Global Leaders

Speakers

SmartCon brings together the world’s leading voices in finance, Web3, and government to share firsthand insights on how blockchain and onchain technologies are transforming industries, institutions, and the global economy—sparking critical conversations that chart the course of an onchain future.

Thomas Zschach
Chief Innovation Officer, Swift
Patrick Witt
Executive Director, President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, The White House
Chris Perry
President, Broadridge Financial Solutions
G. Daniel (Dan) Doney
Managing Director, Chief Technology Officer, DTCC Digital Assets, DTCC
Nadine Chakar
Global Head of Digital Assets, DTCC
Jonathan Ehrenfeld Solé
Head of Strategy, Swift
Nelli Zaltsman
Head of Platform Settlement Solutions, Kinexys by JPMorgan
Chris Zuehlke
Partner/Global Co-Head, DRW/Cumberland
Bryan Steil
Congressman, House of Representatives
David Mills
Senior Associate Director, Federal Reserve Board
E. David Burt
Premier of Bermuda, Government of Bermuda
Sergey Nazarov
Co-founder, Chainlink
Stani Kulechov
Founder, Aave Labs
Justin Sun
Founder, TRON
Ed Felten
Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, Offchain Labs
Nate Holiday
CEO, MakeInfinite Labs
Mark Garabedian
Director of Digital Assets and Tokenization, Wellington
Charles Jansen
Managing Director, Head of DeFi Transformation, S&P Global
Raj Dhamodharan
Executive Vice President, Blockchain and Digital Currencies, Mastercard
Jack Pouderoyen
Director, Digital Asset Strategy, Swift
Donna Milrod
Chief Product Officer, State Street
Chris Bruner
Chief Product Officer, Tradeweb
Andrew McCormick
Head of eToro US, eToro
Alex Cordover
Chief Executive Officer, Tradable
Larry Wade
Global Head of Compliance and Regulatory Relations for Crypto, PayPal
Ed Budd
Chief Product Officer, Partior
Lidia Kurt
CEO, Seturion / BX Digital
Marius Ciubotariu
Co-Founder, Kamino Finance
Nathan Allman
Chief Executive Officer, Ondo Finance
Thomas Short
Co-Founder, Kamino Finance
Carlos Domingo
Co-founder & CEO, Securitize
Ben Jones
Co-Founder, Optimism
Samuel Bisig
CTO, Seturion / BX Digital
Stacy Rosenthal
Head of Payments Platforms, PayPal
Juan Carlos Reyes
President of CNAD, Government of El Salvador
Will Peck
Head of Digital Assets, WisdomTree
Jorgen Ouaknine
Global Head of Innovation and Digital Assets, Euroclear
Alireza Dorfard
Managing Director - Head of Market Data + Services, Deutsche Börse Group
Matthew Horne
Head of Digital Asset Strategists, Fidelity
Bruno Grossi
Head of Digital Assets, Banco Inter
Kelly Mathieson
Chief Business Development Officer, Digital Asset
Max Heinzle
Founder & CEO, 21X
Amar Kuchinad
CEO, Copper Technologies
Stijn Vander Straeten
CEO, Crypto Finance | Deutsche Börse Group
Ryan Rugg
Head of Digital Assets Citi's Treasury and Trade Solutions, Citi
Laurens Schepens
Lead UBS Tokenize, UBS
Will Artingstall
Head of Digital Asset Payments and E-commerce Services, Citi
David Palmer
CPO, Pairpoint by Vodafone
Aviad Stein
Global Head of Digital Asset Solutions, Broadridge Financial
Kristen Mierzwa Barrie
Head of Digital Assets, FTSE Russell, an LSEG business
Cory Pugh
CEO, Bridgetower Capital
Chuck Mounts
Managing Director, S&P Global
Ankur Prasad
SVP, Head of Bank Product, Capital One
Andrew Moss
Head of Digital Asset Research , Jefferies
Rajeev Bamra
Global Head of Digital Economy Strategy, Moody's Ratings
Angie Walker
Global Head of Commercialisation, APEX Digital, APEX Group
Thomas Cowan
Head of Tokenization, Galaxy
Daniel Coheur
Global Head of Digital Assets and Fund Distribution, APEX Group & Tokeny
Maredith Hannon
Head of Business Development, Digital Assets, WisdomTree
Christoph Schneider
Head of IT, GLEIF
Alexander Höptner
CEO, AllUnity
Eric Saraniecki
Head of Network Strategy, Digital Asset | Canton
Matthew Sigel
Head of Digital Assets Research, VanEck
Mark Nichols
Partner Digital Asset Consulting Leader, Ernst & Young (EY)
Aqsa Zubair
Assistant Director, FinTech, Bermuda Monetary Authority
Ryan Louvar
Chief Legal Officer and Head of Business and Legal Affairs, Digital Assets, WisdomTree
Sam ten Cate
MD - Head of Digital Strategy, State Street Investment Management
Kerem Kolcuglu
Digital Finance Advisor / Managing Partner, Government of Bermuda / Penrose Partners
Owen Lau
Managing Director, Clear Street
Jim Hiltner
Co-Founder, Head of Business Development, Superstate
Patrick Collins
CEO, Cyfrin
Kathleen Wrynn
Global Head of Digital Assets, Invesco
Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary
Managing Director, Head of Product & Research, Grayscale
Fernando Vazquez
President, Capital Markets, Chainlink
Torab Torabi
CEO, Move Industries
Rodrigo Coelho
CEO, Edge & Node
Edward Woodford
Founder & CEO, zerohash
Michael Bentley
Co-Founder and CEO, Euler Finance
Jason Lau
Chief Innovation Officer, OKX
Lamine Brahimi
Co-Founder, Taurus
Markus Franke
Founder & CEO, Mento Labs
Summer Mersinger
CEO, Blockchain Association
Jacob Phillips
Co-founder, Lombard
Nick Ducoff
Head of Institutional Growth, Solana Foundation
Ophelia Snyder
Co-Founder, 21.co
Misha Putiatin
CEO & Co-founder, Symbiotic
Joe Flanagan
Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at Maple, Maple Finance
Martin Quensel
Co-founder of both, Centrifuge and Anemoy
Gabor Gurbacs
CEO, Hadron
Alex Gluchowski
CEO / Founder, Matter Labs
Vanessa Fernandes Da Silva
Advisor / Partner, Aeonic Digital
Apurva Joshi
Chief Product Officer, Chainlink Labs
Wormhole Oracle
Founder, LlamaRisk
Andre Salem
Co-founder & CEO, Cryptum
Kevin Liu
Co-Founder, Metis and GOAT Network
Jacquelyn Melinek
Founder, CEO, Token Relations
Charles Adkins
CEO, Hedera Foundation
Ji Hun Kim
CEO, Crypto Council for Innovation
Channi Greenwall
Founder & CEO, Olympix
Johnny Reinsch
Executive Director, Tokenized Asset Coalition

More SmartCon speakers announced soon…

NOV 4-5, 2025  |  THE METROPOLITAN PAVILION

Where Worlds Converge.

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Caroline Pham
Acting Chairman, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Acting Chairman Caroline D. Pham

Caroline D. Pham was designated CFTC acting Chairman on January 20, 2025. She was sworn in as a CFTC Commissioner on April 14, 2022, after being nominated by the President and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Acting Chairman Pham is an internationally recognized leader in strategy and innovation, with deep commercial expertise in derivatives and capital markets. She began her financial services career on the fixed income trading floor and has 24 years of experience in law and finance including over 10 years of experience in crypto and digital assets. Acting Chairman Pham was named to CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2023 list in recognition of her groundbreaking proposal for a U.S. regulatory sandbox by creating a CFTC digital asset markets pilot program.

As sponsor of the CFTC’s Global Markets Advisory Committee, acting Chairman Pham has delivered 14 recommendations on U.S. Treasury market reform, repo and funding markets, money market funds, collateral management, capital and margin, exchange volatility controls, T+1 securities settlement and FX markets, central counterparty resilience, streamlining trade reporting data, tokenized collateral, and a first-ever U.S. digital asset taxonomy. Her leadership has focused on access to markets, American competitiveness, and right-sizing regulations to promote market liquidity and efficiency.

As acting Chairman, Pham has transformed the agency by saving nearly $50 million in annualized costs, implementing enhanced governance and accountability, simplifying organizational structure, and updating the CFTC’s annual performance plan and key performance indicators for the first time in 8 years. She has issued over 20 staff letters, advisories, and other guidance documents to provide regulatory clarity and reduce administrative burden, and has completed all strategic priorities, 30% of outstanding regulatory matters, and 50% of open enforcement actions, some dating back over 15 years.

Prior to her appointment, acting Chairman Pham advised boards of directors, executive and senior management, policymakers and regulators, and industry leaders on changes to the regulatory landscape and implications of emerging issues, trends, and economic and market developments to the global financial system, markets, and banking. Her engagement includes international standard setters such as the Financial Stability Board (FSB), International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), and Bank for International Settlements (BIS), as well as central banks, government ministries, regulators, and other stakeholders across North America, Latin America, United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific regions. Her substantial experience spans key international issues such as prudential regulation and systemic risk and the impact of major disruptions like the savings and loan crisis, the 2008 great financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Acting Chairman Pham was previously a managing director at Citigroup, where she served on firm-wide governance forums and held various group-level executive roles in the chief administrative office, institutional clients group (banking and markets), legal, and compliance. Most recently, acting Chairman Pham was head of market structure for strategic initiatives, working closely with innovation, strategic equity investment and venture capital, and business and product development teams on digital assets and other opportunities.  Other roles at Citigroup included deputy head of global regulatory affairs, head of capital markets regulatory strategy and engagement, and global head of swap dealer and Volcker Rule compliance.

Acting Chairman Pham has a proven track record in driving transformational change and delivering solutions that add value to the firm’s franchise and clients. At Citigroup, she built global programs and teams and led initiatives for implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act and other global regulatory reforms across all institutional and retail businesses. For 5 years, she led global initiatives for markets and securities services including G10 rates, FX, local markets, credit, securitized markets, municipals, commodities, equities, and multi-asset.

Acting Chairman Pham’s past experience in the public sector includes serving as Special Counsel and Policy Advisor to former CFTC Commissioner Scott O’Malia; and in enforcement at the CFTC, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and for the former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims while in law school.

Acting Chairman Pham is a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. She was also a Visiting Fellow at the George Washington University Center for Law, Economics, and Finance, and has served on the Dean’s Advisory Council for the Business and Finance Law Program. Her former leadership roles with the American Bar Association (ABA) include member of the Council of the Business Law Section; Vice Chair of the Banking Law Committee; and Co-Chair of the Securities, Capital Markets, and Derivatives Subcommittee. She is a former Co-Chair of the Business Law Fellows Committee, a program to develop future leaders, and also a former Fellow herself. In addition, acting Chairman Pham has served in leadership roles on a multitude of industry forums.

Acting Chairman Pham has a B.A. from UCLA, a certificate from UCLA Anderson School of Management, and a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School. Among other professional awards, acting Chairman Pham received the 2025 Legacy Award from the Financial Club and UK US Crypto Alliance and the 2024 Belva Ann Lockwood Award presented to one inspiring GW Law alumna each year who is a trailblazer. She also received the National Conference of Vietnamese American Attorneys Cornerstone Award for lifetime achievement as the first Vietnamese-American woman appointed by the President to a Senate-confirmed executive branch position. She was born and raised in California’s Central Valley, the “food basket of the world.”