21 people you need to meet at THINK 18
Only a few more days until the premier thought leadership conference for credit unions opens its doors. You are registered (if not, do it soon, tickets are going fast), booked travel and you are getting mentally ready to learn and collaborate with your fellow credit union executives. With over 800 professionals in attendance, THINK 18 is the who’s who of the credit union industry.
This year at THINK we’re focusing on the “Race to Excellence”, and have organized our program into three main areas of focus: the Credit Union (R)evolution, Advancing Credit Unions Through AI and the Accelerating Payment Challenge. Through a series of keynotes and in-depth breakout sessions called Power Sprints we want to help connect top-level ideas with real-world strategies you can put to work immediately.
But with so much great content jam-packed in the agenda, we want to make sure you have ample time to meet and connect with fellow innovators and collaborators. For that reason, we share with you some of the big names you might want to connect with during THINK 18:
- Todd Clark, President/CEO of CO-OP Financial Services, initiated a major culture shift within CO-OP to take innovation and customer service to the next level.
- Beth Comstock, former Vice Chair at GE, initiated GE’s digital and clean-energy transformations, developed new businesses, increased GE’s brand value and sales, and partnered to enhance its inventive culture.
- Chris Skinner, world renowned Fintech Advisor and Strategist, independent commentator and futurist on the financial markets and Fintech.
- Jaron Lanier, Silicon Valley Visionary and pioneer in Virtual Reality (a term he coined), founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. In 2010, Lanier was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine and is listed as one of history’s 300 or so greatest inventors in the Encyclopedia Brittanica
- Chief Revenue Officer Mathew Kardell joined CO-OP in April 2017. Previously, he was Senior Vice President and General Manager (SVP/GM) of STAR Network Relationship and Sales at First Data Corporation. He is a veteran of the payments and financial services industry with more than 25 years in high-performing revenue-generation and business development roles.
- Jean Chatzky, financial editor at NBC’s Today Show and this year’s THINK host, is an award winning personal finance journalist and best-selling author.
- Naveen Jain, President/Founder at CULytics,Visionary and Change Agent with deep technology and execution expertise in building big data and advanced analytics practice from ground-up and driving customer centric, insight-based cultural change.
- Dean Michaels joined CO-OP Financial Services in December 2017 as Head of Corporate Development and Strategic Partnerships. Prior to joining CO-OP, Michaels held leadership roles at First Data Corporation, including Head of Business Execution for STAR Network and Head of Finance for First Data’s U.S. Merchant Acquiring Business.
- Nicholas Thompson, Editor-in-Chief, Wired Magazine, revolutionized the New Yorker’s online platform and transformed the magazine. Now, as the editor-in-chief of Wired, he’s working at the forefront of digital innovation – championing tech’s role in making the world a better place.
- Kari Wilfong serves as CO-OP’s Chief Financial Officer/Chief Administrative Officer. Her main focus is on financial security, as well as the strategic, organic and future financial growth and development of CO-OP. She is also responsible for the advancement and management of enterprise-wide accounting, finance, information technology, risk management and security.
- Chief Information Officer Nick Calcanes joined CO-OP in April 2017 from financial technology solutions provider Fiserv, where he was CIO for Financial Risk Management Solutions. His 25-year career in the financial services industry includes key technology leadership positions as CIO, Wholesale Credit and Client Technology at Bank of America Corporation and CIO, Global Functions Technology at Ally Financial.
- Brian Solis, Principal Analyst at Altimeter Group, has studied and influenced the effects of emerging technology on business and society. His research and books help executives, and also everyday people, better understand the evolution of technology and its impact on people and also the role we each play in that evolution.
- James (Jim) Hanisch has more than 35 years of experience with credit unions and 40 years of experience with payments and technology. Jim serves as President, CO-OP Network, with responsibility for long-term strategy and implementation of the expanding CO-OP ATM and CO-OP Shared Branch nationwide credit union network assets.
- Thomas Frey, Founder of the DaVinci Institute and Senior Futurist, has built an enormous following based on his ability to develop accurate visions of the future and describe opportunities ahead. Before launching the DaVinci Institute, Frey spent 15 years at IBM as an engineer and designer where he received over 270, more than any other IBM engineer.
- Nish Modi, CO-OP’s VP of Digital and Business Intelligence, has over 20 years of experience in product innovation, technology, strategy and leadership in Fintech, Finserv, Payments and the eCommerce industry.
- Paul Love, CO-OP’s Chief Information Security Officer, brings more than 25 years of information security and technology experience to his role at CO-OP, including positions with the U.S. Marine Corps, Schlumberger, Fifth Third Bank, Standard Financial Group, Microsoft, Ernst & Young, Ally Financial, Cetera Financial Group and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac), where most recently he served as Senior Director of Governance, Risk and Compliance.
- Chip Heath, is a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, teaching courses on business strategy, change, and sticky communication, and consulting with clients ranging from Google and Gap to the Nature Conservancy and the American Heart Association.
- Fotis Konstantinidis joined CO-OP Financial Services in January 2018 as Senior Vice President and Data Scientist overseeing fraud products. Hos objective is to apply digital transformation to the ways in which CO-OP helps credit union detect and prevent payment fraud.
- Shivani Siroya is the founder and CEO of Tala, a mobile technology and data science company committed to expanding financial access, choice, and control for underserved people. Tala’s smartphone app provides instant credit scoring, lending, and other personalized financial services in emerging markets.
- Matthew Maguire, CO-OP’s Chief Data Officer, is instrumental in advancing the firm’s technology goals and helping the credit unions that are a part of the CO-OP ecosystem make greater use of their data with emerging technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence.
- Samantha Paxson, creator of the THINK initiative and CO-OP’s Chief Marketing and Experience Officer, focuses on the intersection of technology, creativity, purpose and experience to meet the needs of CO-OP clients and their members. Discovering new ways to make CO-OP one of the most admired and exciting companies is her passion.