2026 Annual Conference – Speakers

Abby Bensimhon, MBA, CPFWC, CFEI, Certified CFO
Founder & Principal Consultant
Precision Financial Wellness

Abby Bensimhon brings more than 30 years of financial services experience to her work with business owners today. She spent the bulk of her career as a commercial lender and private banker at institutions including PNC Bank and BNY Mellon, with a primary focus on middle market lending, where she partnered with thousands of business owners and executives to help them access capital, manage risk, and grow their companies. She went on to serve as Chief Operating Officer of the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) for four and a half years, and for the past two years has run her own consulting and coaching practice, Precision Financial Consulting, LLC, helping business owners sharpen the skills they need to grow. Abby also served as President of the XPX DC Metro chapter for six years, through December 2025. XPX (Exit Planning Exchange) is a national community of trusted advisors — including bankers, attorneys, wealth managers, and consultants — dedicated to helping business owners build value in their companies and plan successful transitions when the time comes to exit. Abby holds a BA in Economics from Concordia University and an MBA with a focus on Leadership and Strategy from Western Governors University. She and her husband are proud parents of two grown children and grandparents as well.

Terri Brady
VP Sr. Reverse Mortgage Loan Officer
Rate

With over 15 years of experience in the home equity mortgage industry, Terri has helped hundreds of seniors navigate their financial options with confidence, care and clarity. Her work is deeply personal—she took care of her own parents as they aged (her mother is 96 living with dementia), so she understands the emotional and financial complexities that come with this stage of life. That experience drives her commitment to treat every client with the respect, patience and transparency they deserve.

She combines her previous financial background in banking with today’s current financial market to look at ways the home becomes part of retirement planning. With an array of home equity solutions, including FHA-insured HECM reverse mortgages, traditional FHA and VA loans, and HELOCS, she has helped clients pay for in-home care, pay off a mortgage, buy a new home, pay off real estate taxes, and credit cards with the FHA reverse mortgage loan. The result is financial freedom and flexibility for her clients, using the equity they have worked so hard to build over the years.

Christopher Carrillo
Founder
C.M. Carrillo Financial Advising

Christopher Carrillo attended De Smet Jesuit High School in St. Louis, MO. After graduating from De Smet, he went on to study in The Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University Chicago. He graduated earning a Bachelor of Business Administration (B.B.A.) with a Major in Finance and a Minor in Economics.

Christopher also has a well established relationship with The Boy Scouts of America (BSA). In 2003, he earned the rank of Eagle Scout, and in subsequent years, he performed special volunteer work on behalf of the organization at the national level.

In October of 2012, he joined the St. Louis Agency of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual). In the years that followed, he proceeded to learn the ins and outs of the insurance business. Christopher consistently credits MassMutual’s training program for helping him develop certain aspects of his philosophy and approach to financial planning.

In December of 2015, C.M. Carrillo Financial Advising was founded when Christopher made the decision to reposition his practice in order to provide his clients with an enhanced level flexibility on the investment side of the financial planning process. As he made the transition to become an independent Financial Advisor, Christopher also felt it was especially important to maintain his relationship with MassMutual on the insurance side of the financial planning process. The resulting business model positions him particularly well within the marketplace and it gives him the freedom and flexibility to truly serve his clients as a fiduciary.

When founding C.M. Carrillo Financial Advising, Christopher gave the firm a mission that has six components, which includes: Vision, Desired Lifestyle, Quality of Life, Restoring Order, serving as A Safe Harbor, and Finding Financial Peace. Consequently, today many of Christopher’s clients do not see him as merely their Financial Advisor. Instead, many see him as their Life Coach who also happens to help them with their finances. The reason for this is because Christopher happens to believe that individuals who work as Financial Advisors are uniquely positioned within our society to help people on a much higher level. Furthermore, he believes the relationship that individuals have with their Financial Advisor should go far beyond just their finances.

There are so many different aspects of this journey that we call life, many would say certain aspects of life are more important than money, but of course, virtually every aspect of life is inextricably tied to money. Christopher derives a substantial amount of personal satisfaction from helping each of his clients transform his or her vision into his or her reality. That is why Christopher works so diligently to help each of his clients secure his or her financial future.

When he makes a recommendation, Christopher speaks with conviction. If you ask him to describe his approach to financial planning, he will use the following three terms: Well-Balanced, Strategic, Innovative.

Throughout life, Christopher has always felt it is very important to have a passions. He has three. His first resides within the workplace. He loves working with the financial markets. Outside of the workplace, he has a passion for Cardinals baseball and cooking.

Christopher resides in the suburbs of St. Louis and he is active within his Church as well as the local business networking community.

Melissa Chapman
Enrolled Agent and Owner
Rise Resolution Services

Melissa Chapman is an Enrolled Agent and owner of Rise Resolution Services, a tax resolution and advisory practice based in Chandler, Arizona. She brings 18 years of federal tax experience to every engagement, including 4 years with the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service, where she served as Senior Local Taxpayer Advocate in Phoenix. She regularly worked with Congressional and Senate offices for legislative issues and was a featured speaker at Tax and Accounting continuing education events.

Katherine Gudgel, EA, PhD
Owner
GPS Money Matters

Katie is an Arizona-based Enrolled Agent (EA) specializing in assisting seniors and trusts, with particular expertise in Daily Money Management (DMM). After seeing many taxpayers struggle to organize documents for tax return preparation, she expanded her services to include DMM upon joining AADMM in 2015. Katie holds a B.S. in Physics, a Ph.D. in Materials Science, and a degree in accounting. She gained hands-on tax experience through Ladder Up’s VITA program, advancing from volunteer preparer to lead trainer. Committed to financial education, Katie helps individuals better understand and manage their money and navigate complex tax issues. She currently serves as Vice President of AADMM and was recognized as the 2025 Member of the Year by the National Association of Tax Professionals (NATP).

Lois Manzella-Marchitto
Owner and Managing Director
Fitness Knocking®

Lois is the owner and Managing Director of Fitness Knocking® and an Adjunct Professor at County College of Morris. She is an exercise, health and performance specialist. Lois’s comprehensive knowledge in the areas of fitness management is complemented with over 25 years of experience in helping individuals improve their future through fitness, dance, finance, health, and overall wellness in both the private individual training model in home, online as well as traditional facility-based approaches.

She is a seasoned speaker and author of the ebook “Commit to Succeed by Getting Smart.” Lois has experience presenting to companies globally and to groups as large as 10,000 participants.

Lois believes one’s total health and wellness is achieved through a variety of modalities. They include a comprehensive balance of behavior, physical and personal modifications and an emotional, social awareness of finding and building upon personal strengths. Lois has experience in helping individuals achieve their fitness goals whether they are deconditioned, overwhelmed parents, adolescents or just beginning or revisiting their journey to health after a long hiatus.

Lois has been seen on various local news outlets including Team Talk on Apple TV, Health Minute on Channel 13, 12 to Your Health on News 12 NJ, NJ Family Magazine, Team as well as has been listed annually as Business Person of the year on Alignable and listed in M&T Banks Small and Thoughtful Businesses.

Lois enjoys spending her free time with her husband and energetic teenage twins, being outdoors or at home watching a movie.

She understands the challenges individuals and especially parents face in regards to health and wellness.

She lives her life with the motto that “small changes over a long period of time make a difference.”

Marti Miller
Founder
Blueprint Financial

Marti Miller is the founder of Blueprint Financial and a seasoned financial services professional with deep experience across technology, retirement, and insurance domains. Before launching her practice, she led product management and strategy initiatives at Principal Financial Group, including helping launch AI assist tools adopted by more than 20,000 employees in 2025 and again in 2026 at the Federal Home Loan Bank to 350 employees. She now draws on this blend of frontline financial expertise, insurance knowledge, and large-scale AI implementation experience to help small businesses and individuals to create business and financial intelligence.

Lisa Namm
Founder & Chief Brand and Trust Officer
LFN Consulting

Lisa Flynn Namm is the Founder & Chief Brand and Trust Officer of LFN Consulting, where she helps business owners and executives build the kind of visibility and credibility that gets them found, trusted, and chosen before a client ever picks up the phone.

Her client roster spans the full spectrum — from Fortune 50 brands like Budweiser and Tabasco to solo entrepreneurs and small teams building a presence from scratch. For 14 years, she built and led the brand and earned-media function at LBMC, a top accounting and advisory firm, helping it grow from $52 million to $241 million by making sure the story a firm tells matches what buyers actually find when they go looking. Before that, she co-owned a B2B agency serving national consumer brands, where she learned that the same trust principles that move a Fortune 50 buyer also move a client deciding whether to call a solo practitioner back.

Lisa is a publisher’s daughter. Her father helped launch USA TODAY at a moment almost nobody believed a paper built that way would work. She grew up watching what it takes to earn trust in public and that’s the lens she brings to every business — big or small — asking the same quiet question: how do I get someone to notice, believe, and choose me?