Speakers

Keynote Speaker

Lin William Cong is the Rudd Family Professor of Management and an Associate Professor of Finance at Cornell University SC Johnson College of Business. He is also the founding faculty director for the FinTech Initiative at Cornell, a faculty scientist at the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was formerly a finance faculty member at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, a Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellow, a Poets & Quants World Best Business School Professor, and a George Shultz Scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He co-founded international research forums such as CBER-Forum.org and ABFR-Forum.org, and serves on multiple conference committees and editorial boards, including being a Finance Editor for the Management Science. He has advised and consulted for leading FinTech and investment firms including a16z, Ava Labs, Blackrock, Chainlink, Dfinity, and Modular Asset Management, in addition to being invited to provide consultation, testimony, and training to government agencies such as the Asset Management Association of China, Bank of Canada, U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Monetary Authority of Singapore, New York State Department of Financial Services, the New York State Office of Attorney General, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Cong’s research is interdisciplinary and spans financial economics, information economics, applied economic theory, FinTech, digital economics, entrepreneurship, and China, with a recent focus on the intersection of data science, finance, and technology. He and coauthors have pioneered adapting AI to finance, laid the foundations of tokenomics, analyzed competition and incentive provision in blockchains and DeFi, explored information design in finance, and initiated financial applications of secure multi-party computation, among others. His research also provided early warnings for the environmental damages of cryptocurrency mining pools, and potential collusion, market manipulation, and power concentration, some of which have served as the scientific basis of ongoing FinTech litigations and legislations. His work has been featured in top academic journals and media such as Bloomberg, CNN, Financial Times, and Washington Post, and is recognized with over 40 conference best paper prizes and competitive grants. He is also a frequent speaker for conference keynotes, public lectures, and industry events, and has presented and taught at hundreds of world-renowned universities, venture funds, tech firms, quant shops, and regulatory agencies.

Dinner Panel Speakers

Chris is the Senior Vice President, Chief Data Scientist, and Equifax Fellow leading the global analytics R&D team that is chartered to pioneer disruptive solutions utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence. Chris and his team are engaging key customers, industry leaders, and academic partners to deliver new insights using big data and advanced mathematical modeling on high performance cloud computing platforms.

Chris has over thirty years of global R&D experience and has successfully built and led R&D teams in USA, France, Scotland, Israel, and India. Chris has earned a Master of Science, Computer and Information Science, University of Florida, and a Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering, with Distinction, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Luke is the Co-Founder/General Partner of Fintech Ventures Fund (“FVF”), a $20M early-stage venture fintech-focused venture capital firm. FVF was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Atlanta, GA. Prior to helping start FVF, Luke was part of the investment team with Antarctica Capital, an international private equity firm with over $2 billion AUM and an investment mandate in financial services/insurance and real asset opportunities. He began his career in investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and received his BA from Columbia University.

James Stevens provides corporate and regulatory advice on behalf of Troutman Pepper. He has substantial experience in the representation of public and private companies, including banks, neobanks, marketplace lenders, payments companies, crypto and DeFi companies, and other fintech and financial services providers in connection with formation, licensing, sponsorship and program agreements, mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financing transactions, joint ventures, and regulatory reporting and compliance. James often serves as the principal outside counsel for his clients. He has written numerous articles, speeches, and media commentaries on financial services, including banking and FinTech. He has served on many boards and committees of financial companies and banking associations. His achievement has been recognized by various honors, including the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 2021 Leaders in Corporate Citizenship and Best Lawyers in America.

Laura Gibson-Lamothe serves as Executive Director of the Georgia Fintech Academy – a diverse talent development initiative within the University System of Georgia (USG). In this role, her mission is to help cultivate and develop future Fintech talent. She is responsible for the strategic growth of the program across the 26 universities within the system. Georgia Fintech Academy offers a Fintech curriculum aligned with the industry, experiential learning opportunities (projects), and hosts events/career fairs throughout the year.

Over 18 years, Laura has held various roles with enterprise leadership responsibility in the financial services, banking, and fintech sectors. She joined the Fintech Academy from Protiviti, a global consulting firm focused on the finance industry, where she was associate director of the firm’s technology consulting practice. Previously, Laura was director of U.S. operations, driving commercial and delivery initiatives for Featurespace, a U.K.-based firm specializing in fraud and financial crime detection and management. Earlier in her career, Laura held technology and operations roles at Ally Bank, where she spent 10 years implementing new products and services, including a co-brand credit card product. She previously worked for Wells Fargo and Bank of America, leading enterprise release events and managing various M&A-related transition initiatives.

In addition to her technology and operational expertise in banking and financial technology, Laura has deep experience in diversity, equity, and inclusion leadership initiatives. She serves on the board of directors of PayTech Women (formerly Wnet) and was a member of the 2021 cohort of Money 20/20’s RiseUp, a program focused on empowering inclusivity in leadership. Her focus has been and continues to be laser-focused on providing mentorship, sharing resources, and playing the role of connector across the industry.