Past Speakers

Dan Gonzalez is a vice president – national account director for the Federal Reserve’s Customer Relations and Support Office, based out of the Federal ReserveBank of Chicago.

Gonzalez’s responsibilities include collaborating and engaging with the industry to define and prioritize system improvements that advance payment speed, efficiency and security. He has overall responsibility for the Federal Reserve’s Financial Services relationships with the top 25 financial institutions in the country, as well as payment networks and service providers. Gonzalez spent the last several years working closely with key industry participants on their efforts to establish faster and more efficient payment systems. He has over 28 years’ experience in payments, sales, marketing and management in the financial services industry.

Gonzalez is a graduate of Siena College (Loudonville, NY) and the Federal Reserve’s Business Development University. He resides in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A multi-skilled professional with experience in implementing, managing and solutioning complex functional projects in various scenarios. I have worked across different banks in India & US from Operations/ Transaction banking to Consulting / Solution delivery departments under Payments, Cash Management and Trade Finance domain.Strong understanding of Payments & Cash management (ACH, Wires, Faster Payments, Online remittance), Trade finance and wholesale banking.

Deborah Baxley – International payments consultant, recognized expert in the industry, creator of growth strategies for new and existing markets with over 25 years’ experience consulting to banks. Through work in fifteen countries, advised issuers, acquirers, networks and processors on product direction and competitive positioning, delivering millions of dollars in new revenue or operating cost savings. As founding and Board member of the Faster Payments Council, member US Federal Reserve Faster Payments Taskforce, chair of the US Payments Forum’s Mobile and Touchless Payments Working Committee, co-founder of NYPAY and through frequent keynote speaking and writing, recognized for insights on the future of payments.

Steve Kenneally works at ABA on issues related to a range of payment systems including check, ACH, card, wires, as well as coins and paper money. He spends an increasing amount of time focused on emerging payment technologies such as mobile payments, virtual currencies, and blockchain technology, with an eye towards making them faster, safer and frictionless in the future. He is the staff liaison to two standing member committees focused on payments issues in addition to ABA’s Emerging Payments Advisory Group. He served as Chair of the International Banking Federation Payments Working Group and he is an elected member of the board of the Faster Payments Council and serves on Nacha’s Payments Innovation Alliance Consumer Payments Advisory Committee. Prior to joining the ABA in 2005, he served at the United States Department of the Treasury where he managed the private network of banks collecting non-tax payments on behalf of the federal government and drafted regulations and guidance on cash management issues.

Christopher Johnson is a senior advisor to Levio’s Payments group, where he collaborates with Levio’s bank and fintech clients to develop and execute payment modernization strategies. Johnson joined Levio from Fiserv, where he was division president for Biller Solutions, and where he led business development for the Bill Payment Solutions group. Prior, he was CEO at Inlet, a bill presentment and distribution network, which he sold to Fiserv. Johnson has previous leadership experience in digital transformation for B2B and B2C companies, including Pitney Bowes and Hearst Corporation. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Johnson is based in Big Sky, Montana with his wife and three children.

Ruchi is a Product Executive, Digital Transformation Leader, and Innovation Catalyst with more than a decade of experience across Banking & Financial Services, Global E-commerce, and Management Consulting.

Prior to Banking, Ruchi has led Global Product Line across 40+ countries scaling services including launching, building the very first SaaS B2B enterprise product at Pitney Bowes, along with being an entrepreneur/Founder.

Ruchi is also a featured speaker on the American Banker Thought Leadership series on Digital transformation, a Keynote speaker on Future DIgital Finance, and a panelist on other industry panels. She is also part of “Women in Product” at Facebook and was selected to the very first Facebook Inaugural conference being one of 250 women selected out of 3000 candidates worldwide along with selected to be part of summits like “The Fortune Most Powerful Women in NEXT-GEN” in technology by invite only.

She believes in giving back to the community, supporting diversity, and advancing women’s careers.