ATxInspire with Mastercard: Maintaining digital trust in a quantum world

Alissa “Dr Jay” Abdullah is Mastercard’s deputy chief security officer. In this role she leads the Emerging Corporate Security Solutions team and is responsible for protecting Mastercard’s information assets as well as driving the future of security.

Dr Jay joined Mastercard in 2019 after serving as the chief information security officer of Xerox where she established and led a corporate-wide information risk management program. She also served as the deputy chief information officer of the White House where she helped modernize the Executive Office of the President's IT systems with cloud services and virtualization.

She currently hosts Cybercrime Magazine’s Mastering Cyber and CISO 500 podcasts. Dr. Jay is a member of Smartsheet’s Board of Directors and Girls in Tech’s Board of Directors. She also serves as vice chair of BITS, the technology policy division of the Bank Policy Institute (BPI).

Dr Jay holds a PhD in Information Technology Management from Capella University, a master’s degree in Telecommunications and Computer Networks from The George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Savannah State University.

Karthik Ramanathan is the Senior Vice President of Cyber and Intelligence (C&I) Solutions, Asia Pacific. In this role, he oversees the wide range of products, platforms and capabilities that ensure the safety, security and experience of our products and solutions for consumers, merchants, partners and governments.

Some of the capabilities he drives adoption and usage include Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security, Digital Identity, Biometrics and EMV 3DS authentication.

Karthik joined Mastercard in 2015 after a variety of leadership roles in Retail banking across India, US, Hong Kong, Middle East and Africa with Citibank, Capital One and Standard Chartered Bank. He has an MBA from XLRI Institute of Management, India.

Professor Lam is the Associate Vice President (Strategy and Partnerships) and Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He is currently also the Executive Director of the National Centre for Research in Digital Trust (DTC), Director of the Strategic Centre for Research in Privacy-Preserving Technologies and Systems (SCRiPTS), and Director of NTU’s SPIRIT Smart Nation Research Centre. From August 2020 to August 2023, Professor Lam was also on part-time secondment to the INTERPOL as a Consultant at Cyber and New Technology Innovation.

In 2018, Professor Lam founded TAU Express Pte Ltd as an NTU start-up upon successful completion of the Intelligent Case Retrieval System (ICRS) project, performed in collaboration with the Singapore Judiciary under the SPIRIT Smart Nation Research Centre. In 2012, he co-founded Soda Pte Ltd which won the Most Innovative Start Up Award at the RSA 2015 Conference. Prof Lam received his B.Sc. (First Class Honours) from the University of London in 1987 and his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1990.

Professor Lam has been an active Cybersecurity researcher since 1980s. His research interests include Distributed and Intelligent Systems, Multivariate Analysis for Behavior Analytics, Cyber-Physical System Security, Distributed Protocols for Blockchain, Biometric Cryptography, Homeland Security, Cybersecurity and Privacy-Preserving Techniques. In 2020, he authored a Technical Report on the “Application of Quantum Computers for Law Enforcement and Security Communications” for a Singapore Government ministry. Professor Lam is the recipient of the 2022 Singapore Cybersecurity Hall of Fame Award.

Steve is an IT professional with more than 25 years of industry experience in payments, government, and academia. He is currently responsible for leading Mastercard Foundry’s R&D initiatives in artificial intelligence and quantum computing. In this role, Steve leads a team of talented data scientists, data engineers and software engineers to develop new technologies and to bring new products and services to market.

Steve has been with Mastercard for close to a decade. His first role was leading Start Path, a global, homegrown program focused on engaging startups and fintech companies in accelerating innovation though Mastercard’s resources and customer network. Recently, Steve was recognized as a Mastercard Distinguished Engineer for his excellence in solution development, talent attraction, mentorship and building and executing on Mastercard's strategic vision. Prior to joining Mastercard, Steve spent eight years with the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the Irish government agency charged with investing in academic research projects. At SFI, he managed an investment portfolio of more than $150 million in software, computer science, artificial intelligence projects and research centers. Before that, Steve spent ten years in various senior software development roles across a wide range of sectors. Steve holds a B.S. Computer Applications from Dublin City University and a Ph.D in Computer Science, specializing in Artificial Intelligence from Trinity College Dublin.

John Beric has been involved in the internationalisation of chip card use in banking since the initial pioneering activities of the French banks in the 1980s. He was part of the task force formed by the European Council for Payment Systems (ECPS) which concluded that chip was the best bank card anti-counterfeit technology. He led the European Committee for Banking Standards (ECBS) team which generated the principles underpinning the EMV® bank chip card security architecture, building on the initial French technology model but adding new features.

John was the Head of Security and Architecture at Mondex International, a revolutionary electronic purse system that some see as a precursor to CBDCs that will allow off-line person to person transactions. John holds around 20 patents around applications and systems to build greater Digital Trust. John has worked at Mastercard for the past twenty years in the chip team which has evolved EMV® specifications into the Mastercard manifestations we see today - CAP, M/Chip contactless, M/Chip Mobile, MasterCard Cloud Based Payment - and has facilitated EMV® based Mastercard product deployment globally. He is a member of the EMV® Security Working Group responsible for the cryptography used in the EMV® specifications.

Rebecca Ledingham is a global Vice President at Mastercard responsible for cybersecurity Thought Leadership and Cyber Threat Intelligence. Prior to joining MasterCard Rebecca was a Cyber Agent at the INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI), located in Singapore, where she had responsibility for international collaboration and coordination around cyber investigations and all interactions and partnerships with international law enforcement, private sector organizations and academic institutions.

Rebecca has spent 19 years in law enforcement having also spent time as a Cyber Agent with the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) National Cyber Crime Unit where she investigated high profile hacking cases, multi-million-dollar cyber frauds and malware deployments.

Melanie Gersten is a Director on Mastercard’s Cyber and Intelligence Solutions team developing cybersecurity services for stakeholders. Her primary focus is on building the threat intelligence capabilities offered by Mastercard. Melanie has 10 years of experience in the fraud and cybersecurity industry. Prior to joining the cyber solutions team at Mastercard, Melanie was on Mastercard’s Account Data Compromise team managing global investigations of high-profile merchant data breaches and represented Mastercard at the NCFTA.

Melanie graduated from NYU with a MS in Cybersecurity Risk and Strategy and holds numerous industry certifications in cybersecurity and fraud.