Phil Gale is COO and Co-Founder of VastAdvisor, the AI-native growth infrastructure platform for RIAs and enterprise wealth firms. Phil brings a career built at the intersection of advertising technology and programmatic sales — experience that now shapes VastAdvisor’s Campaign IQ engine and its approach to data-driven client acquisition.

Prior to VastAdvisor, Phil served as Senior Director, Advertising at Phunware, where he reported to Ian Karnell and helped take the company public on NASDAQ — giving VastAdvisor’s leadership team direct, first-hand experience navigating a public-markets outcome. Earlier in his career, Phil held senior advertising and partnerships roles including Head of Sales, Brand Advertising Europe and Head of Agency Development EMEA at InMobi, and Partnerships Director, Programmatic at Publicis Media.

At VastAdvisor, Phil leads operations and go-to-market execution, applying his programmatic and paid-media expertise to how the platform builds, measures, and optimizes advisor growth campaigns across Google, Meta, and LinkedIn.

Adrian is the Chief Executive Officer of Practifi, a CRM platform purpose-built for the wealth management industry. For over 20 years Adrian has worked with advice businesses of all sizes to leverage technology for growth. He believes that technology firms should be partners, not just providers, and that seamlessly integrated platforms are the future of our industry. A regular presenter at industry events in Australia and the United States, Adrian offers deep insight into technology trends and best practices for the financial services industry.

Jordan Merchbaker has spent ten years building B2B SaaS go-to-market in financial services, mostly at startups where the commercial team shapes strategy while selling — positioning, value frameworks, campaign content, and enablement, refined against real buyer conversations rather than built in a vacuum. As a Sales Associate at FP Alpha, an AI platform that reads tax returns, estate documents, and insurance policies to surface planning insights, Jordan works at the intersection of sales, product, and marketing — helping make document-parsing AI feel explainable and trustworthy to a compliance-bound audience.

Mohamed Farag is a faculty member at the Information Networking Institute and the lead of the Applied Generative AI (AGAI) group at Carnegie Mellon University, with over 15 years of experience in AI, machine learning, big data, and cloud infrastructure. Dr. Farag has held both technical and leadership roles in academic and professional settings and is the founder of Analytics 4 Everyone. He has contributed to several professional and academic communities, including the National Science Foundation, Harvard Business Review, the Project Management Institute, and the IEEE Systems Journal. He has received multiple awards and recognitions throughout his career.

Daniel Yoo is the founder and CEO of FinMate AI, a custom Agentic AI development platform automating back office work as well as an AI Notetaker specifically designed for financial advisors. With a unique combination of financial advisory experience and technical expertise, Daniel spent seven years as a financial advisor at major firms, includingEquitable, TD Ameritrade, and Schwab, where he oversaw $800 million in client assets as a Senior Advisor. His educational background includes two bachelor’s degrees from UCBerkeley (Economics and Molecular Cell Biology with a specialization inDevelopmental Genetics) and a Master of Science from Johns Hopkins in Applied Economics, focusing on machine learning and AI for asset price predictions.After his advisory career, Daniel spent time in the fintech space before founding FinMate AI in May 2023. He continues to maintain his FINRA series licenses through FINRA’s MQP program and holds L&H and P&C insurance licenses.

Ramesh is responsible for leading the technology team, making strategic decisions, driving innovation, and thought leadership to elevate Carson’s technology infrastructure. Ramesh is a seasoned engineering leader with a track record for turning big ideas into real, impactful software solutions. He’s passionate about aligning business and technology to drive results that matter. A hands-on leader, mentor, and coach, Ramesh has led enterprise-wide implementations under tight deadlines and knows how to get things done. With deep experience in digital transformation, global tech strategy, enterprise architecture, and business development, he brings a unique blend of vision and execution. Ramesh is also a multiple software patent holder and has co-founded and held CTO/COO roles at several private startups.

Marie Swift is Founder and CEO of Impact Communications, a full-service PR and marketing communications firm that works solely within the financial services industry. 

A prolific writer, Marie’s articles have been published by Barron’s, MarketWatch, Forbes, Financial Planning, WealthManagement.com, NAPFA Advisor, RIA Intel, Financial Advisor, ThinkAdvisor.com, Morningstar Advisor, Executive Roundtable Journal, and more. She has been quoted in respected publications such as Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, RIABiz.com, and Wealth Solutions Report.

Swift is in demand as a speaker at conferences for financial services professionals including Financial Planning’s Women Advisors Forum, TD Ameritrade LINC, Pershing Insite, Fidelity’s Inside Track, Schwab Regional Advisor Symposiums, the Financial Planning Association, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, the Alliance of Comprehensive Planners, InvestmentNews’ Women To Watch, Bob Veres’ Insider’s Forum, Jolt! Marketing Conference, the AICPA PFP/CIMA Summits, Securities America, United Planners, Transamerica, Cetera, and other independent advisor and broker/dealer conferences. 

She’s the mastermind behind Fiduciary Voices, an educational platform for both advisors and consumers, the Advisor Thought Leader Summit, a personal presence and media training experience, and the Social/Digital Hub, created in partnership with Morningstar’s experiential marketing and U.S. conference planning team.

In 2021 and 2022, Impact Communications earned recognition from WealthManagement.com in their annual “Wealthies” awards competition, and ThinkAdvisor.com named Swift to their Luminaries Class of 2021. She is a member of the Forbes Agency Council, a by-invitation-only consortium of marketing and PR professionals who meet the high standards of the Council program.

She is the host of NAPFA Nation, a monthly podcast centered on inspiring conversations and key insights from leaders in the Fee-Only financial planning profession, and the mastermind behind NAPFA’s Playbook, a virtual training and empowerment series that brings marketing and practice management know-how to life.

Sam Sova is the Co-Founder and CEO of Subatomic, an AI-Agent platform that helps enterprises deploy “AI Co-Workers” to solve their toughest business challenges. With more than 20 years of experience in marketing, strategy, and technology, Sam has built Subatomic to integrate AI directly into the systems teams already use — delivering measurable ROI and eliminating the adoption challenges of traditional SaaS tools.

Subatomic has partnered with leading firms across wealth management, manufacturing, and legal to transform workflows such as client-meeting preparation, contract review, and operational analysis.

A passionate advocate for human + AI collaboration, Sam speaks about the future of work, the shift from “tools” to embedded intelligent agents, and the business impact of AI that actually works — secure, scalable, and built around existing workflows.

Sam has held leadership roles at Fiserv, TIAA, AT&T, Johnson Controls, Con Edison and Soluna.