Women in Banking

Sydney Lai is a Developer Advocate and VC/PE investor, providing technical advisory and fundraising to developers, founders, and emerging managers.

Sydney has been named an LGBT Technology Leader by The White House, Office of Science and Technology Policy. She is a TEDx Speaker on startup ecosystem design and is now a Developer Advocate building dev tools for enterprise integrations. As a startup community leader building startup ecosystems, she has worked in accelerators, venture funds, financial services, SaaS, government, gaming, blockchain, cryptocurrency, virtual reality, and space & defense industries. As a technical strategist with an award-winning background in sales and business development, Sydney grows products and services users want.

Ellen Zentner is Chief US Economist and a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley. Ellen serves on the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC), the Economic Advisory Panel for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as well as the American Bankers’ Association, and is Chair of SIFMA’s Economic Advisory Roundtable. She is a Director of the National Association for Business Economics and is a past president of NYABE. In 2018 and 2020, Ellen’s team received the Lawrence R. Klein Award for the most accurate economic forecasts over the past four years. Ms. Zentner holds a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Colorado.

Terrie Spiro is an experienced and proven leader in the financial services industry with over 30 years of industry experience. She is a collaborative, creative, decisive, and profit-driven CEO/leader with significant public bank holding company experience. Her scope of experience includes Founding CEO, CEO, Bank Director, Board Advisor, Turnaround Specialist, Re-Engineering consultant, and corporate banker. Spiro’s experience is wide-ranging with CEO and Executive experience in top 50, multi-regional, regional, and community bank platforms.

Krista Snelling is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Santa Cruz County Bank. Ms. Snelling assumed the position of President and CEO on March 1, 2021. Previously, Krista Snelling served as the Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer & Chief Financial Officer at Five Star Bank, a $2+ billion, award-winning community business bank headquartered in Sacramento, California. Krista brings nearly 25 years of strategic financial and operational expertise to Santa Cruz County Bank.

Karen Boehler is the Deputy Comptroller for the Western District of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

In this role, Ms. Boehler is responsible for the supervision of 176 institutions located in 19 states with assets totaling $156 billion. She is based in Denver, Colorado, and supervises a staff of nearly 300 people, who operate out of 9 field offices and 6 satellite offices. She took on these duties in January 2021.

Jan Owen is a senior advisor in the Manatt Financial Services group, and is based in the Sacramento office.

Her practice includes a wide range of oversight work including accountancy, assets recovery, auditing, banking, benefits administration, corporate governance counseling, strategic planning, public policy review and analysis, regulatory representation, budget preparation and financial reporting. With her deep understanding of regulatory issues, Jan provides innovative, practical and commonsense solutions. Her clients include major banks and consumer financial institutions, fintech startups, blockchain and cryptocurrency companies, cannabis owner and operators, and technology companies.

Teresa Bryce Bazemore has been a trailblazer in the mortgage banking industry. As a senior executive in the field, she brings more than 25 years of experience building and leading both mortgage insurance and services businesses. She served as President of Radian Guaranty from July 2008 until her retirement in April 2017, overseeing the strategic planning, business development, and operations of the mortgage insurance business line. Prior to becoming President of Radian, she served as the company’s Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Risk Officer. Previously, Ms. Bazemore was Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary for Nexstar Financial Corporation and served as General Counsel for the mortgage banking line of business at Bank of America.

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.

Jason Lane is vice president and deputy director of government relations for the California Bankers Association and manages California state tax policy for the association, which involves analyzing legislation and regulatory activity, and the development of policy positions for the association. Lane is one of three lobbyists at CBA and, in addition to his primary focus on taxation, he also lobbies on behalf of the association on issues related to the state budget, and consumer lending legislation. Lane has significant expertise in handling legislative issues including taxation, data security, identity theft, and housing.

Blending neuroscience, practical application, and over 31 years of experience made a client dub Sharon Dye “the CEO whisperer”. Sharon uses her talent to quickly separate symptoms from root causes, advise with practical solutions, and do so with an approach that respects the client’s strengths.

Her multi-faceted experience includes helping organizations identify the culture they need to maximize their marketplace success and ensuring employee engagement is robust, change management expert, executive coach, certified merger and acquisition advisor, and strategic plan development advisor.

Kaitlin Asrow is a Fintech Policy Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. In this role Kaitlin is responsible for research and monitoring in the areas of data portability, data privacy and data rights, and artificial intelligence. Prior to joining the Federal Reserve System she worked as a research manager for a nonprofit consulting firm, the Financial Health Network, and specialized in financial data use and aggregation in the United States.

Jennifer Dimenna is the Vice president of Xpress Commercial Engagement at Apiture. She started her career in fintech writing documentation and help systems for cash management software at a small company near Atlanta. Over the last 20 years, Ms. Dimenna has continued to help U.S. and global financial institutions serve the digital banking needs of their business and consumer customers. At S1, ACI, Q2, Zenmonics and currently Apiture, Ms. Dimenna led teams of product managers, business analysts, solution consultants and UX Designers who defined, designed, and coordinated development and deployment of some of the market’s most innovative digital banking products.