Mary Ellen Egan is a journalist with more than 25 years of experience in business and investigative journalism. She has been a staff writer and editor at Forbes, The American Lawyer, First Amendment Watch and American Banker. She has freelanced for Bloomberg, Bloomberg Law, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Stanford Graduate School of Business and Thomson Reuters. She is currently an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University.

Anand Natarajan is a Managing Director and Treasury Sales Officer at Bank of America in the Insurance & Specialty Finance team, where he partners with card networks, third-party payment processors, and fintechs to design and scale global payment and collection solutions. He brings over 18 years of experience across treasury, payments, and transaction banking.

Prior to joining Bank of America, Anand was Head of Cash Management Sales for Technology and Fintech at Standard Chartered in San Francisco, working closely with high-growth platforms and global networks across the U.S., EMEA, and Asia. He began his career at Deutsche Bank, spending 12 years in Corporate and Transaction Banking before moving to Standard Chartered in 2019.

Rusty Pickering is the President and Chief Operating Officer (and former General Counsel) of Ingo Payments, a full-service embedded finance platform for banks, fintechs and enterprise brands. Rusty was previously a partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough. Rusty received his BS in Biomedical Engineering from Tulane University in 1991 and his JD cum laude from the University of Texas School of Law in 1994.

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, Accounting Today, National Mortgage News, 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, technology, and professional services 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.

Michael is a strategic insights and content development executive with a subject matter expertise in financial services and strategy consulting. Prior to his current role, Michael served as a senior analyst with Arizent’s PaymentsSource publication (now part of American Banker) where he published articles and research reports, conducted podcasts and led the brand’s social media strategy. Before joining Arizent, he held executive roles at Visa, Ondot (Fiserv), Synchrony, Capital One and McKinsey. His strengths include his ability to sift through data, understand its strategic and tactical implications and then relay that to executives in a succinct manner. In his spare time, Michael enjoys travel, hiking and volunteering at the Texas Food Bank. Michael holds an M.B.A. from Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University and a B.B.A. from Ross School of Business at University of Michigan.

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.

Richard Crone is CEO of Crone Consulting, LLC, specializing in re-deploying heritage payment assets to support the launch of innovative use cases and new markets for legacy financial institutions, retailers and their infrastructure providers. He has been directly involved in nearly every major transformative move in payments as a vendor, fintech strategist, board member, consultant and investor. He has direct, deep and recent experience with all the major stakeholders supporting the Federal Reserve Bank’s FedNow, The Clearing House’s Realtime Payments and other global instant payment schemes. His unique working knowledge has enabled repositioned use cases for instant payments using over-the-top, alternative clearing and settlement structures for Pay-By-Bank decoupled debit, electronic bill/invoice presentment & payment, A2A, P2P and the like. With over 20 years of proprietary longitudinal data through his firm’s Service Interaction Analysis™, Richard helps clients interpret trends across channels, products and customer touchpoints to drive innovation and strategic planning. He is a trusted advisor for partnerships, fintech integrations and M&A, frequently called upon by venture and private equity firms for due diligence on high-profile deals in payments and fintech. More at www.linkedin.com/in/richardcrone.

Sayantan Chakraborty is a seasoned payments industry leader and currently leads the Digital Payments business at Fiserv. In this capacity, he oversees a broad portfolio of critical payment solutions, helping financial institutions modernize and scale their payment capabilities.

With deep expertise across the payments and banking ecosystem, Sayantan brings a practitioner’s perspective shaped by leadership roles at some of the world’s largest financial institutions. Prior to Fiserv, he served as Global Head of Payments Rails at J.P. Morgan Chase, where he was responsible for core payment infrastructure and networks. He previously led Product for Global Treasury Management at U.S. Bank, driving innovation at the intersection of commercial banking and payments.

Sayantan began his career at Citi in the Global Transactions business, where he held roles spanning Treasury & Trade Solutions, Wealth Management, and Cash Management Operations. This breadth of experience across product, operations, and global payments platforms gives him a unique, end-to-end view of how payments are evolving and how financial institutions can navigate that transformation.

Active across the global payments ecosystem, Sayantan is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events worldwide, where he shares perspectives on the evolution of payment rails, modernization, and innovation at scale. He has also served on the Board of Directors of NACHA, contributing to the governance and advancement of the U.S. payments network.

Marketing Card Technology (MCT) is a U.S.-based secure card manufacturer and direct mail production company.

· Mastercard and VISA EMV credit, debit, and prepaid cards

· Gift card production & packaging

· Preferred customer cards

· Specialty materials, inks, and coatings

· Expert card design support

MCT. Your PARTNER for a Secure Tomorrow.

Priority is the payments and banking fintech that enables businesses to collect, store, lend, and send funds through a unified commerce engine.
Our platform combines payables, merchant services, and banking and treasury solutions so leaders can streamline financial operations efficiently — and our innovative industry experts help businesses navigate and build momentum on the path to growth. With the Priority Commerce Engine, leaders can accelerate cash flow, optimize working capital, reduce unnecessary costs, and unlock new revenue opportunities.