How to Win in your Career: From Finding the Right Fit to Making Your Mark

Topics we will cover include:

• How to determine the best fit?

• Nailing the job interview.

• Onboarding in a new role.

• Habits that can hold you back.

• Personal Brand/Vision and what you want to be known for.

• How to find the right resources to advance in your career.

• Personal stories from leading women in FinTech.

Speakers

Blockchain Use Cases: Banking and Beyond

Speakers
Colleen Sullivan
Managing Member, Sullivan Wolf Kailus LLC
Partner, CMT Digital Holdings, LLC

Colleen Sullivan is a Partner at CMT Digital Holdings, an internationally respected proprietary trading and financial services firm, that invests in the digital assets and blockchain technology space, including venture capital investments and investments in underlying hedge / VC funds. CMT Digital Holdings also manages CMT's proprietary cryptocurrency trading operation.

Co-Founder and Managing Member of Sullivan Wolf Kailus LLC, a boutique law firm based in Chicago, that specializes in hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, digital assets, and other alternative investment products. Ms. Sullivan advises hedge fund, proprietary trading, private equity, broker-dealer, venture capital, FinTech, and financial trading technology clients on a broad range of domestic and international transactions and regulatory matters. Ms. Sullivan previously practiced in the Investment Funds and Derivatives group at Sidley Austin LLP and co-founded a company called iOptions Group LLC, which advised individuals with employee stock options how to hedge them with listed options.

Alexandra Prodromos
Executive Director, Chicago Blockchain Center
Business Development Manager, Bloq

Alexandra Prodromos received her bachelor's degree with honors in Political Science from Pepperdine University. She also holds a certificate in conflict management from Pepperdine Law School's number one ranked Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution. She is currently a Master of Science in Information Systems candidate at Northwestern University.

Alexadra was one of the primary organizers of the Illinois Blockchain Initiative, a state of Illinois consortium dedicated to furthering blockchain development in Illinois, and worked as the only non-government affiliated member of the Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology's Blockchain Working Group. In 2016, she joined Bloq, Inc., a leading enterprise grade blockchain software and services provider, as a Business Development Manager.

She was recently appointed as the Executive Director of the new Chicago Blockchain Center, a public-private non-profit partnership that serves as a leading educational resource and startup incubator of blockchain focused companies in the Chicago/Illinois tech ecosystem. She is a regularly invited speaker in Chicago and internationally on the subject of blockchain and distributed ledger technology.

John Mirkovic
Deputy Recorder - Communications, Cook County Recorder of Deeds
Co-Founder, Illinois Blockchain Initiative
Co-Founder IL General Assembly Blockchain Task Force

John Mirkovic is the Deputy Recorder, Communications and IT, Cook County Recorder of Deeds. Mr. Mirkovic ensures that the Office communicates to the public, both through its enterprise land records software system and its public messaging. He serves as offices spokesperson and pitches stories to media outlets.

Named the Top 40 Blockchain Thought Leaders in Chicago by FinTank in 2017, Mr. Mirkovic is a consensus-driven leader and communications expert with over ten years of experience implementing creative solutions and marketing strategies for complex issues, with accomplishments in public and government relations, including:

Launching the first County-level blockchain proof of concept in the United States
Co-Founding the Illinois Blockchain Initiative and the IL General Assembly Blockchain Task Force

Matthew Chapdelaine
Founder and CEO, CartoFront

Matthew Chapdelaine is the Founder and CEO of CartoFront, an industry-changing search engine for residential and commercial real estate opportunities. Using property factors, financial events, life events, and other proprietary predictive technology, CartoFront users can forecast future transactions down to the parcel & ownership level. CartoFront, Inc's predictive capabilities are currently used in the brokerage industry to get ahead of sales. Banks & Insurers are also finding value.

For over 15 years, Matthew has forged his expertise in expertise in Finance with Commercial Real Estate to drive innovative solutions through technological breakthroughs, customer-defined marketing/solutions, as well as strategic top line growth performance within the real estate industry. Matthew maximizes key partnerships, profitability initiatives, and predictive analysis to generate millions in revenue gains and sustained sales margins for corporations.

Hosts

Kimberly H. Wolfson

Chairwoman, WIFI, A Women in FinTech Initiative powered by FinTank

Lead CRM Analyst, Hook Strategies

Kimberly H. Wolfson, Founder and Lead CRM Analyst of Hook Strategies, enables businesses to alleviate erroneous business processes that hinder them from cultivating valuable customer relationships and introduces organizations to effective tools and proven processes that empower them to create scalable customer relationships. Ms. Wolfson inspires her clients to not only think about CRM software simply as a home for information, but rather a multifaceted solution that can provide teams with cross-functional transparency and accountability, automatic access to actionable customer data, and measurable strategic efficiency, that ultimately generates revenue and increased customer lifetime value.

Trudie Kanter

Tax Senior Manager, Crowe LLP

Trudie Kanter is a trusted tax advisor and blockchain enthusiast, with over 13 years of experience in the financial services industry. She is a frequent contributor to industry publications, trade groups and conferences including Accounting Blockchain Coalition and Bank & Capital Markets Tax Institute. Trudie was honored as one of the Women to Watch by the Illinois CPA Society and AICPA in 2008.

Areas of specialization:

• Income tax provision

• Merger and acquisition tax consulting

• Federal and State income tax audit

• SOX 404 income tax control

• FDIC assisted transactions

• Taxation of cryptocurrency

Bitcoin for Beginners

• Understand Basic Terms and Concepts.

• Learn to be humble and to rely on others

• Leave with Clarity, Enthusiasm, Energy and Ideas.

• Learn how to adapt and go fast with existing technology

• Learn how to go faster with the Blockchain

• Learn how to work together

• Learn to innovate and be an early adopter

• Learn how to ask the right questions

Philip M. Fornaro is the managing attorney at Fornaro Law and has been practicing law for 21 years. Although he enjoys practicing law, his life and focus transformed when he was introduced to Bitcoin. Although law firms generally are not thought of as entrepreneurial, Fornaro Law is embracing technology (specifically the internet, Blockchain and cryptocurrency like Bitcoin) and is creating streamlined systems to elevate the firm and its clients to a different level.

Kimberly H. Wolfson is the Chairwoman of Women in Fintech Initiative, also known as WIFI, a gender equality accelerator presented by FinTank, Chicago's fintech hub. Additionally, Kim empowers businesses to cultivate, acquire, and grow loyal customers by hooking them into their customer intelligence through the comprehensive strategic adoption of CRM technology and data.

Come join the WIFI journey towards preparing and securing more women into significant career roles, leadership opportunities, and entrepreneurship within this pioneering industry.

Presented By Farnaro Law

Trends of Women in Banking and Alternative Investments

Intro to FinTech and Women in FinTech

Presented by Kimberly H. Wolfson, CRM Operations and Strategy Solutions, KHW Marketing

#SheBanking: THE 1ST WHITE PAPER ON WOMEN AND BANKING
Presented by Miriam Ballesteros, Inbound Marketing Manager, STRANDS

Miriam Ballesteros is an Inbound Marketing Manager at STRANDS, a Spanish software company that is disrupting finance at its core by helping banks offer better personalized digital banking experiences.

As a passionate advocate for financial empowerment, she is committed to promoting financial technologies that make managing money a lot easier so people can get more out of life. To do so, she leads the PR and Content strategy for MoneyStrands, the personal finance app powered by STRANDS.

Miriam is also an active participant in the conversation about women in the financial space. In 2017, she was named in the Women in FinTech Powerlist, and was nominated for the Women2Watch Program 2018.

Prior to joining STRANDS, she held a variety of Marketing and Integrated Communications positions in the Health, Education and Media industries

Miriam holds a BA in Journalism from the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, attended King’s College London, and received a certificate in Marketing from the UNED Foundation.

"SheBanking" is a pioneering concept created by STRANDS and Gemma Cernuda (Ellas Deciden). It’s the 1st White Paper on Women and Banking that identifies what women expect from banks as an ‘ally’ when managing personal and family finances, discovers how to improve the relationship banks ⇆ women, and pinpoints the services that add value.

Women in Alternative Investments

Presented by Nicole Kalajian

Nicole represents securities and commodities professionals in a variety of regulatory, compliance and corporate matters at Stradley Ronon. She has extensive experience with respect to hedge funds, commodity pools, private equity funds, venture capital funds, real estate funds, fund of funds, cryptocurrency funds and socially responsible investment (SRI) vehicles. Nicole provides legal and compliance guidance to registered and exempt investment advisers, commodity pool operators (CPOs), commodity trading advisers (CTAs), introducing brokers (IBs), forex (FX) firms, proprietary trading firms and broker-dealers (BDs). She also serves as counsel to boards, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Nicole drafts and develops offering documents, compliance manuals, policies and procedures, corporate materials, contracts/investment agreements and advertising materials. She also provides legal and structuring guidance concerning master-feeder structures, domestic and foreign funds, international offerings and separately managed accounts.

Come join the WIFI journey and towards preparing and securing more women into significant career roles, leadership opportunities, and entrepreneurship within this pioneering industry.

Presented By STRANDS