^th

2:30 pm – 3:10 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Peter Renton is the CEO of Renton & Co, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in fintech media, events and thought leadership. He was formerly the co-founder and chairman of Fintech Nexus, a fintech media and events company that produced 31 large-scale events worldwide. The events business was sold to Fintech Meetup in 2023 and the media business was sold to COMMAND, a PR firm, in 2024.

Since July 2024, Peter has been an independent fintech media and events consultant, working with select fintech startups and helping to produce 5+ small events a year.

Peter has been writing about fintech since 2010, with over 2,500 articles published. He is the author and creator of the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the first and longest-running fintech interview series, with almost 600 episodes. Over the last decade, Peter has also conducted more than 750 live interviews and panel discussions and produced over 1,800 fintech newsletters.

Session Title: The Future of Instant Payments: How FedNow, RTP, and Stablecoins Are Reshaping Finance

Thursday, February 5^th

11:15 am – 11:55 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

Peter Tapling is an advisor, educator, board member and investor at the intersection of payments, risk, and emerging technologies. Prior to founding PTap Advisory, LLC, Peter acted as CRO for Early Warning Services and was founding CEO for Authentify. Peter serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the U.S. Faster Payments Council, on the Board of Regents for The Payments Institute, and as a technology advisor to the Board of Directors for ePayResources. He chairs the Operations Committee for the U.S. Faster Payments Council and is the project team leader for the Payments Innovation Alliance Quantum in Payment team. Peter is a member of the Association for Financial Professionals, an Accredited Payments Risk Professional and an Accredited Faster Payments Professional.

Session Title: The Long Game: What Two Decades of Disrupting Consumer Finance Taught Me

Thursday, February 5^th

10:15 am – 10:45 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

With nearly two decades of experience at the intersection of the public and private sectors, Phil Goldfeder currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of the American Fintech Council (AFC), a leading industry association representing responsible financial technology (fintech) companies creating critical access to safe and affordable financial services. AFC, comprised of the nation’s largest fintech companies, fosters innovative, transparent, and responsible products that promote competition, consumer protection, and financial health, inclusion, and equity. AFC is committed to robust industry standards, with a focus on consumer protection and regulatory compliance, in addition to advocating for and embracing appropriate government regulation. Before joining AFC, Goldfeder served as Senior Vice President of Global Public Affairs at Cross River, a financial institution and technology infrastructure provider that offers embedded financial solutions. In this role, Goldfeder founded the Online Lending Policy Institute (OLPI) and has been a leader in shaping the new financial services landscape since early 2015. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the passage of the CARES Act in March 2020, Goldfeder helped lead the Cross River team to mobilize internally and offer a streamlined and automated system to provide more than $12 billion in PPP funding to the most vulnerable small businesses in every state, as well as additional short-term relief efforts to communities in the company’s footprint and beyond. He previously served as an elected member of the New York State Assembly representing diverse neighborhoods of Queens, N.Y. After most of his district was devastated during Superstorm Sandy, Goldfeder lead recovery efforts with a specific focus on partnering with the banking and insurance industry to help rebuild his community and reform outdated policies. He was the author of transformative banking and insurance modernization legislation and was also a key legislative leader on a diverse array of issues. Prior to his election, he served as a senior advisor to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Phil’s career in public service and expertise in leadership, crisis management, as well as his ability to enact positive change and develop deep relationships with diverse leaders on both the local and national levels, has put him at the forefront of innovation across banking and technology industries. He is an active industry leader as he engages policy makers and regulators, provides thought-leadership, and is frequently invited to speak on panels, roundtables, and conferences globally on banking, technology, financial literacy, and the new financial services landscape.

Session Title: Embedded Everywhere: How Small Business Lending Is Disappearing Into Software

Thursday, February 5th

3:40 pm – 4:10 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

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.

Session Title: Is Agentic AI the Next Leap Forward for Financial Services?

Thursday, February 5^th

9:35 am – 10:15 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

Prashant Mehrotra is the Chief AI Officer of U.S. Bank, where he leads the strategy and implementation of Artificial Intelligence for the organization. He is an accomplished AI executive, patent holder and speaker, with extensive experience creating, building and leading AI/ML initiatives across finance, insurance, and retail sectors. Prior to joining U.S. Bank, he was Head of the AI Center of Excellence at Allstate, where he led intelligent automation, developed innovative AI-driven platforms, and scaled teams to accelerate AI adoption. With a strong background in Technology, Prashant previously held key leadership roles at Capital One and Staples, where he successfully implemented advanced analytics ecosystems and data strategies. He earned his Bachelor of Technology from IIT Delhi and executive education from Kellogg.

Session Title: Can Pay-for-Data Marketplaces Be Fair Without Smart Contracts?

Wednesday, February 4^th

3:10 pm - 3:40 pm

Location: Auditorium

Pratik Soni is an Assistant Professor in the Kahlert School of Computing at the University of Utah, where he works on theoretical and applied cryptography for improving privacy, fairness, and accountability in blockchain and machine learning systems. Prior to joining Utah, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University and received his Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara. His research on zero-knowledge proofs, advanced digital signatures, and secure multi-party computation has appeared in leading venues including ACM CCS, the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P), IACR CRYPTO, IACR EUROCRYPT, IEEE FOCS, and the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS). His work has been supported by awards from Google, the Stellar Development Foundation, and Protocol Labs, as well as seed grants from the University of Utah’s Fintech Center and Office of the Vice President of Research.

Session Title: The Long Game: What Two Decades of Disrupting Consumer Finance Taught Me

Thursday, February 5^th

10:15 am – 10:45 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

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.

Prior to Upgrade, Renaud founded and ran Lending Club for 10 years. He took the company public, reaching a market capitalization of over $10 billion.  At Lending Club, Renaud pioneered consumer fintech and grew the company to become the largest provider of personal loans in America.

Renaud was ranked among the world’s most influential leaders by Bloomberg Markets and recognized by the Clinton Global Initiative for expanding access to affordable and responsible credit. He holds the Newport-Bermuda sailing record with the only crossing ever achieved under 24 hours.

Session Title: Can Stablecoins be a Game Changer for Affordability: The Future of Credit & Debit

Thursday, February 5^th

9:05 am – 9:35 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

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.

Session Title: Payment Rails & Commerce are Evolving: Implications for Banks & Fintechs

Wednesday, February 4^th

3:40 pm – 4:30 pm

Location: TBD

With more than 25 years of leadership experience, Robyn is driven by a mission to build financial technology that works for people who are too often left out of the system. She brings deep fintech expertise and a proven ability to identify friction points, solve complex problems, and turn insights into measurable results across multiple financial sectors.

Before founding BlytzPay, Robyn built her reputation in distressed asset management, where she led the expansion of a specialized practice at a leading law firm, scaling it by more than 80% through operational rigor, strategic focus, and relentless execution.

Based in Salt Lake City, Robyn spends as much time as possible with her five dogs, and happily nerds out on history and all things fintech.

Session 1 Title: Opening Remarks

Thursday, February 5^th

9:00 am – 9:05 am

Location: Main Stage

Session 2 Title: Closing Remarks

Thursday, February 5^th

5:30 pm – 5:35 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Ryan Christiansen is the Senior Director of the Fintech Center. In this role, Ryan directs and coordinates the labs, incubator and academic focus of the center. Ryan previously served as Senior Vice President of Data Access Partnerships at Mastercard. In this role, Ryan led the acquisition and management of consumer permissioned financial data. As an impassioned advocate for fintech, Ryan also represented Mastercard in industry efforts, which included an instrumental role in the foundation of the Financial Data Exchange (FDX). Ryan’s prior experience also includes serving as Senior Vice President of Private Banking at Zions Bank where he managed one of the bank’s largest credit portfolios.

Session Title: Embedded Everywhere: How Small Business Lending Is Disappearing Into Software

Thursday, February 5th

3:40 pm – 4:10 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Seamus is an executive advisor and leadership coach who works with individual and corporate clients on leadership coaching, team development, succession planning, and organizational design. He partners closely with CEOs and senior leadership teams of both public and private companies to help them navigate complex business and organizational challenges.

Seamus is a graduate of the executive coaching program at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. His professional background includes serving as Global Head of Financial Services at Booz Allen Hamilton, Regional President of HSBC USA, CEO of TD Bank USA, and co-founder of Novantas, now part of Curinos, a leading data analytics firm.

In addition to his advisory work, Seamus has held academic appointments at NYU Stern School of Business, Fordham Law School, and Trinity College Dublin. He holds a degree in Economics from Trinity College Dublin.

Session Title: Do Behavioral Frictions Prevent Firms from Adopting Profitable Opportunities

Wednesday, February 4^th

3:40 pm – 4:10 pm

Location: Auditorium

Sean Higgins is an Associate Professor of Finance at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. His research studies how fintech reduces frictions in payments markets and other financial markets, and the effects of reducing these frictions on households and small firms in emerging economies. He holds a PhD in Economics, and has published his research in top journals including the American Economic Review and Journal of Finance. He is also an Associate Editor at the Review of Finance and was named a Poets&Quants Best 40-under-40 MBA Professor.

Session Title: What Makes a Successful Bank-Fintech Partnership in the New World of BaaS?

Wednesday, February 4^th

1:10 pm – 2:10 pm

Location: TBD

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 was co-founder and CEO of Creative Juice, a Forbes top 50 fintech company and Fast Company Most Innovative Company. Creative Juice was acquired in 2023. Previously, Sima joined Plaid -- one of the most successful fintechs of the past decade -- as its first business executive. She ran global bank partnerships and sales, public policy, and strategy. She architected U.S. Open Banking regulation, and negotiated the industry’s first data agreements between banks and fintechs. Earlier in her career, Sima held senior leadership roles at American Express where she launched Bluebird with Walmart (one of the industry’s first neobanks), drove Amex’s financial inclusion approach, and led strategy for new lending products. Prior to Amex, she oversaw the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and managed White House/regulatory relationships at the US Treasury Department. She started her career as a corporate tax attorney at Simpson Thacher. 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. Sima lives in Washington D.C. with her husband and son.

Session 1 Title: Can Stablecoins be a Game Changer for Affordability: The Future of Credit & Debit

Thursday, February 5^th

9:05 am – 9:35 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

Session 2 Title: A Candid Discussion with Fintech's Leading Voices

Thursday, February 5^th

2:30 pm – 3:10 pm

Location: Grand Ballroom

Simon is the creator of Fintech Brainfood, the weekly Fintech newsletter loved by operators, founders, CEOs, and regulators. Simon leads market development for Tempo, and has spent the past 20 years working at the forefront of change in financial services from mobile & cloud to stablecoins and agentic commerce.

Session Title: The Future of Instant Payments: How FedNow, RTP, and Stablecoins Are Reshaping Finance

Thursday, February 5^th

11:15 am – 11:55 am

Location: Grand Ballroom

Stephany Kirkpatrick is a digital executive, Certified Financial Planner™, and seasoned entrepreneur with more than two decades of experience across startups and Fortune 100 companies. The daughter of an immigrant, Stephany has built her career around a simple philosophy: help those who have less, have more. That mission led her to found Orum in 2019 to make instant money movement a reality. Under her leadership, Orum created breakthrough infrastructure used by banks, fintechs, and enterprises for money movement and account verification. Orum joined Stripe in 2025 to help scale the financial infrastructure of the internet. Earlier in her career, Stephany played a pivotal role at LearnVest (acquired by Northwestern Mutual), where she is the principal inventor and patent holder behind the financial-planning software that helped millions of Americans improve their financial lives. Today, Stephany sits on multiple fintech boards and advises CEOs across the financial services ecosystem. She’s also a regular volunteer with Feeding Westchester. Outside of work, she’s raising two daughters who keep her endlessly inspired.