Ann Kossachev / Director of Regulatory Affairs, NAFCU

Ann Kossachev was named Director of Regulatory Affairs in January 2019. In her role, Kossachev oversees NAFCU’s advocacy to federal agencies, including the National Credit Union Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Kossachev joined NAFCU in June 2016 as a regulatory affairs counsel and was promoted to senior regulatory affairs counsel in June 2018. Since starting at NAFCU, Kossachev has led the association’s advocacy on housing finance issues as well as Federal Communications Commission rules implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Prior to joining NAFCU, Kossachev worked at a law firm focusing on complex commercial litigation. Kossachev is a graduate of the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School and holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Binghamton University.

Kossachev is a member of the Virginia State Bar, the Virginia Bar Association, and the American Bar Association. Kossachev is also a registered parliamentarian.

Kathryn Davis / President & CEO, Valley First Credit Union

Kathryn Davis is a values-led, people-centric leader with a passion for financial health. A credit union veteran, she has spent over 25 years working in financial cooperatives with a proven track record for developing strategy, empowering teams, and establishing lasting connections with strategic and community partners.

As President and Chief Executive Officer at Valley First Credit Union, one of the Central Valley’s leading financial service providers, she is committed to delivering banking services with a purpose. As an expert in personal finance, she is a passionate advocate for consumer access to affordable financial products, access to fair credit, and creating homeownership via affordable housing.

Ms. Davis holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University California of Riverside and a Master of Arts degree from Chapman University. She also holds a Certified Chief Executive designation through studies from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, and Darden, University of Virginia.

Nationally recognized as an industry expert, Ms. Davis is frequently sought after for speaking engagements on financial capability, housing, personal finance, and women and money.

Ms. Davis and her wine-maker husband have three children and reside in the beautiful “Cowboy Capital of the World” Oakdale, California.

Greg Pesci / President & CEO of Spera, Inc. (dba MessagePay)

Greg Pesci is the founder, President, and CEO of Spera, Inc. (dba MessagePay). MessagePay is a fintech company that embeds payments into communication software to serve the needs of financial institutions.

Greg served at ProPay, Inc. for nearly ten years. His roles included General Counsel, and then President and COO. He was instrumental in leading the sale of ProPay to Total Systems (“TSYS”). Prior to joining ProPay, Greg served as SVP at Merrick Bank, where he was Associate General Counsel, and led Business Development for more than 6 years.

He holds a Master of Organizational Behavior from the Marriott School of Business, and a Juris Doctor degree, with honors, from the J. Rueben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. He is a named inventor on a patent addressing encryption and secure payment transactions.

Bruce A. Pearson / Senior Partner, SW&M

Bruce Pearson is a senior partner at the law offices of Styskal, Wiese & Melchione, LLP (“SW&M”). SW&M has been involved in the financial institution movement since 1936 when its founding partners began practicing law. Bruce has over twenty-four years of experience representing the industry. He provides clients with results oriented, practical and strategic legal and business advice focusing upon corporate governance, insurance coverage, operations and regulatory matters. Bruce’s past credit union work experience provides the firm’s clients with a valuable “in the trenches” perspective.

Bruce received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Illinois where he majored in Russian, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated Cum Laude in 1985. While working for a credit union, he attended Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, graduating Summa Cum Laude in 1992. He is licensed to practice in the state of Arizona, California, New York, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

Bruce is a frequently requested speaker and teacher at credit union industry meetings and events; he is on the faculty of Western CUNA Management School and regularly trains senior management and volunteers on fiduciary duties and responsibilities, vendor contract negotiations and is a main speaker at SW&M’s annual legal update seminars.

Sohini Chowdhury / Director of Economic Research, Moody’s Analytics

Sohini Chowdhury is a Director and Senior Economist with Moody’s Analytics, specializing in macroeconomic modeling and forecasting, scenario design, and market risk research, with a special focus on stress-testing and CECL applications. Previously, she led the global team responsible for the Moody’s Analytics market risk forecasts and modeling services while managing custom scenarios projects for major financial institutions worldwide.

An experienced speaker, Sohini often presents at client meetings and industry conferences on macroeconomic models, scenarios and CECL solutions. Sohini holds a PhD and a master’s degree in economics from Purdue University, and a master’s degree in applied statistics from West Chester University in Pennsylvania. Before joining Moody’s Analytics in 2011, she taught economics at the University of Cincinnati.

Art Sookazian / President of National Credit Union Collections Alliance (NCUCA)

Art Sookazian serves as the Vice President of Special Services and Risk Management for Los Angeles Federal Credit Union (LAFCU). In addition, he is the President of the National Credit Union Collections Alliance (NCUCA). The NCUCA is a nationwide collections organization for credit unions providing networking, best practices, and educational services. He oversees collections, recoveries, litigation, repossessions, and remarketing at LAFCU. He has twenty years of experience in collections at both captive finance and credit union industries. Art has worked at some of the leading captive finance companies including Toyota Financial Services, Lexus Financial Services, and Isuzu Motors Acceptance Corp. Prior to his time at Los Angeles Federal Credit Union, Art served as the Vice President of Collections at Xceed Financial Credit Union. Art has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from The University of Virginia. In 2016, Art was awarded the CU Times Trailblazer 40 Below award for his success overseeing collections programs at credit unions while forming the NCUCA.

Alana Anaya, Esq. / Principal & Owner, Anaya Law Group

Ms. Anaya has proudly been representing credit unions, corporate clients and real estate brokerages for over twenty two years. She also is a California Real Estate Broker. Ms. Anaya handles all aspects of litigation, regularly provides legal review and guidance on contracts/transaction matters, handles bankruptcy matters on behalf of creditors and engages in skilled negotiation tactics to maximize all settlement opportunities. Ms. Anaya regularly conducts arbitrations and trials. When clients need guidance backed by experience, Ms. Anaya can prove to be an asset to assist through any difficult or complex matter and can provide the legal guidance needed for a successful conclusion. Ms. Anaya regularly provides ongoing legal education and updates to credit unions and the real estate industry on various current topics of interest and participates regularly as a speaker at local and national venues.

Nathan Anderson / Senior Strategic Consultant at SuccessKPI

Nathan Anderson is Senior Strategic Consultant for SuccessKPI, enabling organizations to pull ALL their contact center data, and put it to work with AI. Prior to SuccessKPI, Nathan helped build Interaction’s AI powered Virtual Collection Agent product and practice.

In all, Nathan has spent over 25 years in the receivables management industry starting as a collector back in 1995. Through his career, Nathan has consistently utilized technology and innovation to drive efficiency and create real market differentiators. Nathan’s experience spans across credit card, mortgage, auto, and student loan verticals to name just a few.

Nick Mitchell / Vice President, Legal Affairs & Corporate Counsel, Logix Federal Credit Union

Nick Mitchell is the Vice President, Legal Affairs and Corporate Counsel at Logix Federal Credit Union, an $8.4 billion financial institution serving over 217,000 members headquartered in Southern California. In addition to managing the company’s legal affairs, Nick oversees the Regulatory Compliance and Bankruptcy & Loan Services departments, which includes repossessions, charge off recoveries, and credit reporting.

Nick pursued his formal education almost entirely while working full time, completing his Bachelor of Science in Business and Management at Woodbury University, and his Juris Doctorate at Southwestern Law School.

Nick has managed teams in legal affairs, sales, learning and development, service quality, customer loyalty, and project management. As a proponent of continuing education, Nick also completed his National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions Certified Compliance Officer designation and Management and Leadership Accreditation, his Association for Talent Development Certified Professional in Learning and Performance credential, and his Satmetrix Certified Net Promoter designation. Nick also serves as the Secretary of Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital Foundation’s Board of Directors, and he is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Woodbury University School of Business.

Ashish Garg / Founder & CEO, Eltropy

After earning an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Ashish spent his early career in high-tech. As a Product Manager defining and evangelizing new products, Ashish saw firsthand the changes that the latest technologies, such as Messaging, were bringing to the enterprise. He founded Eltropy with the vision of applying machine learning/AI techniques to enterprise processes to dramatically improve efficiency and customer engagement.

Eric Foulk / Executive Consultant, Equifax – Verification Services

Eric Foulk has 20 years of expertise in the credit and collections industry primarily focused on data, software, and analytics. He has worked at First Data, Latitude Software, and a collections consulting firm. Currently serving as an Enterprise Expert focused on both 1st party and 3rd party receivables management, Eric is assisting Equifax, Inc. with Product and Strategy.

Eric, a Navy veteran, currently resides in Miami, FL with his wife and son where he volunteers with several dog rescues and enjoys boating.

G. A. “Jay” Mossman, III / Founder & CEO at AKUVO

Jay started his career as a software developer with Mellon Bank. He continued his banking career at RebublicBank in Dallas and BankOne in technology but eventually migrated to the business side of banking, with a focus in wealth management. Jay was recruited by Safeguard Scientifics in the early 90’s to become CEO of Premier Systems, which was one of Safeguard’s largest fintech investments. When Jay was brought in by Safeguard, Premier had just been written up in the Wallstreet Journal as the largest software failure in banking history. It had a negative cash flow of $1mm per month on $4mm in revenue, no referenceable customers and $50mm of outstanding lawsuits. Within 18 months Jay led the turnaround of the company to be cash positive and eventually grew revenue 9 times within 5 years, eventually selling the company to Sungard.

After years of working for banks and being CEO of a software company, Jay started his own company in the late 90’s. The beginnings were an incubator which Jay incubated 6 separate companies. In October of 2000 Jay founded what would become Akcelerant which when sold to Temenos in 2015 had over 600 credit unions as customers and a 70% share of credit unions over $1b running his collection or origination software.

In February 2020 Jay launched a new company that is focused on delivering AI driven solutions for the credit union industry. This time Jay is sharing the success with credit unions as his new venture is a CUSO.

Jay has been received many awards over his career, such as, Inc. Magazine Turnaround of the Year, and he has received citations from both the house and senate of Pennsylvania for his technology contributions and leadership.

Jay is an active technology investor having ownership in over a dozen companies. He recently has been involved in impact investing, helping those that normally would not receive funding to start a venture due to their background or income status.

Jay has been married for 41 years, has two children and 6 grandchildren.

Jay has been married for 41 years, has two children and 6 grandchildren.

Shawn Spratte / Senior Vice President of Loss Mitigation & Communication, Canvas Credit Union

Shawn Spratte is a 30-year veteran in the Loss Mitigation space. He has spent over a decade at Canvas Credit Union in Colorado and is currently serving as senior vice president of loss mitigation and communication center. In this role, he is responsible for the direction, oversight, and the overall results of the departments. Shawn also oversees all stages of collections, repossessions, remarketing, foreclosures, insurance, member solutions, and call center operational strategies. Shawn is a 2021 graduate of CUNA Management School having earned the (CCUE) Certified Credit Union Executive designation.

Cody Owens / President & CEO, Equabli, Inc.

Cody co-founded Equabli, Inc. – a fintech dedicated to rethinking debt recovery through innovative technology, insightful analytics, and wealth of expertise. He has over 20 years of experience in consumer financial services across the US, Latin America, and Europe. Prior to Equabli, Cody spent 12 years at Encore Capital group where he held various executive roles and was primarily responsible for acquiring, optimizing, and leading Encore’s international subsidiaries. Prior to joining Encore, Cody spent eight years in retail banking at HSBC and Wells Fargo.

Cody has a B.A. in Economics and an MBA from Point Loma Nazarene University.

Cody resides in Austin TX with his wife and 2 ½ year old

Chris Otey / Chief Revenue Officer, CU 2.0

Chris is the Chief Revenue Officer at CU 2.0 and the chairman of the board at South Bay Credit Union. In these roles, Chris creates partnerships between fintech providers and credit unions to allow them to thrive in a constantly changing digital environment.

Previously, Chris was the Chief Revenue Officer at CU Wallet. He worked in all facets of the credit union division within Fiserv. He has also sold, trained, and installed core processing, EFT services, wire services, internet banking, bill pay, mobile solutions, and accounting systems. The point is, he may have forgotten more about the industry than most people have learned.

Of course, business isn’t everything. Chris is a dad, and he coaches his two daughters’ soccer teams in the uber competitive town of Manhattan Beach, CA. He also enjoys the finer things in life: a tumbler of good scotch, an Ashton cigar, and a good round of golf. Chris has lost to most of the best golfers in the credit union industry.