ALLIANCE FOR INNOVATIVE REGULATION - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Independent Director for Truist Financial Corporation 's Board of Directors
- President of the Cambridge Group LLC
Agnes Bundy Scanlan, Esq., is the President of The Cambridge Group LLC, a strategy and risk management advisory firm. The Cambridge Group provides regulatory risk consulting, operational expertise on consumer banking regulations, interim staff augmentation, training guidance, and more. Based on her unique experiences, Agnes is recognized as a strategic partner and trusted advisor who provides hands-on advice to execute and implement solutions successfully.
Recently, Agnes was senior advisor for Treliant, where she counseled financial services firms on various challenges, including strategy, governance, regulatory, compliance, and risk management matters.
Previously, Agnes served as the Northeast Regional Director of Supervision Examinations for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB"). As Regional Director, Agnes oversaw the regional staff, and represented the CFPB Supervision mission on all matters relating to conducting consumer financial protection supervision and examinations at a variety of complex depository financial institutions and non-depository consumer financial services companies. The 32 financial institutions and 25 companies under her regulatory authority had assets totaling over $6 trillion.
Earlier, Agnes was the chief regulatory and compliance officer, and global chief privacy officer at TD Bank. She worked in similar roles at Bank of America and its predecessors. Agnes also served as counsel at Goodwin Procter and for the United States Senate Committee on the Budget.
Agnes is an independent director for Truist Financial Corporation's Board of Directors and NewTower Trust Company. She is a fellow of the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers, a commissioner for the American Bar Association's ("ABA") Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession, and, is the chair of the ABA's Business Law Section's Privacy Subcommittee. Agnes was selected for inclusion in Boston Business Journal's Most Powerful Women, and in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business. She is the former vice chair of the Smith College Board of Trustees, former chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors' Consumer Advisory Council, former (and founding) chairman of International Association of Privacy Professionals, and former chair of FannieMae's Housing Impact Advisory Council.
Agnes holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a A.B. from Smith College. She is a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Bar of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Last year, Agnes completed Harvard University's certification course on Cybersecurity: Managing Risk in the Information Age and MIT's certification course on Artificial Intelligence.
Job Titles:
- Senior Advisor to FS Vector, Formerly Chief Counsel, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ( OCC )
Amy has over 25 years of experience shaping banking and consumer financial protection law and regulation. Amy was Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) from February 2013 to November 2017 where she served on the agency's executive committee and oversaw all of the agency's legal activities and licensing functions. Amy led the OCC's strategic initiative on responsible innovation resulting in the establishment of the Office of Innovation and the fintech national bank charter. Previously, she held a number of positions in the US Congress, including Chief Counsel to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs where she led the Committee's work in responding to the financial crisis, including the Dodd-Frank Act, and Minority General Counsel to the House Committee on Financial Services. Amy currently serves as a senior advisor to FS Vector, an advisory firm that helps innovative financial companies with their compliance, business strategy and policy needs. She is on the board of directors for Varo Money, a challenger mobile bank, and FinRegLab, a newly established nonprofit that tests new technologies and data to inform public policy and drive more inclusive financial services.
Job Titles:
- Fellow at Yale Law School 's Information Society Project
- Managing Partner, Bnh.Ai and Chief Legal Officer, Immuta
Andrew Burt, an internationally recognized expert on the intersection between data privacy, security and artificial intelligence, is Chief Legal Officer at Immuta, where he leads the company's Legal Engineering team. The team, comprised of lawyers with deep expertise in data science, focuses on automating compliance and oversight activities within the Immuta software platform.
Before joining Immuta, Andrew served as Special Advisor for Policy to the head of the FBI Cyber Division, where he was the lead author on the FBI's after action report on the 2014 attack on Sony. A frequent speaker and author, he has published articles on technology and law in The New York Times, The Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review, where he is a regular contributor.
Andrew is a visiting fellow at Yale Law School's Information Society Project, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a certified cyber incident responder. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. with first class honors from McGill University.
Job Titles:
- Managing Partner at CreditEase Fintech VC Fund
- Member of the World Economic Forum
Anju Patwardhan is Managing Partner at CreditEase Fintech VC Fund. Prior to this, Anju worked in banking for over two decades with Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) in global and regional leadership roles.
Anju is a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) fintech steering committee, Fintech Faculty at Singularity University, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Banking and Finance. She serves on several international boards including the Gulf International Bank (Saudi Arabia), University of the Future (India), OCBC Bank's Digital Advisory Council (Singapore), board nominee of the PIF (Saudi Arabia), and various fintech companies in the US/UK.
She was a 2016 Fulbright Fellow & Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, and Distinguished Careers Institute Fellow at Stanford in 2017 and 2018. While at Stanford, she published papers on the use of technology to support financial inclusion and also collaborated on launching a fintech course for the MBA students.
She was also on the advisory board of the Government of Estonia's e-Residency program. She was also an Innovation Fellow at the National University of Singapore, and Fintech Industry expert at UC Berkeley.
She is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Management and has additional qualifications in board directorship, risk management and art appreciation.
Job Titles:
- Senior Program Officer for Regulatory and Consumer Protection Technologies at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Anna is the Senior Program Officer for Regulatory and Consumer Protection Technologies at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Her role is to leverage technology to enable financial regulators in managing the risks posed by emerging financial services models without impeding the innovation required to drive financial inclusion. Anna has 20 years' experience in public policy with an expertise in financial regulation, digital financial services and consumer protection. In her most recent senior leadership role, Anna built the innovation unit at the UK's Financial Conduct Authority. This included developing the world's first ‘Regulatory Sandbox', creating an international network of financial regulators to promote pro-innovation regulation (the Global Financial Innovation Network) and developing policy on issues like cloud computing, machine learning and crypto assets. Anna was the accountable executive for FCDO-funded technical assistance programs to Nigeria and was a member of UK Financial Services Investment Board and Fintech Delivery Board. This role builds on a broad career across a range of public sector organizations, including the UK Government, European Commission and the Scottish Parliament. Anna has a Batchelor's Degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) from the University of Stirling.
Job Titles:
- Managing Partner of Core Innovation Capital
- VC - Founder and Managing Partner, Core Innovation Capital
Arjan Schütte is the founder and a managing partner of Core Innovation Capital, a mission-driven venture capital fund investing in financial services companies that empower everyday Americans. His investments include Ripple, Oportun, SynapseFI, Fundera and TIO Networks. Arjan is a sought-after consumer finance expert and a passionate advocate for market-based financial inclusion. He blogs for Forbes, and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Economist, among others. He has spoken everywhere from SxSW to Stanford, from Money2020 to the White House. Arjan served as member of the CFPB's Consumer Advisory Board and is a Senior Advisor to the Financial Health Network (formerly CFSI), the nation's leading authority on financial health, which he helped start in 2004. He currently serves on boards including SynapseFI, and PadSplit, and as observer to boards including Fundera, Mosaic, Hugo, and PayJoy. Previous boards include Ripple, and TIO Networks. A number of Arjan's investments have been successfully excited, including Oportun (IPO), TIO Networks (by PayPal), AccountNow (by Green Dot), CircleLending (by Virgin Group), L2C (by TransUnion), and RentBureau (by Experian). Prior, Arjan spent a decade as an entrepreneur in several venture backed startups as a technology leader and general manager including Pierian Spring Software, Cognitive Concepts (acquired by Houghton Mifflin), Capella Learning (NASDAQ: CPLA), and DoTheGood. Arjan earned his Master's from the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as an Interval Research Fellow, and his Bachelor's in Philosophy and Communication at Lewis & Clark College. He commutes between Los Angeles and San Francisco, when he's not doting on his his wife and two young children, learning the piano or cooking.
Job Titles:
- Innovation Program Manager
- TechSprint and Innovation Program Manager
Aye Diallo joined the Alliance for Innovative Regulation in 2022 as TechSprint and Innovation Program Manager where she works with global partners to conceive of and implement TechSprints and other initiatives aimed at using digital technology to solve financial and regulatory problems.
Prior to joining AIR, Aye worked as a program developer and project manager leading efforts to create a more equitable startup community through Gender Equality in Tech (GET) Cities Chicago. She then worked in D.C. at a public relations firm, using economic analysis and research to execute communications plans for a variety of clients in the financial, healthcare, and education sectors.
Aye received dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in economics and political science from Howard University, graduating magna cum laude. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling the world with her family, watching TV series, reading various genres of books, volunteering at local schools and trying new recipes. She is a student of life and is constantly searching for new experiences to expand her mind.
Job Titles:
- Founder and CEO of Token Insights and Financial Services Insights
Mr. Trojan is ‘Global Advisor to the Digital Economy' and is an international disruptive technology and commercial/SME/consumer lending expert, thought leader and speaker. He is Founder and CEO of Token Insights and Financial Services Insights, his advisory firms that specialize in global strategy, FinTech, RegTech, and regulatory/legislative affairs, including secured transaction reform. From 2012-2017, Mr. Trojan was the CEO of the Commercial Finance Association (CFA) now SFNet, the global trade organization representing 250+ banks and finance companies in the asset-based lending, supply chain finance, trade finance, and factoring business. CFA members represented approximately $600 Billion in this type of financing each year.
In addition to his work as Sherpa/Co-Sherpa on various APEC/ABAC regional work streams, Mr. Trojan also serves as official Observer on several UN-aligned Working Groups (Secured Transactions, MSME Finance, Digital Assets, Factoring, and Warehouse Receipts), was appointed to advise the US Secretary of Commerce on its Trade Finance Advisory Council, and engages regularly with the international community on capacity building. He has also mentored several FinTech accelerators including The Venture Center and Iconiq Labs and continues active engagement in the FinTech/RegTech start-up community.
Previously, Mr. Trojan held various senior positions at CIT, a global $65+ billion secured/asset-based lending, factoring and equipment leasing company, including chief of staff and senior operations advisor to the Vice Chairman.
Cantwell F. Muckenfuss III is a Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School and a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP where he focuses on the representation of financial institutions. Mr. Muckenfuss is a founder, member and past Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of City First Bank of D.C., N.A., a community development bank in Washington, D.C. He is also Chairman of the Board of City First Enterprises, Inc., the nonprofit controlling shareholder of City First Bank. Mr. Muckenfuss received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and his law degree from Yale Law School.
Job Titles:
- CEO and Co - Founder of Basis Technology
Lifetime entrepreneur with experience in text analytics, cyber forensics, and cross-border ventures. Co-founder of Basis Technology and investor in Customer Matrix, Diffeo, Lucidworks, Luminoso, Polyswarm, Recorded Future, Tamr, and Zoomd. Advisor to Diffeo, PolySwarm, and Thrive Bioscience. Delivered key enabling technology to Amazon and Google for their Japan market launches, and to Bing and Yahoo for their Asian expansion. Worked with the US Intelligence Community on high volume, multilingual DOMEX, HUMINT, OSINT, and SIGINT. Non-profit experience as business development director of the Free Software Foundation and director of the Unicode Consortium. Spent formative years at MIT as a student, teaching assistant, and research assistant at the AI Lab and Project MAC.
Job Titles:
- Georgetown Law Professor
- Professor and Faculty Director of Georgetown 's Institute of International Economic Law
Chris Brummer is a Georgetown law professor, lecturer, and author. He has earned an international reputation as a premier thought leader in financial services and the law, and a tireless advocate of diversity and inclusion. Chris started his career at Cravath Swaine and Moore LLP, and now serves as the Faculty Director of the Institute of International Economic Law. For over a decade, he has also lent his expertise to nonprofits and policymakers, and offered his insights as to how firms and governments can best understand and react to new developments and challenges in the financial system. Aside from working as a professor and spearheading multiple initiatives and organizations related to financial regulation, he also serves as both a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Subcommittee on Virtual Currencies and the Consultative Working Group for the European Securities and Markets Authority's Financial Innovation Standing Committee. Chris holds multiple degrees, including a J.D. with honors from Columbia Law School and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He is also the author and/or editor of several books, including Fintech Law in a Nutshell and Cryptoassets: Legal, Regulatory and Monetary Perspectives. He is the founder of Washington DC's Fintech Week and the host of the Fintech Beat podcast.
Job Titles:
- Senior Counsel to the Law Firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher and the Former Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission ( CFTC )
Christopher Giancarlo is Senior Counsel to the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher and the former Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Mr. Giancarlo also served as a member of the Financial Stability Oversight Committee (FSOC), the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, and the Executive Board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). Before entering public service, Mr. Giancarlo served as the Executive Vice President of GFI Group Inc., a financial services firm. Under his leadership, the CFTC published primers on virtual currencies and smart contracts, oversaw the launch of the first bitcoin futures contracts and created LabCFTC as the agency's stakeholder in the digital evolution of derivatives trading markets.
He recently launched a non-profit, The Digital Dollar Foundation. The Digital Dollar Project is a partnership between Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and the Digital Dollar Foundation to advance exploration of a United States Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The purpose of the Project is to encourage research and public discussion on the potential advantages of a digital dollar, convene private sector thought leaders and actors, and propose possible models to support the public sector. The Project will develop a framework for potential, practical steps that can be taken to establish a dollar CBDC.
Chris has over 45,000 followers on Twitter as @giancarloMKTS where he is known as "CryptoDad."
Job Titles:
- CEO and Co - Founder of Varo Money
Colin Walsh is the CEO and co-founder of Varo Money, which is on track to become the first mobile-centric national bank in U.S. history. Colin founded Varo with a specific vision: to help millions of people improve their financial lives. Colin is uniquely positioned to lead the mobile bank revolution and has more than 25 years of experience in consumer banking at large global financial institutions. He led Europe's largest credit and charge card business as an Executive Vice President at American Express. Colin also led the UK's largest mortgage and savings businesses at Lloyds Banking Group, and served as Managing Director for the firm's retail bancassurance, credit, debit and merchant acquiring businesses. Under Colin's leadership and with an experienced team, Varo is building the best banking company in the country for consumers looking to build their financial health. The team recently launched No Fee Overdraft, the first-ever service of its kind to remove fees on overdrafts. Varo has raised $179M and serves more than 1 million registered customers across the country.
Job Titles:
- Founder and Managing Partner at Deciens Capital
Dan Kimerling started Deciens because of the realization that there was (and, other than Deciens, is) no Venture fund focused on supporting fintech companies at the seed stage. Having helped to start three companies and invested in over forty, he thought that this was a major problem for founders trying to re-shape a sector that is over 20% of global GDP. As Founder and Managing Partner at Deciens Capital, Dan is responsible for all aspect of the firm, including raising capital, sourcing and executing investments, and collaborating with portfolio companies. As part of this, he is on the board of several portfolio companies. The firm build's on his successful angel track record, including Tala, Truelink Financial, Starcity, SimpleLegal (acquired by Onit), and Fuze Network (Acquired by Ingo Money). Until September 2017, Dan was a senior executive at Silicon Valley Bank responsible for API Banking, Open Platform, and Global Research and Development. He joined Silicon Valley Bank in July of 2015 through the acquisition of Standard Treasury, which he co-founded and served as the CEO. Standard Treasury - a YCombinator company - was the leading provider of API solutions to the financial services community and was named one of the 10 technology companies to watch by The American Banker in 2014. Because of his work on bringing cutting edge technology to banks, Dan was named to the 2015 Forbes' 30 under 30 list. Before starting Standard Treasury, Dan was the first employee and Chief Operating Officer of Giftly, a stored value technology company acquired by GiftCards.com in May 2013. While leading the company, Business Insider named Giftly one of "The 20 Best Start of 2011" and Dan one of the "25 Hot Young Stars In Silicon Valley". Giftly's mobile app was also named by "Best of the App Store" by Apple in 2012. Before Giftly, Dan was a journalist and analyst at TechCrunch, the leading technology website on the Internet until its acquisition by AOL in 2010. He also helped to run their well-regarded conference business for two years. Earlier in his career he was an award winning policy scholar, being named the Anne Armstrong Leadership Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a Jeff Metcalf Fellow at the Hudson Institute. He graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA and MA (both with honors) and studied mathematical (analytic) finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of business for a year as a Booth Scholar. Outside of his work at Deciens Capital he is also the Co-Founder and a Principal at Gutenberg Capital, a Real Estate investment company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He lives with his wife and their dogs in San Francisco CA and Santa Fe NM.
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant
- Executive Assistant / Springfield, Virginia
Danae joined the team as Executive Assistant in February 2023. In her primary role, she supports CEO Jo Ann Barefoot and Executive Director David Ehrich with scheduling, travel planning and logistics, and provides additional administrative support.
Danae came to AIR with a diverse career background in account and operations management, logistics, event planning, and executive administration for both nonprofits and consulting firms. Most recently, she spent nearly a decade as an executive assistant at a growing healthcare consulting startup in the Washington D.C. area.
Originally from Indiana, Danae fell in love with Northern Virginia and has called the area home for the past 18 years. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Theory and has been a classical pianist since childhood. Living in the D.C. metro area, she pursues numerous other hobbies and interests, including collecting books, tending to her gardens, bonding with her cat, and traveling around the U.S. and abroad.
Job Titles:
- Founder of Gattaca Horizons LLC and Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center
Daniel Gorfine is an experienced regulatory, public policy, strategic communications, and business executive, and the founder of Gattaca Horizons LLC, a boutique advisory firm. Gorfine has substantial in-house, government, and think tank experience across the technology and financial markets & services sectors, and was previously appointed by the Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to serve as the federal agency's first Chief Innovation Officer and Director of LabCFTC. In that capacity, Gorfine developed and led the Commission's new technology innovation and regulatory modernization effort focused on informing policy and helping the Agency keep pace with modern, digital markets. Gorfine served as a senior agency representative on FinTech and crypto-asset issues, worked with staff and Members of Congress, coordinated with domestic and international regulators, and provided expert testimony before Congress. He also currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center teaching FinTech Law & Policy. Prior to the CFTC, Gorfine was Vice President, External Affairs & Associate General Counsel at OnDeck where he spearheaded efforts to create a new industry trade association and business standards. Gorfine also previously served as Director of Financial Markets Policy and Legal Counsel at the Milken Institute think tank, and earlier in his career worked at the international law firm Covington & Burling LLP. He also served a clerkship with U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C. Blake in the District of Maryland. A graduate of Brown University (A.B.), Gorfine holds a J.D. from George Washington University Law School and an M.A. from the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Daniel Schydlowsky served as Superintendent of Banking, Insurance and Private Pension Fund Administrators of Peru (SBS), August, 2011 - November, 2015. He concurrently served as President of the Association of Bank Supervisors of the Americas (ASBA), as Chairman of Governing Council of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), as Member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), and as Vice President of the Association of Insurance Supervisors of Latin America (ASSAL). In October, 2015, he was awarded the inaugural Edward W. Claugus Award for Excellence in Regulation of Micro Finance.
From 2001 to 2006, Dr. Schydlowsky served in the administration of President Alejandro Toledo as Presidential Counselor for Economic and Financial Affairs, as President of Peru´s Development Finance Corporation, COFIDE, as member of the board of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru, and of the Andean Development Corporation. He also served as Vice President of The Latin American Association of Development Finance Institutions, ALIDE.
Dr. Schydlowsky has had a long and distinguished academic career. After leaving government, he has served for two years as Senior Program Fellow, Corporate Responsibility Initiative, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. During 2010, he was Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor in Latin American Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and concurrently Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government of the Harvard Kennedy School. He was previously Professor of Economics at Boston University (1972-1990) and at The American University in Washington D.C. (1990-2001) and also a Visiting Scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at Tel Aviv University and at the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzlia. He also continues to be an Associate of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University and a Distinguished Scholar at Boston University´s Global Development Policy Center.
Since leaving government, he has served as consultant to the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Inter-American Development Bank on matters of financial inclusion and digital finance. In earlier years, he has been a consultant to different international organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the World Bank, UNDP and USAID. He has worked in most Latin American countries as well as in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Romania and South Africa.
He has published eight books and ninety-three professional articles on economic issues in numerous professional journals. Professor Schydlowsky holds a BA and MA in Economics and an LLB from San Marcos University, Peru, and an MA and PhD in Economics from Harvard. He was awarded a Doctorate honoris causa by San Marcos University, Peru, in November, 2015.
Job Titles:
- Chief Technology Officer at Ripple
David Schwartz is Chief Technology Officer at Ripple. David is one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger. Prior to joining Ripple, David Schwartz was Chief Technical Officer for WebMaster Incorporated, a Santa Clara software developer. He developed encrypted cloud storage and enterprise messaging systems for organizations like CNN and the National Security Agency (NSA). Known as "JoelKatz," he is a respected voice in the digital currency community.
Job Titles:
- Senior Advisor, Financial Health Network
David Silberman has been involved in consumer finance issues from a wide range of perspectives for over three decades. As President and CEO of Union Privilege, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, he led the development and oversaw the delivery of a range of consumer financial products and services to union members. After leaving Union Privilege, David served as General Counsel and Executive Vice President of the Kessler Financial Services, a privately-held company providing marketing and advisory services to financial institutions and their affinity-group partners. Following the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, David joined the implementation team for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and was named the Associate Director for the Division of Research, Markets, and Regulations. In 2016-2017, David also served as the Acting Deputy Director for the CFPB. Mr. Silberman retired from the CFPB in 2020, and now serves as a Senior Advisor to the Center for Responsible Lending and the Financial Health Network's Financial Solutions Lab. He also has been named an adjunct professor at Georgetown's School of Public Policy and at Harvard Law School, from which he graduated. Mr. Silberman began his legal career as a law clerk to Chief Judge David Bazelon of the D.C. Circuit and Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive
- Non - Executive Director
- Founding CEO of the RegTech Association
Deborah Young is the founding CEO of The RegTech Association, a global non-profit industry member body focussed on accelerating adoption of RegTech solutions and creating a global centre of excellence. Since helping to establish the Association in 2017, she has led the growth to 180 organisations including 130 RegTech firms. The cohort also includes top tier banks, global technology companies and consulting firms. She has advocated for the industry with Government, regulators, investors and trade agencies. Deborah has led the recognition of Australia as the third highest concentration of RegTech producers in the world and is a sought after advisor on the global RegTech industry.
Deborah sits on the Australian Federal Government FinTech Advisory Committee, NSW Government ICT Procurement Task Force, The National Blockchain Roadmap RegTech Committee and is a member of ASIC's Digital Committee & UTS Business School Women's MBA Network Committee and a regular speaker, presenter and designer of RegTech programs for the association and its partners and engages with regulators globally.
Deborah is an accomplished chief executive, non-executive director, mentor and strategic business consultant. She has over 20 years' experience as a senior executive across financial services, including investment banking, private equity, venture capital, superannuation and insurance spectrums. Deborah holds an Executive MBA (Global) from UTS Business School and was named as one of the Australian Financial Review's 100 Women of Influence in 2019 for Innovation.
Job Titles:
- Kerry Holdings Professor in Law
Douglas W. Arner is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law, RGC Senior Fellow in Digital Finance and Sustainable Development and Associate Director of the HKU-Standard Chartered Foundation FinTech Academy at the University of Hong Kong. In addition, he is Associate Dean (Taught Postgraduate and Development) of the Faculty of Law at HKU and co-founder of HKU's Asian Institute of International Financial Law, as well as Faculty Director and co-founder of the LLM in Compliance and Regulation, the LLM in Corporate and Financial Law, the Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE), and the East Asian International Economic Law and Policy Programmes. Douglas is a Visiting Professor and Senior Visiting Fellow of Melbourne Law School of the University of Melbourne, a non-executive director of NASDAQ and Euronext listed Aptorum Group, an Advisory Board Member of the Global Impact FinTech (GIFT) Forum and of the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE), and co-founder and an executive board member of the Asia Pacific Structured Finance Association. In 2020 he was awarded an inaugural Hong Kong Research Grants Council Senior Fellowship to study the role of digital finance in financial inclusion and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Douglas has published eighteen books and more than 200 articles, chapters and reports on international financial law and regulation, including most recently Reconceptualising Global Finance and its Regulation (Cambridge 2016) (with Ross Buckley and Emilios Avgouleas) and The RegTech Book (Wiley 2019 (Janos Barberis and Ross Buckley). His recent papers are available on SSRN at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=524849 , where he is among the top 50 authors in the world by total downloads, as well as among the top 15 law authors. Douglas led the development of Introduction to FinTech - launched with edX in May 2018 and now with over 100,000 learners spanning almost every country in the world - and the foundation of the edx-HKU Online Professional Certificate in FinTech. Douglas was an inaugural member of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council (2013-2019) and Director of the Duke-HKU Asia America Institute in Transnational Law (2005-2016) and has served as a consultant with, among others, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, UN, APEC, Alliance for Financial Inclusion, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He has lectured, co-organised conferences and seminars and been involved with financial sector reform projects around the world. Douglas has been a visiting professor or fellow at Duke, Harvard, the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, IDC Herzliya, McGill, Melbourne, National University of Singapore, University of New South Wales, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Zurich, among others.
Job Titles:
- Finance
- Operations Manager
- Senior Finance & Operations Manager
- Senior Finance & Operations Manager / Boston, Massachusetts
Elise joined AIR as the Finance & Operations Manager in early 2023 and was promoted to Senior Finance & Operations Manager in early 2024. She supports and manages day-to-day financial and administrative activities, including organizational and project budgets, AIR's operational policies, and internal controls.
Prior to joining AIR, Elise held business management and administrative positions at growing firms in the Boston area for over six years, primarily in the financial services sector. She worked most recently as the business operations manager at Crowninshield Financial Research in Brookline, and before that at Cabot Investment Technology, now a part of FactSet. She received her Bachelor of Science in physics from Boston College and lives outside of Boston with her husband. When not at work, she enjoys running, reading, listening to true crime podcasts and cheering on her beloved Boston sports teams, especially her alma mater's Eagles.
Job Titles:
- Senior Advisor
- Senior Advisor / New York City
F. Christopher Calabia joins AIR with three decades of experience in financial regulation. He is enthusiastic about AIR's mission to promote the responsible use of technology for the public good.
Currently Chris is Head of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Digital Currency Initiative. He leads research engagements with central banks and other stakeholders to advise policymakers on the potential risks and opportunities associated with the launch of this new digital asset.
In that vein, Chris began his career as a central banker and regulator himself at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1993. Over the next 24 years he held a variety of roles, including serving as the senior supervisor for one of the largest U.S. banks and later as the Senior Vice President of the Regional, Community, Foreign Institution, and Consumer Compliance Function, leading 72 staff and overseeing 200 U.S. and foreign banks. From 2021-2022, Chris was the Chief Executive of the Dubai Financial Services Authority, the independent regulator of the Dubai International Financial Centre.
In between those assignments, Chris led the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's work on supervisory and regulatory policy from 2017 to 2021, promoting financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Other international experiences include a secondment to the independent secretariat of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision at the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland (2003-2005) and temporary assignments with the International Monetary Fund, where he advised regulators in the United Kingdom (2016) and Kazakhstan (2023) on their compliance with global regulatory standards.
Chris is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist, a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy (M.A.L.D.), and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Virginia (B.A.). He founded FC Calabia Solutions, LLC, to help build a future for finance that is sustainable, resilient, and inclusive. Chris lives in New York City with his wife and family.
Job Titles:
- Senior Manager
- Senior Manager, Global Public Policy, PayPal
Fabrice Coles is a Senior Manager, Global Public Policy, at PayPal. He is an attorney and a former senior Capitol Hill staffer who is committed to sustainable financial inclusion at scale. Prior to his current role, Fabrice spent a decade working in and with the United States Congress. Most recently he was a VP for Government Affairs at the Bank Policy Institute. Prior to that, he served as the Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus and as an economic policy advisor in both the House and Senate. Fabrice has also served at the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. He holds a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law, an LLM in Securities and Financial Regulation from Georgetown University Law Center and an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.
Job Titles:
- CEO of Giant Oak, Inc
- Economist and Business Executive
Gary M. Shiffman is an applied micro-economist and business executive working to combat organized violence, corruption, and coercion. He received his BA from the University of Colorado in Psychology, his MA from Georgetown University in National Security Studies, and his PhD in Economics from George Mason University. His academic work is complimented by his global operational experiences, including his service as a U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer in the Pacific Fleet with tours in the Gulf War; as an official in the Pentagon and a Senior Executive in the US Department of Homeland Security; as a National Security Advisor in the US Senate; and as a business leader at a publicly-traded corporation. Currently, Dr. Shiffman serves as the CEO of Giant Oak, Inc., a machine learning and artificial intelligence company building software to support professionals in the fields of national security and financial crime. He dedicates time to Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, teaching the next generation of national security leaders. Dr. Shiffman recently published The Economics of Violence: How Behavioral Science Can Transform Our View of Crime, Insurgency, and Terrorism with Cambridge University Press in 2020.
Job Titles:
- Manager
- TechSprint Manager
Grace Mathebula joined AIR in October 2022 as a TechSprint Manager, based in Gauteng, South Africa. She manages TechSprints and sprint-related projects that help regulators and others innovate in the areas of financial inclusion, among other things, working with partners and the AIR team to meet program objectives. As a senior PMP-certified project manager and certified SCRUM Master, she has over 14 years of experience managing projects and programs in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and data analytics. For most of that time, she focused on credit risk process ...
Howell Jackson is the James S. Reid, Jr., Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. His research interests include financial regulation, consumer protection, international finance, and federal budget policy. Professor Jackson has co-authored three books-Financial Regulation: Law and Policy (2nd ed. 2018), Analytical Methods for Lawyers (3rd ed. 2017), and Fiscal Challenges: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Budget Policy (2008)-and the author of numerous scholarly articles. Professor Jackson frequently consults with public officials and regulatory agencies on financial regulation. He is also trustee of College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF) and affiliated TIAA-CREF investment companies. Before joining the Harvard Law School faculty in 1989, Professor Jackson practiced law in Washington, D.C., and was a law clerk for Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall. He received his JD and MBA degrees from Harvard University in 1982 and a BA from Brown University in 1976. Additional information on Professor Jackson's outside activities is available at https://helios.law.harvard.edu/Public/Faculty/ConflictOfInterestReport.aspx?id=10423.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Law at Harvard Law School
Job Titles:
- Founding Partner of Buckley LLP
Described by Chambers as "a recognized dean of the consumer finance bar," Jerry Buckley has, over a 40 year career, established himself as an acknowledged leader in financial services law. A founding partner of Buckley LLP, Mr. Buckley assists his clients - banks, mortgage companies, credit card issuers, insurance companies, broker dealers, fintech lenders, investment banks, and private equity investors - with business formations and acquisitions, risk management, and enforcement matters involving federal and state regulators. He has extensive experience with electronic signatures and serves as General Counsel of the Electronic Signatures and Records Association. He is co-author of The Law of Electronic Signatures and Records. Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Buckley served as Republican Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, where he participated in drafting most of the laws that serve as the foundation for today's consumer finance law ─ the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Truth in Lending Act amendments, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Community Reinvestment Act, and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. For many years, Mr. Buckley has been a leading advocate for updating and modernizing the nearly 50 year old regulatory regime that is slowing down financial innovation. Several years ago he wrote a widely read article in the American Banker urging development of "dynamic disclosures," to offer far more useful information to consumers than is provided under the cumbersome and voluminous static disclosures currently provided. He recently took the lead in a pro bono project producing a white paper on "Regulatory Hurdles to Fintech Innovation," based on interviews with innovation leaders in each of the federal financial regulatory agencies. Mr. Buckley serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at the American University Washington College of Law. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, he received the Senator William Proxmire Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers in 2015.
Jo Ann Barefoot is CEO & Co-founder of the Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR), host of the global podcast show Barefoot Innovation, and Senior Fellow Emerita at the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Business & Government. She has been Deputy Comptroller of the Currency, partner at KPMG, Co-Chairman of Treliant Risk Advisors, and a staff member at the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. She serves on the boards of Oportun and FinRegLab, and on advisory bodies for FINRA, the Milken Institute, and the California Blockchain Working Group. She formerly served on the board of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. She is Co-founder of Hummingbird RegTech.
In 2021, Jo Ann was named Fintech Woman of the Year by Finovate and selected to the Forbes list of 50 Over 50. She is also in the Fintech Hall of Fame. She previously served on the CFPB's Consumer Advisory Board and chaired the board of the Financial Health Network. She has published nearly 200 articles and speaks each year to thousands of people throughout the world.
My life's work has been about convergence. As a former senior bank regulator and Capitol Hill staffer, I helped design and implement policy frameworks in the traditional financial system. Later, I leaned into the idea that less traditional solutions - with technology at their core - could make huge improvements in those legacy models. Today, I focus on the places where the disparate currents in our markets and regulatory systems can flow together to form something new and better than what came before it.
At AIR, we are helping to make the financial system fairer and more resilient by spurring the development of new solutions for financial consumers that employ the advantages and combat the risks of digital innovation. David Ehrich and I launched the Alliance in 2019 believing that such solutions can result from bringing together a community of leaders from disparate corners of the financial and technology ecosystems. Our mission is to connect government officials, digital innovators, financial providers, academics, nonprofits and other stakeholders, assembling a diverse network committed to the common goal of a technologically advanced regulatory system.
I have always been interested in the confluence of technology, markets, culture, social movements, science, art, education, global poverty reduction and, crucially, regulation in fostering the transformative ideas that make our world better.
CEO and Co-founder of the Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR)
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and CEO of FS Vector
John provides a wide range of regulatory and compliance solutions for financial services, fintech and cryptocurrency firms. He was most recently General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of Circle Internet Financial, Inc., a global crypto finance company that is seeking to help change the global economy. Mr. Beccia previously served as Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Boston Private Financial Holdings, Inc., a publicly traded bank holding company. He was also Assistant General Counsel for Investors Bank & Trust Company and Chief Regulatory Counsel and Research Director for The Financial Services Roundtable where he was responsible for all regulatory affairs and assisted with legislative efforts for the trade association. Mr. Beccia has served as Chairman of the In-House Counsel Subcommittee of the American Bar Association's (ABA) Banking Law Committee and is currently an Adjunct Professor of Boston University School of Law. Mr. Beccia has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Providence College, a J.D. from Roger Williams University School of Law, and a LLM in Banking and Financial Law from Boston University School of Law.
Job Titles:
- Global Head of Marketing and Communications
Joe joined AIR in November 2021 as its first Global Head of Marketing and Communications. He leads marketing activities across all channels with a strategic focus on increasing AIR's brand awareness, expanding its reach and optimizing communications for the greatest impact. His focus areas include website management, social media marketing, email marketing, speaking appearances, podcast promotion, public relations, fundraising materials and event support. Joe has over a decade of marketing experience in the graphics and publishing sector from his previous roles ...
Josh has spent 20 years moving from the architecture of the internet to the architecture of money, and how people think about it. Currently, Josh is dedicating his time to his family, and growing herd of goats, cattle and sheep on his farm in rural Oregon. Prior to this Josh was the founder and CEO of Simple.com. At Simple, he used his background in systems engineering, quantitative analysis, and behavioral economics to design a retail banking experience designed to help people feel confident with money. He has an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, a BSc in Mathematics and Statistics and almost a medical degree from the University of Melbourne.
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Founder
- Founder and CEO of Full Circle Strategies
Jotaka L. Eaddy is the founder and CEO of Full Circle Strategies, LLC - a social impact consulting firm committed to advancing transformative change and global impact.
Judith Erwin is the former CEO of Grasshopper Bank, the first digital commercial bank in the United States.
Judith was on the founding executive team for Square 1 Bank in 2005, responsible for venture capital services globally. Square 1 successfully went public in 2014 and was later sold to Pacific Western Bank. She previously worked at Imperial and Comerica.
After 35 years in banking, Judith knew it was the time to make significant changes in the commercial banking industry. Her strategy was to build a bank from scratch providing both a modern technological framework and intuitive user experience for the digital entrepreneurs Grasshopper serves. Grasshopper Bank opened its doors on May 13, 2019 becoming the first US digital commercial bank, first new bank in NY in ten years, and first de novo with a female CEO, female CTO, and female CFO.
Kabir backs early-stage entrepreneurs who want to fundamentally transform the financial sector and improve people's economic outlook. At Flourish, he leads global policy and ecosystem building efforts, makes investments in the US and emerging markets, and incubates new areas of work. Kabir has developed a portfolio of investments in regtech and banking technology, backed startups in frontier markets in South Asia. Kabir has a deep background in emerging markets, having cofounded a program at CGAP and the World Bank that laid the foundations of digital financial services in emerging markets.
Job Titles:
- Founder and CEO of FairPlay
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.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- TechSprint Consultant
Katie, who joined AIR in 2022, leads and supports TechSprint-related initiatives and other innovation programs across the organization. She has always been passionate about mission-driven work, including protecting vulnerable customers and the environment, which are both AIR priorities. Prior to working at AIR, Katie had a long career in traditional financial services. During 15 years at American Express, she filled many leadership roles across numerous business areas, including Prepaid Cards, Customer Experience and Travel. Her most recent roles primarily focused on managing the ...
Job Titles:
- Chief
- Program Officer
- Chief Program Officer / Alexandria, Virginia
Kisha Perkins joined the Alliance for Innovation Regulation (AIR) as the Chief Program Officer responsible for program strategy, project design and delivery, planning, staffing, resource management, and quality control of all programs. Prior to joining AIR, Kisha held several leadership roles during a 12-year stint in consulting, supporting large financial institutions in solving complex, multi-faceted consumer compliance challenges. Kisha led project execution and delivery teams that advanced consumer remediation initiatives, consent order deliverables and technology-focused solutions. Prior to consulting, Kisha spent 10 years in the financial industry where she held various risk, compliance audit and technology roles at several large financial institutions, including Freddie Mac.
Kisha enjoys leading outcome- focused teams that deliver on the expectations of partners, clients and donors. Outside of AIR, she works on causes that support homelessness and currently serves on the board of the Carpenter's Shelter in Alexandria Virginia.
Job Titles:
- Head of Innovation at Colombia 's Financial Superintendency
Laura Clavijo is the Head of Innovation at Colombia's Financial Superintendency and leader of an encompassing initiative to foster technological innovation in the financial sector, including the implementation of the first regulatory sandbox in the Latin American region. Before undertaking this innovation challenge, she has worked for almost a decade with government and multilateral agencies (IDB and IMF) in research and implementation of public policies for financial sector development. Laura holds a Masters and BA in Economics from the Universidad de los Andes and a Master in Public Administration from Columbia University in New York. More recently, Laura has collaborated as guest speaker for University of Cambridge's Online Fintech Course.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and CRO at Alloy
- Cofounder and CRO
Laura Spiekerman is a cofounder and CRO at Alloy. Alloy's API enables financial services companies to better manage their digital onboarding and identity requirements, increasing conversion and reducing fraud for banks and fintechs alike. Alloy works with both fintech companies and banks, including Marqeta, Petal, Brex, Radius Bank and others. Prior to Alloy, Laura lead Business Development & Partnerships at an ACH payments startup and was on the Research & Investment team at Imprint Capital Advisors (acquired by Goldman Sachs). Laura is a proud Barnard College alumna and lives in Oakland, California.
Job Titles:
- Certified Data Architect
- Senior Technology Advisor for the World Bank
Lesly Goh (LinkedIn Profile), transitioned to World Bank Senior Technology Advisor after serving as the Chief Technology Officer role. She is a Fellow at Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) Judge Business School and Senior Fellow at National University of Singapore (NUS) Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Lesly is appointed as Professor of Practice by ZheJiang International Business School (ZIBS). Her expertise is in leveraging emerging technology to deliver agile solutions for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at the intersection of technology and policy frameworks. For almost 30 years, her experience on FinTech, AgTech, RegTech, GovTech spans across both the private and public sectors. She focused extensively on the practical application and scaling tech innovation with Blockchain, AI, IoT, 5G and Edge Computing.
Implementation of Bond issuance on Blockchain, which raised 110M AUD on Aug 23, 2018
Lesly Goh (LinkedIn Profile), transitioned to World Bank Senior Technology Advisor after serving as the Chief Technology Officer role. She is a Fellow at Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) Judge Business School and Senior Fellow at National University of Singapore (NUS) Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Lesly is appointed as Professor of Practice by ZheJiang International Business School (ZIBS). Her expertise is in leveraging emerging technology to deliver agile solutions for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at the intersection of technology and policy frameworks. For almost 30 years, her experience on FinTech, AgTech, RegTech, GovTech spans across both the private and public sectors. She focused extensively on the practical application and scaling tech innovation with Blockchain, AI, IoT, 5G and Edge Computing. Examples of Disruptive Technology to address Development challenges:
Implementation of Bond issuance on Blockchain, which raised 110M AUD on Aug 23, 2018
Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Famine announced at United Nation General Assembly on Sept 23, 2018
She was featured in 2019: Women Leaders in Government and Council for Board Diversity
Her personal mission is to empower Women and Girls to achieve the highest potential with Technology as the Equalizer. Here is her TEDxTalk and her story
She served as the Senior Technology Advisor for the following Development initiatives:
Indonesia Ministry of Agriculture - Digital Transformation for Food Security
Indonesia Ministry of Finance - Digital Transformation of Public Finance Management
Vietnam eGov Digital Transformation for Office of Government - measures to strengthen government effectiveness, enable digital economy and leverage disruptive technologies
IFC SME Finance Forum Senior Technology Advisor
IFC Telcom Media Technology Upstream to provide strategy guidance for investment ideas for Smart Cities • Technology Advisory on Data Governance for MENA Chief Economist Flagship Report in 2020
AI for Governance and Procurement in multiple engagements for MENA Region
Support MENA Moonshot goal on Digital Economy to create jobs for Youth and address gender gap
Bali FinTech Agenda Chapeau Paper launched at the Annual Meeting in October 2018
Judging Panel for G20 TechSprint on RegTech and SupTech in 2020 (BIS Press Release)
Paulson Institute Green Finance
The Brookings Institute Book Project - "Breakthrough" plan for United Nation General Assembly 2021: Digital Transformation of Agriculture to increase productivity for small holder farmers
WEF Global Future Councils on Data Policy - Platform for shaping the Future of Technology Governance on data policy
Lesly's experience in the private sector covers a broad spectrum ranging from Capital Markets, Retail Banking, Commercial Banking, Asset Management, Development Banks and Financial Data Providers. She is a member of the Ethics Committee of AFTECH (self-regulatory organization) for Indonesia Financial Authority (OJK).
She is on the Advisory Board for Harvard College Project for Asa and International Relations (HPAIR) with the mission to connect the top leaders of today and tomorrow in a dynamic forum of exchange. Lesly was a mentor/advisor for several FinTech startups in Asia and a Fellow at Singapore University of Social Sciences. Lesly has been an advocate for Women in Technologies and academia for students in STEM such as DigiGirlz from her background in Computer Engineering and Mathematics. She was also a key contributor for Cloud Platform in the working group with IFC and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for the ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN initiative). Lesly is a strong supporter of Singapore Smart Nation and serves as Board Member of Singapore GovTech.
Lesly is a certified Data Architect and worked on many high-profile Data and AI initiatives in highly regulated industries such as Financial Services, Healthcare/Life Sciences and Smart Cities. For almost 30 years, she specialized in Advanced Analytics such as BI/Analytics, Data Mining, Data Visualization, Machine Learning, Pattern Matching, Forecasting model, and Semantic Analysis. She brings a balance of technology specialty and business strategy from the Management Consulting background at Deloitte.
Job Titles:
- Chief of Staff
- Chief of Staff / Charleston, South Carolina
Lexi was a founding member of the original three-person team, along with Jo Ann Barefoot and David Ehrich, that launched AIR in 2019. As Chief of Staff, she oversees numerous operational, administrative, human resources and strategic activities, as well as marketing, communications and events. As AIR was getting off the ground, Lexi led activities relating to branding, public relations, website management and content creation. She provides ongoing leadership in managing rapid growth focused on productivity, program management and communications. She plays a role in AIR's public policy work and leads the team that curates and communicates internal values and culture.
Lexi has over 12 years of experience in marketing, communications and events management. Prior to joining AIR, she was Senior Manager in Marketing and Communications at Treliant Risk Advisors in Washington DC, focusing on financial regulatory matters. She previously managed export logistics for a major container ship line.
Lexi received her BA in Corporate Communication from the College of Charleston. When not working, she enjoys spending time with her husband, two young children and their dog. She tries to be near water whenever possible, whether on a boat or at the beach.
Job Titles:
- Program Director
- Program Director / Washington D.C.
Mariama joined AIR in April 2023 and works with a diverse group of partner organizations and other stakeholders to develop, launch and facilitate TechSprints and other innovation-focused programs. Throughout her career, she has successfully delivered advisory services to financial services clients, specializing in business transformation, program management, system implementations and process refinement. A former Director in KPMG's Advisory Group, Mariama provided expert advice to Fortune 500 companies on business integration and financial models.
Mariama is also the former chairperson of the National Association of Black Accountants Annual Gala Evening and currently serves on the board of Yehri Wi Cry, which works to improve conditions for women and children living in Sierra Leone. She is a true leader with a passion for making a difference in her community. Her commitment to serving others extends beyond her professional career. She is the founder of The Green White & Blue Ball, an annual gala in the Washington D.C. area celebrating Sierra Leone's day of independence. She is also a mother of three teenage boys and loves to travel and experience different cultures.
Job Titles:
- President and CEO of Women 's World Banking
Mary Ellen Iskenderian is President and CEO of Women's World Banking, the global nonprofit devoted to giving more low-income women access to the financial tools and resources they need to achieve security and prosperity. Ms. Iskenderian has led the Women's World Banking global team, based in New York, since 2006 and also serves on the Investment Committees of its two impact investment funds.
Previously, Ms. Iskenderian worked at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank, and the investment bank Lehman Brothers. Ms. Iskenderian is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a member of the Women's Forum of New York and the UN's Business and Sustainable Development Commission.
Ms. Iskenderian holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in International Economics from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Her upcoming book, There's Nothing Micro About a Billion Women: Making Finance Work for Women" will be published by MIT Press in March 2022.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and Co - CEO of Hummingbird Regtech
Matt Van Buskirk is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Hummingbird Regtech. Hummingbird gives superpowers to the people fighting financial crime by reducing paperwork, providing smart, data-rich analytics, and enabling collaboration for compliance professionals and law enforcement agents. Before launching Hummingbird, Matt was the Director of Regulatory Affairs at Circle.com, an international consumer payments startup leveraging blockchain technology. He was previously a consultant with Treliant Risk Advisors, a Washington-based management consulting firm specializing in the financial services industry, and a regulator with the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Thrift Supervision. His speaking credentials include the American Bankers Association Regulatory Compliance Conference, the Monetary Authority of Singapore's Fintech Festival, Money 2020, Finovate Europe, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Homeland Security's annual AML conference.
Job Titles:
- Program Director
- Program Director / Cambridge, Massachusetts
Mike joined AIR as a Program Director in April 2023 with more than 11 years of prior regulatory compliance experience. He worked at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for over eight years where he led or participated in examinations of community and regional banks across the U.S., including several of the most complex banks overseen by the agency. Mike also served as an instructor at the FDIC's compliance examination schools and provided consumer compliance training internally and to regional industry groups. He later transitioned to a consulting role at the firm Protiviti, helping several of the nation's largest financial institutions address complex regulatory issues. Mike has served as a team lead for large-scale compliance validation engagements and compliance audits covering a wide range of regulatory requirements, including Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) obligations and the effectiveness of fair-lending programs. He has also supported program-level assessment, design and implementation activities for several top U.S. banks and contributed to public-facing thought leadership related to regulatory changes and emerging industry trends. Through these experiences, Mike has grown interested in how regulators can improve supervisory efficiency and transparency, and how the financial services industry can improve access and outcomes for the economically disadvantaged.
Mike received his undergraduate degree from Dickinson College and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is also a graduate of the American Bankers Association Stonier Graduate School of Banking, where his capstone project focused on CRA modernization. In his spare time, Mike can be found enjoying the outdoors by exploring the mountains and beaches of New England.
Job Titles:
- Chief AI Officer at the NYU McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research
Experienced Executive and Advisor managing technology risk as a transformational Chief Technology Officer (CTO), First-ever CTO of City of New York, Financial Services CTO, successful entrepreneur, an expert in technology risk and audit, regulatory technology, intelligent automation and data governance. Ms. Tantoco has an impressive track record in enterprise transformation at scale, as Senior Product Manager at Palm, CTO at Merrill Lynch and UBS, and holds four US patents on intelligent workflow. Appointed New York City's first-ever Chief Technology Officer, Tantoco led the Mayor's Office of Tech and Innovation and groundbreaking initiatives in smart city tech. Most recently, Tantoco co-founded Grasshopper Bank. raised $131M in seed and capital funds, building a digital bank from scratch. Tantoco is currently a Board Member and Advisor, consultant, and speaker on artificial intelligence, regulatory tech, and fintech.
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Chairman
- CEO and Chairman of Africa Investor ( Ai )
- Chairman of the African Green Infrastructure Investment Bank Advisory Board
- Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Africa Investor
Mr Danso is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Africa investor (Ai) Group - a pan African Infrastructure Investment Holding Company for institutional investors. He also serves as the Chairman of the CFA New York Society Global Asset Owners' Advisory Council, the Chairman of the African Sovereign Wealth & Pension Fund Leaders Forum (AiSWPFF), and is the current Chair of The African Union Development Agency's (AUDA) Heads of State Continental Business Network (CBN).
Mr Danso is also the Chair of the African Green Infrastructure Investment Bank Advisory Board (AfGIIB) and a member of HRH The Prince of Wales A4S Advisory Board.
Mr Danso Chairs Ai's AfricaPLC e-Trade and Fintech platform, leads Ai's Pension and Sovereign Wealth Infrastructure Co-Investment Platform and also advises institutional investors, governments and development finance institutions on major infrastructure and private equity investments in Africa.
Mr Danso was instrumental in establishing the NEPAD-AUDA 5% Agenda Institutional Infrastructure Investment Initiative, between African Heads of State and Africa Pension and Sovereign Wealth Fund leaders, to invest 5% of Assets Under Management (AUM), to investable African infrastructure investment projects, developed through Institutional Investor-Public Partnerships (IIPP's) - as successfully employed by pension fund infrastructure investors from Canada and Australia.
Job Titles:
- Chief Innovation Officer
- Chief Innovation Officer / London, England
- Founding Director of Sandbox Consulting Ltd
Nick Cook is Chief Innovation Officer at AIR. Based in London, he was previously the Director of the UK Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) Innovation Division, including the agency's RegTech and TechSprint initiatives, its data and analytics strategy, machine learning endeavours, and the "Innovate" program (encompassing the Regulatory Sandbox, innovation and digital policy, and industry-facing direct support services). At AIR, Nick heads the TechSprint program and the nascent AIR Fair Finance Accelerator, working with partners and the innovation ecosystem to define its scope ...
Nick Cook is Chief Innovation Officer at AIR. Based in London, he was previously the Director of the UK Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) Innovation Division, including the agency's RegTech and TechSprint initiatives, its data and analytics strategy, machine learning endeavours, and the "Innovate" program (encompassing the Regulatory Sandbox, innovation and digital policy, and industry-facing direct support services).
In 2016, Nick was responsible for creating and developing the TechSprint as a new methodology for regulatory innovation and public/private collaboration, designing a model that is now widely emulated around the world. He has led TechSprints on challenges ranging from financial crime and regulatory reporting to financial access and inclusion, women's economic empowerment, pensions, and money and mental health.
At AIR, Nick heads the TechSprint program and the nascent AIR Fair Finance Accelerator, working with partners and the innovation ecosystem to define its scope, governance, strategy, and activities. He helps develop AIR's relationships with financial regulatory institutions globally and specifically in emerging markets, and he represents AIR in public forums through speaking and writing.
While at the FCA, Nick chaired the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN) and IOSCO's FinTech Network. He is a Certified Chartered Accountant with 9 years of forensic investigative experience at the both UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) and KPMG. Prior to his innovation-focused roles, he investigated regulatory breaches in his time in the Enforcement Division of the FSA and conducted civil, criminal, and regulatory investigations of fraud, misconduct and other matters for private clients at KPMG.
Nick is also the founding Director of Sandbox Consulting Ltd, a UK-based boutique providing strategic advisory services in innovation, transformation and regulation in the financial services and public sectors in the UK and globally.
Nick describes himself as a technophile, is passionate about wellbeing and mental health, and is a father of two, coach to an under 10's soccer team (or football as Nick would call it) and keen road cyclist, having taken up the sport in the first Covid-19 wave in the UK.
Job Titles:
- Program Manager
- Program Manager / San Francisco, California
Nitya joined AIR in May 2023 as a Program Manager. She collaborates with diverse global partners on TechSprints focusing on the potential of data mining and AI to enhance financial inclusion. She also provides consulting and technology education services for regulators in emerging markets.
Prior to joining AIR, Nitya spent eight years working in credit, payments and strategy roles at prominent Indian banks and other financial services firms. As a result of this experience, she has an in-depth understanding of the impact and market nuances resulting from new regulatory processes in emerging markets.
Nitya holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Osmania University and an M.B.A. in Finance from NMIMS, both earned in India. She also has a master's degree in data analytics from California State University, where her thesis focused on developing efficient machine learning models and visualization dashboards. Outside of work, she enjoys connecting with her family, traveling to new destinations, practicing Pilates and reading novels.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director for the Mojaloop Foundation
Paula Hunter is the Executive Director for the Mojaloop Foundation. Paula manages the business affairs of the Mojaloop Foundation with responsibility for strategic planning and direction, membership development, budgeting, evangelism for the Foundation and its mission, and outreach to strategic partners. She has almost two decades of executive technology association management experience beginning in 1999 when, while working for Compaq, she was a founding board member for the ASP Industry Consortium. Ms. Hunter recently served as Executive Director of the NFC Forum, a nonprofit standards organization. Her experience also includes key roles in several technology companies, ranging from small start-ups to large multi-national corporations.
Job Titles:
- Chief Growth Officer
- Chief Growth Officer / Stowe, Vermont
Randy Repka is the Chief Growth Officer at AIR and is based in Stowe, Vt. Since coming aboard at the beginning of 2020, Randy has planned and produced an array of regulatory Techsprints in partnership with both U.S. and non-U.S. agencies. In addition to consulting with regulators and financial firms on innovation techniques and solution- building, she published "How To Produce a TechSprint: A Manual for Regulators," and has developed many templates and resources designed to help organizations stand up and manage their own TechSprints. Prior to joining AIR, Randy spent 22 years at American Express, holding leadership positions across many business units, including Consumer and Prepaid Cards, Travel, and Customer Service. Randy started her career in media and sponsorship marketing, helping international brands develop innovative programs and unique customer experiences. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from Denison University. When she's not working, Randy can be found exploring the mountains of Vermont year-round with her family and dog.
Raul Vazquez is the CEO of Oportun, a high-growth, mission-driven Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and provider of inclusive, affordable financial services that empower people to build a better future. Based in Silicon Valley, Oportun serves individuals who other lenders consider "unscoreable" and has made over 3.2 million loans totaling over $7.3 billion across 12 states. Oportun's customers have saved an estimated $1.5 billion in interest and fees compared to the alternatives typically available to them. Raul joined Oportun in 2012 after having held various senior leadership roles at Walmart, including EVP and President of Walmart West, President and CEO of Walmart.com, and EVP of Global eCommerce for developed markets. He is a board member of the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders (NALCAB), and also serves on the Board of Directors of Intuit. Raul has previously served as a board member for Staples, as a member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) Consumer Advisory Board, and is the past of Chair of the Federal Reserve Board's Community Advisory Council. Mr. Vazquez was named the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2018 National Award winner in the Financial Services category. Under his leadership, Oportun was named by Time Magazine as a Genius Company in 2018 and recognized as one of 50 businesses inventing the future. Mr. Vazquez led Oportun through a successful IPO in September of 2019, and the company is listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol "OPRT." Mr. Vazquez is a graduate of Stanford University with BS and MS degrees in industrial engineering and earned an MBA at the Wharton School of Business.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Professor of Management Practice in the Department of Finance, NYU Stern
Richard Berner is Clinical Professor of Management Practice in the Department of Finance, and, with Professor Robert Engle, is Co-Director of the Stern Volatility and Risk Institute. Professor Berner served as the first director of the Office of Financial Research (OFR) from 2013 until 2017. He was counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury from April 2011 to 2013. He served as chief or senior economist at Morgan Stanley, Mellon Bank, Salomon Brothers, Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He received his BA from Harvard College and his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an advisor to FinRegLab, MacroPolicy Perspectives, HData, and the Alliance for Innovative Regulation, and is a member of the Milken Fintech Advisory Committee and the IMF panel of experts for financial stability.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and CEO of Sila, Formerly Co - Founder of Simple
A true FinTech pioneer, Shamir Karkal played a crucial part in building the infrastructure that would pave the way for online banking. He started out as a programmer and systems engineer before joining management consultancy McKinsey & Company.
In 2009, he co-founded Simple, the first bank of its kind in the United States, and later headed the Open Platform at BBVA. Shamir was drawn to serve smaller companies, co-founding Sila in 2018 with the goal of empowering financial innovations.
Shamir studied physics and computer science at Bangalore University and is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business. He lives with his family in Portland, Oregon. Shamir is a frequent speaker at conferences, on industry podcasts, and quoted as an industry expert and thought leader in the media.
Job Titles:
- Program Director
- Program Director / Loughton, United Kingdom
- TechSprint Leader
A seasoned TechSprint leader, Shelley spent 16 years at the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority before coming to AIR in January 2022. Starting in 2015, she was part of the FCA's Regtech team, designing and leading TechSprints and developing the regulator's approach to interacting with the global Regtech ecosystem. Specializing in innovation for vulnerable consumers, Shelley has designed programs that look at the barriers faced by digital financial services consumers, and at how both regulators and firms can design better products for inclusion. At AIR, Shelley works on planning and producing TechSprints, leads the organization's program to further expand its global reach, and focuses on ways to ignite technology innovation throughout the financial system. In addition, Shelley is co-founder of the Women In Regulatory Innovation (WIRI) network, which is creating a community of women across the globe with the aim of building meaningful diversity and inclusion within the regulatory system. She lives in the U.K., just outside of London, with her husband and three daughters.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director at RegTech for Regulators Accelerator ( R2A )
I am a frontier digital economy and financial market leader, passionate about evidence-based policymaking, data that show insights and tell stories, and the use of technology and innovative processes to achieve social and economic equality. My specialization is the ideation of new processes and solutions to address complex problems, influencing the strategies of multiple stakeholders to enhance their synergies and impacts.
I have 15 years of high-impact engagement in over 60 countries in the fields of banking, payments, telecom, and technology, and extensive experience in public sector policy development, public-private partnerships, advocacy, empirical research, and academia. From central bank governors to the C-suite executives, I work with leaders who are committed to making our economies more sustainable and equitable, and our societies more inclusive. With them, and with teams of economists, researchers, product managers, designers, data scientists, coders, business strategists, and policy and regulatory experts from around the world, I craft and deploy smart, transformative solutions to accelerate change.
I have undertaken engagements with clients such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Better Than Cash Alliance, the New York State Department of Financial Services, Facebook, Mastercard, Visa, the World Bank, USAID, the Bank for International Settlements, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), fintech startups, and many central banks and finance ministries from over 120 countries. Former employers include the GSMA, the World Bank, the United Nations, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), and the consulting firm BFA Global. For two years I taught a course on "Digital Approaches to Development" at the Fletcher School, Tufts University.
As an independent consultant, I am currently leading the digital transformation of the New York State Department of Financial Services, while I collaborate as a senior fellow with the University of Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance developing their new SupTech workstream. I also lead the RegTech for Regulators Accelerator (R2 A) - which I founded in 2016. R2 A is a multimillion, multiyear programme that partners with global standard-setting bodies, financial sector authorities, and vendors across the globe harnessing new technologies and data science to reengineer market supervision, regulation and policy analysis.
I hold a PhD in Law & Economics, and am fluent in English, French, Italian, and Spanish.
Sopnendu Mohanty is the Chief Fintech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Hejoined MAS in August 2015 and is responsible for creating development strategies, public infrastructure and regulatory policies around technology innovation. Since 2015, Singapore has become one of the top global fintech hubs covering a wide range of financial asset classes including adjacent technology innovations in areas such as insurance, digital assets, blockchain, artificial intelligence, reg-tech and green-finance.
Thomas J. Curry is a former partner in Nutter's Corporate and Transactions Department and former co-leader of the firm's Banking and Financial Services group. He advises clients in a wide range of policy, regulatory, governance, and other matters. He chairs the Milken Institute's Fintech Advisory Committee and is a foundation board member of the Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR), which will help regulators integrate technology into every stratum. Prior to joining Nutter, Tom served as the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency until May 2017. He most recently served as an expert consultant for the International Monetary Fund.
Tracy served as the head of bank supervision from 2017 to 2021, leading a 350- person team that conducts prudential and consumer protection supervision across a portfolio of community, regional, foreign and large complex organizations.
Over the course of her 30+ year career at the Fed, she held a range of roles throughout banking supervision, starting with commissioned examiner. She distinguished herself with her forward leaning work on consumer protection, fintech, suptech and climate risk.
She is known for her strategic leadership capabilities, managerial courage and critical thinking. She is a senior leader with demonstrated ability to drive change, lead through uncertainty and build consensus.
During her tenure at the Federal Reserve, she was on the forefront of driving change to keep pace with the changing financial services landscape:
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Co - Founder of LetsThink
Wendy Jephson is Co-Founder of LetsThink where we are Making Decisions Better with People, Data & Technology.
Former Head of Research & Ideation for Market Technology at Nasdaq, Wendy was responsible for leading a unique team of experts that combines behavioural science, financial domain knowledge, and advanced analytics to bring diverse thinking and cross-industry experience to solving some of the biggest challenges in financial services.
Dual qualified as a commercial lawyer and Business Psychologist with domain expertise in healthcare and financial services, in her role as Co-Founder Wendy was instrumental in the original vision, growth phase and the recent acquisition of Sybenetix by Nasdaq.
As Head of Research & Ideation at Nasdaq Wendy brought in scientific research methods to the ideation and development processes further enhancing already world class ways of working. Known for making the complex simple Wendy and her team worked closely with Market Technology clients using behavioural science methodology to dive deeply into complex challenges facing the financial and other industries. The team continues to design innovative technology for marketplaces and Conduct Risk that can deliver efficiency, consistency and greater resilience to our organisations.
Job Titles:
- EVP and Chief Compliance Officer, State Street
Yvette is Executive Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer at State Street.
Yvette began her career with the Federal Reserve before transitioning to corporate leadership roles with Citigroup, Barclays, and most recently Wells Fargo, where she was Executive Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer. With Wells Fargo, she spearheaded innovations in RegTech-supported risk management platforms, overhauled consumer protection frameworks, and strengthened the compliance function by enhancing data and analysis. A member of the Wells Fargo Management Committee and Chair of the Regulatory and Risk Management Committee, she worked closely with the CEO and other senior executives to develop business strategies that met goals for growth while complying with US and global regulatory requirements.
Prior to joining Wells Fargo in 2012, Yvette was Managing Director and Global Head of Operations at Barclays Capital and previously headed Citigroup's Markets and Banking North American Anti-Money Laundering program.
Her influence and leadership within business and compliance realms have been recognized with notable awards. In 2016 and 2017 she was included in Black Enterprise's Most Powerful Executives in Corporate America. In 2015, 2016 and 2017, she was recognized by American Banker on its "The 25 Women to Watch" list. In 2016, she was honored as one of the "Most Influential Women in Business" by the San Francisco Business Times. And in 2015, the San Francisco League of Women Voters named her one of the "Women Who Could be President."
Yvette also holds or held leadership roles with several industry and nonprofit associations, including:
Member of the Board of Directors of Golden Gate University;
Member of the National Black MBA Association Advisory Council;
Member of Executive Leadership Council, a preeminent organization for the development and support of leaders;
Member of The Links, Incorporated, an international, nonprofit volunteer service organization committed to
enriching and sustaining the cultural and economic survival of African Americans;
Prior member of Board of Directors and Chair of Risk Management Committee of INROADS, a national nonprofit
dedicated to helping diverse college students obtain internships within top corporations;
Prior member of Board of Directors of the Museum of the African Diaspora, a San Francisco arts and cultural
institution;
Prior member of Board of Directors of New York's Gay Men's Health Crisis, the world's leading provider of HIV/AIDS
prevention, care, and advocacy;
Prior member of Federal Reserve Board of Governors Credit Union Supervisory Committee.
As a Board Director, she brings expertise in corporate governance, risk management, and regulatory compliance along with strengths in strategic planning and execution. Her successes in operational turnaround, enterprise framework restructuring, and global team management are valuable in helping organizations navigate risk, change, and growth.
Prior to joining Wells Fargo in 2012, Yvette held progressively challenging roles with Barclays Capital, culminating as Managing Director and Global Head of Operations Compliance, Financial Crime Risk Management. Previously she headed Citigroup's Markets and Banking North American Anti-Money Laundering program and directed its Corporate Global Anti-Money Laundering monitoring, testing, and surveillance activities.
She began her career with the Federal Reserve Bank in New York and went on to hold supervisory and senior roles with the Federal Reserve System in Washington DC and in San Francisco.
Yvette holds an MBA, with a concentration in Financial Institutions and Markets, from Syracuse University. She earned a BS in Finance at SUNY Institute of Technology.