Rebecca Schultz is a financial services professional with 20+ years of experience in B2B and B2C marketing and product management. She joined Boost Payment Solutions as the company’s first Chief Marketing Officer in 2021. Rebecca has primary responsibility for establishing Boost as the primary thought leader and solution provider in the B2B payment industry through earned, owned and paid marketing strategies, sales support and demand generation campaigns.

Prior to joining Boost, Rebecca served as Merchant Services Marketing Executive at Bank of America. In this role, she was responsible for the end-to-end marketing strategy for the Merchant Services line of business across all client segments. She previously led product marketing and co-brand partnership marketing for the Bank of America Merchant Services joint venture and spent nine years at Ally Bank in a variety of senior product management roles.

Rebecca is passionate about transparency, equity and inclusion and has served in leadership roles in several community and corporate programs, including the Employee Engagement task force at Boost. She previously served on the Board of Directors for the North Carolina Theatre Conference and Charlotte Ballet and is currently the volunteer Executive Director of Three Bone Theatre, a professional non-profit theatre company in Charlotte, NC that uses theatre as a catalyst for conversation and community change.

Rebecca was named to the American Banker Most Influential Women in Payments: NEXT list in 2024. She holds a Bachelors of Science in Communications degree from University of Miami in Coral Gables, FL and an MBA from University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School in Chapel Hill, NC.

Christian Santaniello is Senior Vice President, Head of Commercial Deposits and Treasury Management for Axos Bank, where he oversees sales, operations, and product management for the commercial deposit business. Mr. Santaniello has over 25 years of experience in banking, focused on deposits and treasury Management. Before joining Axos, Mr. Santaniello held positions at several financial institutions, including Citizens Financial Group in Boston, MA, Countrywide Bank in Thousand Oaks, CA and City National Bank in Los Angeles, CA. During his career, he has held leadership roles across product management, sales management, operations, strategic planning, finance and analytics. Mr. Santaniello earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Tufts University and graduated from the Pacific Coast Banking School at the University of Washington. He holds a Certified Treasury Professional (CTP®) designation from the Association for Financial Professionals.

Chris advises banks, financial technology companies, and financial service companies on a variety of regulatory compliance and enforcement matters, including matters involving fair lending, fair servicing, unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices (UDAAP), Community Reinvestment Act compliance, money transmission and payments, alternative credit, state law and deposit issues.

He also advises both banks and financial technology companies on the use of new technologies and digital channels, the development of novel financial products, establishing technology-based partnerships, and resolving disputes with partners and third-party service providers.

Prior to joining Mitchell Sandler, Chris was an associate at Buckley Sandler focused on the financial services industry, and had a decade-long career in retail banking and lending before entering the law.

Ruby Kaur is the Enterprise Payments, Chief Segment Risk Officer at Huntington Bank where she and her first line risk team provide oversight and guidance across strategic payment initiatives, partnerships, and innovation. In her role, Ruby fosters cross functional collaboration between risk, product, and sales teams to ensure alignment, compliance, and strategic risk management across the organization.

With 20+ years of risk experience, Ruby brings unparalleled industry expertise. Ruby is passionate about building strong risk management frameworks that not only protect the organization but also enhance operational efficiency and cross team collaboration. Her deep understanding of payments risk and regulatory compliance enables her to navigate complex challenges while supporting business growth and innovation.

Prior to joining Huntington, Ruby was Head of Commercial Product Risk at KeyBank, where she provided risk management thought leadership for Commercial Bank strategy and oversaw the end-to-end risk governance. Ruby held various risk related roles throughout her career including First Line of Defense Risk partner at PayPal, and at American Express, where she developed significant payments and operational risk domain expertise. Ruby also served as the Payments & Receivables Global In-Business Risk Head at Citibank, partnering closely with the regional and global risk teams across Treasury and Trade Solutions.

Ruby earned her undergraduate degree from De Montfort University, England, and attained her fellowship with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Veteran bank executive Rob Nardelli serves as Director of Commercial Banking for DailyPay, a leading financial technology company creating groundbreaking payments innovation. In his role, Nardelli serves as a Sales lead for channel top partnerships, leveraging his vast experience in Business Strategy, Panel Discussions, Strategic Business Development, Treasury Services and Bank Partnerships.

Prior to joining DailyPay, Nardelli served as Senior Vice President, Citizens Financial Group, serving as Senior Sales Specialist focused on Treasury Solutions and consulting corporate clients on how to optimize their working capital, efficiently manage their operating liquidity and improve their cash management processes.

Nardelli’s experience also includes several leadership roles at JP Morgan, including Vice President, serving as a Treasury Management Officer with a sizable portfolio of clients primarily focused in the sports, media and technology industries.

As the Vice President of Transaction Banking, Janis directly oversees Priority’s ACH.com and transaction-oriented Passport team engagements under Al Acevedo, Head of Banking and Treasury Solutions at Priority. Her primary responsibilities include but are not limited to managing pricing, go-to-market strategies, product features, and executive oversight on key banking initiatives required to support the financial service needs of our Small to Mid-Corporate customers.

With over 15 years of experience in high-impact sales roles within financial and technology services, Janis’ payment expertise, industry knowledge, and passion for innovation make her a Subject Matter Expert in simplifying the complexity of specialized payment processing. Janis is a Certified Treasury, ACH, and Purchasing Card Professional, with a Bachelor of Science degree from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo living in Central California.

Molly Hugar is a senior vice president and lead payments advisor with KeyBank. She oversees KeyBank’s commercial payments clients in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany, and is responsible for delivering the bank’s products and services to middle market customers. Previously, she was commercial banking middle market relationship manager at M&T Bank.

As a civic leader, Molly serves as the board treasurer of NYS’s ARC of Erie County and is a board member for the Maria M. Love Convalescent Fund. She earned her MBA from the University of Buffalo, and B.S. in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University.

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.

Chris is an Associate Partner in McKinsey’s Chicago office. He leads digital transformations in Commercial Banking, with industry knowledge of Transaction Banking and functional expertise in product management and agile delivery.

Prior to McKinsey, Chris worked at Deloitte Technology Consulting, predominantly focused on package implementations. While getting his MBA, Chris also interned at Facebook supporting the development and implementation of customer support capabilities for their growing Workplace product.

Chris received his MBA from University of Chicago Booth and his undergraduate degree from Villanova University.