Ajay Ramasubramaniam

Zone Startups India

At Zone Startups India, Ajay oversees the flagship accelerator operations as well as leads new initiatives, including corporate innovation programs and thematic accelerators under the Zone Startups brand. Currently, Ajay also oversees the FinTech accelerators of Axis Bank and Barclays Rise, as well as the Thomson Reuters EIKON Fintech Innovation Challenge being managed by Zone Startups.

Prior to Zone Startups India, Ajay was the Director, India Operations for SkillsDox Inc., a Canadian ed-tech company; where he helped the company set up in India and establish its initial partnerships, as well as raise INR 150 Cr.

In an earlier role, Ajay worked for the Government of Ontario, Canada for 5-years, where he was responsible for bilateral trade and investment relations between Ontario and India.

Ajay began his career working in Tanzania (East Africa) for 4 years, where he was involved in World Bank and African Development Bank projects..

Ajay is an MBA in Marketing & Finance and a B.Com in Financial Management from Mumbai University has 12+ years of cross-functional work experience with startups, international business and Governments, across North America, East Africa & South Asia

Alastair Lukies CBE

Pollinate

Alastair Lukies CBE is a UK businessman and entrepreneur best known as a pioneer and champion for the UK’s globally renowned FinTech industry. Alastair has been at the forefront of the UK’s Financial Technology industry, working with financial institutions, investors and regulators to promote collaboration and mutual benefit across the ecosystem. Alastair is Founder & CEO of Pollinate International. Pollinate was created in 2017 to turn the tide for the world's largest and most complex financial services institutions. Working with banks and their legacy platforms, Pollinate helps launch new services that reinvent the payments and financial services sector. Alastair is Chair of the Fintech Alliance, a government backed multifaceted digital engagement platform launched in 2019 which aims to bring the global FinTech ecosystem together in one easily accessible digital marketplace.

In January 2014, Alastair was appointed as a Business Ambassador to the Prime Minister for the financial services industry by the UK Government, and remained so until 2019 when he moved across to join the Prime Minister’s Business Council. In September 2015, Alastair was part of the founding team of Motive Partners, an investment firm based in London and New York focused on investing in and building the next generation of financial technology. Alastair remains the Vice-Chairman of the Global Advisory Council at Motive Partners, alongside John Thompson (Chairman, Microsoft) and Larry Summers (Former Secretary of the US Treasury).

Amy Neale

Mastercard Labs

Amy Neale is Vice President at Mastercard Labs where she is responsible for the award-winning ‘Start Path’ startup engagement program. She leads a global team to identify, mentor and partner with leading later stage startups, connecting them with Mastercard and our customers to create breakthrough solutions.

Amy joined Mastercard in 2015, bringing 15 years’ experience in technology commercialization. Prior to joining Mastercard, she was part of the founding team and Director of Communications at the National Digital Research Centre in Ireland, a centre of excellence for University spin out companies and research with industry.

Amy also worked with Universities in the UK to develop commercial engagements and technology transfer, including her role as Head of Business Development at Queen Mary University of London. Here she led a team to identify commercially viable research from across the University and develop engagement programs with businesses of all sizes.

Amy was recently recognized in the Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Top 100. Amy has a PhD in computational linguistics from Cardiff University, has been a visiting lecturer at Maynooth University, Ireland and is a published academic.

Andrei Brasoveanu

Accel

Andrei Brasoveanu focuses on fintech, software and data businesses. He helped lead Accel’s investments and ongoing work in Carto, UiPath, Celonis, Instana, Semmle and JobToday.

Prior to Accel, Andrei worked with Foundation Capital and KCG, the largest equities high frequency trading firm in the US. Previously, he helped build an algorithmic trading startup on Wall Street focused on commodity futures.

Andrei grew up in Romania and graduated from Princeton and Harvard Business School.

Accel is a leading venture capital firm that invests in people and their companies from the earliest days through all phases of private company growth. Atlassian, Algolia, Avito, Cloudera, Crowdstrike, Deliveroo, DJI, Dropbox, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, Funding Circle, Kayak, Kry, QlikTech, Rovio, Slack, Spotify, Supercell and WorldRemit are among the companies the firm has backed over the past 30 years. The firm seeks to understand entrepreneurs as individuals, appreciate their originality and play to their strengths. Because greatness doesn't have a stereotype.

Ben Davey

Barclays UK Ventures

Ben Davey is CEO of Barclays UK Ventures, a recently formed business unit within Barclays UK which has a mandate to drive growth by identifying, incubating and growing transformational and innovative new business lines. Ben joined Barclays in 2010 as Co-Head of the Financial Institutions Group EMEA in the Investment Bank, becoming sole head in 2014. He became Chief Strategy Officer for the Investment Bank in 2015, responsible for the development and execution globally of the Investment Bank’s strategy, as well as becoming a member of the Investment Bank Executive Committee. He was appointed Group Head of Strategy in 2016 with responsibility for the development of Barclays’ commercial and cost strategy and sat on the Group COO Executive and Group Finance Management Committees. Prior to joining Barclays, Ben was Co-Head of UK FIG at Rothschild. Prior to joining Rothschild, Ben practised as a Chancery Barrister for six years specialising in banking, trust, company and insolvency law.

Ben Luckett

Aviva Ventures

Ben Luckett is the Managing Director of Aviva Ventures – Aviva’s Corporate Venture Capital Fund. His role is to invest in early stage, high growth potential companies for strategic returns. Ben set up the £100m fund in 2015 as part of Aviva’s Innovation Strategy.

Prior to this Ben was the Strategy Director for the UK General Insurance Business and has also held roles in Enterprise Risk and Finance.

Prior to joining Aviva Ben was Senior Marketing Manager at Centrica where he was responsible for the online channel for British Gas.

Ben started his career at Accenture where he was a change management consultant specialising in Customer Experience Design for Banking and Insurance clients.

Benoît Legrand

ING

Benoît Legrand began his career as an investment banker at Bank Bruxelles Lambert in 1994, before it became ING Belgium. He rejoined the Group a few years later, after founding his own start-up company in retail distribution.

Benoît has an extensive international experience within the ING Group having worked in Investment Banking, Retail and Private Banking covering diverse areas such as Marketing, Sales, Branch Distribution and Product Management in Belgium, Singapore, Poland, the Netherlands and France.

In 2007 he was appointed to the Executive Board of ING Nederland where he lead the total make-over of Private Banking and Securities and took an active part in the merger of Postbank and ING Bank.

He was appointed CEO of ING Direct France in 2010 and Country CEO ING France in 2013, after merging all retail, commercial banking and real estate activities in France into one single integrated entity.

In October 2015, Benoît has been appointed President of ING Bank France and Head of FinTech of the ING Group, playing a leading role in the digital transformation of the Group.

Benoît graduated in Economics from Catholic University of Leuven and in International Relations from the London School of Economics.

Chris Skinner

The Financial Services Club

Chris Skinner is an independent commentator on the financial markets and, as Balatro, Chris assists clients as an advisor, as well as sometimes being commissioned to write or speak on their behalf at conferences and tradeshows.

As well as being Chief Executive of Balatro, Chris chairs the European networking group the Financial Services Club. The Financial Services Club is a prestigious meeting place, and allows networking between members and regulators, practitioners and futurists. Our guest speakers include Charlie McCreevy, John McFall, Angela Knight and other luminaries shaping the future of banking and insurance.

Chris is well-known for his regular columns and for his daily blog, which can be found at The FinanSer.

He has also written several books on banking, covering retail and investment banking, payments and the supply chain, and general technology trends. Current titles include Digital Bank and the new best-seller DIGITAL HUMAN

Chris is a Judge with the TradeTech Awards and with the Asian Banker's Excellence in Retail Financial Services program, and a contributor to the World Economic Forum.

He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Management Services, an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute and a Chartered Insurance Practitioner.

Chris Wheatcroft

Angels Den

Chris is FinTech Club Manager for Angels Den, matching software entrepreneurs with value add investors. He is experienced on both sides of the funding equation having raised investment for his own business and helped many others raise funding over the past four years.

Part of the investment committee for an SEIS Fund and mentor at several accelerators, Chris is well-connected within the London tech scene, with a strong network of angel and institutional investors.

For the past three years, Chris has been a member of Investment Committee for Ascension Ventures.

Claudia Bate

Claudia specialises in helping ambitious companies build their brands, having advised global banks including HSBC and Citi and fast-growth FinTech startups such as Currency Cloud, Future Finance, MoneyFarm, Ripple and WorldRemit.

Connie Chan

Temasek

Connie Chan is a Managing Director at Temasek based in Singapore and is responsible for investments and portfolio management in the Financial Services space, covering both FinTech and traditional financial sectors. Temasek’s investments in FinTech include Adyen, Billdesk, C2F0, Funding Circle, PolicyBazaar, and SoFi.

Prior to joining Temasek, Connie worked at JPMorgan in Hong Kong advising financial institution clients across subsectors including banks, insurance, brokerage, and asset management. Before relocating to Hong Kong, she was based in New York covering banks and specialty finance companies in the US on a range of corporate finance activities including mergers and acquisitions, ratings advisory, and debt and equity capital raisings.

Craig Fox

Silicon Valley Bank

Craig Fox is a Vice President at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) where he specialises in providing banking solutions and debt finance to growth stage Fintech companies in the UK and Europe.

For more than 35 years, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has helped innovative companies and their investors move bold ideas forward, fast. SVB provides targeted financial services and expertise through its offices in innovation centers around the world. With commercial, international and private banking services, SVB helps address the unique needs of innovators.

Craig Ramsay

HSBC

Craig joined HSBC in 2014 and is Global Innovation Lead for Global Liquidity and Cash Management. In this capacity, his role is focused on identifying new opportunities for HSBC to leverage technology from the Fintech community and deliver value to HSBC’s corporate clients. His past experience of delivering innovation within Financial Services gives him a great perspective on the challenges that Fintechs face in working with global international banks.

Craig has over 12 years of experience of leading innovation and change within financial services. Prior to joining HSBC Craig was responsible for technology delivery at Citi. Prior to Citi, Craig was part of the Innovation team at Barclay’s where he launched the first integrated contactless credit numerous first-to-market innovations in consumer and merchant payments.

Craig attended the University of Hertfordshire where he obtained a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering. He is a regular guest lecturer on the topic of Innovation and Change at the London Business School.

Daniel Izzo

Vox Capital

Daniel is a partner, co-founder and CEO at Vox Capital, Brazil’s pioneering and leading impact investing fund manager, listed for 5 consecutive years as one of the most relevant players on the impact investing space Worldwide by the Impact Assets 50 and subject of a Harvard Business School business case: “Vox Capital: Pioneering Impact Investing in Brazil”.

Daniel is a member of the Global Executive Committee at ANDE (Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneur), member of the Board at the Brazilian Social Finance Task Force, leader of the Impact Investing Working Group at ABVCAP (Brazilian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association), and a professor at the Impact Investing Executive Program at the Said Business School in Oxford.

Danny Gilligan

Reinventure Group

As both a serial entrepreneur and experienced venture capitalist, Danny Gilligan is at the forefront of driving disruptive innovation in Australia’s financial services sector. Through Reinventure Group, co-founded with Simon Cant in 2013, he is pioneering a new model of corporate venture capital. With $100m of capital over two $50m funds, Reinventure is focused on backing proven entrepreneurs leading disruptive technology ventures within FinTech and adjacent areas, whose growth can be accelerated through a strategic relationship with Westpac, the fund's lead investor. 10 investments have been made in Reinventure’s Fund 1, and three from Fund 2 so far, across verticals such as data, payments, artificial intelligence, real estate, crime prevention and human resources.

Gilligan is also co-founder of Data Republic, a trust platform for secure data exchange between companies that is seeking to lead the transition to a data driven economy, and a founding director of Stone & Chalk, an independent not-for-profit Fintech hub whose overarching objective is to help foster and accelerate the development of world-leading Fintech start-ups in Australia.

David Birch

Consult Hyperion

David G.W. Birch is an internationally-recognised thought leader in digital money and digital identity. One of the 2014 “Power 50” in European digital financial services and a NextBank Fintech “titan”, in 2013 he was named one of WIRED magazine’s global top 15 favourite sources of news from the world of business and finance and was ranked the no.1 influencer in European emerging payments by Total Payments magazine. Dave is a Director of Consult Hyperion, the technical and strategic consultancy that specialises in electronic transactions. Here he provides consultancy support to clients around the world, including all of the leading payment brands, major telecommunications providers, governments bodies and international organisations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Before helping to found Consult Hyperion in 1986, he spent several years working as a consultant in Europe, the Far East and North America.

Described at the Oxford Internet Institute as “one of Britain’s most acute observers of the internet and social networks”, in The Telegraph as “one of the world’s leading experts on digital money”, in The Independent as a "grade-A geek" and by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation as "one of the most user-friendly of the UK's uber-techies", Dave is well-known for his thought leadership blogging, podcasts and events for Consult Hyperion’s Tomorrow’s Transactions series.

He has lectured to MBA level on the impact of new information and communications technologies and contributed to publications ranging from the Parliamentary IT Review to Prospect. He wrote a Guardian column for many years. He is a media commentator on electronic business issues and has appeared on BBC television and radio, Sky and other channels around the world. Retail Systems magazine said that his recent book “Identity is the New Money” is bold, forward thinking [and] grapples with weighty issues in a concise and accessible way.

He graduated from the University of Southampton with a B.Sc (Hons.) in Physics.

David Thevenon

Softbank

Don Ginsel

Holland FinTech

Dr. Rainer Deutschmann

Dialog Axiata PLC

As Dialog's Group Chief Operating Officer, Rainer leads the Group's Businesses as well as Corporate Planning, M&A, and Corporate Strategy. Dialog is Sri Lanka’s largest and fastest growing fixed, mobile, pay TV and digital services provider and an innovation engine in Axiata, a leading telecommunications group in Asia. Rainer has over 20 years of in-depth experience in Telecommunications, Digital and IT Services, Media and Entertainment, e-Commerce, Digital Marketing and Corporate Strategy in mature and emerging markets, across start-ups and multi-nationals.

Prior to joining Dialog, Rainer served as the Chief Product and Innovation Officer at Reliance Jio in India and was directly responsible for setting up Jio's business units and for leading the commercial launch program to acquire the initial 100 million customers in 170 days. Preceding Reliance Jio, he was the Senior Vice President Core Telco Products at Deutsche Telekom AG, Germany, building and leading Deutsche Telekom's core product portfolio across 14 European markets, serving 90 million customers and 30 million households. He also served as Chairman of the Board of Directors, Deutsche Telekom UK Ltd, as Senior Vice President Mobile Products, Deutsche Telekom AG, as Senior Vice President Mobile Internet, T-Mobile International AG, and as Vice President Strategy Development, Deutsche Telekom AG. During his 5 years at McKinsey & Company, he served high-tech and telco clients across Europe.

Rainer is an advisor and investor in digital telco, fintech, adtech and analytics companies, and serves as Non-Executive Director at rain, South Africa’s first digital mobile network operator. He holds a doctoral degree (Dr. rer. nat.) in Physics from the University of Technology Munich, and worked as a computation and neuroscience researcher at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) / USA.

Elsa Said Armanet

Stripe

Elsa Said-Armanet leads Business Development and Partnerships for Stripe in Europe.

Working with Stripe’s leadership team in Europe, Elsa steers the strategy and execution for distribution, technology and ecosystem partnerships for the company in the region.

Earlier, Elsa helped Twitter grow in Western Europe through strategic partnerships leveraging Twitter’s APIs (including the development of chatbots and TV content integrations). Before that, she helped bring Chromecast to market in Europe as part of Google’s product partnerships team. She started her post-MBA career at Samsung in the Global Strategy Group in Seoul, Korea. Elsa holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an MSc. in Engineering and Computer Science from Telecom Physique Strasbourg.

Eoin Fitzgerald

Enterprise Ireland

Eoin Fitzgerald is a Senior Development Adviser – Fintech for Enterprise Ireland. Enterprise Ireland is the Irish Government agency responsible for helping Irish companies scale and internationalize and invests in 200+ companies per year. Eoin works with a portfolio of Fintech clients across areas such as Blockchain, KYC, Payments, P2P Lending, Trade Finance, etc. Eoin previously worked as Fintech Lead and Product Manager in Deutsche Bank. Prior to that, he worked as Head of Underwriting for Future Finance, a large Irish Fintech start-up which raised over €100m for its online lending platform.

Eoin is also co-host of the popular podcast ‘MoneyNeverSleeps’ which aims to go inside the mind of entrepreneurs and figure out what makes them do what they do. Available on iTunes and Spotify.

Frederik Pfister

Mambu, Berlin

Gerben Visser

The Singapore FinTech Consortium

Gerben is a Co-Founder & Managing Partner at The Singapore FinTech Consortium.

He is also a Managing Partner at IncubAsia and an advisor to a number of early stage technology companies.

He has gained over 12 years of international experience in private equity, mergers & acquisitions and corporate finance at RBS, Bank of America and Citigroup in Amsterdam, New York and London.

He received a Masters degree in Business (Finance & Economics) from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and dual Masters degree in Business (Finance & Economics) from SKEMA, a Grande Ecole Superieure de Commerce in France.

Gerben is a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment and has been a registered Securities & Regulations, Corporate Finance Advisor with the Financial Services Authority in the UK

Gregory Vincent

INTL FCStone

Gregory started working in the cross-border payments space in early 2001 before his team was acquired by INTL FCStone in 2004. Previously, Gregory had been working for a global banking institution. Initially working on and then running the Trading desk, Gregory is now responsible for the FX Payments business in the EMEA region and is primarily responsible for the team’s relationships with many of the world's leading banks, who rely on INTL FCStone for FX payments in up to 140 currencies. This exposure has given Gregory a rare perspective on the requirements of both the banking sector and many of the world's largest tech companies, with regards to their cross-border payments needs.

Harrie Vollaard

Rabo Frontier Ventures

Harrie Vollaard is managing partner of Rabo Frontier Ventures; a 150M EURO fund focusing on FinTech and AgTech. Harrie has a tremendous background in innovation at Rabobank as he spurred innovation in his role as Head of Innovation.

He co-founded WeHelpen which is a marketplace for informal care and Fundipal; a crowdfunding comparison site. In his current role as managing partner of Rabo Frontier Ventures Harrie established several partnerships with startups, manages the Fintech (e.g. we.trade, Facturis) and Agtech investments (e.g. JoinData, ProducePay) for the Rabobank, is involved in Fintech accelerator programs around the globe and created several spinoffs (e.g. Peaks, Tellow).

Hisanori Ogawa

Mizuho Securities/VP Finovators

Prior to joining Mizuho Securities in 2016, Mr. Ogawa worked at Nomura Research Advisory engaged in research and support activities for IT start-ups in charge of unlisted companies. He has written over 560 corporate reports and has been involved in dozens of IPOs. He is Vice-President of Finovators at FinoLab Tokyo, which was founded to stimulate innovation in Financial Technology in one of the world's most prominent international financial centers.

Irene Arias

IDB Group

Irene Arias is the CEO / Manager of the Multilateral Investment Fund - MIF- , a member of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). MIF invests in early stage ventures, helps to develop innovation ecosystems and supports projects to test pioneering approaches that create economic opportunities for poor and vulnerable populations in the Latin America and Caribbean Region.

Until December 2017, she was Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Finance Corporation (IFC). IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector (www.ifc.org). Irene had P&L responsibility for the region and was IFC’s main counterpart and peer to CEOs/key Ministers in the region. She managed a US$5.5 billion annual investment program and a US$16 billion portfolio, the largest in IFC, with 300 staff over 13 offices covering over 450 clients, and with a strong focus on innovation, risk capital and fintech.

In her previous role as Global Director for Financial Institutions, Arias led IFC’s financial institutions’ strategy globally, overseeing an investment program of over US$6 billion per year across emerging markets and a US$15 billion portfolio, including US$4 billion in private equity. She led IFC’s FinTech strategy and pioneered innovative local capital markets offerings including local currency solutions for debt and quasi-equity, new asset classes (e.g., green bonds) and taking first time issuers to market. She managed a team of 461 investment professionals across all regions with a focus on active talent management.

Arias joined IFC in 2001 and since then she has been managing high profile investment projects primarily in the financial sector across the world, from Sub-Saharan Africa, to the Middle East and Latin America and the Caribbean. She was part of core IFC group that developed IFC's Asset Management Company (AMC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of IFC which manages over US$9 billion of capital across six investment funds.

Arias, a Spanish national, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Carlos III University in Madrid, an M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC, and an M.A. in Advanced European Studies from the College of Europe. She is a CFA Charterholder.

Jake Kendall

DFS Innovation Lab

Jake is the Director of the Digital Financial Services Innovation Lab (DFS Lab) housed at Caribou Digital. The DFSLab engages in seed stage investing and rapid prototyping of internally-generated ideas to create the breakthrough fintech innovations that will profitably bring households in developing countries from the cash economy into the digital financial realm.

Formerly Jake was Deputy Director of Research and Emerging Technologies within the Financial Services for the Poor Team at the Gates Foundation where his team helped create the global data architecture for tracking financial inclusion, fund the critical research to inform the field, and create high potential emerging technologies to power new financial inclusion models. Prior to joining the foundation, he spent time as an Economist with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) within the World Bank and in two start-ups in the field of cryptography.

Jake is a published researcher and author and holds a PhD in Economics from UC Santa Cruz and a BS in Physics from MIT. After MIT, he spent two years in Zambia as a fisheries extension agent with the US Peace Corps. Jake has also worked as a brand analyst for a major advertising firm and, throughout his youth, a salmon fisherman in Alaska.

Jan Hammer

Index Ventures

Jan joined Index in 2010. His investments include Adyen, BitPay, Credit Benchmark, Just Eat, Novus, Robinhood, Socialbakers, Zendesk and Zuora. Jan is particularly interested in financial services disruption and information services across all stages. Jan works with The Prince's Trust as a business mentor to young startup entrepreneurs. Prior to joining Index, Jan worked at General Atlantic in London, where he was involved with investments with Kaspersky Lab, Northgate Information Solutions and Torex Retail. Before joining General Atlantic, Jan worked at Morgan Stanley in M&A, TMT, and Capital Markets divisions in London and New York. Jan holds an MBA with Distinction from INSEAD, and is a graduate of Oxford University.

Jan regularly contributes to The Startup Surgery on Tech City News.

John Hucker

Swiss FinTech Association

John Hucker, CFA is President of Swiss Finance + Technology Association (Swiss FinTech). He is also Managing Director at Taussig Capital, the global leader in hedge fund reinsurance, as well as CFO/Director of StatSure, a startup captive (re)insurance platform. Previously, he led FinTech Scouting for Credit Suisse Private Banking, and worked in various roles in wealth and asset management with UBS and TD Bank in Canada. John received an MBA from Said Business School at the University of Oxford and is a CFA charter holder.

Jorge Ruiz

Above and Beyond

Jorge founded a&b to lead financial institutions in their digital transformation. The business combines its clients’ business objectives and current trends by connecting them to the right FinTechs and executing a unique strategy. Prior to founding a&b, Jorge worked at Citigroup for 18 years. In his last role, he led Citi’s efforts to become a global leader in the FinTech industry, defining a digital transformation strategy, launching the first global virtual accelerator, hosting 16 programs, creating one of the largest FinTech global ecosystems and implementing more than 30 solutions worldwide. Previous roles include Digital Bank Head for Latin America, where he lead the launch of +40 platforms in less than 2 years. Within Citi he held other regional and country leadership roles in multiple areas like, Risk, Corporate Finance, Business Development and others.

Prior to joining Citi, Jorge founded and led businesses in the Investment, Insurance and Retail industries. He is a founding member of www.ChallengeMeNow.com, a social network dedicated to personal achievement while helping charity organizations raise funds.

Jorge Ruiz holds a degree in Finance from The University of Texas.

Joshua Barraclough

JP Morgan

Joshua is a Vice President in J.P. Morgan’s Corporate & Investment Bank Fintech team in London.

The FinTech team work to identify emerging technologies and ideas to solve for industry-wide problems, with a particular focus on Capital Markets. The team drives the engagement strategy with a global network of startups, venture capitals, accelerators, incubators, government bodies and universities. Through the J.P Morgan In-Residence program, which is the only Capital Markets focused accelerator / incubator, Joshua and his team evaluate and invite startups into J.P. Morgan to leverage proprietary data, knowledge, people, and capital to develop usable and transferable solutions that have value to the financial industry as a whole.

Prior to joining the FinTech team at J.P. Morgan, Joshua spent time developing a PE backed FinTech Company and went on to found his own FinTech venture in London. Previously, Joshua worked as a strategy consultant in Trading and Investments with a number of global buy-side firms.

Joshua is an active mentor in the FinTech industry, supporting independent accelerators based in London.

Kaiser Naseem

IFC, EMENA

A global thought leader, disruptor and innovator with an entrepreneurial flair, Kaiser works as an international development banker and has conceptualized and developed new institutions and business models in challenging environments. Core competencies include New Ventures, MSME Banking, Project Financing, Team Building, Change Management, Business Development and Good Governance. Kaiser is a strategic thinker with strong ethical standards and focus on results. With exceptional business acumen and broad experience on a global stage he has served on the BODs of several international companies and provided strategic advice to senior management and business owners.

With an MBA in Finance from the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, an MS in Metallurgical Engineering from Moscow Institute of Steel & Alloys, a certification on "Strategy in the Age of Digital Disruption" from INSEAD, and over 36 years of international experience in development banking and finance, Kaiser has developed a network of diverse professionals in every corner of the globe whom he leverages to make sure that the UN Sustainable Development Goals are at the center of all business decisions.

Kathryn Van Nuys

Amazon Web Services

Kathryn Van Nuys leads FinTech for the Global Startup Business Development team at Amazon Web Services (AWS) where she is responsible for the development and execution of AWS’s strategic initiatives in FinTech. Kathryn partners with leading FinTech investors and startups to help them be successful on AWS and to engage more deeply across Amazon.com business units.

Kathryn’s career has been focused in capital markets, business development and strategic relationship management. Prior to AWS, she was the head of capital markets for Credibly, a small business funding platform, and before that at Pave, a marketplace consumer lender.

Kathryn started her career at Citigroup in debt capital markets and also worked at Lehman Brothers and Guggenheim Partners. While she has spent most of her career in New York, Kathryn lived in London for a few years during which time she led business development for EMEA & APAC at Roubini Global Economics.

Kathryn holds a B.A. in Economics from Columbia University.

Laurent Nizri

Altéir

Laurent is the founder and CEO of Altéir Consulting, created just after he helped launch Zebank, the first big internet bank in Europe in 1999. For the last 15 years Alteir and Laurent worked on projects and advised organizations of all sizes across the payments & digital finance industry.

He is a recognized digital/mobile payments, banking, commerce and Fintech expert with a focus on strategy, business development, and innovation.

With almost 20 years' experience, he has worked across the complete value chain helping telcos, banks, insurers, new incumbents and start-ups to define new strategies and products, to launch new businesses and to manage major international projects in the payments & digital finance sector.

Alteir’s footprint is mainly on continental Europe, with a clear focus on France, Germany and Spain. Among its customers are Orange, Vivendi, SFR, most of the French banks, Generali, Allianz, GMF, Visa, PCS Mastercard.

Laurent is also the Vice President of Acsel, the French digital economy association, who gathers almost 150 companies of all sizes and animate French think tank on the digital finance and payments sector.

Liam Gilligan

Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Liam is the Head of Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s Hong Kong Innovation Lab. Liam is an experienced business innovator, with 15 years’ experience across both startup and large corporates in innovation, product development, business development, strategy, and human centred design.

Prior to working at CBA, Liam was the General Manager of Service Product Innovation at Telstra, Australia’s largest Telco company. Liam was responsible for developing and testing new business models in response to a multi-faceted disruption. Liam also ran Service Design and Operations for Telstra’s retail footprint and was product lead for several new service businesses in the Telstra portfolio.

Before Telstra, Liam led Business Development and Operations at Gizmo, an IT services startup, which appeared twice in BRW fast starters list.

Lucile Cornet

EightRoads

Lucile is a principal at EightRoads where she focuses on software and next generation financial services businesses. She is passionate about the European start-up community and believes it will be the birthplace of the next generation of global leaders.

Lucy Demery

Standard Chartered

Lucy Demery is Global Head of Fintech Banking at Standard Chartered, where she leads global coverage of financial and strategic clients in the fintech ecosystem. In this role, she manages key fintech relationships and sets the origination strategy for client acquisition, strategic transactions and segment growth. Lucy also works with SC Ventures, Strategy and Corporate Development on fintech partnerships between Standard Chartered and its clients.

Lucy is a member of the UK Government’s Africa Fintech Investment Group, a judge for Pitch@Palace and a featured speaker at Money20/20 in Europe and China. Prior to joining Standard Chartered in 2015, Lucy was an investment banker at J.P. Morgan and an M&A lawyer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York. She has also worked in development finance in Southeast Asia. Lucy grew up in Hong Kong, graduated with First Class Honours from the London School of Economics and received her Juris Doctorate from Columbia University, where she was a Kent Scholar.

LinkedIn

Magdalena Krön

Barclays

Magdalena Krön is Head of Rise London / FinTech Platform Lead at Barclays. At Rise, Magdalena is building a community of the most transformative technologies in financial services today. Working closely with over 50 FinTech companies she helps entrepreneurs connect their technologies and businesses with opportunities at Barclays and with Barclays corporate clients.

Magdalena started her professional career in retail management and went on to study a BSc in Information Management for Business followed by a MSc in Technology Entrepreneurship, both at UCL. Focusing on how technologies will disrupt traditional industries she has repeatedly helped organisations build networks that can accelerate innovation.

Magdalena is an entrepreneur at heart and co-founded a company building a flexible workforce application for retail chains in 2012. She was then was presented with the opportunity to work with Capital Enterprise in 2013. Here she co-founded Capital List, a service bridging the gap between investors and entrepreneurs and launched the London Co-Investment Fund. In her current role Magdalena keeps one foot in the startup world and another in the corporate world as she’s facilitating connections between the two.

As a great advocate for improving diversity in technology she is also the co-founder of the Geek Girl Meetup community in the UK and Singapore. Over the last 5 years Magdalena has helped inspire thousands of women in tech. She has been leading a team with the aim to create more female role models and showcasing their stories, talent and passion on stage through GeekGirl Meetup's monthly events and yearly conference (check out geekgirlmeetup.co.uk)

Mahesh Uttamchandani

The World Bank

Mark Whitcroft

Illuminate Financial

Mark Whitcroft is a Founding Partner at Illuminate Financial, a London-based venture capital firm with global mandate, exclusively focused on financial technology that benefits capital markets participants. Prior to Illuminate, Mark spent eleven years in various capital market roles at HSBC and Deutsche Bank based in London, Hong Kong, Singapore and New York. He has been investing in FinTech companies since 2010 and has worked at a number of FinTech start-up accelerators.

Markus Gnirck

Tryb

A founding partner at Private Equity Investment Partnership, Tryb, Markus was also co-founder of Startupbootcamp FinTech, the largest global FinTech innovation program.

He was Startupbootcamp’s lead partner in Asia, where he laid the groundwork for FinTech ecosystems active across the region today

Markus has worked with over 100 early stage companies, and sits on the board of multiple firms across Europe and Asia

Markus is also an active angel investor.

Martyn Holman

Augmentum

Martyn has nearly 20 years of experience as an operator, advisor and investor in tech and growth spaces.

Martyn’s early career was spent as a strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, consulting to FTSE 50 clients across consumer, energy, financial services and heavy industry. Since this time he has accrued 15 years of experience as both an operator and investor in the tech/VC space. He was a key member of the early Betfair team, the UK’s first true Unicorn, and later co-founded LMAX Exchange which has since featured as the number 1 Times Tech Track Growth Company.

Most recently Martyn spent nearly 5 years as an investor and partner in UK venture capital where he helped raise a £60m early seed fund. Martyn is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge University, from where he graduated in 1996 with a first class degree in engineering, and has an MBA from the Said Business School in Oxford, gained with Distinction in 2001.

Mei Xin

Global FinTech Lab

Menno Van Leeuwen

Moneyou

Menno van Leeuwen is Team lead Ideation in the Innovation Centre of ABN AMRO Bank. Headquarters in the Netherlands, Amsterdam.

He leads a team of innovation managers, searching for new business models for the bank. Accelerating innovation culture and starting up new experiments, innovative propositions for the bank are ABN AMRO’s main goals for the Innovation Centre. Focussing on innovations in the field of seamless transactions, personal data, virtual currencies, impact investing and new economic models.

Menno has over 16 years' working experience in the field of corporate banking, marketing and sector advisory. For a long period he was the bank’s sector specialist for the technology, media and telecom industry. Related to that and in line with his present job:

Menno is an active startup/fintech accelerator, organising monthly pitch sessions for Startups (@AAstartupfriday) and he has been mentoring Startupbootcamp and Rockstart startups since 2012.

Michael Leung

China CITIC Bank International

Mirna Sleiman

Dubai

Mirna Sleiman is the founder and CEO of Fintech Galaxy, a crowdsourcing platform that aims to connect the fintech ecosystem. Mirna has over fifteen years of experience in government relations, business strategy, digital communications and journalism, mostly within the MENA region. Driven by passion for innovation and positive impact, Mirna has a track record in leading digital transformation projects, marketing communications strategies and global partnerships with public and private entities, with a particular focus on economic development, regulatory infrastructure and financial markets. She has previously served as the Head of the Government Sector and Head of Business Development at Thomson Reuters across MENA. Currently, she sits on the advisory board of the Union of Arab Banks and MENA Research Partners.

Nancy Doyle

Virgin Money Foundation

Nasir Zubairi

CEO, Luxembourg House of Financial Technology, LHoFT

Nasir is CEO of The LHoFT - The Luxembourg House of Financial Technology, a public/private sector initiative to drive fintech innovation in Luxembourg. He is also a N on-E xecutive B oard Director of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) S.A and sits on the IMF’s High Level Advisory Group on Finance and Technology.

Nasir has worked in Financial Services for 20 years. He spent 13 years working within Capital Markets at RBS, ICAP, HSBC and EBS. He has been immersed in the Fintech and startup sector for the past seven years. As an entrepreneur, Nasir has built multiple Fintech businesses across verticals. He has advised the boards of leading financial institutions, central banks and governments. Nasir is included in the “Top 40 innovators shaping the future of financial services -2014” by The Wall Street Journal/Financial News. Nasir has a BSc from the London School of Economics and is a Sloan Fellow from London Business School.

Navin Honagudi

Kae Capital

Navin has over 8 years of investing experience in early stage companies at Kae Capital and previously with Reliance Capital. Some of his investments include PayTM, Reverse Logistics, TrulyMadly, Porter, Syscloud etc. His areas of interes are Fintech, consumer internet, Marketplace, mobile, SaaS and SMB Tech. Prior to Reliance Capital Navin was with a Darashaw an Investment banking firm. Navin did his MBA and Mechanical Engineering from Mumbai University.

Neha Mehta

FemTech Partners

Neha Mehta is Founder of FemTech Partners: a consulting company based out of Singapore helping fintech start ups get a foothold in Asia and promoting Women in Fintech. Neha is a recipient of the Nav Shakti Award at 11th National Women Excellence Award 2018, conferred by the Indo European Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises (IECSME); for her contribution for empowerment of women.

Neha is also the Founder of the ASEAN Women in Payments Network (AWPN). In her previous role, Neha worked to deploy BlockChain technology for financial inclusion in areas such as payments, remittance and micro-loans/insurance to help world’s 2 billion unbanked people. Neha is Global People’s Fellow 2018, an initiative by the United Nations towards fulfillment of SDG’s. Neha represents Singapore and is working towards Financial Inclusion; she will be attending UN General Assembly in September. Neha is a Chevening Financial Services Fellow, 2017 and studied financial risk management at Kings College, London. Neha is a Lawyer and has worked in different areas of finance such as hedge funds, private equity, venture capital and been recently focusing on Fintech. Over the last five years, Neha’s work has centered on lobbying with financial regulators across ASEAN region.

As the Vice-President of Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (IVCA), she actively lobbied with the Indian regulators such as Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Ministry of Finance (MOF), and Reserve Bank of India (RBI). As the Country Head for Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), Singapore she worked closely with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on the Registered Fund Management Companies (RFMC) regime. She set up the India operations for Eurex Frankfurt AG, Deutsche Boerse Group, India.

Nic Carey

Blockchain

Nicolas Cary is a serial entrepreneur and lifelong technologist. He attributes much of his insight to his personal journeys around the world. He holds degrees in Business with an emphasis in Leadership Studies and International Political Economy. He has taught English and conducted poverty reduction assessments in rural India prior to spending the past decade growing start-ups. He is trilingual, and has a deep passion for positive digital disruption. He was a founding Partner at PipelineDeals where he focused on product development and management. In 2013 he Co-Founded Blockchain. More recently he Co-Founded SkysTheLimit.org, the leading youth business accelerator.

Winner of the 2015 European Digital Leader award for his inspiring and innovative contribution to initiate progress in the digital world, Mr. Cary accumulated over 300K miles last year doing FinTech advocacy, keynoting conferences, and attending grass roots meet ups across the Europe and around the world. His media appearances include the NYT, NPR, WSJ, Financial Times, Wired, Forbes, Entrepreneur, CNN, CNBC, TechCrunch, CNET, World Economic Forum, Marketwatch and many more. His company Blockchain, with over 25 million users, is the world's leading Platform for Digital Assets.

Niels van Rossem

VROA, Amsterdam

Nshuti Lucy Mbabazi

Ecobank

Nshuti Lucy Mbabazi serves as Assistant Vice President, Push Payments for Ecobank Group, overseeing mobile payments strategy and implementation across 36 African countries where Ecobank operates.

Prior to Ecobank, Nshuti served as country manager overseeing operations for Rwanda, Burundi and Malawi. Prior to this role, she led the coordination of Visa – Government of Rwanda (GoR) Public Private Partnership initiatives 2011 – 2015, established to lay the foundation for digitization of Rwanda’s economy and financial inclusion. She was also part of a team of seven who led the mVISA pilot in Rwanda, now Visa Scan To Pay.

Prior to Visa, Nshuti also served as Policy and Strategy Advisor to the Head of Information Technology at Rwanda Development Board (RDB/IT), the coordinating and implementing body of all Government of Rwanda ICT initiatives. While at RDB she led the development of Rwanda’s National ICT Plan (2011 – 2015) whose initiatives are driving Rwanda’s transformation into the envisioned 2020 vision of an ICT driven society.

Nshuti serves as President of Girls in ICT Rwanda; Vice Chairperson, Broadband Systems Corporation (BSC) board; Rwanda Information and Communications Technology Association (RICTA) and Board Chair, Leo Africa Institute.

Nshuti holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from Laroche College and, a Master of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Oliver Bussmann

Bussmann Advisory

Oliver Bussmann is a Global IT executive with 20+ years of influential leadership with UBS, SAP, Allianz, Deutsche Bank & IBM.

Known for definitive business strategy, IT excellence and large-scale reinvention, Oliver Bussmann has been the driving force behind major business process transformations that have delivered cost reductions, efficiency gains, agility and competitive advantage to leading global corporations.

Parul Kaul-Green

AXA UK Group

Parul is Head of AXA NEXT Labs Europe at AXA UK Group. She is a passionate advocate of Open Innovation in Financial services and works with Fintech and Insurtech start-ups both for investment and corporate partnering.

Parul is a Financial Services and PE specialist who has worked in UK, Germany and India. She is a mentor at The Duke of York Pitch@Palace and Mayor of London’s International Business Partnering Programme.

Peter Oakes

FinTech Ireland

Peter’s work covers executive & non-executive director and advisory board roles for Fintech (Payments, Robo-Advisers & Emoney), RegTech, MiFID and Funds. Peter is Panel Member of The Fintech20 Ireland (a joint venture with The FinTech50) and founded FintechIreland.com and FintechUK.com. He is a director of Susquehanna International (options market maker) and TransferMate (payments) and board advisor to Ozan (e-money wallet) and Clearsettle (payments). Peter mentors a number of fintech start-ups across Europe. Peter has held senior industry roles including Chief Risk Officer at Bank of America Merchant Services Europe and Director, Central Bank of Ireland. Peter is a Solicitor in United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia.

Ranjeev Kumar Gupta

UNCDF

Rajeev has worked with UNCDF Bangkok office since 2016 as Programme Management Specialist – Inclusive Finance and performs the role of Programme Manager a.i. – Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformations (SHIFT), and Regional Coordinator - Making Access Possible (MAP) for ASEAN and SAARC countries.

Rajeev works to advance financial inclusion and economic participation by changing the behaviour of market actors to stimulate investment, business innovations, and regulatory reform in financial markets. Rajeev through the programme, works on building an evidence base on women’s financial inclusion in the region and catalyse innovative partnerships to incubate market-led approaches to innovate, scale and replicate financial service interventions.

Prior to joining as Programme Management Specialist, Rajeev worked as consultant with UNCDF on Nepal agriculture value chain finance programme, on developing Country based financial inclusion strategies, and setting up ASEAN Challenge Fund for co-financing private sector to innovate and upscale financial inclusion services.

Rajeev has over 19 years of experience in technical advisory and programme development roles, with a particular focus on financial services for the poor. Prior to UNCDF, Rajeev worked for more than a decade with BASIX, a livelihood and financial inclusion promotion organisation in India, where he was involved in range of financial inclusion interventions, in setting up State level livelihood mission, and heading the international consulting work in countries in South Asia, South-East Asia and Africa.

Rajeev did his Forestry Management from Indian Institute of Forest Management, and Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry (Hons) from Delhi University in India.

Richard Leftley

MicroEnsure

Richard Peers

Microsoft

Richard Peers is Microsoft EMEA’s Banking Industry Lead working with their largest clients and FinTech innovators. He has spent the last 18 years at Microsoft in sales, services and marketing leadership, with the last three years deeply engaged with clients and agencies in the Financial Services and Retail space. Working on projects and engaging with leadership teams he brings an up to the minute insight on the vision and the practicalities of “Banking re-imagined”.

He created the Digital Wallet Foundry in 2013 which combined a conference and a hackathon to bring business and developers communities together. DWF sought to crack the code on Identity, Loyalty and Payments and was widely praised as a thought leading initiative.

Richard is a regular speaker at events and contributor re: payments, innovation, technology and the environment via social media.

Rohan Angrish

ICICI Bank

Rohan currently heads innovation at ICICI, making fintech organic to banking.

Before joining ICICI, Rohan was the CTO at Capital Float, the largest digital lending platform in India. Capital Float, which was recently named India’s Fintech Startup of the Year, is well on its way to disrupting the traditional credit ecosystem by moving to paperless, cashless and mobile. Building on the India Stack, Capital Float’s small merchant loan app can disburse a loan into a borrowers bank account within minutes of first encountering the borrower. It’s agility arises from its ability to look at all the data that it can reliably get within an ecosystem, and then derive loan products catering to that eco system. Before Capital Float, Rohan was the founding Chief Architect of Chalo Inc, a mobile payment solution that was sold to Opentable, following which Rohan was Chief Architect of Payments at Opentable. Before Opentable, Rohan worked at Oracle USA in their Server Technologies team in various areas like XML, Text, Search and SQL. He has a number of patents and research papers to his name in fields varying from Payments to Formal Verification of Systems. Rohan got his MS in Computer Science from Stanford University, before which he got his BTech degree in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay.

Rohit Bodas

Propel Ventures

Rohit leads Propel's international fund and partners with entrepreneurs building transformational companies that impact financial services.

Rohit joined Propel from American Express Ventures, which he helped launch in 2011. He has invested in a wide range of areas, including data analytics, AI, enterprise security, payments and digital commerce. He also led and managed American Ventures international investments in Europe, Latin America, India and Asia Pacific. Representative investments include inAuth (acquired), Enigma, Plaid, SIgnifyd, Trulioo, Capillary Technologies and Clyp.

Earlier in his career, Rohit held various positions at Motorola in R&D, business development and at Motorola Ventures. Rohit has developed key mobile video and security technologies and holds seven US patents.

Rohit holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, a MS in Computer Science, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.

Rory Picardo

UK Department for International Trade

Rory Picardo is part of the Department for International Trade, UK, wherein he heads the Digital Economy sector. He is a strategist at heart who works very closely with the technology ecosystems in the UK and in India. His spectrum of activities range from working with the start-up ecosystems to supporting multinationals in both the geographies. Over the years he has helped bring in various elements of the start-up ecosystem from the UK to the India- be it incubators, accelerators, individual start-ups or relevant industry bodies. Rory's strength lies in his ability to look at the macros and design strategies accordingly- he is also a connecter who has always thought things through. His other passion is to mentor and guide companies in the UK and in India on cross-border collaborations.

Rory has more than 10 years of experience in the financial services and technology sectors across UK and India. He is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst and holds a PG Diploma in Banking & Finance and a UG degree in Chemical Engineering.

Rouvin Thiruchelvam

Rouvin is a FinTech and Private Equity expert most recently Head of Direct Investment for the CIMB Group, where he spent his time on financial services investments - in particular on FinTech opportunities within ASEAN. Prior to that, he was a Director in the Group Strategy and Strategic Investments division (private equity), a role that involved key functions of fund raising, origination, and portfolio management, completing acquisitions of companies and successful exits for various funds. He has served on Boards and Executive Committees of portfolio companies.

Rouvin currently advises a number of FinTech companies in Singapore and Malaysia. He is also a mentor at SBC FinTech FastTrack in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and a strategic advisor to a Singapore P2P FinTech company. He also enjoys the dynamics of assisting select clients on the buy-side and sell-side of private equity-type deals.

Rouvin completed his Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and Finance at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Post university, he went on to complete GE's Financial Management Program, a two-year fast track graduate finance program.

Sanat Rao

IDG Ventures

Sandeep Bhagat

IBM

Sandeep is A Digital & Cognitive Analytics Strategist, Product and Platform visionary, Data Science Practitioner, he is an acknowledged specialist in Business & Practice Management, building niche capability & service lines, Technology Innovation & product development.

He has played a variety of roles at various leading IT Services & Consulting organizations, including driving innovation, product & platform development, devising go-to-market strategy, alliance management, and developing niche competencies in Digital Transformation, Big Data, Advanced Analytics, Machine Learning & Data Science. He scaled these practices from the ground up to 350 plus people within 2 years, generating revenue excess of @25M per year.

He holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from University of Pune & Executive Program in Global Business Management from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta.

Sandeep has various industry certifications in Big Data & Data Science, Enterprise Architecture, Data Management, High Performance Computing & Cloud Computing. Sandeep is an active thought leader and speaker in various technology forums and delivered keynote sessions, moderator of panel discussions, speaker and featured in various India/International magazines.

He also has two patents granted - Predicting Application Performance & Modeling and Unified Big Data Management Platform.

Santiago Tenorio

Cascade Global

Santiago is passionate about disruptive innovation and technology and advises start ups in emerging spaces such as drone-aided agriculture and crypto currencies.

Santiago was formerly Director of Global Partnerships and Innovation at American Express’ corporate payments division where he was responsible for business strategy, in-market deployment and commercialization of new digital payment solutions and the sourcing and execution of strategic partnerships. Prior to joining Amex, Santiago spent three years as an entrepreneur; he co-founded a mobile games development studio, an award-winning restaurant booking service, and a cold-pressed juice business. Prior to his start up ventures, Santiago spent 5 years at BlackRock in New York, and before that, started his career as an Investment Banking Analyst at BAML. He is an honours graduate of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Simon Cocking

Irish Tech News

Simon Cocking is Senior Editor at Irish Tech News, and freelances for the Sunday Business Post, The Irish Times, The Southern Star, and Dublin Globe among other publications. In 2016 he was been named on 3 lists of global influencers to follow for fintech, blockchain, and data security. He has been based in Ireland for 20 years. He has founded four companies, and introduced one national sport to the country. Along the way he’s met a lot of great people in Ireland and enjoys working in and writing about the Irish and global fintech scene.

Sophie Guibaud

Fidor Group

Sophie Guibaud started her career in investment banking in New York before joining a growth capital fund in Paris.

Along with investing in startups, she advised them on their development strategy. However, wanting to be more involved in startup operations, she moved to London and was instrumental in launching HelloFresh, a Rocket Internet food subscription-based company. After heading product strategy and commercialisation at Bankable, a payment solutions company, and launching Fidor Bank in the UK, she is now Managing Director Europe at Fidor Solutions.

Takahisa Ohira

Deloitte Tohmatsu Venture Support

As FinTech leader at Tohmatsu Venture Support Co, Takahisa Ohira's expertise covers the financial industry, including blockchain technology.

His network covers 150+ FinTechstartups and board members of Japanese 50+ large financial intuitions. He is also a frequent contributor to publications such as Nikkei Fintech.

Tamara Cook

FSD

Tamara Cook is the Head of Digital Innovations at FSD Kenya with a focus on using finance to create value for low-income households. This work cuts across traditional financial service providers, fintechs, and real economy players seeking to embed finance into their operations.

Prior to joining FSD Kenya in 2014, Tamara spent seven years on the Financial Services for the Poor team of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where she managed a global portfolio of grants and loans supporting financial institutions reaching the poor with digital financial solutions. She continues to represent the foundation as the board observer for M-Kopa Solar. Prior to the foundation, she spent ten years with CGAP working on the commercialisation of microfinance and aid effectiveness. While at CGAP, she spent a year in the credit department of Equity Bank in Kenya. She has an MBA from INSEAD and a BA in International Affairs from The George Washington University.

Thomas Krogh Jensen

Copenhagen FinTech

Thomas is CEO of Copenhagen FinTech - a leading FinTech Hub in the global financial services industry supporting and catalyzing the next era of technology-led corporate and startup innovators.

He has extensive experience of leadership and management in large national and global organisations on a senior level and has practiced leadership (from mid to senior management) in a "change management" context. Whether operational or strategic, the keywords have been management of significant changes along with the ability to execute and transform strategies into everyday actions.

Tom Moore

Kingston Smith

Tommy Fung

Standard Chartered Bank

Tommy started his career with HSBC as an application programmer in Electronic Funds Transfer department. Subsequently he has acquired system development and support experience in consumer and wholesale banking spaces in a number of international Banks including HSBC, CitiBank and SCB in Hong Kong. During his early years in SCB, Tommy gained extensive experience with other countries, including rolling out credit card systems in the consumer banking space and commercial loans system in the wholesale banking space to Singapore. In 1995, he migrated to Toronto where he remained with his family for 5 years, working for an insurance company.

Tommy rejoined Standard Chartered Bank HK in 2000, helping the Bank to implement internet trade finance platform in the dotcom era. He then led the system development and support teams in trade finance, helping the Bank to shape the strategic platforms in this space. He has supported the Bank to successfully acquire strategic clients like Disney.

He joined Country Technology Management of the Bank in 2008, and, as Head of Technology Management for Hong Kong, is currently responsible for managing all the bank’s strategic technology initiatives as well as overseeing the delivery of technology support services for Hong Kong. He also works closely with Industry partners and the regulator on FinTech related initiatives.

Over the span of his career, he has developed very strong relationship with country and global stakeholders, spanning across multiple departments and geographies. He is also enthusiastic about talent development and has been instrumental in developing management trainees in Technology domains for the past 4 years.

Tommy has a degree in Computer Science from University of Hong Kong He enjoys sports such as hiking, cycling and doing gym. He likes animals and is a dog lover. He also likes travelling with his family and watching movie.

Varun Malhotra

Quona Capital

Varun Malhotra has 8+ years of venture investing experience across technology, financial services and impact, and is currently Principal at Quona Capital. Quona Capital is a venture firm focused on financial technology for the underserved, investing across emerging markets. Varun focuses on Quona’s investment activities and portfolio in Asia, having invested across digital payments, alternate lending and wealth-tech. Prior to Quona, Varun was an investor with Lok Capital, an impact investment fund, focusing on investments in financial services, healthcare, and agri-business. He has also spent time working with the India Venture Partner for Oak Investment Partners, a US-based technology-focused venture capital fund, and with the D.E. Shaw Group. Varun was recently recognized as part of Forbes 30 under 30 for Finance & Venture Capital in Asia.