Open Banking Expo USA Speakers

Arash is Product Group Lead for Open Banking at TD Bank, where he builds products for a variety of open banking use cases.

Previously, Arash was the global product lead of alternative payments for Spring by Citi, the bank’s ecommerce payments platform. Before that, Arash was the product lead for the Fiserv’s onboarding platform for enterprise and SMB merchants.

Brian Tate is President and CEO the Innovative Payments Association. The IPA is the premiere payments trade association focused exclusively on companies involved in providing innovative payment products to consumers, businesses, and federal and state governments. Early in his tenure as IPA CEO, Brian led the rebranding and the eventual transition of the Network Branded Prepaid Card Association’s into the IPA in 2018. As the association’s lead advocate, spokesperson, and legal officer, Brian has urged the CFPB to amend its Prepaid Account regulations, successfully encouraged amend its brokered regulations, and advocated generally for the increased use of electronic payments as an efficient and effective means of consumer banking before the OCC, the Federal Reserve, state regulators, and Congress.

Brian also is a co-chair of the IRS’s Security Summit’s Financial Services Working Group, represented the IPA before FinCEN’s BSAAG, and currently is a member of the FTC’s Stop Senior Scams Task Force. Over the last 15 years Brian has been directly involved in some of the most notable financial services related issues, including the Dodd-Frank, the Durbin Amendment, the Small Business Jobs Act, and Fiduciary Duty. Lastly, Brian has participated in numerous media interview, industry panels, and has had the privilege of testifying before various state legislatures and before Congress. Lastly, Brian has authored numerous op-eds regarding the state of the payments industry.

A native Marylander, Brian is a graduate of the Howard University School of Law and is licensed to practice in the state of Maryland and is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar. In addition, Brian has an M.A. from George Washington University, and a B.A. from King’s College. Brian currently lives in Maryland with his wife and three children.

Gary is a Managing Director in Accenture’s Payments practice. He brings 30+ years’ experience in financial services as a consultant, regulator, banker, and fintech practitioner towards the development of safe and sustainable payment, deposit, and lending solutions. Gary has deep knowledge of emerging and legacy payment systems, open banking, consumer credit programs, and the business models to support them.

Hemali Shah is a Channel manager for Open Banking and Digital API at Regions Bank. Prior to that, Hemali led a team of data scientists as a Data Science Manager at Regions. She is an accomplished visionary leader, with the right set of soft skills and technical skills. Over 10 years of Industry experience in providing end to end data driven solutions, that helps reduce cost, increase revenue, and improve efficiency.

Kim is the Global Head of Pay by Bank Commercialization and Go to Market, with over 30 years of payments experience at J.P. Morgan.

Kim’s career began with Chase Card Services, followed by Treasury Services. Prior to Pay by Bank, Kim was a product lead for Real Time Payments – Request for Payment, with a focus on the client experience. Prior to moving into Product, Kim was a leader in the Project and Program Management areas of both Technology and Operations.

Kim has been active for over 10 years in the JPM Women on the Move (WOTM) Business Resource Group and served previously as the Tampa Site and state of Florida Site Co-Chair. Kim is also an active member of PayTech Women and on the Steering Committee for TS Payments Getting Employees Together (G.E.T.).

Kim holds her Bachelor of Arts in Information Systems from Eckerd College and Master of Science in Management with a minor in Project Management from Stevens Institute of Technology. Kim also has her Project Management Professional and Certified Scrum Master certifications.

Maisie Bilotti is the Senior Director of Advocacy at MX, focusing on financial data policy issues and consumer advocacy. She previously worked for Google for 14 years in a variety of roles including congressional relations, privacy and competition policy, and partnership strategy.

Mike is a consumer financial services and fintech attorney and thought leader who helps clients navigate federal and state regulatory labyrinths, leveraging 12+ years as a senior rule-writer at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Mike counsels a diverse group of clients on regulatory compliance, advocacy, and product design issues, including mortgage lenders, banks, and both established and early-stage fintech companies. His core areas of focus include unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices (UDAAP); mortgage origination and consumer lending, particularly issues involving Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) section 8 and the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) loan originator compensation rules; regulations involving innovation, technology, and digital marketing tools; small-dollar lending; deposits; debt collection; and the implications of recent administrative law developments, including the Supreme Court’s 2024 Loper Bright decision overturning the Chevron doctrine.

Mike joined the CFPB’s Office of Regulations in 2011 just weeks after the agency opened its doors and served as senior counsel through January 2024. He helped the agency grow from a startup to a mature organization and led or contributed to some of the CFPB’s most impactful rule and guidance initiatives, including the 2024 Non-Sufficient Funds (NSF) Fees proposal, 2023 RESPA advisory opinion on digital mortgage shopping tools, and 2023 and 2020 policy statements on abusive acts or practices. Mike’s understanding of the agency’s rulemaking and policymaking functions and his institutional perspective is especially valuable right now given the uncertainty surrounding the CFPB as an agency and its policies, including the fate of the Section 1033 Open Banking Rule.

Since leaving the CFPB, Mike has quickly emerged as a thought leader on the intersection of regulation and technology, administrative law, and the CFPB. Mike frequently speaks at industry events and on podcasts, has published articles in the American Banker, Law360, and Open Banker, and has engaged with press outlets including the Washington Post, Bloomberg Law, and others.

Paul LaRusso is Chief Executive Officer of Akoya. He is responsible for the strategic, financial, and operational leadership for the company and works closely with the Board of Directors.

Prior to Akoya, Paul served as the Head of Connected Banking / Open Banking at Chase. In this role, he led the industry in building out the infrastructure to deliver greater control and protection for consumers sharing their financial data. Through his leadership, Chase fully eliminated screen scraping.

Over his 14-year career at Chase, Paul held additional leadership positions including the Head of Product for Digital Servicing, responsible for Chase’s online communications and servicing products used by 40 million active users and Product Owner for Mobile where he led the strategy and rollout of Chase’s first mobile banking apps. LaRusso was also the Board Co-Chair of Financial Data Exchange (FDX) and was on the Board of Directors of Akoya.

In addition, Paul has worked in the mobile industry for Verizon and Sprint. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s (B.A.) from Bucknell University.

Reuben Piryatinsky is the CEO of Altitude Consulting, a strategy and technology firm helping US and Canadian financial institutions build transformative products and services powered by open finance, payments and agentic AI.

Reuben is building a future in which financial services deliver superior value and outstanding, connected customer experiences.

Throughout his two decades in financial services, Reuben has built a track record of growing businesses, advising the C-suite, leading teams to launch best in class products, and driving organizational change. The products he launched are being used by over 3 million people worldwide.

An alum of Waterloo Computer Science and Ivey MBA, Reuben is an active member of FDX, an author and an international speaker.

Ryan T. Miller is Vice President & Senior Counsel of Innovation Policy at the American Bankers Association, where he supports the Office of Innovation. In this role, Ryan represents banks of all sizes and works with policymakers to help build a sound and equitable regulatory framework in which to pursue cutting edge initiatives such as AI, personal financial data sharing (Dodd-Frank Act Section 1033), digital assets, and other emerging areas. He also leverages his experience to provide support in privacy and compliance matters.

Prior to joining ABA, Ryan worked as a financial services compliance professional supporting privacy, information security, records retention, vendor management, and other enterprise-wide issues. He also previously served as an attorney for the federal government and a political subdivision of the State of Texas. Ryan obtained his Juris Doctorate from the University of Houston Law Center in 2006 and completed his undergraduate degree in history and political science from Wittenberg University in 2003. He is licensed in Texas and the District of Columbia, and holds a CIPP/US certification.

Swati Dublish (Swati) is a leader, innovator and a techno-banker who has remarkable skills, expertise and experience working with Tier 1 Cards Networks, Tier 1 Banks and some of the most innovative Banking technology team(s) across the world.

At Innova Solutions, she has created an impact with the award winning InnoWallet & patent pending CrediPay that is not just spectacular but also has set the benchmark for Innovation in the Open Banking, Open Payments, Open Finance and Open Commerce areas.

Prior to Innova Solutions, her contribution to the Evolution of Payments (hbr.org) and creation of niche platforms and accelerators that re-define and re-incarnate Open Banking have been well legendary.

Known for her ability to bring together the Banker’s perspective to the technologist and the art of the possible that emerging technology offers to Banking makes her unique in the industry. She is the primary custodian of the Open Banking juggernaut and has been at the forefront on innovating ways and means to enable consumers to leverage the banking products.

Swati has played a pivotal role in the emergence of Innova Solutions as the leader in Innovation in Open Banking, Open Payments and Open Finance.

As Senior Vice President and Enterprise Payments Strategy Leader at SouthState Bank, Tara collaborates across consumer, business, and commercial lines of business to drive a unified payments strategy. She also leads and supports the technical implementation of instant payments, ISO 20022, Open Banking / APIs, ACH modernization and other payments transformation initiatives across SouthState Bank.

With ten years of experience in financial services, Tara has served in a variety of leadership roles specializing in bank operations, information technology, mergers and acquisitions, strategy, and payments. She has had the privilege of speaking at industry events including Nacha, PaymentsFirst, and Real-Time Payments & XBP Summit on the topics of Quantum Computing in Banking, Instant Payments, ISO 20022, and Empowering Inclusion and Diversity for Women in Payments. She was recently selected for Money 20/20 RiseUp 2024, a global program championing diversity across the payments ecosystem and serves as a mentor with OpenFinity’s Women in Open Banking. She has also been recognized by Charleston Business Magazine as “Charleston’s Best & Brightest: 35 and Under”.