The Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould
Former Member of Parliament | Former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada | Bestselling Author

The Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, PC, OBC, KC, was raised to be a leader. The daughter of a hereditary chief and Indigenous leader, she always knew that she would seek leadership roles and responsibilities. As a lawyer, an advocate, and a leader among Canada’s Indigenous Peoples, she’s built a strong reputation as a bridge builder and champion of good governance and accountability. She shares her unique perspective as both a community and political leader on topics such as Indigenous rights and reconciliation, democracy and governance, leadership, and justice.

Wilson-Raybould was first elected as a Member of Parliament for the new constituency of Vancouver Granville in 2015. She was then appointed the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada making her the first Indigenous person to serve in this portfolio. In January 2019, she was appointed the Minister of Veterans Affairs of Canada and Associate Minister of National Defence, positions she held until her resignation from cabinet in February 2019.

During the 2019 election, Wilson-Raybould was re-elected as an Independent Member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville, making her Canada’s first ever female Independent MP elected and the only elected Independent in the 43rd Parliament.

Prior to politics, Wilson-Raybould was a provincial crown prosecutor in Vancouver and served three terms as an elected Commissioner of the BC Treaty Commission. She was also elected BC Regional Chief of the Assembly of First Nations in 2009, where she devoted herself to the advancement of First Nations governance, fair access to land and resources, as well as improved education and health care services. She served until 2015, holding responsibilities for governance and Nation building on the Assembly of First Nations Executive.

Wilson-Raybould is a descendant of the Musgamagw Tsawataineuk and Laich-Kwil-Tach peoples, which are part of the Kwakwaka’wakw and also known as the Kwak’wala speaking peoples. She is a member of the We Wai Kai Nation with her traditional name, Puglaas, meaning “woman born to noble people.” She served two terms as an elected councillor for her Nation and was also a director and chair of the First Nations Finance Authority and a director of the First Nations Lands Advisory Board.

Wilson-Raybould is the bestselling author of three books, the political memoir “Indian” in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power, which was a finalist for The Writers’ Trust Balsillie Prize for Public Policy and the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing; From Where I Stand: Rebuilding Indigenous Nations for a Stronger Canada; and, her most recent, True Reconciliation: How to Be a Force For Change.

Chris Barton wanted a way to identify songs he was hearing everywhere around him. There wasn’t one – so he invented an app called Shazam. Chris’s creation is nothing short of pure magic. That was his goal. Chris seeks to delight people by using technology to make seemingly impossible ideas come to life. Shazam, which now has over two billion downloads, is just one of them. In addition to creating Shazam, Apple’s 6th largest acquisition, Chris holds 12 patents and played key roles in the early days of Google and Dropbox. Despite having dyslexia, incredibly, he didn’t let that get in his way. In fact, it gave him a different way of looking at problems. Chris’s newest venture, Guard, aims to use AI to detect drowning in swimming pools. In his speeches, Chris’s story and storytelling completely captivate audiences. He inspires people to make big things happen in their organizations – to create magic in defiance of the obstacles.

Chris grew up with a French mother and British father – both of whom were university professors. However, academics were a struggle for Chris. Chris would come to learn he had undiagnosed dyslexia. Over the years, Chris learned to embrace what he now calls his superpower. Chris believes that dyslexia has allowed him to overcome barriers to achieve his many accomplishments.

Shazam is a great example. When Chris had the idea to identify music using a mobile phone, no technology existed to achieve his goal. In addition, he was told by Professors at MIT and Stanford that this application of pattern recognition was impossible. Besides inventing a new technology that didn’t yet exist, he had to build a search engine supercomputer from scratch, create the world’s largest music database, and create a user experience on very basic mobile phones. Did Chris ever think maybe the experts were right? “No,” he says.

When Shazam was founded in 2000, it was far ahead of its time. It was three years before iTunes, seven years before the iPhone, and eight years before the App Store. The nascent Shazam struggled in the early days, teetering near bankruptcy for six years waiting for key digital advancements to arrive, allowing Shazam to unleash its full potential on the world.

In 2018, Shazam, and its 200 employees, was acquired by Apple in Apple’s 6th largest acquisition of all-time. Today, Shazam has been downloaded over two billion times and is considered one of the world's most popular apps. It has become an integral part of our everyday lives, with its ability to instantly identify songs and provide information about the music such as lyrics. Shazam has even become a verb, as in "Can you Shazam this song for me?" In addition to its widespread usage, Shazam has also been the inspiration for a popular game show hosted by Jamie Foxx called "Beat Shazam," which has aired for four seasons on the Fox Network challenging contestants to recognize songs faster than the Shazam app.

Chris has also played a key role in tech history as a founding member of Google’s Android Partnerships team where he created Android's mobile operator partnership framework. He also spent four years at Dropbox where he led carrier partnerships and was one of the first 100 people at the company.

Holding 12 patents, including one found within the Google search algorithm that billions of people use, Chris has made significant contributions to the tech industry. He also invests in a wide range of start-ups, including artificial intelligence for heart health and inflammatory disease therapeutics.
Today, Chris spends much of his time building his third startup company, Guard, a system that detects drowning in swimming pools using artificial intelligence.

When he has the time, Chris enjoys speaking at events and sharing lessons learned from his experiences achieving the impossible. He inspires people with stories of the unexpected mindsets that are necessary to overcome challenges and achieve success. Chris gives audiences a new framework for thinking about the obstacles they face and motivates them to take action.

Prior to his audacious technology career, Chris was a strategy consultant and earned two master’s degrees from UC Berkeley and Cambridge University.

When he isn’t working or speaking, you can find Chris enjoying the outdoors and spending time with his son, Jude.

Demographic trends speaker Darrell Bricker is an expert on public opinion, offering audiences an invaluable peek into the future.  As the CEO of the public opinion research firm IPSOS Public Affairs, he has his finger on the pulse of Canada. He co-authored Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline, a cautionary tale about looming worldwide demographic shifts and the impact they will have on our economy, social programs and government.

Darrell is more than a numbers guy. An engaging and relaxed business speaker, he analyzes complex data and shares his powerful insights to forecast upcoming demographic trends. Using data from one of the world’s leading market research and public opinion firms, he tailors his presentations to your unique audience needs and interests.

With more than 20 years of experience in the public opinion sector, he has gathered and analyzed the views and data of Canadians from coast to coast. As the CEO of IPSOS Public Affairs, Darrell provides strategic advice to clients within the public, corporate and not-for-profit sectors. Previously, Darrell worked within the Prime Minister’s Office as the director of public opinion research.

He is an active member of both the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association.  Darrell is also the founding President of the Canadian Association for Public Opinion Research. Darrell has co-authored several bestselling books on public opinion.

He has been a regular commentator on public affairs for Reuters News, Global TV, CTV Canada AM, CTV National News, CTV NewsNet and CBC NewsWorld, and has also written for the Institute for Research on Public Policy, the Fraser Institute, and The Globe and Mail.

Darrell is a passionate supporter of Canada’s military. In addition to being the Honorary Colonel for the Queen’s York Rangers, he is a member of Canada Company, an organization that raises funds to support the families of Canada’s soldiers. Darrell is also on the campaign cabinet for Fort York, Toronto’s oldest military facility. In recognition of his support for Canada’s military, he was awarded a commendation by the head of the army.

Dr. Karen MacNeill is a performance consultant, psychologist, coach and professional speaker. She has the unique experience of having both competed and consulted on the world stage. She represented Team Canada as an athlete for over a decade and has worked with athletes at the last five Olympic Games. Most recently, she was the lead Mental Performance and Mental Health Consultant supporting Team Canada at the 2018 Olympics in Korea, the 2020 Olympics in Japan, and the 2022 Olympics in China.

Her dynamic, dependable approach – combined with her elite sport experience and her understanding of corporate environments – is an unmatched asset to any leader and organization.  This knowledge has equipped Dr. Karen to impact multiple Fortune 500 companies, helping leaders and their teams excel and be well in turbulent times.
Dr. Karen is a sought-after professional speaker and has delivered keynotes at CEO forums, industry-leading conferences, corporate events, and retreats. She was also selected as a TEDx speaker before it was postponed due to the pandemic. 

Whether she is mentally preparing Olympians for gold medal performances or helping executives leverage their strengths, Dr. Karen believes that cultivating the freedom to perform by developing mental fitness and bolstering resilience is integral to achieving high levels of personal and performance excellence. 

Dr. Karen’s career achievements, leadership, and volunteer efforts have been publicly recognized by Canada's Most Powerful Women Top 100 award, Avenue Calgary’s Top 40 under 40 award, and the 2020 Women of Inspiration Game Changer award.  

Her passion and drive to help others be their best also translates into her life as a mother, wife, and outdoor enthusiast. She is a weekend warrior, multi-tasking mom, fun-loving adventurer, and passionate difference-maker.

Michael Doucet brings more than 30 years of cybersecurity and information management leadership experience to his current role. As an executive director, executive advisory in the Office of the CISO at Optiv, Doucet uses his past and current experiences to assist public and private enterprises in planning, creating and executing security strategies. Doucet uses his vast information security expertise to lead organizations toward a proactive approach to threat intelligence, third party risk management, governance and compliance, and incident management.

As an expert in cybersecurity and information management, Doucet’s broad business and operational knowledge spans multiple disciplines including change management, IT service continuity management, capacity management, availability management, service-level management, service asset and configuration management, information security management, defense in depth, incident management, vulnerability management, and policy and standard development.

Prior to Optiv, Doucet built, managed and oversaw program, security and technology initiatives in the Canadian Federal Government. As the executive director of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), Doucet independently reviews the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) on operations and complaints accountable to the Canadian Parliament in matters of Canadian national security. He was previously responsible as the chief technology officer (CTO), and then chief information officer (CIO), for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Before leading the RCMP in information management, Doucet was the CIO/director general of the Information Management Services Branch at Correctional Service Canada. Doucet has also worked with the Communications Security Establishment of Canada (CSEC), where he represented Canada as CSEC’s senior cryptologic liaison officer to the National Security Agency (NSA).

Tracey Black is the President and CEO of Payments Canada. Building on the organization’s past success, Tracey provides the leadership to define the next stage of Payments Canada’s evolution, supporting the payment needs of Canadian consumers and businesses, and empowering a new era of modern payments.

Prior to Tracey’s appointment as President & CEO in March 2020, and since joining the organization in November 2018, Tracey was the Executive Director of Modernization, responsible for leading the modernization of the Canadian core clearing and settlement payment infrastructure. 

Tracey has held executive roles at TD Canada Trust and RBC Royal Bank, and has consulted extensively in the financial services industry as an independent consultant, and with McKinsey & Company. Previously, Tracey was the President of GFH Group Inc, where her responsibilities included the launch of chip cards (or smart cards) in Canada.

Tracey has more than 20 years of professional experience with extensive industry knowledge and deep expertise in payments strategy and innovation.

With over 20 years of experience in the technology, telecommunications and financial services industries, Drew takes a people-first orientation to the work that he does. Drew joined CUCC as Executive Director when CUCC became an independently operated organization, continuing work with partners to enable Interac payments and related programs for Canada’s credit unions. Prior to his role with CUCC, Drew spent six years working with the LCUC CIO group spearheading their shared technology and innovation program, from developing and executing strategy, to managing governance and operations.

Jodi Chambers is Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer with Cornerstone Credit Union. Jodi started her career in Winnipeg with Assiniboine, where she enjoyed working in many different roles and areas for 20 years. In 2013, she moved to Alberta and worked with Alberta Central and Celero before taking an opportunity to remotely lead the collaboration efforts between four credit unions in Saskatchewan.

Jodi is passionate about continuous learning and making a positive impact on the people around her. She has a Master Business Administration from Royal Roads and recently completed a Digital Leadership certification through eCornell. As past Chair of the National Young Leader committee, she is extremely proud of the committee’s work that created the NextGen program where seasoned and young leaders are brought together through experiential learning and networking events. Jodi is an advocate for financial literacy and teaches courses at Momentum, a Calgary organization committed to community economic development through the principles of the sustainable livelihoods model. Internationally, Jodi spent 3 weeks in Africa coaching credit union managers and board members.

Jodi is known for her ability to inspire and motivate others. She is committed to creating a learning culture through her passion for innovation and strategic thought leadership. Jodi is often recognized for her dedication to drive positive transformational change and her belief in the benefits that technology and digital transformation can provide.

Neil’s experience as an innovator and executive has helped him thrive in the identity and payments industries for over 25 years. Now he combines his areas of expertise as the head of Digital Identification and Authentication at Interac, focused on developing a solution to deliver secure, convenient identification for the digital economy. Neil is available to discuss the need to re-evaluate the way we identify and authenticate ourselves in the digital economy, and how using existing technology such as the Interac Token Service Provider allows Interac to provide a layered approach to security and privacy as fundamental design principles.

Donna is an accomplished Vice President with over 25 years of experience in the financial services industry. She has held various leadership roles throughout her career including Product Development, Product Design and currently Marketing, all which showcase her extensive knowledge in the fintech space. Donna has been instrumental in defining Portfolio+'s position in the Canadian financial markets, specializing in open banking. Donna currently sits on the Board of Directors at Open Finance Network Canada (OFNC) in the role of Treasurer.

Ram is currently working for Vancity as Vice President, Technology. He is a seasoned leader with over 22 years of experience managing complex financial technology solutions from ideation to sustainment. He has led and mentored teams across geographies and time zones helping financial institutions transform their Technology landscape.  He strongly believes in cultivating an innovation culture and bring about the passion in the team to be at their best. As a technology leader, he has always believed in small wins and continuous evolution to realize a vision. At Vancity in addition to other foundational technology landscape transformations, he is also driving a multi-year technology strategy for Open Banking and Digital Identity Platform for Vancity.

Deborah is the VP of Service Delivery leading Celero Solutions' digital banking, integration and consulting businesses including open banking. She holds a Masters of Management in Cooperatives and Credit Union and has over 25 years’ experience leading credit unions’ digital transformation strategies. She is a member of Digital Identity and Authentication Council of Canada’s (DIACC) Innovation Expert Committee and actively contributes to the system’s ongoing open banking dialogue including participating throughout the federal government’s open banking consultation process and through CCUA’s Open Banking Collaboration Committee. 

Sabena Sandhu is the Manager of Policy at the Canadian Credit Union Association (CCUA). In this role, she the association’s policy leader on payments modernization, digital ID, privacy, cyber-security and open banking. Prior to joining CCUA in 2020, Sabena worked in an advisory capacity at a municipal association. Originally from Kingston Ontario, Sabena is a graduate of Queen’s University and the University of Edinburgh.

David McIninch heads Next Generation Solutions for the Banking business at Fiserv. He is a senior executive who has worked at both Fortune 500 and venture backed growth technology firms around the world.

Dave is passionate about building and delivering innovative products and services that drive great client value and customer experiences across the entire financial technology landscape.

Prior to joining Fiserv in 2018, he headed up marketing and sales at VC backed fintech Jobber,
and was Chief Revenue Officer for Montreal based AI/MarTech startup Acquisio (acquired by web.com) after nearly a decade of senior leadership positions at ADP around the world.

With nearly two decades of experience serving Canadian credit unions and banks, Michelle specializes in card provisioning, fraud mitigation along with client services & support. Michelle has an in-depth knowledge of the payments industry. Among numerous other accomplishments, Michelle has maintained a rule-based fraud solution, played an integral role in building a fraud call center from the ground up, managed vendor relationships for card provisioning and fraud management as well as client service and support (including call center management).

Michael is Chief Information Officer at Affinity Credit Union. Michael provides strategic technology management and innovation leadership to the organization and is responsible for ensuring that IT investments possess an appropriate risk-return profile while being aligned with the overall business strategy.  Michael is actively involved with the Large Credit Union Coalition (LCUC) CIO group and currently chairs their Cyber Security sub-committee.

Michael’s professional experience spans across several information technology domains and prior to joining Affinity he was in Senior Management positions with Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation and Saskatchewan Teachers’ Retirement Plan and spent several years with a local technology start-up providing IT consulting and custom software development services.  

Michael possesses a Bachelor of Science from the University of Saskatchewan, the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) designations, a Masters Certificate in Project Management and a Diploma in Operational Research.

Dominique is VP of Corporate Affairs at Flinks, a Montreal-based financial data company that allows consumers to conveniently and securely share their financial data with the applications they love. Dominique leads several business units in the execution of Flinks’ open banking vision.

Dominique holds degrees in law and computer science. He was previously an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces and a fraud investigator for the United Nations.

Pete has spent much of his career operating at the convergent point of technology, business and consumers. After graduating with a degree in electronic engineering Pete diverted into sales and joined IBM. After ten years, he then moved on to run several high growth European and US start-up businesses. Pete is Vice President Sales for Omnichannel Digital Banking Software provider, ebankIT. He has spent much of the last ten years helping financial institutions to digitally transform and enable their customers stay ahead in life and in business. 

Chris MacDonald is a career financial services executive who has spent 20+ years at the intersection of product and technology in banking. He has worked both at some of Canada’s biggest banks, and at startup fintech companies. His experiences have ranged from digital banking, to cards and payments, to big data, to user experience, and back again.

Chris is currently the Head of Platform Product & Strategy at Central 1, where he leads a diverse team in building the foundation that will underpin the next generation of banking services for credit unions and their members. 

When not working in the data mines, Chris can be found at your local hockey arena, trying to teach 10 year olds the 2-1-2 forecheck as a competitive hockey coach.

Sue Whitney is an expert in Payments. As Vice President, Payments Strategy and Relationships at Central 1, and in her previous role as Head of Product Strategy and Head of Industry Relations at Payments Canada, Sue is focused on developing better payment solutions for Canadians, as a regulator, innovator and a leader of market transformation initiatives. Outside of work, Sue can be found trying to keep up with her teenage twin boys.

Suzie Smibert is Celero’s Senior Vice President, Client Delivery. In this role, Suzie brings process rigour, delivery discipline and a focus on transparency to Celero and our clients.

She is responsible for ensuring seamless, client-centric delivery of our digital banking, core banking, payments and digital transformation services that financial institutions across Canada rely on every day.

She is an experienced and multifaceted IT leader who has enabled business transformation for global companies in industries as varied as financial services, defense, manufacturing and oil and gas.

Her leadership experience includes holding roles as Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Information Officer, as well as leading global enterprise architecture and IT advisory functions. She also holds a Masters in Business Administration, a degree in computer science and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional. Suzie is deeply passionate about creating a culture of quality in organizations and leading talented teams in the exceptional delivery of solutions and services. She resides in Canmore, Alberta.

As Vice President of Digital and Payments, Paul is a key member of the Executive Leadership Team at Atlantic Central and League Savings and Mortgage Company. He has 30+ years of experience in the credit union system, with almost 20 years in senior leadership roles. Paul co-led the creation of the National Credit Card Program, which facilitated the National Credit Union system’s exit from TD Bank for credit card services. Paul is currently the co-chair of the Central 1 Payments Modernization Advisory Council and serves on the board of directors of Credit Union Central of Canada (CUCC); and is an active board member of Ficanex Services.

Before joining PPJV in 2022, Ahmad was Chief Data Architect with Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) leading several teams across Enterprise Data Architecture, Enterprise Data Modeling, Data Analysis & Metadata Engineering. In addition, Ahmad was the over all owner of the Data technical domain across the enterprise setting data standards & technology choices. Prior to RBC Ahmad was Director of Enterprise Data & Analytics Architecture at ScotiaBank.

Ahmad has an extensive background in the data domain specifically in the financial sector and brings a wealth of experience in the Big Data & Data Warehousing Domains, Risk, Personal & Commercial Banking, Insurance and Loyalty Marketing.

Ahmad holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from McGill University. He is married with 2 adult kids and enjoys photography as his pastime and hobby.

When he founded PeaceWorks Technology Solutions in 1996, Nolan Andres wanted to create a self-sustaining entity that would help charities and not-for-profits advance their missions through the appropriate and affordable use of technology. He didn’t realize at the time that he was prototyping something people would later call “social enterprise”. The need was obvious, the organizations were doing amazing work, and he happened to know a lot about technology. 

Seventeen years later, Nolan made the shift to Kindred Credit Union, and while the industry has changed, the theme remains the same. He still chooses to work with organizations that explicitly strive to create a better world, and was drawn to Kindred because of its purpose. As a senior leader (Chief, Technology and Innovation) in a credit union that helps people align their values with their finances, Nolan works to catalyze positive change and inspire hope. 

Nolan is an avid and eclectic learner. He has a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Saskatchewan, an M.Math from the University of Waterloo, and a diploma in Peace and Conflict Studies. He enjoys treehouse building, home renovating, repairing landfill-destined items, authoring software, quantum physics, gardening, choral singing, canoe tripping, birding, public speaking, and rollercoasters.

Todd leads Deloitte’s National Payments Practice and co-leads Deloitte’s efforts in Digital Identity. He is responsible for managing a team of payments and identity professionals across a range of leading financial institutions, networks and payments service providers. Todd is a senior advisor to executive teams, Boards of Directors, investors and regulators.

Prior to joining Deloitte, Todd was the Senior Vice President of Enterprise Payments and Innovation at CIBC. Prior to CIBC, Todd led the Corporate Strategy Practice at Deloitte and the North American Financial Services sector at Monitor Company. Todd has served on the Boards of various payments companies and industry stakeholder groups.

Vince is responsible for providing organizational-wide technology and IT operations leadership and governance, and support service management, architecture and other critical technology functions in the organization.

Vince Blue joins Celero with significant and broad experience and leadership in governing and managing complex IT infrastructure, with a specialization in cloud. Vince is originally from Ohio and moved to Canada in 2000. He currently resides in Calgary. Over his career he has led cross-functional teams to deliver on multifaceted IT strategies in organizations such as Microsoft, Wachovia Bank (Wells Fargo), Cleveland Guardians (his home town team), Husky Energy and most recently with KMicro as the Director, Cloud Services, where his team has completed over 120 customer deployments of Microsoft Cloud Services.

He has been an advisor and consultant to Celero since 2017, including his recent consultation on our cloud architecture strategy. He looks forward to applying his extensive experience in core banking, digital banking, cloud and digital transformation initiatives to enable us to deliver on our strategic imperative of Operational Excellence and positioning Celero’s technology strategy and architecture for the future of financial services solutions required by our clients.

Erick has more than 25 years of experience in platform-based digital product innovation, shaping vision, strategy and roadmaps. He’s a proven leader with extensive experience nurturing and growing technology product management teams. His global business experience in financial services, product and technology is supporting Central 1 to enhance the conversations it has, decisions it makes and approaches it takes. 

Michael Nolan is the Head of Digital Strategy and Business Architecture.  As a member of the executive team, Michael leads the integration of credit unions to PPJV modern payment processing and the digital strategy of real-time rails, open banking and payment cloud solutions.

Prior to joining Prairie Payments, Michael consulted extensively in the financial services industry focused on helping clients transform their digital banking, core processes and payment solutions. His leadership has guided payments innovation and the delivery of critical business objectives through technology and process transformation projects for premier financial institutions.

Michael is obtaining a Masters Data Science from Johns Hopkins University and is a Certified Treasury Professional and a Certified Architect.

Sean McCarthy is a Financial Services Industry leader at AWS. Sean is focused on helping customers identify use cases and industry solutions that leverage the transformational power of cloud computing. He engages with C-level executives and influencers at all levels, working closely with teams across AWS, to build relationships with financial institutions of all sizes across all market segments, from FinTech startups to the largest banks, insurers, broker-dealers, and exchange groups in the world.

Sean has over 18 years of financial services experience, with leadership roles in digital transformation, customer experience, marketing strategy, partnerships, and payments. Sean joined AWS in 2019 and became the Financial Services Industry leader for Canada in 2022. Sean’s passions are helping organizations transform the customer experience, developing new business opportunities, and leveraging the power of AWS to drive innovation.

Sean is based in Toronto, Canada

Meet Graham Goble, founder of BankBI Ltd. BankBI is software as a service (SaaS) company based in the UK and specialising in delivering a financial performance management and regulatory reporting solution for more than twenty Canadian credit unions. BankBI is part of the CUNA Mutual Ventures Portfolio of companies and puts pre-built dashboards and reports into the hands of the executive management team to be able to take actions and make decisions in a timely way.  Graham is a former CIO and has over fifteen years’ experience of working in international banks based in London, UK and has spent over 25 years delivering software solutions to the financial services sector.

Ryan joined the CU system in May 2000. He has worked for a number of CUs across MB, SK & AB in a variety of different roles over the years. His earlier roles were in lending and he advanced into branch management by 2002 and to a General Manager role in 2006. His most recent role is CEO of Churchbridge CU, since June 2000. He has volunteered in various capacities throughout his CU career and worked on different boards from time to time. Currently he volunteers his time as treasurer for the local Soccer group in Langenburg and holds the role of Vice-Chair for the Saskatchewan Co-operative Association.

Christine’s background within the credit union system spans more than 24 years. She joined Synergy Credit Union in April 1999 as an Account Manager in Lashburn. Since then she has held many roles including Branch Manager, Regional Manager, Manager of Retail and in July 2018 was promoted to Chief Financial Officer. Christine is a CPA, CMA and with Synergy has continued her passion for continuous learning and achieved her ACUIC designation through Dalhousie University. In addition, Christine is a certified facilitator of our internal cultural training programs at Synergy. She serves on the Board of Midwest Family Connections and is the Finance chair here in Lloydminster.

With over 25 years of experience in the payments,  banking, and fintech industries, Romi’s current role focuses on developing Everlink’s Digital Solutions. 

His innovative and entrepreneurial successes are rooted in his solid and award-winning technical acumen in payments technology along with an agile technical skillset that includes DevOps, cloud computing, and BlockChain. Previously, Romi has held senior positions as VP of Technology and Operations at Interac®, where he oversaw eTransfer, mobile payments and other core products. Romi also had a prior role at Everlink as the VP of Technology – a position where he won a number of awards for innovation. He also served as start-up advisor for The BlockchainHub at York University.

JR is the President and CEO of ASAPP OXP. JR is a CPA, CMA, having obtained his Certified Management Accountant designation in 1999. JR also completed the Bowling Green State University Executive MBA program in 2004. Prior to joining the ASAPP team as a Partner in 2005, JR acted as a plant controller, division finance manager, and acting corporate controller for national and international manufacturing organizations.  JR was the team lead for multiple enterprise resource planning and integrated business system projects (including PeopleSoft, SAP, and JD Edwards). Since 2005, JR has worked directly with credit union Client-Partners delivering marketing and media strategies and managing complex technology solution projects. Since 2012, JR has led the ASAPP team and has been focused on the growth of the ASAPP OXP | omnichannel experience platform since it’s initial development in 2014 and official brand launch in 2016.

Tony is Chief Revenue & Customer Experience Officer, responsible for spearheading revenue generation, brand management, and Strategic Partner distribution channel relationships. Tony completed his Sport’s Administration / Commerce degree through Laurentian University in 1994.  Tony is also a CIE, having obtained his Certified Innovation Executive accreditation through MIT | Sloan School of Management and Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 2015. Prior to joining the ASAPP leadership team in 2019, Tony spent several decades working within the credit union and banking sectors as a senior executive responsible for heading up strategy, innovation, technology, brand, digital and operational channels. Tony is recognized as a digital visionary, strategic thinker, and 20+ year veteran leading transformational roadmaps within the financial sector. Tony has welcomed the opportunity to give back by sharing his knowledge and experience across the Canadian credit union sector delivering keynote presentations, acting as strategic advisor for several cross-functional committees, digital transformation initiatives, national awareness and brand program development, and governance roles such as, board representation. Tony has been involved in the creation of both the ASAPP OXP product and brand vision since Day 1.

Robert Hayman is the Head of Emerging Digital Initiatives at Central 1 with responsibility for open banking, and fintech engagement via the Forge Community platform.  With over 15 years’ experience in the Canadian financial services industry, Rob previously drove payments innovation in Canada at both Visa and Scotiabank where he led the development and deployment of an array of digital products and capabilities, eCommerce solutions, and mobile NFC payment wallets.  Rob holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto, and presently lives in Scarborough, Ontario with his family.

Jamie is a design consultant and the founder of 20/20—a digital design consultancy for Enterprise, Mobile, and SaaS.

His industry experience spans over 20 years, including private and public sectors, startups, and Fortune 500 companies in telecommunications, healthcare, law, finance, education, and government.
 

Ron is a seasoned product professional and has a wide background in credit, collections, fraud as well as supply chain and data privacy. He is interested in technology and how it to leverage it effectively to automate processes, as well as gain deep insights in the prevention of fraud. Not afraid to roll up his sleeves when needed, Ron has a keen eye for the big picture. He lead's Central 1's implementation of the new fraud tool EFM, and when not working, he enjoys cooking, fishing and finding great wines are reasonable prices.
 

Currently Mr. Barkla is the Vice President and Head of the North American Financial Services Industry Advisory Group. In that role, working as a key leader in Oracle's Strategic Clients Group, we help originate, structure, and close large transformative deals across the North American Financial Services Industry. We apply deep financial service industry knowledge and direct experience in business transformation to identify strategic opportunities and help guide valuable conversations between the Strategic Client Directors and their respective client’s leadership organization. 

Prior to his current role, Mr. Barkla spent 30 years in many business and technology roles at TD Bank ranging from executive positions in Canadian Banking, TD Securities and TD’s Global Technology unit. 

Matt Steinberg is the Atlantic Canada Lead at Avanade; an IT Professional Services organization focused on the Microsoft and Azure Ecosystem. Matt moved to Nova Scotia 1.5 years ago (with his wife and golden retriever) to open their newest development center, and continue to build-out Avanade’s North Engineering Hubs - a group of cloud focused software & data engineers that drive digital transformation through modern technology.

Matt has been with Avanade for 9 years – working in Partnerships, Product Design, and Engineering Hub teams.

Elizabeth’s 25 year journey in financial services includes starting up President’s Choice Financial MasterCard, introducing Customer Experience to TD Bank and launching the new Canada Life global brand. Through these experiences, Elizabeth drove significant digital change rooted in the needs of Customers and Employees. 

Elizabeth identified a need for more nimble consulting approach to deliver change from the centre of Customer,  Business, and Technology. This approach proves success time and time again, and is the foundation of Walford Partners Customer & Employee Experience. 
 

Today, Elizabeth and her partners drive sustainable business results through Customer & Employee Experience, for Credit Unions, FinTechs and Banks.

With over twenty years of experience, Michael, a seasoned consultant, is dedicated to guiding organizations towards a brighter future by challenging assumptions and revealing opportunities through data and incisive questioning. He founded The Mindset Project in 2015, a research initiative focusing on entrepreneurs and wellness, which positioned him as an industry thought leader. His next venture, WorkInsights, is a business analytics platform designed to enhance understanding of workplace environments and foster innovation. A lifelong learner, Michael has an impressive educational background, including a Chartered Financial Analyst degree (1988) and, most recently, he achieved the Certificate in Digital Transformation: Strategy and Culture from the prestigious MIT Sloan School of Business in 2022. Other certifications from esteemed institutions such as Villanova University, Michigan State University, Sir Wilfred Laurier University, Harvard University, Northwestern University, London School of Economics, and Oxford University. He is passionate about using his knowledge and expertise to enable leaders and organizations to adapt, thrive, and promote a healthy employee experience.

Karan has worked as a trusted adviser with financial institutions across three continents over the past two decades. He has extensive experience in helping organizations leverage digital as a medium for revenue growth as well as cost optimization. Core banking modernization, channel transformation, open banking, RegTech, RiskTech and data analytics are a few areas where Karan has built operating models optimized for location strategy and high-velocity agile delivery.

Ryan Jeffery joined the WBM team in May of 2003 as one of the organization’s first Strategic Account Managers. Since this, every moment of Ryan’s professional career has been an opportunity for him to learn and understand the strategic importance of sales and leadership, working to align customer needs and desires with solutions that achieve results. In his role as an Account Manager, his energy and engagement were instrumental in the execution of a deliberate and transformative step forward for the company, leaving traditional sales models behind in the pursuit of great client relationships.  Driven by this relationship-focused model, WBM has grown to now deliver on strategic business outcomes within some of the most progressive organizations in Canada, across industries that include energy, transportation, education, government and healthcare.

In advancing WBM’s client connections from strangers, to trusted partners, and ultimately to strategic allies, Ryan has helped to build a team of Account Managers who are working with their clients to achieve business outcomes that are leading the way for IT Service Providers across Canada. Today, in his role as a Director of Strategic Account Management, Ryan leads a team of Enterprise Account Managers tasked with understanding the strategic initiatives of the WBM community and ensuring that technology initiatives are aligned with the corporate direction of a growing community. In addition, Ryan is a member of the WBM Strategic Leadership Team, working to chart a course for the company as it has grown into one of Canada’s largest and most progressive Managed IT Services Providers.

Jody Sagen began his career at WBM Technologies in 2004 as an Account Manager. Jody's experience as an Account Manager not only fostered his expertise in building relationships, but also underscored the importance of listening to end users to gain an understanding of how technology impacts their daily tasks and workflows. As the Director of Technology Experience and Enablement, Jody continues to create ways in which end users can provide real-time feedback and report on areas like time-savings, that help the team to find opportunities for improvement and share the results with clients. 

Jody leads an amazing team of people, each of whom are passionate about creating experiences that will change the way we work. With Jody’s leadership, the WBM client community is now harnessing the power of technology and has published several case studies on how organizations, large and small, have overcome the technology gap through a human centered approach. The work this team has done has also been recognized within the Technology Industry. With Jody and his team leading the way, WBM has been nationally awarded and recognized as the best Modern Workplace partner in Canada by organizations such as Microsoft.

Carrie Forbes is the CEO of League Data, a Halifax based cooperative owned by 39 credit unions in Atlantic Canada. The CIO for Atlantic Credit Unions, League Data delivers enterprise banking solutions for credit unions and their members. Carrie participates on several national credit union committees and boards providing collaboration and influence within the financial cooperative sector. She currently sits on the Open Finance Network of Canada (OFNC) committee.

Carrie joined League Data from the Province of Nova Scotia, where she was a Director of Strategic Relations in the Chief Information Office and a Learning Consultant within the NS Public Service Commission. Prior to her work in the public sector, she held various positions at Scotiabank within its Electronic Banking Center. She holds an Advanced Bachelor of Arts (English Major) degree from Dalhousie University. An avid lifelong learner, Carrie also holds numerous certifications from a variety of institutions.

Duke is a seasoned corporate leader who demonstrates a passion for success and competitiveness in payments. As CEO Prairie Payments Joint Venture (PPJV), a payments Fintech with $250B in annual transactions within the credit union space, he brings an entrepreneurial leadership style to the PPJV team and a focus on digital strategy, business transformation and delivering excellence in payments.

Duke has more than 25 years of global executive experience with previous roles at Microsoft, Deloitte and American Express and expertise in strategy, professional services, and technology. He was CEO and co-founder of Magellan (Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year nominee), and he joins PPJV most recently from RBC where he held several roles including Head, Enterprise Architecture Strategy for the Technology and Innovation Group and Head, Digital Bank Program where he was selected to lead a global start-up group developing and implementing an enterprise digital talent strategy for all lines of RBC’s business. 

Duke holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from Queen’s University, a Bachelors degree and Masters of Applied Science degree from the University of Waterloo and is currently completing his Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD) Directors Education Program with the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. His specialities include big data and analytics, cloud and emerging technology adoption, enterprise and digital architecture at scale, and shaping digital strategies to transform customer experiences and build new products and services. He has extensive experience in corporate development and finance, business development and sales, and building and leading high performing teams.

Sheila is the President and CEO of Central 1. She has over 25 years of business experience with proven talent providing business, risk and financial leadership. She is recognized for translating corporate strategy into action, providing insights on key investments, and leading change and effective operations. Her past experience includes Payments Canada and The Bank of Canada.

Richard is a seasoned technology senior executive with more than 30 years of business and IT experience across a broad spectrum of industries, bringing a wealth of knowledge and leadership to Celero. He contributes a strong business technology leadership vision and expertise, driving Celero’s strategic projects to completion while further enhancing credit union partnerships.

Richard has previously held senior leadership roles with several iconic Canadian companies and before joining Celero, provided strategic IT transformation and cybersecurity consulting services to business through his own consulting company. Richard holds an MBA with a major in Information Technology management from Athabasca University, a BBA from the University of New Brunswick, a technology diploma from the New Brunswick Community College and recently attained his ICD.D designation.  Richard and his family reside in Calgary.

Dave Kelly is an award-winning host, writer, and interviewer who creates intelligent and deeply human moments for events and keynote conversations around the world. He is the host of Dave Kelly Live - Canada’s own talk variety show. He has led conversations with business and political leaders across North America and beyond, from Stanford School of Business in California to Amman, Jordan and everywhere in between. Ellen Degeneres selected Dave as the moderator and interviewer for her multi-city tour across Canada, and he recently hosted a conversation with President Barack Obama in Calgary and sat down for a conversation with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in Montreal. From finance to leadership, culture to conflict - Dave is sought after for his singular ability to keep audiences involved and executives engaged in meetings, town halls or conferences. Dave is the co- founder of Kelly Brothers Productions, an award-winning video and entertainment company.