Biography

Partner, Technology Consulting

Abhishek Sinha is a Partner at EY leading a broad transformation agenda, including Future of Banking, Technology Strategy, Program & Portfolio Management, Payments, Cash Management, Open Banking, Commercial Banking, M&A Due Diligence, Post Merger Integration, Emerging Technologies and Blockchain.

Abhishek works with clients to develop & deliver compelling business-cases to support business agendas through- Agile Transformation, Digital Adoption, Innovation, Ecosystem Collaboration, Enterprise Architecture, Data Management, Analytics, Enterprise Technology Strategies. He has broad international experience with top-tier consulting firms and global banks in the areas of Strategy Development, Architecture and Technology Delivery.

Biography

Biography

Cheryl Cran helps leaders and their teams to build future workplaces, today. Recognized as the #1 Future of Work influencer by Onalytica, Cran’s research into the future of work, technology, and leadership, driven by her “people first” and digital second philosophy, helps companies build the leadership capacity needed to change the world through business. For more than two decades, thousands of her clients have benefited from her expertise resulting in growth, evolution, and success.

Biography

Biography

Senior Manager / Senior Payment Advisor, EY

Biography

VP Corporate Affiars, Flinks

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.

Biography

CEO, Prairie Payments

Duke is a seasoned corporate leader who demonstrates a passion for success and competitiveness in payments and who leads with integrity, accountability, and the aptitude to deliver on Prairie Payments’ vision for future organizational and system excellence.

Duke has a successful track record in the financial services sector bringing approximately 25 years of global experience in strategy, professional services and technology, serving in executive, senior management and consultant capacities for organizations including RBC, Deloitte and Touché LLP, Microsoft and American Express. Duke joins us most recently from RBC where he held several roles including Head, Enterprise Architecture Strategy for the Technology and Innovation Group as well as 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, and Masters of Applied Science and Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of Waterloo.

Biography

Lead Strategist, Canadian Equality Consulting

Heather is a Lead Strategist with Canadian Equality Consulting (CEC), a leading national consulting firm dedicated to improving the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in all workplaces and organizations. Heather’s work at CEC focused primarily on conducting organizational assessments to uncover opportunities and challenges within organizations, and to  support those organizations to develop concrete action and change management plans to support organizational growth toward a more equitable and inclusive culture.

Prior to working at CEC, Heather spent nearly 2 decades working in government settings focusing primarily on policy development and intergovernmental relations. Heather also worked for a Credit Union for a number of years as a Member Service Representative prior to completing her graduate education. Heather holds a BA and MA in Political Science from the Universities of Calgary and Alberta respectively.

Biography

Principal, Janet Brown Opinion Research

Janet Brown has been examining and tracking public opinion in Alberta for more than 25 years. Throughout her career, Janet has managed research assignments for all levels of government and numerous private sector organizations. She has extensive experience in both quantitative and qualitative research, having designed and managed hundreds of custom research projects.

Janet’s current practice focuses on helping clients better understand key audiences and stakeholder groups they are trying to influence. This could include customers, potential customers, employees, association members, voters, or the general public.

Together with Trend Research, Janet Brown conducted the only poll during the 2019 Alberta provincial election with results that were within the margin of error for all political parties.

She has also led a large-scale public opinion research project for CBC Calgary in Spring 2018, as part of their series “Calgary: The Road Ahead“. This research went beyond the “horse race” numbers to identify the underlying dynamics that are driving public opinion in Alberta ahead of the 2019 provincial election.

Janet is often invited to speak about political and social trends. She is a regular commentator on the CBC Calgary News at Six, Alberta Primetime on CTV2 in Alberta, and The Weekend Morning News on Global News Calgary.

She also continues to be active in the academic community and has delivered guest lectures at the University of Calgary, Mount Royal University, and Concordia University in Montreal. Janet is co-author of a chapter in “Orange Chinook: Politics in the New Alberta,” which was released by the University of Calgary Press in January 2019. Janet’s chapter is titled “Marginally Better,” and it analyses the publicly released polling from the 2015 Alberta election.

Janet Brown has a B.A. (Hons) in Political Science from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. She also undertook graduate studies in Political Science at York University in Toronto, and studied International Development and International Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science in London, England.

President & CEO, Canadian Credit Union Association (CCUA)

Biography

Jeff Guthrie joined the Canadian Credit Union Association (CCUA) as President and CEO on July 1, 2022. He is an accomplished financial services executive with a wide range of experience in financial services and leading organization-wide transformations.

Jeff began his career in retail banking at RBC Royal Bank (RBC) as a teller. During his tenure with RBC, he held a wide variety of roles of increasing responsibilities, eventually becoming a member of the executive team as Vice-President, Card Services.

Inspired by taking on a new challenge, in late 2000, he left RBC and became one of the founding executives of Moneris Solutions (Moneris). Today Moneris is Canada’s number one payment processor and one of North America’s largest. Over his 19-year tenure at Moneris, he held a wide-range of senior roles, including Senior Vice-President Operations and Integrations, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer.

During his time with Moneris, he served on the MasterCard Canada, Visa International, and Discover North American Advisory Boards. He also served as an advisor to the Canadian Professional Sales Association (CPSA) on developing the competencies and curriculum to establish sales as a graduate degree program.

Most recently, Jeff served as President and COO of Hank Payments, a Canadian start-up focused on providing tools to help consumers improve their financial well-being.

He is currently an advisor to Payment Source Inc., a payments company focused on financial inclusion in Canada.

Jeff holds a Master of Management from McGill University, specializing in international business. An avid traveller, he has visited over 40 countries and plans to continue to explore the world with the lifting of restrictions. Over the past two years, he has filled the travel void by publishing over 20 essays on various subjects, such as economic recovery, mental health, and cryptocurrencies.

Never shy of a challenge, Jeff is an accomplished ultra-marathon runner, having completed races in the most extreme conditions, including the Egyptian Sahara, Amazon Basin, Northern Iceland, and Fijian mountains.

When not indulging his passion for travel and adventure, Jeff resides in Toronto, Canada.

Biography

Manager – ESG Strategy & Impact Services, KPMG Canada

Josh is part of KPMG in Canada’s ESG and advisory Services practice and focuses on helping companies embed ESG as part of growth and organizational strategy. With sustainability now a board room issue for all companies, Josh helps clients identify what ESG elements need to be focused on now in order to build and maintain their competitive advantage for years to come. Previously Josh grew and led the KPMG in the UK’s ESG strategy advisory practice which then embedded itself the KPMG’s Strategy & Value Creation team in London. In that role Josh worked with clients across a range of sectors and markets, including consumer goods, banking, insurance, infrastructure, TMT, government and industrial markets. Josh predominately focuses on delivering sustainability focused growth strategy services to clients with an emphasis on alignment to a company’s core activities and role in society, ESG implementation and reporting planning and well and responding to bespoke ESG mega forces. With a masters in Marine Biology combined with his experiences in the Canadian and UK markets, Josh brings a wealth of experience and insight.

Biography

Partner, McKinsey & Company

Karim works with a range of financial institutions (including banks, credit unions and other cooperatives, institutional investors, and wealth and asset managers) across North America and Europe on issues such as growth strategy, digital transformations, enterprise agility, and performance and health change management.

In addition to his client work, Karim is a leader in our Financial Services Practice and leads our cooperative banking and financial inclusion work in Canada. He has managed complex engagements across a number of institutions to deliver significant end-to-end operating-model and organizational transformations.

Karim served as the chairman of the Aga Khan Education Board for Canada from 2012 to 2019 and is the founder of Sparks Humanitarian Services, a Canadian nonprofit that provides education programming in Central Asia.

Tech titan Michele Romanow is a serial entrepreneur who started six companies before her 35th birthday. A “Dragon” on CBC’s hit show Dragons’ Den, Romanow is the co-founder and CEO of Canadian unicorn, Clearco. Clearco has invested more than $3.2B into 7,000+ companies making them the biggest e-commerce investor in the world. She previously co-founded SnapSaves, acquired by American tech giant Groupon, and Buytopia.ca, which acquired ten competitors, including Shop.ca and WagJag.

In 2015, Romanow became the youngest judge on CBC’s Dragons’ Den. A prolific investor, she was named among Fortune’s “40 under 40”, a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, one of Canada’s “100 Most Powerful in Canada” by WXN, and Canada’s “Angel Investor of the Year”. She was also the only Canadian to be included in Forbes’ “Millennial on a Mission” list.

Romanow has created digital solutions for many of the world’s leading brands, including P&G, Netflix, Starbucks, and Cirque du Soleil. In the media, her work has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, TechCrunch, and The Globe and Mail.

Romanow is a director for Vail Resorts, BBTV and Queen’s School of Business. Previously she was a director for Freshii, Whistler Blackcomb, SHAD International, and League of Innovators. Romanow also co-founded the Canadian Entrepreneurship Initiative non-profit with Sir Richard Branson.

Biography

Director, Industry Relations, Payments Canada

Robyn King is the Director of Industry Relations at Payments Canada, which oversees all external outreach with members and stakeholders of the Canadian Payments Ecosystem, as well as oversight on all committee structures and content within the organization. She has over 15 years of experience in payments, transactional banking, banking innovation and card payments in both the Southern African and Canadian markets. Robyn graduated from the University of Johannesburg with an Honours Bachelor of Science degree before later completing her MBA through Henley Business School (University of Reading, U.K.). Robyn is also a Certified Treasury Professional, gaining her CTP accreditation in 2020. Before joining Payments Canada, she worked in the modernization team within one of the big 5 Canadian banks. Prior moving to Canada, Robyn was at FirstRand Bank for 10 years, holding roles in Branch Banking, Innovation, Payments, and Merchant Acquiring.