Session 1: When COVID Comes Calling: A Panel Discussion on Best Practices for Business Continuity

Roundtable Moderator: Pat Alcox, Huntington Bank

Pat is the Director of Huntington's Treasury Management product management team, which offers a variety of solutions including payments, receivables, healthcare, and deposit/liquidity solutions for companies across the country. He has over 30 years of banking and Fintech experience, with companies such as Bank One Services Company, Bank One, SunTrust Bank, Fifth Third Processing Solutions, Fifth Third Bank, Chase Bank, Axcess Financial, and Huntington.

Pat’s payments industry knowledge and experience can be seen through several industry first innovations including Remote Currency Manager, USPS Cash Solutions, Hybrid HELOC, and many others. 

Pat is an active volunteer/participant with his church, Matthew Ministries, United Way, and Pelotonia. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Cincinnati in Management and Marketing, as well as an MBA from the University of Dayton.  

Jason Leyda has worked in the banking industry since 1990. His career spans four financial institutions, from a big regional bank to community banks to a credit union. He has taken what he learned at the large bank and from the community banks, and applied them to the General Electric Credit Union.

His current position is Vice-President, Business Support and Treasury Management, where he is responsible for creating and maintaining Treasury Management products and services for the second largest credit union in Ohio and the fourth largest financial institution headquartered in Cincinnati. He also has learned that to be successful one must be involved within your community. Currently he is the President of the Board of Directors for the Cincinnati Center for Autism and past President of Reach Out Lakota and Lakota Sports Organization. He and his wife Brenda have lived in Liberty Township since 1993 where they raised three kids.

Jessica Souders-Pell is a Senior Treasury Manager at Hillenbrand, Inc., a global, diversified industrial company headquartered in Batesville, IN. Jessica is a CTP and CPA with roughly two decades of finance experience in a variety of roles.  She is a proven leader with broad treasury expertise built over a solid foundation of accounting and audit experience.  Prior to joining Hillenbrand in 2009, Jessica spent 6 years as the Controller for a local county government in Indiana.  She has a passion for process improvements and collaborating with others on transformative projects that add meaningful value.     

Steve Baumgardner is an accomplished IT executive with 20+ years in the technology and business resilience space, and now serves as the Director Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery at CareSource in Dayton, OH.

Steve began his career as a computer programmer, and quickly moved to a network engineering role helping to keep critical infrastructure online. He then spent a decade and a half as a consultant with Hewlett Packard helping Fortune 500 companies develop and improve their Enterprise Resilience (ER), Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, Datacenter & IT Operations, IT Leadership, and Cyber Resilience programs.

After consulting for HP, he worked as the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Manager for TriHealth, responsible for protecting IT operations from a disaster recovery perspective and expanding their Business Continuity Program.

Steve is a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP), with a Bachelor’s Degree in Management Information Systems and a Master’s in Business Administration.  Steve lives in Liberty Township, Ohio with his wife.

Session 2: One Step Ahead: Understanding Cybersecurity Trends to Safeguard Your Business

Timothy Held is EVP and the Chief Information Security Officer at US Bank in downtown Cincinnati, and is responsible for leading a multidisciplinary information security team operating across the United States, Europe, and Asia, focusing on prevention, detection, and response.

Tim joined U.S. Bank in 2005, and is responsible for the cybersecurity architecture, engineering, security operations, incident response, data loss prevention, vulnerability assessment services, online fraud detection, security monitoring, insider threat, and cyber threat intelligence, in addition to other matters.

Mr. Held has over 20-years of information technology experience, with 18 of those years focused on information security and risk management. His diverse background blends rich leadership experience with deep technical acumen.

Charles Banks, is Assistant Vice President & Manager of Information Security at US Bank in downtown Cincinnati, and manages the Security Briefing Center Operations. Charles is responsible for both the day-to-day operations at these state-of-the-art security facilities, as well as the information and cyber security awareness education delivered in these briefing centers.

With a focus on internal and external constituent engagements, which raise general user awareness of socially engineered and digitally delivered cyber threats, his team’s mission is to change, or prevent, behaviors that result in digitally compromised, or lost data. His team hosts both virtual and on-site events in the Cyber Security Fusion & Executive Briefing Centers for both internal business lines and external clients of U.S. Bank. This info is delivered to regional elementary education, high school, and secondary education students, the team’s goals are to develop the next generation of a diverse cybersecurity workforce and to highlight how U.S. Bank should be the employer of choice for careers in cyber security. 

Charles has been with U.S. Bank for 13 years with a background in training, training design, communications, and cyber security awareness delivery. He joined the Cyber & Information Security team in 2015. 

Session 3: Choosing Wisely: A Case Study on Optimizing your TMS Design and Implementation

Stephen Burrington is a lifelong corporate Treasury and Finance professional, with more than 35 years of experience in the fields of banking, manufacturing, aviation, and healthcare.

He is currently President of International Treasury Consulting, Inc., a firm specializing in the strategic centralization, standardization, and optimization of corporate treasury departments, through the application of treasury best-practices and cloud-based (SaaS) Treasury Management System (TMS) software.

Mr. Burrington earned a double-major in Economics and Spanish from Washington & Lee University, an MBA in International Finance and Accounting from the University of Colorado, and his Certified Treasury Profession (CTP) credentials in 1999. He is fully bilingual (English & Spanish), and has successfully executed Treasury Transformation projects in more than 50 countries worldwide.

Chris Forte is currently the VP, Corporate Treasury for ProMach, Inc., a $1.5 billion leading provider of complete processing and packaging machinery solutions to manufacturers around the world. In his role, Mr. Forte is responsible for the global treasury function, focusing on corporate cash and risk management, the company’s debt structure, and support of acquisition diligence and integration.

Mr. Forte joined ProMach in 2018 after serving in similar roles as Treasury Director at Honeywell Intelligrated and Director of Capital Markets with Cincinnati Bell. He started his career providing audit services with EY. 

Mr. Forte earned his B.S. in Accounting from Miami University and his M.B.A. from the University of Cincinnati. He is a Certified Treasury Professional and a Certified Public Accountant.

Session 4 - KEYNOTE: A Path to Purpose, Your Guide to Living a Meaningful Life 

After surviving the Sept. 6, 2018, mass-shooting in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, Whitney Austin co-founded the Whitney/Strong Foundation with her husband, an organization focused on finding common ground to end gun violence through data-driven, responsible gun ownership solutions.

Under her leadership, Whitney/Strong has executed on a number of responsible gun ownership solutions including securing the first hearing on gun safety legislation in Frankfort in over a decade, and with a bipartisan coalition of Kentucky State Senators. Joining Ohio Governor Mike DeWine to announce the STRONG Ohio legislation, a response to the community call of “Do Something” after the Dayton Oregon District shooting in 2019. Distributing over 12,000 gun locks across Kentucky and Ohio thanks to a partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics and the support of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Prior to her calling, Whitney was employed by Fifth Third Bank for 15 years as Vice President, Digital Lending Product Manager. In 2018, Whitney and her team launched the first omnichannel digital lending application in the industry.

A wife and a mother of two, Whitney resides in Louisville, Kentucky where she earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Louisville. She enjoys traveling to new locations with her family, musical theatre, college basketball, and getting outdoors.

Session 5: A Look into the Future of Banking

Laura Listwan is the Head of Commercial Payments Products at Fifth Third Bank, and is responsible for overseeing the product strategy, management, innovation and FinTech partnerships supporting the Commercial Payments business at Fifth Third.

Laura joined Fifth Third in 2018. Prior to joining Fifth Third Bank, she served as the Head of U.S. Bank’s Treasury Management Product Development and Emerging solutions team, and led LaSalle Bank’s Payables Product Management team.

Tom Bianco, 5/3^rd Bank - General Manager, Embedded Payments

Tom serves as senior vice president and General Manager of our Embedded Payments business line. He is responsible for a business that creates embedded payment products, manages client relationships, and helps drive our clients’ businesses forward with new payment technologies and capabilities.

Before his role leading Embedded Payments, Tom was responsible for our enterprise innovation function leveraging disruptive thought leadership and defining “the art of the possible,” to accelerate change as we move forward on our journey to win in a customer centric, digital world. He was also responsible for designing and executing a Commercial Digital strategy that optimizes experience across all of our business relationships to drive engagement and adoption of our digital assets..

Prior to joining Fifth Third, Tom served as executive director of Business and Commercial Digital at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. He also managed JPMC’s integrated wholesale payments strategy including efforts for treasury management, commercial banking and card, digital, business banking and payment-industry relations. Tom also has previous experience at PWC, Treasury Strategies, Inc., Wells Fargo and KPMG.

Tom earned his bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting from Indiana University. Tom and his wife and two children kids live in Cincinnati’s Mount Lookout neighborhood after relocating from Brooklyn, New York.

Session 6:  Transforming Treasury with Emerging Banking Technology

Madison Donnini is a Vice President, Working Capital Consultant at U.S. Bank.

As a Working Capital Consultant, Madison Donnini is focused on taking an innovative approach to helping clients optimize their treasury processes. Prior to her current role, she led the design thinking practice for a U.S. Bank innovation team, which included facilitating ideation discussions with internal and external stakeholders to streamline and automate key processes. Madison has several years of experience consulting on targeted digital technology application, and utilizes her knowledge to enable clients along their own digital journey. Based in Atlanta, Madison has a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Cincinnati.

Faraz Azam is a Vice President, and Group Product Manager at U.S. Bank

As a Group Product Manager at U.S. Bank, Faraz Azam leads treasury management digital transformation efforts, with a key goal of developing digital and seamless client experiences. Currently, Faraz is focused on removing manual processes using Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Robotics to allow clients to expedite onboarding processes and automate treasury tasks. Prior to U.S. Bank, Faraz worked at Goldman Sachs leading various digitization efforts with a focus on client experience.  Based in New York City, Faraz has a bachelor’s degree in Finance from Temple University.

Session 7:  2022 Economic Update

Nick Sargen is an international economist turned global money manager. He has been involved in international financial markets since the early 1970s, when he began his career at the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. He subsequently worked on Wall Street for 25 years, holding senior positions with Morgan Guaranty Trust (VP- International Economics Department), Salomon Brothers Inc. (Director of Bond Market Research), Prudential Insurance (CIO for Global Fixed Income Advisors) and J.P. Morgan Private Bank (Chief Investment Strategist). In 2003 he became Chief Investment Officer for the Western & Southern Financial Group and its affiliate, Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. Nick subsequently served as Chief Economist from 2014 until 2019. He currently is an economic consultant to Fort Washington.

Sargen has written extensively on international financial markets. He has authored three books; Global Shocks, Investing in the Trump Era and JPMorgan’s Fall and Revival, all three published by Palgrave Macmillan. Sargen is also a regular contributor to THE HILL and Forbes.com. He appeared frequently on business television programs throughout his career on Wall Street, and was a regular panelist on Louis Rukeyser’s Wall Street Week. He was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and received a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A. and PhD in Economics from Stanford University. He is also affiliated with the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, and he has relocated to Keswick, Virginia.