Conference Agenda
11:30 AM | Registration: Check in, network and get settled. Meet your RealTalk Emcee, Usha Narayana.
12:30 PM | Welcome: Opening remarks from FintechWomen and Suffolk University.
1:00 PM | Opening Keynote: Victoria Kane, President, Dedham Savings
1:30 PM | Main Stage Panel: Before We Build: Creativity, Technology and Solving the Right Problem
With Shari Worthington, Rob Sarnie and Ryan Quinn
We’ve never had more ability to build, but are we building what people actually need? AI and emerging technologies are accelerating what’s possible across finance, making it easier to move from idea to product faster than ever before. This conversation explores what happens when what we can build begins to outpace our understanding of what people actually need. Drawing on perspectives from entrepreneurship, financial technology, innovation and emerging talent, the panel asks three deceptively simple questions: What should we build? Who are we building it for? And whose experience are we using to decide?
2:15 PM | Workshops: Track 1
The Dark Side of Fintech: When Innovations Are Exploited for Harm
With Dr. Yaro Fong-Oliveras, Nic McKinley and Sunindiya Bhalla
Digital financial services have transformed how people access, manage and move money, but the same capabilities that create opportunity can also be exploited. This session explores how digital payments, platforms and other financial technologies can intersect with human trafficking, illicit trade, fraud and other criminal activity, while also giving financial institutions new tools to identify and disrupt them. Through the lens of lived experience, The Dark Side of Fintech asks what the movement of money can reveal, where financial systems may miss the signs and how technology can become part of the solution.
Financial Foundations: What Matters, What’s Trending & What’s True
With Tracey Hartford and Carolyn Mullins
Financial advice is everywhere, especially on social media, but not all of it is accurate or relevant to your situation. This workshop cuts through the noise by covering foundational financial principles, the key areas of your financial life to monitor, and practical habits that support long-term confidence. We’ll also decode popular social media jargon, challenge common money myths, and share a framework for evaluating financial advice before acting on it.
Board Education (By Invitation): Beyond the Dashboard: What Does the Board Need to Know?
With Amy Rojik
Boards govern through information selected and synthesized by management, but even accurate dashboards can miss the lived customer, employee, or operational context that may become material to strategy, risk, or performance. As AI and analytics expand what organizations can know and accelerate how quickly they can act, this session will explore how directors can assess information sufficiency, escalation, and assurance without crossing the line from oversight into management.
3:15 PM | Workshops: Track 2
Speaking Up: Your Voice in an AI-Powered World
With Bobbie Carlton
As AI makes it easier than ever to instantly generate polished words and presentations, your real voice, lived experience and ability to connect with an audience become powerful differentiators. Learn how to use public speaking to build credibility, advance your career or business, and make sure your ideas, and your expertise, are credible and trusted.
Technology, Practically: Concepts to Real-World Applications
With Sowmya Manjanatha and Shuchi Agarwal
You don’t need to understand every piece of technology, but you do need to understand enough to ask better questions about it. This session takes technology out of the abstract and explores how it shows up in practical, real world applications. Participants will look at what different technologies actually do, where they can be useful and what we should understand before relying on them. Technology, Practically is about building enough technical fluency to participate confidently in conversations and decisions about technology, without needing to become the engineer in the room.
Executive Perspectives: Human Judgement in an Age of AI
With Lauren E. Danis and Bob Howland
AI is creating exciting opportunities to rethink how we work, solve problems and make decisions. As technology becomes more capable, we have an opportunity to be even more intentional about the human experience behind those decisions. How do we bring together the speed and insights of AI with the curiosity, empathy and perspective that people contribute? Through interactive, real-life scenarios, we’ll explore how technology can broaden our thinking, how our own experiences and biases shape what we see, and how asking better questions can lead to better outcomes. Together, we’ll consider what human-centered decision making looks like in an AI-powered world, where understanding the people affected is just as important as understanding the technology we’re using.
4:15 PM | Product & Solution Demos
Meet innovators building solutions around real-life financial needs.
Snugd with Shuchi Agarwal
Born from a frustrating apartment search with her son, Snugd is an AI-powered platform designed to simplify the rental experience for students and young professionals. Rather than focusing solely on finding listings, Snugd brings the entire apartment-hunting process into one place, from scheduling tours and capturing notes to comparing costs, commutes and amenities. Now in beta across eight cities, including Boston, Snugd demonstrates how a real-life frustration can inspire technology that gives people greater clarity, confidence and control over an important financial decision.
Brdge Insights with Mallory Musante and Torrence Jennette
Bondera with Yi Wang
Bondera is a FinTech platform designed to make municipal bond financing more accessible, transparent and efficient for smaller communities. Through its digital auction platform, Bondera connects cities and towns directly with investors, helping reduce the costs and complexities of issuing municipal bonds. This demonstration explores how financial technology can help local governments make better use of limited resources, potentially freeing up millions of dollars over the life of their bonds to reinvest in schools, roads, public safety and other essential community projects.
FinClarq with Priya Chanduraj
Finsight Intelligence with Chelsie Santos
FinSight Intelligence is a financial technology and learning platform designed to make professional-quality financial research and hands-on learning more accessible to students and emerging finance professionals. Bringing financial data, analytics, AI-powered research, portfolio and market analysis and interactive learning tools into one platform, FinSight gives users an opportunity to apply financial concepts both inside and beyond the classroom. Born from Chelsie Santos’s own difficulty accessing financial technology as a working, off-campus student, FinSight explores a simple idea: access to financial technology should not determine when or how a student can learn.
6:00 PM | Closing Keynote: To be announced soon
6:30 PM | Networking Reception
Continue the conversations, meet our speakers and connect with the broader RealTalk community.
