OUR SPEAKERS
Katherine Avery
Founder at Chimayo Consulting, LLC
Katherine Avery is an enterprise risk executive and founder of Chimayo Consulting, a boutique advisory firm helping financial services organizations build the governance infrastructure required to operate responsibly at the intersection of traditional finance, digital assets, and AI-enabled processes. With more than 20 years of experience spanning capital markets, commodities trading, banking, and regulatory compliance, Katherine brings a practitioner's authority to the governance and risk questions that matter most to financial institutions navigating digital transformation.
Katherine's speaking draws on direct, institutional-scale experience with digital asset risk. As Global Head of Operational Risk at StoneX Group, a Fortune 50 financial services firm with diversified exposure across physical commodities, financial derivatives, and digital assets, she directed enterprise risk strategy across a $4B+ global organization, led risk integration for numerous acquisitions, and governed model, third party risk, and emerging risk domains including digital asset operations. Prior to StoneX, she held senior risk leadership roles at S&P Global Energy, Bank of Oklahoma Financial, and BBVA Compass, where she built enterprise risk frameworks across trading, wealth management, broker-dealer, and various banking business lines.
Katherine is a credible and engaging voice for audiences that include compliance professionals, risk practitioners, fintech founders, regulators, and institutional investors. She speaks from experience, not theory, and is known for translating complex regulatory and governance concepts into frameworks that practitioners can actually use.
Mark Majeske
Senior Vice President of Faster Payments at Alacriti
As Senior Vice President of Faster Payments at Alacriti, Mark leads the overall corporate faster payments strategy and product development of the Orbipay Payments Hub. Mark also currently serves in the Faster Payments Council Board Advisory Group and chairs their Cross-Border Payments Work Group. Previously, Mark led product development for the RTP® network, the FedNow® Service, and Zelle® at FIS. In addition, Mark was part of the team that designed, developed, and launched the RTP network at The Clearing House. He also worked in the financial industry in digital payments product development.
John San Filippo
Co-Founder and Publisher of Finopotamus - Fintech News for Hungry CUs
John San Filippo, co-founder and publisher of Finopotamus - Fintech News for Hungry CUs, has enjoyed a 40-year career in financial technology. John was the marketing director at Symitar/Jack Henry for 16 years and also guided Bluepoint Solutions (later sold to Alogent) to unprecedented growth. When he made the move to tech journalism, he became the very first technology reporter for The Credit Union Journal and has written for every major credit union publication. In 2005, he co-founded Credit Union Business magazine and served as its executive editor for two years. Outside the industry, John was the editor of ComputorEdge magazine and also authored a number of mass-market computer books. He's qualified as an expert witness on computers and the internet in California Superior Court.
Olga Baldwin
Lead of Third Party Risk Management at StoneX Group
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Olga Baldwin is the Lead of Third Party Risk Management (TPRM) at StoneX Group, a Fortune 100 company. With over 18 years of experience in TPRM, she oversees the development and execution of a comprehensive Global Third Party Risk Management program. Before joining StoneX, Olga implemented and managed TPRM programs at multiple banks and gained valuable experience in the insurance and airline industries. She has extensive expertise in establishing TPRM and Vendor Risk Management (VRM) programs, system implementations, change management, regulatory examinations, and audits. Olga earned her BA from CUNY's Hunter College and an MBA from CUNY's Zicklin School of Business.
Jairo Riveros
President, Americas & Head of the Office of Strategy Management at
Paysend
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Jairo Riveros is President of the Americas and Head of the Office of Strategy Management at
Paysend, where he leads the company's commercial growth, strategic direction, and market
expansion across the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean. He works
closely with global teams and ecosystem partners to accelerate innovation, build strategic
partnerships, and expand Paysend's next-generation payments infrastructure.
With more than 25 years of experience in payments, fintech, banking, and corporate strategy,
Jairo has held senior leadership positions at Mastercard, TIAA, Deloitte, and AIMCo. He also
serves as an Independent Board Director at Skandia Latin America.
Paysend is a leading global payments platform connecting over 25 billion payment endpoints
across more than 170 countries and territories, enabling consumers, businesses, and
enterprises to move money instantly, securely, and seamlessly worldwide. Under Jairo's
leadership in the Americas, Paysend is expanding its Enterprise API platform, embedded
finance capabilities, and digital asset initiatives to help financial institutions and technology
companies deliver innovative cross-border payment experiences. His work focuses on
transforming how money moves globally through strategic partnerships, modern payment
infrastructure, and emerging technologies such as stablecoins and tokenized money.
Urvashi Nain
Director of Product Management at Visa
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Urvashi Nain is a senior payments strategist and Director of Product Management at Visa, with extensive experience leading initiatives across correspondent banking, cross-border payments and global payment infrastructure.
Her work focuses on the intersection of payment modernisation, artificial intelligence and strategic transformation, exploring how emerging technologies can enhance payment operations while recognising the continuing importance of resilient settlement infrastructure. Drawing on extensive operational experience across cross-border payment corridors, she brings a practical perspective to the opportunities and challenges facing financial institutions as they modernise payment ecosystems.
Urvashi is passionate about helping banks and payment providers navigate the next generation of payment innovation, with particular interests in AI governance, payment infrastructure, operational resilience and the future of intelligent payment ecosystems.
Christian Crisan
Managing Director – Financial Services Strategy and Advisory at Splunk
Christian is a seasoned executive with over 26 years of experience in various functions including Global IT operations management, technology planning, solution implementation and strategic consulting. Prior to joining Splunk, Christian has spent 8 years in various leadership roles at HPE, where he evolved the solutions and go-to-market strategies for the Financial Services vertical. Christian has also held leadership roles at Amdocs, IBM and Idhasoft. Christian has helped some of the largest global Financial Services companies to evaluate and adopt technology solutions and has extensive experience in Retail Banking, Capital Markets, Investment Banking and Trading.
Gail Burgos
CEO at PayTech Women
Gail Burgos is Chief Executive Officer of PayTech Women and founder of Burgos Consulting
Group, Inc. A respected payments industry leader, she spent 25 years with TSYS, a Global
Payments company, where she held executive leadership roles in diversity, equity and inclusion
and information technology. She has also served as CEO of Girls Inc. of Columbus, Georgia,
and on the board of PayTech Women. Dr. Burgos holds a bachelor’s degree in business
administration, a master`s degree in human resource management and a doctorate in
organizational theory and leadership. She is a passionate advocate for developing leaders and
advancing greater inclusion across the payments industry. paytechwomen.org
Jason Honeycutt
Chief Compliance Officer and Senior Vice President of Compliance at Netspend
Jason Honeycutt is a Texas licensed attorney and a board certified criminal law specialist. He holds both the AML (CAMS) and Advanced AML (CAMS-Audit) Certifications issued by ACAMS. He is a former chair of two Texas Bar Association committees: Minimum Continuing Legal Education and Advertising Review. He now serves on the Texas Lawyer’s Assistance Program Committee. His legal experience includes State prosecutor, Federal prosecutor (United States Department of Justice, United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas), and as a private practitioner of law in civil litigation and criminal defense work. His trial experience as a State prosecutor ranges up to murder, including numerous white collar criminal matters and drug cases. His federal prosecutorial experience on the U.S.-Mexico border includes public corruption, drug trafficking, and money laundering. He was involved in thousands of criminal cases while acting as a prosecutor. As an AML/BSA/OFAC Officer, Jason has implemented complete program overhauls of two financial institutions. Jason’s AML programs have received a total of 3 FinCEN Awards.
Prateek Sangal
Head of Digital and Customer Platforms at EverBank
Prateek Sangal is Head of Digital and Customer Platforms at EverBank, where he leads omnichannel strategy and customer experience transformation. A 20-year financial services technology executive, he has previously held senior digital leadership roles at OneMain Financial, US Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and Barclays Bank, including leading the digital integration of US Bank’s acquisition of MUFG Union Bank.
Ramon Ramirez
Director of AML Operations at Western Alliance Bank
Ramon Ramirez is Director of AML Operations at Western Alliance Bank, where he developed the
institution's anti-money laundering program as it scaled from a $17 billion to a $100 billion bank. A
Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist who has worked in financial crimes since 2015, he specializes in money laundering and digital currency monitoring, building the transaction monitoring, enhanced due diligence, and investigations programs that safeguard faster payments and digital channels across cryptocurrency, digital assets, and other high-risk sectors. He engages directly with federal regulators and law enforcement on complex AML matters.. His frontline perspective is grounded in earlier service as an investigative analyst for the DEA and as a highly decorated U.S. Army law enforcement leader across U.S. and NATO installations. He holds a master's degree from Webster University and is based in Phoenix, Arizona.
Bo Berg
Technical Strategist & Innovation
+30 Years of Financial Services Expertise | Austin-Based FinTech Leader | Cutting Edge Digital Asset Innovation | World-Class Execution
With three decades leading technology innovation in financial services, I bring a unique blend of institutional banking expertise, a deep background in systems architecture, and bleeding-edge crypto/digital assets insight to the rapidly evolving FinTech landscape.
Founder of and currently leading the Digital Assets Work Group at The US Faster Payments Council, I collaborate with industry leaders to shape the future of payments, focusing on stablecoin and blockchain integration.
As an IT strategist and architect, I specialize in bridging the gap between traditional banking systems and emerging technologies, inclusive of navigating a complex regulatory environment. My rare combination of deep institutional experience, comprehensive systems architecture and implementation skills, and forward-looking mastery of digital finance positions me as a key "bridge" executive, translating complex technical requirements into tangible business outcomes.
Lloyd Nelson
SVP, Head of U.S Digital Assets at Howden
After 15 years building and scaling technology startups, Lloyd Nelson brought a builder’s perspective to insurance. As SVP and Head of U.S. Digital Assets at Howden, he works with leading crypto, fintech, and technology firms to strengthen resilience, manage complex operational and third-party risks, and build the risk infrastructure required for institutional adoption.
Michael Angjeli
Head of Treasury & Liquidity at VelaFi
Michael Angjeli is Head of Treasury at VelaFi, where he leads global treasury, liquidity, FX risk
management, and trading. He has more than 15 years of experience across institutional FX, fintech, digital assets, and global payments.
Prior to VelaFi, Michael worked at Wise, focusing on FX risk management and treasury solutions
for its global payments platform.
He previously spent more than a decade at Brown Brothers Harriman trading G20 and
emerging-market currencies for institutional clients.
Michael has also held senior leadership roles in digital asset trading and liquidity management.
His current focus is building scalable treasury infrastructure at the intersection of traditional
finance, cross-border payments, and stablecoins.
Melissa Pottenger
VP, Enterprise Growth North America at Yuno
Melissa Pottenger is VP of Partnerships, North America at Yuno, where she spends her days
working with the region`s best partners to make digital payments faster, safer, and (dare we say) more delightful. With 20 years in payments under her belt, she`s basically watched the industry
go from swiping to tapping to "just look at your phone and it`s done". These days she`s obsessed with digital identity, passkeys, and tokenized credentials — the tech quietly making passwords extinct. When she`s not talking shop on stage, she`s wrangling two kids in Austin, TX, and probably losing at least one argument about screen time. Come say hi — she promises not to make you memorize another password.
Laura Gibson-Lamothe
Executive Director at Georgia Fintech Academy
Laura Gibson-Lamothe is Executive Director of the Georgia Fintech Academy, a statewide talent initiative of the University System of Georgia connecting students with careers across fintech and financial services. With more than 20 years of experience spanning banking, fintech, consulting, and technology, she has held leadership roles with organizations including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Ally, Protiviti, and Featurespace. Laura is an active leader in Atlanta’s fintech ecosystem and serves on the boards of Fintech Atlanta and the TAG Fintech Society, as well as the Executive Committee of PayTech Women. Her work focuses on strengthening the connection between industry and higher education while building the next generation of fintech talent. She has been recognized among Georgia Trend’s Georgia 500 and as a Women in Technology Woman of the Year in STEAM.
Vinay Nilakantan
Head of Product, North America at Wise
Vinay Nilakantan is the Head of Product for North America at Wise, where he leads Wise’s product suite across the US and Canada. He is responsible for scaling and growing Wise’s consumer and business services, blending both product and operational experience to drive Wise’s growth and future innovations in this market. Vinay has 20+ years of leadership in product management within the startup and fintech landscape with past roles in Adyen and AffiniPay and others.
Venu Yeluripati
Head of Partner Experience at Global Payments
Venu Yeluripati is a Senior Vice President, Head of Partner Experience at Global Payments (for Platforms), where he leads partner and merchant experience across a payments portfolio spanning software partners and merchants. He brings deep, hands on expertise across the payments stack, from partner onboarding and MID/merchant boarding to risk, chargebacks, and payfac operations, with a track record of turning payments infrastructure into a driver of partner growth rather than just a processing utility. Earlier in his career at Tipalti, he ran global customer success and operations processing multi billion dollars in annual global remittance while scaling customer success into a profit center. He's built and led payments-focused teams across geographies and regularly partners with product, risk, and compliance leaders to navigate the regulatory complexity that comes with moving money at scale.
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Xavier Ferguson
Associate Director of Product Management at OneMain Financial
Xavier Ferguson is a financial services product leader with more than 15 years of experiencedriving digital transformation across payments, lending, insurance, and customer experiences. As Associate Director of Product at OneMain Financial, he leads enterprise digital payments strategy for a business with nearly $27 billion in receivables. His work focuses on modernizing payment experiences, increasing digital adoption, strengthening reliability, and balancing customer convenience with security and risk. Xavier has led initiatives spanning digital wallets, payment authentication, self service experiences, and emerging technologies designed to create simpler and more trusted customer journeys. Prior to OneMain, he spent more than a decade at USAA in product, lending, insurance, and enterprise transformation roles. He brings a practical financial services perspective to the evolution of digital identity, passkeys, tokenized credentials, and wallet based authentication. Xavier is passionate about how trusted digital identity can reduce friction, strengthen security, and reshape the way consumers interact with financial institutions.
Amber Thetford
Chief Product Officer, Card Issuing at Onafriq
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Amber Thetford is Chief Product Officer for Card Processing at Onafriq, a leading pan African fintech headquartered in South Africa that is expanding financial access across the CEMEA region. With over a decade in the fintech space, she leads product strategy and execution for Onafriq's card processing business, working closely with partners and distributed teams across the U.S. and Africa to bring
secure, scalable payment products to market. Based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Amber holds degrees from the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University and is actively pursuing her Executive-MBA degree at MIT Sloan. Outside of work, she's balancing very active schedules of her two children.
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Haider Mannan
CEO at BigTXN
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Haider Mannan is the CEO of the UK-headquartered data processor and provider firm BIGTXN,
and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of sanctions.com. He has over 20 years of experience in data
management, and risk & compliance data, across the securities markets globally. He is a data
scientist and subject matter expert in traditional and digital assets, specialising in global sanctions and investment monitoring solutions, within the pre- and post-trade lifecycle. Haider is actively involved in the assessment of emerging risks in the investments and payments domains. Through his research and work on digital assets risk, he was appointed to the Digital Token Identifier (DTI) Product Advisory Committee in March 2025. In February 2026, Haider was selected as an Ambassador for the Association of Sanctioned Certified Specialists (ACSS), for his contributions to community engagement, professional outreach, and support of the global sanctions and export controls community.
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Michael Heller
VP, Proposition at Dow Jones Risk & Compliance
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Michael Heller joined Dow Jones in 2013 and currently serves as head of Financial Crime
Compliance (FCC) proposition where he is responsible for corporate strategy including
development and go-to-market, globally, for the FCC business. He draws from a background as
an attorney, sales executive, and consultant to ensure clients building efficient compliance and
risk management programs leverage the right data and technology.
Michael`s career has been focused on bringing transparency to global business. Subsequent to
completing his law degree, he worked as a consultant with the Business Intelligence Group, and
later the Anti-Money Laundering Group at Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York City. Michael
has also served as CCO and counsel at Abacus Wealth Partners in Los Angeles. He is a member
of the State Bar of California.
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