Ryan Sullivan is a vice president of applied insights for Hartford Funds. He leads communication workshops around the country and speaks on a variety of financial and practice management topics, with a focus on retirement research from the MIT AgeLab. To date, Ryan has provided insights to audiences in 46 states and Puerto Rico, as well as led hundreds of webinars.

Ryan originally joined Hartford Funds in 1996, holding various roles of increasing responsibility. He left the company in 2012 as a vice president of advanced markets. Prior to rejoining Hartford Funds, Ryan founded a business to coach professionals on public speaking and effective communication. He was later hired by his largest client, financial-planning software company Envestnet MoneyGuide, where he was vice president and head of investor education.

In addition to his role at Hartford Funds, Ryan volunteers his time and communication expertise to help others. Since 2012, he’s led communication workshops at UNC Charlotte’s Center for Leadership and Community Engagement. He’s also a certified facilitator for TimeSlipsTM, a program through which he leads interactive storytelling sessions for people living with Alzheimer’s and dementia. In addition, he leads communication workshops through Charlotte Family Housing to help empower working families experiencing homelessness to achieve self-sufficiency. Ryan also serves on Hartford Funds’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisory council.

Ryan is a registered representative of Hartford Funds Distributors, LLC, and is FINRA Series 7 and 63 registered. He holds his Life, Health, and Variable Products licenses and has earned the Certified Financial Planner (CFP®), Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU®), Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC®), Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC®), and Chartered Mutual Fund Counselor (CMFC®) designations. He’s also a Fellow of LOMA’s® Life Management Institute. 

Originally from Hartford, Connecticut, Ryan attended Bucknell University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife, Katie.

Michael has been a strong technology leader at Thrive over the past decade, contributing in the consulting, network engineering, managed services and product development groups while continually being promoted up the ladder. Michael’s technology career began at Dove Consulting and later Praecis, a biotechnology startup that was acquired by a top five pharmaceutical firm in 2007. Serving in his current role, he is now responsible for Thrive’s R&D, technology road-mapping vision, while also heading the security and application development practices. He is a member of several partner advisory councils and participates in many local and national technology events. Michael has a degree in Business Administration from Northeastern University and he also maintains multiple technical certifications including Fortinet, Sonicwall, Microsoft, ITIL, Kaseya and maintains his Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

Kimberly Sutherland, Vice President of Fraud and Identity Strategy at LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, leads the North American commercial market for consumer fraud analytics, identity verification, authentication and fraud investigations. Her oversight also includes the ThreatMetrix, Emailage and ID Analytics fraud product lines. Kim joined LexisNexis Risk Solutions in 2006 and has over 20 years of experience leading business strategy, product management, and professional services.

Leia is the Global Anti-Fraud Officer of Manulife, an international financial services group that provides financial advice, insurance, as well as wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and institutions. Over the last few years, Leia has been instrumental in building up the enterprise fraud risk management program.

Leia's 17-year risk management experience also includes  a long tenure in the Internal Audit function where she held various positions including AVP of North America Insurance, accountable for providing assurance coverage of business lines in US and Canadian Segments.

Prior to Manulife, Leia worked for KPMG LLP and Deutsche Bank in New York City. She lives in South Florida with husband and 10-year-old twin boys. Leia enjoys cooking, baking and staying active.

Reporting to the Global Head of Market Advocacy & Innovation Research, Andrew leads the advocacy effort in North America. The group focuses on enabling strategic decisions through market intelligence and research on regulatory and industry trends and exploring emerging innovations and technologies with a focus on education, commercialization and experimentation. Andrew is responsible for supporting business unit strategy development in relation to market and technology innovation while also coordinating Northern Trust’s key industry associations and regulatory engagements aligned to the bank’s strategic innovation initiatives. He is also responsible for researching and framing new market and technology innovations to drive profitable business growth and operational efficiencies.

Andrew has over 25 years of experience at financial services institutions, major derivatives exchanges, clearinghouses and trading firms. He has been responsible for directing research on industry leading trends, functional design, testing and implementation support of industry leading technology and the transformation and globalization of traditional infrastructure and client activities.

Andrew is a Manager in EY's Blockchain practice, advising on digital asset strategy and blockchain product development. He works with financial institutions and corporates on the design and build of digital asset services, including offerings in the trading, custody, and payments domains. Andrew has led multiple tokenization efforts aimed at transforming financial, commodities, and sustainability markets. He has been building blockchain applications since 2016, and previously worked in consumer and enterprise finance software.

John is a Managing Director and part of the Multi Party Systems/Blockchain Tech Incubation Leadership Team. An accomplished seniorexecutive and driver of innovative change. He was formally the Managing Director, Enterprise Innovation & Product Development for TMX Group where he led various Innovation and product development efforts.He was appointed to the Fintech Advisory Committee (FAC) with the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) in 2018. During his 25 year career in Canada’s capital markets, John has built a strong track record of success in spearheading the development and implementation of world class software solutions in trading, clearing and market data. His vast industry experience also includes positions in equities and derivatives trading along with technology leadership supporting foreign exchange trading, investment banking, global payments, prime brokerage and securities lending.

At Bank of New York Mellon Rajeev is building the Digital Asset capabilities. His leads efforts to identify and build innovative solutions using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain. Rajeev joined BNY Mellon from State Street where he held various engineering leadership roles building products using artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. Rajeev holds graduate degree in Technology Management from Columbia University.

As Head of Investment Data Science, Paul works with asset managers and allocators to better understand the investment decision process and to improve future decision making.  Partnering with expert fintech firms to leverage the power of data, behavioral analytics, investment analytics, and Northern Trust’s peer universe data to drive meaningful improvement to their investment strategy.  Prior to his current role Paul spent three years as the Chief Operating Officer (‘COO’) of Northern Trust’s Asset Servicing, Americas.  Before joining Northern Trust, Paul held multiple leadership positions at State Street in Boston, London and Sydney.

Clare Flynn Levy is the Founder and CEO Essentia Analytics, the leading provider of behavioral data analytics and consulting for professional investors.  Prior to founding Essentia, Clare spent 10 years as a fund manager, both active equity (running over $1bn of pension funds for Deutsche Asset Management) and hedge (as founder and CIO of Avocet Capital Management, a specialist tech fund manager). She ultimately “went native” into the software space as President of Beauchamp Financial Technology, a market-leading provider of portfolio management systems to hedge funds, which was acquired by Linedata Services S.A. Clare’s vision for Essentia is based on years of being the customer, followed by years of listening to the customer.

Michele is Senior Director, Digital Solutions at SS&C, responsible for digital strategy and experience design. In this role, she oversees the digital strategy including customer experiences, fraud prevention programs and fit-for-purpose integration products. Michele has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services industry of which 20 are in product development. She is passionate about the advancement of the customer experience resulting in a positive impact on people’s lives. Michele is a graduate of the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and holds a Bachelors of Business Administration with a Marketing emphasis. She has also earned her CERT certificate from Carnegie Mellon University in Cybersecurity Oversight. 

Christian leads the Digital Solutions group for SS&C’s financial services division with global responsibility for the strategy, product management and solution teams. Prior to joining SS&C, Christian built and managed the Digital Practice globally for Capgemini, servicing Enterprise Financial Services firms. Christian has also led Product Management and Product Marketing teams for several Enterprise Software firms including SAP and HP where he specialized in developing new digital products/platforms and bringing them to market over several channels. 

As Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer, Ian works across all business lines to ensure that integration and synergy goals and activities are completed on time while meeting key financial targets. He also has executive management business line responsibilities within the Transfer Agent and Distributor.

Ian is a seasoned veteran in mutual fund processing, shareholder servicing, efficiency and quality control. Prior to joining Ultimus, Ian was Executive Vice President and led the Transfer Agent, Shareholder Servicing and Dealer Clearing Services departments at U.S. Bank Global Fund Services. He was also Chairman of the Board for Trust Advised Portfolios.

Prior to joining Fund Services, Ian was vice president and group manager of Mutual Funds and Entitlement Services department for U.S. Bank, where he oversaw all aspects of mutual funds, asset file, pricing, income, proxies and corporate actions.

Ian received his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. He joined Ultimus in 2019 and has been in the mutual fund industry since 1992.

As Head of Investment Data Science, Paul works with asset managers and allocators to better understand the investment decision process and to improve future decision making.  Partnering with expert fintech firms to leverage the power of data, behavioral analytics, investment analytics, and Northern Trust’s peer universe data to drive meaningful improvement to their investment strategy.  Prior to his current role Paul spent three years as the Chief Operating Officer (‘COO’) of Northern Trust’s Asset Servicing, Americas.  Before joining Northern Trust, Paul held multiple leadership positions at State Street in Boston, London and Sydney.

Managing Director of Horizon8 based in North America, she is responsible for leading the company’s global business.

Karym has over 30 years of experience in financial services, specializing in new business development and marketing communications. She spent 14 years with State Street Corporation in the mutual fund and pension administration businesses. She was instrumental in establishing a global corporate communications group for State Street. Before joining State Street, Karym worked at Fidelity Investments, and Boston Financial Data Services as Chief of Staff to the company’s President and CEO.

Karym is a Co-Chair of NICSA’s Technology Committee, a leading Mutual Fund Industry Association.

Daniel is a member of  EY’s Wealth & Asset Consulting Practice with over 20 years experience in the financial services industry serving clients in the areas of internal audit, regulatory compliance, risk management, process review and improvement, business performance, internal control review and project management assistance. Specifically, he works with firms to improve the overall effectiveness of operations and to assess and improve the internal control environment related to client operations.

In addition, Daniel is the EY Private and FinTech leader for EY’s Financial Services Organization in New England where he is responsible for setting EY’s strategy in this area.

Relevant experience:

•Daniel leads teams responsible for providing internal audit outsourcing services, SOX testing, and risk management services for a few global asset management organizations.  Audit areas include (but not limited to) compliance, trading, and investment operations.
•Daniel has led teams responsible for performing compliance attestation services for various global asset management organizations.
•Daniel facilitates industry roundtables for internal auditors, chief compliance officers and FinTech executives.  Daniel is also a frequent industry speaker on various topics. •Daniel is a member of the American Institute and Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants and is the former Co-Chair of the NICSA Compliance and Risk Management Committee and former Co-Chair of NCSA’s General Membership Meeting.

Gary Casagrande is the Head of US Fund Administration at Northern Trust with oversight of the Financial Reporting, Regulatory Reporting, Expense & Budgeting, and Performance Reporting teams.  In this capacity Gary is responsible for setting and executing strategy across the Fund Administration organization to ensure client satisfaction with team deliverables and to advance the quality of the Fund Administration product that NT delivers to its clients.  

Prior to joining NT earlier this year, Gary spent the prior seven years at Confluence as the Head of Global Market Strategy with responsibility for understanding trends across the front, middle, and back office to help Confluence build and deliver viable solutions to real business problems.  Prior to Confluence, Gary was the Head of Financial Reporting and Expense Administration at BBH and at JPM in a leadership role before that.  Throughout his career, Gary has focused on continuous operational improvements, efficiency, and client service. Gary has a Bachelor’s Degree from Bryant University in Business Administration with a focus on Finance.

Mark McKeon is Managing Director and Global Head of Front to Back Solutions and International Products for Asset Servicing and Digital. He is also a member of the International Executive Committee.

As Head of Front to Back solutions, Mark is responsible for the open architecture strategy which brings together our solutions, services and integrations with fintech’s to deliver a seamless operating model to our clients across front, middle and back office.

As Head of International Products, Mark is responsible for delivering client centric solutions to accelerate growth across our global product capabilities.

Prior to joining BNY Mellon, Mark was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Investment Analytics at State Street Bank.

Mark earned a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics and a Graduate Certificate in Financial Mathematics from Dublin City University.