With 14 years of experience in financial services, including 11 years specializing in fraud, Andrew brings a unique blend of expertise in fraud, credit risk, and identity management. His analytical training in statistics, combined with practical business strategy knowledge, enables him to effectively bring new ideas and solutions to the fraud prevention ecosystem. Andrew leads the Fraud Data & Analytics team at TransUnion Canada and designed and developed TransUnion’s consortium fraud score, the Identity Exchange. Having worked on both the client side and with credit bureaus, Andrew has extensive experience in data sharing and consortiums, as the provider and the user of such programs.

Andy Buechner has spent over 12 years in the fraud and identity space. He is currently a Fraud Solution Consultant in Experian's Solution Engineering and Advisory team designing strategies for clients to satisfy compliance requirements, combat fraud, and protect the consumer experience. Prior to his tenure at Experian, he worked for several top banking institutions in North America as well as a top Fintech managing their fraud strategy as well as designing fraud models. His focus has also extended to identify, segment, and treat all various types of fraud at account opening in both digital as well as call center environments where both monetary and non-monetary transactions were occurring. Andy currently lives outside of Columbus, Ohio.

Brent is a seasoned problem solver with over 20 years in financial services, spanning credit cards, consumer finance, and insurance. He brings deep expertise across the customer lifecycle—from product and marketing to fraud and loss mitigation. In 2018, Brent founded Payson Solutions to help companies unlock the power of their data. Since then, Payson has supported dozens of global clients, including banks, fintechs, credit unions, and alternative lenders.
Previously, Brent led digital transformation efforts at Capital One Canada, driving record growth through digital marketing, launching an agile software studio in Toronto, and establishing an innovation lab in KW.
Outside of work, Brent enjoys board games with his daughters, Payton and Addison.

Carine Bergevin-Chammah is a seasoned economist with a Master’s degree from the Barcelona School of Economics and over eight years of experience in economic research and analytics. Her career spans a wide array of topics including transportation and infrastructure projects, international trade and commodities. Through her work at BDC, Carine honed her expertise in Canadian SMEs, delving deep into the business financing market and the unique challenges faced by small and medium-sized enterprises.

Elizabeth (Liz) Billyard is Chief Risk Officer of Retail Risk. In this role, Liz is responsible for providing independent oversight and guidance for managing retail risk. As an executive leader, she oversees several teams responsible for credit originations and account management, deep analytics, risk reporting, credit systems, provisioning, as well as the adjudication center.
Liz began her career as a predictive modeller and leverages her data-driven foundation to uncover deep customer insights to drive strategic actions. She has held a series of executive roles in Retail Credit, having worked in both business and risk management with accountability for unsecured lending, auto loans, credit cards, deposit accounts, small business and real estate secured lending.
She is a member of the Board of the Bank of Montreal Mortgage Corporation and previously on the Canadian Lender’s Association. As well as a member of the Consumer Bankers Association Credit Risk Working Group. She volunteers her time to such organizations as the United Way and Kids Help Phone.

Emily Cheung is the Director, Data Analytics & Insights at Teranet. In her role, she is responsible for the end-to-end data lifecycle, from data curation, data pipeline and model development, through to analytics and insights, to deliver business value through data products and services, serving both internal and external stakeholders.

As a CPA, CA, Emily began her career at Teranet in Finance and was appointed to stand up an enterprise Data Analytics capability from scratch in 2016. Over the past 8 years, the Teranet Data Analytics capability has grown and matured significantly, and consistently contributes to business value generation, from operational efficiencies, product enhancements and development, to revenue opportunities.

Gabor Sarkany is the Senior Manager of Solutions Consulting at TransUnion, where he leads a high-performing team focused on delivering innovative, data-driven solutions to clients across the financial/consumer services landscape.

With over 30 years of experience, Gabor brings a unique blend of expertise from both the life insurance (wealth management) and lending sectors, all within a strong risk management framework. His career spans roles with established financial institutions and dynamic fintech startups, covering the full credit spectrum from prime to subprime.
Gabor holds an Honors Bachelor of Science in Actuarial Science from Western University and an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Dr. Gerald Fahner is Senior Director in FICO's Scores division, where he leads the Advanced Analytic Capabilities Research group. He specializes on innovative methods and algorithms that turn data and domain knowledge into superior insights, predictions, and decisions. Gerald is also responsible for the core algorithms underlying FICO's scorecard development platform. His work on causal modelling won the Best Paper award at the Credit Scoring and Credit Control XI conference, was awarded patents and made it into products. He won a Best Paper award at the Data Analytics 2018 conference for developing practical methods in explainable artificial intelligence and machine learning to boost the effectiveness of FICO’s credit risk score developments. These innovations also led to the development of the FICO® Resilience Index which has been recognized by the 2021 Drexel LeBow Analytics 50 award.

Prior to joining FICO in 1996, Gerald served as a researcher in artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley and he earned his Computer Science doctorate from University of Bonn.

Jeff Brown is the Head of Commercial Solutions at Equifax Canada. He has a passion for educating and advising Fortune 500 companies on commercial credit practices, and working with them to empower the businesses that leverage their goods and services. He has been a driving force for commercial and business credit at Equifax Canada since 2016. His results are driven by partner engagement, technology, and innovation designed to empower Canada’s businesses.

Jordan Purcell is a Client Executive at Experian, where he’s spent over seven years helping clients make smarter decisions using consumer data. His work spans across risk management, fraud prevention, and decision analytics—areas where he’s passionate about finding practical, data-driven solutions that make a real impact.
Jordan partners with financial institutions to understand their unique challenges and deliver tools that not only reduce fraud but also improve efficiency and customer experience. He’s known for his collaborative approach and ability to translate complex problems into clear, actionable strategies.
Jordan enjoys staying connected with peers across the industry and values opportunities to share ideas, learn from others, and keep pushing the boundaries of what data can do.

Kingsley leads the mortgage risk analytics practice at Verisk Extreme Event Solutions. He has held various roles in real-estate finance covering origination, servicing, private equity, and valuation. He has subject matter expertise in climate risk, stress testing, catastrophe modeling, and insurance.

Owen Walsh has been at TD since 2004. He currently holds the role of SVP, Retail Credit Risk since April 30th, 2024 focusing on the oversight of credit risk for Canadian retail lending portfolios including Real Estate Secured Lending, Credit Cards and TD Auto Finance. Prior to these roles, Owen held numerous roles in the Corporate Segment including: SVP, Risk Shared Services; Head of Corporate Data and Analytics; VP, Credit Management for Canadian Unsecured Lending; VP, Risk Management Model Development; and VP, Retail Risk Valuation and Analysis.

Prior to joining TD, Owen worked at Capital One UK where he held various quantitative roles. He lives in Toronto with his wife and two teenage sons.

Raghu Kulkarni is the Chief AI Officer at Equifax, where he leads global efforts to responsibly develop and deploy advanced AI and ML model solutions across credit life cycle. Raghu has over 20 years of experience in banking and data science at Discover Financial Services, Barclays and HSBC, with his last role being at Discover where he served as Chief Data Scientist. Raghu has built a career at the intersection of AI/ML modeling innovation, and credit, fraud & collections risk management. He is recognized for pioneering work in explainable and responsible AI.



Raghu holds a Ph.D. in Applied Economics and a Master’s in Industrial Engineering. He has authored multiple patents and papers. Passionate about collaboration and continuous learning, he brings both technical depth and executive perspective to advancing the role of AI in financial ecosystems.

Richard Yap is the CEO at SCORE Statistical Consulting, where he has worked since 2000. He specializes in developing scorecards, predictive models, and decision systems for clients in financial services, collections, and insurance across Canada and the U.S. He oversees SCORE’s BPO vertical, managing $1 billion in credit card receivables and supporting the sale of over $10 billion in distressed debt for Canadian lenders. Richard holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business and serves on the Board of the Canadian Scoring and Risk Management Association (CSRSA). Earlier in his career, he worked in health research and education management.

Romana Mizdrak is a Managing Director of Risk Quantification Division at the Office of Superintendent of Financial Institutions. With over 20 years in the financial services sector in Toronto, Romana has worked in various technical roles related to model risk management including quantitative analysis, risk monitoring, and model validation. Recently Romana has been actively engaged in understanding how advanced analytics (i.e. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) are reshaping Financial Industry Sector in Canada. In her current role, Romana leads the team responsible for delivering advance analytics-driven, macro-prudential insights for assessing both financial and non-financial risks across the Canadian Financial System. Romana holds a M.A. in Mathematics and Statistics from York University of Toronto, and a Graduate Diploma in Financial Engineering, also from York University.

Sal Guatieri is a Senior Economist and Director at BMO Capital Markets, with three decades experience as a macro economist. With BMO since 1994, his main responsibilities include analyzing and forecasting the U.S. economy, Canadian and U.S. housing markets and commercial real estate markets. He is responsible for the Department’s economic forecasts prepared for regulatory and stress testing requirements and oversees analysis of financial services markets. He is a regular commentator in the media. Prior to joining BMO, Sal worked at the Bank of Canada, contributing to its quarterly economic projection and analyzing foreign exchange markets. Sal received his master’s degree in Economics from Queen’s University in 1990.