Rizwan Khalfan is responsible for setting the strategic direction for all digital and payments activities, while creating more intuitive, personalized and integrated experiences that help customers live their lives. Rizwan's mandate includes partnering with business units across the organization to strategically invest in transformational digital capabilities, overseeing the evolution of the payments ecosystem, and collaborating with innovators, fintechs and start-ups, all with an eye on delivering differentiated experiences to customers and employees.

Lisa Shields is the Chief Executive Officer at FISPAN, having founded the company in 2016 after listening to the pain points businesses experienced utilizing bank services. As a visionary CEO with an engineering background, Lisa guides FISPAN through both her mastery of attracting the right talent and building great products.

FISPAN is Lisa’s second financial technology startup -- she founded and led cross-border payouts company Hyperwallet for 15 years. Recognized as a leading global payments platform, Hyperwallet was acquired by PayPal in 2018.

The Honourable Colin Deacon’s entrepreneurial background provides a unique perspective in Canada’s Upper Chamber. This Nova Scotian has spent much of his career turning ideas into products and services sold globally.

In 2009, he founded BlueLight Analytics, a company in the restorative dentistry field. The company has successfully commercialized new technologies into dozens of countries and works with most of the major dental multinationals. Until 2006, he served as CEO of SpellRead, which improved reading skills among children and adults, and was one of Atlantic Canada’s fastest-growing companies. Senator Deacon has also contributed to the charitable sector in Halifax, where he has been an active member on the board of several organizations, including those dedicated to children’s health and well-being, mentorship, and celebrating social innovators.

Rami Thabet is the Vice President of Digital Product at RBC. In this role, Rami leads the team responsible for envisioning, building and delivering industry leading digital products.  He is responsible for RBC’s Digital channels, Omni-channel experiences and key capabilities like identity and security, and the API platform.

Kristy Duncan is the founder and CEO of Women in Payments. This growing professional network unites women in payments from around the globe with a shared vision of gender parity. Women in Payments supports women’s career development through conferences, award and mentorship programs, and by hosting a growing online community.

Kristy is an avid supporter of her fellow female trailblazers, as investor and advisor to three women-led fintechs. As a respected leader in the field, she’s judged several accelerators, fintech contests, and global awards programs.

Andrew McFarlane has spent six years in Accenture, serving as Delivery Lead and Program Lead for a number of large Banking clients in Ireland and now Canada. He current works in the Industry Relations team in Payments Canada. He specializes in Open Banking and PSD2 where he is Accenture’s Global Open Banking Lead for Consulting. He has given a range of addresses on the topic and published multiple pieces of thought leadership, with the latest focusing on Open Banking & the Commercial and SME customers of banks.

Andrew Moor joined Equitable Bank (TSX: EQB) as CEO in 2007. Andrew’s focus in recent years has been in positioning Equitable Bank as “Canada’s Challenger Bank”. Andrew has been establishing EQ Bank as a leading digital banking player, with an easy to use mobile app that offers a unique combination of payments functionality and great savings rates. Equitable Bank is Canada’s ninth largest schedule 1 bank with over $26 billion of assets under management. Equitable was a founding shareholder in Borrowell and participates in the Portage ecosystem through an investment in the Portage II Fund giving the Bank a view into the Canadian fintech ecosystem.

Eytan, co-founder and CEO, deeply believes that the success of the small business sector is one
of the most important causes of our time. It has the potential to reduce income inequality and empower businesspeople of all kinds. Creating a banking service that is as modern to serve these companies is why Eytan founded NorthOne.

Prior to NorthOne, Eytan was a Sr. Engagement Manager for McKinsey & Company. He served many clients in Financial Services industry, usually on the topic of digital customer experience and financial inclusion. Prior to that, he earned his JD/MBA from McGill University and was called to the New York Bar in 2010.