Speakers & Presentations
Financial Services Panel
Joe Peedikayil
Moderator
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Joe serves as the North America Enterprise Finance, AI, Risk & Regulatory Compliance Lead at Accenture. Joe is a functional executive and Subject Matter Expert who has led teams Global Systemically Important Banks (GSIBs), Strategy & Consulting firms, and Federal Banking Regulatory Agencies in AI and Analytics. With hands-on transformation experience, Joe focuses on supporting C-Suite executives to enhance enterprise-wide Finance, AI/Agentic and Risk programs, improve & scale Data, AI & Analytics uses and adoption, align to Regulatory requirements, and lead end-to-end program transformations. Joe holds a Master of Science in Data Sciences and Artificial Intelligence from Northwestern University, a Master of Science in Finance from Indiana University, and a Bachelor of Science in Consumer Economics & Finance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is a Commissioned Federal Bank Examiner, Certified Treasury Professional (CTP), holds a Credit Risk Certification (CRC), and has completed the Executive Risk Management Program at Harvard Business School and the Applied Generative AI for Digital Transformation Program at MIT.
Ram Peddu
Panelist
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Ram Peddu is the Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Risk and Finance at BMO Financial Group, responsible for driving data strategy, analytics capabilities, and AI initiatives to enable business transformation and informed decision-making. With over 20 years of experience driving data transformation across leading financial institutions—including JPMorgan Chase, and American Express, Citizens Bank and Fifth Third Bank. [LinkedIn]
Ram is recognized for building high-impact analytics ecosystems and AI governance frameworks. Before joining BMO, Ram served as Senior Vice President and Head of Advanced Analytics at Citizens Bank, where he advanced conversational AI, machine learning capabilities and established an enterprise data office. His career spans leadership in AI Strategy, intelligent automation, machine learning, data lake and geo-spatial analytics enabling banks to unlock new efficiencies and customer insights.
Ram holds a MS in Computer Science from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He is completing executive education in Chief AI Officer certificate program at Chicago Booth and earned certifications in Ethics of AI from MIT.
He serves on advisory boards for Loyola University Chicago’s AI Business Consortium and Northwestern University’s Retail Analytics Council. Ram is also a frequent speaker at industry event like Loyola’s AI in Financial Services forum. Outside of work, Ram is an Abbott Six Star Marathon Majors finisher, passionate about endurance sports, and enjoys playing tennis with his kids.
Mohamed Khalifa
Panelist
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Mo Khalifa is the Head of AI & Innovation for J.P. Morgan Global Private Bank. Mo is responsible for driving AI innovation initiatives across the Global Private Bank, setting the strategic direction for AI within the business, overseeing the development and deployment of transformative capabilities, and advising the firm’s investment teams on the evolving AI landscape and its implications for markets and clients.
Mo started his career at Goldman Sachs in 2014. He joined J.P. Morgan in 2017 in the Commercial & Investment Bank in Markets in London before moving to the Global Private Bank in New York in 2019.
Cynthia Pekron
Panelist
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Cynthia Pekron is Head of Morningstar’s Data Collections Systems, innovating to provide high quality data that empower Investor Success.
Cynthia is a mission-oriented leader with more than 15 years of experience in human-in-the-loop machine learning system design, new product and application development, and scaled operations across a wide range of industries from non-ferrous metals to green building design, to government and nonprofit, to digital publishing, and for the last 12 years—fintech. She was once referred to as the “Lebron James of her discipline”, which she’s told is a compliment since she has not watched basketball since the Bulls won the 1993 three-peat.
After leaving Amazon.com in 2013, Cynthia joined Morningstar’s Institutional Software Product, Morningstar Direct, before moving into Analytics in 2018 to build out her team of product management, engineering, model validation, and QA to productionize new analytics including the Morningstar Medalist Rating, Risk Model, and Portfolio Construction engines (batch and interactive APIs). Cynthia transformed Morningstar’s Flagship Medalist Rating through proprietary human-in-the-loop machine learning system resulting in 10x analyst productivity increase, and 20x increase in ratings coverage. Most recently she has launched Morningstar’s LLM-based data extraction engine and Morningstar’s first agent-collected datasets in production with over 99%+ accuracy.
She is a recognized thought leader in applied AI and decision science, contributing to pioneering research on machine learning’s influence on knowledge worker decisions with collaborators from INSEAD, Harvard Business School, and Vanderbilt University. Cynthia lectures at institutions such as NYU Stern, Northwestern Law, and DePaul University and has spoken at leading forums including AWS Re:Invent, the CDAO Chicago Conference, and Chicago Climate TechWeek to name a few. Cynthia serves on the Board for Chicago Financial Women’s Alliance, as well as several of Morningstar’s governing bodies including Morningstar’s AI Council and previously the Morningstar Indexes Oversight Committee. Cynthia holds a Bachelor of Science of Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a Master of Arts Management from the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. She’s passionate about furthering enlightenment ideals and the liberal arts, libraries, and musical instrument selection as a reflection of personality. She, herself, is a cellist in the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra—infer what you will about her personality from that. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and 4 children.
Law Panel
Carmin Ballou
Moderator
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Carmin Ballou leads ALAS’s data analytics and innovation efforts at ALAS. She is also currently helping lead our efforts to use artificial intelligence to improve company operations.
Through her leadership, her team develops innovative products and tools to enhance members’ loss prevention efforts and help them understand and manage their professional liability risks. Most recently, Carmin helped lead the implementation of the new web portal for member firms. Additional web-based products launched under her direction include ALAS DataView, ALAS Edge, and ALAS Coverage Explorer. She also monitors the legal technology space for risks posed to ALAS member firms as well as areas that certain products may benefit these firms.
Carmin received her MS in Data Analytics in 2021, which, combined with her prior litigation experience and knowledge of ALAS membership, allows her to develop products that benefit ALAS member firms. One of Carmin’s first major projects at ALAS was the implementation of Passport, ALAS’s claim and matter management software, which supports the collection of key data points about legal malpractice matters.
Carmin first joined ALAS in 2014 as Claim Administrator, which gave her firsthand experience with the data needs of ALAS member firms. Prior to joining ALAS, Carmin was a litigation associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP for seven years, specializing in financial and accounting litigation.
When not at work, you are likely to find Carmin obsessively planning her next trip—which will preferably involve some travel via train.
Fernando Delgado, PhD
Panelist
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Fernando Delgado, PhD is an expert in legal AI with 20 years of experience in the legal technology sector. Fernando is the Executive Director of the AI & Analytics group at Lighthouse, responsible for the design and implementation of Lighthouse proprietary solutions across the areas of structured analytics, predictive AI and generative AI. A veteran ediscovery technologist, Fernando has pioneered multiple solutions including Lighthouse’s Key Documentation Identification (KDI) for targeted fact-finding, Cross-Matter Analysis for strategic work-product re-use, and GenAI Subject Matter Descriptions for privilege logs.
Fernando holds a PhD in information science from Cornell University. His academic work on AI and legal technology has been published in leading Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) journals. His scholar-practitioner oriented work was supported by the National Science Foundation (Law & Science Directorate), MacArthur Foundation (Technology in the Public Interest), and the Russell Sage Foundation (Initiative on Computational Social Science).
Joseph Rejano
Panelist
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Joe serves as the Director of Artificial Intelligence & Innovation at Foley Mansfield, where he leads the firm’s exploration, adoption, and implementation of cutting-edge AI solutions. With over 22 years of experience as a practicing attorney, several of which were spent as Managing Partner of the firm’s Chicago office, Joe brings a unique perspective bridging legal expertise with advanced technology.
Joe’s focus goes beyond simple automation to developing systems that enhance efficiency and establish new paradigms for human-AI collaboration. As an educator and change leader, Joe guides stakeholders through AI adoption and serves as the firm’s primary advisor on AI capabilities. His approach is both strategic and hands-on, while ensuring ethical AI integration.
With expertise spanning data analytics, machine learning, and computer programming, Joe constantly seeks ways to blend his legal acumen with technology. Outside of the office, Joe cherishes family time, enjoys music, and is constantly learning new things.
Collin Starkweather, PhD
Panelist
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Dr. Starkweather has spent over 20 years providing expert services for high-profile, complex litigation and consulting engagements with a toolkit including artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) and advanced econometrics. His work has focused on technology and financial markets and has spanned competition and financial economics, including antitrust, intellectual property, securities fraud and market manipulation, and valuation mattersE, and involved many of the leading multinational technology and financial firms.
He has also worked as a data scientist, enterprise software architect and engineer, and executive at numerous successful high-tech startup ventures through both the dot-com and AI booms. Previously, he served as Chief Data Scientist at Luminos, which provides automated testing and governance software for AI/ML models, and most recently, he founded a legaltech AI startup that remains in stealth mode.
In addition, he has taught economics, finance, and business at universities both in the United States and abroad and regularly publishes and speaks on topics including AI/ML, competition, intellectual property, finance, and cryptocurrency.
Matthew Dunne
Panelist
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In his role, Matthew combines several areas under the umbrella of “innovation.” This includes data science, management consulting, implementing legal tech software, and creative strategic thinking. He leads Katten’s DataLAB which provides legal data science services including custom Gen AI applications for lawyers. Matthew holds a MS in Applied Data Science from the University of Chicago and a JD from Indiana University Maurer School of Law. He is also licensed attorney.
Consumer Goods & Services Panel
Beverly Wright, PhD, CAP-X
Moderator
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Beverly Wright, PhD, CAP-X serves as Vice President of Data Science & AI at Wavicle Data Solutions, Executive in Residence at Georgia State University, and Academic Director for Data Science & AI at University of Georgia’s Executive Education. With a career spanning over 30 years across utilities, financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, consulting, and academia, Beverly has led numerous teams and established herself as a data science & AI thought leader, executive professor, national speaker, podcast host, and a trailblazing advocate for data science and AI for good. She also serves as Board Chair for TAG Data Science & AI, Board Member for Georgia Institute of Technology’s Master of Science in Analytics program, Past President of the Analytics Society at INFORMS, and podcast host for TAG Data Talk.
Kurt Schuepfer
Panelist
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Kurt Schuepfer is a Sr. Manager of Data Science at McDonald’s. He currently leads 5 data scientists and works with large cross-functional teams to build AI products at global scale. His works spans multiple domains, but has just focused largely in supply chain. While pursuing his PhD, he taught for several years and still is a passionate educator and mentor. His current professional interest center around enterprise analytics transformation and data strategy.
Michelangelo D’Agostiono
Panelist
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Michelangelo D’Agostino is the VP of AI / ML at Grainger, where his team builds AI-driven products for the maintenance, repair, and operations industry. Prior to Grainger, Michelangelo held data and machine learning leadership roles at Tegus—a fintech company acquired by AlphaSense in 2024, Cameo–a marketplace for celebrity shout-out videos, ShopRunner–an ecommerce retail network that was acquired by FedEx, and Civis Analytics, a Chicago-based data science software and consulting company that spun out of the 2012 Obama reelection campaign. Michelangelo holds a PhD in particle astrophysics from UC Berkeley and got his start in analytics sifting through neutrino data from the IceCube experiment. Accordingly, he spent two glorious months at the South Pole, where he slept in a tent salvaged from the Korean War and enjoyed the twice-weekly shower rationing. He’s also written about science and technology for the Economist.
Mike Baker
Panelist
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Michael Baker leads the global Consumer Data Science organization at NielsenIQ, overseeing consumer measurement data strategy, advanced analytics, and AI innovation across 25 countries. His team drives the design and modernization of data science and analytics solutions that power insights for the world’s largest consumer goods companies. With more than two decades of leadership in data, analytics, and AI, he has guided organizations through digital transformation, platform modernization, and scaled AI adoption.
Before his current role, Michael served as Vice President of Advanced Analytics, Data Platforms, Governance & Strategy at Chamberlain Group and held multiple senior leadership roles at Nielsen. He is also the founder of Navigar Partners, a consulting firm focused on data and AI strategy, talent, and execution. Michael has served as an adjunct professor of statistics in the MBA program at Benedictine University and as a visiting professor of economics at Knox College. He holds a Master’s in Economics from Roosevelt University and a Bachelor’s in Economics from Knox College. He lives in the Chicago suburbs with his wife and four sons and enjoys sailing and cooking.
