The sharpest minds in fraud. On one stage.

Naftali Harris is co-founder and CEO of SentiLink, a provider of best-in-class identity verification and fraud mitigation solutions. SentiLink’s products verify customer identities and detect identity theft, synthetic fraud, and hard-to-detect forms of first party fraud. SentiLink serves over 400 institutions – including leading banks, fintechs, telcos, and many others – and verifies over 3 million identities each day.

Prior to SentiLink, Naftali was the first data scientist at the online lender Affirm and built and led their Risk Decisioning team. He holds a BA in Statistics from the University of Chicago, and subsequently earned an MA in Statistics from Stanford, where he was a Stanford Graduate Fellow. He lives with his family in Austin, TX.

Dr. David Maimon is the fraud world’s go-to investigator and storyteller. As Head of Fraud Insights at SentiLink and director of Georgia State University’s Evidence-Based Cybersecurity Group, he pairs dark-web intelligence with analytical techniques to expose how criminals build synthetic identities, hijack accounts, and monetize stolen credentials.

Banks, telcos, prop-tech platforms, energy providers, and government agencies rely on his research and plain-spoken guidance to spot emerging scams early, tighten identity verification, and slash fraud losses—often before the schemes even hit the headlines.

Gasan Awad leads PNC Bank’s Enterprise Fraud Product Management team, where he is responsible for leveraging various capabilities to mitigate fraud risk while promoting healthy business growth and enabling a great customer experience.

Gasan is a fraud and risk geek who brings more than 25+ years of fraud and risk management experience with increasing levels of responsibility in the Financial Services Sector, Identity, Fraud, and Financial Crimes Product Management.

Gasan graduated with a bachelor’s degree in international business from the University of Georgia

Chris Sparks leads the Fraud, Disputes, and KYC divisions for US Card. He is accountable for leveraging cutting edge data and technology to stop billions of dollars of fraud, creating world class experiences, and helping the business grow.

Chris has worked in several business areas within the US Card division during his 13-year career with Capital One. Prior to his current role, he led Upmarket Acquisitions and Product Strategy, Mainstreet Credit Line Increase Program, Mainstreet Direct Mail and Multicard Acquisitions, Inbound Payments, and worked on the Partnerships Deal Team.

In addition to leading the Fraud organization, Chris is a Senior Credit Officer. He is the Accountable Executive for the US Card Analyst Development Program and the Analyst Intern Program, where he leverages his passion for recruiting and developing great talent.

Prior to Capital One, Chris spent several years as a strategy consultant for Dean and Company and helped build Dean Ventures, a successful hedge fund. He has a double major in Economics and Mathematics with a minor in Computer Science from Dartmouth.

Chris lives in Vienna, VA, with his wife, and two girls.

Jessica Teji is the Head of Partner Success at SentiLink, bringing 17 years of go-to-market (GTM) leadership experience across established enterprises and high-growth companies. In her role, she leads a team dedicated to helping financial institutions and fintechs verify millions of customer identities daily while preventing fraud at onboarding.

With a diverse background spanning relationship management, customer success, and strategic partnerships, Jessica has worked across industries, including financial services, payments, fintech, and retail/e-commerce, supporting businesses from SMBs to Fortune 500 enterprises.

Jessica's approach to solving complex fraud challenges is rooted in empathy, curiosity, and collaboration. She focuses on building a team that asks the right questions, fosters trust, and strengthens partnerships—enabling financial institutions to see SentiLink as an extension of their own fraud prevention efforts.

Under Jessica’s leadership, SentiLink partners with 10 of the top 15 U.S. financial institutions, as well as fintechs, credit unions, telcos, and more. The company takes a partner-centric approach, working closely with clients to balance fraud prevention with seamless onboarding, ensuring best practices tailored to each institution's needs.

Jason Kratovil is Head of Public Policy and External Affairs at SentiLink, the leader in identity verification technology. In this capacity, he leads all aspects of the company’s engagement with federal policymakers, advises on several aspects of the company's go-to-market strategy, and serves as program manager for solutions partnering with government agencies.

He is a recognized expert in identity fraud, payments, data securit,y and consumer privacy, having testified before the US Congress. Jason also serves as Chair of the Fairfax County (VA) Consumer Protection Commission and on the Board of Directors of the Identity Theft Resource Center.

Previously, Jason was a principal at the Washington, DC law firm of Sivon, Natter & Wechsler, P.C. While at the firm, he founded the Consumer First Coalition, where he led efforts on behalf of the financial industry to build a real-time Social Security number verification service with the US Social Security Administration. Prior to that, he established and led the payments, technology, and cybersecurity practice at the Financial Services Roundtable. He has also worked on payments, innovatio,n and retail banking policy at the American Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America.

Jason served for six years as Legislative Director for U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (OH-14), where he focused on consumer protection and data security issues with the US House Financial Services Committee. Kratovil began his professional career in marketing communications at Dell, where he helped manage the company’s relationships with key enterprise software partners. Jason received a Master of Public Policy degree from George Mason University and two B.A. degrees from Miami University (OH). He also holds a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US) certification.

Karl Lubenow is a seasoned Fraud Intelligence Analyst with over a decade of experience in financial services, e-commerce, and identity fraud prevention. As the first fraud operations hire at SentiLink, Karl specializes in detecting fraudulent applications, with a strong focus on identity theft. He brings deep expertise in identity fraud, synthetic fraud, SMB fraud, first party fraud, fraud claims, chargebacks, and risk mitigation strategies.

Prior to joining SentiLink, Karl also served as the first Fraud Fighter at Affirm, where he played a key role in identifying suspicious trends, influencing risk model development, and resolving high-impact risk events. His earlier experience at Cleverbridge further honed his real-time fraud screening and global payment risk analysis skills, while his background in customer support laid the foundation for his commitment to service and operational excellence.

Karl holds a Bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is based in Reno. Passionate about building systems that stop fraud before it starts, Karl is a collaborative and analytical force in the fight against financial crime.

Will Goh leads the Strategic Partnerships team at SentiLink, where his team collaborates with the largest, most strategic institutions to verify identities, prevent fraud, increase originations, and improve operational efficiency. Will has over 20 years of experience in sales, relationship management, and partnerships across various industries, primarily in Financial Services and Fintech.

Before joining SentiLink, Will held sales and leadership positions at Blend, Charles River Development (which was acquired by State Street), and Advent Software (now part of SS&C). Notably, he spent more than six years at Blend, including during the company's IPO in 2021. Outside of his passion for fighting fraud, Will enjoys spending time with his family, traveling, and coaching his two sons' sports teams.

Paul Byrne is an innovative and results-driven financial services executive focused on financial crimes. As Head of Fraud Solutions at SentiLink, he works with SentiLink’s partners to achieve maximum impact on fraud & CIP risk by leveraging SentiLink’s solutions and optimizes their decisioning funnels to successfully balance fraud risk and customer experience.

Paul brings deep business, operational, analytical, and risk knowledge of retail banking, deposits & lending, credit, BSA/AML & fraud risk from 18+ years of product management and customer risk decisioning experience at PNC Bank. Paul has held leadership positions as head of retail deposits, head of retail consumer and small business lending, head of AML transaction modeling and fraud risk decisioning, and head of customer management. Paul was on the NACHA Board of Directors for six years and on several CBA Committees, most recently the CBA Fraud Management Committee for five years.

Prior to joining PNC, Paul was an Associate Partner with McKinsey & Co.Paul received an M.B.A. from Harvard, an M.S. from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. with University Honors from Carnegie Mellon University in Mechanical Engineering. He holds a masters in banking management with honors from the CBA Executive Banking School.

Cat McGuire is the Principal Partner Success Manager at SentiLink where she manages the company’s largest and most strategic partners. She specializes in handling complex strategy topics such as fraud model optimization, eCBSV and model governance.

Prior to SentiLink she managed strategic brands at Affirm and was a strategic communications consultant for municipalities seeking local funding across the state of California. She currently lives in Chicago with her husband and two poodles, Finn and Mimi.

Charlie Custer is Technical Research and Content Lead at SentiLink, where he spends much of his time digging in SentiLink's data for interesting stories and trends.

He is the originator and lead author of SentiLink's biannual Fraud Report. He lives in Maine with his wife and daughter.

Tim Forrest is a Fraud Intelligence Analyst with experience focused on identifying and preventing financial fraud across high-risk and emerging areas. Tim is currently part of SentiLink’s Fraud Intelligence team, with over 2.5 years supporting fraud detection efforts and analyzing evolving fraud patterns.

Prior to SentiLink Tim, focused on identifying and stopping crypto-related fraud at BlockFi. Tim brings a strong analytical approach to fraud investigation, risk analysis, and mitigation strategies, with a focus on strengthening defenses against modern financial crime.