Mike Lee is CEO and Co-Founder of Fundica, an award-winning AI-powered funding search engine that partners with financial institutions, municipalities, and business-support organizations of all sizes to connect entrepreneurs with the most relevant funding opportunities across North America. He has been supporting SMBs with government funding for over 20 years and has helped start-up, growing and multinational technology firms secure over $400M in R&D tax credits and other government incentives across Canada, the UK and the US. Previously, he was Director of Corporate Finance and Development at BCE, Manager, Strategy and Technology Services at KPMG, and worked as an engineer for several software and technology firms. Mike has a B.A.Sc. in Engineering from the University of Waterloo, an MBA from the University of British Columbia, and the CFA designation.

Matthew Watts is the Chief Executive of Matrexia, a decision intelligence company helping banks recover false negatives in small business lending and convert missed decisions into measurable revenue. He leads a multidisciplinary organisation that turns deep learning, geometry, topology, and temporal analysis into explainable outputs that risk, credit, and compliance teams can act on. Previously, he co-founded Lendflow as CTO, partnering with more than seventyfive lenders and enabling over 1.5 billion dollars in annual offers to U.S. small businesses. Originally from the UK, Matthew sets strategy, product direction, and commercial discipline at Matrexia with a first-principles focus on auditability and customer trust. He speaks on where models censor credit, how to quantify recoverable margin, and how decision infrastructure expands margin inside the existing credit box.

Saujin Yi is the Founder and CEO of LiquidTrust, a fintech building safer global payment solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. A former investment banker and tech executive, she brings over 20 years of experience in finance, strategy, and product innovation. At LiquidTrust, she launched Protected Pay, a modern micro-escrow solution that helps banks and marketplaces safeguard high-risk B2B and cross-border payments. Saujin also co-founded FlexTeam, serves as a Venture Partner at Resolute Ventures, and lectures on entrepreneurship at UCLA Anderson. She is a trusted voice on embedded payments and a champion for scalable infrastructure that empowers SMBs in global commerce.

Holly Sraeel is Arizent’s Senior Vice President of Strategy and Content, Live Media, leading content creation and innovation for the events portfolio and introducing new multimedia and invitation-only experiences for senior executives that drive critical conversations and action around corporate strategy, innovation and financial performance. She is part of the company’s operational leadership team and is focused on developing cross-platform programming that creates higher levels of engagement for subscribers, community participants and partners across the company’s brands, including American Banker, The Bond Buyer, National Mortgage News, Accounting Today, Digital Insurance, Financial Planning and Employee Benefits News. Sraeel is an award-winning editorial director, media executive and content strategist with expertise in developing influential content, communities, and events for C-level executives in the banking and financial services, insurance, and technology industries. Prior to joining Arizent, she held several content leadership and strategist roles, including for B2B media consultancy New York Ventures, capital markets management consultancy Opimas, Oxford University-incubated startup Wise Responder, and as cofounder of Genesys Partners Agility First Forum. This new role marks a return to the company for Sraeel. In her previous 12-year run, she was a member of the executive team and was pivotal in driving new cross-platform editorial, events and business innovation as SVP of Brand Management; Group Editorial Director of Banking and Technology magazines; and Founder, President and Editorial Director of The Most Powerful Women in Banking, the company’s first-ever, community-based media platform, now part of Arizent’s flagship American Banker. Sraeel is an early honors graduate of Marist College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications and a concentration in journalism.

Chana R. Schoenberger is the editor-in-chief of American Banker. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of Financial Planning after joining Arizent in 2020. In her prior role, she was the managing editor for U.S. wealth management at J.P. Morgan. Before that, she was a columnist and freelance journalist, and previously worked at Bloomberg News, Dow Jones/The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. A graduate of Harvard College, she received her master’s degree as part of Columbia Journalism School’s Knight-Bagehot Fellowship for business journalists. She is now based in New York City after stints in Tokyo and Canada.

Faheem Savja is the founder of Savja Advisory, a boutique consulting firm that supports financial institutions and fintechs with strategic growth, product development, and modernization efforts focused on the small and mid-sized business market. He brings over a decade of experience in commercial banking, structured credit, and fintech product leadership, including time at TD Bank and Sunstone Credit. Through Savja Advisory, Faheem has led initiatives such as underwriting automation for SMB lenders, modernization strategies for credit unions, and exit planning for small businesses under $1M in revenue. He also advises fintechs on go-to-market and partnership strategy. Faheem is the creator and host of Behind the Business, a podcast spotlighting the stories of small business owners across North America. Based in Austin, he actively collaborates with founders, operators, and financial institutions working to close the gap between access and impact in small business finance.

Stu Richards is Chief Executive of Bredin, a B2B marketing consultancy that helps marketers develop profitable, long-term relationships with small and medium businesses (SMBs) through: – Original market research to provide insight into SMB needs, attitudes and preferences – Outreach programs including integrated lead generation, content marketing and sales support programs Stu is primarily responsible for the acquisition and satisfactory execution of strategic and communications programs for clients such as 8×8, ADP, Allstate, American Express, Angie’s List, AT&T, AWS, Bank of America, BBVA Compass Bank, BOK Financial, Brightflow.ai, Cablevision, Capital One, CenturyLink, Charter / Spectrum Business, Chase, Cisco, Citizens Bank, City National Bank, Comcast, Commerce Bank, Dell, Deluxe, DocuSign, eBay, Enova, Fidelity Investments, Fifth Third Bank, First Citizens Bank, FIS Global, FPL, Fundbox, Funding Circle, Gannett, GateHouse Media, GoDaddy, Google, Gusto, Hiscox, HP, HPE Aruba, HSBC, Huntington Bank, IBM, Indeed, Intel, Iron Mountain, Kabbage, Kronos, Lending Club, Lexmark, LinkedIn, M&I Bank, M&T Bank, MailChimp, Mastercard, Meridian Credit Union, Microsoft, Monster, OnDeck, Paychex, PayPal, PeoplesBank, PG&E, Popular Community Bank, Regions Bank, RingCentral, SaaS Labs, Salesforce, SAP, SAP Concur, ScaleFactor, Silicon Valley Bank, Sony, Sprint, Staples, SunTrust Bank, Swift Capital, Symantec, TD Bank, TriNet, Twitter, U.S. Bank, Union Bank, Upwork, Verizon Wireless, Vertical Response, VMware, Webroot, Weebly, Wells Fargo, Worldpay, and Zomentum. A 20+ year veteran of SMB marketing, Stu joined Bredin in 1997 as vice president of marketing. He was named president in 1999 and CEO in 2001. Prior to joining Bredin, Stu served as director of marketing at DeLorme Mapping, product manager at Nabisco Brands, and marketing representative at IBM Corporation. Stu holds an MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth College and a BA from Middlebury College.

Paul Pavlou is the Dean of the University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert Business School. He is also the Leonard M. Miller University Chair Professor. Paul’s research has been cited more than 90,000 times by Google Scholar, and Thomson Reuters recognized him among the ‘World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds’ based on an analysis of Highly Cited Researchers. Paul was ranked No. 1 globally in publications in top Information Systems journals from 2010 to 2016. He earned a Ph.D. in Information Systems and a master’s in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. Paul is a Distinguished Fellow of the INFORMS Information Systems Society. He won several Best Paper Awards for his research, including the Sheth Foundation Award for ‘Long-Term Contributions to Marketing’ published in the Journal of Marketing (2019), and the Maynard Award for the ‘Most Significant Contribution to Marketing’ in the Journal of Marketing (2015), to name a few. Paul received $3,500,000 in grants from funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF). His research appeared In top journals and his research spans several disciplines (information systems, data science, marketing, operations management, and management sciences) with emphasis on artificial intelligence, business analytics, and digital strategy.