Open Banking Expo Canada Speakers

Alex Servín is an executive and serial entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience. He currently drives Open Banking innovation as the Head at BBVA Mexico and was previously General Manager in Mexico at Belvo, the leading Open Banking startup in LATAM. He has founded and directed successful startups such as Pagaloop and Punto a Punto, in addition to having legal experience in M&A and Corporate Law.

Alex loves sports and is a competitive marathon runner. He is about to finish the 6 major marathons with a Personal Best of 2:41.

Alex Vronces is the executive director of Fintechs Canada, the unified voice for fintech in Canada. Fintechs Canada is a public policy advocacy group of Canada’s most innovative financial technology companies. Collectively serving millions of Canadians on a daily basis, the organization’s membership includes market-leading Canadian fintechs, the technology companies that power the credit union space, fintech-friendly financial institutions, and global fintech companies, among others.

André Gagné is the President and CEO of GFT Canada. Passionate about information technology, he holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Laval University, and he has more than 25 years of experience in IT. His career choice was first motivated by his passion for technology and his need to create and implement solutions that improve people’s daily lives.

He has forged his career through his participation in several large-scale projects with world-renowned software companies and local and international service companies. Over the years, he has used his problem-solving skills, his pragmatism and his mastery of technology to ensure that objectives were met.

He looks forward to make GFT Canada a true leader of the digital transformation in the insurance and banking industries in Canada. Thanks to the strength of their teams in Quebec City, Montreal and Toronto, the professionalism of their experts and the undeniable assets that the Group’s strength brings, GFT Canada has carved out an enviable position in the market.

Barry is a global expert in Smart Data and Trust Frameworks, with 25 years of international experience delivering ecosystems to unlock the value of data across financial, government, healthcare and telecoms sectors. As CEO and practice lead at Raidiam, he manages a diverse team of professionals focused on driving business growth and innovation, maximising customer success, and ensuring that Raidiam’s reputation for excellence and its award winning Raidiam Connect SaaS Trust Platform technology is maintained.

As a career consultant and thought leader for global brands and multi-national regulatory programmes he’s steered the delivery of world-leading Open Banking and Open Finance initiatives globally, shaping policies and standards and inputting on their architecture and design to drive commercial success. Barry is a technical specialist combining commercial insight with an understanding of modern InfoSec threats, and risk and compliance best practices across complex fintech and retail banking.

Bhuvan Anand is a seasoned engineering leader with over 18 years of experience in the Financial Services industry, specializing in software development and technology transformation for a global bank. Renowned for his strategic decision-making and leadership, Bhuvan has overseen numerous Capital Market IT programs, particularly in the Fixed Income front office and Post Trade settlement domains. A true globetrotter, Bhuvan boasts global experience spanning Southeast Asia, Europe, and North America, where he has spearheaded innovative digital financial solutions focused on efficiency and inclusivity. Throughout his distinguished career, Bhuvan has been at the forefront of driving transformative initiatives such as cloud adoption, payment modernization programs, and the implementation of DevOps and SRE concepts. Leveraging his innate ability to unravel complex problems, collaborate, and craft innovative solutions, Bhuvan blends deep technical expertise with a strategic business perspective to drive impactful change and deliver measurable results.

Brian Harris is the President and CEO of Beem Credit Union. Founded by Gulf & Fraser and Interior Savings, Beem is the second largest provincially regulated credit union in BC with approximately $10 billion in total assets under administration. Beem Credit Union offers personal and commercial banking and a full range of insurance and wealth management services to over 160,000 members from 53 branches in communities that span BC from downtown Vancouver to the North Peace region.

Born and raised in British Columbia, with a career that has taken him across the globe, Brian has spent 20 years leading financial services companies through significant growth while helping them adapt to an unprecedented pace of change.

After members voted in favour of a merger between Interior Savings and Gulf & Fraser in the Fall of 2023, the credit unions came together to form Beem Credit Union, naming Brian as President and CEO on January 1, 2024. Prior to joining Interior Savings as President and CEO in 2022, Brian was Chief Product Officer at Nets, a leading payments provider based in the Nordics, where he and his team helped revolutionize the consumer and small business digital experience for more than 150 European financial institutions. He has also held executive leadership roles at Currencies Direct and Western Union Business Solutions, two companies that are leading the evolution of international money transfer systems and business payment solutions in Europe and across the globe.

Brigit Carroll is Policy Lead, North America at Wise. She advocates for Wise’s mission of instant, convenient, transparent and eventually free cross-border payments vis-a-vis policymakers in the U.S., Canada and beyond. Based in Washington, D.C., Brigit joined Wise’s policy team in Brussels in 2019, focused on EU policy. Prior to joining Wise, Brigit gained 5+ years’ experience in public affairs and advocacy in Brussels, at global communications firm FleishmanHillard and the American Chamber of Commerce to the EU.

Carol Haverty is Vice President of Partnerships at Plooto, a leading payment automation solution providing end-to-end AP and AR for small-to-medium sized businesses across North America. With over 20 years of experience in finance and technology, including tenures at Xero, PayPal, eBay, and Bank of America, Carol is passionate about connecting innovative technology providers and financial institutions to build modern ecosystems that help SMBs thrive. She holds an A.B. from Princeton University and enjoys an active life including volunteer education efforts, spending time outdoors, travel, and the study of multiple foreign languages.

Cathy Ly leads the Customer Insights, Design Thinking, Customer Care Centre and Digital Banking Back Office for Equitable Bank. While these four functions appear disparate at first glance, they are united by an obsession with EQ Bank’s customers – whether that’s in understanding their needs, designing solutions to their pain points, answering their calls or processing their transactions. It is this same customer focus that also gives Cathy an important vantage point to lead Equitable Bank’s Open Banking strategy as the bank aims to leverage the pro-customer potential of Open Banking as part of its Challenger Bank mandate.

Prior to EQ Bank, Cathy worked for over a decade as a management consultant at ZS Associates, the Boston Consulting Group, Jackman Reinvents, and independently as a CX advisor to executive teams in hospitality, retail and financial services. She has deep empathy for the experiences of small business owners having also spent four years of her career running a home décor business and getting shot down by many a small business loan officer.

Craig Borysowich is a Principal Partner at IM Edge Consulting Group working with global banking entities on Open Finance, Digital Currencies, Web3 and Decentralized Finance services.

Darrell MacMullin is Senior Vice President of Products & Platforms at Mastercard in Canada.

He leads the product teams, strategy, and roadmap execution for all product and platform business lines, including Consumer Cards, B2B, Digital, New Payment Platforms, Cyber Intelligence, Crypto and Open Banking.

Darrell brings more than 20 years of financial technology leadership and business management experience to his role. In 2019, he received the Canadian Fintech and AI award for Leadership.

Prior to joining Mastercard, Darrell was chief commercial officer for Securekey. During his tenure, he worked with the government and banks to facilitate convenient connection between consumers and critical online services. Darrell was also CEO of Goldmoney Network, a financial technology company operating a payments network based on blockchain/distributed ledger. His notable career accomplishments include selling a payments technology company to Square, and launching PayPal in Canada, leading its growth for its first 8 years.

Darrell has a passion for transforming industries, companies, and lives through the innovative use of technology.

Darrell has a Bachelor of Arts in Business from Toronto Metropolitan University.

Darryl Kingston is the Executive Director of the Digital Governance Standards Institute (DGSI), formerly the CIO Strategy Council. He joined the CIO Strategy Council as Senior Director of Standards and Technology on July 4th, 2022. In this role, he leads a broad portfolio of projects creating the conditions for the development of responsible, trustworthy, and sustainable digital technology standards in Canada.

Prior to joining the CIO Strategy Council, Darryl was with the Health Standards Organization (HSO) as Director of Standards and Evidence Development. In his role he had oversight of standards development, including strategic oversight, quality management, risk management and production. While at HSO the team led the development of a number of pivotal standards which will change the way care is received for patients and families, among these include palliative care, integrated health systems, long term care services, and governance and leadership of health care and social service organizations. A key achievement was the development of a cultural safety and humility standard for the province of British Columbia that was developed using an indigenous methodology (two eye seeing) which was established by HSO in partnership with the First Nations Health Authority of British Columbia.

Prior to joining HSO Darryl was with the Standards Council of Canada where he held a number of different positions beginning in 1998. The last position held at SCC was Director of Global Standards where Darryl was responsible for the strategic oversight of the Canadian Standards Development Program, the International Standards Development Program and the SCC Member Program.
Darryl has participated in ISO meetings as a Canadian delegate since 2004 and has spoken at various international workshops and conferences on the benefits of standardization and promoting stakeholder participation in the standards development process. Darryl is a graduate of the University of Ottawa and was the recipient of the 2010 Joe McMahon Memorial Dedicated Service Award for outstanding service and contribution to the Canadian standards system.

David is an accomplished Banking and Payments executive with in-depth knowledge acquired within the Canadian and Global banking landscape. He is a subject matter expert on open banking / open finance, real-time payments, and innovative overlay services – bringing expert insight and thought leadership covering the full spectrum from retail and wholesale payments to clearing and settlement. David has worked with FIs across North America to support the development of open banking and payments strategies; helping clients take their existing strategies and create pragmatic, executable roadmaps to modernize and digitally transform their business.

Prior to joining CGI, David was the strategy & innovation executive at Everlink Payment Services, working with credit unions and tier II banks to launch new payment products and services. David has held senior positions at Visa Canada and at Moneris Solutions, working extensively with payments, payment networks and gateways. He started his career at Bank of Montreal amid the run-up to launching the first virtual bank in Canada.

Don Cardinal is Managing Director of the Financial Data Exchange (FDX). Cardinal leads FDX by engaging with FDX members across the financial services and fintech ecosystem in the US and Canada to develop and implement the FDX API technical standard and to promote FDX’s five principles for permissioned data sharing: Control, Access, Transparency, Traceability & Security. Since its launch in October 2018 with 21 founding members, Cardinal has grown the nonprofit standards body to over 185 member organizations and 16 million consumer accounts have been migrated to the FDX API in North America.

Don comes to FDX after more than 20 years with Bank of America, where he served in key leadership roles as the Privacy Officer of their Military Bank, the Digital Banking VP for Military Bank, VP in Digital Banking, and most recently as a Senior VP in Global Information Security, where he orchestrated the bank’s DMARC email security implementation. From 2016 to 2018, Don also served as co-chair of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center’s (FS-ISAC) Aggregation Working Group. Prior to his banking career, Don worked for a fintech, writing tax preparation software.

As Vice President, External Ecosystems, Franklin positions TD for future success by developing and shaping partnerships, acquisitions, and strategic relationships across innovation ecosystems. Additionally, Franklin leads UGO – a growing business-to-business service offering and accelerator. Franklin also leads the Bank’s approach to Open Banking and the advancement of TD’s Digital Identity agenda.

Franklin represents TD on both the Digital Identification and Authentication Council of Canada (DIACC) and Financial Data Exchange (FDX) boards.

Franklin is a graduate of the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University with a Master of Business Administration. He also holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from École Supérieure D’Électricité. He is passionate about giving back and deploying technology to solve community problems. Outside of work, Franklin enjoys travelling and spending time outdoors with his wife and 3 kids.

Geetika Tiwari, a techno-functional leader with over 18 years of rich expertise in the financial domain, notably in software development, product consulting, and business transformations, is a luminary in the payment ecosystems of North America. As a visionary Director, she has been at the forefront of spearheading innovative digital financial solutions, focusing on efficiency and inclusivity, particularly for market segments traditionally left behind.

Her passion lies in unlocking the potential within the payment grid, bringing forth cutting-edge advancements to revolutionize the industry. Before her current tenure at CIBC, Geetika honed her skills as a Senior Consultant at Tata Consulting Services Limited Canada, contributing her acumen to the credit and financial domains, including pivotal projects with Equifax and the Reserve Bank.

Throughout her illustrious career, she has been instrumental in driving transformational programs in both retail and commercial payment spheres. Known for her innate ability to unravel complex problems, Geetika crafts pioneering solutions that blend her deep technical know-how with a strategic business perspective.

Geetika’s commitment extends globally, having bolstered international branches with her expertise. Her approach to leadership in payments is not just about innovation but also about empowerment and strategic foresight. Outside the professional realm, she dedicates time to exploring industry trends and cherishing moments with her family.

Explorer, Teacher, Coach

If I ever get the opportunity for a memoir, well one that someone would read, it would be called “The Accidental Career”. I’m fascinated with physics and their applications in the real world, and here I am leading Digital Transformation at Mainstreet Credit Union.

How did I get here? A long, winding, and amazing road full of luck and leaps.

I obtained an engineering degree, Western 2004, and learned that the best part of my program was learning to break things down and put them back together in new ways. Yet, I graduated as an Engineer with no awareness of where I could go. After experiences with a few companies in building automation and energy, I landed a role at TD Bank and the idea of a career started to form.

My roles included managing an asbestos program, a construction pipeline, distribution and channels strategy, and leading a product group. Through this array of widely diverging jobs, I learned that the best part of every role was working out how to help each team achieve more than they thought possible, and use technology to make things easier.

Digital Transformation is the perfect next step and I have been with Mainstreet Credit Union, making it even easier for our members to do business with us.

My career so far has helped me uncover my purpose:

use my positivity and ability to challenge, to bring a smile to everyone I meet,

and for those willing, help them achieve their adventure

I live in London with my wife, Jen, our three year-old daughter Eva, and our menagerie of dogs (Oliver, Piper, and Morgan), and cat Phoebe. 

I am passionate about strong communities, and am proud to work with a group that reinvests. I volunteer with the United Way, Animal Rescue Foundation, Verge Social Capital, and the London Chamber of Commerce. As a proud southwestern-Ontarian, I was honoured to be recognized by Business London Magazine in 2016 as a “Top 20 Under 40” recipient.

My hobbies include getting lost in a solid video game or novel, playing baseball, and teaching myself to drum. Recently, I’ve taken any chance I can to be out cycling and you are likely find me in a coffee shop in any of our many towns. 

Sharing my favourite…

Books: “1984”, “Infinite Jest”

Films: “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Office Space”, “Charade”

Video Games: “Bioshock”, “Dark Souls”

At J.P. Morgan, Jason is the Head of Product Delivery for Embedded Banking, an innovative solution that enables leading technology companies to seamlessly integrate banking services into their existing platforms.

Prior to joining the firm, Jason held multiple Executive roles at TD Bank Group and TD Securities. He started his corporate career in Management Consulting with a focus on the Financial Services sector.

He holds a Bachelor’s of Engineering and completed his MBA from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

Jason currently lives in Toronto with his wife and two little boys. Before embracing diaper duty, Jason was an avid traveler. His most memorable adventures include: Everest Base Camp in Nepal, the Tour du Mont Blanc, and Patagonia.

Jeremy Bornstein is the Chief Revenue Officer for Peoples Group, a privately held Canadian bank and trust company focused on embedding financial services in everyday experiences. Jeremy is responsible for strategy, sales, and marketing in his role. Before joining Peoples, Jeremy held various senior roles at Mastercard, led the next generation of payments and strategy at RBC, and continues to recover from a decade-long career as strategy consultant. Jeremy splits his time in Toronto with his wife at home and his kids at the hockey arena and dance studio.

Kartik Kamat is the Vice President for Payments, Analytics & Fraud Mitigation at EQ Bank. In Payments, his responsibilities include managing various products for money movement within the digital bank and spearheading the development of a Payments-as-a-Service business aimed at fostering innovation and growth within the Canadian payments ecosystem. Prior to joining EQ Bank, he gained extensive experience in the financial services industry as a strategy consultant at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). His work at BCG involved advising clients on corporate strategy and facilitating large-scale transformations within their organizations. Before his tenure at BCG, Kartik held several positions at Capital One across their US Business Banking & Canadian Credit Card divisions. He holds an MBA from London Business School, and a B.Eng and M.Eng in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Madras. He is based in Toronto.

Mauricio leads the Banking & Capital Markets Sector for Canada. He has 30 years of consulting experience, primarily in financial services where he has worked leading large client transformation programs as well as strategic growth initiatives. His experience has been with Retail Banking, Commercial as well as Wealth and Asset Management. Actively participated in technology forums and associations to represent the IT industry with the Ecosystem.

Mauricio is a graduate of Business at the Universidad Iberoamericana as well as postgraduate studies at IPADE business school.

Michael Cascone is the Vice President of Government Experience, Americas, at Xero. Prior to joining Xero in 2021, Michael was the founding Senior Director of the Scale-Up Institute Toronto at the Toronto Region Board of Trade. He led the launch of the small business accelerator, and ran a number of high impact programs focused on small business growth and digitization. In his time leading the organization, the Scale-Up Institute Toronto supported over 2,000 small businesses across Ontario, securing significant private and public sector investment, and winning the 2020 Ontario Chamber of Commerce Chair’s Award for Innovative Programming. Michael also has over ten years of experience in both the federal and provincial governments, focusing on innovation and scale-up policy, trade agreement negotiation, and the automotive sector. He actively participates in the small business research community as well, acting as an expert advisor on a number of research councils. He is the Vice Chair and Treasurer of the Scugog Township Economic Development Advisory Committee.

With over 20 years of experience in IT delivery and digital strategy, Natacha is an innovation leader and key player in National Bank of Canada’s digital transformation. She led the implementation of the first iteration of the Bank’s open banking channel and she is currently Business Lead in its Open Banking Center of Expertise.

An avid soccer player, Natacha brings a spirited energy on and off the field. She is involved in many leadership programs, as a coach and mentor, notably at National Bank, in the L’Effet A program and during conferences, such as Numérique au féminin.

Nicholas Schiavo is the Director of Federal Affairs with the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI) where he leads government relations, stakeholder engagement and national advocacy strategies for 150 of Canada’s fastest-growing tech companies.

Nicholas is also the Executive Director of No Conversion Canada, a national, grassroots, nonprofit coalition he founded to ban conversion “therapy” practices in Canada. In December 2021, No Conversion Canada and partners successfully passed Bill C-4, officially outlawing conversion “therapy” practices in Canada.

Previously, Nicholas worked as a Director of Policy and Government Relations with Impact Public Affairs, a Policy Analyst with Fisheries and Oceans Canada on the G7 Task Force, as an Ontario Global Edge Fellow in Nairobi, Kenya and with the Green Party of Canada during the 2015 federal election. Over the years Nicholas has been fortunate to work with a number of global institutions as a delegate, including the Commonwealth, the World Bank Group and the United Nations.

From 2017-2019, Nicholas served as the Program Director of the Young Diplomats of Canada where he met with Cabinet and the Prime Minister to develop a national, youth agenda. In 2018, he was selected as a Future Leaders Connect Fellow by the British Council to develop a long term policy action plan on LGBTQ2+ rights with the University of Cambridge. Nicholas is passionate about community organizing and currently serves on the Government Relations Committee with the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and was named one of “Canada’s Future Foreign Policymakers” by Open Canada in June 2018 and an “Emerging Leader, Politics and Government” by the Peak in February 2023.

Nicholas holds a Bachelor of Arts, Honours Specialization in International Relations from Western University and a Master of Political Management as part of the Clayton H. Riddell Graduate Program from Carleton University.

Paul-Emile has been active in the fields of Research, Consulting, Fundraising and Business Development for the past fifteen years. In 2007, he completed his honours degree in History, Political Science and Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto. In 2010, he completed his Masters in Environmental Studies at York University, with a focus on Indigenous knowledge and a major research paper titled: The Traditional Rights of Ways on the Walpole Island First Nation.

He has served as a member of the Research Advisory Committee with Canadian Energy Research Institute, the Chair of the National Advisory Committee with ORIGIN Inc. and the current President and Chair of the Board of Directors for Aboriginal Legal Services. He currently resides in Toronto and is an avid follower of sports and business.

Peter Tilton is the Chief Digital Officer, Personal & Commercial Banking (P&CB) for RBC. In this role Peter is responsible for helping to drive RBC’s shift to a more technology-enabled, digitally-driven bank. More specifically, he is responsible for identifying and capitalizing on ways to leverage digital to further position RBC as a global leader in digital banking. Peter has oversight of building the framework to drive the convergence of digital channels with sales, service, and advisor platforms. Peter is also responsible for direct client experiences across mobile, online, tablet, wearables including banking, direct investing, wallet, and rewards and business solutions.

Prior to joining RBC in 2016, Peter was Head of Digital Banking for Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ Bank). Peter’s previous roles at ANZ included leading the Analytics & Insights, ATMs, Foreign Exchange, International Banking and International Payments functions.

Peter has a Computer Science and Education Degree from the University of Melbourne and his Master’s in Human Resources Development from Queensland University of Technology.
Peter lives in Toronto, Ontario with his wife and daughter.

Robyn King is the Director for Industry Relations at Payments Canada, where she oversees the external relations function that manages stakeholder engagement with member financial institutions and broader stakeholder groups, and also oversees the industry governance function for the organization. She has more than 17 years of experience in transactional banking, merchant acquiring, card payments and payment modernization in both the Canadian and Southern African markets.

Ryan Williams was elected to represent the riding of Bay of Quinte in the House of Commons of Canada in the 2021 Federal election.

He is also the Shadow Cabinet Minister for Pan–Canadian Trade and Competition where his role looks at creating competition in Canada whether it is the high price of cell phones and internet, banking or grocery stores.

MP Williams Private Members Bill 365 on Consumer-led banking passed second reading it the House of Commons in March of this year. This Bill was important to MP Williams as he believes it will enable consumer to transfer their financial data securely and efficiently among financial institutions and accredited third-party service providers and will give them a broader picture of their finances.

In the riding of Bay of Quinte, MP Williams is focused on the addiction and homelessness problems our communities are dealing with and working with businesses who are struggling under the current rising interest rates.

He is married to Allyson and they have 3 children Jack, Patrick and Zooey.

Before being elected as MP, Ryan was President of Williams Hotels and a City Councillor for the City of Belleville with roles in Economic and Destination Development Committee in Belleville, as Chair.

Ryan is Past-President of Bay of Quinte Tourism and the Bay of Quinte Living Council.

Ryan is the Past-Chair and Founder of QuinteVation which aimed to develop a more innovative Bay of Quinte.

Sabena Sandhu is the Manager of Policy at the Canadian Credit Union Association and is the association’s policy leader on federal files including payments modernization, digital ID, privacy, cyber-security, and open banking. Sabena also works closely with the CCUA’s provincial teams to maximize legislative and regulatory harmony across Canada’s provincially regulated credit unions and federally regulated financial institutions. CCUA is the national trade association that provides services to Canada’s 197 credit unions, caisses populaires, and regional Central organizations. The Canadian credit union systems represents over $300 billion in assets and serves more than 6 million Canadians.

As Director Strategy – Emerging Businesses, Sandeep leads BMO’s efforts on monitoring and driving strategy, integration and business response towards disruptive market forces that drive the evolution of payments, retail and business banking (such as Open Banking, RTR, Digital Assets, Banking as a Service & others). He is also responsible for the creation and ongoing refinement of Horizon 2, 3 roadmap to inform capability gaps to defend against disruptions.

Sandeep is a graduate of the Smith School of Business, Queen’s University with a Masters of Business Administration degree. He also holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the National Institute of Engineering in India.

Sean McCarthy is a Financial Services Industry leader at AWS. Sean is focused on helping customers identify use cases and industry solutions that leverage the transformational power of cloud computing. He engages with C-level executives and influencers at all levels, working closely with teams across AWS, to build relationships with financial institutions of all sizes across all market segments, from FinTech startups to the largest banks, insurers, broker- dealers, and exchange groups in the world.

Sean has almost 20 years of financial services experience, with leadership roles in digital transformation, customer experience, marketing strategy, partnerships, and payments. Sean joined AWS in 2019 as the Partner Alliance Lead for Deloitte Canada, and became the Financial Services Industry GTM leader for Canada in 2022. Sean’s passions are helping organizations transform the customer experience, developing new business opportunities, and leveraging the power of AWS to drive innovation.

Sean is based in Toronto, Canada.

Shruti is a purpose-driven Product leader with 15+ years of global experience spanning South East Asia, Middle East and Canada and Joined CIBC in April’21 where she launched the Costco Onboarding & Engagement journeys. She is currently working as a Director, Open Banking Strategy at CIBC leading Industry & Government engagement, Value Add Use cases and Data enablement Strategy. Shruti is also the Co-lead of CIBC’s International Professionals Network, an employee network helping newcomers in the bank. Shruti identifies herself as an intersectional feminist and believes in equality of opportunities and pay for women.

Stephanie Zee is Vice President, Enterprise Data Protection at Scotiabank. She has responsibility for the governance and oversight for Data Protection across the Scotiabank global footprint. Stephanie has more than 20 years of experience in treasury and card product management and innovation, sales and marketing, banking operations, and Payments, Operational, AML, Fraud and Cyber risk management.

Stephanie has earned the ICD.D designation for Corporate Governance from the Rotman School of Business, a Master of Laws Degree from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, and a Master of Business Administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

Susan joined TD Bank in 2018, bringing with her more than 25 years of digital and payments innovation, product development and business leadership experience from FIS (Fidelity Global Information Services), Metavante Corporation and S&P Global. At TD, she has been a champion for the modernization of U.S. and Canadian payments systems and a leader in ensuring that TD can offer its retail and business customers modern, trusted, connected and green payment capabilities. Susan and her team are responsible for bringing next generation real time, rich data, global, and digital payments capabilities to market. Among the many products they have launched in partnership with the lines of business are TD’s Global Transfer Marketplace, TD’s Real Time Loan Disbursements (U.S.), TD Instant Digital Issuance, TD Next Generation Business Payments, TD Zelle and TD Zelle Small Business. Susan has also championed an open payments API and framework strategy at TD to safely open the payments ecosystem for greater economic benefit and to foster innovation and inclusion. In addition, Susan and team have built a host of foundational shared capabilities that can be used across the enterprise to make TD’s payments systems more modern, cost effective, resilient and safe. Susan sits on the TCH (The Clearing House) Board and has also served on the Payments Canada board. She is a passionate advocate for innovation in Payments and she and her team are top patent filers in Payments in both the U.S. and Canada. At TD, Susan is also a champion of mental wellness, diversity in technology leadership and United Way support.

With a deep knowledge of the international payments ecosystem, Susan also played an active leadership role in both building out the digital payments and mobile banking solutions for more than 5,600 financial institutions globally including several of the largest institutions in North America and in building ecosystems of FinTech partnerships to expand Financial Institution markets. Susan has extensive experience developing next generation digital banking and digital payment solutions across both the retail and commercial business segments. She has also led best in class user experience and human factors engineering teams to support the launch of several major FinTech and EdTech platforms that are now household solutions and successfully led major transformational programs in the areas of women in technology, cybersecurity, agile development, legacy solution evolution and machine learning.

Combined with her technical expertise and tremendous growth orientation, Susan has a strong business leadership background, a proven track record of operations and P&L management and has completed multiple business transformations and acquisitions with a particular focus in payments. As President and EVP of FIS’s digital and payments line of businesses, Susan oversaw the growth of those business from 30MM U.S revenues to more than 600MM in U.S. revenues over a 7-year period. She was also responsible for the strategy and build out of FIS’s market leading digital and real time payment solutions. These solutions today form one of the primary backbones of real time payments in the U.S. .

Susan has a passion for engineering and science education in at risk populations and a strong interest in Indigenous arts. She has served as a volunteer and board member for organizations dedicated to the support of primary and secondary education in social entrepreneurship, technology and engineering for at risk and underserved populations. These organizations include Our Next Generation (Milwaukee, WI) and Alverno Business School (Milwaukee, WI). She is an active supporter of the United Way of GTA (Greater Toronto Area) and is involved in supporting Indigenous arts organizations including the Inuit Art Foundation.

Susan holds an MS in Engineering in Human Centered Design from the University of Washington.

Swati has over two decades of global Banking experience on both business & technology side. She focusses on business outcomes through digital transformation for Banks, Financial Services firms & Fintechs. She is passionate about enabling future forward solutions in Consumer Banking, Corporate Banking, Payments & Cards leveraging emerging technologies like API & AI, which drive the top line for her clients & hyperpersonalized experiences for their end-customers.

Tal writes Canada’s largest fintech publication, the Canadian Fintech Newsletter. He is also a Managing Partner at Exit North Ventures and a founder of the Canadian Lenders Association.

Tanya Woods leads Government and Regulatory Affairs for Questrade Financial Group, a successful private Canadian company with $45B AUA and a portfolio of leading companies offering innovative financial, home, lending, and insurance services online to help clients become much more financially successful and secure. She is a dynamic and specialized technology, regulatory, and trade lawyer, former trade negotiator, and technology policy expert. Woods advises governments and companies on digital trade, open finance and fintech issues, intellectual property, sustainability and resiliency, cyber security policy and global enforcement, digital literacy, and emerging technologies. She has served in Advisory, Board and C-suite legal and business roles successfully advancing the commercial and regulatory agendas of technology companies for 20 years, including Microsoft, Nintendo, Interac, and BCE Inc. Woods also launched and led Canada’s first blockchain and digital assets trade association, served as General Counsel & Corporate Secretary to launch Canada’s first digital asset miner on NASDAQ, supported the development of the first global charity-led algorithmic (AI) literacy program, and sat on the Board of Canada’s first publicly traded 4D “metaverse” studio. Tanya’s leadership and contributions have been recognized by the Government of Canada, IT World, the Obama Foundation, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, amongst others.