Sessions
Mainstage panel sessions
State of the credit union system & world café
Experience a uniquely insightful and interactive panel session about the state of the credit union system – from a Canadian, American and global perspective. This panel session includes an engaging world café where every delegate will have the opportunity to share their insights, expertise and collaborate for a better, strong future for credit unions.
Speakers: Doug MacDonald, Canadian Credit Union Expert, Joshua Herman, Founder of The Credit Union Wire and Lewis Poe, CEO, Caspian One Open Data. Moderated by Adline Noronha, Vice President, Consulting Services, CGI
What real-time payments will mean for Canadians
The launch of the Real-Time Rail (RTR) marks a fundamental shift in how money will move in Canada; not just faster payments, but new expectations around immediacy, certainty, and control. For consumers and businesses alike, real-time payments have the potential to change how they manage cash flow, settle obligations, and interact with financial institutions in everyday moments that matter.
The panel will explore what the RTR is ultimately meant to deliver for Canadians and how those outcomes can be translated into meaningful member services. Rather than focusing on the technology or the mechanics of the rail, the discussion will center on how real-time payments can enable new experiences, address long-standing frictions, and support unmet needs across households, small businesses, and communities.
Bringing together system leadership and credit union practitioners, the panel will examine how credit unions can access and leverage RTR to create differentiated value.
Speakers: Jude Pinto, Chief Delivery Officer, Payments Canada, Atul Varde, Chief Information and Payments Officer, Servus Credit Union and Sunny Soin, Vice President, Product & Platform, Central 1. Moderated by David Hooper, Vice President, Banking and Payments Consulting, CGI
Purposeful innovation: leading disruption with intent and impact
In a rapidly evolving financial landscape, disruption is no longer a threat—it's a strategic opportunity. This panel brings together visionary credit union CEOs to explore how purposeful innovation can drive meaningful transformation. From modernizing legacy systems to embracing AI, data, and digital ecosystems, leaders will share how they are intentionally leveraging technology to enhance member value, strengthen resilience, and shape the future of cooperative finance.
Speakers: Ian Burns, CEO, Servus Credit Union, Myrna Wiebe, CEO, Access Credit Union, Mike Schilling, President & CEO, Community Savings Credit Union, Moderated by Neville Ashleigh, Senior Vice-President and Business Unit Leader, CGI
The platform play: credit unions as ecosystem builders
What if credit unions weren’t just financial institutions—but community hubs that connected members to a broader network of services, support, and opportunity? In this session, we’ll explore bold ideas and real-world examples of credit unions acting as ecosystem builders—partnering with local organizations, fintechs, and social enterprises to deliver holistic value. From small business support and financial education to housing, wellness, and digital access, we’ll ask: What does it look like to serve the whole member—not just their money?
Speakers: Jodi Chambers, Strategy & Innovation Credit Union Leader, Conexus Credit Union, Pierre Dorval, CEO, Caisse Alliance, Chris Inniss, CEO, Mainstreet Credit Union, David Arrowsmith, Vice President, Business Solutions, First West Credit Union, Moderated by David Black, Director, Consulting Services, CGI
Breakout sessions
Future-proofing Canada’s financial system: from readiness to relevance
Canada’s financial system is entering a decisive phase where real-time payments, open banking, and data-driven services move from strategic discussion to operational reality.
As Canada moves toward real-time payments and open banking, the financial system is being reshaped at both the infrastructure and business-model level. These changes create significant opportunity… but only for those prepared to rethink how payments, data, and partnerships fit together.
This session is about moving from readiness to relevance. It looks at the concrete decisions credit unions must make now, like where to invest, what to defer, and how to avoid being passed by as Canada’s payments and data-sharing infrastructure comes online. We’ll explore how real-time payments and open data can be leveraged to improve member experiences and act as the foundation for new value-added services, and drive competitiveness in an ecosystem where speed, trust, and interoperability increasingly determine success.
Speaker: David Hooper, Vice President, Banking and Payments Consulting, CGI
Better, not just bigger: excelling at M&A in a consolidating industry
Over the past two decades, the number of credit unions in Canada has declined from roughly 500 to fewer than 200, with further consolidation expected. Successful M&A is driven by both strategy—choices around partners, rationale, and deal structure—and execution, particularly the ability to integrate well. This session explores how credit unions can strengthen their M&A capability across member and employee experience, culture, brand, and technology, while balancing speed with long-term cooperative value. Drawing lessons from high-performing U.S. bank acquirers, participants will gain a practical framework for turning mergers into sustained strategic advantage.
Speaker: Kevin Poe, Vice President, Financial Services Consulting, CGI
The shifting conversation with AI: rethinking how we work
In this presentation, we examine the transformative role of AI across the financial sector, reframing it as a humanist tool rather than a mere automation engine. We will explore how rethinking how we work with a consistent, purpose-driven adoption of AI allows humans to lead with creativity and context, forming a powerful agent partnership that sharpens decision-making and reduces systemic risk. By integrating AI as a supportive collaborator, financial institutions—and credit unions in particular—can elevate their mission, moving beyond transactional efficiency to provide the secure, reliable, deeply personalized, empathetic service that modern members demand in this new era of AI.
Speaker: Dr. Diane Gutiw, Vice President, AI Research and Strategic Advisory, CGI
Taking AI beyond a buzzword: ready-now use cases for credit unions
Explore how AI is reshaping member service, operations, and risk management. You’ll hear what’s working now, what “responsible AI” looks like in a regulated, member-owned environment, and how forward-thinking credit unions are laying the groundwork to lead. It’s not just technology – it’s how you use it.
If you’re ready to move from pilot projects to purposeful progress, this session will help you chart your next 120 days and beyond.
Speakers: Rob Palin, VP, GM Canada Banking, Fiserv, Cheryl Zhu, Industry Advisor, Financial Services, Microsoft and Jason Cinq-Mars, CIO, Innovation Federal Credit Union
Winning in commercial banking: how digital agility can beat the Big Five
To compete and grow in commercial banking, credit unions must embrace digital agility with platforms that deliver seamless, personalized experiences tailored to complex business needs. By enabling real-time payments, streamlining journeys, and exploring embedded finance, credit unions can remove friction, reduce churn, and build lasting member loyalty.
Featuring insights from Coast Capital Savings, this session will explore how a digital-first approach can accelerate growth and help agile credit unions compete with the Big Five through speed, “invisible banking,” and member-centric innovation.
Speakers: Dan Killey, VP Canada at ebankIT, Lana Chau, Digital Product Manager, Coast Capital Savings, Man-Yi Lee, Commercial Banking - Manager, Cash Management Support Servi and Anindita Sundaram, Design Leadership – Digital Banking, Coast Capital Savings
The future of patronage
This breakout session explores how traditional patronage, once rooted in long-term trust and reciprocal support, is being transformed in the digital era through modern loyalty strategies. Participants will learn how data-driven insights, personalized rewards, and seamless user experiences can revitalize member engagement and create sustainable value. Through real-world examples and interactive discussion, the session will highlight practical approaches for credit unions and community-focused institutions to evolve patronage models into measurable, tech-enabled loyalty systems. Attendees will leave with actionable frameworks to modernize their engagement strategies and strengthen long-term relationships.
Speakers: Will Christodoulou and Sukhman Dulay, Co-founders at Cyder
From segments to signals: unlocking the power of data
Discover how financial institutions can leverage advanced data strategies to deepen relationships with members and drive marketing growth, efficacy, and expansion. This session explores how uniting traditional datasets such as demographic, transactional, and behavioural data with advanced machine learning and AI-driven insights can uncover nuanced member needs, predict next-best products, and personalize engagement at scale. Using real-world examples, learn how intelligent segmentation, predictive modeling, and analytics enable more relevant and timely interactions, transforming data from a reporting function into a relational advantage. Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of how advanced analytics can be practically applied to strengthen trust, improve marketing ROI, and deliver experiences that feel uniquely tailored to every member.
Speaker: Sean Kennelly, Chief Product and Innovation Officer, PMG Intelligence
Using cybersecurity compliance to combat fraud and cyber crime
Canadian credit unions are facing a rapidly evolving threat landscape where fraud, identity based attacks, and cyber crime increasingly intersect. With rising regulatory expectations—from FSRA, FINTRAC, OSFI aligned guidelines, and internal audit requirements credit unions must rethink how cybersecurity compliance can be leveraged as a strategic defence mechanism, not just a regulatory obligation.
This session explores how modern cybersecurity and IAM controls, when aligned with compliance frameworks such as CIS, NIST, ISO 27001, SOC 2, and FSRA’s IT Risk Management Guidance, can significantly reduce fraud exposure across digital banking, member onboarding, privileged access, and third party ecosystems.
Speaker: Farooq Naiyer, Chief Strategy Officer, Arancia
Workshop sessions
Frontier in financial services: from experimentation to enterprise impact
Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping financial services—but moving from pilots to trusted, enterprise scale impact remains a challenge.
In this session, we’ll explore how leading financial institutions are approaching the next frontier of AI: operationalizing Copilot and advanced AI capabilities with the right foundations for security, governance, compliance, and measurable business outcomes. Attendees will leave with practical perspectives on what it takes to scale AI responsibly across the financial services value chain—while unlocking productivity, insight, and competitive advantage.
Speaker: Christian Taliercio, Senior Digital Account Executive, Microsoft
The four-generation workforce is breaking old leadership playbooks
Workloads are heavier, AI is speeding up decisions, and younger leaders are reshaping what effective leadership looks like. With four generations working together, the strain isn’t coming from the team, it’s coming from the leadership model that hasn’t evolved fast enough. This session gives leaders a practical way to upgrade how they mobilize today’s workforce by strengthening their capacity. Drawing on Pivotal Growth’s Future of Leadership research, leaders walk away with a reliable pathway to leadership impact that brings four generations into one rhythm of results.
Speaker: Lisa Haydon, CEO, Pivotal Growth Inc.
Wealth management and financial wellness for credit union members
Learn how credit unions can go beyond just offering investment products, and leverage financial planning, wellness conversations, and portfolio management to personalize service to members and their commercial businesses. Bryan Waldeva, Vice-President of Wealth Solutions at CGI will discuss how credit unions can also offer comparable sophistication like unified managed accounts, employer-sponsored retirement plans, and financial planning without all the complex infrastructure.
Speaker: Bryan Waldeva, Vice President Wealth360 solutions, CGI