Building the Banks and Financial Services of the Future: A Corporate View

Join a selection of corporate innovation executives from the region’s legacy banking and financial services enterprises and hear their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities in innovating the industry. These corporate innovators will also highlight their innovation priorities and how entrepreneurs can work with their organizations.

Sarah Biller, Co-Founder, Fintech Sandbox (Moderator)

FinTech Educator, Investor & Entrepreneur

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edward (EJ) Achtner, Head of Digital Banking, HSBC USA

EJ is the Head of Digital Banking HSBC’s US Commercial & Business Bank.  In this role, he leads its efforts to bring new digitally-driven business models and partnerships into the marketplace, while also closely coordinating with his global colleagues on designing and deploying innovative client-driven experiences and solutions in support of their worldwide operations. Prior to HSBC, EJ spent approximately 15 years at Bank of America where in his last role, he led its Consumer Bank’s digital portfolio (innovation, platforms, partnerships, and digital design).  An avid lover of the outdoors, he resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and four children.

 

 

 

Ashley Eknaian, Eastern Bank, Chief Digital Strategy

Ashley is a Senior Vice President at Eastern Bank where she serves as the Chief Digital Strategist / Head of Eastern Labs. Ashley also serves as the program development chair for Brandeis University’s Masters in Digital Innovation for FinTech Program. She holds a BS in Business Administration from Boston University and an MBA from Northeastern University.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sean Belka, Head of Fidelity Labs

Sean M. Belka is Head of Fidelity Labs. Mr. Belka joined Fidelity in 1993 and has held numerous leadership positions in the business. In 2017, Mr. Belka was recognized by Institutional Investor as part of the 2017 Tech 40. He is also a co-founder and co-curator of TEDxBoston. He serves on the MassChallenge Board of Advisors, on the National Science and Technology Advisory Committee at Citizen Schools, the Innovation Advisory Board at the Perkins School for the Blind, the Board of Advisors for the FinTech Sandbox, the Board of Advisors for the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange and the Board of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council.

 

 

Durga Nagalla, Head of Digital & Mobile, Mass Mutual Financial Group

A serial entrepreneur focused on the Mobile/digital space for over 17+ years across various LOBs that includes healthcare, financial and entertainment. Durga’s experience spans to design, build and manage great products that benefit both the consumers and the enterprise. Lead the teams that establish the vision, strategy, and execution of MassMutual Digital footprint that includes Web, Mobile & IOT

Guest Bartender: Charles Svirk, Investor, MassMutual Ventures

New for FinTech Connect is our Guest Bartender. Pitch your fintech idea or venture to our guest venture capitalist Charles Svirk of MassMutual Ventures while you grab a drink. Practice your elevator pitch and be ready to sell it in short order. You don’t want to hold up our line!

Charles Svirk, Investor, MassMutual Ventures

Charles is Venture Investor at MassMutual Ventures looking for startups focused on fintech, insurance, cybersecurity, enterprise software, data analytics, and digital health.

MassMutual Ventures backs early-stage startups that are transforming the financial services markets through technology and business model innovation. It led or joined investment syndicates with companies that are positioned to create significant enterprise value through differentiated innovation and focused execution. MMV launched its first $100M fund in 2014 and second $100M fund in 2017. Our key areas of investment focus include fintech, insurance, cybersecurity, enterprise software, data analytics, digital health, and benefits.

MassMutual Ventures is the venture-arm of MassMutual, a Fortune 100 mutual company providing retirement, insurance, and asset management services since 1851. MassMutual has over $770B in assets under management, including those of key affiliates Barings and OppenheimerFunds.

How I Built It: Navigating the Hurdles of Building a FinTech Startup

A few of the area’s FinTech startups will share their latest success milestones as well as how they got started, failures along the way and strategies that helped navigate the hurdles of building a FinTech venture.

Vasilios Roussos, Executive Director, DCU FinTech Innovation Center

Vasilios focuses on the nexus point of innovation, partnerships, and entrepreneurship. Currently, he leads Workbar’s Innovation Centers’ practice and the DCU FinTech Innovation Center, which is the leading sponsor of FinTech startups in New England. Through the Center, Vasilios is advancing the Boston FinTech ecosystem and the development of seed-stage startups. Previously, Vasilios founded and sold an omnichannel B2B2C tech company and worked in venture capital, digital product development, and investment research at Village Ventures, Dell EMC, and Cambridge Associates. He graduated with Honors from Brandeis University and has an MBA from Cornell University.

 

 

 

Zac Sheffer, Founder & CEO, Elsen

Zac is the CEO and founder of Elsen, the Platform-as-a-Service company for large financial institutions, enabling any user to analyze massive amounts of data in minutes to transform traditional investment workflows, strategies and results. Zac is a member of the 2018 EY Accelerating Entrepreneurs class and 2017 MITX Future Leaders Group (FLG). He received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University and holds several patents for his work.

 

 

 

 

Clemens Grave, Founder & CEO, Finnest

Clemens received his education in Mechanical Engineering and Business from the University of Technology in Vienna, Austria. Following an initial career in the German automobile industry, Clemens completed a Master’s degree in Innovation Management at Brown University where he is entrepreneur-in-residence. Experience managing his own money from a young age inspired him to develop Finnest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meredith Moss, CEO, Finomial

Ms. Meredith Moss founded Finomial Corporation in 2010 and currently serves as its Chief Executive Officer. At Credit Suisse, Ms. Moss witnessed the challenges in capital activity processing faced by the alternatives industry and went on to found Finomial to solve this problem.

Venture Cafe demos are a great way to gain exposure through our online and offline channels. During our FinTech Connect event, Venture Café will give a selection of the area’s start-ups, inventors and researchers an opportunity to showcase their work to the Boston community.

Are you a subject matter expert in the FinTech space (entrepreneur, investor, service provider, etc)? Submit your idea for a session during our FinTech Community Flash Talk. These sessions will be community-generated, lightning sessions comprised of 30 minutes of content and 15 minutes of networking for each session.

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 2018 Flash Talks

Track 1 – 6:00 – 6:45 PM

30-minute talk + 15-minute networking session

Fraud and the Dark Web

Learn the basics of online fraud as it relates to e-commerce, telecom, and financial services organizations. Find out more about the Dark Web and how data is accessed and used for fraud.

Presenter: Dustin Clinard, Risk IDENT

 

 

 

 

Rethinking Ownership: Startup Innovations in Home Finance

From shared equity to homeshare agreements to true co-living, startups across the ecosystem are creating innovative new products to help solve homeownership for this new generation of homebuyers. Learn about the broader landscape of emerging products as well as detail on the consumer value proposition and economics of these companies’ offers.

Presenter: Hannah Arnold, F Prime Capital

 

 

Identity and Personal Data as an Asset Class

Personal identity involves more than money can buy, but it’s also part of an emerging digital asset class. The rise of “smart” phones, homes and cities accelerated by blockchain, smart contracts and mass-automation offer new modes for control, methods for valuation and mechanisms for exchange of key rights to this new asset type. What are the key issues, options, and opportunities for innovative FinTech products, services and markets arising from this new digital asset class?

Presenter: Dazza Greenwood, CIVICS

 

 

 

 

Using AI & Fintech to Accelerate Actionable Items for Investment Team

In this discussion, we will cover how AI and other FinTech can be introduced to reduce Every investment team has weekly meetings to discuss their evolving views on markets, geopolitical risks and to assess how their portfolios are aligned to these views. In this type of free-form discussion, how can AI and other FinTech be introduced to reduce groupthink and create more actionable results for the investment team?

Presenter: Sean Kruzel, Founder, Astrocyte Research

 

 

 

 

Using Blockchain Achieve Financial Inclusion

A large percentage of America’s population lack access to basic banking services like short-term loans, which is one of the biggest barriers to inclusion in the economy. Blockchain technology can revolutionize how we structure the lending and borrowing process, and the representation of financial credibility. Making capital more accessible for low wage workers seeking to build credit or pay for emergencies, and less costly for Banks looking to serve this market with lower risk. In this talk, Tuyo will discuss how blockchain and smart contracts can be used to capture and execute agreements between low wage employees, their employers, and banks who otherwise wouldn’t be able to serve them. Presenter: Meje M. Tuyo, Owo Economy

 

 

 

Socially Conscious Investing

Through technology, investing is quickly being democratized, and a key driver is the rise of ESGs (Environmental, Social, Global criteria). In the past, ESG constraints have been a bit of an outlier, even the ugly duckling of account customization. That’s changing — which is good for the common investor. Advancements in technology have enabled the socially conscious investor to evaluate investments in a way that was once the exclusive preserve of ultra high net worth investors. Presenter: Gerard Michael, Smartleaf

 

 

 

Using the New Fintech Toolset to Impact Charitable Giving

Join Givinga’s founder, Joe Phoenix and hear how they are using new models and tools to help companies become more efficient and engaging with their charitable giving. Presenter: Joe Phoenix, Co-Frounder & CEO, Givinga

 

 

 

 

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Track 2 – 6:45 – 7:30 PM

30-minute talk + 15-minute networking session

 

 

The Future Trading System of Cryptocurrency Will be Different

What will the future trading system of Cryptocurrency (CC) look like? Come speak with the founder of a decentralized CC bot trading platform built on the blockchain. Jeongsoo Hahm (John) believes offering a CC trading bot exchange platform/ecosystem, will promote interoperability and allow all entities to freely take part in the exchange of bots and tools. This open market will pave the road for the future trading systems in CC. Presenter: Jeongsoo Hahm, CEO, BlockzKorea

 

 

 

RegTech: Spot-solution or Strategic Advantage

Regulatory management is about a fifth of a banks operational spend. Should this then not be more than just an operational solution? A thought leadership session that considers industry’s focus on ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) management and makes a case that RegTech & ESG should be unified and embedded within corporate strategy? Presenter: Jagathi Gururajan,Technology Executive, High Growth Global Companies

 

 

 

The nuts and bolts of smart contract programming

You will leave this presentation with a fundamental understanding of smart-contract programming, how smart-contracts work and how they sometimes don’t work. Basic programming knowledge is recommended to get the most out of this session.

Presenter: Jonathan Lansey, Astro Ledger

 

 

 

 

FinTech 101:The Eight Facets

In this talk, we will discuss the key innovations and discuss the landscape of eight areas that constitute Fintech. We will discuss key tools, technologies, opportunities, challenges and the movers and shakers in these areas. This talk is targeted towards fintech enthusiasts and financial industry professionals who are intrigued and fascinated by various developments and would like to learn and adapt to the new realities of the 21st century. Presenter: Sri Krishnamurthy, Chief Data Scientist & President, QuantUniversity.com

FinTech Pitch Event

A selection of Fintech VCs and angels will hear pitches from entrepreneurs who are innovating banking and financial services.

Jean Donnelly, FinTech Sandbox, Moderator

As FinTech Sandbox Executive Director, Jean has helped launch the program in Boston, NYC, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, and London.  She has over twenty years experience in leading technology, operations and processes excellence in both financial services and cleanTech. She received her undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and her MBA at the University of Edinburgh.

JUDGES

 

 

 

 

Jack Klinck, Managing Partner, Hyperplane Venture Capital

Jack is The Managing Partner at Hyperplane. Former Vice Chairman of BNY Mellon and Executive VP at State Street

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prasant Chunduru, Fintech Partnerships, HSBC

Prasant Chunduru leads Fintech partnerships for Americas within the Corporate & Institutional Digital programme in HSBC. Previously, Prasant was an Investment Manager in the HSBC Strategic Innovation Investments team and has co-led HSBC’s equity investments into R3 Distributed Ledger Group, Tradeshift, and Kyriba. Prior to that, he was an associate in the Strategy and Planning team for HSBC Global Banking and Markets, with a focus on Global Markets and Corporate Transaction Banking.  Prasant joined HSBC in 2010.

 

 

 

Josh Cohen, Principal, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures

Josh Is An Early stage Investor at Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marybeth Egan, Investment Associate, MassMutual Ventures

As an Associate at MassMutual Ventures, Marybeth Egan assists the team in sourcing potential investment opportunities and managing the existing investment portfolio. Prior to joining MassMutual Ventures, Ms. Egan served as an Associate at KKR & Co., advising on investments in hedge funds and co-investments in illiquid opportunities. Before KKR, Ms. Egan was a senior investment analyst at Prudential Capital Group, the private debt arm of PGIM.

Ms. Egan graduated with highest honors from Lehigh University with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and is a CFA charterholder.