#ExperianVision 2019 – Day 2 Recap

by Stefani Wendel 5 min read May 7, 2019

Day 2 at this year’s Vision conference was fueled with new technology and inspiration.

The morning session opened with Robert Boxberger, Experian President, Decision Analytics, and also featured two live demos, one on Experian’s solution for the upcoming CECL compliance deadline and the second for mobile credit, including two use cases on instant issuance and lead generation, which has resulted in a 28% conversion rate of hot leads for one of Experian’s marquee clients.

Keynote Speaker: Aimée Mullins

“Get comfortable with the uncomfortable” was just one of the mantras shared on Tuesday morning by Aimée Mullins, an actor, Olympian, TEDTalk speaker, and one of the youngest honorees to be inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, among many other accomplishments.

“It is our uniqueness that’s our greatest asset that we can leverage for our greatest strength,” said Mullins during her keynote centered on achieving the “impossible.”

As a bi-lateral amputee (or “double BK” also known as double below-the-knee amputee, as she referenced), Mullins had doctors and experts tell her and her parents what she would not be able to do. Instead, she encouraged Tuesday’s audience to never stop thinking like a child, to use their curiosity to find new ways where you want to go, and to practice curiosity like a sport to keep from getting comfortable, and therefore static.

“It made my not knowing what I can do so much more powerful than an expert’s presumption of what he thought I could do,” she said.

Session Highlights – Day 2

Consumer Trust

What engenders trust as consumers? And what does it take to build online trust? With 51% of new account fraud victims personally knowing the perpetrator and 3.4 billion total losses from fraudulent account openings (Javelin Feb 2019), there are five key components to building trust: digital adoption, transparency, fraud management, recognition and authentication. Today’s consumers want to use the digital channel, have both security and ease of access, be recognized, know how their personal information is being used, and engage and trust with biometrics.

Artificial Intelligence – Chat Bots and Beyond

According to Gartner, “’Conversational AI-first’ will supersede ‘cloud-first,’ ‘mobile first’ as the most important high-level imperative for the next 10 years.” As evidenced by Google Duplex’s realistic conversations with humans, including the use of “uh” and “um,” conversational AI is positioned to redefine the next generation of human interface, aimed at achieving better customer satisfaction and elevate the customer relationship.

Marketing Analytics

The marketing analytics landscape is changing. Today’s marketing problems – including the always limited budget and need to produce greater ROI – require tactical strategies to target the right consumers. Enter Experian’s AscendTM marketing platform. Leveraging this tool, including its neural networks that were demonstrated Monday morning, helps gain new insights into consumer behavior.

Fraud in the Digital Wild West

A panel discussion featuring representatives from Merchant Risk Council, USAA and Alliance Data compared fighting fraud to herding cats. Challenges discussed included the ongoing struggle to find balance between limiting friction during the authentication process, while also protecting customers, as well as fraudsters’ tendencies to tap into victims’ emotions and curiosity (think phishing schemes). As one of the panelists offered as a piece of advice, “Fraudsters share best practices, so should we.”

Visibility for the Invisibles

People are more than the sum of their parts. The traditional credit score may show a consumer’s reputation, but layering trended and alternative data sets adds their character. Not only can trended data and alternative credit data – including leveraging education attributes – make invisible consumers visible, they can also reveal that a consumer with a presumably superlative credit score is actually a “credit zombie.” These data sets enable the opportunity to create first chances, drive second chances and re-evaluate risk, while also driving a strong growth strategy.

CECL

After reviewing the basics of CECL and the upcoming deadlines (ranging from Q1 2020 to Q1 2022), a review of CECL compliance challenges and potential product changes preceded a modeling techniques case study and a list of key impacts to businesses. Those impacts include: product profitability, loss forecasting methodology, data management and processes and capital ratios. Experian’s CECL forecasting solution leverages Experian’s extensive historical data and Ascend Analytical Sandbox. Using a best practice modeling pipeline to improve efficiency and reduce operational risks, the solution combines advanced machine learning, traditional model techniques and modeling experience to improve performance and reduce risk of overfitting.

Keynote Speaker: Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bryant closed out the day with stories from his highly-decorated 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, some tips on trash talk and lessons in leadership.

“I had to figure out how to be undeniable,” Bryant said, on competing for minutes at the start of his career.

In addition to his basketball legacy, including wining five NBA championships, being named an NBA MVP, a two-time NBA Finals MVP and winning two Olympic gold medals, Bryant also launched the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation, hosts the Kobe Academy and has formed Kobe Inc. He’s a storyteller, an Oscar winner, and his name has become synonymous with standing for uncompromising excellence.

How to be successful? “Make sure you have the right people on the team,” Bryant said. “Passionate. Borderline obsessive.”

One of his key takeaways from his basketball career that translates to his leadership on and off the court happened when his pre-game and game time thinking shifted from internal to external.

“You have to put yourself 2nd, 3rd, 4th…you have to put the team first,” Bryant said.

For more coverage, follow #ExperianVision on Twitter or check the Experian Insights LinkedIn page.

Related Posts

From Hybrids to Refinancing: Consumers are Finding New Roads to Vehicle Affordability

For today’s automotive consumers, considering a vehicle purchase isn’t just about the price they see on the window, it’s about finding the right combination of their vehicle preference and monthly payment. In fact, data from Experian Automotive’s State of the Automotive Finance Market Report: Q2 2026 highlighted how affordability continues to shape the automotive finance market. For instance, hybrids offered the lowest average new vehicle loan payment across all fuel types, coming in at $646 in Q2 2026, compared to electric vehicles (EVs) at $692, and gasoline-powered vehicles at $721. This led to considerable growth in new vehicle market share for hybrids this quarter, accounting for 16.80%, from 12.99% last year. While the automotive market continues to offer consumers an expanding mix of fuel types, the combination of growing hybrid share and comparatively lower monthly payments is something worth watching. Affordability isn’t just about what consumers drive, it’s how they finance it While hybrid vehicles are continuing to pave their way in the vehicle market, consumers who already have an auto loan are finding greater savings through refinancing. In the second quarter of 2026, automotive refinancing reached approximately 140,000 loans. More notably, the financial benefit associated with refinancing has grown. Consumers who refinanced this quarter reduced their average interest rate by more than 2.4%, with the average rate moving from 10.40% on the original loan to 7.97% on the refinanced loan. Those rate reductions translated into meaningful monthly savings, especially when refinancing through particular lenders. In Q2 2026, refinancing saved consumers an average of $83 per month, compared to an average monthly savings of $64 this time last year. However, credit unions delivered the largest average payment difference among lender types at $102 this quarter, followed by banks ($65), and finance companies ($38). It’s important for automotive professionals to acknowledge that affordability is not a single moment in the vehicle journey. It can influence the vehicle a consumer chooses, the financing they opt for during that transaction, and the decisions they make years after driving off the lot. Understanding and leveraging those different moments can help professionals identify opportunities to better serve consumers throughout the vehicle ownership lifecycle. To learn more about automotive finance trends, view the full State of the Automotive Finance Market Report: Q2 2026 presentation on demand.

August 27, 2026 by Melinda Zabritski
AI Agent Identity Verification: How to Verify AI Agents in Digital Transactions

AI agents are changing the way consumers interact with businesses online. Learn how you can establish greater confidence in AI transactions.

August 26, 2026 by Laura Burrows
Ask the Expert: Turning Insight into Advantage with Michelle Goeppner and David Elmore

What if some of your best potential borrowers are the ones your traditional credit strategy can't fully see? A credit score can tell lenders a lot about a consumer, but it doesn't always capture the full picture of how someone is managing their financial life. For consumers with nontraditional income patterns or limited credit histories, that incomplete view can mean missed opportunities. In this Ask the Expert session, David Elmore of Experian talks with Michelle Goeppner, Chief Lending Officer at Vantage West Credit Union, about how alternative data can provide additional context around consumer risk, uncover opportunities traditional data alone might miss and help lenders expand their reach without disrupting strategies that already work. Who could lenders be missing? That question is especially important when a consumer’s financial life doesn’t fit neatly into a traditional credit profile. Take gig workers. Someone driving for Uber or delivering for DoorDash likely has a different income pattern than a salaried employee — irregular, seasonal, spread across platforms. That doesn't mean they aren't reliably managing bills, rent and other obligations. It just means a traditional file may not show it. Goeppner has a name for the risk of overlooking that context: FOMM — Fear of Missing Members. You've heard of FOMO — Fear of Missing Out. I think about it as FOMM — Fear of Missing Members. Who are we leaving behind if we're not using it?Michelle Goeppner, Chief Lending Officer For credit unions especially, that's not just a data question — it's a mission question. A partial view of a member's finances can mean missing a member the institution exists to serve. The credit score alone doesn't tell you where someone's headed Traditional credit data is still  foundational to lending decisions. But alternative data — income, cash flow, payment behavior — adds a layer that a credit score alone can't provide. Goeppner illustrates the distinction with two consumers who have exactly the same credit score: I don't know if you're a 640 score on your way to 720 — or are you a 640 headed southwards to 580? It doesn't show me how you're managing your day-to-day financial lifeMichelle Goeppner, Chief Lending Officer Two borrowers can share the same score and be moving in opposite directions. Alternative data helps lenders tell the difference — and put that score in context rather than treating it as the whole story. Start small and layer it in Adopting alternative data doesn't mean overhauling an existing strategy. As Goeppner puts it, it's additive, not a replacement: It's not a rip and replace. You don't have to let go of your existing playbook. It's additive — you layer it in.Michelle Goeppner, Chief Lending Officer Her advice for getting started: Define the problem first. Are you trying to increase approvals, reach more underserved borrowers, or improve decisioning for a specific product? Test before you scale. Revisit loans you've already booked and ask whether alternative data would have changed the outcome — or pilot it on a single product before rolling it out further. Build in governance from day one. Document what changed, where the new data was used, and what results followed. As Goeppner puts it: “Crawl, walk, run. Slow and grow.” More loans without changing the risk profile For Vantage West, the value of that approach has shown up in its lending results. It has been an absolute game changer for us at Vantage West. We have been able to make more loans to our target members, our target segments, without changes to our risk profile.Michelle Goeppner, Chief Lending Officer That distinction matters. The goal isn't approving more loans for its own sake — it's having enough information to recognize good borrowers that traditional data alone would have missed. The result is a fuller picture of the people behind the credit file, and more confidence in deciding who a lender can serve. Explore alternative data with us Alternative data can help lenders add context to traditional credit information for a more complete view of consumers. Experian works with institutions of all sizes to incorporate additional consumer signals into existing lending strategies — strengthening decisioning, managing risk and identifying new opportunities for growth. Learn more Contact us About our experts Michelle Goeppner Chief Lending Officer, Vantage West Credit Union Michelle Goeppner is a dynamic financial services executive with over two decades of experience driving strategic growth, product innovation, and operational excellence across leading credit unions and financial institutions. Currently serving as the Chief Lending Officer at Vantage West Credit Union, Michelle leads the strategic vision for multi-billion-dollar consumer loan and deposit portfolios, as a member of the Executive Coalition. Her expertise spans consumer lending, product management, integrated marketing, and talent development, with a proven track record of leveraging fintech partnerships, automation, and data-driven strategies to optimize portfolio performance and member engagement. Throughout her career, Michelle has held pivotal leadership roles in organizations such as Alliant Credit Union and Discover Financial Services. She is recognized for her collaborative approach, detail-oriented execution, and commitment to developing future female leaders. Michelle’s contributions include founding Alliant’s Women’s Resource Group, serving on advisory councils and boards, and earning multiple industry awards for excellence and innovation. She holds an Executive Certification in Product Management from UC Berkeley, a Master of Science in Integrated Marketing Communications from Roosevelt University, and a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Northern Illinois University. David Elmore Vice President of Fintech Sales, Experian David Elmore leads a team of fintech sales professionals at Experian focused on helping fintech organizations drive responsible, scalable growth through data-driven analytics and decisioning. With more than 20 years in financial services — a decade of it focused on fintech — he brings deep expertise in applying traditional and alternative data across the customer lifecycle. David and his team partner with fintech leaders to navigate opportunities across acquisition, underwriting, portfolio management, and collections, balancing innovation, risk, and trust.

August 26, 2026 by Julie Lee

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Enter your name and email for the latest updates.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Don't miss out on the latest industry trends and insights!
Subscribe