Keynote Speakers
Linda Bernardi
Former Chief Innovation Officer, IBM
Serial Entrepreneur and Innovation Author
As an author, futurist, serial entrepreneur, strategist, investor, lecturer and board member, Linda Bernardi lives and breathes technology disruption and innovation. She works with startups and large companies alike to inspire enterprises to build a culture of mindful innovation. Bernardi’s academic and professional background is in data and artificial intelligence (AI). She was founder and CEO of the world’s first internet of things (IoT) company. As chief innovation officer at IBM, she was involved with introducing IBM Watson®, a computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language. In her role as head of strategy at Consensys, Bernardi influenced blockchain and cryptocurrency (Ethereum) adoption, especially by the financial sector. She is currently co-founder and chief executive officer at XDMind Inc. Her books include ProVoke (2011), which discusses the necessity of innovation culture, and The Inversion Factor (2017), focusing on how technologies such as AI, IoT, blockchain – along with an open mindset – can allow us to build experiences, not just products.
Nellie Liang
Under Secretary for Domestic Finance
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Nellie Liang was confirmed as the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the U.S. Treasury Department in July 2021. Previously, Liang was a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department, lecturer at the Yale School of Management, and a member of the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Economic Advisors. Over three decades on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Liang held a range of positions, including as the first director of the Division of Financial Stability from 2010 to 2017. In that position, she oversaw the development of financial stability policies related to risks in financial firms and financial markets, and interactions of financial policies with monetary policy.
Alex Stamos
Chief Information Security Officer, SentinelOne; Former CISO, Facebook, Adjunct Professor, Stanford
Alex Stamos is a cybersecurity expert, business leader and entrepreneur working to improve the security and safety of the Internet. Alex is a professor at Stanford and in his previous role as chief trust officer at SentinelOne, a global leader in AI-powered security, Stamos helped lead its PinnacleOne Strategic Advisory Group. He was the founding director of the Stanford Internet Observatory at the Cyber Policy Center, a part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Before joining Stanford in 2018, Stamos was the chief security officer of Facebook, chief information security officer at Yahoo, and co-founder of security consultant iSEC Partners. He is an advisor to Stanford’s Cybersecurity Policy Program and University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity. He is a member of the Aspen Institute’s Cyber Security Task Force, the Bay Area CSO Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the advisory board to NATO’s Collective Cybersecurity Center of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia.
Federal Reserve Hosts
Austan D. Goolsbee
President & Chief Executive Officer
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Austan Goolsbee leads the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and serves on the Federal Open Market Committee – the Federal Reserve System’s monetary policymaking body. The Chicago Fed conducts research and monitors local economic conditions to support formulation of monetary policy, supervises and regulates banking organizations, and provides financial services to financial institutions and the U.S. government. Before joining the Chicago Fed in 2023, Goolsbee was the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is known for his empirical research on many different industries and on economic policy. Goolsbee has been a Fulbright Scholar, Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, member (then chair) of the Council of Economic Advisers, and member of the President’s cabinet. Goolsbee also has served on the Board of Education for the City of Chicago, the Economic Advisory Panel to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Panel of Economic Advisers to the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. Census Advisory Committee, the Digital Economy Board of Advisors to the Commerce Department, and the External Advisory Group on Digital Technology for the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Ellen Bromagen
First Vice President & Chief Operating Officer
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Ellen Bromagen oversees the operational and financial performance of the Chicago Fed, including its Detroit Branch. She is also vice chair of the Bank’s Executive Committee, a member of the Loan Committee that reviews district discount window lending, and back-up to the Chicago Fed president in execution of monetary policy responsibilities. In addition, Bromagen is a key contributor to formulating and advancing the Bank’s strategic priorities and ensuring an inclusive environment. Since joining the Chicago Fed in 1990, Bromagen has held a variety of management positions in the areas of payments, corporate accounting and financial planning, spanning both local operations and national responsibilities.
Tom Barkin
President & Chief Executive Officer
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Tom Barkin is the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. He has held this position since 2018. Barkin serves as a voting member on the Fed’s chief monetary policy body, the Federal Open Market Committee, and is also responsible for the Richmond Fed’s bank supervision and the Federal Reserve’s technology organization. He is “on the ground” continually in the Fed’s Fifth District, which covers South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, D.C., West Virginia and Maryland. His engagement in the region has brought real attention to areas facing economic challenges. Prior to joining the Richmond Fed, Barkin was a senior partner and CFO at McKinsey & Co., a worldwide management consulting firm, where he also oversaw McKinsey’s offices in the southern United States. Barkin earned his bachelor’s, MBA and law degrees from Harvard University.
Mark Gould
Chief Payments Executive
Federal Reserve Financial Services
Mark Gould has provided executive leadership to a range of Bank functions at the intersection of payments, technology, strategy and operations during his career. As Federal Reserve Financial Services’ chief payments executive, he is responsible for the Federal Reserve’s full portfolio of cash, retail, wholesale and instant payment services across the United States. Gould’s career began in the Retail Payments Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. From February 2014 to 2021, he served as the chief operating officer and first vice president of the San Francisco Fed. From this position, he led the Federal Reserve System’s Cash Product Office, which oversees the processing, quality and distribution of U.S. currency domestically and internationally. Gould began his current role in March 2021.
Shonda Clay
Executive Vice President, Chief of Product and Relationship Management
Federal Reserve Financial Services
Shonda Clay leads integrated product development for the Federal Reserve’s portfolio of payment products, as well as its engagement and communications with financial institutions and the payments industry. In addition to leading Federal Reserve Financial Services’ customer relations, customer experience, marketing communications, research and payments improvement initiatives, Clay also serves on the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s executive committee. She joined the Federal Reserve in the 1980s and championed the Federal Reserve’s work that led to the Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System white paper in 2015 and the Federal Reserve’s subsequent payments improvement initiatives.
Kassandra Quimby
Senior Vice President, Head of Marketing & Strategic Industry Engagement
Federal Reserve Financial Services
Kassandra (Kassi) Quimby is responsible for marketing, payments system improvement and industry engagement for Federal Reserve Financial Services (FRFS). Marketing seeks to drive awareness, engagement and action among FRFS customers and other payment stakeholders through cross-channel communications, from websites to webinars. Quimby also oversees industry relations, including managing relationships with key influencers and supporting industry and Federal Reserve initiatives and work groups. In addition, Quimby is responsible for advancing payments system improvement to support the overall integrity, efficiency and accessibility of the U.S. payment system. Before taking on her current role, Quimby was vice president of industry engagement and programs in the Customer Relations and Support Office, where she managed several programs to support industry readiness for the FedNow® Service and co-led work to advance business-to-business payments efficiency. Quimby has held various leadership positions across the Federal Reserve System since beginning her Fed career at the Board of Governors in 2002.
Panel Session Speakers
Global Payments
Erin McCune (Moderator)
Partner, Bain & Co.
Erin McCune has more than 25 years of consulting experience in payments and fintech. At Bain, her client engagements focus on business payments, cross-border transactions, bill payment and the intersection of corporate finance, banking and enterprise software. Before joining Bain, McCune was a partner at a specialty payments consulting firm and a panel moderator at a previous Chicago Payments Symposium.
John Jackson
Head of Payment Strategy, Payments Directorate, Bank of England
John Jackson is responsible for setting long-term strategy enabling evolution of the Bank’s central bank money payment services and promoting modernization in the wider payments landscape. During his 20+ years at the Bank, Jackson has worked in the markets, financial stability and prudential policy areas. Before taking on his current role in 2024, he was the product lead for the Bank’s real-time gross settlement (RTGS) Renewal program. Jackson also spent a year on secondment at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, working in its financial institutions supervision group.
Pariwat Kanithasen
Deputy Director, Payments & Fintech, Bank of Thailand
At the Bank of Thailand, Pariwat Kanithasen is in charge of policies related to Thailand’s cross-border payment connectivity. He recently led several projects on payment infrastructure linkages between Thailand and other countries in the region, including Singapore (PromtPay-PayNow), Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. His current projects include bilateral linkages with India and Hong Kong, as well as the multilateral Project Nexus with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Kanithasen is co-chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Working Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems, vice chair of the Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP) Working Group on Payment and Market Infrastructures, and Project Nexus country manager.
Adrian Lovney
Chief Payments & Schemes Officer, Australian Payments Plus
Australian Payments Plus (AP+) brings together Australia’s three domestic payment providers, BPAY Group, eftpos and NPP Australia, into one integrated entity. Its capabilities include Australia’s domestic debit network, instant payments infrastructure, secure bill payments, digital identity exchange, QR code payments and experiences, and open wallet solutions. Adrian Lovney leads the AP+ Payments & Schemes team, which focuses on delivering products that meet the payments needs of Australian retailers and businesses. This includes responsibility for product management and development, payment strategy, scheme management, fraud and scams management, business operations and delivery.
Mehdi Manaa
Chief Executive Officer, Buna (UAE)
As CEO of Buna, a cross-border and multi-currency payment system founded by the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), Mehdi Manaa leads Buna’s efforts to enable commercial banks, central banks and other financial institutions to send and receive payments in Arab currencies and key international currencies. Ultimately, this furthers economic and financial integration between Arab countries, as well as to expand trade and investment activities with global trading partners. Previously, Manaa was deputy director-general of the Market Infrastructure and Payments Directorate General at the European Central Bank (ECB). Earlier in his career, Manaa held various private sector managerial and advisory positions focusing on payment solutions and financial market infrastructures.
Evolution of Instant Payments
Nick Stanescu (Moderator)
Chief FedNow® Executive, Federal Reserve Financial Services
Nick Stanescu leads the team that runs the FedNow® Service, including technology, product and portfolio management functions. His team is responsible for expanding the FedNow Service’s network and volume, as well as delivering new service functionality. He began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and held leadership roles in Fedwire Funds and National Settlement Services, Information Security and the Federal Reserve’s National Incident Response Team. Most recently, Stanescu served as the FedNow business executive with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. In this role, he led product management, industry readiness and business operations for the new service.
Lou Grilli
Senior Innovation Strategist, Velera
Velera was announced in 2024 as the new name of PSCU/Co-op Solutions, a combination of a payments credit union service organization (CUSO) and an integrated financial technology solutions provider. As a senior innovation strategist at Velera, Lou Grilli works to build and shape a superior payment and member experience capability for Velera and its owner credit unions. Grilli’s long career in payments includes product management, product development and thought leadership in credit, debit, loyalty, mobile payments and digital wallets. He has spent the last six years in roles dedicated to the credit union industry.
Justin Jackson
Senior Vice President, Head of Enterprise Payments, Fiserv
Fiserv is a global fintech and payments company providing solutions for banking, global commerce, merchant acquiring, billing and payments, and point of sale. Justin Jackson joined Fiserv in 2002 and has held a variety of product management roles delivering consumer payments capabilities within financial institutions’ digital suites. He was promoted to senior vice president, head of product – digital payment solutions in early 2022 and to his current role at the end of that year.
Matt Marcus
Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Modern Treasury
Matt Marcus co-founded Modern Treasury in 2018 to provide payment operations software for companies to move and track money with confidence – and to alleviate the pain points that his team experienced while building a payment operations system at LendingHome (now Kiavi Funding, Inc.). This LendingHome offering could serve thousands of companies whose dated payment systems limited their ability to support and connect with users, clients and employees and fund more than $3 billion in mortgage loans. Earlier in his career, Marcus worked at First Round Capital.
Kathy Mertes
Vice President, Executive Leader for Digital Payments, Conduent
Conduent offers business process outsourcing solutions that ignite efficiency, savings and revenue growth across industries. Kathy Mertes joined Conduent in 2022 to help shape the transformational role that payments can bring to Conduent’s enterprise suite of solutions by removing payment friction. In her nearly 30 years in the industry, Mertes has used her banking expertise to address client needs in a wide range of industries, spanning credit card fraud prevention, innovating consumer payments at a national university, and leading product and operational responsibilities for money markets and asset management accounts at a brokerage firm. Earlier in her career, Mertes led key strategic teams at BNY Mellon Treasury Services. She is a member of The Clearing House (TCH) Corporate Advisory Group.
Carlos Netto
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Matera
Carlos Netto is co-founder and CEO of Matera, a software company he founded over 30 years ago in Brazil. Matera provides instant payments, QR code payments and core banking technology to financial institutions. Netto is a specialist in digital payments and open banking and was awarded a U.S. patent for offline QR code payments. Currently, he is leading Matera’s global expansion to the U.S.
Innovation on Top of Current Payment Rails
Eric Schurr (Moderator)
Chief Strategy Officer, National Products, Sunrise Banks
Eric Schurr is responsible for driving innovation and growth in Sunrise Banks’ national lending and digital payments services, which includes building relationships and partnerships. His background includes underwriting, portfolio management and product development at two of the country’s largest financial institutions, Capital One and U.S. Bank. Schurr is a TSFX certified practitioner who curates a blog series on the benefits of, and approaches to, strategic foresight – a detailed and systematic analysis of driving forces and trends of change before the development of strategies or plans, and applying this to the future of consumption.
Sarah Arnio
Director, Digital Payments, Walmart
Sarah Arnio joined Walmart in 2019 and has since held roles as senior manager, home services; director of international payments and financial services; and director of digital payments. In these roles, Arnio’s accomplishments included implementing global payments and financial strategy in Walmart’s Latin American markets, signing partnerships with banks and issuers that led to tens of millions of dollars in annual cost savings for Walmart. In her current role, Arnio supports Walmart’s goals in driving digital payments innovation and managing key partnerships. Walmart’s financial services team is one of the largest non-bank financial services businesses in the world.
Eric Foust
Vice President of North American Banking Partnerships, Trustly
As he takes part in Trustly’s strategy for faster funds payment rails, Eric Foust establishes partnerships with banks to support payment origination, open banking and channel opportunities. Foust has held various leadership banking roles over the past 20 years, including in treasury management, product management, relationship management, innovation and network strategy. Before joining Trustly in 2021, Foust worked at Early Warning Services, where he helped launch the Zelle® Network, built Zelle Disbursements and led the integration of Real Time Payments (RTP®) into the Zelle Network.
Keith Riddle
Senior Vice President, Business Development, Payfinia (a Tyfone company)
In his current role, Keith Riddle establishes partnerships with digital platform providers and payment originators interested in enabling Payfinia’s payment offerings, including its Instant Payment Xchange (IPX) platform and Quick Pay and Skip a Payment loan payment servicing solutions. Before joining Tyfone, Riddle was BankiFi’s CEO of the Americas, where he was responsible for the company’s small business embedded banking solution strategy and North American distribution. Earlier, Riddle was CEO of Sherpa Technologies, a credit union services organization, and held executive business development, innovation and product management roles with Corporate One Federal Credit Union and other organizations.
Brian Tate
President and Chief Executive Officer, Innovative Payments Association
IPA is a trade organization that is the voice of electronic payments for consumers, businesses and governments at all levels. Brian Tate joined IPA in 2013 and became its CEO in 2017. In 2009, Tate joined the Financial Services Roundtable (FSR) as vice president of banking and securities, where he represented banks, card issuers and networks, asset management and insurance companies. Tate led FSR efforts on interchange, orderly liquidation authority, fiduciary duty and retirement security. Earlier in his career, he was vice president for legislative affairs for the MD|DC Credit Union Association and director of state advocacy for the Credit Union National Association (CUNA). Tate holds a JD degree from Howard University School of Law, master’s degree from George Washington University and bachelor’s degree from King’s College, Pa.
Scams, Security, & Information Sharing
Liz Buser (Moderator)
Senior Advisor, Fraud Prevention Programs, AARP
Liz Buser works with AARP colleagues and external partners to empower consumers to spot and avoid scams and fraud. She was promoted to senior advisor in 2022. Buser previously focused on fraud awareness and other consumer issues as a member of AARP’s program design and financial resilience teams. Before joining AARP in 2011, Buser worked on retirement and savings education programs for the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and American Savings Education Council (ASEC).
Maanas Godugunur
Senior Director, F&I Market Planning, LexisNexis® Risk Solutions
Maanas Godugunur’s experience includes working with global businesses on making insightful decisions in a world of hidden risks in the payments and digital commerce space. He leads strategic planning for LexisNexis’ payments and ecommerce product suite, focusing on technology trends impacting the changing fraud landscape, as well as conceptualizing and delivering tailored solutions. Previously, Godugunur was a senior manager in the payments practice at Deloitte Consulting, where he helped clients build and launch next-generation payments platforms and solutions.
Jim Hitchcock, CAFP, CAMS
Vice President, Fraud Mitigation, American Bankers Association
Jim Hitchcock is the ABA’s primary expert on fraud mitigation activities and programs. In this role, he identifies and tracks key fraud topics and trends, develops fraud prevention strategies, and finds opportunities to develop capabilities and partnerships that provide products and services to banks. From 2016 to 2021, Hitchcock was director, anti-money laundering fraud strategy at Capital One®. Earlier, he worked in federal law enforcement with the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (defense criminal investigative service) and the U.S. Secret Service. He is a certified anti-money laundering and fraud professional (CAFP) and certified anti-money laundering specialist (CAMS).
Michael Timoney
Vice President of Payments Improvement, Federal Reserve Financial Services
Mike Timoney designs, develops and implements key elements of the Federal Reserve Financial Services strategy for payment security. In particular, he and his team focus on scams, fraud definitions, improving fraud data, and research on fraud, cyberthreats and emerging technologies. Before joining the Federal Reserve System in 2019, Timoney was senior vice president and senior fraud policy specialist with Bank of America. He has more than 25 years of experience in financial services, treasury management, fraud prevention and mitigation.
Jaime Zetterstrom, CCSP
Vice President, Production Management, Somos, Inc.
Jaime Zetterstrom joined Somos in 2022 in her current role as vice president, product management, where she previously served on the company’s advisory board. She has been a member of the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA) board since 2020. In her 20+ years of professional experience, Zetterstrom has demonstrated extensive technical skills and contributed to consumer fraud protection through involvement in groups such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Robo Calling Task Force, the CFCA and the Industry Traceback Group (ITG). Zetterstrom became a certified cloud security professional (CCSP) in 2021.
Digital Currency, Digital Assets and Settlement
Matthew Blumenfeld (Moderator)
Global and U.S. Digital Asset Leader, PwC United States
Matt Blumenfeld leads PwC’s Web3 and digital asset practice. In this role, he helps clients understand, adopt, innovate and navigate both risks and regulations that affect third generation web technologies, such as blockchain, cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Blumenfeld has successfully developed and operationalized digital asset strategies for both established and emerging companies, leveraging his expertise in digital transformation, emerging payments and customer engagement. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and several certifications in blockchain and digital assets.
Yuliya Guseva
Professor of Law, Director, Fintech & Blockchain Research, Rutgers Law School
As director of the Fintech and Blockchain Research Program of the Center for Corporate Law and Governance, Yuliya Guseva is engaged in extensive academic and policy research on financial regulation, securities law, international law, capital markets and digital innovation. Among other publications, Guseva has coauthored the second and third editions of Regulation of Cryptoassets books. Before her appointment at Rutgers, Guseva was a visiting assistant professor at Fordham Law School, as well as a postdoctoral research fellow and Kauffman Legal Research Fellow at Columbia Law School. Guseva holds a doctor of judicial science (S.J.D.) degree from Central European University and a master of laws (LL.M.) degree from Columbia University.
Matthias Schmudde
Head of Payments Division (Digital Euro Working Group), Deutsche Bundesbank
In addition to his current role at Deutsche Bundesbank, Matthias Schmudde is a member of the Eurosystem Market Infrastructure and Payments Committee (MIPC), Eurosystem Advisory Group on Market Infrastructures for securities and collateral (AMI-SeCo), and the Digital Euro Project Steering Group. He also is involved in Eurosystem-related initiatives, such as the European Commission’s European retail payments strategy and European Central Bank’s investigation of a digital euro.
Nelli Zaltsman
Head of Platform Settlement Solutions, Onyx by J.P. Morgan
J.P. Morgan offers Onyx as a blockchain-based platform for wholesale payments transactions. As Onyx’s head of platform settlement solutions, Nelli Zaltsman focuses on solutions for the settlement of transactional activity occurring in the broader financial ecosystem, including asset tokenization platforms and other transactional platforms, using JPMorgan’s blockchain-based payments products. She previously led product design for the team. Zaltsman joined J.P. Morgan in 2018 as an attorney in the payments legal department. She was the global legal lead for payments blockchain initiatives and led the creation of the legal frameworks for core Onyx products, such as the JPM Coin System. Zaltsman also led the JPMorgan legal team for the initial establishment of Partior, a blockchain-based technology platform. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and JD from the University of Virginia School of Law.
