“Banking in a Cashless Society”

Melissa Lowry leads marketing and brand strategy for Zelle®, a person-to-person (P2P) payment solution offered by Early Warning. Currently, she is leading the national advertising campaign for Zelle called “Everyday Better”—which helps to illustrate the everyday use cases of Zelle as a fast, safe, and easy way to send money from your banking app. Throughout the past couple of years, she has played an instrumental role in the company’s launch of Zelle, leading the marketing strategy and execution with banks and consumers. Lowry is a frequent contributor on topics ranging from payments and marketing and has been quoted in publications including American Banker, The Atlantic, Mashable and San Francisco Chronicle. Lowry joined Early Warning in 2016 following the company’s acquisition of San Francisco-based clearXchange, where she served as Head of Product & Marketing helping to grow the consumer base by over 200% year-over-year to more than 25 million registered users. In addition, she has held senior leadership positions in payments and innovation at Wells Fargo and started off her career as an investment banking analyst at Lehman Brothers. Lowry is the co-inventor on five mobile wallet patents. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Idaho State University and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Demetra Airaudi leads brand and consumer communications for Square. Prior to joining Square, Demetra spent the last 15+ years building and implementing communications strategies for technology companies including Skype, Microsoft, Path, Brit + Co, and LG Mobiles. Based on her extensive experience in brand building, she was tasked with creating a new team at Square that brings together communications at the intersection of data and design.

Braden More leads business development, partnerships, and industry relations for Wells Fargo’s payments business. He and his team work across the consumer and commercial bank to grow Wells Fargo’s deposit and payment franchise by focusing on customers, partners, and regulators. Before assuming his current role in 2017­, Braden was the head of payment strategy at Wells Fargo. He and his team worked across the enterprise to coordinate strategy, incubate new initiatives like Apple Pay, and represent Wells Fargo in the payments industry. He also cofounded the Wells Fargo Startup Accelerator, a venture capital program that mentors and invests in innovative companies. Before that, Braden spent a decade leading strategy and planning for Wells Fargo’s Treasury Management group, a business that provides collection, disbursement, and account services to institutional customers via traditional, online, and mobile channels. He created value for customers, expanded market share, and championed client-focused innovation. Wells Fargo’s Treasury Management business is now recognized as the leader in client satisfaction, product quality, and market share. Before joining Wells Fargo’s Internet Services group in ­2000, Braden held positions in public accounting, consulting, venture capital, and competitive strategy with Deloitte, Wit Capital, and Intel.  Braden graduated magna cum laude from Bowdoin College with a degree in government and legal studies. He earned his M.B.A. with distinction from NYU’s Stern School of Business and obtained a CPA license in New York. Braden lives in San Francisco, where he is an advocate for experiential learning and STEM curriculum. He has served on the board of the Straus Family Foundation, Marin Academy, and the Exploratorium’s Lab.

Griselda Fernandez is a Digital Transformation Senior Manager at Accenture where she develops and delivers cutting-edge, digital transformation strategies for the world’s leading brands. In her role, she helps clients delight their customers and deliver superior business performance and customer experiences. As part of Accenture Interactive Delivery, she balances art and science to create award-winning digital experiences for today’s connected consumers through integrated and dynamic solutions that incorporate strategy, marketing, creative, analytics and technology. Prior to joining Accenture, she was a Senior Director of Product Marketing at Yahoo and was responsible for developing Yahoo’s Customer Lifecycle Marketing practice.  Earlier in her career, she spent 15 years establishing herself as a Paid, Earned and Owned media expert at the top ad agencies in San Francisco, developing strategies for global and local brands including Samsung, Microsoft, Clorox, and CNN.