AI and Future of Finance Conference

Steven W. McLaughlin is the provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

McLaughlin first joined Georgia Tech as a member of the faculty in 1996. From 2017-2020, he served as the dean and Southern Company Chair of Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering, the largest engineering college in the country. Prior roles include the Steve Chaddick School Chair in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 2012-2017, and the vice provost for International Initiatives and Steven A. Denning Chair in Global Engagement from 2007-2012.

In 2014 he co-founded CREATE-X, a campus-wide effort to instill entrepreneurial confidence in students and help them launch companies. The program has successfully launched 225 student-led companies and engaged more than 4,000 students in the principles and practice of evidence-based entrepreneurship.

In 2011 he was awarded the honor Chevalier dans l`Ordre Nationale de Merite, (Knight of the French National Order of Merit), the second highest civilian award given by Republic of France. He was the first Georgia Tech recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) where he was cited by President Clinton "for leadership in the development of high-capacity, nonbinary optical recording formats." He is a past president of the IEEE Information Theory Society and is a Fellow of the IEEE.

His research interests are in the general area of communications and information theory. His research group has published in the areas of forward error correction and equalization in wireless communications, magnetic/optical data storage, data security, and privacy. He has advised more than 50 students and postdocs. His group has published more than 250 papers in journals and conferences and holds 36 U.S. patents.

He received the B.S.E.E. degree from Northwestern University, the M.S.E. degree from Princeton University, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan.

Anuj Mehrotra is the dean and Stephen P. Zelnak Jr. Chair and a professor of Operations Management at the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business.  

Since his appointment on January 1, 2024, the College has introduced several new innovations, including M.S. Major in Management, the Center for Finance and Technology, and interdisciplinary minors. Additionally, Mehrotra launched Tech Talks Business, an ongoing series of conversations with leaders and experts at the forefront of business, technology, entrepreneurship, public policy, and civic innovation. Using the power of collaboration and engagement, Mehrotra aims for Scheller to become the world’s most connected business school, poised to transform the future of business.  

Prior to his time at the Scheller College of Business, Mehrotra served as the dean of the George Washington University School of Business (GWSB) since 2018. At GWSB, Mehrotra successfully led the development and implementation of a strategic plan that enhanced stakeholder engagement, created and enhanced market-driven programs and offerings, and increased the focus on the core values of diversity and societal good. He is credited with engaging alumni, industry, and government leaders through creative programming and partnerships. In Spring 2023, Mehrotra led the launch of the inaugural Business and Policy Forum that convened leaders from industry, government, and academia to address the most significant issues related to the evolving landscape of emerging technology and cybersecurity, with a focus on policy and regulation. He established the GWSB Entrepreneurial Hall of Fame to recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to entrepreneurial excellence.  

During his tenure, GWSB reimagined undergraduate and graduate business education by introducing modularity and flexibility across its academic portfolio. The school was recognized for its excellence and trajectory as its full-time MBA and undergraduate programs rose to their highest rankings. Mehrotra also appointed the school's first chief diversity officer and led the Dean's Diversity Council in widening partnerships and deepening engagement with various stakeholders to cultivate and support a sense of belonging within the community.  

Prior to GWSB, Mehrotra was senior vice dean and vice dean of Faculty Development and Research at the University of Miami School of Business Administration. He was also the school's interim dean, vice dean of Graduate Business Programs and Executive Education, vice dean for Faculty Affairs, and chairperson of the Department of Management Science. 

Mehrotra is currently a member of the Atlanta Rotary Club. Previously, he has served on the academic boards of the University of Houston Bauer College of Business and the University of Miami Herbert Business School. He was also a part of the Globant’s Be Kind Tech Fund Board, Greater Washington Board of Trade, Golden Triangle Business Improvement District Board of Directors, and The Economic Club of Washington D.C. Mehrotra served as chairman of the Business and Entrepreneurship Board of the Indian American International Chamber of Commerce. In 2022, Mehrotra addressed the United Nations about the importance of recruiting and educating a diverse, inclusive, and ethical student body in our nation’s business schools.  

Mehrotra’s research interests are in large-scale optimization and interdisciplinary applications. His work has been published in top-tier academic journals, including Management Science, Mathematical Programming, Naval Research Logistics, and the Informs Journal on Computing. Mehrotra has worked with more than two dozen Fortune 500 companies, and his previous experience includes visiting positions at the Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business and the T. J. Watson Research Center. In 2022, his expertise in his field was honored with a chaired professorship in his name at Woxsen University in Hyderabad, India.  

Mehrotra received his doctoral degree in Operations Research from the Georgia Institute of Technology, his master’s degree in Operations Research from Virginia Tech, and his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in India. 

William H. “Bill” Rogers Jr. is chairman and chief executive officer of Truist Financial Corporation, a purpose-driven financial services organization committed to inspiring and building better lives and communities.

Rogers was named chairman on March 12, 2022, and chief executive officer on Sept. 12, 2021, after serving as president and chief operating officer of Truist between December 2019 and September 2021. Prior to that, he served as chairman and CEO of a predecessor company since January 2012, after having been appointed CEO in June 2011. Rogers held increasingly senior positions in corporate and commercial banking, corporate finance, retail banking, private wealth management, and mortgage after joining the commercial banking division in 1980.

Rogers is a champion for the company’s philanthropy and volunteerism. He serves on the boards of several local and national organizations, including as chairman for the Board of Governors for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and on Emory University's Board of Trustees. Rogers is chairman of Charlotte Center City Partners' Board of Directors. He also serves on the advisory board of Operation HOPE Inc. and is a member of the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council.

A native of North Carolina, Rogers earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from Georgia State University.

Andrew Schlossberg is President and CEO of Invesco, a leading global asset management firm, where he is focused on delivering superior outcomes for clients, a compelling experience for employees and strong returns for shareholders. He is also a member of the Invesco Ltd. Board of Directors.

Mr. Schlossberg has been in the asset management industry since 1996 and has been with Invesco Ltd. since 2001. Prior to becoming President and CEO in 2023, Mr. Schlossberg served in multiple senior leadership positions across the company's businesses and locations in the US and Europe, including leading Invesco’s Americas and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) regions and as a senior managing director. Earlier in his career, Mr. Schlossberg worked for Citigroup Asset Management and its predecessors from 1996 to 2000.

Mr. Schlossberg earned a BS degree in finance and international business from the University of Delaware and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is active within the financial services industry, currently serving on the Board of Governors and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Investment Company Institute. He is also involved in a number of civic activities in Atlanta, including the Atlanta Committee for Progress and the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Congress, where he serves on the executive committee. He is also a member of the Business Roundtable. Previously, Mr. Schlossberg served on the board and advisory boards of the U.K. Investment Association, ICI Global, City UK and the Diversity Project.

Sudheer Chava is the Alton M. Costley Chair and Professor of Finance at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. He serves as the director of the Masters in Quantitative and Computational Finance (MS-QCF) program, Financial Services Innovation Lab and the Center for Finance and Technology at Georgia Tech.

Sudheer received his Ph.D. from Cornell University and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore. His expertise is in Banking, FinTech and, Applications of AI in Finance. More than 50 undergrad, MS and Ph.D. students in Finance and Machine Learning conduct research in his Financial Services Innovation Lab. Dr. Chava has consulted for many major financial institutions. He teaches executive education programs on FinTech and is an advisor to FinTech startups.

Shannon Johnston is Senior Managing Director and Chief Information and Operations Officer at Invesco. In this role, her responsibilities include overseeing Technology, Investment and Distribution Services, Global Security, the Enterprise Data and Analytics Office and North America Transfer Agency.

Ms. Johnston joined Invesco in 2024. Prior to joining the firm, she served as senior executive vice president and chief information officer at Global Payments Inc., where she was responsible for technology and digital business strategies, global infrastructure, operations, software engineering, and platform integration. Ms. Johnston’s leadership journey at Global Payments began in 2016, during which she held several senior roles.

Ms. Johnston earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgia Southern University. She serves as the technology chair on the supervisory board of Deutsche-Boerse, a German multinational corporation that offers a marketplace for organizing the trading of securities. Additionally, Ms. Johnston is an executive ambassador for TechBridge, a non-profit harnessing the power of data, tech, collaboration and community to drive meaningful social impact.

Chris Edmonds is the President of Fixed Income & Data Services at Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE). He is responsible for managing ICE’s global fixed income and data business, including pricing analytics, reference data, indices, mortgage data, desktop solutions, consolidated feeds, connectivity services and the ICE Bonds execution venues. In addition, he oversees ICE’s sustainable finance product initiatives around sustainable investing through data and analytics. In addition to his duties at ICE, he serves on the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Financial Sector Advisory Council.

Edmonds most recently served as Chief Development Officer where he oversaw all of ICE’s clearing house operations and the global risk management team. Additionally, he coordinated the company’s marketing and public relations endeavors. He previously served as Global Head of Clearing & Risk and SVP of Financial Markets, where he oversaw the development of initiatives within ICE’s exchanged listed and OTC financial markets, and President of ICE Clear Credit, ICE’s credit default swap (CDS) clearing house.

Prior to joining ICE in February 2010, Edmonds was Chief Executive Officer of the International Derivatives Exchange Group (IDCG) a clearing house for interest rate swaps. Prior to IDCG, Edmonds was the Chief Development Officer for ICAP Energy. Edmonds held a variety of positions at ICAP between 2002 and 2008, and at APB Energy between 1997 and 2002. His professional career prior to APB Energy focused on advising businesses on strategic planning in the areas of technology, sales and marketing.

Edmonds earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Chandra Kapireddy is the firmwide head of GenAI, Machine Learning, and Advanced Analytics at Truist and has over 28 years of experience building and leading world-class data, analytics, and artificial intelligence teams. Recognized for his expertise in change leadership, strategy and execution, team building, and delivering results, Chandra has an impressive track record of innovative solutions and driving substantial business growth within the financial services sector.

Chandra has held key leadership positions at some of the industry’s leading companies, including JP Morgan Chase, Capital One, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Oracle, and AWS. Most recently, he served as Managing Director and Head of AI/ML Products for JP Morgan Chase, where he played a pivotal role in shaping the strategy and products across the company. His visionary leadership has driven innovations in cloud computing, data analytics, and AI/ML, earning him numerous awards.

Chandra remains passionate about the advancements in AI and Data technologies that will shape our future.

With nearly 30 years of experience in the global financial industry, I am a seasoned executive and a data and analytics leader who is passionate about transforming and empowering organizations through the use of technology, data and AI in combination with highly effective project & change management techniques.

Created in May, 2021 by Francisco Partners out of the combination of two best-in-class SaaS platforms, TradingScreen and Imagine Software, TS Imagine delivers integrated trading, portfolio and real-time risk solutions for capital markets to 500+ global buy-side and sell-side institutions.

As the COO at TS Imagine, I spearhead initiatives to enable rapid commercialization of new ideas, the continuous optimization of our global operational capabilities and the consolidation of the firm’s best-in-class SaaS platforms for trading, portfolio management & real-time risk management.

As the Chief Data & Analytics Officer, I leverage my hands-on data expertise to lead the execution of the data & AI strategy, including the monetization of data assets in collaboration with all members of the executive team.

Andy Dietderich is Co-Head of our Global Finance & Restructuring Group and one of the leading business restructuring lawyers in the United States. Andy started S&C’s multi-disciplinary restructuring practice in 2008 and has overseen its growth and expansion in response to client demand for higher quality legal services for corporate debtors. The practice is unique among its competitors with respect to its complete integration with the rest of S&C and the use of creative solutions from outside the conventional restructuring toolbox.

Deepika Mahajan is the Chief Data & Analytics Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (the Bank) and joined the Bank in 2020. The Data & Analytics Office (DAO) is accountable for defining and executing on the strategy to establish a robust data and analytics foundation, and facilitate and strengthen governance around the use of data and analytics for monetary policy, research, and supervisory responsibilities. Additionally, the DAO promotes automation and innovation through governed access and controlled use of advanced analytics tools and techniques.

Ms. Mahajan has a two-decade professional career in the Financial Services industry, supporting portfolio & risk analytics, wealth & asset management, as well as banking customers with data management solutions. She has led Data Transformation initiatives focused on delivering value for business initiatives, and partnered with global teams inclusive of business sponsors, Technology, Product Management, and Data professionals to deliver on business outcomes. She has worked across global locations spanning areas of Capital Markets, Corporate Banking, Management Consulting and two of the leading Data vendors in the Financial Services industry. A CFA Charter holder, Deepika holds a B.Tech in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (India) and an M.B.A from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (India).

Brett Wilson is an Atlanta-based Partner at McKinsey & Company, in the Digital practice. With over two decades of experience in tech, Brett is known for counseling C-level executives on how technology can enable operational improvement, growth, and broader business transformation for businesses across a wide range of industries. Brett also leads our Technology M&A capability, where he has led dozens of Fortune 500 mergers or separations and delivered billions of dollars in value to his clients.

Brett began his career at Lockheed Martin, where he built air traffic control systems and wrote the code that guides commercial flights today. He also built and sold a startup business, GiftZip, that created a seamless experience for the purchase of electronic gift cards. Brett holds a B.S. from the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan, an M.S. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University, and an MBA from Duke University. Outside of work, Brett enjoys skiing—having skied over 40 different mountains—and playing soccer and flag football around Atlanta. He is a proud husband, a dedicated father to his two young girls, and the best friend of a tireless puppy.

Manav Misra is the Chief Data and Analytics Officer for Regions Bank and serves on the company’s Executive Leadership Team. Regions is a regional bank that operates throughout the South, Midwest and Texas and is headquartered in Birmingham, Ala.

Misra is responsible for overseeing the company’s data strategy and enterprise data governance and leveraging data and analytics for improving the customer experience, enhancing risk management and driving revenue growth across the businesses.

Prior to joining Regions in late 2018, Misra was the Chief Data Science Officer for CenturyLink from 2014 to 2018, leading a geographically distributed team focused on solving big data problems for customers using machine learning/AI & statistical techniques. He also was Chief Knowledge Officer/Chief Science Officer for Cognilytics, Inc., a company he co-founded, from 2009 to 2014, before CenturyLink acquired it. He was Chief Operating Officer for XProtean, Inc. from 2007 to 2009 and was co-founder, VP of Strategy for StorePerform Technologies (now part of JDA Corporation) from 2002 to 2007. He served as senior director of Business Intelligence & Strategy for KBToys.com from 1999 to 2002 and began his career as an assistant professor of Computer Science from 1992 to 1999 at the Colorado School of Mines with a research interest in Artificial Intelligence.

Misra earned his PhD in computer engineering from the University of Southern California and holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.

Stephen Markwell is the Head of Fintech partnerships for Global Banking. He is responsible for evaluating, sourcing, implementing and investing in FinTech companies that address our strategic priorities.

Stephen has been with the firm for 21 years, in senior roles spanning strategy, product, and technology. Prior to joining the firm, Stephen held leadership positions at two early stage technology start-up companies and was a management consultant for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young.

He is a frequent speaker and publisher on payments with leading industry publications and associations such as Bloomberg, American Banker, PYNMNTS, Payments Journal, Treasury & Risk Magazine and The Association of Financial Professionals.

Stephen earned Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Information Systems and Marketing from Indiana University and an M.B.A. with distinction and finance concentration from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Kumanan Ramanathan is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal and co-leads A&M Crypto, a newly formed division that is focused on providing advisory support to the industry.

He has significant industry expertise with digital assets and has been involved in leading company-side efforts for digital asset recovery, navigating DeFi protocols, digital asset sales, staking, crypto on-chain tracing, cybersecurity, custody and wallet infrastructure, KYC/AML, and centralized exchange operations.

Mr. Ramanathan currently serves as financial advisor to the FTX Recovery Trust and has been involved since the commencement of FTX’s chapter 11 restructuring proceedings.  He oversees multiple divisions, including management of one of the largest digital asset portfolios ($9B+) in the world.  He is also currently serving as financial advisor to large crypto-native clients, assisting them with preparing for an IPO and advising on deploying capital across DeFi protocols.

Mr. Ramanathan has also been involved with traditional restructuring and turnaround company-side mandates, including Endo Pharmaceuticals; Gibson Brands Inc; Dunn Paper, Inc.; Philadelphia Energy Solutions; M&G Chemicals; LifeLabs (OMERS); and Great Basin Gold Ltd.

Mr. Ramanathan earned a bachelor's degree in commerce from the University of Toronto and holds a Chartered Accountant (CA) designation.

Jonathan is the Head of Financial Services AI at Snowflake, a Research Affiliate at Georgia Tech's Financial Services Innovation Lab and the author of A Practical Guide to Macroeconomic Data with R and Python. Prior to joining Snowflake, he was the Executive Director of Research and Data Analytics at Sylvan Road Capital and Head of Data and Quantamental Research at Truist Securities. He works at the intersection of finance, markets, AI and machine learning.

Dr. Sudipta Sengupta is Vice President & Distinguished Scientist at Amazon AWS where he is leading new initiatives in Generative Artificial Intelligence across AWS AI/ML, Databases & Analytics, Developer Experience, and EC2 infrastructures services. Previously, he headed an end-to-end innovation agenda at Microsoft Research spanning networking, storage, and data management, contributing to Microsoft’s transformation to the cloud infrastructure and services business. Before that, he was at (Lucent) Bell Labs where he laid the foundations for new generation Internet backbone architectures through innovations in packet switching and optical networking.

Sudipta received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Electrical Engg. & Computer Science (EECS) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, and B.Tech. in Computer Science & Engg. from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, India. He was awarded the President of India Gold Medal at IIT-Kanpur for graduating at the top of his class across all disciplines.

Sudipta is an ACM Fellow and an IEEE Fellow. His work has been recognized with many awards/ prizes, including IEEE William R. Bennett Prize, IEEE Leonard G. Abraham Prize, ACM SIGCOMM Test of Time Award (twice), ACM SIGCOMM IMC Test of Time Award, IEEE ICDE Ten-Year Influential Paper Award, ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) Test of Time Award, IEEE ICME Best Paper Award, Bell Labs President’s Teamwork Achievement Award, Microsoft Research Technology Transfer Award, and Microsoft Gold Star Award. 

Dr. Mark Riedl is a Professor in the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing and Associate Director of the Georgia Tech Machine Learning Center. Dr. Riedl’s research focuses on human-centered artificial intelligence—the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies that understand and interact with human users in more natural ways. Dr. Riedl’s recent work has focused on story understanding and generation, computational creativity, explainable AI, and teaching virtual agents to behave safely. His research is supported by the NSF, DARPA, ONR, the U.S. Army, U.S. Health and Human Services, Disney, Google, Meta, and Amazon. He is the recipient of a DARPA Young Faculty Award and an NSF CAREER Award.

Allen Stewart is the Partner Director of Software Engineering in the Microsoft Strategic Missions and Technology Divisions Office of the CTO.  He leads all Software Engineering efforts in the CTO'S office including next generation AI agent development for various use cases: Autonomy and Science.  Allen’s expertise is in the following areas: AI Product Development, Building AI applications and services, Cloud Native Application Development, HyperScale Cloud Services Design, and Intelligent Edge Solutions. Allen is an IASA board Certified Distinguished Architect and is very active in the Cloud Software and AI Architect community. Allen is also a member of the Cloud Native Compute Foundation (CNCF) that governs various Cloud Native Open Source projects.

Allen is a frequent conference speaker mainly focusing on the following topic areas: Gen AI, Building -designing new cloud-native applications and building AI applications and services. Prior to Microsoft Allen spent several years doing software development in the Financial Services Industry. Allen is the author of Inside Hyper-V and has published numerous articles and blogs. Allen is also the founder of Project Lift which is focused on highlighting AI uses cases for any scenario and showing the world how to Elevate any activity using generative AI.

Robbie Birbeck is the Vice President of Salesforce's Business Technology (BT) Customer Zero team, which is responsible for transforming Salesforce through the implementation of Agentforce across the enterprise. He and his team enable a world-class digital workforce by simplifying, automating, and agentifying processes. Robbie is guided by the values of trust and innovation, relentless in his pursuit of excellence and customer success. Robbie has 20 years of experience in full-stack engineering, architecture, DevSecOps, and advanced agile practices, delivering innovative solutions that drive business growth. He is passionate about building and managing high-performing teams, coaching and mentoring, and creating a positive and inclusive work environment. He has a Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of Glasgow and resides in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and daughter.

John is the global head of Corporate Equity Derivatives, Structured Lending and Convertible Bond Trading within JP Morgan’s Equities Division. He is a member of the Global Equities Management Team. He has held portfolio management roles in the Firm’s Asset and Wealth Management division, as well as structuring and trading roles in the Firm’s Credit, Rates and Equities divisions.

John joined JPMorgan in 1993 after graduating from Villanova University with a B.S. in Finance. He earned a M.B.A. in Finance from New York University and is a CFA Charterholder.

Mitchell I. Sonkin is currently a Director of the FTX Recovery Trust after serving as an Independent Director of FTX Corporation in its recently confirmed Chapter 11 and related proceedings. He was previously senior advisor to MBIA Insurance Corporation in connection with the restructuring of the firm’s insured portfolio exposure of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s $72 billion of outstanding debt. He is also Chairman of the Board of the ResCap Liquidating Trust, successor to ResCap and GMAC Mortgage Corporations.

Mr. Sonkin previously served as Managing Director of MBIA and Chief Portfolio Officer responsible for all restructurings, domestic and international, of MBIA’s insured credits. He was also responsible for government relations. Mr. Sonkin was a member of the company’s Executive Policy Committee, a Vice President of MBIA, Inc. and a member of the Board of MBIA Insurance Corporation and Capital Markets Assurance Corporation.

Before joining MBIA, Mr. Sonkin was a senior partner at the international law firm King & Spalding, where he was co-chair of the Financial Restructuring Group and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. With over 40 years of experience in U.S. and international workouts and debt restructurings, he has served as a bankruptcy court appointed Examiner and played a significant role in numerous municipal, utility, insurance, airline and healthcare debt and international debt restructurings, including the Anglo/French Euro Tunnel debt reorganization.

Mr. Sonkin has lectured and served on panels on such topics as distressed debt trading, utility restructurings, and life insurance company reorganizations. Prior to King & Spalding, Mr. Sonkin was a senior partner and co-chair of the Financial Restructuring Department at the Wall Street law firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

Mr. Sonkin is a cum laude graduate of Temple University College of Liberal Arts, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science. He currently serves on the College’s Board of Visitors. He received his J.D. from the Syracuse University College of Law and serves on the college’s Board of Advisors. Admitted to the New York Bar and is also admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Deep Srivastav is the chief AI officer for Franklin Templeton Investments. Mr Srivastav is responsible for the strategy and execution for FT’s AI and digital capabilities. He is responsible for AI research and innovation, for managing FT’s digital product offerings and for driving digital transformation for the enterprise and clients.

In his prior role, he was driving the development and deployment of Franklin Templeton's investment solutions through digital channels. He oversaw the digital product roadmap leveraging financial technologies, data science capabilities and investment for bringing personalized investment solutions to market.

His earlier roles within Franklin Templeton include the global head of data & and head of business strategy for North America. He has also held various leadership roles at the firm in the areas of client analytics, capital market research, data sciences, digital analytics, data engineering, business intelligence, and business strategy.

Prior to Franklin Templeton, Mr. Srivastav served as the head of solutions and operations at Oracle Financial Services, technology manager at GE Capital, and engineer at Tata Motors.

Mr. Srivastav holds a bachelor of engineering in electronics from The M.S University of Baroda in India and an MBA with a focus in quantitative research and marketing from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. He holds the Certificate in Quantitative Finance by the CQF Institute. He is also a GE Capital certified Six Sigma Black Belt. He pursuing his phd in Business - Advanced Analytics with Bentley University.

Mr. Srivastav is the co-author of “A New Approach to Goals Based Wealth Management”, which was published in the Journal of Investment Management and won the Harry M. Markowitz Award in 2018. His other co-authored papers have bene published in elite academic journals like Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Computational Management Science, Journal of Wealth Management and the Journal of Risk and Financial Management.

He is the growth advisory board member for Writer, the global editorial board member for the CDO magazine and the co- chair of the SFO Chief Data Officers Community managed by Evanta. He is also on the client advisory board of Fractal Analytics and on the advisory council of Journal of Investment Management. He represented Franklin Templeton within Data Board (a board.org community) for 2020-21 and was on the Global Business of Data Advisory Board for 2023.

Brett Kotch has transformed trading technology at top global financial institutions, including Millennium, Citibank, Barclays, and Liquidnet, where he was part of the original team enabling anonymous execution of large trades, creating one of Wall Street’s largest pools of institutional liquidity. Brett is actively driving innovative solutions to advance AI within technology. Brett holds a degree in Computer Science from Columbia University.

Scott Ferber is founding partner of Raj Ferber PLLC, a Washington, DC-based boutique law firm specializing in cybersecurity and risk management. He represents clients in a diverse array of sectors, including GenAI, financial services, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and professional services. Scott has managed responses to hundreds of cybersecurity incidents, ranging from sophisticated nation-state intrusions and ransomware attacks to business email compromises. Scott spent over ten years at the U.S. Department of Justice where he served as an advisor to the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General on cyber and national security matters; Counsel for Cyber Investigations in DOJ’s National Security Division; and Assistant U.S. Attorney in Atlanta. Scott has tried numerous jury trials and briefed and argued multiple cases before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He started his legal career as an Assistant District Attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Scott currently teaches Cybersecurity Crisis Challenges at The George Washington University Law School.

Tina Zhao is the Director of Data Science at BlackRock Atlanta iHub, where she leads the Applied AI Modeling team in Aladdin Financial Engineering group. Her team leverages advanced generative AI and machine learning technologies to generate trading alpha, optimize investment processes, and enhance efficiency across trading and investment management operations. With over 10 years of experience in quantitative modeling and analytics, Tina has held key roles at several leading financial institutions, including Freddie Mac, Bank of America, Truist, and Capital One. She is a seasoned leader in data science, with deep expertise in trading, investment management, banking, consumer finance, and risk management.

Nick is the VP of Research ML at RelationalAI, where he builds AI products on the Snowflake AI ecosystem to drive enterprise-grade innovation. With 25 years in Artificial Intelligence, he has been at the forefront of its evolution, bridging cutting-edge research with real-world impact. A frequent contributor to top AI conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, UAI) as a PC member, author, reviewer, and workshop organizer, he ensures the latest advancements translate into practical business solutions. Nick has built and led multiple AI teams, mentoring over 30 interns and Ph.D. students while developing scalable platforms. He thrives in high-tech and startup environments, bootstrapping AI-driven solutions that deliver sustainable business value across Fortune 400 industries.

Che Guan is currently a Vice President and Principal Data Scientist of Data Science at AB. He is actively engaged in research and development on natural language processing. Before joining AB in 2021, Guan worked in multiple different positions, including Principal Data Scientist at Raymond James, Quantitative Strategist at a start-up fund and Data Scientist at J.P. Morgan. Throughout his career, he has gained extensive experience in applying machine learning, optimization techniques and statistics to various projects in the financial industry. Guan holds an MS in data science from University of California, Berkeley, as well as an MS in statistics and a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Connecticut, where he focused on forecasting applications.

Agam Shah is a Machine Learning Ph.D. candidate in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, where he was honored with the prestigious "2023 Rising Star Doctoral Student Research Award". Before embarking on his doctoral journey, he obtained a Bachelor's degree (Hons.) in Information and Communication Technology with a minor in Computational Science from DA-IICT. His outstanding academic achievements were recognized with the President's Gold Medal, awarded for graduating at the top of the 2019 class. He also holds a Master's degree in Quantitative and Computational Finance (QCF) from Georgia Tech. His research interests span Natural Language Processing, Finance, Computational Science, and Data Science. The outcomes of his research efforts have been published and presented in esteemed journals and conferences such as NeurIPS, AFA, ACL, EMNLP, Journal of Credit Risk, and Expert Systems with Applications.

Michael is a PhD Student at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research primarily examines how financial influencers impact retail traders through social media platforms. He has been teaching python and machine learning since 2015 at places like UCSD Extension, Stanford Continuing Studies, and LinkedIn Learning.

He previously worked at Scripps Research Translational Institute working on the interpretation of wearable data for human health, with the goal of building models to improve patient outcomes.

Glenn Matlin is a 2nd-year Ph.D. student in Computer Science at Georgia Tech advised by Professor Sudheer Chava. Specializing in Natural Language Processing, Glenn focuses on enhancing Large Language Models for financial applications to improve quantitative reasoning. His work has won 1st prize at the 2023 SCS Ph.D. Research and Poster Competition and has been published in the NeurIPS 2022 conference. He is open to research collaborations and can be reached at glenn@gatech.edu or via LinkedIn.

Nikita is a PhD student in Machine Learning at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he explores advanced techniques for analyzing and leveraging data in AI systems.

His academic journey began with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Software Engineering, providing him with a strong foundation in data analysis, machine learning, and software development. He later earned a Master’s degree in Quantitative and Computational Finance, focusing on the intersection of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Finance. As a member of the Financial Services Innovation Lab, Nikita’s research centers on long-context Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for financial applications. He has hands-on experience designing RAG-based pipelines. His ongoing work includes two working papers: one benchmarking Long-Context LLMs and another providing a comprehensive survey of Financial NLP (FinNLP).