Judges

Alex Wu leads US and European policy efforts at the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), a non-profit organization focused on creating equitable access to the global financial system through blockchain technology. The Stellar network is a public blockchain built for financial products and services. He focuses on bridging the knowledge gap between the public and private sectors and advocating for the use of emergent technology.

Prior to joining SDF, Alex worked for the Federal Reserve of Boston where he worked on Project Hamilton, a digital dollar and payments initiative. He began his career in financial services at Societe Generale, focusing on  various structured financial products. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Economics from New York University and a Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago.

Ankita is a principal product manager at Wise, leading payments infrastructure for Wise in North America. She is responsible for building product strategy to grow the Wise account and scaling payment rails in North America. Ankita is passionate about driving Wise’s mission by helping customers manage their financial lives across borders and solving complex problems at scale.

Ashley Ebersole has advised fintech and financial sector entities for nearly 20 years. Most recently serving as general counsel of 0x, Ashley previously served five years as senior counsel at the SEC, both in the Division of Enforcement and Office of General Counsel, and was a partner and associate at global law firms. He is an LP and advisor to The Venture Dept., and serves as vice chair of the DC Bar Committee on Fintech Regulation.

Ashlyn’s expertise lies in building partnerships between fintech startups and Fortune 100 companies, helping to drive innovation and growth for both parties. Her ability to identify opportunities for collaboration and drive meaningful relationships has made her a valuable asset to her organisations.

She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in anthropology and entrepreneurship. Since then, she has spent five years working in large financial services institutions across life insurance and banking.

Outside of her corporate work, Ashlyn is deeply involved in the fintech community. She serves as a mentor for both Queen City Fintech and Holt Xchange, helping to guide and support early-stage startups. Additionally, she is the community manager for Women in Banking, Finance and Fintech, where she helps to foster connections and promote diversity and inclusion in the industry.

Diljot Mutti is a visionary technologist and entrepreneur with deep expertise in financial services, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cloud computing. As the chief technology officer and co-founder of ForwardAI, he drives the development of cutting-edge technology solutions for SMBs, accountants, and fintechs. With a robust background in enterprise software development, SAAS, and startups, Diljot has successfully built and scaled teams across USA, Canada and India.

Passionate about leveraging data and AI to transform financial services, Diljot focuses on streamlining complex workflows and enhancing customer experiences. His mission is to simplify life for SMBs through innovative, user-centric technology. His dedication to building transformative tech products is evident in his contributions to fintech, edtech, and enterprise solutions, where his expertise continues to shape the future of these industries.

Dmitrii Egorenkov is a fintech executive with over 15 years of global experience in consumer finance and digital banking. He is the co-founder and chief marketing officer at B9, a U.S. fintech startup delivering on-demand pay and everyday banking services for working Americans. Dmitrii leads growth and customer acquisition, with a proven track record of launching and scaling financial products across the U.S., LATAM, Europe, and Asia — always with a strong focus on multicultural markets.

Filippa is the vice president of growth at Solvd, where she leads the global marketing function, encompassing growth, brand, communications, and sales enablement. With over 15 years of experience in B2B marketing, she has successfully driven growth for both early-stage startups and large multinational corporations.

Before joining Solvd, Filippa led marketing strategy and field marketing at SoftServe for the BFSI & Retail/CPG sectors. There, she played a key role in the development and go-to-market strategy of their Digital Concierge, an AI-powered financial literacy solution built on Nvidia’s tech stack. Prior to that, Filippa led marketing for Virtusa’s banking and financial services and key accounts, driving growth for their $.5B business portfolio. Filippa also serves on the board of NYC Fintech Women, an organization founded to connect, promote and empower women to advance their careers in fintech.

Howard Greenberg serves as the president and co-founder of the American Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Association (ABCA), a membership-driven 501(c)(6) nonprofit in Washington DC which aims to advance a vision for how distributed technologies and cross-border innovations – such as cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies – can lead to sound markets and the more efficient delivery of services. The ABCA focuses primarily on education, networking, and encouraging community development amongst public- and private-sector entities who are exploring various potential applications for distributed ledger tech, digital currencies, decentralized finance (defi), smart contracts, and other emerging use cases. Mr. Greenberg is certified in Blockchain Systems Architecture and is a member of The Advanced Technology Academic Research Center’s (ATARC) Security Blockchain Working Group, a working group of subject matter experts and practitioners who are currently looking at a blockchain solutions to address voting in the United States.

In addition to this executive role leading the ABCA, Mr. Greenberg also serves as director of digital assets & education for Quasar Markets Inc., a fintech and AI platform revolutionizing the way you encounter blockchain, finance and knowledge.  He leads the companies blockchain and digital asset initiatives along with overseeing the financial service educational component on the platform. He had previously been the senior cryptocurrency educator for Prosper Trading Academy, a leading educational service for retail traders.  Mr. Greenberg has been involved in cryptocurrency investing since 2013 and is a regularly featured cryptocurrency expert for Schwab Network along with Coindesk TV’s all about bitcoin.  He is a sought-after speaker on a wide variety of topics, from data center workshops and crypto mining to applications for smart cities and uses of blockchain to encourage the forthcoming “Internet of Things” (IoT). Mr. Greenberg has attended bootcamps sponsored by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and has provided feedback and written opinions to draft papers and guidance from the SEC, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). 

Kristen Castell, managing director, Center for Accelerating Financial Equity (CAFE), is a fintech and startup accelerator leader and former financial services executive with 20 years of industry experience building investment products, platforms, programs and companies. She currently leads CAFE, a nonprofit organization that supports mission-driven fintech startup companies and connects them with VCs, banks, and other industry experts to accelerate their growth of innovative technology products to improve financial wellness for low- to moderate-income (LMI) people.

Prior experience includes JPMorgan, BlackRock and chief operating officer of Seeds Investor (fintech). Speaker and thought leader, Kristen was named NYC Inspiring Fintech Female 2023, RealList Connector 2024, and main stage speaker at Finovate NYC and Boston Fintech Week.

McKayla Wooldridge is a research analyst on the 451 Research Fintech team within S&P Global Market Intelligence. Her coverage focuses on trends and technologies impacting the fintech ecosystem and implications for stakeholders and the customer experience. Her research spans the buy now, pay later market, B2B payments, banking as a service, and bank and fintech partnership dynamics. Before joining the 451 Research technology research group as an analyst, McKayla worked as a business intelligence advisor at S&P Global Market Intelligence, where she helped community banks and credit unions leverage the SNL Banker data warehouse for a variety of business applications. McKayla holds a Bachelor of Science degree in economics and applied geographic information systems from James Madison University.

Nick Chandi is a co-chair of the BC Tech CEO Scale C-Council, a non-profit that helps tech companies to grow in British Columbia, and a regular contributor to the Forbes Finance Council. Chandi is also the chief executive officer and co-founder of ForwardAI, as well as a serial entrepreneur. Prior to ForwardAI, he built and exited multiple successful businesses during his two decades in accounting technology and finance.

Patricia (Pat) is the vice president – payment processing for YoungWilliams, a company dedicated to providing government agencies with the tools and technologies needed to modernise their services.   

Pat’s career spans multiple disciplines and includes experience in government health and human services delivery, banking, technology, business operations, marketing, and sales. Previous positions and duties include senior vice president, where she led an initiative to create industry-specific payment solutions with a focus on the public sector. She also served as managing director at one of the nation’s largest financial institutions. There, she was responsible for public sector business development, financial services solution development across multiple industries and international cash management solutions. 

She is a long-time member of the board of directors of the Electronic Funds Transfer Association (EFTA) and served as chair from 2015 – 2020.  She is an active podcaster and conference presenter. Additionally, Pat participated in an executive education symposium: Women and Power: Leadership in a New World facilitated by the Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government. The program focused on effective leadership strategies that include, but are not limited to, the skills necessary to analyse political and strategic management issues, understand women in the workplace, negotiation, coalition-building, communication capabilities, and how to build a diverse network of women leaders. This group convenes annually to continue the educational process augmented by shared experiences of the symposium participants. 

Pooja Shah is an experienced venture investor, innovation strategist, and product builder with a multidisciplinary background in engineering, design, finance, and corporate strategy. She currently advises startups and corporates on innovation, growth, go-to-market, and fundraising strategies.

Previously, Pooja invested at Avanta Ventures and QBE Ventures, sourcing and leading deals in AI, insurtech, climate tech, fintech, and SaaS, while developing theses and driving startup integration with enterprise partners. She also helped launch the OnRamp Insurance Accelerator, enabling early-stage companies to secure funding and navigate complex, regulated industries.

Earlier in her career, she also worked in healthcare investment banking at Barclays and led innovation and strategy initiatives at SageSure and QBE Insurance.

Pooja holds a Master’s in Engineering Management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.

Rocio Wu is a principal at F-Prime Capital leading investments in fintech, AI and enterprise software. Previously, she was an investor at Liquid 2 Ventures (founded by NFL hall of fame quarterback Joe Montana) where she invested in companies like Chipper Cash (an African cross-border payments company) and Overjet (artificial intelligence for dentistry). She was also a Sequoia Scout and angel invested in Inworld.ai, Mercury, and others still in stealth.

Before her investing career, she worked at Google and Amazon in a variety of operating roles such as CorpDev, GTM Strategy, Marketing across the U.S., Japan, Spain and China.

Sokhiba Mukhitdinova is investment principal at InsurTech NY, a venture capital fund in New York, US.

Since joining in 2022, Sokhiba’s mission is to invest in early-stage startups, backing diverse founders driving innovation in the insurance space operating in the US, UK and Europe.

Founded in 2019, InsurTech NY supports the insurance innovation community in New York and beyond through bringing together carriers, brokers, investors, and InsurTech startups.

InsurTech NY’s mission is to help support the insurance industry, take advantage of the latest digital technology to improve efficiencies and increase revenue, and be ready for the inevitable digitally transformed insurance industry.

In addition to her VC investment career, Sokhiba is certified angel investor mainly investing in early-stage fintech and climate-tech startups, she is a member of UK Business Angel Association and several angel syndicates in UK, Spain and Portugal.

Sokhiba also has strong expertise in investment banking and risk management, having worked in leading financial institutions and the City of London for over 15 years.

Xiang Li (Stella) is a lead product manager at BILL, where she spearheads the mobile platform team. Residing in Southern California, beyond her professional role, she actively contributes to the tech community as a mentor for Women in Product in San Diego and serves as a venture capital scout manager at Uphonest Capital. Stella is also the recipient of the 2024 Inspiring Fintech Female award. She is deeply passionate about startups, the democratization of technology, and innovations in technology for the elderly. Her diverse expertise and commitment to advancing technology accessibility make her a valued leader and influencer in the tech industry.

Will Bryant is the co-founder and head of business development for Quantalytix. Prior to founding the company, Will worked at Regions Bank (NYSE: RF) in Corporate Treasury where he helped run a portfolio of small business private equity investments. Additional career experience includes investment banking, asset management, and wealth management. In Will’s spare time he likes to exercise, mountain climb, and help non-profits develop their organizations.