finra
(5)
Matthew Cohen
Matthew Cohen is the co-founder and chief executive of Provable Markets, a New York fintech running Aurora, an SEC-registered Alternative Trading System for securities lending. After 15 years trading equity finance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Jefferies, and Nomura, Cohen partnered with cryptographer Thomer Gil in 2020 to apply secure multi-party computation to a market that had run for decades on phone calls, spreadsheets, and information leakage. In 2022 Provable ran the first securities lending transaction cleared through DTCC's SFT service. In May 2024 the company raised an $8M Series A led by Dialectic Capital Management.
Steven Woods
Steven Woods is the founder and CEO of Stirlingshire Investments, a New York based, SEC-registered, FINRA-member broker-dealer trying to rewire how financial advisors get paid. He started at 26 with a GED, cold-calling for $500 a day, and grew into an advisor producing millions before walking away to build a 'Hybrid Broker-Dealer' that lets advisors keep 100% of their fees and commissions with zero expenses. His 'advice on demand' model gives clients three choices: trade free, pay only when recommendations make money, or hand over full management. He frames the whole project around one question: 'How do we make this better?'
Allison Blais
Allison Blais is Vice President of Business & Strategic Operations and Chief of Staff to Adobe President David Wadhwani, running day-to-day operations of Digital Media - Adobe's largest business unit. A lawyer-turned-operator, she transitioned from 15+ years in financial services and corporate law into driving strategy for Creative Cloud, Document Cloud, and Adobe Firefly, the company's generative AI platform. Her path from FINRA regulatory analyst to VP at one of the world's most influential software companies is a masterclass in reinvention.
Dusko Kelez
Dusko Kelez is the Peruvian founder and CEO of Hapi App (YC W21), a San Francisco-based fintech that lets anyone in Latin America invest in U.S. stocks and crypto with no broker commissions and no minimums. After leading operations at Grin Scooters across seven countries and noticing that Latin Americans had no easy way to access global markets, he co-founded Hapi in 2020 with engineers Piero Sifuentes and Billy Caballero. Today the platform serves over 500,000 users in 20 countries, has raised $4.3M from Y Combinator and leading investors, and is celebrating milestones on the NASDAQ tower in Times Square.
Jennifer Moy
Jennifer Moy is the Chief Operating Officer of Boldstart Ventures, a New York-and-Miami-based seed fund with over $1 billion in assets under management that backs engineering-driven founders from day one. With 18+ years in venture capital, she brings rare operational depth to an early-stage shop - spanning LP relations, FINRA compliance, broker-dealer oversight, and firm-wide infrastructure. Before Boldstart, she was VP at Dawntreader Ventures and has held CFO/FINOP roles at broker dealers. A Cornell economics grad and self-described Pac-Man enthusiast, she is the operational engine behind one of the most founder-focused inception-stage funds in the country.