Annette Ryan

Annette Ryan is the Deputy Director of the Partnership, Policy and Analysis sector of FINTRAC. In this role, she is responsible for advancing the current and forward policy and research agenda of the Centre.  She brings strategic cohesion to domestic and international partnerships, with private and public sector thought leaders, to ensure that advice to counter illicit finance is practical, effective and respectful of privacy and citizen rights.

Previously as Associate Assistant Deputy Minister of the Financial Sector Policy Branch, at Finance Canada, she led policy development on federal financial sector policy issues including financial innovation, cross-border trade in financial services, cyber security and anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing. Annette has served as Chief Economist at Industry Canada. In her previous experience with federal and provincial central agencies, she led policy analysis on varied economic and social policy issues -- including fiscal federalism, labour markets, government expenditure and taxation.

Before joining the public service, Annette conducted research on innovation and corporate performance at the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London, U.K. She holds a Masters degree in Economics from Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Bachelor degree in Mathematics from Acadia University.

Sebastian Schwarz

Sebastian graduated from HEC Paris and Ecole polytechnique with a double degree in Data Science for Business. After briefly working in consulting, he joined Owkin as a Strategy Manager, with a focus on product related questions. Sebastian then moved to the Product team, where he worked on building a coherent product vision around Owkin’s federated learning technology, which strives to offer an answer to the pharma industry’s complex data sharing issues and helps researchers unlock untapped potential from their data sources & networks. Sebastian now leads the Strategy of the Data Platform, building out and embedding these products into research networks to strengthen Owkin’s federated data access and research capabilities.

Varun Agarwal

Varun Agarwal is an Executive Director at USAA where he oversees risk audit teams.

He brings over twenty-five years' experience having worked for large global financial institutions and insurers in Regulatory Risk & Compliance space. He has worked for Capgemini, HSBC, Deloitte, and JP Morgan in US, Canada and Europe.

His background includes responsibilities in Credit, Market, Liquidity, Operational, Strategic Risk and AML, along with Risk Governance, Policy, Data Management and Reporting.  He also created Enterprise Risk Management frameworks, set Risk Appetite, and executed end-to-end risk processes. He has also worked on a variety of analytical models for Capital Management, Pricing, Valuation and Derivatives.

He is a published author on topics in finance and risk across US and Europe and has presented at professional conferences at both national and regional levels. Varun earned both his Ph.D. and Master's degree in Financial Economics from the University of Alabama and a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from BITS, Pilani, India. He also holds a CFA charter.​

Varun enjoys outdoor running and reading world history.

Suresh Sankaran

Suresh Sankaran is the Head of Model Risk, Validation, & Governance at Metro Bank, where he oversees all aspects of model risk and other risk-related governance. He advises on factors that senior management and Board should collectively consider when overseeing the bank’s model governance and risk management framework and policies. He is responsible for the independent validation of all bank models and is also accountable for regulatory liaison on all matters relating to model risk.  

Suresh has over 30 years’ experience in the realm of strategic consulting, compliance, audit, and risk management. He has held leadership roles managing several facets of risk management, most notably credit, liquidity, and balance sheet management.

Suresh has advised banks, governments, and other financial services organisations on all facets of risk management, and has acted as a second pair of eyes to assure the soundness and financial sustainability of client portfolios.

 Suresh is a ranking Chartered Accountant, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Finance & Accountancy. He has diverse interests including Indian Classical Music, Skydiving, P G Wodehouse, and Pink Floyd.

Logan Payne

Logan is a Senior Vice President and Director of Emerging Risks for Lockton Companies, the world’s largest privately held insurance broker. Logan’s role is focused on the identification and tracking of emerging risks and working in tandem with Lockton product line leaders to develop risk transfer solutions for clients. As a part of the Technical Intelligence & Emerging Risks (TIER) Practice, he works with clients, underwriters, legal professionals and industry-specific experts to proactively uncover new threats or issues. Logan brings more than a decade of experience working with multinational clients helping them identify, mitigate and transfer risks from their operations and over the past year has led Lockton’s effort to create their first company-wide ESG report. Logan has been quoted by CBS News and in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Risk & Insurance and Business Insurance on a variety of global risk management topics.

Lakshmi Murthy

Lakshmi Murthy is the Global lead for Climate Risk Strategy and ESG Analytics at Credit Suisse.

She is an experienced Financial Services leader with a passion for building scalable data-enabled products to solve business problems using advanced analytics.

Lakshmi has a Master’s degree in Computer Science from India, and an Master’s degree in Business Analytics from NYU Stern School of Business “

Coby Kutcher

Coby is an Environmental and Social Risk Management Partner at Regions Bank.  Coby is an attorney and spent the majority of her career as a credit analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, where she rated municipal bonds and published research on the local economic impact of port expansion projects.  She then joined Regions Bank in Market, Liquidity, and Capital Risk management.  After becoming SASB certified, Coby moved into an ESG-focused role at Regions. She leads the environmental and social risk communications effort at the bank, and is heavily involved in the bank’s effort to measure financed emissions and sustainable finance activities.