Annual Conference

Andrew Busch was the first Chief Market Intelligence Officer (CMIO) for the U.S. government at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). As CMIO, he was charged with improving and enhancing the government’s understanding of the markets. Andy provided briefings to White House, US House and US Senate staffers on a wide range of issues including: extreme market volatility, China’s influence on the global commodity markets and the impact of Fintech & virtual currencies on market dynamics.

Christopher McGratty joined KBW in 2004 and was named Head of U.S. Bank Research in 2020. Previously he led the firm’s SMID-cap bank research team. Earlier in his career, he worked as a Financial Controller at Morgan Stanley from 2002-2004.

Mike is a Principal and the Director of WolfPAC Solutions, where he’s responsible for leading the strategic direction of the group. He provides WolfPAC clients with enterprise risk management (ERM) advisory services and board training to banks, credit unions, fintech firms, and professional service organizations. With over 25 years in the banking and technology industries, he has extensive knowledge in strategic planning, technology strategy and management issues, ERM programs, and corporate governance design.

Melanie Cuevas serves as the vice president of government relations for the California Bankers Association, where her advocacy portfolio focuses mainly on issues related to cannabis, debt collection, labor and employment, political reform, privacy, and agricultural, student and military lending.

Dee McDougal is the Global Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at CAPCO. Dee is based out of Capco’s office in Charlotte, NC, reporting to Mary Keller, US Head of Human Resources. She joins Capco from Pacific Western Bank (PWB), where she served as Senior Vice President of D&I. In that role she led PWB’s corporate diversity and inclusion strategy, and developed education and engagement programs for internal and external stakeholders.

Naomi Mercer is Senior Vice President, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion for the American Bankers Association within the Office of Member Engagement. She is responsible for providing guidance and thought leadership, developing resources and tools, and helping our member banks with their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Larry Pruss offers 15 years of executive retail bank leadership and 10 years of international financial services consulting experience; successfully leading a broad range of Retail, Credit Union, and Community Banking initiatives. His past experience includes leading consulting, loyalty marketing, portfolio acquisition, and analytic organizations. He has a proven track record of developing new products, increasing sales, reducing portfolio risk, improving operating efficiency, driving loan growth, and ultimately increasing profitability.

Gary combines his financial institution background in accounting, taxes, regulatory compliance and operations to be a team leader in total balance sheet analysis and a regular contributor on numerous financial institution issues affecting the clients of Performance Trust. He is a featured speaker at numerous banking, insurance and professional conferences and seminars throughout the United States.

Aaron DiRusso joined Raymond James in 2006 and is a member of the firm’s Financial Services Investment Banking team where he leads the West Coast depository practice. He has over 20 years of experience as a banker and advisor principally serving executive managements and boards of directors of banks, bank holding companies and thrift institutions. Mr. DiRusso has significant experience in merger and acquisition, public offering, strategic advisory and private placement assignments. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences on a wide range of topics including, consolidation, strategic advisory, and capital markets activities.

William is THINK SECURITY’s lead for cybersecurity, software development, and penetration testing of Industrial Control System cybersecurity vulnerability assessments. He is a leader in both the IT and ICS cybersecurity field with a long history of delivering excellence in the government sector as well as the private industry. He is the founder THINK SECURITY in 2007, William has been working in the Cyber Security field doing both offensive and defense projects for a wide range of businesses.

Joe is a partner in the Firm’s Finance & Restructuring Group and a member of the Banking Industry Group. He practices in both the Firm’s Washington, D.C. and Southern California offices. Joe possesses a broad knowledge base regarding foreign banks and domestic banks, savings associations, bank holding companies, finance companies, mortgage banking companies and their subsidiaries and affiliates. His practice includes providing financial intermediaries advice in the areas of regulatory and strategic planning, application and licensing, legislative strategy, commercial and consumer lending, examination, supervision and enforcement, and general corporate matters.

A frequent speaker, instructor, advisor and writer on credit risk and commercial banking topics and issues, Dev is principal of Devon Risk Advisory Group and engages in consulting, speaking and training on a wide range of risk, credit, and lending topics. As former SVP and senior credit policy officer at SunTrust Bank, Atlanta, he was responsible for developing, implementing, and administering credit policies for SunTrust’s wholesale lines of business–commercial, commercial real estate, corporate investment banking, capital markets, business banking and private wealth management.

Michael Flynn is a member of the Firm’s Commercial Finance Practice Group and Mortgage Banking Group, and Co-Chair of Buchalter’s Financial Services Regulatory Group, and its Title Insurance & Escrow Industry Group in the Los Angeles office. Mr. Flynn applies his unique background as the former Acting General Counsel of HUD, and the former General Counsel of PNC Mortgage and Flagstar Bank, to counsel clients on a variety of regulatory, mortgage, consumer financial services, FinTech and real estate matters, including:

Nick is the Executive Vice President of Vitex and a FinTech veteran with more than 35 years of experience in enterprise software sales within the community banking and credit union arena. His experience includes having worked with companies including Newtrend, EDS, Fiserv, and Finastra, where he was National Sales Director for the Phoenix Transformational Banking solution. He has been instrumental in helping financial institutions realize their goal of transforming their operations to meet the ever-changing FinTech landscape.

Joel Cook became a principal of Aldrich & Bonnefin, PLC in January 2018, having joined the firm as an associate in 2011. Mr. Cook is part of the firm’s Corporate Practice Group, specializing in corporate and commercial lending matters.

Mr. Cook regularly advises financial institutions on commercial lending matters, including with regard to commercial and industrial loans, real estate loans, loan participations, loan workouts and letters of credit. He also advises on various bank regulatory matters related to commercial loans, such as lending limit requirements, Customer Identification Programs, and real estate appraisals. Mr. Cook’s practice also focuses on corporate governance issues, bank powers, reviewing and drafting contracts, and issues related to virtual currencies.

Steven Shelton was a founder of California Bank of Commerce and has served as an Executive Vice President of the Bank since 2007. Previously, Mr. Shelton served for thirteen years in various executive management positions, including President, of CivicBank of Commerce. CivicBank was acquired by City National Bank in 2002.

Steve Kinner is the Senior Managing Director at IntraFi Network who is responsible for directing sales. He has more than 27 years of banking industry experience. Formerly, Mr. Kinner was Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines. Prior to that, Mr. Kinner was the President, Financial Services Division at Oswald Financial, LLC. Earlier in his career, he was Managing Director / Senior Vice President, Asset Management at KeyCorp.

We will be utilizing the new WBA app at our 2021 Annual Conference. Download the new app today in order to access the agenda, view the presentations, engage with other attendees, learn about event sponsors, get updates throughout the conference, and much more. Simply search “WBA” in either the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store to download today. Once you are registered for the conference you will receive log-in instructions with the access code at a later date.