Our 2025 speakers

Shelby Austin

Co-Founder and CEO, Arteria AI

Shelby Austin is the founder and CEO of Arteria AI Inc., an award-winning digital documentation software that was incubated and then spun out of the world’s largest consulting firm.  Arteria works with large financial institutions around the world providing infrastructure for them to document and monitor deals with clients.  

Shelby was previously the Managing Partner of Growth & Investments and Omnia AI at Deloitte. Shelby had responsibility for the Canadian firm’s inorganic and accelerated growth investments through acquisitions, ventures, incubation and scale-up and asset development activities and its AI and data footprint. 

Shelby joined Deloitte through its acquisition of her first company, a high-growth startup that also focused on documentation. Previously, Shelby was a Partner at a Canadian “Seven Sister” law firm where her practice focused on complex corporate and commercial litigation matters. 

Shelby was named to the Maclean’s 2024 list of the 100 Most Powerful Canadians, one of 10 in the AI category. In the past, Shelby has received the Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 award given by The Women’s Executive Network (WXN) and the Rising Stars award given by Lexpert Magazine to Canada’s leading lawyers under 40. In 2023, Arteria was recognized by CB Insights in its AI 100 rankings and by Gartner as one of three identified “Cool Vendors in Applying Generative AI to Banking” report. 

Hamed H. Arbabi

Founder and CEO, VoPay

Hamed Arbabi is a seasoned serial entrepreneur with a proven track record of success, including two successful exits and a landmark $100M exit in 2012. With extensive experience building and leading teams ranging from 160 to 500 people, Hamed has consistently transformed innovative ideas into disruptive, high-growth ventures.

His early career in the telecom industry allowed him to witness firsthand the evolution and disruption within
the space, insights he later leveraged to fuel his passion for innovation in financial technology. Since moving to
Canada in 2005, Hamed has been at the forefront of digital transformation in financial services, pioneering
solutions that integrate seamlessly into the fabric of everyday life.
As the CEO and Founder of VoPay, Hamed has been instrumental in shaping the future of financial technology.
His vision for a platform-to-platform world—where financial services are ubiquitous and embedded in every
aspect of our lives—drives VoPay's mission to make financial transactions easy, affordable, and accessible to all.

Hamed’s overarching goal is to create technologies that accelerate digital transformation, financial inclusion,
and sustainable finance, ensuring that these advancements contribute to a more equitable and sustainable
world.

Beyond his entrepreneurial endeavours, Hamed is deeply committed to giving back to the community. He has
founded and supported multiple non-profit organizations focused on providing children with access to
technology and education, empowering the next generation to unlock new opportunities and shape their own
futures.

Armando Benitez

Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Head of AI, BMO Capital Markets

Armando Benitez is the Chief Data & Analytics Officer (CDAO) and Head of AI at BMO Capital Markets. He leads a team of engineers, strategists, and AI professionals who create end-to-end solutions at the intersection of Finance and Technology. 

As CDAO, Armando shapes the strategic vision for data and analytics, integrating AI  into business processes to drive innovation and improve decision-making. His leadership promotes data-driven insights and aligns technological initiatives with business goals. 

Armando joined BMO's ETF desk in 2016 after working on data products for fraud detection and recommender systems at Paytm. With a background in High Energy Physics, he brings a unique perspective to the team. 

Geneviève Bertrand

Senior Director, Information Security and Crisis Management, PSP Investments

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Surinderjit Kaur Bhatti

Founder and CEO, Fathom4Sight

Surinderjit Kaur Bhatti, also known as Jeet, is a recognized leader in the FinTech industry and
the visionary CEO and Founder of Fathom4sight, Canada’s premier knowledge-as-a-service
platform. She has led the company to provide unparalleled strategic foresight and online
intelligence, positioning Fathom4sight at the forefront of financial product innovation. Jeet has
revolutionized the market research and intelligence space through her groundbreaking platform,
establishing herself as a subject matter expert sought after by organizations looking to navigate
the future of financial services.

Beyond her entrepreneurial ventures, Jeet is a prominent figure in academia and industry
forums. She serves as a guest lecturer at prestigious univiersities, sharing her extensive
expertise with the next generation of FinTech leaders. Her insights and experience are highly
valued globally, leading to her roles as an Innovation Circle Judge at BAI and a BankingTech
Awards Judge at FinTech Futures. As a frequent speaker at major industry events, Jeet is
known for her thought leadership and ability to drive meaningful conversations around FinTech
innovation and transformation.

In her previous career, Jeet built world-leading fintech products for large financial institutions
and developed cutting-edge strategies that enabled the transformation of incumbent
organizations. She led comprehensive consulting projects and helped prominent banks and VC
firms globally to understand and engage with fintech ecosystems in various regions. Her work
has been instrumental in driving innovation and transformation within the financial services
industry.

André Boucher

Senior Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer, National Bank of Canada

Senior Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer, National Bank of Canada 

André Boucher is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at National Bank of Canada, where he leads cybersecurity strategy, software architecture, and engineering. He plays a key advisory role to the executive team, aligning security initiatives with business growth and resilience. 

Prior to joining the Bank in 2021, André had a distinguished career as a senior officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force and later served as Assistant Deputy Minister and Associate Head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. His leadership spans secure technology management, cyber operations, and national defense, with experience at NORAD and NATO. 

André is Vice Chair of the Canadian Financial Sector Cyber Council and represents Canada on the G7 Cyber Experts Group. He also serves on the boards of CyberEco and Quebec’s Food Banks, where he chairs the investment committee.

Brigit Carroll

Head of Policy, Americas, Wise

Brigit Carroll is Head of Policy for the Americas at Wise, a global technology company building the best way to move and manage money across borders. Based in Washington, D.C., Brigit helps to lead Wise’s policy and advocacy campaigns in Canada, Mexico, Brazil and the United States. 

Philippe Daoust

Vice-President & Managing Director, NAVentures, National Bank of Canada

Philippe is the Managing Director for NAventures. He focuses on sourcing companies that will advance National Bank’s transformation. Before joining NAventures, Philippe developed and led the integration and separation advisory practice at a Big 4 firm. He played a varied role ranging from engagement sourcing to due diligence and integration advisory. He worked on large mergers and acquisition projects, including transformative deals for Canadian financial institutions. Philippe also practiced for several years in the United States, France, Latin America and New Zealand. 

Paul Desmarais III

Chairman and CEO, Sagard

Paul Desmarais III is the Chairman and CEO of Sagard, an alternative asset management firm
active in venture capital, private equity, private credit, real estate, healthcare royalties and
private wealth.

Paul took the helm of Sagard in 2016, along with a handful of close partners bound by a
common vision: partnering with entrepreneurs to catalyze transformation in our investments and
communities. Sagard has experienced outstanding growth in six years, with assets under
management increasing to over $13B, more than 300 professionals joining its ranks, and some
125 companies added to the portfolio.

Sagard has built a global network of expertise that helps companies lead, embrace, and stay
ahead of disruptive trends in the financial services, technology, and healthcare spaces, amongst
others. The team is behind some of the largest technology success stories in Canada such as
Wealthsimple and Dialogue.

Within the Sagard ecosystem, Paul is the Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Portage and
the Chairman and Co-Founder of Diagram. Within the investment portfolios, he is the Chairman
of Wealthsimple, Dialogue, Novisto, and Grayhawk, and a director of nesto.

Paul is dedicated to helping build a better business world. He is Co-Founder of the Black Wealth
Club and the Indigenous Leadership Circle, where emerging Black and Indigenous leaders go to
learn about creating wealth and networks giving them tools and resources that can be
reinvested in their communities. Under Paul’s leadership, Sagard has committed to a more
sustainable financial system by becoming a signatory of the United Nations Principles for
Responsible Investment, enlisting as a CREO participant, and embarking on its journey to
carbon neutrality. Paul was also co-chair of the Centraide (United Way) campaign in 2022 and
will chair the large donors campaign for the same organization in 2024-2027.

Paul is a board member of the Glenbow Museum and serves as Chair of the Next Canada
Emeritus board of advisors. He is a recipient of the Duke of Edinburgh Award for his work
chairing the fundraising campaign for the Kenojuak Culture Center. He was formerly a board
member of the Rideau Hall Foundation and Alpine Canada. Paul also co-founded Young
Canadians in Finance and co-chaired the True Patriot Love Expedition to the magnetic North
Pole.

Prior to his current role, Paul worked at Goldman Sachs in the Investment Banking Division,
Investment Strategy Group and Special Situations Group, Imerys S.A. in supply chain
management and strategy and Great-West Lifeco Inc. in risk management. He has earned a
B.A. in Economics from Harvard College and holds an MBA from INSEAD.

Catherine Desgagnés-Belzil

Executive Vice-President and Leader, Business Performance and Information Technology, Beneva

Driven by a desire to succeed and satisfied with rich, human collaborations, Catherine Desgagnés-Belzil first made her mark in the Quebec public service, and now at Beneva, since the merger of La Capitale and SSQ insurance companies in 2020.  

With a bachelor's degree in business informatics from Université Laval in Quebec City, Catherine applied her IT expertise to a variety of strategic positions in the public service, culminating in her role as Chief Information Officer for the Quebec government.  

At Beneva, she led the unification of technological bases, orchestrated over 250 projects, and ensured the cohesion of the IT ecosystem in line with the company's global strategy. Catherine established enterprise architecture guidelines, laying the foundations for an agile and resilient infrastructure. She also ensured consistency between strategic objectives and operational actions, adapting IT processes according to best practices and setting up various centers of excellence. 

Recognized for her drive and determination, Catherine is also involved in numerous initiatives in her industry and community and is particularly keen to put the spotlight on women. Her involvement with the Tel-jeunes Foundation testifies to her generosity and empathy for the adults of tomorrow. 

Daniel Eberhard

Founder and CEO, KOHO

Laurent Ferreira

President and CEO, National Bank of Canada

Laurent Ferreira is President and Chief Executive Officer of National Bank, a position he has held 
since November 2021. He is responsible for the strategies, orientations and development of the 
Bank and its subsidiaries, with the support of the Senior Leadership Team. At the time of his 
appointment, Mr. Ferreira was Chief Operating Officer. 

Mr. Ferreira started his career at Bankers Trust where he worked for two years. He joined National 
Bank in 1998 and successively held the positions of Senior Manager, then Executive VicePresident and Managing Director of Derivatives and Equities within the Financial Markets group. 
From 2018 to 2021, Mr. Ferreira was Executive Vice-President and Co-Head, Financial Markets.

Mr. Ferreira was a member of the Hydro-Québec Board of Directors for several years. He currently 
serves on the Boards of Directors for Groupe CH and the Business Council of Canada. Mr. Ferreira 
is actively involved in the community and supports various causes. He has co-chaired fundraising 
campaigns for the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, the Montreal Women’s Y Foundation, and 
the Centraide United Way campaign for Greater Montreal. He currently co-chairs the Grow Beyond 
campaign for the CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation. 

Mr. Ferreira has a Master’s degree in Finance from HEC Montréal and a Bachelor's degree in 
Economics from Université du Québec à Montréal. 

Hossein Rahnama

Founder and CEO, Flybits

Gideon Hazam

Co-Founder, COO and CCO, MEMCYCO

Gideon Hazam – Co-Founder, Chief Operating & Customer Officer (COO & CCO) at Memcyco 

Gideon Hazam is the Co-Founder and COO of Memcyco, where he leads business operations and customer success. With over 30 years of experience in the cybersecurity and tech industry, Hazam has held senior leadership roles across multiple domains, including operations, sales, business development, and customer support.  

Gideon co-founded Memcyco in 2021, bringing his operational acumen and deep cybersecurity expertise to build an innovative platform focused on real-time protection against digital impersonation and ATO fraud. 

Octavia Howell

Vice-President, Chief Information Officer Security Officer, Equifax Canada

Octavia Howell has spent her career supporting and nurturing Cybersecurity professionals, while
protecting some of the world’s largest financial institutions from cyber-attacks. She lives by Mary
Church Terrill’s mantra of “Lift while you climb.” As Equifax Canada’s Chief Information Security
Officer, she has been recognized as the 2024 Canada CISO of the year and one of Canada’s Top
Women in Cybersecurity. Octavia received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science and
Mathematics from Spelman College and holds multiple industry certifications. She is a member of
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, the International Information Systems Security
Consortium (ISC2), the CISO Society, CISOs Connect, Co-Chairs the CISO Forum for the
Information Technology Senior Management Forum (ITSMF), and sits on the Advisory Board of
SiberX
In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, spending time with her family, and cheering her daughter on
in Competitive Acrobatic Dance and her son in Track and Field.

Ramesh Jayakrishnan

Vice President - New Payment Platforms, Mastercard

Ramesh Jayakrishnan leads the Transfer Solutions business, within the Commercial and New Payment Flows for Mastercard Canada. He is responsible for Product, Strategy and Delivery of various money movement solutions and services across international and domestic payments. 

Working with financial institutions, fintech and other eco-system partners, Ramesh has led the launch of Mastercard Move for commercial, retail, and small business payments use-cases, for both, domestic money as well as international money movement to over 150 countries - to bank accounts, wallets, cards and cash-out locations. 

Prior to joining Mastercard, Ramesh held positions at TD Canada Trust and ICICI Bank in Canada as well as American Express in India. His areas of expertise include cross border and domestic payments, real-time payments, payments modernization, bill payments, and new product delivery. 

Bianca Lavoie

Managing Director, Ministère de la Cybersécurité et du Numérique du Québec (MCN)

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Ellen Linardi

Chief Product and Technology Officer, Synctera

Ellen Linardi is the Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO) at Synctera, where she drives the company’s product vision to modernize and expand access to financial services. She brings extensive leadership experience from past roles at Clover, Symantec and Intuit, helping to scale products used by millions of consumers and businesses worldwide. 

Michael Linford

Chief Operating Officer, Affirm

Michael Linford is the Chief Operating Officer at Affirm, where he oversees and manages the Company’s finance, capital markets, internal audit, and people functions. 

Prior to joining Affirm, Michael held multiple leadership roles within investment, IT, and software companies. Previously, Michael was the Chief Financial Officer for Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Software. Michael led commercial work for all HPE separations and previously served as the VP of M&A Integration at HP. Additionally, Michael dedicated seven years to global investment firm KKR & CO, working his way to Principal and offering strategic and tactical support to a wide portfolio of companies as a member of the operations group. He started his career in management consulting as a business analyst at McKinsey & Company focused on consumer and retail clients. 

Michael holds a B.S. from The University of Texas at Austin where he studied Mechanical Engineering. 

Shingai Manjengwa

Senior Director, Education and Development, Talent & Ecosystem, Mila

Shingai Manjengwa leads AI Education at the Mila, Quebec AI Institute, where she designs and delivers impactful programs that advance the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence across sectors. A recognized leader in data science and AI, Shingai has deep expertise in creating value with data, building AI education curricula, and operationalizing responsible AI in both public and private organizations. 

An entrepreneur and technical expert, she previously led technical education at the Vector Institute for AI and is the founder of Fireside Analytics Inc., a global data science education company whose programs have reached over 500,000 learners on platforms like IBM’s CognitiveClass.ai and Coursera. Shingai also developed Canada’s first Ministry of Education–inspected high school data science course and has led AI education initiatives for students, professionals, policymakers, and underserved communities. 

She works closely with governments and organizations on AI policy, governance, and implementation, and serves on multiple boards and advisory committees. Shingai is a member of the Public Service Productivity Working Group under the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, and is a sought-after global speaker on topics including bias, responsible AI, innovation, and the future of work. Her contributions have been recognized with honours such as the DMZ’s Women of the Year award and the Public Policy Forum’s Emerging Leader distinction. 

David Marotte

Leader, Data and Artificial Intelligence, Regional Lead – Industrial Markets, KPMG Canada

David Marotte is responsible for strategy and growth of the Data and Artificial Intelligence practice at KPMG in Canada, for the Montreal office. 

In this role, David leads numerous strategic development initiatives for the firm’s artificial intelligence programs. He also manages various projects that seek to improve and develop data-related business offerings. David particularly enjoys helping find ways to improve and develop corporate culture, with a view to achieving tangible results for his clients. 

David has extensive experience in strategy, change management and business intelligence, particularly in the IT, cleantech and VFX industries. A seasoned entrepreneur, he has mentored over 125 entrepreneurs and continues to pass on his knowledge to entrepreneurs from all walks of life at the École d’Entrepreneurship de Beauce. 

Melisa Muraca

Vice-president and Global Chief Architect, Sun Life 

Melisa is Vice President and Global Chief Architect at Sun Life. In this role, she defines and communicates the digital architecture vision, ensuring that choices and solutions are aligned with business outcomes and Client needs. 

At Sun Life since 2007, Melisa has over 20 years of experience in technology and has a peripheral perspective on international technology trends. In the last two years she was responsible for Sun Life’s global Technology & Transformation Strategy and had accountability for the IT and transformation Strategy, the Digital Enterprise Center of Excellence, as well as defining and rolling out Global Value Realisation Office. Most recently, she was temporarily assigned to the U.S. Technology team. As Vice President of Technology Products, she led the technology product and solutions strategy, serving Clients in the U.S. through product-driven practices, experience design and agile delivery.   

She holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce, with a major in Management Information Systems and a minor in e-Commerce from the University of Concordia. 

David Ouellet

Senior Vice President and Chief Technology, Data and Operations Officer, PSP Investments

David Ouellet, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology and Data Officer at PSP Investments, focuses 
on sustaining the organization’s growth with effective tools and technologies that meet and exceed 
technological trends, including digital, cloud and artificial intelligence solutions. He also oversees Business 
Information Security, Business Governance, Data Management and Digital Innovation.

Michael Pelosi

Strategic Enterprise Lead, Cohere

Michael Pelosi is the Strategic Enterprise Lead at Cohere, where he partners with some of the world’s largest organizations to design and deploy secure, customized AI solutions at production scale. He focuses on operationalizing enterprise-grade language models to unlock tangible business value through responsible, scalable adoption of generative AI. 

At Cohere, Michael leads strategic partnerships that emphasize data privacy, domain-specific performance, and real-world impact—enabling enterprises to confidently integrate AI into their most critical workflows. 

Prior to Cohere, Michael led multiple finance portfolios at Google across fintech, payments, and enterprise banking, with a focus on digital transformation and emerging technology strategy. He holds an MBA from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and is a graduate of the Oxford Fintech Programme. 

Giovanni Sansalone

Vice President, Security Evolution, Desjardins

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Parinaz Sobhani

Managing Director & Head of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Sagard

Parinaz Sobhani is the Head of AI at Sagard. In this role, she helps portfolio companies adopt AI and gain a competitive edge. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa, where she focused on natural language understanding. With over ten years of experience, she's published more than 20 papers in top ML and NLP conferences.  

Before Sagard, she was the Head of AI at Georgian, where she led a team of engineers and scientists to help growth-stage companies build and scale machine learning products. Parinaz also worked at Microsoft Research, developing advanced neural machine translation models, and at the National Research Council of Canada, where she made significant contributions to deep neural network models for sentiment analysis." 

Patrick Surry

Chief Data Scientist, Hopper

He was one of the founders of Quadstone Inc, a predictive customer analytics company, since acquired by Pitney Bowes Software, where he developed high-performance parallel engines for generalized additive models. Patrick holds a PhD in mathematics and statistics from the University of Edinburgh, where he studied optimization based on evolutionary algorithms, following an HBSc in continuum mechanics from the University of Western Ontario. 

Jessica Tan

President, Sun Life Canada

Jessica Tan is President of Sun Life Canada. She is responsible for leading Sun Life’s business in its home market, driving continued growth as a leader in health, wealth and protection for Canadians. Sun Life Canada is a 160-year business serving 12 million Canadians, which is more than half the working Canadians in the country across insurance, wealth, asset management, and health businesses.

Jessica is widely recognized as a transformative leader. She held a top 5 ranking on Fortune's Most Powerful Women for 5 consecutive years (2019 - 2023) and has been recognized as one of Forbes' The 
World's 100 Most Powerful Women since 2019. Prior to Sun Life in North America, Jessica worked in Asia for 20 years across Greater China, India, and Southeast Asia. Specifically, she was the co-CEO of Ping An, one of Asia’s largest insurance companies, responsible for Ping An’s insurance, digital banking, healthcare, and technology businesses. Prior to that Jessica was a partner at McKinsey where she worked in North America and Asia working with global and regional financial services companies and regulators.

Jessica is an active leader in the global community for fintech, healthcare and elderly care. She sits on several global boards and advisory committees including the Singapore Central Provident Fund (Singapore National Pensions Fund >US$460 billion), SEA Group (Southeast Asia's largest gaming, e-commerce and fintech company), Global Finance & Technology Network (Global Fintech Network started by the Monetary Authority of Singapore), Asia Society Global Board of Trustees, Oxford Blavatnik School of Government, and AGEWELL elderly care/tech organization in Canada.

Jessica is married with two teenage daughters, and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a Master degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer science, and two Bachelors degrees in Electrical Engineering and Economics.

Matt Vega

Chief of Staff and Fraud Fighter, Sardine

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Eva Verreault

Chief Revenue Officer, Mondata

Eva Verreault is the Chief Revenue Officer at Mondata, a Quebec-based cybersecurity company. She is responsible for the company's growth strategy, including the go-to-market execution for WeActis, an innovative solution that empowers employees to secure Microsoft 365 data. 

Before joining Mondata, Eva held strategic roles in the technology sector. She spent ten years at Croesus, a FinTech firm, where she led sales, marketing, and international growth. Her discipline and dedication to customer satisfaction played a crucial role in establishing Croesus as a leading player in the portfolio management industry. 

Eva then joined SuccessFinder, an HRTech company specializing in psychometric assessments, where she served for five years as Vice President of Partnerships, Sales, and Marketing. She was key in driving the company’s growth and establishing it as a leader in talent management and leadership development. 

With extensive expertise in strategic management, a proven track record across various tech sectors, and experience supporting large enterprises, Eva is dedicated to positioning Mondata as a cybersecurity leader while continuing to develop innovative and sustainable growth strategies. 

Navindra Yadav

Co-Founder and CEO, Theom

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Chad Wallace

Executive Vice President, Global Transaction Banking, Scotiabank

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