Minerva Tantoco is an innovator, investor, startup founder board member, and speaker on AI, cybersecurity, and mobile technology. The NYU McSilver Institute appointed Tantoco as its inaugural Chief AI Officer in March 2022, leading The AI Hub at McSilver. Previously, Tantoco served as New York City’s first-ever Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Based on her efforts, New York City was named “2016 Best Smart City” and helped launch initiatives such as LinkNYC, CSforAll, and Internet of Things Guidelines, as well as promoting an inclusive, equitable tech ecosystem. After leaving City Hall, Ms. Tantoco co-founded Grasshopper Bank, built a digital commercial bank from scratch and launched the first nationally chartered digital challenger bank in the area in over a decade. Ms. Tantoco also served as Senior Product Manager at Palm, Chief Technology Officer at Merrill Lynch and UBS, and holds four US patents on intelligent workflow.
Tantoco provides fintech and smart city consulting, and serves on the Board of the New York Hall of Science, the Board of Directors, Vyv, as an Advisor to One Creation Embedded Privacy, Socure, and is on Technology Council for the Alliance for Innovative Regulation.
Ms. Tantoco is passionate about Tech for Good and Inclusive Innovation, and has appeared on CNN, Bloomberg, and Channel Thirteen. She has spoken at HackMIT, Harvard Law School, Women in Data Science, Executive Forum Technology SIG, Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR) Tech Sprint, and is a frequent speaker on technology topics in artificial intelligence regulation, IoT, and transforming financial technology. Most recently, Ms. Tantoco moderated an industry panel for the Congressional AI Caucus examining fairness in financial services algorithms.