Lata Setty

Founding Investor, How Women Invest Funds I, II & III

Lata Setty is a global innovator, venture investor, and serial entrepreneur driven to empower women founders. Her career spans scientist, patent trial attorney, and founder of companies that digitally transformed legacy industries, leading her to now invest in female-founded ventures at the intersection of science, technology, law, and business. As a founding LP of How Women Invest, Lata is focused on closing the venture capital gender gap by mobilizing women investors, funding underrepresented founders, and proving that inclusive investing drives stronger innovation and returns.

Tara Talone

Co-Head of Bond Indexing Americas, Vanguard

Tara Talone is Co-Head of Bond Indexing Americas within Vanguard’s Fixed Income Group. She is responsible for leading a team that manages single and multi-currency portfolios that include foreign exchange, credit and interest rate risk. She also works with Vanguard's Capital Markets team to facilitate ETF transactions for both US and Canadian ETFs. Prior to joining the Global Bond Index team she was a trader on the Municipal Money Market team and helped to establish Vanguard’s Investment Management Group presence in Scottsdale, Arizona. Tara joined Vanguard in 2006 in Fund Financial Services. She is an active member of Vanguard’s Women's Initiative for Leadership Success, Co-Lead for the Investment Management Junior Talent Fund, and the sponsor for Vanguard’s partnership with Girls Who Invest. She is an Honor's graduate of Saint Joseph's University where she majored in Finance, a CFA® charter holder and has her MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Melody Liu

Head of Personal Investor Marketing Strategy & Operations, Vanguard

Melody Liu is a senior marketing executive for Personal Wealth Marketing, where she leads the customer strategy and growth engine behind Vanguard’s Personal Wealth business. Her work focuses on building modern, client led marketing systems that connect brand, personalization, and data to real business outcomes at scale. Prior to Vanguard, Melody was a Managing Director at Ogilvy, where she led global marketing strategy for Fortune 500 companies and helped reposition complex brands through customer led growth and go to market transformation. Earlier in her career, she ran the $3 billion Craftsman brand at Sears, leading product innovation, channel expansion, and brand strategy. Melody holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS from the R.H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.

James Martielli (Moderator)

Head of Investment Product, Personal Investor, Vanguard

James Martielli, CFA, CAIA, heads Investment Product, Personal Investor, which is responsible for designing and enhancing Vanguard’s brokerage and investment product offer, amplifying distribution efforts, and shaping the investment methodology. Previously, he led Investment & Trading Services (ITS) for Vanguard's brokerage platform and Investment Solutions for Vanguard's Workplace Solutions division. From 2014-2017, he led Product, Asia, based in Hong Kong, and served as a senior investment director on the oversight and manager search team from 2009-2014. Before joining Vanguard, James spent over 14 years with SEI Investments, where he constructed and managed subadvisor portfolios, including a three-year expatriate assignment based in London. He earned a B.S. in industrial management and economics from Carnegie Mellon University. He is an active member with Lifting and Empowering Asian Professionals (LEAP) and Allyship lead for Women’s Initiative for Leadership Success (WILS) Vanguard crew resource groups.

Jing Wang

Principal, Center for Analytics & Insight, Vanguard

Jayesh Gopalji

Principal, Global Head Investment Shared Services, Vanguard

Reet Padda

President, Ascend Greater Philadelphia

Reet Padda is the President of Ascend Greater Philadelphia and a visionary data technology leader with over 20 years of experience across finance, banking, retail, and CPG, known for building high performing data engineering teams and delivering innovative, business driven data solutions. Since joining TD more than a decade ago, she has progressed through senior leadership roles in the risk and regulatory space, earning a reputation for delivering cutting edge on prem and cloud platforms that enable strategic decision making and growth. As Vice President of US Data Platforms, Reet oversees AMCB data technology strategy, delivery, and governance, ensuring regulatory compliance, eliminating platform redundancies, and enabling scalable cloud based data products that

Ascend Greater PHL - 2026 AAPI Month Event Speakers