Sergio Ortega is responsible for BBVA Pivot Commercial Cards solution development enabling local, regional and global enterprises to homogeneously manage the expenses made with commercial cards in BBVA footprint (Europe & LAC). Sergio has more than 15 years of experience in Payments Systems, first in BBVA Spain (consumer issuing, acquiring and innovation) and since 2012 in global positions focused on commercial cards. He is leading BBVA Pivot Commercial Card solution business line development from scratch following design thinking & agile methodologies, coordinating cross-functional local, global, business & IT teams. Sergio has a Master Degree in Computer Science from Deusto University (Spain) and Aalborg University (Denmark). He also has an Executive MBA from Esade Business School (Spain).

With over 15 years of experience in financial services and consulting, I am a seasoned leader and strategist in the payments and transaction banking domain. I have led and delivered high-impact initiatives across corporate strategy, sales, product, operations, and technology for leading banks, fintechs, bank-owned market infrastructure, and consulting firms.

As the Head of North America Payments Advisory at JPMorgan, I focus on industry trends, client innovation, and business development. I leverage my expertise in payment strategy and new business development to help clients navigate the rapidly evolving payments landscape and achieve their growth objectives. I also collaborate with internal and external partners to create and execute the vision and roadmap for JPMorgan payments offerings and capabilities.

Holly Tennent is the Treasury Product Manager for Virtual Payables and Network Strategy at Bank of America. In her position, Holly plays a key role in shaping the B2B card and payables solutions strategy including fintech partnerships, client enhancements and supplier experience. Prior to joining Bank of America, Holly spent nine years at Bottomline Technologies, most recently in a solutions consultant capacity supporting Bank of America where she assisted clients with the functional and technical aspects of the Paymode-X solution. She believes in building lasting relationships and trusted partnerships, shown through her attention to detail and ongoing focus on the client experience. Holly is a graduate of St. Lawrence University where she was a national competitor on the Equestrian team.

I am originally from Panama, and I have had the privilege to develop my professional career globally.

In the U.K., I pursued a Master’s in Operations, project and supply chain management at Manchester Business School, after which I joined First TransPennine Express to contribute to the development of their revenue management strategy.

In Panama, I joined the Panama Canal Authority and led a team in charge of financial modeling of trade volumes, identification of new markets, and pricing strategy. In this position I got fascinated about finance, which led me to the decision to undertake an MBA at Yale.

During my MBA in the U.S., I joined American Express as an Intern in 2016 and returned full time in 2017. As a Director in Amex since 2019, I have led two Director teams (5+ colleagues), spearheaded Amex’s B2B acceleration strategy, developed product strategy for lending products, launched marketing campaigns, created infrastructure for internal analytics, delivered infrastructure uplifts for customer facing features, and led pricing strategy.

Paul Krumholz is the HSBC US Head of Product Management, NA Commercial Cards. Prior to joining HSBC in 2019, Paul held similar roles for Citi starting in 2012. As well as a background in B2B products such as Purchasing Card and Virtual Card, he has expertise in supplier enablement/supplier enrollment for B2B Card programs. Prior to Citi, Paul had a career as an officer in the United States Navy.

Erik VanBramer was named senior vice president and national sales director for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Customer Relations and Support Office (CRSO) effective April 2018. VanBramer has served as the national sales director since 2017 and was previously vice president and director of the Federal Reserve Bank’s national account program. In his current role, he is responsible for setting and implementing the strategy for managing the relationships and financial services offerings for financial institutions across the Federal Reserve System.

VanBramer joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in 1998 and transitioned to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 2005. His tenure with the Federal Reserve has encompassed multiple areas of management responsibility to include operations, internal support functions, as well as business development. VanBramer was promoted to assistant vice president and national account executive in 2010. He was promoted to vice president in 2014 with responsibility for leading the group which managed the relationships for the large and complex financial institutions.

VanBramer holds a bachelor’s degree from The Colorado College and has done additional graduate studies at The Lake Forest Graduate School of Business, The Booth School of Business, and obtained his certificate from the Graduate School of Banking at The University of Colorado. He serves on several boards throughout the Denver metro area with particular interest in injury prevention and underserved children and communities.

Joining Commerce Bank in 2013, Jason brings almost 20 years of experience in the invoice process and payment industry. In his role, Jason manages a team of solution consultants and also consults with clients in various industries to determine where efficiencies would be gained and cost savings realized in their accounts payable process. Jason is able to analyze the current AP process while establishing strategic goals and outlining the steps and best practices required to automate processes within AP. He also arms businesses with comprehensive ROI justifications through inclusive payments strategies.

Amy Horack is a Director at Bank of America within the Global Transaction Services organization. She works with the Global Card & Intelligent Payables team to develop informative and inspiring messaging for internal and external stakeholders and drive solution adoption with clients. In her role, Amy collaborates with partners in all areas of the bank to create marketing, servicing, and internal communications through a variety of channels with the goal of global consistency and user clarity. Through multiple channels and internal promotion, Amy has driven app adoption, solution revenue and internal engagement. Her primary goal is to translate the deep, technical knowledge of the product team into the language of users with a focus on their desires. Amy does this through pulling from the diverse experiences she has gathered in her non-linear career. Who says that an event planner with a degree in Nutrition and Dietetics cannot be a banker?

JANET GUTHRIE heads up the Card and Comprehensive Payables team’s travel product strategy and local issuing partnerships in Latin America. She also leads efforts to launch and commercialize new card solutions to our corporate clients globally. Her focus is transforming the way clients and cardholders transact virtually and out in the world.

Janet leads a team of product professionals dedicated to providing innovation and market leadership to the dynamic commercial card environment. This team drives initiatives to help our clients optimize their travel spending while enjoying an experience tailored to today’s environment. The team is transforming the way people transact virtually and out in the “real” world.

Janet has devoted her career to the payments industry; connecting the realms of fintechs and financial institutions is a specialty. Imagining the role card payments play in environmental sustainability is what motivates her every day.

Prior to joining Bank of America, Janet managed prepaid products, directed business development and strategy, led a global account management team and launched online banking and bill payment systems for industry leaders (Mastercard, Visa, WageWorks, Brodia). She began her career at VeriFone, a maker of merchant credit card terminals still in use today.

She currently resides in San Francisco where she heads up LEAD for Women, one of Bank of America’s employee network groups. She is also a board committee member of ECS, the largest provider of essential services to people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco. In every season, she can be found in the mountains, hiking, skiing, or kayaking while she concocts the plot of the novel she will complete someday.

Geisa Balla has over 10 years of experience in the financial services industry and is currently Head of Product at Customers Bank, leading the bank’s product management team for digital banking, cash management, digital onboarding, payments, open finance, credit cards and fintech partnerships. Prior to Customers Bank, she was a Sr. Product Manager at American Express for the commercial Membership Rewards program, leading the product refresh and innovation. She also held roles in marketing at American Express across the small business and commercial segments. She holds a BA in International Studies from Michigan State University, and a JD from New York Law School.

Anand Mitra is North America Product Management and Global Product Delivery Head for Cross Currency Payments at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Cross Currency Payments provides a comprehensive suite of FX Payments to large corporate, financial institutions, commercial bank, and retail clients.  Anand is responsible for developing and executing on platform strategy for Cross Currency solutions. This includes leading development strategy, roadmap, and build out of FX payment products and partnerships. Anand has more than 20 years of experience in financial services product management, client relations, and technology development and deployment. Anand has led Cross Currency Payments, Electronic Bank Account Management (eBAM), Liquidity Concentration Platform, and Offshore Accounts product groups.  Prior to joining financial industry , he managed software development projects in New York and India for a major multinational corporation. He holds an MBA degree from the University of Notre Dame and earned an Masters degree in MIS and BS degree from Devi Ahilya University Indore, India.

Ray joined Webster Bank in July 2023 as Managing Director, Enterprise Payments and currently leads Product Management for Commercial Card. Ray oversees several disciplines to drive competitive differentiation including strategy, innovation, partnership development and most importantly, customer experience for its Commercial Banking customers. Previously, Ray held similar roles at Citizens Bank and prior to that, led Commercial Products at Mastercard in North America managing Product development and management initiatives for the small business, mid-market, large market and public-sector segments. Ray was charged with developing a differentiated product strategy across a host of Commercial Card assets. In addition, Ray also led Mastercard’s relationships with a number of issuers including J P Morgan, WEX, HSBC, and Citizens spanning credit, debit, prepaid, cobrand, and commercial card portfolios. Ray lives in Connecticut with his wife and 2 daughters.

Dean Nolan is Managing Director, Commercial Payments at SRM (Strategic Resource Management), an independent advisory firm serving financial institutions through strategic consulting, vendor sourcing, and vendor contract optimization.
 
Dean brings 25+ years of experience in payments and financial services, having held leadership positions in payments strategy, innovation, product management, and product sales at Fifth Third Bank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, First Data, and MasterCard. He is a frequent speaker on Instant Payments and Fintech and API workgroup chair at the US Faster Payments Council.

Sébastien Delasnerie, a senior executive in the B2B payment arena, holds a record of shaping and executing multiple high growth strategies and successfully leading cross-functional teams through transformational initiatives. Leveraging 24 years of banking experience, Sébastien has consistently applied a client-centric strategic vision to articulate and deliver high impact revenue and profitability objectives.

Sébastien is currently in charge of the North America Commercial Cards business at Citi with responsibilities cutting across client engagement, product development, operations and technology (>500 FTEs). Most recently, he led his team to successfully implement several client-focused initiatives emphasizing the security, immediacy, data enrichment, and financial benefits of the bank’s B2B payment solutions, yielding double digit CAGR in virtual card payments between 2019 and 2021. Sébastien thrives in high pace environments, particularly when responsible for driving foundational changes to a business model, as further exemplified by his leading a multi-year effort to modernize the business’ tech stack and avail clients with an upgraded platform able to support emerging market demands, including APIs and data analytics.

Sébastien is passionate about the B2B payment space and the ever-evolving demand of clients in this field, creating endless opportunities to add value to the buyer-seller relationship. In his previous role as North America Trade Business Head at Citi, he assessed the market demand for cash flow optimization following the 2009 financial crisis and led his team to execute a market-wide commercialization campaign of the bank’s working capital solutions, primarily supply chain finance.

Sébastien’s leadership style can be best characterized as ’50/50’; half ‘consultative’, drawing from the best and brightest across the organization, and half ‘pace setter’, identifying the strategic priorities and driving their successful execution.

Going forward, Sébastien looks to continue to leverage his diverse banking background and extensive senior leadership experience, identify growth opportunities, optimize organizational resources, implement the necessary changes and drive teams to new heights.

Sébastien is proud to serve as senior sponsor of the LGBTQ+ Employee Affinity Group for Citi Treasury & Trade Solutions North America.

Sébastien holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics & Finance from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (France) and a Master’s Degree in Financial Engineering from the Université Paris-Sorbonne (France).

Lydie Charpin recently joined Mastercard as VP – Corporate Travel and Spend Management to expand T&E commercial card solutions for large enterprise. She is responsible for the overall T&E portfolio strategy and product management working closely with T&E partners. She is striving for innovation to reshape the future of corporate travel and expense management. Lydie brings to this position +15 years of experience in the travel industry, more specifically in business travel.

Prior to joining Mastercard, Lydie was VP- Cytric Solutions at Amadeus providing large enterprise corporations with an end-to-end T&E platform including travel booking, expense management, payment, mobile, duty of care, analytics. Lydie was responsible for the overall portfolio strategy, product management, presales & strategic bid, UX and marketing of the T&E platform with teams based in 15 countries.

Previously, Lydie was the Head of Payment Product Management, an emerging business line at Amadeus serving corporations and business travel agencies, as well online travel agencies and airlines / hotels / railways customers for their payment needs.

Lydie graduated from first-class French engineering school “Ecole Centrale Paris”. She is married, has four children, and is based in Sophia-Antipolis in France.

Mitchell Bessey is the Head of North America Commercial Solutions at Visa.  Based in San Francisco, Mitchell leads a team of product and market experts who deliver small, mid, and large market solutions for Visa’s Financial Institution and FinTech ecosystem in North America.  Prior to this role, Mitchell delivered net new partnerships and payment solutions in roles across business development, FinTech partnerships, Strategy & Operations and Small Business Product management roles with Visa in both London and San Francisco.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Denver.