Open Banking Expo USA Speakers

Brian Tate is President and CEO the Innovative Payments Association. The IPA is the premiere payments trade association focused exclusively on companies involved in providing innovative payment products to consumers, businesses, and federal and state governments. Early in his tenure as IPA CEO, Brian led the rebranding and the eventual transition of the Network Branded Prepaid Card Association’s into the IPA in 2018. As the association’s lead advocate, spokesperson, and legal officer, Brian has urged the CFPB to amend its Prepaid Account regulations, successfully encouraged amend its brokered regulations, and advocated generally for the increased use of electronic payments as an efficient and effective means of consumer banking before the OCC, the Federal Reserve, state regulators, and Congress.

Brian also is a co-chair of the IRS’s Security Summit’s Financial Services Working Group, represented the IPA before FinCEN’s BSAAG, and currently is a member of the FTC’s Stop Senior Scams Task Force. Over the last 15 years Brian has been directly involved in some of the most notable financial services related issues, including the Dodd-Frank, the Durbin Amendment, the Small Business Jobs Act, and Fiduciary Duty. Lastly, Brian has participated in numerous media interview, industry panels, and has had the privilege of testifying before various state legislatures and before Congress. Lastly, Brian has authored numerous op-eds regarding the state of the payments industry.

A native Marylander, Brian is a graduate of the Howard University School of Law and is licensed to practice in the state of Maryland and is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar. In addition, Brian has an M.A. from George Washington University, and a B.A. from King’s College. Brian currently lives in Maryland with his wife and three children.

Hemali Shah is a Channel manager for Open Banking and Digital API at Regions Bank. Prior to that, Hemali led a team of data scientists as a Data Science Manager at Regions. She is an accomplished visionary leader, with the right set of soft skills and technical skills. Over 10 years of Industry experience in providing end to end data driven solutions, that helps reduce cost, increase revenue, and improve efficiency.

John Pitts is the Head of Industry Relations for Plaid, a financial services technology

company. Plaid helps consumers control their financial data to get the best digital financial

services possible, from popular apps like Venmo and Coinbase, banks like Citi and Wells

Fargo, and companies like Comcast and Tesla. In his role as Head of Industry Relations,

John leads industry efforts to create a safe, innovative, and fast growing digital financial

services ecosystem. He previously served as Head of Policy at Plaid, advocating for open

finance laws in North America and Europe, and has consulted on financial data and

consumer protection laws and regulations in the United States, Canada, the UK, the

European Union, and Australia.

Before joining Plaid, John served as the Deputy Assistant Director for Intergovernmental

Affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. At the Bureau, John worked with the

state Attorneys General to promote cooperation and coordination between the states in

enforcing the Dodd-Frank Consumer Financial Protection Act. He was a regular speaker on

NAAG, CWAG, and State Center panels on topics including student lending, payday

lending, and emerging financial technologies like cryptocurrencies. John started his career

as an attorney with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.

Kim is the Global Head of Pay by Bank Commercialization and Go to Market, with over 30 years of payments experience at J.P. Morgan.

Kim’s career began with Chase Card Services, followed by Treasury Services. Prior to Pay by Bank, Kim was a product lead for Real Time Payments – Request for Payment, with a focus on the client experience. Prior to moving into Product, Kim was a leader in the Project and Program Management areas of both Technology and Operations.

Kim has been active for over 10 years in the JPM Women on the Move (WOTM) Business Resource Group and served previously as the Tampa Site and state of Florida Site Co-Chair. Kim is also an active member of PayTech Women and on the Steering Committee for TS Payments Getting Employees Together (G.E.T.).

Kim holds her Bachelor of Arts in Information Systems from Eckerd College and Master of Science in Management with a minor in Project Management from Stevens Institute of Technology. Kim also has her Project Management Professional and Certified Scrum Master certifications.

Paul LaRusso is Chief Executive Officer of Akoya. He is responsible for the strategic, financial, and operational leadership for the company and works closely with the Board of Directors.

Prior to Akoya, Paul served as the Head of Connected Banking / Open Banking at Chase. In this role, he led the industry in building out the infrastructure to deliver greater control and protection for consumers sharing their financial data. Through his leadership, Chase fully eliminated screen scraping.

Over his 14-year career at Chase, Paul held additional leadership positions including the Head of Product for Digital Servicing, responsible for Chase’s online communications and servicing products used by 40 million active users and Product Owner for Mobile where he led the strategy and rollout of Chase’s first mobile banking apps. LaRusso was also the Board Co-Chair of Financial Data Exchange (FDX) and was on the Board of Directors of Akoya.

In addition, Paul has worked in the mobile industry for Verizon and Sprint. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s (B.A.) from Bucknell University.

Ryan T. Miller is Vice President & Senior Counsel of Innovation Policy at the American Bankers Association, where he supports the Office of Innovation. In this role, Ryan represents banks of all sizes and works with policymakers to help build a sound and equitable regulatory framework in which to pursue cutting edge initiatives such as AI, personal financial data sharing (Dodd-Frank Act Section 1033), digital assets, and other emerging areas. He also leverages his experience to provide support in privacy and compliance matters.

Prior to joining ABA, Ryan worked as a financial services compliance professional supporting privacy, information security, records retention, vendor management, and other enterprise-wide issues. He also previously served as an attorney for the federal government and a political subdivision of the State of Texas. Ryan obtained his Juris Doctorate from the University of Houston Law Center in 2006 and completed his undergraduate degree in history and political science from Wittenberg University in 2003. He is licensed in Texas and the District of Columbia, and holds a CIPP/US certification.

As Senior Vice President and Enterprise Payments Strategy Leader at SouthState Bank, Tara collaborates across consumer, business, and commercial lines of business to drive a unified payments strategy. She also leads and supports the technical implementation of instant payments, ISO 20022, Open Banking / APIs, ACH modernization and other payments transformation initiatives across SouthState Bank.

With ten years of experience in financial services, Tara has served in a variety of leadership roles specializing in bank operations, information technology, mergers and acquisitions, strategy, and payments. She has had the privilege of speaking at industry events including Nacha, PaymentsFirst, and Real-Time Payments & XBP Summit on the topics of Quantum Computing in Banking, Instant Payments, ISO 20022, and Empowering Inclusion and Diversity for Women in Payments. She was recently selected for Money 20/20 RiseUp 2024, a global program championing diversity across the payments ecosystem and serves as a mentor with OpenFinity’s Women in Open Banking. She has also been recognized by Charleston Business Magazine as “Charleston’s Best & Brightest: 35 and Under”.