Jason Hardgrave joined DR Bank as CEO in 2021. He brings three decades of experience in financial services to the bank, where he has led its transformation into a leading fintech sponsor bank driving innovation in payments, lending and institutional-grade banking services. Jason’s career to date has been focused on promoting innovation in financial services, with deep, hands-on experience scaling large, digitally-native solutions.

Prior to DRB, Jason worked at Santander both in the US and London leading major products, most notably as the EVP of Consumer Products for the US with responsibility for deposits, payments, fintech partnerships, consumer lending and credit cards. In this capacity, Jason worked with scaled, national platforms and launched multiple new products for consumer and business banking.

Earlier in his career, Jason was a founder at Novantas, a consulting group, (now Curinos) and was a consultant at First Manhattan Consulting Group. He is committed to driving innovation at DRB in financial services through its partnership with fintechs and delivering modern banking solutions for innovators. He holds both an undergraduate degree and an MBA from Tulane University.

As head of Merchant and Insights for U.S. Bank Avvance, Emily Hartye leads the end-to-end Merchant Experience for Avvance, driving activation, servicing, and retention to ensure a seamless, high-performing merchant journey. She also oversees the development of Avvance’s enterprise data lake, unifying data across 50+ systems to enable deeper analysis that guides data-driven product discovery and development.

Emily brings over 14 years of financial services experience, primarily in product management, with previous roles at Bank of America, a regional bank, a payments fintech, and a product consultancy serving financial institutions. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Duke University and an MBA from UNC-Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Dao Boyle is the President of Allstate Identity Protection.  Prior to joining Allstate, Dao was a leader at TransUnion Consumer Interactive for more than twelve years, most recently as the President of TransUnion’s identity protection subsidiary, Sontiq.  Prior to joining TransUnion, Dao was a partner at a Chicago law firm, Neal, Gerber, & Eisenberg.  

He earned his B.A. from University of Illinois, J.D. from Northwestern University, and M.B.A. from University of Chicago.

Emanuela is the Global Head of Cross Border Payments at Citi within Services. She is responsible for the management of a very broad and competitively differentiated suite of cross-border payments solutions in over 200 countries. She is accountable for business strategy and execution, P&L, product development and partnership with Markets. Recent innovation includes real-time payments into bank accounts and into Alternative Payment Methods across borders and currencies and Global Beneficiary Services which allow clients’ payees to digitally track incoming payments.

She has been with Citi for several years and has held various roles in product management in payments as well as a role in Strategy and Financial Planning & Analysis in New York. Before joining Citi in 2003, Emanuela worked for five years at Goldman Sachs in New York in both M&A and Equity Research.

Emanuela holds a master’s degree in economics from New York University (USA) and a degree magna cum laude in Economics and Commerce from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy).

She served as a Non-Executive Director of Health Beacon plc prior to the company’s IPO; she sits on the EMEA Advisory Board of Women in Payments. In her personal life she is very enthusiastic about sport and a passionate Yoga practitioner. Emanuela is originally from Venice, Italy and currently lives in Dublin, Ireland with her husband Jim, a Boston native. They have two sons, aged 22 and 17.

Driss Temsamani is the Americas Head of Digital at Citi, where he leads the Digital Bank Platform, delivering innovative solutions in cash management, liquidity, trade, and digital assets. His work spans the United States, Canada, and Latin America, enabling multinational corporations, financial institutions, and public sector organizations to achieve seamless connectivity, efficiency, and growth.

With three decades at Citi, Driss has held pivotal leadership roles in Product, Client, and Market Management. He was instrumental in launching Citi’s e-Business division, pioneering digital transformation, redefining operating models, and positioning Citi as a leader in financial services innovation.

Driss is an advisor to central banks and regulators, with expertise in financial inclusion and modernizing financial market infrastructure. A recognized thought leader, he speaks at global forums like the Latin America Federation of Banks and the Association of Supervisors of Banks of the Americas, with insights featured in CNN, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal.Passionate about entrepreneurship and education, Driss serves on the boards of Junior Achievement Americas and The George Washington University’s School of Business. He is actively engaged in global initiatives, including the U.S. Department of State’s Global Entrepreneurship Program and the Aspen Institute’s “Partners for a New Beginning.”

Today, Driss is at the forefront of exploring the transformative impact of artificial intelligence and blockchain on banking and corporate treasury, reinforcing his long-standing commitment to innovation and thought leadership. He is the author of The Agentic Bank, a forward-looking book that examines how AI agents and blockchain infrastructure are redefining financial services through intelligent automation, decision augmentation, trust, and human–AI collaboration.

Jennifer has more than 25 years of experience accelerating digital innovation across Product, Marketing, Operations, and IT. As Senior Director of Experience Strategy and Digital Engagement at Pinnacle Financial Partners, she shapes the vision and roadmap for experience-driven strategies and capabilities to help redefine how clients engage with financial services.

Before joining Synovus, Jennifer led digital engagement at Aflac for 12 years, where she advanced new platforms and capabilities that reshaped customer and agent experiences. She also spent 15 years at The Coca-Cola Company in global marketing and communications roles, driving brand-building initiatives across international markets.

Carter Pape covers cybersecurity for American Banker from Davis, California. He was previously a reporter for The Times-Independent in Moab, Utah and holds a degree in mathematics from North Carolina State University. He is also an avid programmer and has worked in several software development roles.

Vineeth Subramanyam leads Spring by Citi, Citi’s digital payment acceptance service globally. He has over two decades of experience across payments and ecommerce in product, strategy and innovation roles.

Rich Meszaros is Head of Cross Border Money Movement at Visa Direct, leading the commercialization strategy and business growth for NA Visa Direct. Visa Direct provides a mature infrastructure for real-time money movement across 200+ countries & territories, 160+ currencies, and 12 billion endpoints.

Rich brings over 20 years of industry experience in building and growing digital businesses for global brands, and has held leadership roles at Accenture, MoneyGram International and US Bank. He is a forerunner in creating innovative products, leveraging IoT, digital payments and tokenized assets with a focus on designing, enabling and optimizing new commerce models.

Rich holds an MBA from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, a B.S. from Marquette University in Economics and Finance and is a graduate of the Consumer Bankers Association Graduate School of Retail Bank Management.