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American Banker announces the 2024 honorees for The Most Powerful Women in Banking: Next

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This annual list highlights 15 women age 40 and younger who are rising stars at their organizations and demonstrate tremendous potential to ascend to the C-suite

NEW YORK, July 29, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — American Banker, Arizent’s essential resource for senior executives in financial services, publishes its annual list of honorees for The Most Powerful Women in Banking: Next initiative. The honorees, all women 40 years old and younger, are nominated by an executive at their institution who believes that she has the potential to ascend to the C-suite.

“Fearless, trailblazing women with diverse skill sets are shaping the future of financial services. These honorees embody the perfect balance of wit and grit it takes, not to just succeed, but to surpass expectations in leadership roles at the highest levels.”

This year’s list features women leaders who work across all lines of business including five managing directors on the list, as well as a chief risk officer, a director of retail banking, and heads of global markets corporate banking, global short rates sales and liquidity and interest rate risk.

“Fearless, trailblazing women with diverse skill sets are shaping the future of financial services,” Mary Ellen Egan, Senior Editor of Women’s Programs, says. “These honorees embody the perfect balance of wit and grit it takes, not to just succeed, but to surpass expectations in leadership roles at the highest levels.”

The honorees are:

Shayna Arrington, Chief Risk Officer, ServbankAmy Bartlett Managing Director, Head of Global Markets Corporate Banking, BMO Capital MarketsJillian Chuck, Senior VP, Director Commercial Deposits, Revenue & Liquidity Solutions, ComericaMegan Comfort, Executive VP, Small Business Manager, Nevada State Bank, a division of Zions Bancorporation.Denise Davis, Managing Director, Senior Vice President, PNC BankAmanda Deckelman, Managing Director, Head of Global Short Rates Sales, Bank of AmericaLayna Dupuis, Senior Vice President, Head of Retail Banking, First United BankNatalie Flanders, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations Officer, First HorizonJo Jagadish, Executive Vice President, Head of U.S. Digital Banking and Commercial Bank Products, Services & Innovation, TD BankMajdouline Melhaoui, Head of Liquidity and Interest Rate Risk, Americas, BNP ParibasMallory Niemczyk, Invest and Deposits Business Operations and Analytics, Senior Director, Ally BankJessica Payne, Managing Director, The Raine GroupWillette Shalishali, Senior Director, Talent Management and Development    SynovusNatalie Wech, Senior Vice President, Business Banking Regional Manager, M&T BankKerry White, Managing Director, Citi Investment Management, Citigroup

The Most Powerful Women in Banking: Next is a part of American Banker’s continued coverage of the progress in diversity, equity and inclusion throughout financial institutions, and expands on the publication’s mission to support, empower, celebrate and advance women in the banking industry.

American Banker will recognize this year’s honorees in person in New York City at the NEXT Awards dinner on October 23. That celebration is part of a trio of events, which also includes THE MOST POWERFUL WOMEN IN BANKING conference October 22-23 and the invitation-only gala on October 24. Registration for the conference is open to everyone in the sector.

Read more about the honorees here: https://www.americanbanker.com/list/the-most-powerful-women-in-banking-next-2024

About American Banker

American Banker empowers banking professionals with unique analysis and insight into the ideas transforming their business and industry. Across its journalism, events, research and benchmarking, it helps drive the way forward through the complexity of business innovation, retail and commercial disruption, technology, regulation, and reform. With a banking community of 850K strong, American Banker’s transformative content connects leaders online, in person and in print every day.

About Arizent

Arizent is a business information company that advances professional communities by providing insights and analysis and convening industry leaders. The company uses deep industry expertise and a data-driven platform to deliver its services, which include subscriptions, marketing services, live events and access to Leaders, an executive forum. Arizent also connects business communities through leading financial services brands like American Banker, The Bond Buyer, Financial Planning and National Mortgage News, as well as professional services brands like Accounting Today, Employee Benefit News and Digital Insurance.

Media Contact

Mary Ellen Egan, Arizent, 212-803-8500, maryellen.egan@arizent.com, www.arizent.com

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Primero Games Acquires Win Systems Gaming Division, Expanding International Reach

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Acquisition adds slot and electronic-roulette products, manufacturing capabilities and an installed base of more than 3,000 gaming positions across Latin America and the Caribbean.

NORCROSS, Ga., Sept. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Primero Games LLC (“Primero”), a provider of gaming content, technology and products, today announced the acquisition of the Gaming Division of Win Systems (“WSG”), including its Gold Club electronic-roulette business.

The acquisition expands Primero’s international presence and product portfolio, adding established slot and electronic-roulette products, manufacturing capabilities and gaming operations across Latin America and the Caribbean. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The acquired operations have an installed base of more than 3,000 gaming positions in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Panama. Primero will support existing customers and products while introducing additional Primero game content, platform technology and development resources.

“This is an important step forward in executing Primero’s growth strategy to build a diversified, global gaming company,” said Mike Macke, Chairman of Primero Games. “Primero has built its reputation by creating compelling game content and developing innovative technology that helps operators deliver consistent revenue via engaging player experiences.”

“We are excited to welcome Eric Benchimol, Dario Zutel, and the talented WSG team to Primero,” Macke continued. “By combining Primero’s content and development expertise with WSG’s products, operations and customer relationships, we can deliver more products, more content and greater value to customers across a wider range of gaming markets.”

“This combination makes both businesses stronger,” said Eric Benchimol, CEO of Win Systems. “Pairing our installed base, manufacturing operations and market knowledge with Primero’s game library and development engine means we can bring more, and better, products to our customers faster than either company could alone. The team is energized, and we’re looking forward to getting to work as part of Primero.”

“This transaction marks an exciting new chapter for our Gaming Division,” said Dario Zutel, Executive Chairman of Win Systems. “We are confident that Primero Games is the right partner to build on what we have achieved and drive the business into its next stage of international growth.”

Building International Scale

Primero has an established presence in U.S. gaming markets, with a portfolio that includes game content, online gaming solutions, redemption kiosks, and a mature omnichannel gaming platform.  The WSG acquisition adds established products, manufacturing capabilities and long-standing customer relationships in international markets.

The WSG teams and infrastructure will continue to support customers in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Panama and many other countries around the world. Primero and WSG are committed to providing continuity for every customer as Primero invests in the business and introduces additional products, content and technology.

About Primero Games

Primero Games is a leading provider of innovative games, platforms and products designed to deliver engaging player experiences and value to gaming operators across land-based and digital environments. Founded by gaming-industry veteran Mike Macke, Primero has made significant investment in its Hurricane gaming platform to support international expansion. The Hurricane platform is designed to support offline, online, single, and multi-game applications across emerging and regulated gaming markets. Primero’s Spark server-based gaming solution extends the Hurricane platform by offering value-added features such as business intelligence, linked and wide-area progressive jackpots, game content subscription features, and player marketing/retention.

Headquartered in the United States, the company designs, manufactures and markets a portfolio of more than 100 original titles for land-based and multi-game platforms, as well as online games for markets worldwide. With studios in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada, Primero combines international creative talent with deep technical expertise to produce high-performing, scalable gaming solutions. For more information, visit www.primerogames.com.

About Win Systems

Win Systems is a global technology company with extensive experience providing innovative solutions to the gaming industry. Through its international operations and long-standing customer relationships, the company specializes in casino management systems and has a strong track record of delivering technology and solutions to operators across multiple markets worldwide. Following the transaction, Win Systems will continue to focus on its remaining businesses and strategic opportunities, building on its technology expertise, international experience, and commitment to delivering value to its customers and partners.

Contacts:

Primero Games
Gina Lanphear, Director of Marketing
422019@email4pr.com 

WinSystems Gaming
Virginia Pin, Marketing Manager
422019@email4pr.com 

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AEON Launches Agentic Checkout, Powered by AI Card for Autonomous Commerce

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HONG KONG, Sept. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — AEON, the settlement layer built for the AI economy, has launched Agentic Checkout, enabling AI agents to autonomously shop, check out, and pay across e-commerce platforms such as Shopify and Amazon. Powered by the AEON AI Card, Agentic Checkout gives agents controlled spending capabilities to turn user intent into completed purchases.

Natively integrated with Model Context Protocol (MCP) and the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), Agentic Checkout allows users to interact with an AI agent through a conversational interface, describe what they are looking for, and let the agent search for suitable products and build a shopping cart based on their requirements.

Once a product is selected, the user can authorize the purchase with an AEON AI Card settled over the Visa/Mastercard networks, allowing the agent to complete the transaction without exposing the user’s primary payment credentials or treasury wallet. The agent can move from product discovery to cart creation and payment, turning a natural-language request into a completed purchase.

AI Card: Giving AI Agents Controlled Spending Power

At the core of this experience is the AEON AI Card, designed to give AI agents financial autonomy while keeping spending under defined controls. 

The infrastructure supports single-use agent cards and predefined budget limits, allowing spending authority to be scoped to individual tasks or transactions. Backed by crypto-based authorization and connected to existing Visa payment infrastructure, the AI Card creates a bridge between on-chain assets and everyday commerce.

This allows agents to spend on behalf of users without requiring direct access to their primary wallets or traditional credit cards, bringing agentic commerce closer to a model where AI can not only assist users with decisions, but also securely execute those decisions in the real economy. 

Agentic Checkout to Bigger Commerce Ecosystem

Agentic Checkout is designed to give AI agents access to an open commerce ecosystem, rather than a limited list of curated merchants. Through Shopify, agents can search across 3M+ active storefronts in 175+ countries and more than a billion products, spanning categories including apparel, home, beauty, electronics, and books.

Shopify is one of the first environments where AEON’s Agentic Checkout capability is being demonstrated, but the underlying infrastructure is designed to extend across e-commerce ecosystems and support both physical and digital goods. Amazon and Travala are next, bringing mass-market retail and travel inventory into the same agent interface.

The infrastructure is also designed with the safeguards required for production use. Full card numbers and security codes never enter conversation logs or model context, while uncertain payment states are verified before any retry to prevent silent double charges.

As more commerce platforms become accessible to AI agents, the ability to securely authorize and settle these transactions will become increasingly important. AEON Agentic Checkout and AI Card provides the financial execution layer that allows agents to act within defined spending boundaries. And AEON is building the settlement infrastructure to enable these agents to transact, pay, and settle securely across the digital and physical economies.

Building the Settlement Layer for the AI Economy

The Agentic Checkout and AI Card represent two connected components of AEON’s agentic payment infrastructure: Agentic Checkout gives agents the ability to execute commerce, while AI Card gives them controlled financial authority to pay for it. Together, they connect agent intent, payment authorization, checkout execution, and settlement into a unified flow.

AI agents are increasingly capable of searching, reasoning, coordinating tasks, and making decisions on behalf of users. The next step is enabling those decisions to result in secure, verifiable economic transactions. AEON is building toward this infrastructure by combining agent identity, payment authorization, checkout execution, and settlement into a unified framework for the AI economy, enabling AI agents to transact across digital and physical economies, autonomously, securely, and within clearly defined financial boundaries.

About AEON

AEON is the native settlement layer built for the AI economy. By equipping agents with a comprehensive suite of programmable payment primitives, spanning across Agent Account, AI Card, AI Gateway, and more, AEON empowers autonomous AI to seamlessly navigate global value networks. Designed to eliminate the fee overhead, programmability gaps, and settlement lag of legacy infrastructure, AEON provides the universal financial rails needed for agents to enter the global economy across any currency, chain, or protocol.

Natively integrating with leading standards like x402, ERC-8004, MCP, and Google A2A, AEON enables verifiable AI payments at scale and connects agentic capabilities directly to a network of 50M+ global merchants. Having processed over $514M in cumulative volume for 2.3M+ users, AEON is backed by top investors including YZi Labs, IDG Capital, HashKey Capital, and the Stanford Blockchain Builders Fund. The $AEON token is live on major global exchanges including OKX, Bitget, Binance Alpha and Bithumb.

Website | X | Telegram | Medium | AEON Pay

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WOODLAND DIRECT OPENS NEW DISTRIBUTION CENTER IN RENO, NV

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AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Sept. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Woodland Direct, the nation’s premier e-commerce site for fire products, is opening a new 47,000-square-foot distribution center in Reno, NV. This is the company’s second distribution center, joining its world headquarters and distribution center in Auburn Hills, MI.

The new facility, officially opening in September, will improve the customer experience by shortening shipping times for West Coast customers.

“Woodland Direct has grown and evolved substantially over the past several years,” said President and Founder Andrew Ingram. “We already ship all around the country. By opening the Reno distribution center, we’re able to serve our West Coast customers more quickly and efficiently.”

The leadership team began exploring the idea of opening a second distribution center in the final quarter of 2025. Woodland worked with logistics consultants to determine whether an expansion west of the Rocky Mountains made sense, and Reno’s strategic location made it a natural choice for the expansion.

“We are excited to be a part of the Reno community, and we look forward to making our customers’ experience even more enjoyable,” said Gunnar Bennethum, senior manager of supply chain operations and business planning.

In addition to using local Reno companies Engineered Solutions, Teledata Technologies, and WTR Electrical to build and prep the warehouse, Bennethum and Warehouse Assistant Wesley Davey will be making the move from Auburn Hills to Reno to oversee operations.

The Reno distribution center will be using industry-standard software NetSuite to increase efficiency.

“This will be a new milestone for Woodland,” Bennethum added, “that will improve our inventory accuracy and allow our sales team to have better visibility of product availability.”

For more information on Woodland Direct, visit our website www.woodlanddirect.com/ or contact Drew Maresco at drew.maresco@woodlanddirect.com or (877) 771-2925.

ABOUT WOODLAND DIRECT

Woodland Direct is a premier online retailer specializing in fireplaces, patio heaters, fire pits, and outdoor living products. Founded in 2004, Woodland Direct offers a curated selection of top fire brands to homeowners, contractors, and businesses. Woodland Direct has the most NFI-certified sales professionals and Master Hearth Professionals under one roof. For more information, visit woodlanddirect.com.

Media Contact:

Drew Maresco

Drew.maresco@woodlanddirect.com

(877) 771-2925

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