KEYNOTE

Lisa Violet, Chief Auditor at Varo


Lisa Violet is a risk and audit executive with international experience, dual sector expertise in financial services and technology, and is a board member.

Lisa is currently the Chief Auditor of Varo Bank, N.A, since December 2019, America’s history-making first national bank chartered fintech. Varo was recently valued at $2.5 billion after its Series E raise.

Previously served as Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer at Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco (2017–2019); and Chief Audit Executive at Hitachi Vantara Corp. (2014–2017).

Prior to that, Lisa served as Senior Vice President and Director, Audit at Wells Fargo & Co. (2013–2014); and Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer at Bank of the Orient (2010–2013).

She has served in other roles as a commercial lender to the tech and forestry sectors for seven years at Scotia Capital of Scotiabank, Canada's most international bank, and leadership roles at Union Bank, a subsidiary of Japan's MUFG. Lisa started her career at PriceWaterhouseCoopers and did an expatriate posting to Chile.

Current Board Associations: Founding board member of the American Fintech Council, Girl Scouts of Northern California, and the San Francisco Girls School. Lisa is also a member of the Leadership Circle of the Financial Women of San Francisco.

Completed her BA (Honors) in Management Accounting from University of Waterloo. She is also a Chartered Accountant from the Chartered Professional Accountants Canada.

Lisa is a global citizen, bilingual English / Spanish, values family, philanthropic work, and advancing others as well as emerging industry best practices.

ROUNDTABLE WORKSHOP FACILITATORS

Akeisha Johnson, Business Leadership Coach, An Inspired Story Coaching

Akeisha Johnson of An Inspired Story Coaching is a certified and dynamic Business Leadership Coach, facilitator, and public speaker. Well known by peers and clients for creating leaders that other people want to work for.

She is the creator and facilitator of A Safe Space to Talk About Race (SafeSTTAR)™workshop, the former Program Director of The Oshun Project - a non-profit program whose work with Haitian farmers provides clean water in rural villages, and the previous host and co-producer of the podcast, Making It Work: Stories of Surviving and Thriving in the SF Bay Area.

Liz Fisher, Health, Wellness and Executive Coach

Liz Fisher, a former FWA board member, enjoyed a career that spanned over 30 years in the financial services industry. As a senior executive with a varied management background, Liz led teams for global firms including Fidelity Investments, JPMorgan Chase, and Spencer Stuart. At Spencer Stuart, Liz was a senior partner and head of the Global Financial Services Practice, working with corporate clients and private equity backed firms. After spending a decade traveling the globe for both her management responsibilities, as well as her client work, Liz decided it was time to make a lifestyle change.

Liz became a certified executive coach and an organizational consultant working with senior leaders in the areas of strategy and human capital. Her clients included Barclays and TPG, where she led the effort in recruiting partner level talent and coaching various team members. Additionally, Liz serves on the board of Steward Partners, a New York based independent financial services firm providing multi-faceted solutions to their advisers and clients.

Following her passion, Liz became a nationally certified health coach and currently runs health and wellness classes, as well as coaching her own client base. Liz and her husband recently moved to Sonoma County where she is involved with many non-profit organizations including The Nobel Women’s Initiative and Impact 100 of Sonoma. Liz received her Bachelor of Science from Boston College.

Giulia Siccardo, Partner in McKinsey's Sustainability Practice and Co-Founder of McKinsey's ESG insights

Giulia is an Associate Partner in San Francisco, where she is a leader in McKinsey’s Sustainability practice and Purpose tribe. She leads the Diversity & Inclusion Initiative for McKinsey’s Global Energy & Materials practice and is the co founder of McKinsey’s ESG Insig hts group. She works internationally with energy and technology companies on strategy, finance and operations with an emphasis on ESG related topics. In addition to her advisory work, she supports McKinsey’s internal and external knowledge efforts on ESG, with particular focus on green growth, sustainability transformation, and diversity & inclusion.

Giulia graduated from Dartmouth College with honors in Economics and Environmental Studies and earned her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. She wrote her thesis on the link between environmental sustainability activity and long run corporate performance.  Before joining McKinsey, Giulia worked in corporate sustainability strategy and energy procurement for a leading Silicon Valley software company.Giulia sits on the Board of Multiplier, a sustainability focused non profit with global scope.

PANELISTS 

Jessica Ross (moderator) EVP - Finance & Chief Transformation Officer, Salesforce

Jessica Ross is a Finance and Business Transformation executive with over 20 years of cross-industry experience spanning consumer business, healthcare and technology. A “Finance leader by trade and change leaderby heart”, Jessica's career has been characterized by a deep commitmentto leadership, strategy, transformation and growth.

In her role as EVP Finance and Chief Transformation Officer at Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), Jessica is responsible for developing and delivering the global Finance organization's vision and roadmap for scale and growth, Finance M&A, as well as driving operations excellence for the company throughglobal shared services. She leads with her values as the executive sponsor of BOLDforce, the Black employee resource group, working to buildcommunity and empower future leaders. Jessica is also a member of theSalesforce Ethical Use Advisory council, comprised of academics and experts working to ensure technology is used to help society and upholdthe basic human rights of all.

Jessica lives by her values of family, integrity and impact. She is the mother of two children, Josh (25) and Jasmine (18) and is passionate about developing young women, professionals and youth to reach their full potential and be their best selves. She is a spokesperson on visionary initiatives focused on emerging workforce trends, preparing Finance for a technology enabled future, and advancing the dialogue on inclusion and diversity. Most recently, Jessica joined the Board of Directors of All Raise, whose mission is focused on increasing the number of female founders and funders in tech.

Philippa Lawrence, Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer, Workday

Philippa Lawrence is a global finance and accounting leader and is currently vice president and chief accounting officer at Workday. With more than 30 years of experience as a finance leader, Philippa joined Workday in 2019. Before joining Workday, Philippa held controller roles at Google, Motorola, Brocade, and Katerra.

Philippa is a chartered accountant, originally from England where she studied at London Metropolitan University.

Orlando Montalvo, Managing Director and Head of Currency and Equity Overlay Team, Blackrock

Orlando Montalvo, Managing Director, is Head of the Currency and Equity Overlay Team within BlackRock's ETF & Index Investments Group “EII.” He is responsible for overseeing hedged exchange traded funds, custom hedged allocated funds, fund of fund passive currency, custom beta overlays, and liability driven investments. He is also an Executive Officer on the BLK SOMOS Network and a committee member for the EII Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force and the BlackRock San Francisco Community Task Force. Orlando also serves on the Board of Directors for Pangea Legal Services.

Mr. Montalvo's service with the firm dates to 1992, including his years with Barclays Global Investors (BGI), which merged with BlackRock in 2009. At BGI, he was a senior portfolio manager in the Global Market Strategies Group and then the Client Solutions Group. Previously, he was a senior foreign exchange trader within BGI's trading team in the Global Advanced Active Group. Mr. Montalvo joined BGI as a team leader in foreign exchange operations.

Mona Ahmadi, Director of FP&A, Earnin

Mona Ahmadi is the Director of FP&A at Earnin, where she works cross functionally with different departments and executives to review company’s past performances and current trends to forecast financial opportunities or obstacles. Mona was a recipient of 2014 scholarship form FWSF, while pursuing her MBA at USF and currently serves on the board of Financial Women of San Francisco as well as TMC Community Capital. Mona is an avid reader and enjoys hiking in Muir Woods and Mount Tam in her free time.