Elizabeth Figoni is Senior Vice President of Growth at Everfi, where she leads revenue strategy and partnerships that expand access to critical-skills education. With 20 years of experience, she builds cross-sector partnerships and leads educational initiatives that connect business priorities with meaningful community impact.
With a focus on a shared value model for both schools and businesses, Elizabeth leads efforts to translate their community priorities into scalable educational experiences—pairing digital learning with local activation, employee engagement, and partnerships with schools and community-based organizations. The work can include financial education that supports Community Reinvestment Act and community-development goals while learners build practical knowledge and confidence. For corporations, Elizabeth drives the development of programs aligned with corporate social responsibility priorities, workforce readiness, and other community needs. Her work demonstrates how education can help organizations build trust, deepen community relationships, and create measurable, lasting impact.
Elizabeth has seen firsthand how corporate partnerships can expand opportunity and strengthen students’ educational experiences. She brings conference audiences a practical perspective on building partnerships that broaden access to learning and create lasting value for organizations and communities.
Elizabeth holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Santa Clara University.
Kiley Lambert is Senior Director, Strategy and Content, Live Media – Banking. Before joining the Arizent team, he was a coordinating producer for CNBC Events, and a Senior Programming Director for Bloomberg Live.
Melinda Lucy (formerly Huspen) covers the intersection of banking and financial technology for American Banker and is based in New York, NY. Previously, she was a business reporting intern with Digital Insurance via the Dow Jones News Fund. She is a graduate of Fordham University with a major in communications/journalism and a minor in business.
Heidi Sexton is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Sound Community Bank, where she leads the implementation of strategic initiatives across the bank’s technology, compliance, marketing, risk management, and client support departments. She is passionate about creating exceptional customer experiences by aligning people, processes, and technology to deliver seamless, personalized banking services.
Throughout her career, Heidi has led enterprise-wide initiatives that strengthen operational excellence, enhance digital capabilities, and improve customer engagement across the organization. Her work focuses on breaking down organizational silos, leveraging emerging technologies, and ensuring innovation delivers meaningful value for both customers and employees.
With more than 20 years of community banking experience, Heidi brings a practical perspective on balancing technology, risk management, and relationship banking to meet evolving customer expectations. She is a graduate of the Washington Bankers Association Executive Development Program and Pacific Coast Banking School. Heidi previously served on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Community Bank Advisory Council and as Board Chair of Financial Beginnings Washington, reflecting her commitment to advancing financial education and strengthening communities. She was also a recipient of the American Banker Team Award, recognizing the impact of collaborative leadership and cross-functional innovation in banking in 2022 and 2026.
Looking ahead, Heidi is particularly interested in how artificial intelligence, data-driven personalization, and embedded financial services will reshape the banking experience while preserving the trust, relationships, and human connection that remain at the heart of community banking.
Stacey Mullin, Managing Director, is BlackRock’s Deputy Chief Operating Officer as well as the firm’s Global Chief of Staff. In her roles, Ms. Mullin helps align the firm horizontally to deliver the spectrum of BlackRock’s capabilities seamlessly to our clients.
As Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Ms. Mullin is responsible for partnering with functional and regional management to support growth and client service across channels, to manage risk, to promote operational efficiency, and to respond to market and regulatory change. In her Chief of Staff role, Ms. Mullin advises senior leadership on strategic priorities and engagements with clients, policymakers, the BlackRock Board of Directors and other key stakeholders around the world.
Prior to her current appointments, Ms. Mullin served as COO for the Europe, Middle East & Africa region, based in London, and before that as COO for the firm’s capital markets businesses. Over the years, she has navigated the firm through major changes in the market and geopolitical environment, including Brexit, Covid and return-to-office, and has helped to refresh our business and financial strategy in response to shifting market trends.
Prior to joining BlackRock, Ms. Mullin was a leader at Oliver Wyman, a financial services consulting firm. She earned a BA degree in Mathematics from Harvard College.
Janet is a marketing research and strategic insights executive with extensive experience in the technology, B2B media, healthcare, financial and professional services industries. Her ability to apply a variety of research approaches to strategic business problems has resulted in the delivery of impactful, innovative research programs for a long roster for global Fortune 1000 companies. Previous to her role as VP of Research at Arizent, Janet served as the General Manager/SVP Research at IDG and the head of Market Insights for HIMSS, a nonprofit in the healthcare space. Her passion is storytelling with data, leveraging research to fuel data-driven strategic decision making and thought leadership content. She holds a B.S. degree from Alfred University, and an MBA degree from the Franklin W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College.
L. Allison Dukes has served as Senior Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of Invesco Ltd (NYSE: IVZ) since 2020. In this role, she leads all global corporate finance functions, including strategic and financial planning, investor relations, corporate development, accounting, corporate tax, treasury, procurement, corporate services and global public policy.
Prior to joining Invesco, Ms. Dukes served as Chief Financial Officer of SunTrust Banks (now Truist Financial Corporation). Prior to becoming Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Dukes served in a series of leadership roles throughout her 20 years of service with SunTrust, including Head of Commercial & Business Banking, which included delivery of SunTrust’s investment banking and capital markets capabilities, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Atlanta Division of SunTrust, Co-Head of Private Wealth Management, and Head of Syndicated Finance Originations for SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.
Ms. Dukes currently serves on the board of Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE: HVT) where she chairs the nominating, compensation and governance committee. Ms. Dukes also serves on the Board of Trustees for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, where she chairs the finance committee, the Board of Trustees for Emory University, the board of Junior Achievement of Georgia where she previously served as Board Chair from 2019 to 2021, and as a trustee for the John and Mary Franklin Foundation. Prior civic board service includes the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce Executive Board, the Atlanta History Center, the Alliance Theater at the Woodruff Arts Center, trustee of the Camp-Younts Foundation, trustee of the Pitts Foundation, and Chair of the SunTrust Trusteed Foundations.
Ms. Dukes earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Business Administration from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. Allison and her husband, Billy, are natives of Atlanta and have two sons.
Stephanie Richard is the chief risk officer of Ally Financial Inc. Appointed to the role in November 2024, Richard is responsible for overseeing the identification, assessment and management of risks across the organization and ensuring the company’s risk strategy supports business goals and objectives. She works closely with senior leadership to develop policies and frameworks to safeguard the company’s financial stability and reputation. Richard reports to the risk committee of the board of directors and to Ally’s CEO.
Since joining Ally in 1997, Richard has had a long and respected reputation with key stakeholders and helped design the company’s initial risk appetite framework and stress testing process. She has served in numerous roles with increasing levels of responsibility across finance, treasury and risk management. Since Ally became a bank holding company in 2008, she has played an integral part in many of the company’s transformation initiatives. Prior to her current role, Richard served as Ally’s chief audit executive where she led the internal audit function and had administrative oversight for the company’s loan review function. During that time, she established a strategic focus on the transformation of the internal audit function, with efforts on cultivating innovation and expanding the use of technology and data analytics.
Richard serves as a board member and treasurer for Dress for Success’s Charlotte chapter and as treasurer for Project Scientist, a leading STEAM education nonprofit organization. She is also a member of the advisory board for the Wake Forest University School of Professional Studies’ enterprise risk management program. Additionally, she previously served as president of Women Executives for Community Service (WECS), a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide support to women pursuing a degree through the Women Initiating and Nurturing Growth through Scholarships (WINGS) program.
In 2022, Richard was an honoree for Charlotte Business Journal’s Women in Business Achievement Awards. She holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Michigan State University and an MBA from Wayne State University.
Sandy Kaul is the Head of Digital Assets and Innovation at Franklin Templeton. Her team focuses on how disruptive technologies and innovation are reshaping the trajectory of asset and wealth management and how Franklin Templeton, our clients and our partners evolve their offerings to realize the benefits of new capabilities. Efforts span the enhancement of existing products and services, the creation of new offerings, and the deployment of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital assets.
Sandy and the team draw on a combination of proprietary industry surveys, a network of fintech investors and vendors, leading industry experts and regulators, and world-class technologists to create and deliver their industry views, advice and expertise. Her work covers the breadth of how investment portfolios, products, investment strategies, services, and customer engagement are evolving. Sandy is the co-chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission’s Digital Asset Subcommittee and is on the World Economic Forum Digital Assets Advisory Board and the DTCC’s Digital Asset Advisory Board. She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, events, podcasts, and webinars and is a sought-after source of information and advice for senior industry leaders.
Prior to joining Franklin Templeton, Sandy had created and built out the Business Advisory Services team over a 12-year period with Citi Global Markets and within Citi Wealth Management. Earlier in her career, Sandy worked on the sell-side as a futures research analyst at Shearson Lehman Brothers, on the buy-side as a portfolio manager at Commodities Corporation/Goldman Sachs Asset Management and as a program manager at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. Sandy additionally has a background in consulting, leading the introduction of web-based capabilities into the institutional financial services space via her work with the innovative technology start-up firm Scient during the Dot.Com era and then with capital markets niche specialty consulting firm m.a.partners in the mid-2000s.
Sandy graduated with a major in History and a minor in Political Science from Colgate University. She actively supports the STEM-focused Young Women’s Leadership School in the Bronx, NY that seeks to improve educational opportunities for women in underserved communities.