Finance & Banking

Experienced individuals involved in financial services, including banking, investment, insurance, and real estate

Varsha Shah

Varsha Shah

Varsha Vidit Shah is an AI and Enterprise Finance Transformation Architect with over 12 years of experience in designing and delivering automation solutions for global finance and compliance operations. Her work focuses on applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve efficiency, accuracy, and governance across enterprise financial systems.
Currently a Technical Architect at Tata Consultancy Services, Varsha contributes to large-scale finance and compliance transformation initiatives. She has led the design and development of AI-based solutions for areas such as revenue recognition, partner incentive programs, employment tax compliance, and procure-to-pay processes.
Her experience includes building systems for contract intelligence, audit validation, financial exception monitoring, and sustainability reporting across multi-country operations. These solutions have helped reduce manual effort and improve reporting accuracy within enterprise environments.
Varsha has also contributed to enterprise platform development for audit collaboration, policy governance, and financial workflow automation. In addition to her technical work, she supports team development through mentoring and has conducted training sessions on AI technologies.
She holds a Master of Computer Applications from Pune University and has earned Microsoft certifications in Azure Fundamentals, Power Platform Fundamentals, and Fabric Data Engineering.

Varsha Vidit Shah is an AI and Enterprise Finance Transformation Architect with over 12 years of experience in designing and delivering automation solutions for global finance and compliance operations. Her work focuses on applying artificial intelli... Show more

Eszter Iványi

Eszter Iványi

Eszter Iványi, with 5+ years in asset management and a Postgraduate Certificate in Business Coaching from ELTE University, she combines corporate expertise with coaching principles to drive organizational change and professional development.

Eszter Iványi, with 5+ years in asset management and a Postgraduate Certificate in Business Coaching from ELTE University, she combines corporate expertise with coaching principles to drive organizational change and professional development. Show more

Shalini Sivasamy

Shalini Sivasamy

Shalini Sivasamy is a Senior AI & Machine Learning Engineer specializing in building scalable, enterprise-grade artificial intelligence solutions across financial services and cloud ecosystems. Currently contributing to advanced AI initiatives at leading institutions, she focuses on leveraging Generative AI, Agentic AI, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to transform complex business workflows and decision-making processes.

With deep expertise in machine learning, natural language processing, and intelligent document processing, Shalini has developed production-ready AI systems that enhance operational efficiency, reduce processing time, and unlock actionable insights from unstructured data. Her work spans end-to-end AI system design from model development and evaluation to deployment using cloud-native architectures.

A strong advocate for responsible and trustworthy AI, Shalini actively explores challenges related to model reliability, governance, and real-world deployment of large language models. She has authored peer-reviewed publications and contributed to academic and industry research, while also serving as a reviewer for international conferences and journals in AI and data science.

Beyond her technical contributions, Shalini is a recognized thought leader and speaker in AI innovation, frequently sharing insights on enterprise RAG systems, agentic workflows, and AI-driven transformation in financial institutions. Her unique ability to bridge traditional software engineering with cutting-edge AI makes her a key voice in advancing intelligent, scalable, and responsible AI solutions.

Shalini Sivasamy is a Senior AI & Machine Learning Engineer specializing in building scalable, enterprise-grade artificial intelligence solutions across financial services and cloud ecosystems. Currently contributing to advanced AI initiatives at lea... Show more

Vaibhav Sharma

Vaibhav Sharma

Kumar Vaibhav Sharma is a cloud data platform engineer with 10 years in regulated financial services, where his focus is a question every institution faces: how to make compliance a byproduct of engineering delivery rather than an obstacle to it. At a Fortune 500 financial institution, he embeds audit controls directly into release pipelines cutting release cycle time by [55]% and compute costs by 40% while strengthening audit defensibility and built a production AI monitoring agent on GCP and BigQuery that took root-cause identification from hours to minutes. He has published on cloud platform modernization in regulated environments, and speaks at [DevOpsCon New York 2026 / etc.].

Kumar Vaibhav Sharma is a cloud data platform engineer with 10 years in regulated financial services, where his focus is a question every institution faces: how to make compliance a byproduct of engineering delivery rather than an obstacle to it. At ... Show more

Umamaheswara Rao Kukkala

Umamaheswara Rao Kukkala

Lead Data Engineer with extensive experience designing and operating large-scale enterprise data platforms and analytics infrastructure in the financial services industry.

My work focuses on building highly reliable, scalable, and cloud-native data systems that support mission-critical analytics, regulatory reporting, and data-driven decision making.

I specialize in:

• Enterprise data platform architecture

• Modernizing legacy ETL ecosystems into scalable cloud data pipelines

• Distributed data processing and analytics infrastructure

• Data reliability engineering and operational excellence

• Large-scale cloud data platforms using Databricks and Google Cloud

In my current role I contribute to the architecture, modernization, and operational reliability of enterprise data platforms supporting critical banking analytics workloads.

I frequently collaborate with cross-functional engineering teams, architects, and business stakeholders to deliver secure, compliant, and scalable data solutions that align with long-term platform strategy.

My professional interests include:

• Data platform reliability engineering

• Cloud-native analytics architectures

• Scalable data pipeline orchestration

• Data engineering automation and observability

Lead Data Engineer with extensive experience designing and operating large-scale enterprise data platforms and analytics infrastructure in the financial services industry. My work focuses on building highly reliable, scalable, and cloud-native dat... Show more

Balakumaran Sugumar

Balakumaran Sugumar

With over 16 years of experience as a software and solutions architect, I specialize in modernizing large-scale financial systems through cloud transformation and AI-driven innovation. My work spans enterprise architecture, secure cloud modernization, and the responsible adoption of intelligent systems within regulated environments. I have led critical banking platform migrations, designed reusable architectural frameworks, and delivered scalable cloud solutions for major U.S. financial institutions.

With over 16 years of experience as a software and solutions architect, I specialize in modernizing large-scale financial systems through cloud transformation and AI-driven innovation. My work spans enterprise architecture, secure cloud modernization... Show more

Bruno H. Brito

Bruno H. Brito

Bruno is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience in leading companies across the banking, telecommunications, insurance and financial markets sectors. Starting his career in software engineering, his focus quickly evolved towards a profound understanding of business process visions, solution architecture design, and the strategic delivery of quality information to decision-makers.

He holds an MBA specialization in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data from the University of São Paulo (ICMC/USP), where his thesis laid the theoretical groundwork for the presented Meta-Architecture. This research culminated in an article submitted (PROPOR 2026), demonstrating his commitment to bridging academic rigor with practical enterprise solutions. He is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Information Science at UFSCar, deepening his expertise in knowledge management and semantic design.

His core expertise lies in Data and Process Strategy, Corporate Architecture, and holistic Solution Design, always focusing on translating complex data and architectural insights into actionable business decisions. This blend of technical foundation (AI, Graph) and methodological rigor (Information Science) positions him as a strong advocate for building resilient, trustworthy, and governed AI systems, such as the Neo4j Intelligent Proxy presented in this session.

Bruno is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience in leading companies across the banking, telecommunications, insurance and financial markets sectors. Starting his career in software engineering, his focus quickly evolved towards a p... Show more

Juan Ribes

Juan Ribes

Trabajando para un banco inglés durante los últimos 10 años, y en ENCAMINA los 13 anteriores, llevo media vida implantando CRMs en lugares que varían desde una empresa funeraria con una sola usuaria (la hija de la dueña) hasta una red de banca minorista con treinta mil usuarios.

Y me lo sigo pasando en grande!

Trabajando para un banco inglés durante los últimos 10 años, y en ENCAMINA los 13 anteriores, llevo media vida implantando CRMs en lugares que varían desde una empresa funeraria con una sola usuaria (la hija de la dueña) hasta una red de banca minori... Show more

Seetaram Rayarao

Seetaram Rayarao

Seetaram Rayarao is a Vice President and Senior Lead Engineer at JP Morgan Chase with over 18 years of experience driving innovation in cloud computing, AI, and microservices. He leads transformative projects, including the LLM Suite, integrating Generative AI frameworks such as LangChain and LangGraph with enterprise cloud solutions to deliver scalable, AI-driven applications. A Delaware AWS Community Leader (AWS Builder), Seetaram is an invited speaker at the New York AI Summit, where he presented on real-world enterprise adoption of Generative AI and agent-based systems, sharing practical lessons on scaling, governance, and measurable business impact. He is also a speaker at AI4, contributing advanced insights on production-ready AI architectures, RAG systems, and evaluation frameworks used in regulated financial environments.

Seetaram Rayarao is a Vice President and Senior Lead Engineer at JP Morgan Chase with over 18 years of experience driving innovation in cloud computing, AI, and microservices. He leads transformative projects, including the LLM Suite, integrating Gen... Show more

Promise Mmanta

Promise Mmanta

Promise Mmanta is a Product Manager with over 4 years of experience building payment, logistics, and fulfillment systems that power real-world operations. She has led the design of platforms spanning driver apps, partner onboarding and KYC workflows, warehousing and fulfillment systems, and transaction and settlement flows.

Her work centers on translating complex operational and financial processes into structured, scalable systems. She has driven improvements in partner activation, automated key workflows, and contributed to revenue growth through the relaunch of a warehousing and fulfillment business line.

More recently, her focus has expanded into API design, payments infrastructure, and AI-driven systems, with a particular interest in how autonomous agents interact with APIs, exposing hidden assumptions in authorization, data governance, and system control.

Promise Mmanta is a Product Manager with over 4 years of experience building payment, logistics, and fulfillment systems that power real-world operations. She has led the design of platforms spanning driver apps, partner onboarding and KYC workflows,... Show more

Alayesanmi Femi

Alayesanmi Femi

With a seven-year career building and leading technical teams in the payments industry, I've seen firsthand how compliance can be a bottleneck to growth. As the Backend Engineering Lead at Mono, I have contributed as an engineering leader on building the open finance and identity infrastructure that powers of African digital businesses. This experience led me to building Tewo, an open-source, AI-native compliance co-pilot. Tewo is built on a single premise: to help businesses close enterprise deals faster. It achieves this by using AI to automate the most complex parts of compliance, including control setup, evidence gathering, and vetting system architecture, turning a major business hurdle into a competitive advantage.

With a seven-year career building and leading technical teams in the payments industry, I've seen firsthand how compliance can be a bottleneck to growth. As the Backend Engineering Lead at Mono, I have contributed as an engineering leader on building... Show more

Emmanuella Ubokabasi Etop Essien

Emmanuella Ubokabasi Etop Essien

I am on a mission to help developers build the future of finance.

I’m a Developer Relations Engineer at Blnk Finance, where I create technical content, sample projects, workshops, and talks that support the developer ecosystem in leveraging open-source ledger tools to ensure financial data integrity.

I have cultivated expertise in full-stack development, cross-platform mobile development, and modern web technologies. Through my YouTube platform, I have created a thriving technical education community, producing high-retention videos. I have spoken at conferences like Google I/O and GDG events amongst other events. I am dedicated to simplifying technical concepts for developers worldwide.

I'm passionate about inclusive developer education and building tools that help people ship. Open to speaking, workshops, and collaborations focused on developer experience (DX) and community growth.

I am on a mission to help developers build the future of finance. I’m a Developer Relations Engineer at Blnk Finance, where I create technical content, sample projects, workshops, and talks that support the developer ecosystem in leveraging open-... Show more

Venkata Pavan Kumar Gummadi

Venkata Pavan Kumar Gummadi

Venkata Pavan Kumar Gummadi is a seasoned API MuleSoft Architect with over 18 years of experience leading enterprise integration projects across financial services, insurance, healthcare, and telecommunications sectors. Currently at Broadridge Financials, he is CRITICAL resource and spearheaded the award-winning Wealth InFocus platform, a cloud-based, API driven solution that transforms investor communications for wealth management firms. As a triple-certified MuleSoft professional (Integration Architect, Platform Architect, and Developer), he brings deep expertise in designing and implementing RESTful and SOAP APIs, orchestrating complex integrations across systems, including Salesforce, AWS, SAP, and legacy mainframes, while leveraging technologies such as MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, DataWeave, and CloudHub. His career spans notable organizations, including National Grid, New York Life Insurance, and The Hartford, where he has consistently delivered high-impact solutions by bridging technical and business objectives, optimizing performance and capacity planning, and mentoring development teams through Agile methodologies. With proficiency in Java, Python, .NET, and emerging AI automation capabilities, Venkata combines architectural vision with hands-on technical excellence to drive digital transformation initiatives that achieve measurable business results.

Venkata Pavan Kumar Gummadi is a seasoned API MuleSoft Architect with over 18 years of experience leading enterprise integration projects across financial services, insurance, healthcare, and telecommunications sectors. Currently at Broadridge Financ... Show more

Jan-Christoph Schlieker

Jan-Christoph Schlieker

JC Schlieker beschäftigt sich im Schwerpunkt mit Softwarearchitekturen / Softwareframeworks und ist seit 2017 für die Finanz Informatik tätig. JC ist Lösungsfinder und Projekt-Enabler, schafft Voraussetzungen, konzipiert Strategien, steckt Themen in organisatorische Rahmen oder ist einfach Sparringspartner für das Team. Darüber hinaus ist JC überall dort zu finden wo Prozesse optimiert und automatisiert werden können. Klarer Fokus von ihm ist die Skalierung. Privat widmet er sich seiner Familie, Hardware-Schrauberei und Gaming.

JC Schlieker beschäftigt sich im Schwerpunkt mit Softwarearchitekturen / Softwareframeworks und ist seit 2017 für die Finanz Informatik tätig. JC ist Lösungsfinder und Projekt-Enabler, schafft Voraussetzungen, konzipiert Strategien, steckt Themen in ... Show more

Anita Squires

Anita Squires

Anita has always been interested in computers from an early age; very early on, her dad gifted her a ZX spectrum. However, it took until she was later in her career to actually move directly into a coding career by becoming an automated tester. Before that, she spent many years working in a support role in various financial technology institutes, working closely with analysts, developers and testers, noticing the lack of young women in the space.
Outside of her day job, she has focused on trying to encourage more young women into technology roles with the Dell Stem Apire Mentoring program.

Anita has always been interested in computers from an early age; very early on, her dad gifted her a ZX spectrum. However, it took until she was later in her career to actually move directly into a coding career by becoming an automated tester. Befo... Show more

Santosh Durgam

Santosh Durgam

Santosh Durgam is a data engineering & analytics leader with 20+ years building governed, high-scale data platforms across retirement/401(k), broader financial services, and healthcare. He leads cross-functional teams that deliver production-grade data lakes, lineage-aware pipelines, and ML-enabled analytics on cloud—translating governance into measurable business outcomes.

Recent speaking includes SQL Saturday Minnesota 2025, where he presented “From Ingestion to Insights: Building Robust Data Pipelines in AWS” to an in-person community audience. He has also contributed to international research forums and science conferences, and is invited to speak at ICDPN-2025 (International Conference on Data Processing & Networking), engaging practitioners and scholars on data engineering, governance, and analytics at scale. Santosh actively publishes/curates work via Google Scholar and shares practical playbooks for data quality, metadata/lineage, and operating models that connect data platforms to financial decisioning.

Beyond delivery, Santosh serves the community as a peer reviewer of scholarly work on data/ML methodologies and as a judge/mentor for select industry and academic competitions, reinforcing peer validation and public recognition. He champions modern data culture—mentoring engineers and product leaders, and advocating automation (incl. AI agents) to elevate reliability, speed, and auditability in regulated environments. Santosh recently completed his Executive MBA, sharpening strategy and value-creation at the intersection of data, risk, and growth

Santosh Durgam is a data engineering & analytics leader with 20+ years building governed, high-scale data platforms across retirement/401(k), broader financial services, and healthcare. He leads cross-functional teams that deliver production-grade da... Show more

Jochen Setz

Jochen Setz

2013 - today: Developer and Manager at Solactive AG

2013 - today: Developer and Manager at Solactive AG Show more

Ursula Spencer

Ursula Spencer

Ursula Spencer is an eDiscovery and information governance SME with deep roots in enterprise Microsoft ecosystems. She pioneered and led the Federal Reserve System’s eDiscovery function following the 2008 financial crisis, designing defensible data collection and review workflows across 12 Reserve Banks. Her work supported Congressional investigations, regulatory audits, and high risk litigation, reducing manual processing by over 80 percent while maintaining NIST and FISMA aligned audit readiness. She has since led system wide migrations to Microsoft 365, designed governance ready collaboration environments, and advised public and private sector organizations on secure, people centered M365 adoption.

Today, Ursula designs secure, people centered adoption strategies for public sector, education, and enterprise organizations. She specializes in translating emerging technologies including AI, XR, VR, and AR into governed, scalable solutions that accelerate transformation while protecting data and compliance posture. Her approach blends deep technical expertise with change leadership, helping organizations safely navigate AI’s inflection point.

An award winning technologist, she has spoken at Politico LIVE, Microsoft Elevate and Innovate, BaddieCon, CIAA Tech Summit House, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, where she shares practical frameworks for AI readiness, collaboration at scale, and career reinvention in emerging tech.

Ursula Spencer is an eDiscovery and information governance SME with deep roots in enterprise Microsoft ecosystems. She pioneered and led the Federal Reserve System’s eDiscovery function following the 2008 financial crisis, designing defensible data c... Show more

Koen van Gilst

Koen van Gilst

I work as a Principal Engineer at Rabobank, where I build AI solutions and help teams take them from early prototype to working software inside a large, regulated bank. My focus is the practical side of AI: what it actually takes to make things work, not just the promise.

My talks are technical but accessible, grounded in real examples rather than hype. I avoid standard slide decks where possible, using live prototypes, interactive demos, and audience participation to make the subject concrete and invite honest discussion.

I speak about how AI is changing engineering, what agentic AI looks like in practice, and how to assess whether a language model is actually good enough for your use case.

I work as a Principal Engineer at Rabobank, where I build AI solutions and help teams take them from early prototype to working software inside a large, regulated bank. My focus is the practical side of AI: what it actually takes to make things work,... Show more

Artur Huk

Artur Huk

Artur is a systems architect and data engineer with over 20 years of experience in building end-to-end data platforms. As a Cloud Data Architect at Future Processing, he focuses on designing robust, scalable data ecosystems. He also engineers complex decision support systems and AI architectures for the London Insurance Market, bridging the gap between high-level business needs and production-grade execution environments.

Independently, he is the author and researcher behind the Decision Intelligence Runtime (DIR) and Responsibility-Oriented Agents (ROA) - architectural patterns that bridge probabilistic LLMs with the strict determinism required by critical business processes. His work on separating AI reasoning from execution has been featured on O'Reilly Radar.

To empirically validate these ideas, he built AIvestor, a research project operating on high-frequency financial data. Rather than just an investment tool, he uses live markets as a uniquely adversarial environment to stress-test real-time autonomy, state management, and decision integrity. Artur advocates for treating AI safety as a rigorous systems engineering challenge, not just a prompting exercise.

Artur is a systems architect and data engineer with over 20 years of experience in building end-to-end data platforms. As a Cloud Data Architect at Future Processing, he focuses on designing robust, scalable data ecosystems. He also engineers complex... Show more

Cíntia Guberovic

Cíntia Guberovic

Sou KCP (Kanban Coaching Professional) e atuo como Superintendente de Governança, Planejamento e Performance no PagBank. Tenho carreira de +20 em TI com foco em agilidade nos últimos 12 anos. Hoje sou responsável pela expansão da agilidade organizacional, Gestão de Projetos e Portfolio do PagBank, através da disseminação de melhores práticas como alavanca de negócios, utilizando conceitos de Business Agility, Kanban e KMM como ferramentas de crescimento exponencial e maturidade organizacional, melhorando a assertividade no atingimento dos objetivos em níveis estratégicos e táticos. Sou também responsável pela gestão e alavancagem do plano de desenvolvimento profissional dos especialistas em agilidade, projetos e portfolio de um dos maiores bancos digitais do Brasil.

Sou KCP (Kanban Coaching Professional) e atuo como Superintendente de Governança, Planejamento e Performance no PagBank. Tenho carreira de +20 em TI com foco em agilidade nos últimos 12 anos. Hoje sou responsável pela expansão da agilidade organizaci... Show more

Victor Pachas

Victor Pachas

Product Owner en una empresa financiera líder del Perú, con más de 5 años de experiencia trabajando en infraestructura de nube.
Soy apasionado por las nuevas tecnologías y la Inteligencia Artificial, siempre explorando cómo la innovación puede transformar la industria. Fuera del trabajo, creo contenido tech y recargo energías practicando diferentes deportes.

Product Owner en una empresa financiera líder del Perú, con más de 5 años de experiencia trabajando en infraestructura de nube. Soy apasionado por las nuevas tecnologías y la Inteligencia Artificial, siempre explorando cómo la innovación puede trans... Show more

Leonardo Chiodin

Leonardo Chiodin

I am a Senior Advanced Cybersecurity Engineer at the Naranja X SOC, where I serve as the lead for Digital Brand Protection. I have achieved a high level of maturity in early detection and mitigation of digital risks, developing management indicators and innovative playbooks. My approach is strongly based on automation and threat intelligence to stay ahead of attackers.

My speaking experience includes presentations at EcoParty, Tech4Impact, the Naranja X Awareness Tour, and the National Information Security & Cybersecurity Forum (FORUM), among others. These opportunities have allowed me to combine deep technical expertise with the ability to communicate effectively.

I am a Senior Advanced Cybersecurity Engineer at the Naranja X SOC, where I serve as the lead for Digital Brand Protection. I have achieved a high level of maturity in early detection and mitigation of digital risks, developing management indicators ... Show more

joyce Temilolu Daramola

joyce Temilolu Daramola

Joyce Temiloluwa Daramola, also known as Temilolu TTJ, is a Senior Product Manager with experience across fintech, SaaS, AI, and IoT products. With a unique background in law and technology, she brings a strategic and user-centered approach to building digital products that solve real business and customer problems.

She currently manages products within the fintech ecosystem, leading initiatives around payments, collections, disbursement systems, and digital platforms. Over the years, Joyce has worked with startups and established companies across Nigeria and the United Kingdom, contributing to products in payments, AI-generated media, device management, and crowdfunding.

Beyond product delivery, Joyce is passionate about mentoring and community building. She is the founder of ItXcellerate, a growing tech community focused on helping aspiring tech professionals learn, connect, and grow. She has also mentored upcoming product managers through programs such as Utiva Product School and Web3Ladies.

As a speaker, Joyce shares practical insights on product management, fintech innovation, career transitions into tech, building customer-centric products, and navigating growth in emerging markets. Her sessions combine real-world experience, honest lessons, and actionable strategies for professionals looking to build impactful digital products.

Joyce Temiloluwa Daramola, also known as Temilolu TTJ, is a Senior Product Manager with experience across fintech, SaaS, AI, and IoT products. With a unique background in law and technology, she brings a strategic and user-centered approach to buildi... Show more

Christian Andrade

Christian Andrade

PhD in Accounting and Finance from Universidade de São Paulo (FEA-USP), researching the impact of corporate governance distance on cross-border M&A performance, 11 years as Partner Director at Fênix Consultoria, 7 years as CFO at Fumex Tabacalera (American subsidiary), and 4 years as CIO at CdF International(Dutch Company).

Has successfully led 5 cross-border M&A transactions, leveraging Microsoft Business Central (BC) for financial integration, valuation, and post-merger process harmonization. More than 100 ERP implementations in more than 20 countries.

Holds dual Master’s degrees (Management Science – University of Kent, UK, and Accounting – UFBA), an MBA in Corporate Finance (FGV), and dual Bachelor’s degrees in Accounting and Computer Science (UFBA). Certified PgMP and PMP (PMI). Recognized for natural leadership, mentoring, and coaching abilities, with high commitment, structured thinking, and excellent negotiation skills.

PhD in Accounting and Finance from Universidade de São Paulo (FEA-USP), researching the impact of corporate governance distance on cross-border M&A performance, 11 years as Partner Director at Fênix Consultoria, 7 years as CFO at Fumex Tabacalera (Am... Show more

Jonathan Wroble

Jonathan Wroble

In 2024, I co-founded Get A Financial Life NYC, the first money curriculum specifically designed for the 700,000 students in the NYC public school system. We're now working with 50 city schools to deliver lessons on topics from budgeting to work to investing. And through creative collaboration with individual schools, districts, and key leaders in the NYC Department of Education, we've delivered stipends to students, teachers, and community members.

Along the way, I've learned and observed a ton about how kids interact with money. The fact that they don't see physical cash, and what this means for awareness of their spending; the fact that gambling is often equated with investing; the fact that convenience reigns supreme, even when it runs counter to best financial practices. As one high school junior put it: "When it comes to money, all I have is Cash App and my pocket.” I love discussing topics such as:
- Are young girls or young boys better with money, and is social media to blame?
- What is the actual cost of convenience, and is it worth it?
- What's really behind the rise of youth gambling, prediction markets, the creator economy, and crypto?

At the same time, I've become aware of the growing need for AI/digital literacy. I explore questions in my writing related to tech and society, such as:
- What does it means when your "escape" starts taking up more time than the thing—i.e., real life—that you're escaping from?
- What are the impacts of how technology enables and even fuels rampant misinformation, from white lies (like men lying about their height on dating apps) to the Big Lie?
- What role should AI play in the classroom, if any?

In 2024, I co-founded Get A Financial Life NYC, the first money curriculum specifically designed for the 700,000 students in the NYC public school system. We're now working with 50 city schools to deliver lessons on topics from budgeting to work to i... Show more

Jason Paolasini

Jason Paolasini

Jason Paolasini drives RBC’s hybrid cloud strategy, integrating on-prem and public cloud infrastructures using CNCF projects and Kubernetes. As a Kubernetes-first organization and CNCF Silver sponsor, RBC leverages open source frameworks to streamline security and operational efficiency. Jason fosters open source contributions while scaling multi-cluster environments to hundreds of thousands of cores, positioning RBC as a leader in financial cloud infrastructure.

Jason Paolasini drives RBC’s hybrid cloud strategy, integrating on-prem and public cloud infrastructures using CNCF projects and Kubernetes. As a Kubernetes-first organization and CNCF Silver sponsor, RBC leverages open source frameworks to streamlin... Show more

Priya Namasivayam

Priya Namasivayam

Priya Namasivayam is a Staff Platform Engineer at EarnIn, where she builds and operates cloud-native platform infrastructure at scale. She specializes in Kubernetes, service meshes, and GitOps-driven delivery, and led EarnIn's migration from AWS App Mesh to Linkerd—improving security, reliability, and developer experience.

She focuses on treating platform infrastructure like application code: modeling infrastructure tests as Kubernetes resources and gating Flux-driven changes with in-cluster validation using Testkube. Priya is passionate about simplifying complex systems and sharing practical patterns teams can adopt in production.

Priya Namasivayam is a Staff Platform Engineer at EarnIn, where she builds and operates cloud-native platform infrastructure at scale. She specializes in Kubernetes, service meshes, and GitOps-driven delivery, and led EarnIn's migration from AWS App ... Show more

Joshua Olatunji

Joshua Olatunji

Joshua Olatunji is a Nigerian engineering leader, software architect, and founder of Dependly — a contract infrastructure and milestone-based transaction platform designed to enforce trust where delivery risk exists. His work focuses on contract disbursement infrastructure, verification-driven payments, and financial infrastructure for real-world execution.

With deep expertise in distributed systems, backend architecture, DevOps, Kubernetes, and fintech infrastructure, Joshua has led engineering initiatives across payment systems, API orchestration, and scalable transaction platforms, including leading cross-border payment initiatives at Expedier—a Canadian fintech platform providing digital financial services and multi-currency transactions. He combines control-oriented systems thinking with AI-assisted engineering to build resilient products capable of operating in high-trust and high-risk environments.

His current research interests explore the intersection of Large Language Models (LLMs), software quality evaluation, and reinforced reasoning systems, particularly within fintech and enterprise software ecosystems.

Joshua is passionate about building systems that move beyond transactions into enforceable accountability — where money moves only when work is verified.

Joshua Olatunji is a Nigerian engineering leader, software architect, and founder of Dependly — a contract infrastructure and milestone-based transaction platform designed to enforce trust where delivery risk exists. His work focuses on contract disb... Show more

Mike Chisholm

Mike Chisholm

Mike Chisholm is a visionary leader and strategic powerhouse, renowned for his ability to drive transformative growth and operational excellence across diverse industries. He holds an executive MBA from Ivey Business School. Over the course of his career, Mike has generated nearly a billion dollars in enterprise value, showcasing his exceptional impact on business performance.

Mike is Founder and CEO of Chisholm Consulting Group Inc. www.chisholmconsultinggroup.com and has spent decades helping boards, executives, and business owners navigate complex challenges, seize opportunities, and achieve extraordinary outcomes.

Mike’s areas of expertise include:
-Mergers and Acquisitions
-Turnarounds
-Due diligence
-Growth strategy development

With a robust background that includes senior leadership roles in logistics, supply chain optimization, and corporate development, Mike combines hands-on operational experience with sharp strategic insight.

In addition to consulting, Mike shares his knowledge through speaking engagements and writing for the most widely read publication that bridges the gap between academic research and business practice (Harvard Business Review), offering thought leadership on a wide range of topics including self-advocacy in the corporate world to professional global logistics trends and transformative business strategies.

Mike’s approach is defined by decisive action, clear communication, and an unwavering commitment to creating lasting value for stakeholders. Whether architecting bold growth strategies or tackling operational challenges head-on, Mike Chisholm stands as a trusted partner in driving success and shaping the future of businesses worldwide.

Mike Chisholm is a visionary leader and strategic powerhouse, renowned for his ability to drive transformative growth and operational excellence across diverse industries. He holds an executive MBA from Ivey Business School. Over the course of his ca... Show more

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