Bastian Obermayer, 41, is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter and the head of the investigative department at Süddeutsche Zeitung. He received with his partner in crime Frederik Obermaier the Panama Papers. After seven years at Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine, he joined the investigative team where he worked on the Lux-Leaks, Offshore-Leaks and Swiss leaks investigations, among others topics.

Obermayer has received numerous national and international prizes for his work including the Pulitzer Prize, the Georg Polk Award, the Henri Nannen Prize, the Theodor Wolff Prize and the German Reporter Award, and he has been named “Business Journalist of the Year, 2014” as well as “Journalist of the Year, 2016” (with Obermaier). In 2016 he was awarded with the prestigious Knight Wallace Fellowship.

Obermayer is the author of several books, for example about abuse in the German monastery Ettal, about a fraud scandal in the German automotive industry and, again with Obermaier, the international bestseller “Panama Papers”.

C. Steven Baker recently retired after 32 years at the Federal Trade Commission, 28 of them serving as Director of the Federal Trade Commission's Midwest Region in Chicago, Mr. Baker is one of the founders of the Toronto Strategic Partnership, developed to fight cross border fraud and work with international partners.  In June 2010 he received the Consumer Advocate of the Year award from the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators.  Steve is also the 2010 recipient of the FTC Chairman’s Award, the highest agency honor.  He was the recipient of the Better Business Bureau’s Torchbearer Award in 2016.  

Steve Baker joined the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C. in 1982 as a staff attorney in the Bureau of Consumer Protection, where he was engaged in Federal Court cases involving telemarketing fraud.  He later served as an attorney advisor to Chairman James C. Miller III and Chairman Daniel Oliver.    

Mr. Baker recently completed a term on the Board of Directors of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.  He is currently an International Investigations Specialist with the BBB’s of Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, Omaha and Oakland.  To date he has written seven in depth reports on consumer fraud issues, all of which have been featured on network news shows.  

In addition, Mr. Baker is the author of the Baker Fraud Report, a newsletter on consumer fraud that goes out around the world once a week.

Prior to joining the FTC, Mr. Baker served as a law clerk to U.S. District Judge D. Brook Bartlett in Kansas City, Missouri.

Mr. Baker is a graduate of Missouri Valley College and obtained his law degree from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1981, where he was a Note and Comment Editor for the Iowa Law Review.  He is a member of the bar of the State of Iowa.

Mr. Baker and his wife reside in Maryville, Illinois.

Brian re-joined Visa in June 2018 and is responsible for the public face of Visa's European Ecosystem Risk and all risk client activities. This includes specialist advice, consultancy, Risk Executive Councils, risk product leads and Security Summits. He also manages engagements with merchants, regulators, government, industry and media. His earlier tenure with Visa included risk management responsibility for UK, Ireland and Visa Europe as well as taking care of business continuity initiatives for both CEMEA and Visa Europe.

Prior to Visa, Brian worked for Midland Bank and HSBC, Fair Isaac (FICO) and Lloyds Banking Group. He specialized in the cards issuing business and undertook a number of diverse roles including managing the new accounts area, credit limit assessment, disputes and chargebacks, customer service, credit services, collections and recoveries, management information, quality assurance and projects.

Brian is accredited as a Registered Risk Practitioner (RRP), and as a Member of the Business Continuity Institute (MBCI) wherein he was the co-founder of two regional forums and a mentor, examiner and membership assessor. He is also co-founder of the Mobile IDentity Authentication Standard (MIDAS) Alliance, and contributed to the creation of the British Standards Institute (BSI) Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 499 on digital identity.

Christian A. Chmiel, CEO of Web Shield, is responsible for the development and implementation of novel investigation techniques and research tools to identify fraudulent or brand damaging online merchants. Before he served as the Deputy Head of Compliance for a major German acquiring bank, and specialized in online fraud investigations, credit card compliance and underwriting.

He has served clients across a wide range of sectors, including financial services, IT software, entertainment, travel and health. Christian has undertaken assignments in the mainland Europe, Israel, Georgia, North America and the United Arabian Emirates. He brings deep experience in conducting investigations into fraudulent online merchants, risk calculations and forecasting methodologies to the table.

Christian is a lecturer at the Web Shield Academy and has written and co-written a series of publications about the various aspects of risk management, fraud detection and investigative methodology.

He has been honoured as one of the ETA's Forty Under 40 class of 2019.

Bill is a professional banker, a payments and risk specialist for over 25 years. He headed-up risk functions and special investigations in Lloyds Bank issuing and acquiring, following with acquiring and processing at First Data, and then insurance risks at RBS/Direct Line. He set-up, ran, grew and sold an outsource business that identified and managed liars in people's insurance and lost-card claims using teams trained in advance forensic psychology.

For the last 12 years, he has been diving into many other businesses: largely advising merchants, acquirers and others in the payment chain to help reduce risks and costs, to improve business and to make significant organisational change. The catalyst for change will often come from losses, from regulators or from a card-scheme challenge. He is a mentor for innovative payments start-ups and sits on working parties and panels for the UK regulators. He works across the EU, but often much further afield. Furthermore, Bill has degrees in Mechanical Engineering and in Banking, and is a member of the high IQ society.

Jonathan has been with Mastercard since 2002, during which time he has held various risk management roles within the Corporate Security, Franchise Development and Franchise Integrity groups. Jonathan is currently a Director in the Mastercard Customer Compliance and Fraud Team and is responsible for a number of global customer compliance programs.

Many of the programs he manages,including the Business Risk Assessment Management (BRAM) Program, MATCH, the Global Merchant Audit Program (GMAP) and the Excessive Chargeback Program(ECP), focus on identifying and mitigating various risks introduced by merchants into the payments ecosystem, including illegal, brand damaging and otherwise deceptive behavior.  Jonathan also manages the Global Rules Investigation Program (GRIP), which enforces compliance with all Mastercard Rules that do not otherwise have an established compliance program, and the SAFE Compliance Program.

For over 25 years, Kevin has been a business leader within the payments industry working with issuers, acquirers, payment schemes and retailers. More recently this includes a continued focus on payments acceptance, risk and compliance. Additionally works with processors, telco’s, solution providers and regulators, particularly in the areas of payments innovation, fraud, risk and compliance management.

He spent nearly 17 years at Visa in Europe and internationally, where Kevin held various senior management and leadership positions, focused on card programmes and acceptance product development and management across Europe, as well as global initiatives while seconded to Visa International. On returning to Europe, Kevin led the Visa Europe acceptance and acquiring development team before moving into risk management, as the Head of Fraud Management and Compliance.

Since leaving Visa in late 2011, Kevin has operated as an independent and trusted payments and risk management consultant and business advisor. He is a co-founder of the Association of Independent Risk & Fraud Advisors (AIRFA).