Jeff Adamson - CMO and Co-Founder, Neo Financial

Jeff Adamson is Chief Merchant Officer and Co-Founder of Neo Financial, Canada’s first digital banking platform designed to provide Canadians  a better way to grow and manage their money. Founded in 2019, Neo Financial has raised $299 million in funding through top-tier investors like Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures. Neo has grown to over 700 employees and has been recognized as one of top tech startups in Canada. Jeff’s background runs deep in entrepreneurship and he knows firsthand the challenges of building a business. Prior to Neo Financial, Jeff Co-founded SkipTheDishes — Canada’s leading food ordering and delivery platform, which grew to over 3,000 employees and 6 million customers. In building SkipTheDishes, Jeff worked with thousands of business owners from a small local cafe to large multinational corporations, to find new opportunities for growth. Now, as Co-founder and Chief Merchant Officer of Neo Financial, Jeff and his team help businesses grow by enabling them to share in the upside of financial technology. 

Aarti Gupta - Head of Insurance GTM-NAMER, AWS

Aarti is the Head of Insurance GTM for NAMER region. Aarti is responsible for Go-To-Market strategies and implementations working with Insurance Account teams across NAMER, focused on P&C, life insurance carriers as well as reinsurance and large brokers. She leads field insurance teams and works with GFS/Enterprise Sales Leaders across NAMER in their engagement with insurance organizations to enable LoB executive discussions, leading to cloud adoption and digital transformation.

Aarti has been with AWS for 5+ years. Prior to joining AWS, Aarti spent 22+ years in the insurance industry working at insurance carriers Progressive Insurance and Allstate Insurance where she led company-wide, cross-functional initiatives within Actuarial, Underwriting, Risk Management, Product Development, R&D, Telematics, Price Optimization, Customer Experience, Innovation and P&L, and managed $3B LoB for some of largest and complex geographies during her Allstate tenure. Aarti has led Actuarial teams, Underwriting functions, UBI product development and CAT Modeling/Risk Modeling analytics teams. As an insurance industry expert, she has extensive experience and deep understanding of core systems, actuarial practices, claims processes, analytics as well as front, middle & backend operations within insurance value chain working with LoB executives.

Margeaux Giles - CEO of Irys Insurtech

As Chief Executive Officer of Irys Insurtech, Margeaux has more than 15 years of executive experience in operations and digital transformation for the insurance and finance space.

Named Insurtech Woman CEO of the Year, Top 20 Insurtech provider of 2022, Forbes Technology Council member and regular Forbes.com contributor, Margeaux is not only passionate about injecting cutting-edge tech into insurance, she’s proactive in changing the landscape for women.

Margeaux is a founding member of InsureWomen and InsureEquality, Network Liaison of the Central Florida network of the Association of Professional Insurance Women, and a member of the UCONN Fintech Masters Program Advisory Board.

Tom Reid - President, GRTR Consulting Inc.

Tom has spent more than a quarter of a century in a variety of senior leadership positions in the Canadian P&C industry.

His background includes digital strategy development & implementation, digital marketing, software development, finance, underwriting and business development. Tom has been the COO of a large brokerage, and served as the regional head for a large carrier, and was – briefly –  the president of a startup digital technology firm.

Tom continues to be active in the Canadian P&C sector, consulting for various insurance clients, including leading the IBAC initiative to promote broker/carrier connectivity.

Tom spent a decade volunteering with high performance athletes, including four years as President of Ski Jumping Canada, which was capped off with the honour of being the Canadian team leader for ski jumping at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Tracy Riley - SVP and Chief Insurance & Technology Officer, Wawanesa

Tracy Riley is an accomplished insurance industry professional. She most recently served as Wawanesa’s SVP & Chief Digital Officer, where she was central in transforming Wawanesa into an insurance industry technology leader. Tracy now leads Wawanesa’s Personal Insurance Products and Pricing teams – two essential insurance functions – with a focus on how the company can further use technology to better support Wawanesa’s members and broker partners.

She is a proud Business Administration degree graduate, Chartered Insurance Professional, and holds an Executive MBA in Digital Transformation from McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business. Tracy is on the Board of the Facilities Association, and HSB Client Advisory Board. She is also an Associate member of the Asper School of Business.

A life-long resident of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Tracy enjoys watching sports, spending time with her family and playing tennis.

Ema Roloff - Founder Leading Change

Ema is a Digital Transformation and Change Management expert. She helps insurers set and execute on their Digital Transformation strategy. As the host of the series Leading Change, she has conducted over 200 expert interviews in the space of Digital Transformation and Innovation. Ema has been recognized as the AI Journal Young Tech Leader of the Year, a RISE 35 under 35 Award Winner, named in Lightico’s Insurance Innovators Top 100, and the Making Waves Awards from InsurTech Hartford.

Lance Miller - CEO Surex

Lance Miller is the one of the co-founders of Surex, Canada’s largest online insurance brokerage doing business across Canada. Starting out in the small town of Magrath, Alberta, Lance sought to offer a new way for customers to obtain insurance and to provide an exceptional experience to customers along the way. He worked to turn a business that was set up in a town of only 2300 residents to grow it to one of the country’s most successful and fastest growing online insurance companies. Miller attributes their ability to overcome obstacles to their tenacity, bootstrap mentality, quick decision-making, and problem-solving abilities. Helps to have great staff too!

Manjit Minhas - Dragons Den

Ryan Hotlz

Matthew Grant - InsTech London

Pete Tessier - The Insurance Podcast

Nick Roper-Roper Valuation & Insurance Advisors Ltd.

Jen Devlin - Sauce Recruitment Corp.

Julia Marshall

Lorie Phair Canadian Broker Network

Justin Thouin - Lowestrates.ca

Brooke Hunter-Hunters International Insurance Brokers

Jeff Roy - Excalibur Insurance

Heather Masterson - Travelers