Kausar has over 20 years of experience in globally managing programs focused on client experience, Data, AI and Analytics focused on business growth. She is with Citi for 18 years and grew across ranks in technology, operations, Sales and now in AI team responsible to deliver strategic results by connecting business challenges to Data & AI to derive insights and advise on commercialization actions.
Kausar built a progressive organization which partners across Banking, Sales, Client Executives and Products, generates use cases based on client needs, prioritize and execute successfully. Her team is responsible for driving design thinking to client problems, analyze data, develop AI and GEN AI driven solutions and drive global adoption of data tools amongst the client facing stakeholders. Some of her achievements include delivering an industry-first daily deposit forecasting to assist Citi’s treasury, payment outlier detection tool to manage risk and a conversational chatbot to assist clients with common queries. Kausar’ s capabilities include building partnerships, building a business analytics team, establishing a robust pipeline of business use cases, and streamlining the end-to-end development and implementation process by establishing a program structure and strong governance with focus on ROI. Her other mandates include mobilizing the Services organization with trainings and knowledge sharing on AI.
Kausar joined Citi in 2005 as a software engineer responsible for implementing General Ledger related applications globally. She is credited for her versatility in the business and technology, quickly understanding business needs and being a conduit to connecting the problem to data and technology.
Outside work, Kausar is passionate about photography and now learning acrylic painting. She is also passionate about mentoring young female talent to get into coding early on and increase female representation in AI industry.

Raj Seshadri is chief commercial payments officer at Mastercard, and a member of the company’s Executive Leadership Team and Management Committee. She is responsible for Commercial & New Payment Flows focused on bringing the same safe and seamless experience consumers have come to expect in retail carded payments to commercial and corporate customers.

With Raj’s leadership, the Commercial & New Payment Flows team delivers marketleading assets and rapid innovation across a dynamic innovative landscape that includes commercial cards (SME, T&E, Purchasing, Fleet, Virtual), B2B payables and receivables, bill payments, and domestic and cross-border money movement solutions.

Previously, Raj was president of Mastercard’s global Data & Services team, helping to enhance the value of payments and enable customers to make smarter decisions with better outcomes, using a unique range of data-driven platforms and capabilities. She joined Mastercard as president of U.S. Issuers, where she led the growth of payments and services with banks and credit unions in a very competitive market.
Earlier in her career, Raj led BlackRock’s US iShares business and was the global chief marketing officer for iShares. Prior to that, she had leadership roles at Citigroup, in global strategy, CitiBusiness Banking and Commercial Banking, as well as at U.S. Trust, McKinsey & Company, and Bell Laboratories.

Raj serves on the board of directors of Raymond James Financial Inc., the board of trustees of Mount Holyoke College, the board of the New York Philharmonic, and the global board of the American India Foundation. Raj received a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College in physics and mathematics, a Master of Business Administration from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University.

Alyse Belavic is a partnerships and business development leader with extensive experience across the fintech and payments ecosystem. At Prove, she owns payments and product partnerships, working to bring identity to the core of digital payments. Alyse spent the first portion of her career at Synchrony Financial, holding roles in business development, strategy, and ventures while there. She later joined the digital wallet fintech Skipify, where she was responsible for forging key partnerships with major issuers and networks, including American Express, Visa, Mastercard, and Discover among others.

Margaret Isa Butler leads BakerHostetler’s Financial Services Industry Team, with a practice at the intersection of traditional finance and fintech.

Margaret has been counseling senior leaders in the banking and technology sectors and driving deals for more than two decades, as a partner at an Am Law 100 law firm and as an investment banker. Her focus is on transformational transactions, including M&A, joint ventures, and alternative investments. She also co-founded a blockchain business with a mission to empower consumers by giving them easy access to decentralized finance.

BakerHostetler’s Financial Services Industry Team also advises clients on litigation and enforcement proceedings and assists with compliance, licensing, and the design and rollout of financial products.
Margaret has an MBA from Columbia Business School, a JD from Columbia Law School, and an AB from Harvard University. She is an appointed member of the M&A Committee of the New York City Bar Association. Her writing has been published in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Lauren Sullivan Bowes is Head of Sales for Banking and Wealth at Plaid, where she leads go-to-market strategy and partnerships with banks, credit unions, and wealth firms across the U.S. and Canada. Before joining Plaid, she held sales and business development leadership roles at Box and Oracle, supporting digital transformation initiatives in financial services. Lauren brings a practical, front-line perspective on how financial institutions are leveraging technology to strengthen fraud defenses and improve customer experience. 

Amanda has spent nearly 20 years at PwC, where she currently serves as leader of the firm’s Financial Services Risk and Regulatory team and, a Lead Client Partner on a global Financial Services client, and a member of the PwC US Board of Partners and Principals. She has spent her career serving the Financial Services industry on regulatory risk and compliance matters, including serving as a Bank Examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. In her free time, Amanda enjoys exercising, spending time with her family and investing in real estate.

Carolyn Weinberg is the Chief Product & Innovation Officer at BNY and a member of the company’s Executive Committee.

Prior to joining BNY, Carolyn served as Chief Product Innovation Officer of BlackRock, where she was responsible for driving the product innovation, development, and commercialization of products globally for the world’s largest asset manager. Carolyn and her teams mobilized the firm to build new product lines, forge strategic partnerships, and create thought leadership in support of BlackRock’s growth priorities such as digital assets, fixed income, transition finance and private markets.

Earlier in her career at BlackRock, Carolyn was Global Head of Product, iShares and Index Investments and drove the product strategy, development, and commercialization globally. In this role, she was instrumental in driving BlackRock’s growth in fixed income ETFs and sustainable indexing. She also grew strategic long-term partnerships, envisioned and created a sustainable index research team, and conceived and built new data and trading ventures.

She has four times been included on Barron’s list of “100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance.”
Before joining BlackRock in 2018, Carolyn created structured derivatives solutions for corporations at Citibank, where she was Head of the North America Corporate Solutions Group. Previously, she was Deutsche Bank’s Head of Risk Solutions Structuring, a member of Morgan Stanley’s Corporate Derivatives Group, and a consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Carolyn graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in applied mathematics and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Carolyn lives in New York City with her family and dog Gus, a Lagotto Romagnolo. She is an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School. Carolyn also serves on the Board of The Allen-Stevenson School, on the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, and as an Ambassador of the Board of the US Ski and Snowboard Foundation.

Daniel Wolfe is director of data services at Arizent, which publishes American Banker. In this role he manages the company’s editorial use of automation and AI, with the mission of expanding quality data journalism and products across all brands.

Previously Daniel headed American Banker’s payments and credit union coverage, and before that he was editor-in-chief of PaymentsSource, a sister publication that combined with American Banker in 2021. Prior to that, Daniel held roles at American Banker including tech and risk management editor; technology, cards and payments editor; and technology reporter. Throughout his career, Daniel has taken a central role in hosting leading industry conferences including Payments Forum, Card Forum and PayThink. He has appeared on Yahoo! Finance and received the American Society of Business Publication Editors’ national silver award for sustainability reporting in 2024 for his coverage of the credit card industry’s environmental impact.

He has a master’s degree in print journalism from Boston University’s College of Communication and a bachelor’s degree in English from SUNY Binghamton.