Dr. Pierre-Luc Pomerleau

Partner

VIDOCQ

Dr. Pierre-Luc Pomerleau is a partner at VIDOCQ. His role is to assist VIDOCQ's clients grow their businesses and innovate, while managing their risks and protecting their assets. To do this, Dr. Pomerleau brings substantial experience and in-depth expertise in cybercrime, investigation, fraud prevention, anti-money laundering and risk management. Prior to joining VIDOCQ, he was Vice President at National Bank of Canada, where he managed the Financial Crime and Corporate Security division. In addition to his role with VIDOCQ, he is currently an Adjunct in Cybersecurity at Polytechnique Montréal. From 2020 to 2021, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher and Research Associate in Cybercrime at Georgia State University (USA). He co-authored the book Countering Cyber Threats to Financial Institutions: A Private and Public Partnership Approach to Critical Infrastructure, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020. His latest book Evidence-Based Cybersecurity; Foundations, Research and Practice will be published by Routledge in June 2022. Dr. Pomerleau holds a Ph.D. from Northcentral University in Business Administration, with a specialization in Homeland Security (United States), an MBA from the Université de Sherbrooke (Canada) and a Bachelor of Criminology from the Université de Montréal (Canada). He holds numerous professional certifications in security and financial crime, such as CPP, PSP, PCI, CFE, CAMS, CCCI and CFCI. From 2015 to 2018, Dr. Pomerleau was the President of the Montreal Chapter of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

Mark Chang

Senior Manager II, Specialty Compliance and Ethics

Walmart

Mark is the Senior Counsel, Privacy Compliance at SHEIN in Los Angeles, California. Prior to SHEIN, Mark has served as the Director of Risk, Compliance, & Privacy at the Florida State University in Technology Risk Management, Disaster Recovery, Research Compliance NIST 800-171, Audit Remediation, Security & Privacy trainings, and Privacy regulations in Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), & General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Mark has also worked at Goldman Sachs in the Technology Risk Regulatory, Policy, & Strategy team of the Engineering Division. Mark obtained his Master of Business Administration in Information Technology Management from the University of Texas at Dallas, Juris Doctor from Western Michigan University, and Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Mark is a Certified Information Privacy Professional, Europe (CIPP/E).

Luís Brandão

Foreign Guest Researcher

NIST

Luís Brandão received a Lic. in Technological Physics Engineering from Technical University of Lisbon, and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He is currently with the NIST cryptographic technology group, computer security division, as a foreign guest researcher (contractor from Strativia). Among his activities at NIST, he is currently involved with the Privacy Enhancing Cryptography, Threshold Cryptography, Interoperable Randomness Beacons and Circuit Complexity projects.

John Wei

Venture Investment Director

Applied Ventures

John Wei is a venture investment director at Applied Ventures. He focuses on a range of deep tech areas and industry verticals, including advanced materials, semiconductor manufacturing and industrial & enterprise software. He also manages Applied Ventures’ investment activities in the Greater China region.

Prior to joining Applied, John was a key member of the SABIC Ventures investment team, where he led multiple investments in advanced materials, energy, sustainability, manufacturing and agriculture space in North America, Europe and Greater China.

Earlier in his career, John held various commercial and technical roles at The Linde Group and General Electric with experiences mostly in the petrochemical, power generation, alternative energy and oil & gas industries.

John has a Bachelor degree from Tsinghua University and a PhD from Rutgers University, both in Chemical Engineering. While at Rutgers, he also earned a Master's degree in Computer Science. In addition, John holds an MBA degree from UCLA with a focus in Finance and Entrepreneurship.

Eric Hess

Founder

The Encrypted Economy

Eric Hess is the founder of Hess Legal Counsel, host of  “The Encrypted Economy” podcast, and former President of Helical, a cybersecurity-as-a-service platform. 

Eric has decades of experience in top legal, advocacy, board level, and management roles for equities exchanges, broker dealers, investment advisors, fintech, digital asset and cybersecurity companies.

Eric holds brokerage supervisory licenses, is admitted to practice in New York and New Jersey, and is a Certified Third Party Risk Professional.

Hess Legal advises regulated financial firms and digital asset companies on regulatory, transactional, security and privacy, AML, governance, technology licensing, emerging technology management and financing issues, as well as working with issuers in preparation of crowdfunding and Reg A offerings, as well as publishing on these topics.

Annette Ryan

Deputy Director of the Partnership, Policy and Analysis

FINTRAC

Annette Ryan is the Deputy Director of the Partnership, Policy and Analysis sector of FINTRAC. In this role, she is responsible for advancing the current and forward policy and research agenda of the Centre.  She brings strategic cohesion to domestic and international partnerships, with private and public sector thought leaders, to ensure that advice to counter illicit finance is practical, effective and respectful of privacy and citizen rights.

 

Previously as Associate Assistant Deputy Minister of the Financial Sector Policy Branch, at Finance Canada, she led policy development on federal financial sector policy issues including financial innovation, cross-border trade in financial services, cyber security and anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing. Annette has served as Chief Economist at Industry Canada. In her previous experience with federal and provincial central agencies, she led policy analysis on varied economic and social policy issues -- including fiscal federalism, labour markets, government expenditure and taxation.

 

Before joining the public service, Annette conducted research on innovation and corporate performance at the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London, U.K. She holds a Masters degree in Economics from Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Bachelor degree in Mathematics from Acadia University.

Sebastian Schwarz

Data Platform Strategy Lead

Owkin

Sebastian graduated from HEC Paris and Ecole polytechnique with a double degree in Data Science for Business. After briefly working in consulting, he joined Owkin as a Strategy Manager, with a focus on product related questions. Sebastian then moved to the Product team, where he worked on building a coherent product vision around Owkin’s federated learning technology, which strives to offer an answer to the pharma industry’s complex data sharing issues and helps researchers unlock untapped potential from their data sources & networks. Sebastian now leads the Strategy of the Data Platform, building out and embedding these products into research networks to strengthen Owkin’s federated data access and research capabilities.

Varun Agarwal

Head of Model Risk and Stress Testing

USAA

Varun Agarwal is an Executive Director at USAA where he oversees risk audit teams.

He brings over twenty-five years' experience having worked for large global financial institutions and insurers in Regulatory Risk & Compliance space. He has worked for Capgemini, HSBC, Deloitte, and JP Morgan in US, Canada and Europe.

His background includes responsibilities in Credit, Market, Liquidity, Operational, Strategic Risk and AML, along with Risk Governance, Policy, Data Management and Reporting.  He also created Enterprise Risk Management frameworks, set Risk Appetite, and executed end-to-end risk processes. He has also worked on a variety of analytical models for Capital Management, Pricing, Valuation and Derivatives.

He is a published author on topics in finance and risk across US and Europe and has presented at professional conferences at both national and regional levels. Varun earned both his Ph.D. and Master's degree in Financial Economics from the University of Alabama and a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from BITS, Pilani, India. He also holds a CFA charter.​

Varun enjoys outdoor running and reading world history.