Speakers

Adrienne Allgire is Vice President of Operations at SECU, Maryland’s largest credit union with $4 billion in assets and over 261,000 members. She started her banking career while in college as a teller and has moved into ever expanding roles throughout her career. Adrienne has held several positions at SECU including Member Services Representative, Loan Officer, Branch Manager, and AVP of Retail Banking Operations. Through these roles, she gained vast financial services experience in retail banking, banking operations, customer experience, ATMs, and ITMs. 

In her current role, Adrienne works with teams responsible for the Operations of over 100 ATMs and 75 ITMs and providing Operational Support to 23 Financial Center locations, the Virtual Teller Center and the Virtual Financial Center. Additionally, the Operations team is responsible for Branch Policies and Procedures, Check Clearing, Payroll & Dispute Processing, Information Management, Member Statements, Project Management and Abandoned Property.

Brad Atkin is a Shareholder at Doeren Mayhew, where he is the Practice Leader of the firm’s IT Advisory and Security Group. With nearly 15 years of experience, Brad works closely with a diverse sector of clients to ensure compliance, identify threats, and protect critical data. Through the firm’s tiered cybersecurity solution CYBERCLAW™, he performs risk assessments, vulnerability assessments, policy and procedure reviews, phishing exercises and much more to provide a holistic view of clients’ 
cyber environments. Brad’s background also includes IT audits, IT strategy development, IT compliance assessments, and System and Organization Controls (SOC) reporting. Broadening Brad’s experience and perspective, is his many years spent providing clients with financial audit services, including ensuring effective use of accounting and auditing practices, internal controls, and system management processes.

Buddy Bennett is the Chief Operating Officer at Cyprus Federal Credit Union located in Salt Lake City, UT. He currently provides leadership and guidance for the credit unions Branches, Contact Center, Virtual Tellers, and Facilities. He is a champion for the credit union movement because of the mission it serves, and has over 15 years of experience within the industry. In addition to his work at the Credit Union, Buddy also sits on the Executive Committee for CUNA’s Operations & Member Experience Council.

Recognized as a thought leader and visionary of technology advancements and financial application development within the financial industry, John Best is a futurist, an Amazon bestselling author, an award-winning speaker, hosts a globally recognized podcast show, is the Co-Founder and CEO of Best Innovation Group. 

John previously served as CTO and Senior Vice President of Wescom Credit Union as well as head of technology for Wescom Resources Group. In 2014, John left Wescom to form his own company called Best Innovation Group, or BIG for short. BIG was created to provide clients with the resources to quickly implement digital solutions and adopt cutting-edge technologies. BIG provides research and development in areas including voice banking, distributed ledger and machine learning, as well as a wide array of development, integration, and consulting services. 

Ryan Best is a digital content manager at Best Innovation Group. He has worked on projects ranging from BIG's FIVE platforms to Blockchain Technology for Credit Unions. 

Ashley Call is the Manager of the Virtual Teller Department for Cyprus Federal Credit Union. During her 15 years in the Credit Union Industry, Ashley has held many roles helping her to be well-rounded in the many different facets that make a credit union. She spent 10 years of her career in Lending. Then a short spell in the Training Department and was the first on the Training Team to certify as an Adobe Captivate Specialist. Finally taking the leap as the Manager in a new and upcoming department that is now the Virtual Teller Department. Ashley has been leading that department since 2018. Since taking on this new and exciting role, the department has expanded from 3 machine at 2 locations with 3 tellers to 22 machines at 10 locations with 8 tellers.

Melissa Castagna is the Director of Member Experience at BCU. She received her undergraduate degree from Illinois State University and is certified in Net Promoter Score. When Melissa started her career with BCU she instantly developed a passion for helping members discover financial freedom and building relationships. Melissa and her team are responsible for collecting, managing, and responding to member feedback throughout various channels while driving actionable insights to cross-functional team members to prioritize process and service improvements. Their goal is to provide superior service and seamless processes to create extraordinary experiences that will deepen member engagement.

James Chang is CEO of Pasadena Service FCU. He has worked in the credit union industry for over 25 years in different capacities. James has been with Pasadena Service FCU for seven years and its CEO for the last four years. As a leader of the credit union, James has leveraged his skillset experience to promote professional service, technology, and personal delivery of our products and services.

Sohini Chowdhury is a director and senior economist with Moody’s Analytics. She specializes in macroeconomic modeling and forecasting, scenario design and market risk research, with a special focus on stress-testing and CECL/IFRS9 applications. Previously, Sohini led the global team responsible for the Moody’s Analytics market risk forecasts and modeling services while managing custom scenarios projects for major financial institutions worldwide. An experienced speaker, she often presents at client meetings and industry conferences on the macroeconomy, macroeconomic models and forecasts and CECL solutions. Sohini holds a PhD and a master’s degree in economics from Purdue University and a master’s degree in applied statistics from West Chester University in Pennsylvania. She is also a certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM). Before joining Moody’s Analytics in 2011, she taught economics at the University of Cincinnati.

Mike Cisek is an analyst in the Midsize Enterprise Research team focusing on infrastructure and operations, and cloud strategy contextualized to meet the needs of midsize organizations. Prior to joining Gartner, he held the title of Director of Emerging Infrastructure & Operations Support for a $400 million transportation company.

Ben Corman has had a lifelong love of all things technical and has been an IT and Security professional for over 15 years. For the last 10 year he has been in the credit union industry and has been able to be involved in an array of different projects and solutions. From core platform, networking, and system operations, to working on custom developed applications, and with CUSOs, and Fintechs. Most recently, Ben has been involved in security evolution, as it extends beyond the traditional boundaries, and into the wider world.

Tammy Cummings is a senior consultant with TopLine HR and is also the Chief Human Resources Officer for Feed More. She brings over 30 years of experience as a senior leader in strategic human resources and DEI throughout a variety of industries. Tammy served as the Chief Diversity Office for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and the Education Advisory Board and has helped numerous organizations plan and execute successful DEI strategies supporting human resources, supplier diversity and client experience.

Tammy is a past board chair of MENTOR (formerly the Virginia Mentoring Partnership) and past president of Richmond SHRM (Society of Human Resource Management). She currently serves on the board of Make-A-Wish Greater Virginia, and she is a mentor in Richmond SHRM’s Mentorship Program for young HR professionals. Tammy holds a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Robert Eckhart has been with GECU for over 30 years. For the last 10 years, he has been in Information Security. Robert has a BS in CIS, CISSP and CISA certifications. As of 2020 GECU is $3.5B in assets, 400K+ members. 

Zach Eychaner has served as the SVP of Remote Services & Technology at 4Front Credit Union since 2018. He has been involved in the credit union movement since 2003, holding many roles. Zach began as a teller before spending most of his credit union career leading Contact Centers at three different institutions, instilling a commitment to member experience and providing value in what was traditionally a cost center. This time coaching employees on the front line of member service informs his approach to this day.

As SVP of Remote Services & Technology, Zach is responsible for spearheading 4Front CU’s efforts to identify, develop, and deliver leading edge virtual solutions to support the needs of the member and the vision of the credit union. He also oversees the Payments strategy, Communication Center, and IT. Zach approaches his role with a passion for providing financial guidance with an exceptional user experience.

Natalie Fikes, is a performance and development coach that helps professionals improve performance and get what they want in life and business. She is the CEO of The Greater Purpose Society LLC, and the founder of The Greater Purpose System™ a multifunctional system that provides improved performance in the areas of mental wellness, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, execution, and self-leadership. 

Natalie is passionate about providing solutions to underserved communities such as foster care, at-risk youth, homelessness, and sex-trafficking. She is currently the VP of Community Affairs, and Board Chair for The African American Association of USA, and regularly volunteers at The City of Refuge in Atlanta, Georgia.

One of Natalie's core values is to add value to others. She does so through public speaking, coaching, consulting, writing, and acting. She is responsible for developing the bottom 20% of the sales and service consultants in the Verizon Southeast Region increasing performance by 83%, and increasing membership and engagement in the Central Region of the International Association of Women by 85%.

Jennifer Kimmell is the senior vice president and chief marketing officer at TruWest Credit Union. She has been a member of the TruWest team for 16 years. Previously, she worked as vice president for both the strategy and member service departments. In her role, Jennifer leads the credit union’s marketing and communication efforts, including developing and promoting the credit union’s digital channels.

As Senior Innovation Strategist, Jay Lauer is leading efforts to enable a broader and deeper adoption of AI-empowered solutions for PSCU and its Owner credit unions. His focus on enterprise governance frameworks and operational readiness is supported by his experience in strategic planning and execution, program and product management, and risk and compliance roles in financial institutions. Jay has held leadership roles in banking and payments, with over 10 years credit union experience.

Caroline Martorano is currently the Director of Application Management and Quality of BCU.  She has 18 years in the Credit Union Industry and has worked and managed all facets of the IT space including, Quality Assurance, Project Management, Service Desk, Operations and Enterprise Application Management. She has been involved in the CUNA Technology Council for 12 years including 6 years serving on the Executive Committee and is the current Chair of the council.  Caroline has 21 years in the financial industry along with 10 years of IT consulting with Accenture.  She holds a degree in Computer Information Systems from Indiana University at a time when she was told by some older generations that “this computer thing was just a fad”.   She currently is challenged to keep ahead of her three teenagers in the technology advances and uses them to learn and adapt to the differences in generational demands of the consumers.  

Christine Messer joined Heritage Family Credit Union in 2012, with more than 10 years of accounting and management experience. She works with the CFO for all accounting, finance, forecasting, strategic planning, and liquidity functions at HFCU. Christine, previously, was an audit supervisor at a local accounting firm and an adjunct accounting professor with Castleton University. She has a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a focus of accounting from Castleton University, a master’s degree in business administration from Southern New Hampshire University, and is an active Certified Public Accountant licensed in the State of Vermont. She is involved in the credit union industry as a member of the Executive Committee and the chair of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) Finance Council Conference Planning Committee. 

Estela Nagahashi began her career at University Credit Union in 2017 and has served as the EVP, Chief Operating and Lending Officer. She has over 24 years of banking experience with 16 of those years working with credit unions. Estela holds an MBA from Brandman University and multiple certifications from Cornell, CUES CEO Institute, Cardwell Leadership and Project Management Institute.

Srinivas has spent over a decade on AI research during his Master’s degree and work at Microsoft. He has led digital strategy for a financial institution, enabling it to scale it from scratch to several billion in assets. These unique experiences inspired him to start interface.ai with a mission to help every financial institution on the planet efficiently scale and help their customers achieve financial wellness using AI.

Kate O’Neill’s expertise in data-based business models, integrated experience strategy, and human-centric digital transformation comes from more than 20 years of experience and entrepreneurship leading innovations across technology, marketing, and operations in category-defining companies. She was one of the first 100 employees at Netflix, where she created the first content management role and helped implement innovative dynamic e-commerce practices that became industry standard.

In her keynote speeches Kate advocates for the future of humanity in an increasingly tech-driven world. Her insights help corporate and cultural leaders re-think how to succeed long-term by taking a human-centric approach to digital transformation and readiness for the future.

Author of 4 books including her latest, Tech Humanist, Kate's insights and expertise have been featured in WIRED, USA Today, and many other outlets, and she has appeared as an expert commentator on BBC, NPR, Marketplace, NBC, and a wide variety of other national and international news media. A vocal and visible advocate for women in technology, entrepreneurship, and leadership, she was featured by Google in the launch of their global campaign for women in entrepreneurship. 

Mia Perez serves as the chief administrative officer at Louisiana FCU where she is responsible for all things brand, marketing, and organizational development. She most recently served as Chair of the Credit Union National Association’s Marketing & Business Development Council Executive Committee. In 2016, Mia was named as a Woman to Watch by the Credit Union Times and as a Credit Union Rock Star by Credit Union Magazine. She received her bachelor’s degree in public relations from Tulane University, a master’s degree in Leadership and HR Development from LSU and is a graduate of CUNA Marketing Management School where she is currently an instructor.  
 
Mia is host of the Leadership Experiment with Royce and Mia podcast. Listen on iTunes or anywhere else you get your podcasts or visit www.royceandmia.com.

Kevin Polinsky is the Senior Director, SaaS Platform Sales for CUNA Mutual Group. His entrepreneurial approach to leadership and sales helps the team readily uncover pain points to bring credit unions solutions that best fit their unique needs.  Kevin has a reputation for encouraging creative, non-traditional problem-solving capabilities to drive success across teams. 

Before joining AdvantEdge Digital, Kevin led the Financial Institution sales team of Compliance Systems. In this role, he drove continued growth of the client base working in concert with an extensive Lending, Deposit, and Core FinTech partner network. Kevin holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) with a Dual Concentration in Business and Marketing.

Jason Rogers is the SVP of Member Service at Mountain America Credit Union where he is responsible for the leadership of the Credit Union’s “frontline” including branch, contact center, sales and SEG development teams. His team members work to provide exceptional member service experiences to over one million MACU members. He enjoys coaching and assisting team members to focus on the needs of others. Jason has a passion for Credit Unions and their mission of people helping people. He is the vice chair of CUNA’s operations & member experience council and enjoys working with others in the Credit Union industry.

George Rudolph has nearly 30 years of combined leadership experience in the credit union and airline industries. He has served as President & CEO of the $7.9 billion PSECU based in Harrisburg, PA, since April 2019. With his team of approximately 800 professionals, George is responsible for delivering high-quality financial product and service offerings to more than 480,000 valued members.  Prior to joining PSECU, he served as Senior Vice President of Operations & Technology at the $10+ billion Alliant Credit Union. Under his direction, Alliant’s technology teams executed a long-term vision of becoming a fully digital financial institution.

Over the years, George has also served as trusted advisor and participant in top industry committees, including vendor advisory boards, CUNA Technology Council’s Executive Committee, and the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force. He holds a Bachelor’s in Marketing and Organizational Behavior and a Master’s in Business Administration from LaSalle University.

Darich Runyan has been working in information security for over 25 years. He is currently VP, Information Security for Langley Federal Credit Union. Prior to the Langley, Darich provided computer network defense services to the Dept. of Defense, as well as to the aviation, maritime, and healthcare business domains. Early in his career, to better understand hacker methods, Darich regularly attended hacker conferences, hacker chats, and read hacker news groups and documents to gain a solid understanding of attacker motivations, tools, techniques, and procedures.

In addition to providing security services, Darich has also used his understanding of attackers to research and develop two new and unique methods of defense; moving target defense and adversary attack path modeling, both of which are used in numerous government and commercial systems. Darich received his Master of Computer Science degree from James Madison University and is a SANS GIAC certified Global Industrial Controls Security Professional.

Leticia Saiid has been in the information security industry and providing public speaking for 9 years. After earning a BA and a MA in Mathematics, she joined CoNetrix, where she served as the Tandem Software Support Manager for several years. In this role, Leticia built and directed Tandem's first team of support specialists. She now serves as Chief of Staff where she focuses on corporate strategy, employee development, and training. Leticia is Security+ certified, publishes various security blog posts and articles, and presents at conferences and webinars over cybersecurity topics. 

Education

• Colorado State University

Professional Activities

• CUNA Lending Council Member
• CUNA Membership Committee Member
• Volunteer Food Bank for Larimer and Weld Counties

Honors, Awards, and Major Accomplishments

• Northern Colorado Credit Union Service Excellence Award

With more than 30 years of financial services experience, Mark is a highly respected industry thought-leader and a renowned public speaker who has held senior leadership positions at HSBC, MasterCard International, Payment Systems Inc. 

Kyle Stutzman is a cofounder of Pure IT. He is passionate about transforming credit union technology and technology operations. As a former Credit Union IT leader, Kyle brings technical leadership and our potential clients’ perspectives to our business. Over his 15+ years in the credit union space, he has created a network of credit union leaders and industry vendors which gives us excellent visibility into the technology and security trends of our credit unions and our industry. Kyle’s experience also includes Chief Operations Officer of a credit union focused IT disaster recovery and community cloud provider. Beyond his key credit union industry knowledge, he brings a mix of deep IT and business skills. No matter his title, his role in his more than 15 years in the IT and business world always included bridging the gap between business and IT units.

Bob Thibodeaux has more than 25 years of experience as a senior security expert and highly accomplished IT executive and engineer. Through leadership positions managing IT departments and programs, technology operations and data center operations, he has driven innovative process improvements, disaster recovery programs, information security strategies, and audit and compliance improvements. Bob has been responsible for incident response, risk management and penetration testing for community-focused banks, credit unions and high-tech companies across the United States. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, Digital Forensics Examiner and GIAC Penetration Tester. Bob holds a degree in Business and Management from the University of Maryland and is a retired USAF Senior Master Sergeant.

Wayne Trout is a graduate of Frostburg State University with a BS in Accounting. He served four years with the U.S. Army before joining NCUA in 1999 as a financial examiner. In 2004, Wayne transitioned from safety and soundness to IT examinations and helped develop the Regional Information Systems Officer (RISO) program. He has worked 17 years in NCUA’s IT and Cybersecurity examination program as an RISO for the Southern Region (Austin), an Information Systems Officer (ISO) Office of E&I, and served 17 months as the initial Interim Director, Critical Infrastructure and Cybersecurity in 2016 and 2017. Wayne also served as the NCUA lead representative to the FFIEC to assist in the development of the FFIEC’s Cybersecurity Assessment Tool (CAT). He continues to further his IT examination skills through certifications and continuing education.

Erik Van Bramer was named senior vice president and national sales director for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Customer Relations and Support Office (CRSO) in 2018. He previously served as national sales director and vice president/director of the Federal Reserve Bank’s national account program. In his current role, Erik is responsible for setting and implementing strategic management of relationships and financial services offerings across the Federal Reserve System. 

Erik joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in 1998 and transitioned to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 2005. His tenure with the Federal Reserve has encompassed multiple management areas including operations, internal support functions, as well as business development. Erik was promoted to assistant vice president and national account executive in 2010. He was named vice president in 2014, leading the group managing relationships for large and complex financial institutions.

Jim Van Dyke is SVP of Innovation for Sontiq. As BreachIQ product inventor, he now focuses on bringing the AI product to market via credit unions, employers, government, and directly to consumers. Previously, Jim was founder/CEO of fintech company Breach Clarity; expert witness on damages of large data breaches such as Equifax and Yahoo!; founder/CEO Javelin Strategy & Research; board member at CFPB and elsewhere; and product manager for various fintech offerings including credit union digital banking, online commerce, and encryption. 

Jim’s comments have been cited by Bloomberg, Credit Un ion Times, Financial Times, Fox News live television, National Public Radio (NPR), the front page of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Wired. His presentation venues have ranged from government (U.S. House of Representatives, Ways and Means Committee, US Treasury, Federal Reserve, etc.), industry (Money2020 and many others), and technology/innovation (South by Southwest, RSA Security, etc.), and more.

Making banking easier for your members is Cody Willis’ sole ambition. In many cases, this means automating the low-value, high-cost transactions and re-focusing staff on value-added product conversations that better help members with their financial journey. He is a frequent speaker on Retail Banking and Branch of the Future Topics, personally worked on 250+ different Banks and CU’s on retail technology strategies and deployments, and has created multiple ROI tools to share cost savings and revenue generation, to justify technology spend. Having visited over 500 branches across America, Cody has an in-depth knowledge of back-office operations and retail banking focuses and I am excited to share this experience with you.