Head of Retail Banking and Transformation
Santander US
Swati Bhatia is Head of Retail Banking and Transformation for Santander Bank, N.A. (SBNA) and CEO of Openbank in the United States. She is responsible for leading the U.S. Consumer & Business Banking business and all related digital transformation initiatives, with a focus on building new capabilities, simplifying existing processes, and enhancing the customer experience to become a leading national, digital bank with branches.
Prior to joining Santander US in March 2024, Swati led the Marcus business at Goldman Sachs from 2021 to 2023 and previously served as the Chief Payments Risk Officer at Stripe from 2018 to 2020, where she was instrumental in building out the company’s risk and compliance infrastructure. She also held a variety of leadership roles at PayPal and Capital One, spanning digital banking platforms and products, marketing and customer experience, governance and risk management, and operations.
Swati has more than 20 years of leadership experience in financial services with broad P&L management and functional expertise. Recognized as an industry thought leader, she serves on the Board of Accion Opportunity Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides small business owners in the U.S. with access to capital, networks, and coaching.
Swati earned an M.S. in Finance from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani.
The critical role of leadership in dismantling the traditional silos between product innovation and risk compliance to transform potential friction into a competitive advantage has never been more important. By shifting the organizational narrative from “compliance as a gatekeeper” to “risk as a design parameter,” forward-thinking leaders can foster a culture where regulatory requirements are integrated into the earliest stages of the digital product lifecycle rather than treated as a post-development bottleneck. Experts will discuss actionable strategies for aligning cross-functional incentives, implementing unified workflow models to increase transparency, and cultivating a shared language of “sustainable speed” that empowers teams to innovate aggressively without compromising safety or trust.