Born and raised in New Zealand, Anna spends a good portion of her time educating friends and colleagues on two key facts: New Zealand is not part of Australia, and a kiwi is a bird—not a fruit. When she’s not clearing up geographical misconceptions, Anna is busy helping tech companies build amazing products. She skillfully navigates complex legal and regulatory mazes, ensuring every path forward is both clear and compliant. Anna joined Nova Credit as in-house counsel in 2024, after a 12-year tenure at AppFolio, a property management software company, where she discovered an unexpected passion for the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the fascinating world of credit reporting. Outside of work, Anna can usually be found on the sidelines of water polo, soccer and baseball games—cheering on her two kids with all the enthusiasm of a Kiwi rooting for the All Blacks. And when she’s not on the sidelines, she’s probably driving to or from one!

Ryan Nier was born in a hospital in Orlando, Florida. The records are long lost, but some say he was around 7lbs. He started his career in the late 90s as a software developer in Rochester, NY, renowned as "the San Francisco of the East." From there, he went to law school in Michigan, where he scored the game-winning touchdown in an intramural flag football game (not the championship). Ryan has 25 years of experience and has spent time at banks, law firms, and startups. Like most middle-aged males, he bought a microphone during COVID and is working on a podcast.

Mike Shepard joined U.S. Bank in 1997 and currently is responsible for new partnership opportunities across mortgage, home equity and unsecured lending.  Prior to his current role Mike managed a variety of product teams across consumer lending including home equity, personal loans, and small-dollar lending and payment businesses across consumer credit, debit and prepaid card portfolios.  Mike lives in Eden Prairie, MN and earned a bachelor’s degree from Coe College (Iowa), an MBA from the University of St. Thomas (Minn.) and is a graduate of the Consumer Bankers Association Graduate School of Retail Bank Management.

Jason works to improve financial services for working-class Americans at Mission Lane by focusing on fairness, accountability, and transparency in machine learning.

Nikki Cross is Senior Director of Data Science Solutions at Nova Credit, where she has been since 2021. In her role, she educates and guides prospect and client teams as they analyze and create strategies built on Nova Credit's solutions, ensuring these customers can best leverage them to serve more people and expand financial access. Previously, she held senior data roles at fintech Mission Lane and the company it spun off from, LendUp, as well as TransUnion and Capital One. She has a master's in analytics and a bachelor’s in applied mathematics from Georgia Institute of Technology. 

Vishal Saxena is a Strategy & Analytics specialist in the Consumer Finance space. After working with Global Banks (Capital One, HSBC, Barclays and Citibank) for over 2 decades, he now runs Portfolio Analytics for Pagaya which is one of the fastest growing Fintech Lenders across multiple Consumer Lending products. His work across the functional spectrum (Product, Marketing & Risk Management) has led to a holistic understanding of the value drivers and trade-offs inherent in complex decisions. Vishal has a passion for developing innovative and efficient strategies that drive sustainable growth, enhance customer experience and deliver competitive distinction.

Vishal got his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and currently resides with his family in the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia.

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Tim Hong joined MoneyLion in 2015 and serves as its Chief Product Officer. Prior to joining MoneyLion, Mr. Hong was a part of the founding team of Tsumobi from 2011 to 2015, where he was responsible for growth, marketing, product and analytics. Previously, Mr. Hong was Senior Vice President of Product Development and Analytics at EmSense Corporation. Mr. Hong holds a Master of Science in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science in Materials Science, Engineering and Physics from MIT.

Peter Renton is the CEO of Renton & Co, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in fintech media, events and thought leadership. He was formerly the co-founder and chairman of Fintech Nexus, a fintech media and events company that produced 31 large-scale events worldwide. The events business was sold to Fintech Meetup in 2023 and the media business was shut down in June 2024.Peter has been writing about fintech since 2010, with over 2,500 articles published. He is the author and creator of the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the first and longest-running fintech interview series, recently crossing 500 episodes. Over the last decade, Peter has conducted over 750 interviews and panel discussions andproduced over 1,800 fintech newsletters.Peter has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times, CNBC, CNN, Fortune, NPR, Fox Business News, the Financial Times and dozens of other publications.

As COO of Nova Credit, Collin Galster is focused on the company’s partner, product, and international growth. Galster is a member of Nova Credit’s founding team and has served in various capacities since the company’s founding in 2016, including Head of Sales and Business Development and, most recently, VP of International where he led the company’s global expansion efforts in Canada, the UAE, and the U.K. Prior to Nova Credit, Galster was a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, providing strategic consulting to the largest multinational financial institutions in North America, Southeast Asia and Japan.

Chris Hansen is a trailblazer in the realm of consumer lending, financial inclusion, and open banking, serving as the General Manager of Cash Atlas Solutions at Nova Credit. In his current role, Chris leads the development of products that leverage alternative credit data to assist lenders in making more informed lending choices on the 100M+ million thin file or no credit history consumers across the United States. Under Chris's leadership, Nova Credit has pioneered solutions like Cash Atlas®, which harnesses first-party financial data to provide comprehensive insights into consumers' true financial health. By advocating for the use of alternative credit data, cashflow underwriting, and open finance practices, Chris has helped financial giants like SoFi, responsibly serve new consumers from all backgrounds, ethnicities, and income tiers. Prior to his role at Nova Credit, Chris co-founded Argyle, where he spearheaded the development of innovative technology for real-time income and employment data connectivity.

CurrentlyNaga is the CEO of RatehubInc., a profitable and scaled Private Equity backed Fintech, owned by Novacap (owners of Nuvei etc). Ratehub has 4 businesses, a mortgagebusiness (CanWise), a marketplace (Ratehub), a thriving Insurance businessand a content business (Moneysense)

Most recently, Naga served as theGroup GM, Business Head, Multiple Businesses (Student Loans, Personal Loans, Caredit Cards and Lendingas a Service) at Sofi for the last 5 years. Naga was a member of SoFi’sExecutive Team and Management Committee that oversaw scaling of the businessfrom a monoline to a super app/one stop shop across Save, Spend, Borrow,Invest and Protect

Nagais aseasoned Operator and Senior Executive with unique experiences of launching,scaling and operating successful products and consumer businesses across topbanks and FinTechs across pre-IPO, IPO and post IPOas public company - beating and raising quarter after quarter for 2+ years

Naga has extensive executiveexperience in Fintech/Banking experience taking a Fintech public through SPACand running the biggest P&L as a public co

He isa current advisory board member at, Atalaya Capital, Nova Credit and a SeniorAdvisor at BCG

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Matt Lattman serves as the Senior Vice President for Card Acquisition Marketing at Discover. Prior to Discover, Matt was Chief Marketing Officer at Zero Financial, a financial technology startup. He also spent six years at Capital One in various roles, most recently as Head of Acquisition Marketing for their Consumer Bank. He joined Discover in 2019 as VP of Marketing, Pricing, and Product Strategy in Personal Loans.

Rebecca E. Kuehn is a partner with Hudson Cook, LLP in Washington, DC, where she chairs the Credit Reporting, Privacy, and Data Security Practice Group. Becki counsels businesses that leverage consumer data for analytics and decisioning on compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), financial and consumer privacy laws, fair lending, and other federal and state regulations. Before joining Hudson Cook, Becki was vice president and senior regulatory counsel for CoreLogic, providing advice and guidance to the company’s consumer reporting businesses on a wide variety of consumer data and privacy-related regulatory issues. Becki was formerly an assistant director for the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection at the FTC, where she was responsible for leading enforcement, policy, outreach and rulemaking activities for the FTC's FCRA program. Becki is a Fellow of the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers, co-chairs the American Bar Association’s Section of Litigation, Woman Advocate Committee, and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America©2024 - Banking and Finance Law.

Nancy is a dynamic and experienced leader who has served in many critical roles during her 25+ years with AT&T. Her organization is responsible for Global Credit Operations, including Sales & Marketing collaboration, Risk Management, Corporate Credit Process & Policy, Next Generation Tools & Technology, Credit & Partner Suppliers, Financial Reporting and Customer Experience. Nancy recently was responsible for Consumer Billing Strategy, Print Operations and Revenue Assurance. She has worked in several business units including Mobility, U-verse, DTV, Consumer, Business, Sales, Service, Operations, Customer Experience and Finance.

Nancy earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Georgia and her Executive MBA from the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University. Nancy currently serves as the Secretary of the Lake Burton Civic Association and is a member of the Advisory Board of Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University. She is the past Board Chair of the Community Assistance Center in Sandy Springs, GA, and Past President for AT&T Women of Finance Employee Resource Group.

Nancy enjoys UGA football, cooking, music, traveling, and most of all, spending time with her family.

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Tom Brown is a litigator turned venture capitalist. He started his career defending Visa from antitrust attack before going in-house at Visa where he catalyzed Visa’s reorganization and, ultimately, public offering. After returning to private practice, he won several important cases for EBay/PayPal and served as primary regulatory counsel for dozens of startups in the FinTech space, including Square, Stripe, Clover, Braintree, AirBNB, and Digit. He secured the first ever no action letter on behalf of Upstart. Since joining Nyca in the summer of 2021, he has led more than ten investments and sits on the boards of five companies.

Mr. Wasik is a Partner for 2^nd Order Solutions (2OS), a leading credit risk advisory firm. Over his 30 years in financial services, he has developed deep expertise in strategy, credit, operations, and loss forecasting.

As a Partner for 2OS, he has consulted to many lenders in improving their credit practices and capabilities. He has led multiple recent engagements with top 20 banks to significantly improve their Collections efforts and has led more than 50 engagements, spanning the full credit lifecycle.

Prior to joining 2OS, Mr. Wasik was at Capital One, where he led collections and recoveries for Capital One’s card and personal loan business during the Great Recession, led Capital One’s small business card portfolio (#2 VISA/MC issuer), and was one of a handful of senior credit officers.

Mr. Wasik graduated from Duke University and now lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Daniel J. Pillemer is the President and Chief Executive Officer of CardWorks Inc., the parent company of Merrick Bank, CardWorks Servicing, and Carson Smithfield.  He serves on the boards of directors of each of the four entities.

Dan was named CEO in 2021, after serving as President for six years.  Dan joined CardWorks in 2015, after 14 years of partnership with Don Berman and CardWorks in a variety of transactions.

Prior to CardWorks, Dan was Founder, Chairman and CEO of Kilowatt Financial, one of the earliest clean energy consumer finance companies, delivering solar PPAs, solar leases, solar loans, energy efficiency loans and PACE financing through contractors across the US.

Prior to Kilowatt, Dan founded and ran FG Companies, a consumer finance merchant banking firm that advised on $1.5billion in completed buyside transactions, raised over $1.2 billion in capital for consumer finance companies, sold over $10 billion face value of assets, and was involved in the creation of multiple successful consumer finance businesses.

Prior to FG, Dan was a principal investor at Goldman Sachs, where he served as a member of the investment committee of the US Special Situations Group, and was responsible for asset, credit and private equity investments in consumer finance assets, originators and other illiquid asset classes.

Dan holds a BSc(Hons) in Pure Mathematics from the University of New South Wales, Australia. Dan lives in New York City with his wife and two children.

Alex Johnson is the founder of Fintech Takes, a media brand focused on the intersection of financial services, technology, and public policy. Alex has 20+ years of experience in financial services (focused on lending and credit decisioning) with stops at FICO and Zoot Enterprises.

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Ashwin Adarkar is the Managing Partner of McKinsey & Company’s Southern California Office in Los Angeles. As leader of McKinsey's Global Retail Banking Practice, Ashwin advises a diverse range of financial institutions on driving transformational change through strategic innovation, step-change operational performance improvement and building organizational agility.

Ashwin’s financial service industry experience spans 30 years, serving institutions across Retail Banking, Commercial Banking, Asset/Wealth Management, Consumer Lending, and Payments as well as Property and Casualty and Life Insurance. He has worked extensively on strategy, operations, and organizational topics. The focus of his recent work has been enterprise transformation, digital strategy and organization, and corporate governance.

After starting in McKinsey’s San Francisco location, he transferred to Mumbai and supported the launch of McKinsey’s India Office. In 2000 he came back to California to help develop the West Coast Financial Services Practice.

In 2003, Ashwin joined IndyMac Bank, where he held a number of senior executive positions, including CEO of the Retail Bank. He returned to consulting in 2008 when he joined The Boston Consulting Group where he led its North American Financial Services Practice. Previously, he was a Financial Analyst with Goldman Sachs in their Mortgage Finance department.

Ashwin received his A.B. in Economics, his M.S. in Industrial Engineering and his MBA from Stanford University where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and an Arjay Miller scholar. Ashwin sits on The Board of Trustees of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, The Board of Governors of the Huntington Library and The Board of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He and his wife Sushma have two children—ages 23 and 25—and two English Labradors. They live in Pasadena, California.

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Ash retired from American Express in 2018 after 40 years of continuous service and for many years was the company’s Chief Risk Officer. In this role, he led the company well through the Great Recession. Most recently, he served as the President of Global Credit Risk and Information management – a team of over 1,000 data scientists - bringing Big Data, Machine Learning and AI into Amex’ DNA across marketing, risk management and servicing. Earlier, he was the Chairman and CEO of the Company’s U.S. banks, overseeing $75+ billion assets.
Following retirement from American Express, Ash has taken a role in serving companies focused on Payments and AI. Currently, he is Chair of Compensation Committee for Encore Capital Group (NASDAQ: ECPG); Chair (and co-founder) for Corridor Platforms Inc.; and an Advisor to, Global Consulting firm - Oliver Wyman. Previously, he served as a board member and Audit committee chair for Symphony Teleca Corporation (sold to Harman International in 2015).
Ash has an MBA from Columbia University and a B. Tech in engineering from IIT Delhi (distinguished alumni, 2006). Ash serves on the (non-profit) boards for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of New York, National Association of Corporate Directors (New York Chapter). He and his wife reside in New York City.

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Penny Crosman is Executive Editor, Technology at American Banker and its publisher, Arizent. Prior to taking on this role, she was Editor in Chief of Bank Technology News. She has held senior editorial roles at Bank Systems & Technology, Wall Street & Technology, Intelligent Enterprise, Network Magazine and Imaging Magazine.

Manolo Sánchez is currently a director at Fannie Mae (FNM),Stewart Information Systems (STC), the Boeing Employees CreditUnion (BECU), Affirm (AFRM), and MPower Financing, after having served as Chairman & CEO of BBVA Compass for 10 years.

At Rice University's Jones School of Business, he teaches disruption in financial services with a focus on crypto currencies and blockchain. Manolo is an advisor to several fintech and blockchain startups. He has served as a director of OnDeck Capital (ONDK purchased by Nova in October 2020), Ban Coppel Mexico, the American Bankers Association, the Institute of International Bankers, theGreater Houston Partnership, the Financial Services Roundtable and BITS (the technology policy division of FSR). He is currently a trustee at the Texas Children's Hospital and Kipp Texas Public Schools. His banking career at BBVA, spanned over 27 years, with positions in the US, Mexico, France and Spain, and executive roles in risk management, real estate, correspondent, corporate and investment banking. As a member of BBVA's global executive committee, Sánchez has represented the bank on national and international fora and has been a frequent speaker at maior industry events.

Kenneth Lin started Intuit Credit Karma in 2007 to offer free credit scores and bring transparency and simplicity to the credit industry – an industry built around and prioritizing banks, not consumers. Today, Credit Karma serves more than 130 million members in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. It continues to use technology to bridge the gap between consumers and financial services by consistently rolling out free, consumer-first tools designed to help members manage their full financial lives -- to provide certainty in a world of financial uncertainty. He has led the company from a small team of three to more than 1,500 employees who are disrupting consumer finance, serving millions of people. Kenneth’s vision is that one day technology will enable Credit Karma to automate a simple way for consumers around the world to manage their financial identities. Kenneth also founded Multilytics Marketing in 2006 and has a B.A. in mathematics and economics from Boston University. He was selected to join the esteemed Aspen Institute’s Henry Crown Fellows in 2018. Kenneth lives with his wife and two young children in Oakland.

Before being named CEO of Akoya in February 2023, Paul was a managing director at JPMorgan Chase, responsible for Chase’s open banking and data aggregation. In this role, he led the industry in building out the infrastructure to deliver greater control and protection for consumers sharing their financial data. He was responsible for Chase’s data access channel and APIs which support hundreds of millions of API calls a month for millions of consumer and small business customers sharing data with thousands of third-party apps. Through his leadership, Chase fully eliminated screen scraping in October 2022. Paul was also responsible for negotiating agreements with several leading aggregators and fintechs, standing up Chase’s own aggregation services enabling customers to access their held away finances and driving partnerships with open banking industry groups and regulators.

During his 14+ year career at Chase, Paul held additional leadership positions including the head of product for digital servicing, responsible for Chase’s online communications and servicing products used by 40 million active customers and product owner for mobile where he led the strategy and rollout of Chase’s first mobile banking apps. Paul was also the Board Co-Chair of Financial Data Exchange and served on the board of directors of Akoya. Prior to joining Chase, Paul worked in the mobile industry for Verizon and Sprint.

John McNamara is the Principal Assistant Director of Markets and the Assistant Director for Consumer Credit, Payments, and Deposits Markets in the Research, Markets and Regulations division of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He leads a team of subject matter experts and analysts covering the credit card, payments, deposits, student, auto, small dollar, marketplace, and installment lending markets, as well as credit reporting, debt collection, debt relief, fintech and the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in consumer financial services. He also manages budgeting, staffing, and administration of the Bureau’s Markets Office. Prior to joining the CFPB, John was Chief Marketing Officer for LiveVox, a leading provider of cloud contact center solutions and director/co-founder of Fidelis Recovery Solutions, Inc., a debt collector. He has over 30 years of experience in the accounts receivable management (ARM) and call/contact center industries, in addition to all phases of collections, recovery and call center operations with deep focus on technology, process improvement, compliance management systems and nine years of experience as a federal consumer financial protection regulator. McNamara also served as COO for Asset Management Outsourcing, Inc., SVP of Banking and Retail Operations for First Data Corporation’s ARM unit, Nationwide Credit/ACB, and VP of Operations for United Recovery Systems, LP.

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With over 40 years of financial services experience, Gene Ludwig is widely recognized for his expertise in fintech regulatory and compliance matters. Gene is a co-Managing Partner at Canapi Ventures, a financial technology venture platform investing in early to growth-stage companies. Gene also is the founder and CEO of Ludwig Advisors, which counsels financial institutions on critical matters. He also founded Promontory Financial Group, a premier regulatory and compliance consulting firm for financial services and fintech companies, and Promontory Interfinancial Network, which has provided hundreds of billions of dollars in funding to its network of more than 3,000 financial institutions. Gene has proved an adept investor in the community banking sector. CapGen Financial, a $500 million community bank private equity fund founded by Gene and others in 2006, began investing prior to the financial crisis. As the 27th Comptroller of the Currency, Gene served as the Clinton administration’s chief banking regulator and point person on the policy response to the credit crunch of the early 1990s. He earned a J.D. from Yale University.

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Eileen is an experienced public company board director serving on the boards of Capital One Financial where she sits on the audit and risk committees, and Gartner, Inc. where she sits on the compensation committee. She is also an independent director of alt.bank a Brazilian fintech. Eileen has more than 20 years of senior operating and executive leadership experience in the financial services industry including responsibility for strategy, digital transformation, product development, operations, and customer engagement. She has a proven track record of creating and growing consumer businesses. She has also repositioned businesses that were facing disruption due to technology, shifts in consumer behavior and/or new competitors.

Eileen held executive positions at JP Morgan Chase including as Chief Executive Officer of Chase Card Services. While at Chase, she defined and led the execution of a growth strategy that transformed the business including creating/scaling the Sapphire consumer brand and creating the Ultimate Rewards digital loyalty
platform. Earlier in her career, Eileen was a Managing Director and Head of Private Client Banking Solutions at Merrill Lynch and a Senior Vice President at American Express, leading the firm’s entry into small business lending. Prior to those roles, Eileen was a Partner at McKinsey & Co., where she co-led the North American Consumer Practice, consulting with CEOs on strategy and organizational issues. Eileen holds a B.S. in Food Science from the University of California, Davis and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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Sarah Davies has over 20 years experience in the financial services sector, serving as an executive leader and innovator in the analytics and decision science field. She previously was the Chief Data & Analytics Officer at Nova Credit and the Senior Vice President of Product, Analytics and Research at VantageScore Solutions, LLC where she led the development of the VantageScore credit scoring models. She has authored numerous whitepapers and research insights on consumer credit behavioral analysis. She holds several patents in both the credit analytics and airline optimization fields. She is a frequent speaker and educator on credit risk and consumer behavioral analytics.

Brian is an expert in consumer finance and payments. He is particularly interested in how data and technology can be used to improve risk management and the customer experience. Brian serves as a Senior Advisor at BCG and as an advisor to many fintech companies, including NovaCredit, where he provides guidance on risk and growth strategy. Brian held several executive management roles at Discover including Chief Risk Officer, SVP of Cardmember Marketing and SVP of Deposits and Digital Banking. He was also the CEO of HSBC’s credit card business.

Misha Esipov is the co-founder and CEO of Nova Credit, a leading credit infrastructure and analytics company helping lending institutions to grow responsibly by streamlining onboarding, verification, and underwriting processes of credit data. The company’s differentiated data sources and proprietary analytics are used by leading organizations like American Express, Verizon, HSBC, SoFi, and Yardi. Nova Credit is backed by investors including Kleiner Perkins, General Catalyst, Index Ventures, and Canapi as well as executives from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Citi.Before founding Nova Credit, Misha was a private equity investor at Apollo Global Management, a $232 billion global alternative asset manager. Misha started his career at Goldman Sachs, where he helped execute more than $10 billion in corporate financing, mergers, and acquisitions. Misha holds a B.S. in Mathematics and Finance from New York University and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Jennifer Tescher founded the Financial Health Network in 2004, pioneering the movement to improve financial health for all. Today, she continues to lead the organization as its President and CEO, equipping organizations across industries to function as a force for good and build a future where all people can thrive financially. Under her leadership, the Financial Health Network has cultivated a network of 160+ influential organizations, invested in 40+ promising finhealth solutions through its Financial Solutions Lab, and delivered deep consumer insights and tools that are transforming policy and business practices. Jennifer drives the national discussion on financial health through frequent media and speaking engagements, including as the host of EMERGE Everywhere podcast and as a columnist for Forbes.

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