​CT Digital Forum's Season 4 Opener!

​See you in Stamford CT on Friday morning September 26th from 8:00am-11am.

​Nearly 200 Have Registered. Our first session, Fireside Chat, begins promptly at 8:30am

​
Kausik Rajgopal, EVP for Strategy, Corporate Development, Partnerships at PayPal and ZRG’s Michael Castine will a fireside chat offering a mind-bending look into the financial services future that’s upon us.  

​The conversation will draw on Kausik Rajgopal’s deep experience as a member of the leadership team at PayPal and as a former senior partner at McKinsey & Company, including global co-lead of the FinTech practice. Topics will include:

​The coming  revolution of “agentic commerce” 

​Provocative views on stablecoins and blockchain 

​The future of Payment solutions

​What coming changes mean for consumers around the world

​The future of work and implications of AI

​How the payment future is evolving across markets and geographies

​For our second session we’ll break up into group discussion and topic tables.  Join a table to discuss one of the following topics:

​Stablecoins & Banking
As stablecoins move from fringe to rails, can banks prevent deposit-flight while offering faster, cheaper services? What guardrails should regulators set?

​Tokenization of Everything
As assets of all kinds move on-chain, what will it mean for liquidity, settlement, cost of capital, household wealth —and will a digital culture think about value differently?

​Future of Work
As AI automates more knowledge tasks and jobs, what human roles matter most—creativity, client-facing, human-AI collaboration, management and oversight, something else?

​Investing in the AI Era
Some think AI may be the “death of alpha.” So where will investors find an edge—goal-setting, ethics, client trust, human judgement layered on AI?

​AI Meets Blockchain
When AI agents meet programmable money, how will we harness autonomous portfolios, verified data, and adaptive governance—while avoiding new risks and modes of failure?

​Risk, Law & Policy
With divergent global rules and model/contract vulnerabilities, how do we stay compliant on privacy, IP, and systemic risk—without throttling innovation?

​Bubble vs. Productivity
How do we separate durable productivity and value from the hype and froth in the year ahead?

​Culture, Art & Music
As AI reshapes content creation, and blockchain codifies ownership, how will artists and fans share value? How do we guard against deepfakes and IP abuse? And will the coming machine economy suck the soul out of human expression, or unleash it?

​AGENDA

​At UConn Stamford
1 University Place, Stamford, CT

Parking is Free on Us at: 
1194 Washington Blvd, Stamford, CT 06902

8:00am 
Registration |  Networking | Lite Bites

​8:30am - 9:15am
Fireside Chat With
Kausik Rajgopal
EVP, Paypal 

​and
Michael Castine
Global Financial Services Co-Lead, ZRG

​9:15am - 9:45am
Break |  Networking | Lite Bites

​9:45am - 10:30am
Topic Tables
Discussing some of this seasons themes

BIOS

​Kausik Rajgopal leads PayPal’s Strategy, Corporate Development & Partnerships. He is responsible for the teams driving strategic planning, market research, M&A, Ventures and minority investments, payments markets and partnerships, and the Office of the CEO.

​He previously served as PayPal’s Executive Vice President of People and Sourcing. Prior to this, he was a Senior Partner with McKinsey & Company, where he held leadership roles including managing partner for the San Francisco and Silicon Valley offices and co-Managing Partner for the U.S. office, where he was responsible for client service across all industry sectors, as well as its people priorities.

​Kausik also helped advance and scale McKinsey’s Fintech efforts including co-founding the Digital Payments Practice, leading the firm’s global Payments Practice, and serving as McKinsey’s global Fintech co-lead. In these roles, Kausik worked with banks, merchants, technology, and payments players around the world on strategic, commercial, and operational initiatives. He also worked with central banks on payment system innovation and with private equity firms on buyouts and portfolio company transformations.

​Kausik earned his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and a Bachelor of Arts and Science in Political Science and Industrial Engineering from Stanford University.

​Michael Castine is the Co-leader of the Global Financial Services practice at ZRG. He has more than 30 years of experience as an executive recruiter and consultant to senior leaders of financial services, asset, wealth management, banking industries, and digital currencies. He has experience recruiting CEOs, Presidents, Chief Investment Officers, Portfolio Managers, Heads of Distribution, and other key senior executives in traditional and alternative investment firms, registered investment advisors, hedge funds, family offices, banks, insurance companies, and digital currency firms.

​Before ZRG, Michael served as a partner of Ridgeway Partners, as the Global Chairman, Asset and Wealth Management for Korn Ferry and other top firms. 

​Michael is a Trustee and serves on the Investment Committee of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation. 

​Earlier in his career, he was a member of The White House staff serving  under President Ronald Reagan.

​About the Organizers

​​The CT Digital Forum is the leading event of its kind in Connecticut, with a global following of over 5,000 engaged individuals. We curate exclusive, by-invitation events that bring together executive-level leaders from top institutions, investment firms, and innovative companies to explore the digital future of money, markets, commerce, society, and culture.

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