Format
Full day
Programming
5 focus areas
Audience
300 senior leaders
Expertise
50 speakers
CREDENTIALS
6 CEUs
Built for security and risk leaders across financial services
About the Forum
Deploying AI while maintaining trust, resilience, and accountability.
The institutions that succeed in the AI era will be those that can deploy AI while maintaining trust, resilience, accountability, and regulatory compliance. Bringing together senior leaders from banking, payments, insurance, fintech, and financial infrastructure, this executive forum explores the security, governance, risk, and operational challenges of AI adoption. Through keynote presentations, executive discussions, and peer networking, attendees will gain practical insights into AI governance, fraud prevention, operational resilience, regulatory readiness, and the future of agentic AI.
Designed for senior decision-makers across cybersecurity, technology, risk, fraud, compliance, and AI leadership, the Financial Services AI Security Forum delivers the strategies, connections, and perspectives needed to build secure, trusted, and resilient AI-enabled financial services.
Expert-led sessions, candid peer discussion, and emerging solution showcases — complemented by a catered breakfast, an executive networking lunch, and a closing cocktail reception.
AI Governance & Risk
Accountability, oversight, controls, and enterprise risk models for responsible AI adoption
Identity, Machine Trust & Delegated Authority
How AI agents, machine identities, and delegated decision-making are changing the trust model.
Fraud, Financial Crime & AI
How AI is transforming both attack patterns and detection strategies across financial services.
Operational Resilience & Regulatory Readiness
Preparing for AI-related operational risk, business continuity requirements, and evolving regulatory expectations.
Autonomous Security Operations & Agentic AI
Evaluating AI-driven automation, autonomous workflows, and the future of human-machine collaboration in cyber defense.
Practitioners, not panelists.
Our speakers bring real-world experience in cybersecurity, risk, and business strategy. Through keynotes, panels, and candid discussion, they deliver insights security leaders can act on.
Kapil Bareja
Kapil Bareja leads cyber and strategic risk at Deloitte, operating at the intersection of cybersecurity, AI security, and institutional risk governance. He is a 2023 recipient for Cyber 40 Under 40 award, 2026 Senior Executive Fellow at The Digital Economist (Tech Policy and Governance workgroup), the U.S. Ambassador for the Global Council for Responsible AI, and a Forbes Technology Council member. He is a contributor for Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company (AIUC-1). He is a keynote speaker at industry conferences and has authored papers and thought leadership for venues including the World Economic Forum (WEF), International Security Journal (ISJ), CIO, and the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), with earlier work contributing to standards and community initiatives with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and board-focused governance ecosystems such as the Nasdaq Center for Board Excellence.
John Cohen
Mr. Cohen has an extensive background in homeland security and law enforcement operations and policy development. He was Senior Homeland Security Policy Advisor to a number of State and local officials including Governor Mitt Romney of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Janet Napolitano, Governor of the State of Arizona. In 2004 he was selected by the National Journal as one of the “100 Key People in Homeland Security.” He was also named “Law Enforcement Person of the Year,” by Law Enforcement News for his work in developing and establishing a national non-emergency number, 3-1-1. He has worked within the private sector and has held a variety of government positions including: Special Agent, Office of Naval Intelligence; Police Detective and Patrol Officer, City of Gardena, CA; Senior Investigator, House Judiciary Committee, U.S. House of Representatives; and Senior Policy Advisor to the Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, Executive Office of the President of the United States. He is the recipient of a number of awards and commendations including the Drug Enforcement Administration “Administrator’s Award,” The South Bay “Medal of Valor,” and the Department of Homeland Security’s “Distinguish Service Medal.”
Molly Dodge
Molly Dodge has worked as a cybersecurity analyst in positions focused on emerging cyber risks, security risk assessment and awareness, internal training, and outreach. She is a Senior Information Security Analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and was previously employed at Penn Medicine, the hospital network of the University of Pennsylvania. Molly is a Penn State graduate and holds a CISSP certification, and she is a member of InfraGard Philadelphia and serves on the board of the Delaware Valley affiliate of WiCyS (Women in Cybersecurity). She lives with her husband and children near Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
Ari Kaufmann
I am a creative hands-on engineering leader, agile program manager, and security professional with 17+ years of experience including cloud solutions architecture, full-stack software engineering, and Agile program management. I’ve served as director of a large multi-site engineering organization and have successfully built and led product development teams creating stand-alone applications, embedded products, and real-time SaaS applications with thick, thin, and mobile clients, running on-prem, hybrid, and cloud-first deployments. I would like to bring my maker attitude, customer focus, and cross-functional experience in managing fast-paced, mission-critical architectures and software to an organization facing technical challenges that need to be overcome to deliver quality products in short timeframes.
Susan Koski
Susan Koski is responsible for Information Security Strategy, Digital Identity for customers and the workforce; Data Protection; Fusion Center (cyber, insider, physical and fraud monitoring); Vulnerability Management; Threat Intelligence; Security Incident Management; Application Security; Security Metrics; Cloud Security; and Security Policy, Governance and Assessments.
Susan has more than 25 years of experience in Information Technology (IT), cybersecurity, business continuity, third-party risk management and IT risk management. She has also served in executive leadership roles with BNY Mellon (Managing Director of Technology Risk Management), Synovus (Chief Information Security Officer - CISO) and Aetna (Chief Data Protection Officer).
Susan has a record of rebuilding programs and developing highly functional teams. She re-engineers processes and technology for efficiency and innovation – or “Effovation” – creating opportunities for teams to achieve continuous learning and development through the use of creativity to tackle complex issues.
Susan holds a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering (cum laude) from the University of Pittsburgh and an Masters in Business Administration (summa cum laude) from Duquesne University.
She is a CISO Executive Network Advisory Council member, Governing Body Member for the Evanta Pittsburgh CISO program, Advisor for the Robert Morris University Information Systems & Communications PhD Advisory Board and member of the BITS Security Steering Committee.
Venkata Ramanand
Donna Ross
Donna L. Ross is a seasoned cybersecurity, risk, and compliance executive with more than 30 years of leadership experience spanning financial services, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, technology, and retail. Throughout her career, she has built and led enterprise security, risk management, compliance, privacy, and resiliency programs for highly regulated organizations.
Most recently, Donna served as Executive Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer at Radian, where she was responsible for the company’s information security, cyber resilience, privacy, and risk management strategies. Prior to joining Radian, she held senior leadership roles at Accolade, Corning Incorporated, GMAC, and Prudential, leading global programs focused on information security, technology risk management, compliance, governance, and disaster recovery. At Accolade, a leading healthcare concierge and advocacy company, Donna served as Head of Information Security and Chief Compliance Officer. At Corning Incorporated, she led Information Risk Management initiatives supporting the company’s global technology environment.
Donna earned a bachelor's degree in Economics and Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing from the State University of New York at Brockport and holds an Ithaca College Cybersecurity Certificate. A lifelong learner, she has earned numerous industry certifications, including C|CISO, CRISC, CGEIT, CISM, CDPSE, GSEC, FLMI, ACS, and CTM.
A recognized leader within the cybersecurity community, Donna has dedicated significant time to advancing industry collaboration and public-private partnerships. She was a founding committee member on the FBI’s Automated Network Cyber Attack Reporting System initiative and has served on the Advisory Board of SecureWorld Philadelphia, where she frequently speaks on cybersecurity, privacy, threat management, and emerging technology risks. She maintains strong relationships with government and industry cybersecurity professionals through her long-standing involvement with InfraGard and has received two awards from the Director of the FBI for Exceptional Service to the Public Interest, as well as the President’s Call to Service Award.
Donna’s contributions have been recognized through numerous honors, including the Titan 100, CISOs Connect CISO Choice Award, Global CISO 100, and HousingWire Women of Influence. She remains actively involved in professional and community organizations, including InfraGard, ISACA, Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS), the United Way, the American Red Cross, and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
Following her retirement from Radian in September 2026, Donna continues to support the cybersecurity community through advisory work, board service, speaking engagements, mentoring, and industry events. She is passionate about helping organizations strengthen resilience, develop future cybersecurity leaders, and foster meaningful collaboration across the security profession.
John K. Thompson
John is an international technology executive and innovator with over 39 years of experience in the fields of data, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI).
John is an independent consultant and he teaches at Grand Valley State University in the College of Computing. He also teaches at Penn State University in the Smeal College of Business, and the Ross Business School at the University of Michigan. He teaches classes based on his books and on the subjects of AI, and Building and Managing Analytics teams at leading universities in the US and Europe.
Previously, John was the global head of AI at EY. His role was to actively lead the design, development, implementation, and use of innovative AI solutions, including Generative AI, Traditional/Classical AI, and Causal AI, across all of EY Service Lines and functions and for EY's clients. The team was comprised of - an Applied AI Research group, a product development organization, and an AI Consulting Practice.
Prior to EY, he was responsible for the AI and advanced analytics team at CSL Behring, a leading biopharmaceutical company where he led a team that developed and deployed over 25 analytical applications in 4 years. John was an Executive Partner at Gartner, where he was management consultant to market leading companies in the areas of digital transformation, data monetization and advanced analytics. Before Gartner, John was responsible for the advanced analytics business unit of the Dell Software Group.
John’s most recent book – The Path to AGI examines the most practical and pragmatic path forward to developing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The book focuses on the long-term evolutionary path of Artificial Intelligence (AI). As a field of technology, we have developed a substantial body of technology, tools, techniques, methodologies, approaches, and more in the broader field of AI over the last 70 years. The advances and advancement have been impressive, continuous, and very useful to all of society. To date, AI has been a technological success. AI has been a business success. Also, AI has been a success for all of humanity. Most of the people in the world have heard about AI. While most people have heard of AI, they really do not understand much if anything about AI. This lack of knowledge presents an opportunity for those that are less interested in real technological progress and more interested in chicanery to have an opening to mislead people about where we are in relation to achieving AGI on a widespread basis. This session is about the real, practical, pragmatic journey needed to achieve AGI. AGI is not here now. AGI will not be here in the next 3 to 5 years. AGI is hard. AGI is a long way from where we are today. If you really want to know how we will arrive at AGI and when, then you will enjoy this book..
John’s 4th book – Causal Artificial Intelligence, is intended to provide guidance for data scientists, by providing deep technical information as well as the type of information needed to collaborate with subject matter experts (SMEs). SMEs hold deep organizational knowledge about how each business operates. Business executives and managers must be able to guide the combined team based on the direction that the organization wants to take and the problems that need to be solved. The book is meant to be a primer on how teams can work together to derive value from this new pillar of the AI field.
John’s 3rd book is an effort to raise awareness and knowledge of the topic of data – Data for All, has been written for the general public, the book is an outline of how the world of data works today and how it will work in the near future. The book instructs people in how to protect and manage their data and the data of their loved ones. Data for All communicates how to do this in applied and practical terms.
John is the author of the bestselling book – Building Analytics Teams: Leveraging analytics and artificial intelligence for business improvement. The book was published in June 2020 and outlines how to hire and manage high performance advanced analytics teams. The book outlines how to engage with executives and senior managers, and how to select and undertake analytics projects that change and improve how a business operates.
John is co-author of the bestselling book – Analytics: How to win with Intelligence, which debuted on Amazon as the #1 new book in Analytics in 2017. Analytics is a book that guides non-technical executives through the journey of creating an analytics function, funding initiatives, and driving change in business operations through data and applied analytical applications.
Mr. Thompson’s technology expertise includes all aspects of advanced analytics and information management including – descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics, artificial intelligence, analytical applications, deep learning, cognitive computing, big data, simulation, optimization, synthetic data, and high-performance computing.
John has built start-up organizations from the ground up and he has reengineered business units of Fortune 500 firms to reach their potential. He has directly managed and run - sales, marketing, consulting, support, and product development organizations.
He is a technology leader with expertise and experience spanning all operational areas with a focus on strategy, product innovation, growth, and efficient execution.
Thompson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Ferris State University and a MBA in Marketing from DePaul University.
Gal Shafir
Gal started his cybersecurity journey in the IDF and went on to lead SecOps Engineering from startups to big-tech giants like Siemplify and Google. After a decade helping organizations of all sizes build security operations from the ground up, he founded Fig company to solve the real-world problems he's seen from every angle.
Seth Summersett
Seth Summersett is the CEO and Founder of Embed Security. As CEO, Seth leads Embed in building its agentic security platform to support overburdened security teams. Seth’s deep technical expertise across malware analysis, incident response, endpoint and network security, and applied machine learning, is shaped by a career spent building innovative tools, leading teams, and responding to real-world threats. Prior to founding Embed, Seth spent a decade at the NSA and held leadership positions at both Mandiant and FireEye, where he drove customer-centric innovations across security products, custom engineering, and applied machine learning. Following FireEye, he served as Head of Security Partners at Facebook (Meta).
Vanessa Toves
Vanessa Toves is a Microsoft 365 Solutions Architect and a recognized Microsoft MVP. She has worked with Microsoft enterprise technologies since the first versions of SharePoint on-prem, Microsoft’s BI suite, and SQL Server, making her instrumental in driving Microsoft 365 adoption for large organizations. Currently serving as a Microsoft subject matter expert for Druva, Vanessa works seamlessly across departments—from sales to engineering—to ensure the security of customer data. She is also an avid speaker and thought leader on cyber resilience.
Tony UcedaVélez
Tony UcedaVélez is CEO and founder of VerSprite, a global cybersecurity consultancy serving Bank of America, Truist, NYSE, the IRS, Intact Financial, and other leading financial institutions. A former security practitioner at GE Capital, UBS, Morgan Stanley, SunTrust, and Equifax, Tony co-created the PASTA risk-centric threat modeling methodology and co-authored Risk Centric Threat Modeling (Wiley). He advises financial firms on CRI Profile alignment, NY DFS Part 500, and DORA resilience testing, serves on the CREST North America Council, and is a longtime OWASP leader.
Lee Weiner
Lee Weiner is the Head of AI & Security at A10 Networks, bringing more than 25 years of experience building cybersecurity products and scaling technology businesses. His career spans early stage companies, IPOs, and global enterprises, with leadership roles across product, strategy, engineering, and go-to-market execution.
Previously, Lee served as CEO of TrojAI, an AI security company acquired by A10 Networks. Before that, he spent 11 years at Rapid7, leading products, engineering, and innovation as the company grew and scaled to over 10,000 customers. He also held senior roles at LogMeIn, Symantec, and Netegrity.
Lee brings a practical perspective on AI and cybersecurity, connecting the challenges of securing emerging technologies with the realities of building products, leading teams, and driving business growth.
Interested in speaking? Submit a speaker request »
Five focus areas, one continuous track.
The Forum follows a single, curated agenda — no competing breakouts. Each focus area translates the convergence of AI and finance into frameworks you can put to work, balancing innovation with accountability, security, and resilience.
AI Governance & Risk
Accountability, oversight, controls, and enterprise risk models for responsible AI adoption
- Building enterprise AI governance frameworks and operating models.
- Aligning AI initiatives with regulatory requirements and risk appetite.
- Managing model inventories, lifecycle governance, and accountability.
- Evaluating and monitoring third-party and embedded AI.
Identity, Machine Trust & Delegated Authority
How AI agents, machine identities, and delegated decision-making are changing the trust model.
- Securing non-human, machine, and AI-agent identities at scale.
- Governing delegated authority and authorization for autonomous actions.
- Extending zero-trust principles to AI-driven workflows.
- Establishing provenance, attestation, and machine trust.
Fraud, Financial Crime & AI
How AI is transforming both attack patterns and detection strategies across financial services.
- Defending against deepfakes and synthetic identity fraud.
- Countering AI-driven fraud across banking, insurance, and payments.
- Applying AI to detection, investigation, and response.
- Balancing fraud controls with customer experience.
Operational Resilience & Regulatory Readiness
Preparing for AI-related operational risk, business continuity requirements, and evolving regulatory expectations.
- Building operational resilience for AI-dependent services.
- Preparing for evolving operational-resilience regulation.
- Incident response, continuity, and recovery for AI systems.
- Maintaining audit trails and examination readiness.
Autonomous Security Operations & Agentic AI
Evaluating AI-driven automation, autonomous workflows, and the future of human-machine collaboration in cyber defense.
- Applying agentic AI to detection, triage, and response.
- Designing guardrails and human-in-the-loop oversight.
- Governing AI systems that take autonomous action.
- Measuring trust, accuracy, and accountability in the SOC.
300 of the people accountable for AI risk.
The room convenes senior financial services security, risk, technology, fraud, and compliance leaders — the people setting AI strategy and answering for it.
Take home governance and security frameworks you can apply immediately.
Benchmark your AI program against peers facing the same pressures.
Build relationships that outlast the day, in a curated, senior room.
Agenda Highlights
High-impact sessions that help financial and security leaders adopt AI safely, manage emerging risk, and strengthen resilience — through expert-led discussion, peer networking, and solution showcases.
Networking Breakfast
Welcome
Welcome Remarks from Ory
Fighting Crime in the Era of AI: The Demise of Traditional Law - John Cohen, Former Top DHS Intelligence Analyst
Modern threat actors and criminals have embraced the power of technology have incorporated the use of advance computing into their operational tradecraft. The tactics used to engage in criminal activity such as illegal drug and human trafficking, intelligence collection and operations, as well as terrorist attacks have evolved as threat actors increasingly use AI obtain operational intelligence on law enforcement and security operations and to plan and conduct attacks or other illicit activities. These same threat actors operate using converged and cohesive integration of physical activities, cyber security exploits, and algorithmically enabled malign information operations. Operational activity to detect, evaluate and mitigate emerging cyber and physical threats are enhanced when cyber and physical efforts are integrated and the tradecraft used by federal, state and local authorities to counter-act emerging threats and crime are evolving.
This session will discuss this issue from the perspective of an individual who has and continues to work with law enforcement, intelligence, and cyber security professionals to protect our communities and Nation from foreign and domestic threats.
Key Takeaways
1. The Evolution of AI-Enabled Crime: Understand how criminals, terrorist organizations, and other threat actors are leveraging artificial intelligence and advanced technologies to plan, coordinate, and execute increasingly sophisticated operations.
2. The Convergence of Cyber and Physical Threats: Explore how adversaries combine cyberattacks, physical operations, and AI-driven disinformation to exploit vulnerabilities and challenge traditional security and law enforcement approaches.
3. Rethinking Law Enforcement and Threat Intelligence: Discover why traditional investigative and security methods must evolve to address AI-enabled threats, and how intelligence sharing and integrated operations can improve threat detection and response.
4. Building a Unified Defense Against Emerging Threats: Learn how collaboration among cybersecurity professionals, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and private-sector organizations can strengthen national security, protect communities, and stay ahead of evolving criminal tactics.
FinServ Defense in Depth: Why the Agentic Security Control Points Must Include the Harness - Ory
As financial institutions accelerate the adoption of agentic AI, autonomous agents are moving beyond experimentation and becoming part of critical enterprise infrastructure. These agents access sensitive data, interact with systems, and execute actions independently, introducing new security challenges that traditional network-level controls alone cannot address.
Securing agentic AI requires organizations to look beyond conventional security checkpoints and focus on where agents actually operate: the agent harness, which connects AI models to tools, data, permissions, and workflows. In this session, Justin Dolly, Chief Customer and Security Officer at Ory, explores why defense-in-depth strategies must extend into the harness to provide greater visibility, control, and accountability. Attendees will learn practical approaches to managing agent identities, monitoring autonomous actions, and building a secure AI agent lifecycle that enables financial institutions to innovate while reducing risk.
Key Takeaways
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AI Agents as Critical Infrastructure: Understand the security implications of moving autonomous agents into production environments.
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Beyond Traditional Security Controls: Discover why network-level security alone is insufficient and why the agent harness is a critical control point.
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Identity, Access, and Accountability: Explore how to manage agent permissions, monitor activities, and enforce security policies.
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Securing the AI Agent Lifecycle: Learn practical steps to improve visibility, strengthen governance, and safely scale agentic AI in financial services.
Hidden Layer
When AI Has Permission to Act - Fortra
Agentic AI is moving security operations beyond AI-assisted analysis toward systems capable of investigating threats, invoking tools, and taking action. For CISOs, this creates a fundamental governance challenge: how can organizations trust autonomous systems that may access sensitive data, operate with delegated authority, and act at machine speed?
In this session, Fortra Chief Product Officer Aaron Cockerill will examine how security leaders can build confidence in autonomous security operations through continuous adversarial testing. Drawing on Fortra’s decades of threat research, offensive security expertise, and experience protecting sensitive data across complex digital environments, he will outline how organizations can evaluate AI permissions, data-access pathways, tool use, decision logic, escalation controls, and human oversight—both before deployment and as these systems evolve.
Aaron will address both sides of the challenge: using AI to strengthen cyber defense while applying offensive techniques to identify weaknesses in AI-enabled systems before threat actors do. He’ll also discuss how the security analyst’s role is changing as AI assumes more investigative and response responsibilities.
Ultimately, trusted autonomy depends on more than model accuracy. It requires clear boundaries around what AI systems can access and do, continuous validation against adversarial behavior, and accountability that remains visible when decisions are made at machine speed.
Mastercard Panel: Securing the AI-Powered Financial Institution - From Strategy to Execution
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming financial services, from fraud detection and payment processing to customer experiences and enterprise operations. But as financial institutions move beyond AI experimentation and toward enterprise-wide adoption, the challenge is no longer simply what AI can do. It's how to deploy it securely, responsibly, and at scale.
In this panel discussion, Ari Kaufmann and fellow leaders from Mastercard will explore what it takes to turn AI ambition into operational reality. From building secure architectures and protecting sensitive financial data to managing AI-driven threats, governing autonomous systems, and maintaining regulatory compliance, the conversation will examine the real-world challenges of securing AI in one of the world's most highly regulated industries.
Panelists will share practical perspectives on balancing innovation with security, integrating AI into existing infrastructure, and building the resilience and trust necessary to support the next generation of financial services.
Key Takeaways
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Moving from AI Pilots to Production: Understanding the security challenges financial institutions face when scaling AI across critical business operations.
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Building Security Into AI Architecture: Establishing the infrastructure, identity controls, data protections, and security practices necessary for enterprise AI deployment.
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Managing Emerging AI Risks: Addressing new attack surfaces, autonomous AI agents, third-party dependencies, and evolving cyber threats.
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Balancing Innovation, Governance, and Compliance: Enabling AI adoption while maintaining regulatory readiness, accountability, and effective risk oversight.
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Turning AI Strategy Into Action: Identifying practical steps security and technology leaders can take today to build secure, scalable, and resilient AI capabilities.
Networking Break
Beyond Today: What's Next for AI in Financial Services - Panel Discussion
For financial services leaders, the conversation has shifted from whether to adopt AI to how to scale it securely, govern it effectively, and prepare for what's next. As AI becomes deeply embedded across security operations, fraud detection, customer experiences, software development, and enterprise decision-making, the next wave of innovation is already taking shape.
This executive panel brings together experienced cybersecurity and technology leaders to examine the future of AI beyond today's deployments. The discussion will explore the rise of agentic AI, autonomous security operations, machine identities, AI-to-AI interactions, evolving regulatory expectations, and the new trust models required as intelligent systems gain greater autonomy. Panelists will also discuss how attackers are leveraging AI, where defensive capabilities are headed, and what leadership teams should be doing now to prepare for the next generation of AI-enabled financial services.
Attendees will gain practical insights into the strategic decisions, governance models, and security investments that will position their organizations to confidently navigate the next chapter of AI innovation.
Key Takeaways
1. The Next Wave of AI Innovation: Explore how agentic AI, autonomous security operations, and AI-to-AI interactions will reshape financial services and create new opportunities and risks.
2. Securing an Increasingly Autonomous Enterprise: Understand the challenges of managing machine identities, delegated authority, and evolving trust models as AI systems gain greater independence.
3. Staying Ahead of AI-Driven Threats and Regulations: Examine how cybercriminals are leveraging AI, how defensive capabilities are evolving, and what changing regulatory expectations mean for financial institutions.
4. Preparing Today for Tomorrow's AI Landscape: Discover the strategic investments, governance frameworks, and leadership decisions needed to securely scale AI and build long-term resilience.
Strengthen data resilience for Microsoft Copilot and AI Risks - Druva
Microsoft Copilot and AI depend on grounding data across M365, Azure, and SaaS. How that data is accessed, governed, and secured is becoming more critical. Cyberattacks, compromised identities, or overprivileged agents threaten that data and business continuity. Explore why data resilience must evolve for this new threat landscape and what organizations can do to better protect the data that powers AI.
Testing at the Edge: Conducting High-Risk Threat-Led Penetration Testing Without Disrupting Critical Financial Systems - CREST
Threat-led penetration testing has become one of the most powerful tools for assessing the real-world resilience of financial institutions, but the stakes are uniquely high in live FS environments. Testing must be realistic enough to expose genuine weaknesses, yet carefully controlled to avoid customer impact, market disruption, data loss, or operational instability.
This discussion explores how financial institutions can work with their expert cyber service providers to safely conduct high-risk, threat-led testing against critical systems, including payment platforms, trading infrastructure, cloud environments, identity systems, and third-party dependencies. Speakers will discuss how to balance realism with control, how to define acceptable risk, and how to ensure lessons from testing translate into lasting resilience improvements.
Key Discussion Questions
• How can financial institutions work with partners to design threat-led penetration tests that are realistic enough to be valuable but controlled enough to avoid operational disruption?
• What governance, rules of engagement, and escalation mechanisms are essential when testing critical or systemically important financial services infrastructure?
• How should firms, regulators, and testing providers determine whether the greater risk lies in testing too aggressively or not testing realistically enough?
Lunch
Is Your Data AI Ready? - Deepak Gaiwad, SVP Head of Data & AI Products, PNC
AI is only as powerful as the data behind it. As financial institutions accelerate their adoption of artificial intelligence, the ability to deliver trusted, accessible, secure, and well-governed data has become a critical competitive advantage. Yet many organizations continue to struggle with fragmented data environments, legacy infrastructure, inconsistent data quality, and governance challenges that limit their ability to move AI initiatives from experimentation into production.
Building an AI-ready enterprise requires more than modernizing technology. It demands a strategic approach to how data is collected, managed, connected, protected, and made available to AI-powered applications and autonomous agents. Financial institutions must balance the need for greater data accessibility with strict requirements around security, privacy, regulatory compliance, and responsible AI use.
In this session, Deepak Gaikwad, SVP, Head of Data & AI Products at PNC, explores the essential building blocks of an AI-ready data strategy. From breaking down data silos and strengthening data governance to enabling real-time intelligence and supporting agentic AI workflows, attendees will gain practical insights into creating a scalable data foundation that drives innovation, improves decision-making, and delivers measurable business value.
Key Takeaways
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Building the Foundation for AI Success: Understand why trusted, high-quality, accessible data is essential to scaling AI initiatives across financial services.
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Breaking Down Data Silos and Legacy Barriers: Explore strategies for modernizing data architectures, improving interoperability, and making enterprise data more accessible to AI-powered applications.
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Balancing Data Governance, Security, and Innovation: Learn how financial institutions can strengthen data quality, privacy, and regulatory compliance while enabling responsible AI adoption.
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Preparing Data for the Agentic AI Era: Discover how an AI-ready data strategy can support autonomous workflows, improve enterprise decision-making, and deliver measurable business outcomes.
Buying AI or Building AI: Strategic Decisions for Financial Institutions - Panel Discussion
Every financial institution is facing the same question: Should we build our own AI capabilities, buy commercial solutions, or pursue a hybrid approach? The answer has significant implications for security, governance, cost, innovation, and long-term competitive advantage.
In this panel, financial services executives will examine the strategic tradeoffs behind today's AI investment decisions. Panelists will discuss how they evaluate vendor risk, balance the use of proprietary and open-source models, measure return on investment, and address the governance and security challenges that come with each approach. Attendees will gain practical insights into the decision-making frameworks leading organizations are using to adopt AI responsibly while aligning technology investments with business objectives.
Key Takeaways
1. Build, Buy, or Go Hybrid: Understand the strategic tradeoffs of developing AI internally, purchasing commercial solutions, or combining both approaches to meet business and security objectives.
2. Managing AI Vendor and Third-Party Risk: Explore how financial institutions evaluate AI providers, assess security vulnerabilities, and address governance, compliance, and data protection concerns.
3. Balancing Innovation, Cost, and ROI: Learn how organizations measure the value of AI investments while weighing proprietary versus open-source models, scalability, and long-term costs.
4. Building a Sustainable AI Strategy: Discover the governance frameworks, security controls, and decision-making approaches needed to align AI investments with business priorities and long-term competitive advantage.
Closing the Loop: Turning Human Expertise into Actionable Intelligence for Financial Crime Investigations - Abhishek Mittal, EVP Chief Product & AI Officer, AML RightSource
Every cybercrime investigation generates valuable human insight, but too often that knowledge remains trapped in case notes, individual experience, or disconnected workflows. The next evolution of AI is not simply automating investigations; it is capturing human expertise, transforming it into structured data, and creating continuous feedback loops that make every investigation smarter than the last.
In this session, Abhishek Mittal of AML RightSource will explore how financial institutions can convert investigator knowledge into actionable data streams that continuously improve detection, decision-making, and operational effectiveness. Attendees will learn how meaningful metrics, investigator feedback, and AI can work together to identify emerging threats, refine investigative models, and accelerate the fight against financial crime. The discussion will examine practical approaches to building intelligence-driven feedback loops that enable organizations to learn from every case, adapt more quickly to evolving criminal tactics, and strengthen both operational resilience and fraud prevention. Participants will leave with a framework for transforming human expertise into a scalable, data-driven advantage in the ongoing battle against cyber-enabled financial crime.
Key Takeaways
1. Turning Human Expertise into Actionable Intelligence: Learn how to capture investigator knowledge and transform case insights into structured data that strengthens financial crime detection and prevention.
2. Building Continuous AI Feedback Loops: Explore how investigator feedback, AI, and data-driven insights can continuously improve investigative models, accuracy, and decision-making.
3. Measuring What Matters in Financial Crime Investigations: Understand how meaningful metrics and performance indicators can help organizations identify emerging threats, improve efficiency, and measure investigative effectiveness.
4. Scaling Intelligence to Stay Ahead of Financial Crime: Discover how financial institutions can leverage human expertise and AI to adapt to evolving criminal tactics, accelerate investigations, and strengthen operational resilience.
Leading with Trust: Navigating AI Risk and Opportunity in Financial Services - Fireside chat
As artificial intelligence reshapes financial services, leaders face a growing challenge: how to accelerate innovation while protecting trust, managing risk, and maintaining accountability. Success requires more than the right technology. It demands clear leadership, informed decision-making, and collaboration across cybersecurity, technology, risk, and business teams.
In this fireside chat, Joyce Brocaglia, Founder and CEO of the Executive Women’s Forum (EWF), and Suzanne Hall, EWF CISO in Residence and seasoned technology and cybersecurity executive, will explore the leadership perspectives shaping responsible AI adoption. Drawing on their experience across cybersecurity, enterprise leadership, and the EWF community, they will discuss how organizations can balance AI-driven opportunity with security and governance priorities, prepare leaders for an evolving risk landscape, and build the cross-functional trust needed to move from AI experimentation to meaningful business impact.
Attendees will gain practical perspectives on the leadership questions organizations should be asking now to advance AI with confidence, strengthen resilience, and ensure innovation delivers lasting value.
The AI Advantage Has a Human Problem - Hack the Box
AI is changing cybersecurity faster than organizations can prepare their people to use it. But access to powerful AI tools doesn't guarantee better security outcomes. Drawing on Hack The Box's NeuroGrid research, this session explores the emerging divide between teams that simply deploy AI and those that know how to direct it. From automation bias and skill atrophy to the growing challenge of trusting autonomous agents, Tom Fernandez examines why human judgment is becoming a critical measure of cyber readiness. For financial institutions, the next competitive advantage won't come from deploying more AI. It will come from proving that both humans and agents are competent, accountable, and ready to perform together.
From Innovation to Accountability: Managing AI Risk and Compliance in Financial Services - Manish Andhy, Financial Services AI Executive, Teradata
As financial institutions accelerate the adoption of AI, the opportunity to transform fraud detection, financial crime compliance, risk management, and customer experiences is significant. But so are the governance and regulatory challenges. Financial services organizations must determine how to innovate with AI while maintaining the transparency, control, and accountability expected in one of the world’s most highly regulated industries.
In this session, Manish Andhy, Financial Services AI Executive at Teradata, will explore the evolving risk and compliance landscape surrounding AI in financial services. He will examine how institutions can address issues such as model risk, data governance, explainability, regulatory oversight, and the emerging complexities of generative and agentic AI. Attendees will gain practical perspectives on building governance and compliance into AI initiatives from the outset, enabling organizations to move AI into production responsibly while maintaining the trust of regulators, customers, and the business.
Key Takeaways
1. Navigating the Evolving AI Regulatory Landscape: Understand how emerging regulations and compliance expectations are shaping AI adoption across financial services.
2. Managing AI Risk Across the Enterprise: Explore strategies for addressing model risk, data governance, explainability, and the unique challenges introduced by generative and agentic AI.
3. Building Governance into AI Innovation: Learn how financial institutions can embed security, compliance, transparency, and accountability throughout the AI lifecycle, from development to deployment.
4. Scaling AI Responsibly While Maintaining Trust: Discover how organizations can balance innovation with regulatory requirements, strengthen oversight, and confidently move AI initiatives into production while delivering measurable business value.
Governing AI Before It Governs You: A Practical Playbook for Financial Services Security Leaders - Donna Ross, Cybersecurity, Risk, and Compliance Executive
AI didn't enter your institution through architecture review. It arrived through business units, vendor product updates, and browser tabs and most firms still can't name the AI systems they're running. Meanwhile the EU AI Act, ISO/IEC 42001, NIST's AI RMF, and existing model risk expectations are converging on the same reporting cycle.
This session cuts through the framework noise and lays out a governance program you could stand up this quarter. We'll cover what's genuinely new about AI risk versus what your existing third-party, data, and change controls already handle; the controls that hold across the AI lifecycle from intake to operation; who needs decision rights and who accepts residual risk; and a sequenced first 90 days that produces board-ready evidence at each stage.
Key Takeaways
1. Gaining Visibility into Enterprise AI: Learn how to identify and inventory AI systems across business units, third-party vendors, and everyday workflows to uncover hidden risks.
2. Cutting Through AI Governance Complexity: Understand how to align emerging regulations and frameworks with existing security, risk, and compliance controls without creating unnecessary complexity.
3. Establishing Accountability Across the AI Lifecycle: Explore how to define decision-making authority, assign risk ownership, and implement practical controls from AI adoption through ongoing operations.
4. Building a 90-Day AI Governance Action Plan: Discover how to launch a measurable governance program that delivers quick wins, strengthens regulatory readiness, and produces board-ready evidence of progress.
The AI Governance Playbook: Moving from Policy to Practice - Panel Discussion
As AI becomes embedded across financial services, governance can no longer exist only as a framework on paper. Financial institutions are being challenged to operationalize AI governance across business units, technology teams, security, risk, compliance, and executive leadership, while keeping pace with rapidly evolving regulations and innovation.
In this panel, senior leaders will share how their organizations are turning governance strategies into measurable, enterprise-wide practices. From defining ownership and accountability to strengthening model oversight, managing third-party AI risk, and delivering meaningful board reporting, panelists will discuss what it takes to build governance programs that enable innovation while maintaining trust, resilience, and regulatory confidence. Attendees will leave with practical insights into creating governance that scales with AI adoption, not behind it.
Key Takeaways
1. Turning AI Governance into Action: Learn how financial institutions are moving beyond policies and frameworks to implement practical, measurable governance across the enterprise.
2. Establishing Ownership and Accountability: Explore how organizations define roles, responsibilities, and oversight across security, risk, compliance, technology, and business leadership.
3. Managing AI Risk at Scale: Understand how to strengthen model oversight, assess third-party AI risks, and maintain compliance as AI adoption accelerates.
4. Building Board Confidence and Regulatory Readiness: Discover how to measure governance effectiveness, communicate AI risks to executive leadership, and build programs that balance innovation, trust, and resilience.
Reinventing Your Security Program Around Agentic AI - Susan Koski, Former Executive BNY Mellon, Synovus, Aetna
Agentic AI is fundamentally changing how financial institutions operate, introducing a new generation of autonomous systems capable of making decisions, accessing sensitive data, and executing complex tasks with limited human intervention. While these capabilities offer tremendous opportunities to improve efficiency, strengthen security operations, and accelerate innovation, they also introduce risks that traditional cybersecurity programs were never designed to address.
As AI agents become increasingly embedded across the enterprise, security leaders must rethink how they approach identity and access management, governance, threat detection, accountability, and operational resilience. The challenge is no longer simply securing the technology, but understanding how to maintain visibility, control, and trust when intelligent systems can act independently and at machine speed.
In this session, Susan Koski, Former CISO of PNC, explores what it takes to reinvent the modern security program for the age of agentic AI. Drawing on her experience in financial services cybersecurity leadership, she will examine how CISOs can adapt existing security frameworks, establish effective guardrails for autonomous systems, and balance innovation with risk management. Attendees will gain practical insights into building a more resilient, adaptable, and AI-ready security program that can keep pace with rapidly evolving technology and business demands.
Key Takeaways
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Rethinking Cybersecurity for the Agentic AI Era: Understand why traditional security programs must evolve as autonomous AI systems take on greater responsibilities and introduce new enterprise risks.
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Securing AI Identities, Access, and Autonomy: Explore how financial institutions can manage AI agent permissions, enforce appropriate controls, and maintain visibility into autonomous actions.
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Building Governance and Accountability into AI Operations: Learn how CISOs can establish effective oversight, define risk ownership, and implement guardrails that balance AI innovation with security and compliance.
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Creating a Resilient, AI-Ready Security Program: Discover practical strategies for modernizing security operations, adapting existing frameworks, and preparing cybersecurity teams for a future where humans and AI agents work side by side.
AI Fight AI: Business Continuity for the New Era of Cyber Resilience - Code Blue Cyber
Your business continuity plan was built for yesterday's threats. Learn how AI-driven resilience helps CISOs respond faster, decide smarter and stay in control when a cyber crisis hits.
Attackers have already adopted AI. They scan, phish and move laterally at machine speed, while many organizations still run their crisis response from a binder, a spreadsheet and a group chat. When an incident escalates into a business crisis, the gaps show fast: unclear roles, delayed coordination between teams, scattered decisions and leadership without a real-time picture of what is happening.
This session explores what changes when AI fights AI, and how security leaders can move from static continuity documents to a living resilience capability that works before, during and after a crisis.
Key Takeaways
1. Rethinking Business Continuity in the Age of AI: Understand why traditional crisis response plans are no longer sufficient against AI-powered cyber threats that move at machine speed.
2. Fighting AI with AI: Explore how AI-driven capabilities can accelerate threat detection, improve incident response, and help security teams stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated attackers.
3. Improving Crisis Coordination and Decision-Making: Learn how AI can provide real-time visibility, streamline communication, and strengthen coordination between security teams, business leaders, and key stakeholders during a cyber crisis.
4. Building a Living Cyber Resilience Strategy: Discover how to move beyond static continuity plans to a more adaptive, intelligence-driven approach that strengthens organizational preparedness, response, and recovery.
Networking Break
From Code to Confidence: Embedding Risk and Governance Across the AI Application Lifecycle - Venkata Ramanand, AVP Tech & AI, Barclays
As financial institutions race to move AI-powered applications from concept to production, the biggest challenge is no longer building the technology, it is deploying it securely, responsibly, and at enterprise scale. Success requires far more than development and testing. It demands a governance strategy that is embedded throughout the entire application lifecycle.
In this session, Venkata Cheedella will provide a 360-degree view of what it takes to take modern applications, including AI-enabled systems, safely into production. From architecture and secure development to model governance, compliance, third-party risk, operational resilience, and continuous monitoring, attendees will explore where security, risk, and governance intersect with every stage of delivery. The discussion will also examine how cross-functional collaboration between engineering, security, risk, legal, and business leaders enables organizations to accelerate innovation without sacrificing trust or regulatory expectations.
Designed for cybersecurity executives and practitioners in financial services, this session will provide practical insights into building governance into the development pipeline, reducing production risk, and creating an application delivery process that is both agile and resilient in an AI-driven world.
Key Takeaways
1. Embedding Governance Across the AI Application Lifecycle: Understand how to integrate security, risk management, and compliance from initial development through deployment and ongoing operations.
2. Moving AI Applications Safely into Production: Explore strategies for addressing model risk, third-party vulnerabilities, secure architecture, and operational resilience while accelerating AI innovation.
3. Breaking Down Silos Between Technology, Security, and Risk: Learn how cross-functional collaboration can strengthen accountability, streamline governance, and reduce friction in application development and deployment.
4. Building Secure, Scalable, and Resilient AI Applications: Discover practical approaches to continuous monitoring, risk assessment, and governance that enable financial institutions to innovate confidently while meeting regulatory expectations.
Gambit Security
AI, Humans & the Awkward Question of Access: Who Is Acting on the Account? - RSA Security
Humans want access. AI agents want access. Banks can't tell the difference, so many are blocking agents outright. But agents are already inside customer accounts, and attackers are using them too. So: Who are you? Can we trust you? What should you access, and for how long? We'll show how to verify human and AI identities, govern access across the lifecycle, and shut down a rogue agent instantly, because in the age of AI, "trust me" really isn't a strategy.
Trust Your Security Operations - Fig Security
Rethinking the SOC: Building Trust in AI-Driven Security Decisions - Embed Security
As AI becomes more deeply embedded in security operations, leaders face a critical challenge: how to realize its potential while maintaining trust, oversight and accountability. In this lightning talk, Embed Security shares how a global IT and security provider is transforming its SOC by scaling expert security reasoning with AI, dramatically reducing analyst workload while improving operational effectiveness.
We'll explore what this shift means for the future of security operations and why accuracy, consistency and transparency are essential to adopting AI with confidence.
Key Takeaways
1. Scaling Security Expertise with AI: Discover how AI-driven security reasoning can reduce analyst workloads and improve SOC efficiency.
2. Building Trust in AI-Driven Decisions: Understand why accuracy, consistency, transparency, and human oversight are essential to adopting AI in security operations.
3. Transforming the Modern SOC: Explore how AI can strengthen threat detection, accelerate decision-making, and improve operational effectiveness.
Closing Keynote - AI: Where are we now and where will we be in 5 years? - John K. Thompson, Author, "The Path to AGI"
Artificial intelligence is advancing at a remarkable pace, but separating genuine breakthroughs from industry hype has never been more challenging. With new models, autonomous agents, and bold predictions emerging almost daily, business and technology leaders face a critical question: Where is AI really headed, and what should organizations be doing today to prepare for the next five years?
In this closing keynote, John K. Thompson, author of The Path to AGI, draws on nearly four decades of experience building AI environments, applications, and platforms to deliver a practical, real-world perspective on the current state and future direction of artificial intelligence. He will explore what today's AI can realistically accomplish, where the technology still falls short, and how emerging capabilities such as agentic AI and increasingly autonomous systems could reshape business, cybersecurity, and enterprise operations.
Moving beyond the hype, John will examine the opportunities, risks, and strategic decisions organizations must navigate as AI continues to evolve. Attendees will gain insights into where to invest, what to approach with caution, and how to position their organizations for the next wave of AI innovation. Expect a candid, thought-provoking discussion that challenges assumptions and offers practical guidance for the road ahead.
Key Takeaways
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Separating AI Reality from Hype: Understand what today's AI technologies can truly deliver, where limitations remain, and which advancements deserve attention.
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Looking Ahead to the Next Five Years: Explore how agentic AI, autonomous systems, and progress toward artificial general intelligence could transform business, cybersecurity, and enterprise operations.
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Making Smarter AI Investments: Gain practical guidance on where organizations should focus their resources, how to evaluate emerging technologies, and how to prepare for an increasingly AI-driven future.
Networking Reception
The institutions that succeed in the AI era will be those that deploy it while maintaining trust, resilience, and accountability.
Financial Services AI Security Forum · December 9, 2026
Two ways to take part.
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All keynotes, panels, and sessions
Catered breakfast & executive networking lunch
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The Forum partners with respected organizations across technology, information security, and business leadership. Sponsorship opportunities span eight categories: Cybersecurity, Identity & Access Management, Fraud Prevention, Cloud & Infrastructure, AI Platforms, Governance Risk & Compliance, Financial Technology, and Consulting & Professional Services.
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Be Part of the Conversation Shaping the Future of AI in Financial Services
Join the industry's leading security, technology, risk, fraud, and compliance executives for a day of candid discussions, practical insights, and meaningful peer connections. Whether you're building your AI strategy, strengthening governance, or preparing for the next generation of AI-enabled financial services, the Financial Services AI Security Forum is where leaders come together to define what comes next.
Register today to secure your place among the executives driving trust, resilience, and responsible AI adoption across financial services
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