Sixteen years ago, William A. Donius discovered how to tap into the right side of his brain. It revolutionized his life. Today, he teaches his creative method of problem-solving to a wide range of corporations and employees. 

Donius has spent the past ten years conducting research with hundreds of test subjects to determine if his methodology for unlocking innovation, intuition, and creativity could be applied to corporate America. The research findings were conclusive and led to a book, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Thought Revolution, as well as a recent TEDx Talk, “Unlocking the Brain’s Hidden App,” which explains a new approach to brainstorming. 

Donius has appeared as a guest on both national and local television and radio shows. Currently, he speaks at business conferences about breaking through complacent conventional knowledge to think differently about innovation and problem-solving. He offers a literal “How To” for Thinking Outside the Box. Additionally, Donius has adapted the methodology from his book into a strategic ideation process he deploys to help both small and Fortune 500 companies produce innovative solutions. 

Previously, Donius was Chairman and CEO of Pulaski Bank in St Louis. He led the bank through a successful initial public offering in 1998. During his 12-year tenure, the bank grew eight-fold in size to $1.4 billion in assets. It was ranked one of the top-performing small banks in the country by SNL, voted Best Place to Work in St. Louis in 2007 by the St. Louis Business Journal, and received a Torch Award in 2008 from the Better Business Bureau for excellence in ethics and customer service. He was also appointed to serve on the U.S Federal Reserve's Banker's Council in Washington, D.C. in 2008 for a two-year term (under Ben Bernanke).

Chris has more than 35 years’ experience tracking US and global economies, financial markets, central banks, and fiscal policy, as well as six years’ experience as a money manager, giving him a unique ability to distill economic events into information useful to investors.

Chris writes daily economic and market updates, weekly economic commentaries, and regular economic forecasts. He is a frequent and popular speaker at national conferences and forums. He is a member of SIFMA’s Economic Committee and the American Bankers Association’s Economic Advisory Committee to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, where he has served as Chairman.

Chris has been quoted in Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and many other publications around the world. He is a regular on Bloomberg TV, CNBC, and Fox Business Channel and on BBC World Service radio and American Public Media’s “Marketplace.” Chris has been recognized multiple times by Bloomberg as the most accurate forecaster of Treasury note yields.

Chris is a graduate of New York University.

Todd Cuppia is a Managing Director and leads Chatham's Balance Sheet Risk Management practice for financial institutions. In his current role, Todd advises over 200 financial institutions across the U.S. on developing and executing strategies to manage complex economic risks. He brings nearly two decades of capital markets and banking experience to help financial institutions implement successful interest rate risk management programs.

Dr. David Fieldhouse manages Moody's consumer retail and municipal credit analytics products. His team produces econometric-based loss forecasting, benchmarking, and stress-testing models for strategic planning, risk management, and accounting needs. He is a CECL subject matter expert with experience in all types of credit. He writes papers on consumer credit issues regularly and speaks regularly at Moody's Analytics and industry events, webinars, and client engagements. David holds a PhD in economics from the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

As Director of Research, U.S. Capital Markets, Aaron is responsible for all aspects of research within the Capital Markets platform. He synthesizes and interprets a variety of data and information to stay ahead of trends that put our clients in an optimal position to make informed decisions. At the same time, he promotes the Colliers brand via best-in-class research reports, weekly insight posts, thought leadership, and contributions to numerous panels, media outlets, and industry events.

With a deep understanding of markets throughout the country, he provides a unique perspective on market dynamics across asset types and investment strategies, providing clients with tailored data and analytics to ultimately guide decision-making solutions.

Prior to joining Colliers, he spent 11 years with Property & Portfolio Research (PPR), later CoStar Portfolio Strategy, where he was responsible for the leadership, direction, and performance of a team of economists who monitored property markets across the United States. Aaron also advised institutional clients, including lenders, REITs, and investment managers along with government agencies on their commercial real estate investment strategies across property sectors.

With over 25 years of experience in the finance and risk management software industry, I am the CEO of Empyrean Solutions, a company that provides premier balance sheet modeling solutions for financial institutions. My mission is to help our clients optimize their performance, manage their risks, and comply with regulatory requirements, using our integrated platform that covers ALM, Stress Testing, FTP, Liquidity, Budgeting, Profitability, and CECL.

Thomas J. Meshako is the President and CEO of Greenfield Savings Bank. Mr. Meshako joined the Bank in 2016 as Treasurer and CFO and was appointed President and CEO in 2022.

Founded in 1869, Greenfield Savings Bank has 198 employees and has offices and ATMs throughout Franklin and Hampshire Counties in western Massachusetts. The Bank operates the only wealth management & trust services and investment management company headquartered in Franklin County. Total assets under management, including both the Bank, Trust and the investment management company, exceed $1.6 billion.

Before joining Greenfield Savings Bank, Mr. Meshako spent more than 40 years in the financial services industry. He has previously served as CFO of Merchants Bancshares in Burlington, Vermont, and CAO of Brookline Bancorp in Boston, Massachusetts. Senior Management at Union Bankshares of Morrisville, Vermont, and was associated, in various capacities, for more than 12 years with Chittenden Bancorp of Burlington, Vermont.

Mr. Meshako received a M.B.A. in Organizational Management from the University of New Haven and earned a B.S. in Accounting from Bentley College.

Chris Nelson is the founder and President of Bond Investment Mentor, which provides investment training and mentoring services to community bankers. In addition, he is the host of the Bond Investment Mentor podcast, covering fixed-income securities and investment portfolio management topics for community financial institutions. Chris is also President of Nelson Capital Advisors, an investment advisory and consulting firm that specializes in working with community banks and credit unions.

Chris has been involved in banking and investments for more than 30 years, formerly serving as the Chief Investment Officer and Director of Finance & Treasury for a New England-based community bank. In addition to managing the bank’s investment portfolio as it grew from $200 million to more than $1 billion, he was responsible for supervising the bank’s financial operations relating to liquidity and funds management, asset/liability and interest rate risk management, loan and deposit rate setting, hedging and derivative activities, and international services.

Joe Sass is an experienced ALM and Fixed Income Risk professional, with 25+ years of experience in helping solve the balance sheet management challenges of financial institutions.

He currently serves as the Global Head of FIS’ Balance Sheet Management business.

It is his role to position the business unit's strategic and operational plans to help customers meet current and future challenges in balance sheet management, including Asset Liability Management/IRRBB, Liquidity Risk Mgmt., Stress Testing and Capital Adequacy (ICAAP), scenario analysis and what-if, FTP, profitability, credit loss and allowance modelling (IFRS9 ECL), hedge accounting and regulatory reporting.

In prior roles at FIS/SunGard, Joe served as the Managing Director for Risk and Performance-North America, Director of Product Strategy-North America, and head of the US Professional Services group, responsible for all North and South American balance sheet management implementations.

Before joining SunGard, Joe worked as the Interest Rate Risk Manager at Provident Bank, in the Washington D.C.-Baltimore corridor.

Preceding Provident, he worked in the Treasury and ALM departments of USF&G, a property and casualty and life insurer in Baltimore, Maryland.

Dave Sweeney is a Managing Director in Chatham’s Financial Institutions team and leads our business development efforts in the Midwest where he advises financial institutions on hedging strategies. He also runs our investment and treasury advisors team. Prior to joining Chatham, Dave spent 14 years with Ernst & Young as a Principal in the Financial Institutions practice and also served as Treasurer and Chief Investment Officer for two community banks. He has experience marketing and selling interest rate derivative products to commercial bank loan customers. Dave graduated with honors and distinction from the Pennsylvania State University with his bachelor’s degree in accounting, is a CPA, and a CFA Charterholder.

Kim Thiel is the Chief Credit Officer at Traditional Bank Inc. ($2.4B) in Lexington, KY. She has 22 years working in Credit Administration and Loan Review in community banks. Kim joined Traditional Bank in 2010 with the ambition to develop a risk management environment that is based on logic and reason and supports profitable loan growth. She is the Chair of the Senior Loan Committee and a Member of the Executive Management Team. Kim is a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa and the Graduate School of Banking at LSU. Outside of work, Kim serves as an Executive Team Member for The Hearing & Speech Center, enjoys cooking, and spending time with her husband and their two daughters.

Nicholas Gallerani is the Vice President of Business Intelligence at Vermont Federal Credit Union ($922M) in South Burlington, Vermont. He oversees the Digital Banking, Reporting/Analytics, Systems Analyst, and Automation teams at Vermont Federal.

Nick built Vermont FCU’s CECL program as a one-man team, starting his research and planning as early as 2014. Nick established the Business Intelligence department in 2017 shortly after co-authoring the Credit Union’s Digital Strategy, a plan that he has been carrying forward ever since. These efforts have included leading a Website Redesign project, introducing targeted marketing efforts, implementing a best-in-class online account opening solution, and most recently, leading a Digital Banking evaluation and subsequent conversion. Nick also brought Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to Vermont Federal Credit Union, establishing the program in 2023. Outside of work Nick enjoys boxing, hiking, kayaking, and most of all, spending time with his wife and son.

With 40 years of (depository) institutional fixed-income experience, Mr. Virsotek founded Checkpoint Capital, LLC (a Fintech capital markets firm) in Austin, Texas, in 2019. Considered an industry disruptor, its institutional buy-side technology provides fixed-income price transparency to community banks and credit unions. Its offering provides community-based institutions with the tools many of the world’s largest financial institutions utilize. The firm’s robust analytics solution simplifies fixed-income purchases by filtering thousands of offerings in real time on a fully disclosed basis. By introducing extensive buyer technology and sophistication into the community bank portfolio process, CEOs, CFOs, Treasurers, and portfolio managers have the choice to know fixed-income pricing in advance. This transparency supports them in their related fiduciary roles—best execution, which ultimately is in the best interest of shareholders.

Mr. Virostek began his career in 1994 at the Baker Group and served as a managing director at Stifel Financial Corp., Cantor Fitzgerald, and Brean Capital before launching Checkpoint Capital.

Peter’s practice focuses on corporate and regulatory representation of small to large regional and national financial institution franchises. During the past several years, Peter has devoted substantial time to bank, M+A, Capital raising, FinTech, Baas, regulatory, compliance and enforcement. He is Co-Practice Group Leader of the Financial Institutions Section. He has counseled institutions on more than 300 M&A transactions, as well as provided representation on over 250 securities offerings as well as capital planning.

For the 22 years of its existence ending in 2019, he served as co-editor of ICBA’s Newsletters, “SUBCHAPTER S: THE NEXT GENERATION.” He is the author of numerous articles in law and banking publications, including forthcoming Banking Law Journal article “A Rosetta Stone for Credit: 2022 Policy Statement on CRE Loan Workouts and Accommodations.” His article, “Acquisitions of Failed Banks – Present Risk and Opportunity,” was voted the second best article appearing in The Risk Managers Association Journal of 2011. He has spoken at over 250 banking conferences and seminars. Mr. Weinstock is listed in Chambers USA “Leaders in Their Field” for banking and “Fintech” and as AV Preeminent in Martindale-Hubbell®. He was also names to the National Law Journal’s list of Mergers & Acquisitions and Antitrust Trailblazers for 2018.

Ed is the Senior Director responsible for Balance Sheet Management Solutions at Moody's. In his role he leverages his knowledge of risk management and technology to lead the development and delivery of solutions to manage interest rate risk, investment portfolio analysis, liquidity risk and capital planning. His focus is on ensuring clients are able to invest in efficient, adaptable and scalable risk management solutions. Prior to his current role, Ed held roles at Moody’s in Commercial Strategy as well as Stress Testing/CECL sales and advisory.

Ed has over 20 years of risk management experience with expertise in a broad range of topics that face financial institutions. Prior to joining Moody’s Ed spent ten years working for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. During his tenure he participated on a multitude of Federal Reserve System initiatives related to capital planning (CCAR/DFAST), liquidity planning, interest rate risk management, and model risk management. Earlier in his career Ed gained experience in quantitative modeling and balance sheet management by working for two large regional financial institutions.