Subject Snapshot | AI at FinovateSpring
Subject Snapshot | AI at FinovateSpring
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Jas is the Managing Partner at StrategyBRIX, a boutique Risk and Compliance Consulting firm. Before StrategyBRIX, Jas served as the Head of FinancialCrimes and Compliance at leading fintechs, including Stripe and Airwallex. In addition, at PwC, Jas built and led the firm’s Financial Crimes (Fintech) practice across the US West Coast.
He has over 18 years of experience with building and managing programs in the Compliance space. In his role, Jas works closely with CCOs, CROs, and product leaders to solve complex risk,compliance, and monitoring problems. Additionally, as a part of the Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group (BSAAG), he advised the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network(FinCEN), a bureau of the United States Department of the Treasury, in areas of Digital Identity Verification, KYC, and using advanced technologies to solve financial crimes.
Jas is a regular speaker at industry events, a member of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS), and an executive committee member of theWest Coast AML Forum (WCAML)
Greg Palmer has more than a decade of fintech experience working for Finovate, a fast-paced, demo-first showcase of the latest innovations and ideas in financial and banking technology. Greg is Finovate’s resident MC, hosting Finovate’s live events, podcast, and video pieces. He’s also an accomplished public speaking and demo coach.
These experiences have given Greg a unique bird’s-eye-view of the fintech industry as it has come to prominence. He’s seen thousands of demos and interviewed countless industry experts, watching not only individual innovations as they gain traction, but also the high-level trends that have shaped the industry. While he sometimes serves as a “fintech translator,” taking ideas and language from inside fintech and making it accessible to those “outside the bubble,” Greg’s true passion lies in pushing financial service providers to do more for the people all over the world who need new technologies to create a brighter financial future for themselves. A more diverse, inclusive, resilient financial ecosystem benefits everyone, and there’s nothing Greg likes more than providing a platform and a spotlight for fintech’s innovators and dreamers.
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Malia Lazu, an award winning, tenured strategist in diversity & inclusion has sparked deep economic development and investment in urban entrepreneurship for over twenty years. In her most recent role as EVP and Regional President at Berkshire Bank, Malia worked to generate wealth for communities by expanding access to capital and spurring economic growth—especially in communities of color that have traditionally been left behind.
In her first nine months at Berkshire, Malia evolved the $13 billion bank’s strategic focus beyond traditional community banking services to prioritize tangible community impact. She helped to diversify the board of directors; developed a suite of financial products and programs that support entrepreneurs of color; and launched ReevX Labs, a collaborative workspace and innovation hub for the urban startup community.
A serial entrepreneur in her own right, Malia has created and led a number of socially responsible business accelerators across Boston. She worked with the city to create Accelerate Boston which helped launch over twenty minority businesses in its first five years and continues to help minority entrepreneurs raise capital. She was also the founder and President of the Future Boston Alliance, now known as Epicenter, which built an ecosystem of creators, consumers and investors to develop businesses in the creative industries. As a fellow at MIT’s Community Innovators Lab, she launched The Urban Labs, a multicultural agency helping brands see returns on diversity.
Malia began her career as a political organizer and bridge-builder founding Mass VOTE, a state-wide voter engagement campaign. She has led culture-shifting campaigns for the actor and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, as well as businessmen and philanthropists like Peter Lewis and George Soros.
Malia currently sits on the boards of GBH, Boston Harbor Now, Massachusetts Business Roundtable, Revolutionary Spaces, Chica Project and the Nation Magazine Editorial Board. She was named one of Essence Magazine’s 50 Founders To Watch in 2017, Boston Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business in 2019 and Boston Magazine’s The 100 Most Influential Bostonians in 2021.
IN THE PRESS
Juneteenth and the meaning of Black liberation in Boston The Boston Globe, June 12, 2021
Boston Magazine’s The 100 Most Influential Bostonians Boston Magazine, April 26, 2021
Corporate America: Don’t be late to the barbecue Fortune, April 30, 2021
Black Lives Matter to Banks, But not Banking Banker and Tradesman, April 25, 2021
It's Time to Value Women in the Workforce Banker and Tradesman, March 21, 2021
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Dan Latimore is Chief Research Officer at The Most Impactful, a leading research-based recognition program created by The Financial Revolutionist to identify companies in financial services making the greatest difference. Latimore's focus is on innovation in financial services and fintech, with a keen interest in consumer behavior and technology-enabled strategy. He has been widely quoted in respected media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, American Banker, Boston Globe, CNBC, and CNBC Europe. Most recently he was the Chief Research Officer at Celent, a leading research firm focused on technology for financial services. He previously led research groups at Deloitte and IBM, worked in industry at Liberty Mutual and Merrill Lynch (where he lived in New York, Tokyo, and London), and was a consultant at McKinsey & Co.
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Sarah Hinkfuss is a Partner at BCV and works with growth-stage founders across application software and fintech. She loves working with founders who have personal experience in the markets they are disrupting. Prior to BCV, Sarah was a mid-market tech investor both at Bain Capital on the Tech Opportunities Fund and KKR at the Next Generation Technology Growth Fund. Sarah spent the first half of her career in big data / predictive analytics SaaS, helping scale Applied Predictive Technologies (acquired by Mastercard in 2015). She has an AB in Economics and Environmental Science & Public Policy from Harvard, and an MBA from Stanford University.
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Ben Maxim joined MSU Federal Credit Union in 2007 and currently serves in a dual role as Chief Digital Strategy and Innovation Officer for MSUFCU and as Chief Technology Officer for MSUFCU’s wholly-owned CUSO Reseda Group. He is responsible for assessing emerging business trends and technologies, providing strategic direction for existing and future digital channels, and facilitating innovation throughout the Credit Union including leading their innovation center The Lab at MSUFCU. He is also responsible for the technology and product pillars of Reseda Group and its subsidiaries including Spave, Ever Green 3C, Foresight Group and M3 Group. Maxim began work initially as a Web Developer and in 2014, he became E-Commerce Manager before moving into roles including Assistant Vice President of Software Development. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and a professional certificate in Innovation & Entrepreneurship from Stanford University. Maxim was honored as Finopotamus’s 2022 Tekkie Awards Technologist of the Year.
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Barb MacLean is a fintech expert and speaker who has a passion for APIs, data and payments. She has joined Coastal Community Bank as the head of technology operations and implementation, where she oversees the bank's digital transformation and innovation. Before that, she worked at Celero Solutions for over 21 years, where she held various roles such as vice president of integration and analytics. She is a proud Canadian and has a global perspective on fintech. She is a salt & vinegar chip connoisseur, your phone-a-friend for Star Wars trivia & karaoke buddy. Check out her weekly Fintech Playlist 💿 on LinkedIn.
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Lawrence Lin Murata is the Co-Founder & CEO of Slope, a B2B payments workflow company. Prior to Slope, he was Head of AI Platforms and Data Science at Nauto, founded a self-driving vehicle startup Newton (acquired by Nauto), and worked on NLP projects for Siri at Apple. Stanford B.S. CS, AI track (focus: NLP and CV, advisor: prof. Andrew Ng).
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Alexander is a serial tech entrepreneur passionate about artificial intelligence. Before launching Vic.ai, he founded two other technology companies; his last one was funded by Northzone Ventures and later acquired by NASDAQ-listed J2 Global Inc. in 2014. He has a finance and accounting background and is a former board member of 24SevenOffice.com, the Nordic region's largest cloud accounting & ERP system.
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Rocio Wu is a Principal at F-Prime Capital leading investments in FinTech and Enterprise software. Previously, she was an investor at Liquid 2 Ventures (founded by NFL hall of fame quarterback Joe Montana) where she invested in companies like Chipper Cash (an African cross-border payments company) and Overjet (artificial intelligence for oral healthcare). She was also a Sequoia Scout and an angel investor in Inworld.ai (developer platform for creating AI-powered virtual characters) and others still in stealth. Before investing career, she worked at Google and Amazon in a variety of operating roles such as CorpDev, GTM Strategy, Marketing across the U.S., Japan, Spain and China.Rocio is a community builder and is involved in multiple groups that support the involvement of women and minorities in technology, including Xooglers, HBS Circles, and LatAm entrepreneurs. She’s physically based in the Bay Area, but you can often find her traveling to LatAm and other parts of the world learning about different cultures and ideas. Rocio holds a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Shanghai International Studies University (joint program with Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Spain).
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