Lunch & Learns
Grab lunch and join these focused learning sessions hosted by leading financial technology providers. Each session delivers practical strategies, real-world case studies, and actionable takeaways you can implement immediately.
More coming soon!
This is only one component of a three-day agenda packed with real-world case studies, how-to strategy sessions, and inspirational keynotes.
More content tracks will be released shortly, including the Executive Leadership Series.
The AI Playbook for Financial Marketers
Panelist: Derek Barka, Chief Innovation Officer at Silvertech
Panelist: Sean Wright, Lead Product Evangelist at Kentico
Why you should attend:
AI is no longer just a buzzword for financial institutions, it’s a practical tool that can transform marketing, customer experience, and campaign performance when paired with the right data and technology. This session will show financial marketers where to begin with AI, what to prioritize, and how to scale across channels and campaigns. Attendees will see how unified customer data and CDP insights help operationalize AI to design smarter campaigns, map journeys, and uncover growth opportunities that traditional analytics often miss.
The session will highlight examples of data-driven decision making and how campaigns can be designed to encourage multichannel interactions. A live demo will show AI-automated journey orchestration, campaign optimization, and advanced personalization features that will illustrate how AI can support everything from brainstorming and execution planning to experience testing and optimization that improve cross-channel engagement.
This session will teach banking executives:
- Move from unstructured, inconsistent content to clean, modular content that fuels personalization and AI-driven experiences.
- Break down data silos and unify customer signals across marketing, website, CRM, and product systems to create a connected content and data foundation.
- Learn a clear roadmap for AI adoption with practical use cases for campaign planning, journey design, and performance improvement.
- See examples of AI-driven insights and modern CMS/CDP capabilities that reveal hidden growth opportunities and simplify complex data for actionable results.
When Compliance Becomes a Brand Advantage: Managing Employee Email Communications
Instructor: Bobby Narang, Co-Founder & Chief Customer Officer at Opensense
Why you should attend:
Hear first-hand the problem most financial institutions share but few address: millions of daily employee emails flowing through inboxes that marketing doesn’t control, legal can’t review in real time, and systems never built to ensure consistent disclosures or opt-out compliance.
The case study shows how they transformed email signatures into a controlled, auditable communication layer — and a trust signal accountholders now notice in every interaction.
This session will teach banking executives:
- How to govern high-volume employee email as regulated infrastructure — not an afterthought.
- Embedding CAN-SPAM opt-outs, disclaimers, and disclosures into daily email by default.
- Reducing regulatory and brand risk at scale without adding friction for employees.
- Aligning marketing, legal, and IT around a shared system of record for email.
- How proactive compliance becomes a measurable, trust-building brand advantage over time.
Designing Digital Banking Experiences That Win Gen Z and Millennial Loyalty
Instructor: Sarah Lambert, Vice President of Marketing at InvestiFi
Why you should attend:
Gen Z and Millennial accountholders don’t compare their banking app to other banking apps — they compare it to every app they use. High-performing financial institutions have figured out what that actually means for digital channel design, feature prioritization, and friction elimination.
Specific guidance covers where to focus, which features matter most, and how to measure which digital improvements are actually building lasting relationships with younger accountholders.
This session will teach banking executives:
- What Gen Z and Millennial accountholders expect digitally — and how to align your roadmap.
- High-impact mobile and online banking features that drive acquisition and sustained engagement.
- Reducing friction across digital account opening, onboarding, and day-to-day banking journeys.
- Using personalization and embedded financial tools to build lasting loyalty with younger accountholders.
- Measuring digital improvements to identify which investments deliver the greatest accountholder value.
One Brand. Many Experiences. Building a hero brand that powers personalization.
Panelist: Paul Tonelli, SVP & Chief Creative Officer at Pannos Marketing
Panelist: Derek Barka, Chief Innovation Officer at Silvertech
Why you should attend:
In today’s banking environment, personalization is no longer optional, and neither is brand consistency. The real challenge isn’t choosing between the two. It’s building a brand architecture strong enough to support both.
Join us for a focused lunch & learn exploring how banks can define a powerful “hero” brand that creates emotional connection and distinct perception, while strategically activating AI-driven personalization across products, channels, audiences, and life stages.
We’ll examine why identity alone is just an empty vessel without clear meaning behind it. And why the banks that win aren’t simply the ones with better data, but the ones that attach unmistakable meaning to every data driven interaction. If you’re responsible for brand, marketing, digital experience, or customer engagement, this session will challenge how you think about identity, personalization, and the role AI has in shaping perception. Because in the end, the strength of your brand is defined by the meaning you deliver.
This session will teach banking executives:
- How to build a brand foundation that stays cohesive across every touchpoint
- Where consistency matters most, and where adaptation adds value
- How AI can enhance relevance without fragmenting your story
- The shift from traditional segmentation to predictive, intent-based personalization
- Why emotional connection and not just optimization drives long-term growth
Winning the Checking Incentive War (With or Without Bigger Bonuses)
Panelist: Fred Cadena, SVP, Head of Client Strategy at Vericast
Panelist: Charlie Arcella, VP, Financial Services Partnerships at Vericast
Why you should attend:
Three years of incentive trend data reveal something counterintuitive: the size of the offer matters far less than the strategy around it. Two distinct approaches emerge — one for institutions competing on cash, one for those winning without it — each built around attracting the right accountholders, not just the most.
Attendees will come away with a clear approach to maximizing campaign efficacy, improving audience selection, and ensuring every acquisition dollar drives lasting, profitable relationships.
This session will teach banking executives:
- How the incentive landscape has shifted since 2022 — and where the data suggests it’s heading.
- Why higher incentives don’t automatically produce better results and which audience mistakes erode ROI.
- For cash competitors: structuring offers and qualification criteria to attract sticky, profitable households.
- For non-cash competitors: winning on value, precision targeting, and differentiated positioning.
- How to build omnichannel acquisition strategies reinforcing your value proposition beyond the initial offer.
Break Through Roadblocks: 5 Data-Driven Tricks Any Marketer Can Master
Panelist: Jon Matar, VP of Business Development at Connect by Main Street
Panelist: Anne Randall, Product Manager at Connect by Main Street
Why you should attend:
Limited staff, scattered data, competing priorities — community bank and credit union marketers know the roadblocks well. These five data-driven tactics show how to build stronger campaigns with existing resources, no-cost tools, and adaptive strategies that anyone can use.
The result: a concrete, ready-to-use plan to sharpen targeting, uncover growth opportunities, and cut the guesswork that wastes time and spend.
This session will teach banking executives:
- Clearing the most common marketing roadblocks — from messy data to limited bandwidth.
- Using existing accountholder data to sharpen targeting and segmentation without extra tools or staff.
- Uncovering hidden growth opportunities in your data to maximize cross-sell and ROI.
From Hot Money to Loyal Relationships: Practical Tactics to Optimize Reward Checking
Instructor: Vennesa Valcorazão, President at Kasasa
Why you should attend:
There’s a way out of the rate war that doesn’t require matching the biggest offer in the market. Behavior-based reward checking anchors primary relationships, grows low-cost core deposits, and generates non-interest income — without unsustainable teaser rates or one-time bonuses.
The session covers what’s working right now across U.S. markets, how to structure rewards that resonate with today’s consumers, and why local institutions are uniquely positioned to win.
This session will teach banking executives:
- Diagnosing where promotional pricing erodes margin and where reward checking can replace those dollars.
- Designing reward qualifications and benefit structures that drive primary account usage and debit engagement.
- Structuring a reward checking program with cost of funds below CDs and high-yield promos.
- Why local institutions are uniquely positioned to deliver everyday value big brands can’t replicate.
Game On: Branches Designed for Real-Life Engagement
Panelist: Kevin Poirot, Chief Strategy Officer at PWCampbell
Panelist: Brian Laurinaitis, Vice President, Retail Strategy at PWCampbell
Why you should attend:
Your brand connects with customers across many touchpoints—your mobile app, website, and social media offer convenient access anytime, anywhere. But digital access is only part of the story. Much like a video game that can be played on multiple platforms—from a phone to an arcade—branches bring your brand to life in a way no screen can. They become interactive, purpose-built hubs where data and technology fuel real-world connections and experiences. In this session, you’ll discover how our unmatched mix of design-build expertise, banking insight, powerful brand expression, and smart technology integration delivers winning strategies you won’t find anywhere else. You’ll leave empowered to hit the high score and equipped to win the game of branch engagement.
This session will teach banking executives:
- How to leverage branch design and in-person experiences to strengthen customer connections, complementing digital channels and creating a seamless brand presence.
- The unique value of physical branches as interactive hubs that bring the brand to life in ways digital channels alone cannot.
- How to leverage design-build expertise, banking insights, brand expression, and technology integration to deliver innovative strategies that drive customer engagement and measurable results.
From Data to Action: Driving Customer-Centric Engagement with Context‑Driven Banking
Panelist: Scott McQuilkin, Global Head of Solution Engineering at Personetics
Panelist: Ken Mowry, VP of Member Experience at Dupaco Community Credit Union
Why you should attend:
Most financial institutions are sitting on more accountholder data than they know what to do with — fragmented across products, channels, and teams, and rarely connected to the experiences that actually build trust. Cognitive Banking changes that by connecting insight to action with context.
With examples and perspectives from an industry guest leader, the session examines how leading institutions translate transactional signals into real-time guidance, next-best actions, and measurable business results.
This session will teach banking executives:
- What Cognitive Banking means and how it differs from traditional PFM and next-best-offer models.
- How AI translates transactional and behavioral signals into context-aware accountholder experiences.
- Why context is essential to improving relevance, trust, and meaningful accountholder outcomes.
- How leading financial institutions use Cognitive Banking to drive measurable business impact.
Building a Perpetual Growth Engine: Turning Community Insight Into a Smarter Marketing Roadmap
Instructor: Ron Cohen, SVP of Practice Leadership at Claritas at Claritas
Why you should attend:
A live case study walks through an end-to-end growth roadmap — connecting market understanding, audience strategy, channel selection, and measurement into one cohesive system rather than a collection of disconnected tactics.
See how an optimize-everything discipline reduces wasted spend, strengthens relevance, and creates a repeatable process where every campaign makes the next one better.
This session will teach banking executives:
- Translating market data into actionable segments — and deciding which audiences to pursue or deprioritize.
- Aligning audience, message, and channel into one integrated roadmap instead of disconnected tactics.
- Choosing channels based on objective and audience behavior — not habit or institutional inertia.
- Setting up optimization loops: what to watch, when to adjust, and which levers move fastest.
- Building an executive-ready measurement story connecting campaign decisions to leadership outcomes.
From Transactions to Relationships: AI-Driven Retention & Primacy
Panelist: Brenna Ramsay, Product Marketing Lead, Open Finance and Network Enablement at Plaid
Panelist: Tara Jotwani, Product Manager, Open Finance and Network Enablement at Plaid
Why you should attend:
AI is transforming how banks drive engagement and primacy. Instead of static decisions, institutions can now use behavioral and cash-flow data to personalize experiences, predict churn, and intervene before relationships are lost. This session will cover how banks are using continuous intelligence to increase conversion, reduce attrition, and deepen customer relationships, all while maintaining trust.
