Brooke Ybarra is the Senior Vice President, Innovation & Strategy for the American Bankers
Association, where she leads the Office of Innovation. In this role, Brooke supports banks to
define innovation strategies and helps shape the technology marketplace by identifying
promising startups that complement the banking industry. She also works with policymakers to
advocate for policies that allow for and promote responsible innovation in banking. Brooke
received her MBA from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and
completed her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University.
Jack McDonald is SVP of Stablecoins at Ripple, as well as CEO of Standard Custody & Trust Co., a New York-licensed digital asset custodian acquired by Ripple in 2024. At Ripple, Jack leads the company’s stablecoin strategy, including the development and rollout of Ripple USD (RLUSD), a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin issued on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum, and licensed by the New York Department of Financial Services.
Previously, Jack spent a decade as CEO of Conifer Financial Services, where he grew assets under administration from $5 billion to $125 billion, leading to a successful exit in 2016. He also spent several years on the sell-side at major investment banks, including senior roles at UBS Investment Bank as Managing Director and Head of Equity Sales, and at Schroders in institutional sales.
He holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.S.F.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. Jack lives in San Francisco.
Matthew Leising was one of the first mainstream journalists to understand the implications of blockchain technology for finance, culture and industry in general when he began covering it for Bloomberg News in 2015. After working for Bloomberg for 17 years, he co-founded Decential Media in 2021 to focus exclusively on telling the stories of the founders, builders and visionaries who are creating a new decentralized economy and Internet experience.
His expertise lies in Ethereum, where his sources include the people who invented and then built the world’s most-used blockchain. His 2020 book Out of the Ether is the definitive history of how the Ethereum blockchain was created.
Cynthia Lo Bessette is head of Fidelity Investment’s Digital Asset Management division. Fidelity Investments is a leading provider of investment management, retirement planning, portfolio guidance, brokerage, benefits outsourcing, and other financial products and services to institutions, financial intermediaries, and individuals.
In her role, Ms. Lo Bessette oversees the strategic vision and priorities for the digital asset investment, operations, and ecosystem groups, including research analysts, portfolio construction, trading, data science and blockchain engineering, investment product, operations and digital asset strategists teams. In addition to developing and managing investment products and advisory services, Ms. Lo Bessette’s team engages with clients on digital asset education including investment and ecosystem perspectives, as well as opportunities to create new utilities and access in using digital assets.
Ms. Lo Bessette has extensive experience working with asset management firms investing globally across asset classes and serving a worldwide investor base, including retail and institutional investors. She has broad experience working with global asset managers on strategic transactions and on start-up and establishment of new businesses in global markets, investment product development and distribution, and portfolio management matters involving U.S. and foreign regulations and local market practices. She leverages this deep asset management experience to lead the development and design of investment solutions investing across digital assets and using blockchain and smart contract technology to enhance the utility of assets and capital allocation between traditional and digital finance. She has been in the financial industry since 1995.
Penny Crosman is Interim Editor-in-Chief at Digital Insurance and Executive Editor, Technology at American Banker and Arizent. Prior to taking on these roles, she was Editor in Chief of Bank Technology News and Technology Editor of American Banker. She has held senior editorial roles at Bank Systems & Technology, Wall Street & Technology, Intelligent Enterprise, Network Magazine and Imaging Magazine.
With over 20 years of experience in payments, financial services, and crypto, Robin O’Connell has been at the forefront of digital finance innovation for decades. As CEO of Uphold Enterprise, he is driving enterprise adoption of stablecoins and blockchain-powered payments, helping financial institutions integrate next-generation solutions for banking, payments, and fiat-to-crypto services.
Robin is leading the charge in helping financial institutions navigate and capitalize on this evolution. Under his leadership, Uphold Enterprise has launched a seamless crypto onramp and off-ramp, as well as a whitelabel product designed to power stablecoin transactions at scale. Previously, Robin played a key role in shaping digital payments at Visa USA, where he managed the Visa Bill Payment Initiative. Robin believes enterprises worldwide are finally acknowledging the transformative power of stablecoins—ushering in a future where transactions are faster, more efficient, and borderless.
Linda Jenkinson is a pioneering entrepreneur and board director; she was the first woman founder and CEO to list a company on the NASDAQ. She’s built and led multiple global businesses, chaired public company boards, and currently serves as Chair of three ASX-listed companies. She’s also the founder of LevelUp, a program that helps growth-stage founders scale their companies with confidence and vision. Linda combines deep experience in fintech, logistics, and strategy, and she’s passionate about mentoring the next generation of leaders. Linda holds an MBA from Wharton and is a Chartered Accountant.
Jeff John Roberts is the finance and crypto editor of Fortune magazine, where his focus is the intersection of money and technology. A former lawyer, Jeff is the author of the critically acclaimed “Kings of Crypto” (Harvard Bus Review Press), and has written for numerous publications, including The Economist and The New York Times. He lives in Southern California.
Amar Kuchinad serves as the Global CEO of Copper, a leading digital asset financial services and technology company providing blockchain-based collateral management, custody, and treasury optimization products and services. With a diverse background spanning traditional finance and innovative fintech, Amar brings a wealth of experience to drive Copper’s institutional-first approach.
Previously, Amar was a Senior Managing Director at Pretium Partners, an alternative asset manager with over $50 billion in AUM, where he was responsible for technology, data, analytics, and risk across the management company and its operating subsidiaries.
Prior to Pretium, Amar was CEO and Co-Founder of Electronifie, a SEC-registered broker-dealer which operated an alternative trading system enabling institutions to trade corporate bonds, and Chief Strategy Officer at Trumid following Trumid’s acquisition of Electronifie.
Before his entrepreneurial endeavor, Amar served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), providing market practitioner insights across Trading & Markets, Investment Management, and Enforcement.
Amar’s career on Wall Street was primarily spent at Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs, where he was responsible for a number of equity and credit trading businesses. He graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. in Applied Mathematics.
Paul Brody is the Founder and CEO of Nightfall Networks, a blockchain technology company focused on building robust privacy systems for enterprise users. Prior to founding Nightfall, Paul was the global blockchain leader at Ernst & Young for over a decade, building up their business and making EY synonymous with leadership in blockchain technology and a focus on Ethereum and business applications. Paul is the author of Ethereum for Business. He is also the chairman of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and holds a degree in economics and a certificate in African Studies from Princeton University.