Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Demetrios Frangiskatos, CPA, is the leader of analytics and emerging methods at Top 10 Firm BDO USA. He has more than 22 years of experience providing accounting, auditing, and business advisory services. Currently, he oversees BDO’s assurance business line’s BDO Advantage team, where he focuses on the strategic research and development, deployment, integration and enablement of technology platforms and solutions within the assurance practice.

Jen Farrell is director of agent and customer research at Liberty Mutual and Safeco Insurance, supporting independent agent distribution and product development. In her role, she conducts primary research and interprets industry trends to ensure Liberty Mutual and Safeco take a data-driven approach to the agent and customer experience. Jen brings nearly 15 years of experience in research and digital analytics, previously working with some of the world’s largest brands to uncover marketing insights and answer critical business questions. When she’s not studying consumers, independent agents, or the insurance industry, she can be found hiking through the woods in New England.

Udi Hoitash is an accounting professor at Northeastern University in Boston.

William Holder serves as dean of the USC Leventhal School of Accounting, and holds the Alan Casden Dean’s Chair of Accountancy. Prior to his current post, he was the Ernst & Young Professor of Accounting and director of the SEC and Financial Reporting Institute in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Dean Holder has published extensively on the subjects of financial accounting and reporting and auditing. He has received numerous awards during his career, including being twice named as one of the “Top 100 People” in the accounting profession and receiving the AICPA Gold Medal for Distinguished Service, the highest honor awarded by that organization. He has served on a number of governance and standard setting authorities including the Accounting Standards Executive Committee of the AICPA and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.  During congressional hearings leading to passage of the Sarbanes/Oxley Act, he provided invited testimony about financial reporting, auditing and corporate governance.  

André is responsible for the strategy and execution of direct venture and fund investment, in addition to establishing partnerships in the reinsurance business space that generate accretive value for RGA.

With an insurance industry career spanning over 20 years, André has spent the last 17 with RGA in various roles from marketing, business and product development, venture investment and senior leadership.  Since first joining RGA in South Africa in 2005, he has worked in local, regional, and international positions, most recently transitioning to venture investments in 2015.  His team currently oversees a portfolio of more than 35 venture and 8 fund investments spanning the globe.

André holds a post graduate degree in Actuarial Science from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and Fellowships with the Institute of Actuaries (FIA), the Actuarial Society of South Africa (FASSA) and the New Zealand Society of Actuaries, while being an affiliate member of the Actuaries Institute of Australia.

He regularly presents at industry and professional conferences and is an active thought leader on many current matters affecting life and health insurance industry. 

John Beal is Senior Vice President, Analytics, Insurance, for LexisNexis Risk Solutions. He is responsible for leading the company’s insurance analytics and modeling products and services. With more than 20 years of experience in data and analytics across the insurance and financial services industries and market-leading innovations, Beal and his team develop incremental predictive uses of existing data and processes with a strong focus on developing personal and commercial lines credit-based loss models as well as new non-credit industry solutions. Prior to LexisNexis, Beal held key leadership roles at First Union National Bank in Charlotte, where he was Vice President, Credit and Market Analytics within the Quantitative Analysis Group, and at Citicorp Bankcard, where he served as Assistant Vice President, Credit Policy Department.

Tracey is the director for small commercial underwriting at Verisk. She is responsible for the strategy and execution of small commercial and casualty underwriting products, focused on powering automated underwriting and digital transformation in the industry.

Jasleen Singh is a reporter at Employee Benefit News.

Heather Rudes is chief human resources officer at The Bonadio Group.

Randy Kaston is the director of Business Law Group at Ligris + Associates. Her practice concentrates on all aspects of commercial and residential transactions, including representing lenders in closing complex commercial, asset-based, real estate, construction and SBA loans, as well as business lines of credit.