Full Name
Aaron Bridgers
Job Title
SVP, Head of Strategic Initiatives, Technology, Operations, Digital and Data
Company
Regions Bank
Speaker Bio
Aaron Bridgers is Head of Tech Strategy & Innovation for Regions Technology, Operations, Digital and Data. His team is responsible for supporting strategic planning, innovation and productivity, Agile Center of Excellence, Technology communication, talent strategy, in addition to organizational transformation. Aaron also leads the talent strategy for Technology, Operations, Digital, and Data with a focus of developing a diverse and inclusive talent pipeline spanning all levels of the organization with a focus on equity and leadership development.

Aaron is passionate about advancement in modernization, efficiency, and how companies can enable frictionless experiences for users that also increase security. Outside of Aaron’s day to day activities he is actively engaged in driving Open Banking practices and adoption within North America. He accomplishes this through his leadership and participation within FDX, Financial Data Exchange, competing in global hackathons, and regularly presenting at conferences. Aaron is also an Advisor to Georgia Tech Senior projects, Advisor to Ethopass cybersecurity company, and a regular contributor to industry journals such as RMA (Risk Management Association), American Banker, BAI, among others.

Aaron has been published on topics ranging from AI, risk management, cryptocurrency, and open banking. Aaron has been asked to speak to the Alabama State Senate on government use cases of AI, chosen by the staff of MIT for the top fintech capstone project for a cryptocurrency solution as part of their Fintech certification program, made it to the top 3 teams in the Life is a Pitch global fintech competition held by the UK Open Banking Implementation Entity, and was invited as a subject matter expert to the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP) to discuss cryptocurrency.

Through his involvement in FDX Aaron is the lead contributor to “Getting Started with Open Banking: An FDX Business Primer for Financial Institutions,” a primer for open banking in both US and Canada. Subsequently he is the lead editor for another FDX industry primer on Open Banking targeted for Tech leaders currently being drafted. In addition to curating content and thought leadership with FDX members, Aaron is the Co-Chair of the Open Banking Certification working group, creating a globally recognized certification of open banking implementation. Most recently, he formed a team of Regions’ associates to participate in the FDX Hackathon, which resulted in leading to additional feedback on the FDX API spec and improvements to the spec (currently in the request for change (RFC) process).
Aaron Bridgers