Leadership IPS US

Dean Nolan is Managing Director at SRM, leading its Commercial Payments practice. With over 30 years in financial services, Dean has driven over $1B in value helping banks, credit unions, and fintechs modernize their payment products and platforms. His experience includes senior roles at Fifth Third Bank, Wells Fargo, MasterCard, FISERV, and Bank of America, as well as leadership and advisory positions with numerous Paytechs. A recognized industry thought leader, Dean is an active speaker and author. He also serves on the Board Advisory Group for the US Faster Payments Counsil and as Executive Director of PayCLT.

International payments consultant, recognized expert in the industry, creator of growth strategies for new and existing markets with over 25 years’ experience consulting to banks. Through work in fifteen countries, advised issuers, acquirers, networks and processors on product direction and competitive positioning, delivering millions of dollars in new revenue or operating cost savings. As founding and Board member of the Faster Payments Council, member US Federal Reserve Faster Payments Taskforce, chair of the US Payments Forum’s Mobile and Touchless Payments Working Committee, co-founder of NYPAY and through frequent keynote speaking and writing, recognized for insights on the future of payments.

Katherine Wong is the Principal Transformation Solutions Director at Paradigm Innovation, a consulting firm renowned for digital optimization in both the private and public sectors. With over 20 years of experience in enterprise consulting, she has worked with top banks such as Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, HSBC, and ABN AMRO, as well as KPMG and PwC’s business and technology strategy practices.

Katherine specializes in helping clients understand and adopt end-to-end solutions that drive meaningful impact while aligning with business values and the latest technical innovations to sustain dynamic ROI growth. With a tech-savvy background in security, risk, and compliance, she enjoys collaborating with everyone from C-suite executives to shop floor employees, helping them deliver on their most strategic initiatives.

Clients seek Paradigm out for projects that require a superior combination of technical and business capabilities, people and management skills, and a collaborative agile mindset. Katherine excels at understanding programs and strategic initiatives and breaking them down into actionable pieces.

As a Managing Director at Marketcy, I bring experience in fintech and payments innovation, sales management, and business development. I leverage my expertise in creating and executing strategies, leading and mentoring teams, and delivering solutions that generate new revenue and value for clients and stakeholders.

My mission is to transform traditional workflows with innovative technology and data-driven insights, while building strong partnerships and collaborations across the ecosystem. I have successfully led and advised multiple projects in payments, sales management and cloud, applying my knowledge of real-time, corporate, global, and digital payments, as well as blockchain and open API banking. I am also an active contributor and presenter in various industry forums, groups, and events, sharing my vision and insights on fintech and payments innovation.

Donna Turner is an industry thought leader in payments, product management, fraud risk management and operations. Having spent more than 30 years in financial services with PNC & Bank of America, she then went on to serve as Chief Operations Officer for Early Warning Systems, the industry consortium behind the Zelle payments network. It is this deep and broad set of experiences that she brings to the table in the founding of Risk Insight Solutions, an advisory firm aimed at assisting companies in developing sustainable growth, addressing risk, and delivering exceptional experiences.
While in banking, her experiences spanned large scale, global operations; product and P&L management; risk management; process engineering and enterprise fraud risk management. This compilation of experiences brought to life a passion for optimization, where the delicate balance of customer experience, operational expense and risk tolerance must be perpetually challenged and adjusted as customer expectations, capabilities, platforms, risk, and expense appetites all shift and evolve.
At Early Warning, having joined prior to the launch of the Zelle network, the joy was in bringing the network to life, which meant cross organization orchestration in concert with the design, execution and often reimagining of function and processes to be agile, scalable and provide exceptional service all within an established risk tolerance of reputation, financial and operational risk.
Donna was recognized as one of the ‘Most Influential Women in Payments’ and holds two patents in the fraud risk management arena. She has served as Chair of the Board for the Ada Jenkins Center, is currently on the board of directors for The Knoble, and as an investor/advisor for Primal Brewery. Her educational background spans undergrad at the University of Florida, with certifications in Operational Management from the University of Michigan and Risk Management from Harvard University.
Donna’ passion now lies in sharing her experience and insight to enable the success of others.

Marcia Klingensmith, CEO of Fintech Consulting, is known globally as the “Instant Payments Maven.” She has a passion for payments modernization and over 20 years of experience bringing innovative products and services to market at Fortune 500 companies like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Visa, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, and FIS Global.

Marcia is a recognized expert in instant payments, payments modernization, and ISO 20022 strategies. She helps financial institutions and fintechs navigate the evolving world of payments through strategy workshops, process reviews, and sales enablement, integrating AI capabilities to optimize processes and drive innovation. Her expertise spans banking transformation, cross-border transactions, and the future of money. Marcia helps clients achieve tangible results, driving revenue growth and operational efficiency in the evolving payments landscape.

Wayne Brown, launched The Walker Group, a FinTech boutique consulting company, in September 2007. He has led the team to manage over a thousand FinTech partnerships with banks, financial service organizations and other FinTechs. Some of these
partnerships include banks moving billions of dollars annually on new and existing rails.
Before launching The Walker Group, his previous role was Vice President North America Receivables Product Manager at Citigroup, where he was responsible for a suite of electronic payment solutions, namely, B2B (EIPP) B2C (Biller Direct) and EDI.Previous roles consisted of product and account management responsibilities at Fidelity Information Services (FIS), Deutsche Bank, MasterCard and Viewpointe LLC. He is also credited with co-authoring several financial services publications including The Walk-in Bill Payment Guidelines, published by NACHA, founder of The Walker Group Events, The Walker Group Podcasts and The Exchange, a peer-to-peer network group composed of senior executives.
A recent focus is helping banks build an Instant Payment Strategy along with the business and use cases to accept new payment methods. This effort includes managing the RFP process with banks and tech providers, collaborating with organizations deeply involved in instant payments and digital transformation and leading industry discussions around payment modernization.
Clients of The Walker Group, whether directly indirectly include large banks, FinTechs, payment gateways and consulting companies.

Peter Tapling is Managing Director at PTap Advisory, LLC, where he advises organizations on strategy, risk, and innovation across the payments and identity ecosystems. With decades of experience in financial services and technology, Peter brings deep expertise in faster payments, fraud mitigation, and digital identity. He is a recognized industry voice, contributing to policy discussions and serving on various advisory boards shaping the future of secure, real-time financial infrastructure.