Directors

Emma Lindley is an independent consultant, industry, and board advisor in the digital identity industry.

She is co-founder of Women in Identity,  board advisor for SurfShark a global privacy-protecting VPN company and on the editorial board of Good ID.

Over a career of 18 years in identity Emma has held various roles, Head of Identity and Risk at Visa, board roles at Confyrm, Innovate Identity and The Open Identity Exchange. She has been recognised in the InnFin Powerlist for Women, KNOW Identity Top 100 leaders in Identity, Women in Tech Awards, Most Influential Women In Tech, and was voted CEO of the year at the KNOW Identity Awards. She has an MBA from Manchester Business School and completed her thesis in Competitive Strategy in the Identity Market.

Melissa Carvalho, RBC Global Cyber Security Vice President, leads the bank’s Global Identity and Access Management group, providing cyber solutions and services for RBC’s 86,000 employees and 17 million clients.

Melissa graduated from Queen’s University with both a B.ScH and a B.Ed. She is a results-driven professional recognized for successfully delivering critical, high-risk initiatives for large organizations. She is known as an adept and innovative leader with 20 years’ experience in managing all aspects of information technology, including business needs impact assessments, software development and infrastructure implementations. Melissa consistently leads and motivates individuals to maximize productivity while managing relationships with diverse stakeholder groups.

Throughout her career, Melissa has developed and implemented identity strategies to promote organizational growth and improve operational efficiency, including implementing Identity Programs at Canada’s five major banks and consulting on over 50 IAM programs across North America.

Christine Bassarab, PhD, is an organizational psychologist and consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has over twenty years’ experience designing and implementing strategies that enable boards and organizations to successfully navigate complex change while remaining vigilant to meeting the needs of their stakeholders. Her expertise includes strategic planning, executive leadership assessment and development, board governance, organization assessment and design, and mergers & acquisition strategy. Christine worked most recently in fintech and financial services where she held several leadership roles transforming businesses to improve organizational performance.

Previously, she worked with David Nygren at Mercer Consulting in the Board and Leadership Effectiveness Practice where she worked with a cross-section of clients in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors.

Currently the Executive Director of the Kantara Initiative Inc., Ms. Chopard has more than 35 years’ experience in executive leadership in business and nonprofit organizations in Washington, D.C.  She is also president of Chopard Consulting and is founder of the Women’s Leadership Institute. She has a reputation as a transformative leader who has led organizations through launch, transition, and sustainability to deliver actionable results.  She is committed to achieving success through courageous management practices by leveraging organizational strategy, structure, and culture to reach goals and optimize results.  Ms. Chopard excels at building networks and collaborations. She is the U.S. Ambassador for the Women in Identity organization and brings her enthusiasm and expertise to the leadership team to further encourage women in the identity field and the broader tech industry. Ms. Chopard is also an attorney and has practiced at the local, state, and national levels of government before leading several international nonprofit organizations as executive director.

Kimberly Sutherland, Vice President of Fraud and Identity Strategy at LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, leads the North American commercial market for consumer fraud analytics, identity verification, authentication and fraud investigations. Her oversight also includes the ThreatMetrix, Emailage, ID Analytics and BehavioSec fraud and identity product lines.

Kim joined LexisNexis Risk Solutions in 2006 and has over 20 years of experience leading business strategy, product management, and professional services.

Kim serves as a board member of Women in Identity an participates in the Better Identity Coalition and the Open Identity Exchange (OIX). She is the past Plenary Chair of the Identity Ecosystem Steering Group (IDESG) and advisory board member of the University of Texas – Center for Identity. Kim is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Otterbein University.

Louise is currently the research lead for the non-profit organisation, Women in Identity, where she is currently driving the organisation’s flagship research project to build a Global ID Code of Conduct that will drive inclusion in digital identity systems. Louise is head of data insights for GBG, focusing on unifying the identity, fraud and location intelligence business lines through a comprehensive and ambitious new data strategy. Her aim, in this newly created role, is to develop data insight driven products and services that sit at the intersection of the company’s main focus areas and drive greater value for customers.  

Louise has previously worked in highly analytical roles across both public and private sector. She co-founded the Corporate Innovation Forum in 2017, and is passionate about utilising data and technology to drive fairer outcomes for consumers, as well as helping businesses make better and more informed decisions.

Louise is also an advocate for the promotion of STEM education and careers to young people, and volunteers with a number of charities focused on increasing participation of under-represented groups in STEM subjects and professions. Her background is in chemistry, and she completed her PhD in materials science at the University of Manchester in 2013.