Adam Cai

Chief Executive Officer | VirgoCX Inc.

Adam Cai, the visionary founder and CEO of Virgo, embodies the essence of modernity and professionalism in the cryptocurrency realm. With a robust background in capital markets, Adam possesses a deep understanding of the ever-evolving digital asset landscape. His unwavering belief in the transformative potential of blockchain technology further sets him apart as a forward-thinking leader. With a keen eye for innovation and a strategic mindset, he spearheads the growth and success of VirgoCX, propelling the company towards new heights in the digital age.

Dr. Alison Manzer

Partner | Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP

Dr. Alison Manzer is a partner in the Banking & Specialty Finance Group and Business Law practice at Cassels. Alison has developed expertise in a wide range of practice areas combining skills to work effectively in most corporate/ commercial practice areas, with a focus on financial services and structured transactions. Her recent experience includes blockchain and fintech applications. Her cross-border expertise has led to several leadership roles in the leading United States business law organizations such as the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers and the American Bar Association. Alison has written many books on legal topics, primarily in areas of banking and specialized finance, and routinely lectures and speaks on a wide range of topics. She has undertaken extensive formal education in areas key to her practice, holding degrees including a DBA, MBA, LLM, and MSc., and certificates in the advanced Canadian Securities Institute programs. Alison recently received her Doctorate of Business Administration from the Henley Business School. She is also an adjunct profession at Osgoode Hall Law School teaching the LLM International Finance program, and has been practicing in the field of commercial law since 1979.

Alex McDougall

President, CEO | Stablecorp

Speaker (Consensus, CES, World Crypto Con, CoinAgenda, others), author (Toronto Star, Coindesk, Venturebeat, GritDaily), investor (Velocia, Open Application Network, BalanceNow, MetaMe, etc), and hater of zero sum games. Former investment banker and current searcher for the hypotenuses of life. Liker of trust technologies, disliker of extractive data paradigms. Co-Founder of Bicameral Ventures and pioneer of Trust Overhead, Interconnected Investing, and Economy of Digital Byproducts. Managing Director at 3iQ and President at Stablecorp. See website, interviews, writing and Twitter for more.

Amreen Sodhi

Head of Digital Product: Payments & Rewards | Scotiabank

Amreen is an experienced leader in Financial Services with deep expertise in Payments. She is an Engineer by education and spent her career across Investment Banking, Risk and Product Strategy, with a focus on leveraging innovation to solve customer and business pain points. She is believer of future of digital assets and currencies and ability for Blockchain/DLT technology to enable it and passionate to supporting this industry to grow and mature.

Ashley Wright

Founder | Fem T3ch

Meet Ashley Wright, creator of the 7-week “Crypto Strategy Academy” and author of “The Crypto Strategy Workbook for Youth.” That makes learning Blockchain and Web3 simple and relatable. Ashley’s initiatives, like Fem T3ch and Blacks On Blockchain, break barriers in tech education, fostering inclusivity for women and the Black community in Web3. Ashley’s work isn’t just educational; it’s a catalyst for diversity and innovation in emerging technologies.

Ben Harper

Associate Director | Luxor Technologies

As Associate Director with Luxor Technologies, a Seattle-based digital mining services company, Ben helps build the software and financial service infrastructure to support the next generation of digital assets. Before joining Luxor, Ben spent six years working in numerous positions in the public and private sector, in Canada and abroad, as a financial, economic, and public policy analyst. Ben sits on the Canadian Blockchain Consortium’s Policy and Advocacy Committee and is passionate about advancing policy to encourage the development of the blockchain industry, and digital asset mining specifically, in Canada. Ben holds a Master of Arts in Economics from Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Arts (Economics) from Queen’s University.

Brent Bowden

Regulatory & Financial Crime Account Exec - Canada | Chainalysis Inc.

With almost fifteen years of experience in the Federal, Provincial/State Government landscape, Brent has developed a strong passion for National Security/Public Safety and how teams leverage technology to achieve their core missions. More specifically, he joined Chainalysis over a year ago and now works directly with Financial, Tax and Regulatory Departments as the respective Country Lead in Sales, continuing to influence policy, regulation, cyber and complex financial crimes

Dean Skurka

Chief Executive Officer and President | WonderFi

Dean Skurka was formerly the Head of Finance and Compliance for FLC and is currently the President and CEO at WonderFi. Since joining Bitbuy in 2018, Dean has led all finance, compliance, and regulatory strategy development and implementation and growth initiatives including all M&A transactions. Key milestones include completing Canada’s first Proof of Reserve & Solvency Report, structuring insured user bitcoin holdings 1:1, and growing cumulative transaction volume on the platform from $25M in 2018 to over $3B in 2021. Prior to FLC, Dean spent over 5 years working in corporate restructuring and insolvency, acting as a financial advisor to secured lenders and financial institutions. Dean holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Ryerson University, having majored in finance, and minored in accounting.

Didier Lavallee

Chief Executive Officer | Tetra Trust

Didier brings over 16 years of capital markets and asset servicing experience to Tetra. Prior to becoming CEO of Tetra, Didier held various leadership positions at the Royal Bank of Canada including Head of Canadian Custody Product for RBC Investor and Treasury Services. Before that, Didier also ran RBC I&TS North American FX Sales Trading team, FX Product and held various roles in capital markets with RBC, UBS and Genuity. Didier holds a B.A. in Finance and Administrative Studies from Western University.

Eric Richmond

President | Coinsquare

Emma Todd

President, CEO | MMH Data Systems

Emma is CEO of MMH Technology Group, which encompasses Data Systems, Blockchain Consulting, Communication and Events for emerging technology organizations. Emma is Chair of the Canadian Blockchain Consortium’s Mining Committee, a board member of the Canadian Blockchain Consortium and Chair for Girls In Tech. Emma achieved a significant milestone by joining the board of Tokens.com, which put Emma as one of the 7% of women of colour that currently sit on a publicly traded board. She is also past Chair and Executive Board Member of Blockchain for Impact, which works alongside the United Nations.

As a seasoned speaker, Emma has spoken on a panel at Parliament in Ottawa, Canada, the United Nations Headquarters, the United Nations General Assembly, and shared the stage with various heads of state, U.N. Ambassadors, Al Gore, Edward Snowden, members of the U.S. Congress, and Senate, and more.

Emma has helped some of the world’s largest banks succeed including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and HSBC. She has also amassed a string of accomplishments including being named Crypto Royalty by Toronto Life magazine in its annual Top 50 influential list. Emma was also awarded one of the Top 100 Black Women to watch in Canada, she has been nominated for the Trailblazer Diversity in Tech Awards, and has been named one of 2019’s Top 100 Influencers for Sustainable Development Goals, among others.
Emma is also known for being the host of the largest free “in person” blockchain conference in Canada. Emma is also a judge for the prestigious Canadian Marketing Awards.

Jaime Leverton

Chief Executive Officer | Hut 8 Mining Corp.

A transformational leader with a proven track record for accelerating growth, Jaime Leverton has served as the driving force behind the operational re-imagining of some of Canada’s most important technology companies.

Throughout a career spanning more than 20 years, Jaime has served in a series of increasingly senior executive roles with eStruxture Data Centers, Cogeco Peer 1, National Bank, BlackBerry, Bell Canada, and IBM Canada.

Jaime has a Master’s of Business Administration, Marketing Informatics from Dalhousie University and a Bachelor of Arts, Psychology and Political Science from the University of Ottawa. Jaime sits on the board of the Stratford Festival, TECHNATION and the Merry-Go-Round Children’s Foundation.

An avid runner, reader and bitcoin advocate, Jaime lives in Toronto with her husband, their two daughters and their dog, Dexter.

Janine Moir

Innovation Leader for Audit and Assurance and the National Digital Assurance Leader | Deloitte

I am passionate about the intersection of technology and finance. I am 100% a proud nerd who has always had tech skills and now paired with my CPA, CA, I’ve managed to turn that into a career I love at Deloitte. I’m the Innovation Leader for Audit and Assurance and the National Digital Assurance Leader. I get to figure out how tech is going to change the future of audit, accounting and financial reporting and then I have the privilege of working with our internal teams and clients on these topics. Topics like GenAI, algorithm assurance, automation and blockchain to name a few.

I’m passionate about giving back. In my free time I’m a founding board member of the Canadian Blockchain Consortium. I’m also on board of the Canadian Blockchain Association for Women (cbaw.io) and Onward Housing.

Jason Budgell

Chief Financial Officer | BlockLAB

Jason has accumulated more than 15 years of experience in financial services, primarily working for large financial institutions in commercial lending and business development roles. Jason is a founding director and CFO atHestia Heating Inc, a director and VP of Finance for Big Land Networks and Big Link Internet. Jason earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics, and has completed several financial planning, securities, and risk management certifications.

Kirk Emery

Partner | Miller Thomson LLP

I am a business lawyer specializing in M&A, venture capital, commercial agreements, governance, structuring, and strategy. I advise public and private companies, funds, and high growth companies from a range of industries, including technology and blockchain.

Kunal Bhasin

Partner & Co-Leader, Cryptoassets & Blockchain Center of Excellence | KPMG LLP.

Kunal is the Director and Co-Leader of KPMG Canada’s Cryptoassets and Blockchain CoE. He possesses over 10 years of experience conducting and leading compliance and risk assessments, and technology audits for crypto, fintec, TradFi, and technology sectors.

Kyle Schneps

Director of Public Policy | Foundry

Laure Fouin

Partner, Co-Chair, Digital Assets and Blockchain | Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP

2020 IFLR Awards – Americas: Rising Star in Banking and Finance
IFLR 1000 Guide to the World’s Leading Financial Law Firms – Rising Star: Banking and finance (since 2019)
Best Lawyers Canada – One to Watch in Securities Laws and in Corporate Governance

Laure is the co-head of the Digital Assets and Blockchain group and a partner in Osler’s Montréal office. Her practice focuses on financial institutions, financial products and services regulation, securities regulation and investment products (including crypto assets and crypto contracts), structured finance and debt capital markets (DCM). As such she notably helps her clients navigate digitization and ESG strategic and regulatory matters.

Laure is regularly called to share her expertise on matters relating to the use of blockchain technology, cryptoassets, digital tokens, artificial intelligence in financial services, regulatory and compliance issues relating to financial services entities and financial products, including banks and investment funds. Laure has also taught a course on credit default swaps and securitization.

Laure holds a master’s degree in business law and a master’s degree in banking and financial law, both from Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas, as well as a Master of Laws (LLM) from McGill University.

Laurent Féral-Pierssens,

Managing Partner | BlockZero

Laurent is a business leader specializing in the future of finance and payment through digital assets and blockchain, crypto, web3, DeFi, CDBC, stablecoin and metaverse. He has been focusing on blockchain innovation and the crypto-economy since 2016.

Laurent advises organizations, financial institutions and governments faced with technology disruption. Laurent helps design new operating models, build products and services based on digital assets transformation, financial technologies and decentralized infrastructure. Laurent was most recently Leader of the Blockchain and Digital Assets practice of Deloitte Canada, where he led Deloitte’s global Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) efforts.

With a unique combination of business, scientific and technical skills, and 20 years of experience leading technology companies in Canada, the United States and Europe as a founder and CEO, Laurent has anchored himself as an early investor and strategic advisor.

Laurent holds a joint major in Computer Sciences and Mathematics from McGill University. He is a member of the Quebec Regulator’s Technology & Innovation Advisory Committee and a member of the Information Technology Program Committee of McGill School of Continuing Education.

Today, Laurent is an international thought leader on emerging technology. He is a regular speaker on the subject of fintech, transformation of the financial infrastructure, blockchain innovation and digital assets.

Publications
– Libra; Shaping the Evolution of Financial Infrastructure (2020 / Deloitte Global) http://bit.ly/LibraPOV
– Economic Development Impact of Mining Cryptoassets (2018 / Hydro Quebec-KPMG)
– Impact of AI on the Financial Services Sector (2017 / Finance Montreal-KPMG)

General Management
– Attracted and led teams, spanning multiple countries in sales, product, finance and marketing
– Created strategic partnerships, closed M&A deals, managed restructuring and integration
– Raised multiple rounds of funding

Strategy, Marketing & Sales
– Business model design, go-to-market strategy, monetization
– Sales and marketing strategy and organization architecture
– Partner and customer account strategy and engagement

Product, Research & Development
– Led R&D teams from inception to delivery
– Algorithm design and software architecture
– Product design, positioning, and launch

Mathew Szeto

Head of Institutional Sales | Aquanow

Mathew serves as Head of Institutional Sales of Aquanow bringing a wealth of experience providing trading solutions to financial institutions. He spent 15 years at RBC Capital Markets in Canada and in London, ultimately serving as co-head of EMEA Equity Execution. Mathew most recently served as Head of Institutional Electronic Execution at Peel Hunt, is a Chartered Financial Analyst, and a licensed professional engineer in Ontario, Canada.

Mark Greenberg

Managing Director, Canada & Global Staking | Kraken Digital Asset Exchange

Mark Greenberg is Kraken’s Managing Director for Canada and global head of staking. He is responsible for product growth and operations across Canada, as well as navigating the evolving regulatory landscape for crypto staking across the globe. Prior to Kraken, Mark spent the past decade building and scaling businesses in both TradFi and DeFi across the Americas, most recently at Scotiabank.

Matt Burgoyne

Partner | Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP

Matthew Burgoyne is a corporate commercial lawyer and the head of the Cryptocurrency and Blockchain group at Osler LLp. Since 2013, Matthew has advised clients in digital currency law and has assisted in the formation of cryptocurrency exchanges, assisted digital token and coin developers, cryptocurrency ATM providers, cryptocurrency investors, cryptocurrency miners and cryptocurrency related investment funds. Matthew provides legal advice to businesses involved in stable coin and initial coin offerings, along with securities law and anti-money laundering law.

Michael Rabkin

Global Head of Business Development | DV Chain

Michael Rabkin is the Global Head of Business Development at DV Chain, a global leader in over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency trading and pricing. Prior to DV Chain, Michael served as the President & Founder of SigOne Capital, an institutional Over-The-Counter digital asset trading platform which was acquired by DV Chain in December 2019. Michael was also a Founding Team Member at Shorcan Digital Currency Network, a wholly owned-subsidiary of the TMX Group (TSE: X) focused on brokering Bitcoin and Ether OTC trades. Combining his past experience in the traditional financial world with his present day role in the digital asset ecosystem allows Michael to effectively bridge the two worlds together.

Pamela Draper

President and Chief Executive Officer | Bitvo Inc.

Pamela Draper is the President and CEO of Pateno Payments Inc., a firm that provides development solutions in the payments space, as well as the President and CEO of Bitvo Inc., a crypto asset trading platform launched in Canada in 2018. Prior to joining Pateno and Bitvo, Pamela spent approximately 14 years with top tier Canadian banks, in the areas of corporate and investment banking. Most recently Pamela held the position of Director in BMO Capital Markets’ Equity Capital Markets group in Toronto where she was responsible for assisting North American corporate clients raising capital in public and private markets. Pamela obtained an Honours Business Administration degree from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. Current voluntary positions include acting as a Director for the Canadian Blockchain Association for Women and for the Calgary Public Library Foundation. Pamela also serves as an Advisory Committee Member to Rallie, a financial technology company on a mission to get more women investing.

https://twitter.com/Pateno_Payments 

https://twitter.com/BitvoCrypto

https://www.linkedin.com/company/pateno-payments/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/bitvocrypto/

Sam Gabor

Counsel | Gowling WLG

Sam is Counsel in Gowling WLG’s Calgary office. He has a longstanding litigation and solicitor practice focused in restructuring, insolvency and bankruptcy law. Sam also has extensive expertise in intellectual property matters. Sam advises and acts on behalf of companies, borrowers, lenders, court-appointed officers (such as receivers, trustees and proposal trustees), and other interested parties in lending, restructuring and insolvency scenarios. Sam provides advice pertaining to out-of-court and court supervised restructurings, insolvency related court proceedings, debt enforcement, personal property security, and other matters. Sam has written several publications regarding digital assets, the metaverse, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). He has consulted with the Government of Alberta regarding amending Alberta’s Personal Property Security Act to specifically incorporate a framework for digital assets. Sam has further presented on amending personal property security legislation to specifically incorporate new laws and regulations for digital assets.

Simon Raven

Chief Executive Officer | Raven Energy Solutions

Simon Raven graduated from the University of Calgary in 2000 with a B.sc in Geology and has 23 years of diverse experience in the energy sector. He holds MBA’s from Queens University and Cornell University and has held numerous senior leadership positions within the Canadian Energy Industry. In 2022 he joined a major cryptocurrency exchange and has focused on real world blockchain applications, as well as innovative approaches for developing Bitcoin mining and integrated power production in Canada. He is currently focused on building additional bitcoin mining capacity in Alberta utilizing flare gas, turning waste into wealth.

Sue Ennis

VP of Corporate Development | Hut8

I help drive retail and institutional investor interest & awareness into hidden and under loved publicly traded, or pre-ipo company gems. Work with companies and CEOs to achieve the optimum share price that reflects the fundamental value of the company.

✅Award-winning, senior executive with a proven track record of adding value to disruptive technology companies. 

✅15+ years optimizing sales, strategic planning, capital markets positioning, Investor Relations, Market Research and Business Development for start ups, scale ups, pre-IPO and large enterprise corporations.

✅Asking the important questions to grow revenue and drive stakeholder value.

✅Sharp witted lover of big ideas and simplifying complex problems using a balance of entrepreneurial innovation and business management acumen.

✅Doing challenging things and expanding opportunities for Retail & Institutional investors to invest in the future of the Web, open source infrastructure and healthcare, is my jam.

✅Working with leaders and up and comers in the future of financial services, IoT, healthcare(psychedelic renaissance), blockchain, data infrastructure, gaming and finance for inclusion.

Specialties:

Blockchain

Data Infrastructure: HPC, A.I

Web 3.0

Bitcoin as a partner in the global transition to renewable energy advocacy

Decentralized Finance

Digital Asset Mining 

Strategic Partnerships

Business Development

Capital Markets messaging

ESG messaging 

Raising Capital

Public Speaking and Advocacy

Strategic Planning and Implementation

Growth Strategy

Venturing & Incubation 

Hobbies include: 🏃Ultra-Marathons, Tennis, Improv & Adventure travel.

Tanim Rasul

Chief Operating Officer | NDAX