Sereen Ahmed is an accomplished professional with a wealth of experience in the finance industry. As the Americas Head of Trade and Working Capital , Sereen has demonstrated exceptional expertise and leadership. Sereen’s educational journey began at Amman Alahliye University, where she completed her studies in banking and finance. Eager to expand her knowledge and skills, she pursued an MBA in internal Finance from Ashland University solidifying her foundation in the field. With a career spanning over two decades, Sereen has made significant contribution to renowned financial institutions. She started her journey at HSBC in 2002, where she gained a valuable experience and developed a strong understanding of the banking industry. In 2012, Sereen took on a new challenge by joining Barclays Dubai to oversee the Middle East business, and moved to New York in 2023 to take a new role as Americas Head of Trade and Working Capital.

Over 30 years of trade experience across business management, product development, client sales & operations & risk control in banking. Experience includes In-depth banking industry and working knowledge, including product development, relationship management, business understanding, strong product knowledge, and impact of key market trends on business strategy. Current responsibilities Heading team of Product and Technology team building a software solution (SaaS) automating trade finance processing.

With over 20 years of experience leading transformative global initiatives for Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, Cisco Capital, and TIAA, Nancy Amert is a distinguished expert in organizational change management and sustainable business practices. As the Founder and Principal Change Consultant at Think Green Advisors, she helps organizations navigate complex changes while aligning their strategies with sustainability, corporate responsibility, and operational efficiency.

With over 20 years of banking experience Jean-Paul leads a transactional services product team across Latin America responsible for the structuring and provision of working capital, trade & supply chain finance solutions to financial institutions, corporations and public sector entities. Jean-Paul manages a material asset portfolio through E2E product investment, development and market commercialization of trade/SCF products, including loans, payables finance, receivables finance, core trade, and export agency finance in Latin America.

Venkat B.V. is Head of StoneX Technology Services, a dedicated technology unit within the StoneX group that serves both external and internal customers. Venkat previously co-founded Akshay Software Technologies Ltd,, whose US subsidiary provided SWIFT services to the Global Payments Business unit of StoneX before it was acquired by StoneX in September 2018.

Rebecca Fruchtman is counsel in Mayer Brown’s Chicago office and a member of the Firm’s Global Trade Finance practice group. Her practice focuses on the global trade finance space, including supply chain finance, Receivables financing, letters of credit, structured letters of credit and risk-distributed trade transactions, and asset-based financing transactions—both domestic and cross-border. With respect to supply chain finance matters at Mayer Brown, Rebecca has worked extensively with FI, hedge fund and private equity clients financing trade assets on various Fintech platforms, has spear-headed numerous global SCF roll-out initiatives on behalf of FI clients and structured, negotiated and executed a wide range of complex and bespoke revolving letters of credit facilities. Prior to joining Mayer Brown, Rebecca served as general counsel to Bank of America’s Business Capital line of business (US Central Region) on asset-based lending matters (2017 to 2019) and supported Bank of America’s Global Transaction Services Global Trade and Supply Chain Line of Business (2012 to 2017). Rebecca is active in BAFT, currently co-chairs the BAFT supply chain finance committee and is involved in various trade digitization initiatives in the industry.

Peter Hazou is Director of Business Development at Microsoft in the Financial Services Industry team and is responsible for client Corporate Banking and Trade Finance solutions and modernization worldwide. Prior to Microsoft, Peter was a Transaction Banking industry banker for 30+ years in the EMEA region. He was the Regional Head for GTB at HSBC for EMEA as well as the Regional Head for GTS at Citigroup for CEEMEA. He also headed Market Management for Treasury Services at BNY Mellon in London and was Head of Strategy for GTB at UniCredit in Milan. His background is in Product Management for Payments at Chase Manhattan Bank. He began his career in New York as a credit officer in correspondent banking at Manufacturers Hanover Trust.

Asad is a member of the Enterprise Payments team for TD Bank. He leads a team of talented and motivated payments and data enthusiasts transforming TD's payments vision into reality. Asad is a trusted, global leader with decades of experience in leading strategic and transformational initiatives in a diverse set of industries including banking, telecom, hospitality and auto finance. Asad has structured and executed critical and complex transformations in numerous contexts including post-catastrophe business continuity management, business mergers and divestitures and digital transformations in large organizations.

Jenny Lee is a Managing Director and Head of US Wire Product for Global Payments Solutions at Bank of America based in New York City. She is responsible for end-to-end management and development of USD wire payments capabilities, including execution of large-scale industry initiatives such as ISO 20022 migration. Her experience in the global treasury services space includes strategy, risk, business and product management for Cash Management, Liquidity, and Payment products at J.P. Morgan and currently at Bank of America. Jenny is enthusiastic about building a payments platform with the stability, capacity and resiliency required for the largest global payment clearers, driving fast-paced, cross-functional and cross-regional efforts within the strict risk and compliance framework. She also creates strategy and positioning points for key payments industry groups including the Federal Reserve Financial Services Wholesale Payments Advisory Group.

Matt O’Neill is the former Managing Director of U.S. Secret Service Global Cyber Investigative Operations, a position from which he directed and participated in the Service’s worldwide cyber investigations. In his role, Matt led high-stakes missions against mobile threats, employing many means – including individual combat and ingenious disguises – to bring notorious global hackers to justice in the United States. Matt is a 25-year veteran of the Service. His career includes service on the U.S. Vice President’s Detail from 2003-2007. His exceptional achievements have earned him prestigious accolades such as the U.S. Secret Service Special Agent of the Year and the Department of Homeland Security’s Gold and Silver Medals.

Rodman Reef is a consultant specializing in the global payment business. Recent assignments addressed: payments strategy including cross border and real-time payments, reducing card processing expenses, identifying chip (EMV) card benefits, reviewing retail POS systems, and implementing prepaid card programs. Rod is the former Chairman and CEO of Citishare Corporation. During his long tenure, Citishare expanded to 50+ countries, volume increased from $125 million/year to $36 billion/year, unit costs were substantially reduced, and many innovative products were introduced including mobile phone money transfers and cross border real-time payments. Prior to his role at Citishare, Rod held several positions at Citigroup including managing one of its Fedwire operations. Rod served on the Fed’s Faster Payments Task Force and several other industry groups. Rod is or has been a board member or advisor to NYCE, The Clearing House, Visa, the EFTA, Mastercard, the Faster Payments Council and several young payment companies.

Gayle Roenbaugh is the Export Finance Director for the West Region with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). Working closely with the network of SBA field offices and SBA’s Office of International Trade (OIT), she provides international trade and export finance expertise to small business exporters and lending communities to deliver them effective export results. Gayle works with SBA-staffed U.S. Export Assistance Centers (USEAC) to educate small business exporters, their lenders and trade related organizations on trade finance products through market knowledge, financing options and trade connections. She also provides insights into SBA’s trade policy and market developments in collaboration with key stakeholders. Prior to joining SBA, Gayle was Senior Regional Manager for Export Development Canada (EDC) where she provided market knowledge, trade connections and financing origination to support the development of Canada’s direct or indirect export trade. She was also Senior Trade Sales Manager at HSBC Bank’s Global Trade & Receivables Finance group and led the sales, execution and management of the bank’s SBA and Export Import Bank of the U.S. Of The United States (EXIM) lending programs as well as Supply Chain, Receivables Finance and traditional trade solutions and has held similar roles at RBS Group, PNC and JPMorgan Chase.

Emy Ruiz currently oversees the bank’s Global Trade and Supply Chain Finance team responsible for managing liquidity solutions for the banks clients. Ms. Ruiz has over 30 years of banking experience with 20 years in Global Trade Finance management responsible for Open account solutions, trade finance, traditional trade, portfolio management, risk mitigation and product development. She has held various leadership positions in Credit, commercial, corporate and international sales with various financial institutions with vast domestic and international capabilities, including Southeast Bank, First Union and Regions Bank. She is very active in various international Chambers and United Way.

Amy Sahm joined Fulton Financial’s International Group in 2002 following a long-term career in the Japanese banking and trade industry. She works as department manager, overseeing product development, operations, sales and risk management. The International Group at Fulton is responsible for foreign exchange risk management and all international transactional products and services including Trade Finance for Fulton’s customer base. The International Group primarily serves import / export SME clients within Fulton’s five state footprint. She serves as a Board Member and Treasurer of both the World Trade Center of Harrisburg and the Mid-Atlantic District Export Council supporting the US Commercial Service Export Assistance Center. Amy is a member of the International Business Advisory Board of Elizabethtown College where she mentors students and presents guest lectures on international finance. Amy also holds a Board seat at BAFT as well as a Co-Chair position on the North American Council. In addition to BAFT, Amy is active throughout the North American regional bank network in several international banking industry groups.

Christian Stolcke is a Capital Markets and Transaction Banking veteran who has spent his career growing financial service businesses and executing global, large scale performance improvement programs across Shared Services, Operations and Technology. At Bank of America, Christian is Managing Director and head of Global Financial Institutions, Non-Bank Financial Institutions and Governments within Global Payments Solutions (GPS). In this role, Christian leads a worldwide team of sales and product professionals responsible for maintaining and strengthening relationships with clients across several industries, including banks, governments, investment managers, securities firms, insurance, paytech, private capital and specialty finance firms.

Patricia Sullivan is a Managing Director and Global Head of Institutional Cash Management (ICM) at Deutsche Bank since January 2024. In this role Ms. Sullivan oversees the unit and teams within the Corporate Bank delivering a wide range of payment, transactional FX and liquidity solutions to financial institutions (banks & central banks) and Deutsche Bank affiliates. Priorto leading the ICM business, since June 2021, Ms. Sullivan reported directly to the Deutsche Bank CB/IB CEO overseeing a global team to embed effective and sustainable financial crime controls and a strong risk management culture in the businesses and worked closely with ICM. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, Ms. Sullivan spent 6 years at Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) delivering the remediation and transformation of the US and Global Financial Crime Compliance program. At SCB Ms. Sullivan led financial inclusion initiatives and worked with regulators and policy makers to develop strong and consistent due diligence and control standards within correspondent banking. Ms. Sullivan has more than 20 years of experience in covering ICM, Criminal Prosecution, Litigation, Financial Crime Compliance and Core Compliance. Based in New York, she is a member of the Corporate Bank Executive Committee, Deutsche Bank USA Board sub-committee on Anti-Financial Crime, and the Supervisory Board Financial Crime Risk (FCR)Working Group. Ms. Sullivan also is on the Executive Board of Lawyers Without Borders and Chairs the Americas Chapter of the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime.

Barry is the Principal at TransactionBanker.com, a payments consultancy, and is a recognized expert in wholesale banking and the payments industry. He has been involved in payment operations, systems transformations, and modernization related projects for global banks and hardware and software firms for decades. Barry has managed day to day operations, as well as planned, organized, directed, and managed, major banking initiatives for banks around the world. Barry is a current member of the Bankers Association for Finance and Trade (BAFT) Payments Committee and Co- Chairs their Payments Roadmap Workgroup. He is a past member of their Board of Directors. He was recognized in 2021 and 2022 as one of two BAFT Ambassadors of the Year. Barry is a former member of the US Faster Payments Council where he served as the Chair of their Cross Border Payments Workgroup and as member of their Operational Considerations Workgroup.

Rina Wulfing leads Policy & Campaigns in North America for Wise. Based in New York City, she advocates for policies that further the mission of money without borders: instant, convenient, transparent and low cost. Prior to Wise, she worked on financial services policy for two Members of Congress, most recently for Congressman Denny Heck of Washington state as his Chief of Staff.

Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer has been instrumental in shaping the future of finance and money during her impressive career over more than 22 years. She operates at the nexus of technology, cyber security, identity, finance and regulation and advises and speaks to international audiences on the evolution of the digital economy. As a sought-after keynote speaker, author and recognized global authority on banking, technology, ccyber and regulation she is a very influential female leader in the Fintech space, promoting the understanding, development and deployment of new business models and technologies for our digital future across payments, financial markets and processes.