As founding Executive Director, Gabriele Columbro has played a pivotal role in transforming the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS) from its nascent stages into a leading force in the financial services sector, fostering significant growth and innovation through open source collaboration. Under his leadership, FINOS, now part of the Linux Foundation, has expanded to over 100 members, including major financial institutions and technology firms and became the host of open source projects now critical to the financial services ecosystem. Columbro has also been instrumental in establishing and promoting key industry events such as the Open Source in Finance Forum (OSFF), that have become central hubs for open source in finance bringing together over 2000 people every year.

Besides OSFF, Columbro is also a frequent keynote speaker at major events like Open Source Summit, Money 2020, Finovate, and KubeCon, where he advocates on the transformative impact of open source technology in various sectors, first and foremost financial services.

Thanks to his accomplishments with FINOS, Columbro was tapped to take on a significant role as the General Manager of Linux Foundation Europe, aimed at enhancing the presence and impact of open source across Europe. This role involves fostering regional open collaborations and supporting the success leveraging the global platform of the Linux Foundation, emphasizing the critical commercial, geopolitical and societal value of open source in the AI era and beyond.

His extensive experience in building developer ecosystems and driving innovation is not just limited to non-profits but extends to commercial open source ventures and direct exposure Fortune 500 companies, highlighted by his previous roles at Alfresco.

Beyond his professional achievements, as a special needs parent, Columbro advocates for disability rights and inclusion. He is an avid reggae music connoisseur, enjoys cooking strictly Italian food, and it's a vocal Napoli soccer fan, a sport he enjoys also playing in his personal time. Columbro holds a Master's in Computer Engineering at Università of Roma Tre in Italy.

Prior to founding Protect AI, D was the Global Leader for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Solution Architects. His team was responsible for customer facing engineering resources that helped the AI/ML business of AWS become the largest AI/ML business in the world. Prior to Amazon, D was Sr. Vice President of Digital Strategy at Howard Hughes Corporation where D built an industry leading AI platform to price and model economics of illiquid assets using advanced ML techniques in 2015. Previous experiences included Sr. Vice President and Managing Director of Technology and Data Products at NYSE, acquired by ICE in 2013. Prior to NYSE, D was at Intel Corporation for over 12 years where his roles included building the first financial services vertical team and delivering over $1B of annual revenue contribution from the group, Chief of Staff and Technical Advisor to the global sales and marketing organization, and a variety of other leadership roles in product, sales, and marketing functions.

Andy Smith is a Distinguished Engineer at Discover Financial Services with over 20 years of experience building products, leading engineering and open source engagements. Andy has served in board/leadership roles of several open source organizations for member organizations including OpenSocial, jQuery and JS Foundation.

Bhupesh has over 20 years’ experience working in the front office trading technology for some of the world’s leading investment banks. Beginning his career at Barclays working across Infrastructure, Equity Derivatives, Fixed Income and Credit Derivatives, he moved to Lehman Brothers for 4 years in 2005 before returning to Barclays where he held a number of senior management positions and was to inevitably head up Credit, Municipal and Securitized Products Technology alongside running Trade Capture across Markets. He subsequently left Barclays to take on the opportunity as Europe Head of Capital Markets Quantitative and Technology Services at RBC in July this year. With deep expertise in risk, analytics and electronic trading and passion for technology, Bhupesh has continued working closely with innovators in the FinTech space to build forward looking platforms in Investment Banking.

Rohan Deshpande is a managing director and head of developer experience and developer AI for Goldman Sachs. He is responsible for increasing developer productivity and efficiency by delivering a cohesive experience. Rohan represents Goldman Sachs on the board of the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS) and the GraphQL Foundation. He also serves as a trustee on the board of the French American School of Puget Sound. Prior to joining the firm, Rohan worked at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and LPL Financial.

Retired Partner, Chief Information Officer - Infrastructure Platform, Wellington Management

Madeleine is a senior executive with 30 years of experience in financial services technology across the Buy Side, Sell Side, and Exchanges. She began her career at Accenture in the Financial Markets practice, executing large software implementations at multiple investment banks on Wall Street.

In 2000, Madeleine joined Goldman Sachs, where she led the development of the NYSE and Listed Trading Systems, working alongside 90 traders on multiple trading desks.

In 2006, Madeleine and her family relocated to Boston, where she joined Wellington Management Company in Information Technology. Over her 19 years of service at Wellington, she led technology-driven transformation throughout the investment process, trading, and operations. As Partner and Chief Information Officer, Madeleine held multiple governance roles, providing oversight across areas such as compensation, risk management, technology, and trade execution.

Madeleine currently serves as Chair of the Board for FINOS (Fintech Open Source Foundation) and the Treasurer of the Board for Boston City Singers.

Brian Fox, CTO and co-founder of Sonatype, is a Governing Board Member for the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF), a member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore Cyber and Technology Resilience Experts (CTREX) Panel, a member of the Apache Software Foundation and former Chair of the Apache Maven project. Working with OpenSSF, Brian helped create The Open Source Consumption Manifesto and chaired efforts to provide official responses to requests for information from The Office of the National Cybersecurity Directorate (ONCD) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Within the Atlantic Council’s Open Source Policy Network, Brian actively helps shape cybersecurity strategy, offering valuable insights on critical documents, such as ONCD’s recent National Cyber Security Strategy. Brian has over 20 years of experience driving the vision behind, as well as developing and leading the development of software for organizations ranging from startups to large enterprises. Brian is a frequent speaker at national and regional events including Java User Groups and other security and development-related conferences.