Ashwin Adarkar is a Senior Partner and the Leader of the Global Retail Banking Practice at McKinsey & Company. Adarkar’s industry experience in financial services spans more than 30 years, and he has served institutions across retail banking, commercial banking, asset and wealth management, consumer lending, and payments, as well as property, casualty, and life insurance.

Adarkar has worked extensively on strategy, operations, and organizational topics. The focus of his recent work has been enterprise transformation, digital strategy and organization, and corporate governance. Adarkar sits on the board of trustees of the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, the Southern California Leadership Council, the Huntington Library, and the Fletcher Jones Foundation.

Prior to joining McKinsey & Company, Adarkar served as a senior partner and managing director, leading North American financial services at the Boston Consulting Group. He also held the role of CEO of the Retail Bank at IndyMac Bank, overseeing new business incubation and M&A. Earlier in his career, he worked with Goldman Sachs as an analyst.

Adarkar holds an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, as well as a master’s degree in industrial engineering and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University.

Araya Solomon is the Global Head of Capital Markets, Wealth, and Asset Management at Slalom, with over 24 years of experience in management and technology consulting across banking, capital markets, and technology sectors.

Prior to joining Slalom, he was a Managing Director at Accenture, a Partner/Principal with EY’s Financial Services practice, and the Head of Financial Services Americas at DXC Luxoft. He has held regional (EMEIA, APAC, Americas) and global leadership roles, driving strategic transformation initiatives for top financial institutions.

Mr. Solomon's expertise spans trading and risk functions within banking and capital markets. His leadership experience includes practice leadership across global regions, overseeing large-scale transformation programs, advising senior leadership on operating models, strategy, and target technology architecture, and serving as the overall program lead for major financial institutions.

Arpan Dasgupta is the Chief Business Officer & Head of Financial Services & Insurance for Tredence Inc. He first joined the company in 2023. Tredence is a global data science solutions provider focused on solving the last-mile problem in AI. In his role, Dasgupta focuses on business growth through digital, care, customer experience, and sales and marketing capabilities, with an emphasis on scalability and automation.

Previously, Dasgupta was a chief practice officer at Fractal and before that a management consultant at Booz & Company. Earlier in his career, he worked with American Express as a risk and marketing analyst.

Dasgupta earned an MBA in finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Colleen Corwell is a Managing Director in Kroll’s Financial Services Compliance and Regulation practice, based in New York. Corwell leverages more than 20 years of experience in assisting industry firms navigate complex regulations by serving as in-house and outsourced Chief Compliance Officer for more than 20 firms, including registered investment advisors, investment companies and broker-dealers.

Prior to joining Kroll, Corwell worked as a Consultant at ACA, where she advised both small and large firms, including Fortune 500 companies on complex regulations. Before that, she held the title of Managing Director at Foreside Financial. Corwell has also held senior-level positions at Alaric Compliance, Ameriprise, Capital One and ING, and she was on the advisory board for BasisCode. Corwell has also been the lead on numerous SEC and FINRA examinations and has a deep knowledge of a wide range of investment products, including private equity, private credit and real estate funds, registered investment companies, business development companies, private placements and retail asset management products.

Corwell holds a bachelor’s degree from The College of William and Mary and an MBA from Touro University. Corwell has also completed the Corporate Governance Program at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. She holds FINRA Series 7, 24, 55, 63, 79 and 99 registrations and the Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist certification.

Gordon Smith is a Senior Partner and Global Lead of the Financial Services practice at Prophet, where he focuses on driving growth and transformation for banks, asset managers, and fintechs through customer-led brand strategy, experience design, product architecture and development, and innovation. Under his leadership, the global financial services practice at Prophet has achieved a CAGR of over 16%. Gordon also co-leads the Global Strategy Solutions and Private Capital Portfolio Value Creation teams at Prophet.

With over 25 years of experience as both an advisor and 3x entrepreneur, Gordon brings a unique perspective to his clients having launched industry shaping businesses and advised leaders of global brands in bringing new and award-winning products, services, and experiences to market.

Prior to joining Prophet, Gordon was a Partner and US Digital Wealth Management Leader at Deloitte Digital, while also leading the US Financial Services practice for Deloitte Studios, a full-service creative consultancy. He began his career at Accenture, where he helped architect and launch the banking industry's premier managed content services provider. Gordon was later a founding team member of an investment management firm that was spun out of Morgan Stanley and subsequently acquired by PIMCO. Gordon earned an MBA in entrepreneurship from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in finance from Virginia Tech.

Hannah Rossiter is a managing director who leads Kroll’s Financial Services Compliance and Regulation practice in the Middle East, based in Dubai.  She has over 25 years of experience in providing regulatory and compliance advice to a wide range of clients across Europe and the Middle East.

Hannah assists banks, wealth managers, and asset managers with regulatory audits and inspections. She also develops and implements tailored compliance policies and procedures for financial services firms to ensure compliance with the national regulators’ doctrine and local law as well as with international best practice. 

Hannah has a broad range of advisory and audit experience and acts as a testifying expert, her experience includes:

• Testifying as an expert witness in a dispute heard the Dubai International Arbitration Centre relating to compliance and regulatory requirements that applied to an international bank’s DIFC branch.
• Testifying as an expert witness in a Swiss tribunal in relation to a dispute between a UK wealth manager and an American investor. She opined on the best industry practices for due diligence conducted by hedge funds investing in illiquid assets.
• Leading Kroll’s Skilled Person appointment team with the Central Bank of U.A.E. supporting the Central Bank Examiner teams in their annual AML review exercise of Licensed Financial Institutions.
• License application support under EU Payment Services Provider Directive for a Firm in France processing payment transactions associated with a payment account and card payments, structuring of compliance and risk functions for the payment services provider.
• Leading a large international AML review under an appointment from the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority of two Scandinavian banks. 
• Coordination and oversight of an independent review of the compliance & risk management function, across multiple jurisdictions, for one the world’s largest investment firms, ensuring that local regulatory and compliance requirements relevant to risk management were fully and effectively addressed. 
• Cross border review for international investment firm headquartered in France to assess governance, organization and resources within compliance and risk functions, assessing local regulatory requirements and mapping those to the Firm’s affiliate-based business model.
• The design and conduct of a group-wide compliance risk assessments across EU and non-EU EMEA businesses and conducting a number of compliance controls on an outsourced basis as part of a final “proof of concept” stage demonstrating the efficiency of the newly designed monitoring plan. 

Prior to joining Kroll, Hannah worked in the investment banking sector and began her career as a finance lawyer with Clifford Chance, working in both their London and Paris offices.

Isabelle is the Global Insurance Leader at EY since 2019. She sets the global strategy for a Sector comprised of over 24,000 industry professionals committed to help insurers around the world transform and reshape their business models through audit, business consulting, tax and corporate finance services. Under her leadership, the insurance sector has grown more than 50% over the last 5 years.

Previously, she was the Assurance Managing Partner for financial services in Europe and the Chief Operating Officer of EY’s Global Assurance practice. She has over 35 years of experience working with large financial services organizations globally. She is currently the Global Client Service Partner of Zurich Insurance Group.

Isabelle contributes extensively to EY’s global thought leadership and writes regularly on topics impacting the insurance industry. She is frequently quoted in the media and makes regular presentations on the insurance industry to a variety of audiences.

In addition, Isabelle is an active contributor to the discussion shaping the sustainability agenda in the insurance industry and is a board member of Positiv, a non-profit organization for which EY is providing skilled sponsorship.

Finally, she is also a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusiveness and is known for nurturing talent and actively building high performing teams. She is a key supporter of the Insurance Supper Club, a global business community for women involved in the insurance industry.

Managing Partner and Global Financial Services Lead, 

Joffrey oversees all of Artefact's global activities in the financial sector (bank, insurance, asset management, fintech, payment), which is now one of the company's Top 3 industries. 

He is responsible for the overall vision and strategy for this key sector, including investment priorities and development of client offerings. He advises leading financial institutions and their executives on their (Gen)AI & Data transformation. 

Joffrey Martinez joined Artefact, a global leader in artificial intelligence and data consulting, in 2022, with an ambitious mission to launch, structure, and develop the Financial Sector practice.

Before joining Artefact, Joffrey began his career in finance, working in private equity, before turning to strategic consulting at BearingPoint. Aware of the power of technology to transform the financial sector, he joined IBM Consulting France to head up the brand's AI consulting business. Joffrey graduated from Kedge Business School and the Executive Education at Ecole Polytechnique. He is also a member of an advisory Board.

John Behringer is the Financial Institutions Leader at RSM US. Behringer is a seasoned financial services executive with a successful track record in numerous enterprise leadership roles. In addition to his role leading the financial institutions sector for the firm, he also serves as the Risk Consulting Financial Services Industry Leader for RSM in North America.

Behringer is a trusted advisor to the C-suite and boards of multiple financial institutions, publicly and privately held, on topics including regulatory matters, digital transformation, acquisitions, fintech partnerships, digital assets, IPOs, and growth strategies. He has 25 years of experience focused on the financial services industry that spans audit, tax, and consulting roles with large global and national public accounting and consulting firms.

Behringer is responsible for driving collaboration across all lines of business to ensure successful client delivery while achieving growth and profitability targets, along with serving on the Financial Services combined leadership team. He directs all aspects of the Risk Consulting Financial Services practice with responsibility for managing a multi-disciplinary group of over 300 professionals delivering 1st, 2nd, and 3rd line of defense consulting services to clients in the financial institution, capital market, insurance, specialty finance, and asset management sectors.

Behringer holds a bachelor’s degree in accountancy from Northern Illinois University and is a certified public accountant in the state of Wisconsin. He also holds an MBA from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

In his present role as Business Head for Payments, Wipro North America, Anil Gopakumar is responsible for end-to-end P&L  encompassing delivery, sales, solutions, and market expansion. Within Wipro, Anil has forged strategic partnerships with advisors and leading analysts to devise innovative solutions that address industry challenges.

Anil is an ardent advocate for creative solutions, leveraging his three decades of leadership experience to catalyze digital transformation for over 20 major financial clients. He has assumed pivotal leadership in nurturing new client relationships, expanding market share, and advising clients on business -transformation, resiliency and innovation . Anil has championed industry solutions across the banking and payments value chain. Anil earned a master’s degree in software systems from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India, and an Engineering degree from NIT Calicut, India.

Mathew Tierney is the Global Insurance Practice leader for Grant Thornton Advisors LLC. Tierney maintains offices in both New York City and Philadelphia and oversees the firm’s go-to-market strategy for the insurance industry, which encompasses a full range of audit, assurance, tax and advisory services — and includes creating industry-centric solutions, establishing service delivery teams and ensuring quality execution for the firm’s global accounts.

Previously, Tierney served on Grant Thornton’s Partnership Board as well as on the Global Business Consulting Leadership team for Grant Thornton International Ltd. While serving on the Partnership Board of Grant Thornton, Tierney and his fellow board members helped navigate one of the largest investments in the professional services sector with an outside investment from a leading private equity firm.

Earlier in his career, Tierney was an Advisory Leader with the firm Smart LLP, where he focused on the Insurance Industry and spent time working in Bermuda, London and Germany. Smart was acquired by Grant Thornton in 2011.

Tierney currently sits on the Board of the Society of Insurance Financial Management and donates his time to local athletic organizations in his New Jersey community. He holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Widener University and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Executive Leadership Program.

Nicole Bodack is a seasoned management consulting executive with over 20 years of experience advising top-tier financial institutions across Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America. Based in Singapore, she specializes in strategy, management advisory, and technology-enabled transformation across Banking, Wealth Management, and Capital Markets.

Nicole currently leads Accenture’s Banking & Capital Markets industry group for APAC and heads the firm’s Financial Services Strategy & Consulting practice in Southeast Asia. She partners with C-suite leaders to help shape and execute transformation agendas that modernize operating models, unlock new growth opportunities, and drive measurable outcomes.

A passionate advocate for innovation, Nicole is focused on helping financial services institutions embrace the future - underpinned by emerging technologies, data, and AI. She is also committed to building high-performing, diverse teams that deliver exceptional and lasting value for clients.

Richard Winston is a Managing Director and Global Head of Financial Services at Slalom, overseeing strategic direction and driving innovative growth, partnerships, and community across all segments. With over three decades of experience, he's been at the forefront of integrating technology and ingenuity to redefine possibilities in the sector. Winston’s commitment to excellence and innovation has positioned him as a thought leader in the industry, championing strategies that not only drive operational efficiency and competitive edge but also foster significant growth. His expertise spans strategic innovation, digital transformation, regulatory compliance, and customer experience enhancement, making him a pivotal figure in crafting business and operating models that are both resilient and forward-thinking.

Before his current role, Richard began his career in Financial Services at Accenture where he gained invaluable insights into the power of technology in transforming traditional financial services. In addition to Accenture and Slalom, Richard also worked with Finxact, a next-gen core banking provider and AWS in a Financial Services global industry role. He holds a bachelor’s degree in information processing from the University of Texas.

Sebastien Petsas is a Managing Director in Kroll’s Financial Services Compliance and Regulation practice, with over 14 years of experience at the firm. Based in London, Sebastien’s work is global in nature with a significant number of projects involving multiple regulatory jurisdictions across the UK, EU, APAC, Caribbean and wider financial services centres.  

Sebastien offers regulatory consulting advice across a wide range of topics and firm types. He specializes in leading regulatory commissioned reviews and investigations, where regulatory authorities require an independent expert to assess the general standing of firms under review.

Over the past decade, Sebastien has played a significant role in M&A projects, leading global regulatory due diligence engagements on over 50 transactions within the financial services sector. These transactions include global fund administrators, trust and corporate service providers, wealth management firms, credit providers, payment services, and more. His deep understanding of technical regulatory matters and ability to translate these into potential commercial impacts for buyers, sellers, financing parties, and insurers has established him as a trusted advisor to his clients and their Boards.

Sebastien holds a Law LLB, Legal Practice Course, MSc in Finance and Financial Law, and CISI Diploma in Regulation and Compliance.

James (Jim) McDermott is a seasoned leader with over 40 years of experience in the insurance industry and currently leads Alvarez & Marsal’s U.S. insurance and risk advisory practice. He has held executive roles such as CEO, CFO, and EVP Operations and Technology, working across publicly traded and private equity-held organizations. Specializing in financial and strategic advisory, he has guided Boards and senior management on complex accounting, actuarial issues, SEC investigations, and shareholder actions, while overseeing transactions exceeding $5.0 billion.

Throughout his career, Mr. McDermott has demonstrated a strong track record in organizational transformation and financial restructuring. He has also advised organizations and regulators on high stakes matters, including transitioning distribution channels, evaluating acquisitions, analyzing new business lines, and supporting regulatory reviews. His operational expertise includes overhauling financial and actuarial systems, redesigning workflows, and improving profitability in underperforming insurance lines such as long-term care and disability income insurance.

Mr. McDermott holds bachelor’s degrees in accounting, actuarial science, and quantitative analysis from the University of Wisconsin School of Business. Recognized for his leadership in financial restructuring across various industries, he has also been admitted and testified as an expert in U.S. Federal District Court on acquisition due diligence matters. His extensive experience and strategic insights have made him a trusted advisor and leader in the insurance and financial services sectors.

Paul Schaus is the Managing Partner and Founder of CCG Catalyst. CCG Catalyst is a trusted and respected consulting firm in the banking sector, serving more than 600 clients across the United States and internationally. With a team of consultants, researchers, analysts, and subject matter experts from diverse backgrounds, the firm brings a wide range of perspectives and skills to each engagement, helping banks of all sizes navigate the complexities of the financial services landscape.

Schaus has over 30 years of experience in the banking sector, including roles as a banker, management consultant, and strategist. With 15 years dedicated to consulting and more than 20 years in executive management, Schaus brings extensive expertise in bank consulting.

With Schaus leading CCG Catalyst, the firm has advised hundreds of clients and led major engagements globally, including business planning, core modernization, payments, digital experience, de novo banking, mergers and acquisitions, bank products and services, board and management development, tactical performance, business process and profitability improvement, and technology utilization.

Schaus graduated from the University of Maryland with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, management, and operations and studied at the PCBS Graduate School of Banking, specializing in corporate banking.

Yann Rouveure is the co-founder of TALEO Consulting Group, which he launched in 2014 with his brother, Benjamin. What started as a small venture has now grown into a global consulting firm with over 550 collaborators across 10+ countries in Europe and Asia.

TALEO helps organizations of all sizes with their strategy, projects, and operations.

The group’s core brand, TALEO, is fully dedicated to the financial industry : including banks, insurances, asset managers and servicers, fintechs, and regtechs delivering tailored solutions through its Centers of Excellence / Practices in:

Strategy & Governance
Risk, Compliance & Regulatory
Operational Excellence
Business & Operations
Digital Transformation
Information Systems Management

With more than 60% of its operations focused on Risk, Compliance & Regulatory services, TALEO has solidified its position as a leading player in the financial sector, particularly renowned for its deep expertise and excellence in these critical areas.

The firm is a key strategic partner for clients navigating complex and fast-evolving regulatory and operational environments.