EMPOWERING INSIGHT. DELIVERING OPPORTUNITY. CONNECTING ALL.

Mohamed Abdel Razek

Lana Abdullayeva

Lana, Independent Speaker, non-exec Member of the Participant Advisory Council at PAY.UK and Director at Lloyds Banking Group, is a Seasoned Global Leader with a wealth of international experience across the Banking, Payments and Financial Services. Mathematician by training, in Banking and FS since 1997, Lana is a strong believer that in a world undergoing profound change, our responsibility is to contribute to the emergence and implementation of solutions for a sustainable future. A global leader in the digital payments and digital identity, Lana is passionate about promoting innovation through ecosystem collaboration and expanding the traditional boundaries of the Financial Services footprint in the growing world of Open Data and Digital Revolution.

Tiago Aguiar

Tiago Aguiar is Head of New Platforms at TecBan, responsible for the open banking initiative and instant payments inside the company. Lawyer, Master in Law from PUC-SP and specialization in International Business from New York University.

A serial entrepreneur who has founded 5 companies and was a mentor/ consultant to a dozens more companies. He has 20 years of experience encouraging and helping people set up businesses and companies to innovate. He is the author of the book “Startup your life” published in 2013.

Alexander Ali

Alex is making the leap into launching Blacksmiths Technology, an Open Banking start up that can help you build accounts information services into your next innovative app.

A product builder and life-long technology enthusiast, Alex has 11 years of experience building enterprise ready software solutions and has a keen focus on delivering business value.

Abdulla Almoayed

Abdulla Almoayed is a serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Tarabut Gateway (TG) – the first and only company licensed to deliver open banking in MENA, as well as the leading provider of open banking (API based) infrastructure in the region.

 Abdulla has been a key figure in driving digital transformation across Bahrain and the wider region. He worked closely with the Central Bank of Bahrain to pioneer the Kingdom’s open banking regulation. Now, through TG, he focuses on projects that will help reposition the region as the leading hub for innovative companies to come and test their technologies. He is a strong advocate for putting data ownership into the hands of the consumer and increasing access to financial services through emerging technologies.

 Previously Abdulla spent 15 years investing in various sectors, before taking over parts of his family’s investment business.  From this, he established his own holding company, Almoayed Technologies – a privately-owned, venture-minded investment vehicle focused on large-scale infrastructure projects aimed at accelerating MENA’s digital transformation. It invests in game-changing companies across Fintech, Healthcare, Education, Logistics, and Cybersecurity – one of which was TG.

 Abdulla holds an MBA from the London Business School and a BABM with Honours from the University of Westminster, London.

Edward Berks

Edward leads Xero’s engagement with banks, fintechs and strategic partners. He brings considerable experience in business applications, seeking opportunities to improve and remove friction from business processes through partnerships and integrations.

Craig Borysowich

Craig Borysowich is the Principal Architect at Payments Canada for Integration and Standards bringing over 30 years of industry experience as a technologist and thought leader.

Ghela Boskovich

Ghela is a self-proclaimed Fintech fanatic, and Founder of FemTechGlobal™, a network dedicated to challenging the status quo, and improving the inclusiveness and diversity in Financial Services. She is also Head of Europe for the Financial Data and Technology Association.

Ghela focuses on how to fast-track internal innovation, specifically on the practical application and comercialisation of fintech/bank collaboration. She is preoccupied with fostering an ethical data democracy, individual consumer empowerment over their data, data economy disruptive business models, and facilitating banks’ emerging technology consumption.

Ghela takes product, service, journey, and business model redesign from initial concept to go-to-market delivery. Her strong regulatory economic background lends an ability to navigate compliance mandates with a commercial angle, as well as identify new commercial opportunities in a rapidly deregulated landscape. She is a confirmed evangelist for adopting technology to nurture Customer Lifetime Value for both banks and those they serve, to transform Financial Services for the greater good.

Ralph Bragg

Ralph’s career began at the London Stock Exchange, delivering a ultra-low latency trading platforms before he was lured into investment banking. As Technical Solutions Architect at Societe Generale, Ralph help craft a globally distributed, mission critical pricing and execution platform for Retail and Professional Finance Clients supporting multiple Asset classes including FX, Fixed Income, Precious Metals and Semi Structured Products. Diving into retail and private banking at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Ralph led the CIAM Architecture team. The team designed and delivered a modern platform for RBS which ensured the business is able to quickly adapt and embrace transformative changes like PSD2 and the Open Banking. As the Trust Framework architect for Open Banking Ltd (UK), Ralph is heavily active in the design and delivery of the UK’s National Open Banking and PSD2 program as well as acting as Raidiam’s primary representative to the Open ID Foundations Financial API Working Group and other international standards bodies.

Ralph holds a Bachelor’s of IT degree from the Queensland University of Technology, (Australia) and is currently completing an MBA (Banking) at the University of London.

Liz Brandt

Liz is co-founder and  CEO of Ctrl-Shift, her career has spanned 25+ years of business consultancy across numerous sectors. She has advised a number of global clients including Facebook, O2, the BBC, and Suncorp, helping them to develop and future-proof their digital products and services.

Her career has spanned multiple disciplines including consultancy, digital media, customer service design and strategic marketing. She has founded several companies, including a mobile CRM company, Zishi, and Digital Public (now Transform), a public sector consultancy developing a consumer-centric digital media service for government.

Since its launch, Ctrl-Shift has been at the forefront of understanding, explaining and shaping the Personal Information Economy (PIE), it has pioneered Me2B digital services and Personal Information Services (PIMS) and remains at the forefront of strategic business consulting in the PIE market.

John Broxis

John has been working in payments and banking systems since 1997 with Logica (now CGI) in London and
Saudi Arabia. He moved to EBA LEARING in 2002 to support the development and launch of STEP2, the
pan-European ACH.

In 2007, he became Director of STEP2 taking the platform through SEPA migration to be the largest clearing system in Europe. During this time, John was also part of the ISO20022 standards definition, and helped write the SEPA rulebooks.

In 2010, John created MyBank, a pan-European e-authorisation solution for online payments and Open
Banking, which went live in 2013.

In 2014, MyBank was moved to a separate company, PRETA S.A.S. with John as Managing Director.
In 2017 John launched the Open Banking Europe initiative, which provides information and directory
services for PSD2 access to account and Open Banking.

Today John is an expert on all aspects of Open Banking, regulatory compliance and alternative payment
methods, running an advisory program that brings together API providers and API users.

Nick Cabrera

As Co-founder of the Open Banking World Congress Nick has been a passionate advocate of how technology can transform established industries and even turn them on their heads. As a media entrepreneur and investor, Nick has built global communities and events in some of the leading industries and sees the transformation in the financial services as the next major revolution. The Open Banking World Congress represents his ambition to encourage the growth and development of the Open future.

Don Cardinal

Don Cardinal is Managing Director of the Financial Data Exchange (FDX), a non-profit, industry led collaboration dedicated to unifying the financial industry around a global interoperable standard for the secure access of consumer and business financial data.

Don comes to FDX after more than 20 years with Bank of America, where he served in key leadership roles as the Privacy Officer of their Military Bank, the Digital Banking VP for Military Bank, VP in Digital Banking, and most recently as a Senior VP in Global Information Security, where he orchestrated the bank’s DMARC email security implementation. From 2016 to 2018, Don also served as co-chair of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center’s (FS-ISAC) Aggregation Working Group. Prior to his banking career, Don worked for a fintech, writing tax preparation software.

Don is a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Information Systems Auditor, Certified Information Security Manager, and holds a Six Sigma green belt. He earned BBAs in Accounting and Finance from Texas A&M University and an MBA from Our Lady of the Lake University. He is a graduate of the FBI Citizens Academy, a member of the FBI’s InfraGard and holds nine U.S. patents.

Don is a frequent speaker on data aggregation, DMARC email security and other security topics, and has served as an adjunct faculty for the University of the Incarnate Word. His volunteer work has included leadership roles in the 500 Inc, Treasurer for pARTners supporting the North East School of the Arts, and as Treasurer and President of the Alliance Française de Dallas.

Don resides in far North Dallas with his wife, son, two dogs and two cats.

Tom Carpenter

Tom Carpenter is Director of Public Affairs and Marketing at the Financial Data Exchange (FDX), a non-profit, industry led collaboration dedicated to unifying the financial industry around a global interoperable standard for the secure access of consumer and business financial data.

In his role, Carpenter is responsible for managing and growing the nonprofit’s foothold and brand within the broader financial data ecosystem. He also oversees external communications, as well as government affairs outreach to policymakers and regulators.

Before joining FDX, Carpenter spent almost two decades in Washington, D.C. First as a legislative aide in Congress and then as a consultant for policy brand and legislative advocacy campaigns for clients from Fortune 500s to startups.

JohnPaul Cavanna

Miles Cheetham

Miles has been the Head of Propositions at Open Banking since its inception in 2016. Open Banking is the entity created by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to create innovative technology (APIs), data standards and the governance structures enabling the UK to implement Open Banking.

In his role he is responsible for how consumers and small businesses use Open Banking enabled services, acting as the “voice of the customer” across the programme. He led the development of the Customer Experience Guidelines and is a core member of the team that developed the Open Banking Standard, ensuring that the intended customer benefits of the UK’s CMA Order and EU’s PSD2 are met. This has been achieved through extensive engagement with the market, customer research and customer interest groups to understand the use cases and customer experience required to make Open Banking successful.

Miles has deep experience of customer-led digital product development across the payments, digital identity and telecoms landscape, having previously worked for major brands including Vodafone, MTN, Sky and Verizon.

Tony Craddock

An enthusiastic business leader of the world’s most influential trade association in payments, a lively public speaker and avid networker, Tony is passionate about payments and the difference it can make to lives everywhere.

Tony champions payments technologies globally. He shares his deep payments knowledge, borne from 15 years in payments and evangelical zeal for innovation, when speaking and chairing conferences, publishing books and white papers, or enrolling payments leaders to join the EPA’s collaboration network.

A serial entrepreneur; Tony invests in many early stage payments and PayTech companies – enabling them to succeed in a highly competitive payments ecosystem.

Tony conceived and launched the Emerging Payments Association (EPA) in 2012, where he is Director General. The EPA promotes the UK as global hub for payments innovation and the interests of the EPA’s 150+ members, which include banks, card schemes, PSPs, issuers, processors, acquirers, who all come together to drive collective industry change.

Tony also leads the communities of EPA Asia, EPA EU, EPA US and EPA Africa. His vision is that this global network of interconnected capabilities, people and knowledge will prove to be truly transformational in how the world works, for the benefit of everyone.

In 2019, Tony set up the Inclusion Foundation, a not-for-profit platform company promoting products that help address financial exclusion.

Charles Damen

Charles is SVP Payment Strategy at Worldpay responsible for Open Banking, Cross Border Payments and Authentication services.

He brings more than 20 years payments, mobile and internet experience to his role. Prior to Worldpay Charles established and managed the global cross border payments division at Thunes enabling real time payments to and from emerging markets.

Before Thunes Charles lead the payments and fraud team at global ecommerce merchant Badoo and was a board member at the Merchant Risk Council.  Prior to Badoo he was head of the Mobile Payments line of business at Syniverse and co-founded the mobile messaging business Mobile365 which was sold to SAP.

Charles holds a dual Bachelor Degree in European Business from the International School of Economics Rotterdam (ISER) in the Netherlands and from Groupe Ecole Supérieure de Commerce (ESC) Bordeaux in France.

Uttiyo Dasgupta

Uttiyo is a senior independent advisor working with VCs on Fintech deal evaluation, and supporting two large global consultancies in the area of payments, decisioning, digital banking and risk management. Previously he was the Head of Strategy for HSBC UK Digital Bank and led the innovation commercialisation and partnership teams. Prior to that he was the Head of Everyday Banking for HSBC UK responsible for current accounts, savings, FX and payments. Uttiyo spent the past 15 years at HSBC, across numerous roles from Chief Risk Officer of the UK and European retail bank, Head of Analytics, Product Pricing in Wholesale and Retail Banking. Before joining HSBC, Uttiyo worked across 7 different countries in Asia and Middle East in customer facing Corporate and Retail Banking executive roles at Standard Chartered Bank. Uttiyo strongly believes in the need for a customer centric and data driven approach to retail banking.

Christopher Davey

Chris is a Senior Director of Solution Architecture at WSO2 based in London. Prior to joining WSO2, Chris worked for one of the largest UK Government agencies. He has over 17 years of experience in managing large enterprise software architecture, design, development, and operations. He and his team design develop and operate integration platforms critical to the operation of UK infrastructure. Through his work with WSO2 Open Banking, Chris has worked closely with banks in the UK to optimise the architecture, delivery and ROI of their open banking implementations. He has drawn widely on his experience in the public and private sectors to contribute actively in many leading forums around open banking regulation and lessons learnt from the ground.

Huw Davies

Huw has over 24 years in the payments and financial services industry. He brings deep experience in delivering transformational go to market strategies at both major corporations and startups. He is co-founder at Ozone API and on a mission to accelerate standards based open banking around the world. Until recently he led the development of the UK open banking ecosystem as Ecosystem Development Director at OBIE, leading efforts to grow the ecosystem, drive adoption and usage and develop the market. Prior to this Huw has undertaken exec roles and led multi $bn revenue lines at a number of businesses, including

Token (Chief Commercial Officer), HSBC (as Global Head of Payments), MasterCard (as Head of Emerging Payments) and Barclays. Huw also sits on the Advisory Board for the Emerging Payments Association.

Aldo de Jong

Nilixa Devlukia

Nilixa is an experienced regulatory expert and lawyer with a Masters in European Competition Law and over 20 years of banking and payments experience gained from her time at Barclays, the FCA, the EBA and as Head of Regulatory at the Open Banking Implementation Entity.

Nilixa was the policy lead at the Financial Conduct Authority on all UK and EU payments and e-money related matters working together with HM Treasury on the negotiation and transposition of PSD2 and EU agencies on the PSD2 RTS.  Nilixa has been seconded to the European Banking Authority and has also worked extensively with the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the World Bank, EU and other regulators across the globe.  Nilixa has represented the UK and FCA on various EU and UK level committees including the ECB SecurePay Forum, the EU API Evaluation Group and the UK Payment Strategy Forum and lead on the publication of the FCA Approach Document on Payment Services and EBA Consultations.

Nilixa works with industry, regulators and legislators to drive changes in the banking and payments ecosystem for a payments and open banking landscape that is secure, transparent and inclusive.

Nilixa is a well known public speaker and the founder and CEO of Payments Solved a regulatory consultancy advising on the regulatory framework for payment services, digital banking, fintech and open banking both in the UK and globally.

Bruno Diniz

Bruno Diniz is Co-Founder of Spiralem (a consulting firm specialized in innovation for Financial markets), Fintech Professor at FGV Business School and the University of Sao Paulo (USP) MBA in Brazil and Head of the Fintech Committee at ABStartups (Brazilian Startups Association). Mr. Diniz is also a columnist at Cointelegraph and at FEBRABAN’s (the Banks Federation of Brazil) content platform and author of the book “O Fenômeno Fintech” (The Fintech Phenomenon).
Bruno Diniz was appointed Brazil’s most influential person in the Fintech segment by INVYO insights and named top 10 most influential name in Fintech in the Ibero American region by Finnovating.

Hakan Eroglu

Hakan Eroglu is the Global Open Banking Lead for Advisors at Mastercard Data & Services. He is an expert for Open Data and Services Ecosystems, Open Banking Regulation, API Standardization, Instant and Frictionless Payments. Hakan is a recognized thought leader in public media and speaker in his area of expertise. He brings more than 11 years of project experience in shaping Open Banking strategies, building API-based uses cases and business models, and designing digital payment schemes in Europe, Latin America and Asia. Hakan served as an advisor to an Asian regulator on Open Banking regulation. With lessons learned in Europe, he provided advisory on how to best get banks engaged in a more collaborate regulation approach. Mr. Eroglu also helped a large Chinese bank in HK on Open Banking strategy and readiness and the selection of API use cases and business case, and another large bank in Thailand on Open Banking strategy and API enablement.

Mr. Eroglu joins Mastercard from Accenture where he served as the Global Open Banking & PSD2 Expert Lead helping banks and payment service providers across the globe to tackle regulation, going beyond it and turn it into competitive advantages through new innovation and services using AI and Instant Payments. Mr. Eroglu is a board member of the Berlin Group NextGenPSD2 Advisory Board, the Swiss Commission for Financial Standardization (SKSF), the Open Banking Working Group of the Euro Banking Association (EBA) and author of position papers, articles and consultations on PSD2, Open Banking and Fintechs.

Mr. Eroglu holds a German Diploma in Computer Sciences from Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany. He lives in Zurich.

Joshua Fernandez

Carlos Figueredo

Carlos Figueredo is the CEO and Founder of Open Vector, a professional consultancy founded in 2017 specialising in open banking, PSD2, GDPR and payments. Carlos is a recognised open banking SME with 20+ year payments, SWIFT, SEPA and PSD2 experience.

Carlos’ open banking experience started in 2016 where he oversaw the ISO 20022 based standard development as the Head of Data Standards for the UK Open Banking initiative. In 2018 Carlos (Open Vector) were responsible along with the CNBV for creating the standards for phase 1 of the Fintech Law in Mexico City among other international engagements.

The revolution of Open Banking will continue in 2019 not only in the financial sector but other sectors too as we continue to move into an era where the customer and data are at the centre of it all. This is by far the biggest revolution in the financial sector since the credit card.

Paul Freemantle

Paul Fremantle is a co-founder of WSO2, and a recognised leader in API Management, Identity Management and open APIs. Paul is an expert in middleware, APIs, identity and cloud, with many years of experience in enterprise software and open source. Through his work on WSO2 software implementations for leading global financial services institutions, Paul has gained extensive knowledge on how these institutions together with their individual and corporate customers are benefiting from open APIs. He provides technical guidance and industry insights to the WSO2 Open Banking team on solutions for global open banking markets including the UK, the EU, Australia, Mexico, the Middle East and Singapore. Paul has a PhD from the University of Portsmouth which developed new models for identity and security in IoT systems.

Jonathan Garzon

Jonathan Garzon Galvan is a law specialist in technology and financial sector, he is a law graduate by the “Barra Nacional de Abogados” and he has a degree in public administration by “Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México” (UNAM), both degrees with honors.

He has a master’s degree in business law with honors, by “Universidad Panamericana”, and master’s degree in e-commerce by the “Instituto Tecnologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM).

In 2017 he finished the executive program in IPADE, and in 2019 he took the leadership and innovation program by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

He has more than 10 years of postgraduate teaching experience in institutions like ITAM, La Salle, Universidad Iberoamericana, Universidad Panamericana e ITESM, Escuela Libre de Derecho de Sinaloa.

He is Head of Open Garage, the innovation Laboratory of financial services of CECOBAN,  vice-president of the Cyberlaw Mexican Academy (AMDI), and vice-coordinator of the technology and personal data protection committee in the Enterprise Lawyers National Association (ANADE).

Xavier Gomez

Xavier Gomez is founder & COO of INVYO, a SaaS company that uses machine learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to help financial institutions see tomorrow’s opportunities in Financial Services. He is also Co-Editor-in-Chief at Invyo Insights powered by INVYO, a global provider of Fintech insights and analysis. As a banker, Xavier has been sharing his vision of the sector with industry pioneers over the past 18+ years.

Earned a Master from ISC – Institut Supérieur du Commerce (Master Graduate School Management – Finance) in 2000. He holds a certification from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) specialization Fintech (2016) and is a graduate of HEC Paris in Private Equity (Leadership Executive program in Private Equity in partnership with AFIC – French Association of Investors for Growth) in 2017.

In 2000, he started his career at Credit Suisse (private banking) in Paris as a portfolio management consultant (2000-2004), selling structured products in Zurich, Switzerland (2005-2007), assistant vice president in charge Investment Consulting in Paris (2007 – 2008), Vice President in charge of Investment Consulting (2009 – 2013) in Paris, Director in charge of investment and trading in Paris and Treasurer of Credit Suisse France. From 2016 to 2018, he became Global Senior Portfolio Manager and Asset Allocator at Pictet & Cie.

He is an expert in banking, finance and economics as well as banking and digital transformation.

He is interested in the digital economy and especially in innovations in the field of finance (Fintech), an area in which he sometimes writes some articles in the specialized media. He acts as expert to talk about Fintech TV. Moreover, he is speaker in different global fintech conference around the world.

Carmela Gomez

Carmela joined BBVA Group in 1994, and worked in various roles, Trading, Strategy, Uno-e, (a retail BBVA only click subsidiary), developing DIY transactional capabilities for Corporate and Commercial Clients worldwide as Head of Global Treasury Solutions; as COO of New Digital Business (area managing all BBVA Ventures) … and recently appointed as Head of Open Banking.

Her main achievements are related to the global implementation of Digital Channels within BBVA (best Website in Spain & Latam 2017, 1st worldwide mobile prize for the BBVA app 2017), the Global corporate hub (SWIFT & H2H Connectivity) for Global payment solutions across BBVA group and managing BBVA Ventures finance and compliance.

Appointed as Fintech Women Innovation in Finance 2017, she’s passionate about people development, process digitization, smart interactions, innovation and standards. She has fostered several global projects related to innovation: within her team, the first blockchain transactions between Spain and Mexico, both in payments and Trade were performed.

Arturo González Mac Dowell

Arturo’s career has been marked by his role in the introduction of high-tech products and services to the financial sector. His pioneering work in financial technology has led to innovative services like electronic payments, mobile banking and electronic invoicing. Eurobits has been offering services now classified as Account Information Service in Europe since 2004 to several of the Eurozone top banks, making Eurobits the pioneer in this market. Eurobits is a signatory to the  Future of European Fintech Alliance which have campaigned for fair access under PSD2. Arturo as an expert in open banking takes part on the works of the PSD2 API Evaluation Group. Arturo is also the Chairman of the ETPPA (European Third Party Providers Association) of which Eurobits is a founding member. Arturo represents ETPPA at the ERPB and has been selected as the co-Chair of the SEPA Access Scheme WG.

Drew Graham

Drew is a serial entrepreneur turned banker; a sheep in wolf’s clothing. He joined Barclays as Director of Digital Strategy in April 2019.  He was previously the Head of Platform for the Standard Chartered Virtual Bank in Hong Kong. He joined Standard Chartered as Director of Fintech Strategy and Engagement in 2016.

Before renting his soul, he founded and led a financial inclusion payments company in Indonesia, a financial services Cloud services company in Hong Kong, an oil and gas technology infrastructure company in Papua New Guinea, a data analytics startup in Berlin and a zip line in Singapore. He is a believer that the only difference between bravery and insanity is success, a keen mentor of entrepreneurs, a passionate advisor to startup accelerator programs and a reluctant wearer of formal clothes.

Keith Grose

Simon Hardie

Simon is co-founder and CEO of Findexable – the new digital platform for fintech insight and benchmarking, and home to the Global Fintech Index. As Ai and analytics re-shape business, Findexable’s mission is to make it easier to gather, interpret and benchmark fintech activity and enable unmoderated, real-time insight on the global fintech ecosystem.

Simon has two decades of experience producing financial intelligence content, research and events for global financial publishers including The Economist, Euromoney Institutional Investor and IFR (part of the Thomson Reuters Group), as well as boutique research publishers and media companies across Europe and the Middle East. He was previously a director of banking events and publishing house VRL (now Global Data) before setting up Eurasia Insights, a regional communications and content creation business focussed on emerging Europe, the Middle East and Turkey.

In 2015 he joined MagnaCarta Communications to build the company’s research and analytics capabilities to help financial technology firms define their proposition and tell their story, before setting up Findexable in response to growing customer demand for an easier, more efficient means of gathering insight and analytics.

Simon Healy

Simon is responsible for delivering Unisys’ global financial services strategy across the EMEA region.
With nearly 20 years’ experience in UK financial services, Simon specialises in starting and scaling new
digital businesses for consumers and SMEs, including at Capital One and Icesave (Landsbanki.) Most
recently, Simon was a Divisional Managing Director and one of the founding members of UK challenger
bank Aldermore, which launched in 2009 and was floated on the stock market in 2015. Simon has been
recognised with multiple awards for his deep end-to-end knowledge of financial services and passion for
creating genuinely customer-centric businesses.

Gregor Henderson

Gregor Henderson is an Independent International Adviser on Mental Health and Wellbeing and the Director of Mental Health for Public Health England. With over 30 years experience across a range of Government, public, private, academic and charity sectors. Gregor has successfully led and delivered large-scale national policies and programmes in mental health and is currently an adviser to a range of organisations and businesses, including several in the digital and start up world. Gregor is a founder and Director of the UK’s Wellbeing What Works Centre and a published author on mental health and wellbeing. Gregor lectures on mental health across the UK and internationally.

Markus Henschel

Markus Henschel is the Co-Founder and CEO of Jade Eli Technologies. With over a decade of experience in the IT industry, he has lived and worked across Europe in a variety of roles, such as Technical Director, Sales Engineer, Solution Architect, Senior Consultant, Technical Lead and Project Manager. In 2018 he co-founded Jade Eli Technologies which now has presence in Germany, Portugal and Malta and is currently rolling out into the African Continent. Jade Eli Technologies provides strategic and custom software development services for corporate clients across central Europe and offers four key services: low–code technology, utilizing the OutSystems platform; development of blockchain solutions; gamified systems, and Enterprise AI.

With a background in robotics and artificial intelligence, Markus has worked in a consultative capacity to enterprises across retail, automotive, banking and insurance, manufacturing, logistics and legal industries throughout Europe focusing on digital transformation strategies and implementation and adoption of emerging technologies.

Katrin Herrling

Katrin co-founded FUNDING XCHANGE (FXE) setting out to use access to new live data sources and advanced analytics to disrupt the inefficient SME funding space by creating the first UK platform for businesses to easily access bank and non-bank funding solutions in one place. FXE launched in 2016, announced an exclusive partnership with MoneySuperMarket and was designated as an official finance referral platform by the British Government in November 2016.

Today, FXE is working with nine UK banks and 40+ lenders to help customers access SME funding solutions, delivering services to the UK’s largest price comparison websites and building marketplaces that are integrated into banks’ SME banking proposition.

FXE has pioneered the use of live, validated data sources to transform the underwriting of SME loans. By automating decisioning, FXE is reducing the costs for lenders by more than 70% and giving small businesses transparency of the options they are eligible for. With the advent of Open Banking in 2018, FXE is continuing to lead the integration of new data sources and making it possible for lenders to make instant lending decisions.

FXE is collaborating with Sage, Xero and Experian to demonstrate how access to transactional data is enabling the delivery of user-centric tools that enable small businesses to manage their cashflow more efficiently, build a stronger financial profile and avoid funding emergencies.

Before founding FXE, Katrin spent seven years at Bain & Company, working closely with banks and other financial services institutions across Europe. Prior to joining Bain, Katrin led American Express’ strategy and business development team in London.

Julia Holzgreve

Julia is a Director at Keen Innovation, the independent fintech innovation lab of Basel Cantonal Bank and Bank Cler in Switzerland. She is responsible for innovation scouting and strategic partnerships, with an increasing focus on open banking, embedded finance and banking-as-a-service. She is active in several Swiss fintech and innovation organisations, lecturing in professional education programmes, mentoring startups and helping to build a stronger local ecosystem. Julia holds an Executive MBA from London Business School and previously worked in various marketing and customer strategy roles across industries at companies like UBS, eBay, Accenture and Hyatt.

Tanja Imamovic

With more than 15 years of experience in areas of digital transformation and product management, Tanja is responsible for Open API initiative in Raiffeisen Bank International. She started her career in Digital banking development for Retail and Corporate customers in Raiffeisen Bank Bosnia & Herzegovina where she was responsible for digitization projects.  After establishing the first Digital Banking Competence Center in Bosnia & Herzegovina, she is joining Raiffeisen Bank International on the path of transforming PSD2 regulation into the successful Open API ecosystem.

Focus on the value, big picture, people empowerment, awareness and technology are for her key pillars of successful business. She strongly believes in balanced life and accepts the change as one of the constants in our journey.

Babatunde Irukera

Babatunde Irukera is the Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC). He is responsible for the daily management and leadership of the Commission in fulfilling its mandate to promote market competition, protect consumers and secure remedies when consumer rights are violated. His record of advocacy and representation in competition and consumers’ issues is exceptional and provides the clarity that both the Commission, and industry need in addressing issues of customer service/protection, promoting a level playing field in the Nigerian marketplace, and ensuring regulatory stability.

He has been in active legal practice for almost three decades. His varied experience ranges from being In-house Counsel to General Counsel, Managing Partner in a law firm, and advising senior government officials as well as key government institutions. Over this diverse career, Babatunde gained considerable experience in transactions, competition law, consumer protection, civil rights and commercial litigation, regulatory work, government relations and practice management.

Key areas of significant litigation and resolution experience for Babatunde include medical malpractice.  He was key counsel in prosecution, negotiation and settlement of a large multi-jurisdictional case involving a major pharmaceutical company and the conduct of a clinical trial that resulted in injuries. He also played vital roles in sector related consumer protection advancements including advising the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority with respect to its role in sector consumer protection. He led the initiative in developing current aviation consumer protection regulations as well as the Passenger Bill of Rights. He also led the team that revised existing aviation economic regulations and superintended a comprehensive regulatory and parliamentary investigation into anti-competitive behaviour by foreign airlines. He has also provided capacity-building and advisory services to government institutions and other clients with respect to competition/antitrust issues. He co-authors the Nigerian chapters in a range of competition/antitrust related widely regarded international publications.

His unique combination of advocacy, commercial practice and reputation provides the required mutual industry/regulatory assurance and balance for a vibrant and robust competition and consumer protection regime that promotes business stability and investment, as well consumer satisfaction and confidence.

Babatunde was admitted to practice law before the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 1990, and before the Washington State Supreme Court in 1996.

Peter Jackson

Peter is Director, Group Data Sciences at Legal and General.  Previously Peter was Chief Data Officer at Southern Water and prior to that Head of Data at The Pensions Regulator (TPR), which regulates the pensions and automatic enrolment in the UK. Before joining TPR Peter spent 17 years providing data strategy consultancy across the not for profit sector, financial services and FMCG, working with large multi-national organisations and blue chip brands. Peter is a specialist in Data Strategy, Data Technologies, Master Data Management Strategies, Data Governance Frameworks, GDPR and Data Science Strategies.  Peter is the co-author of ‘The Chief Data Officer’s Playbook’ published by Facet November 2017, and  ‘Data-Driven Business Transformation’ published in March 2019 by Wiley. Peter is an international speaker on Data, Innovation and business transformation.

Henry Jones

David Keene

Ex-Googler David is the CMO at Funding Options. Harnessing his experience from the tech titan, as well as Salesforce, Oracle and SAP, the cloud native is leading the charge for growing Funding Options’ customer base and product line-up in the UK, Netherlands and other European countries. In his free time, you’ll find him teaching scuba diving or pondering over future tech.

Nick Kerigan

Leading a team of strategists, designers and developers responsible for innovation across the Cards and Payments businesses, creating next-gen payments experiences and partnering with FinTechs. He has strong expertise in digital payments, growth strategies and product development, based on a deep understanding of customer and merchant trends, and grounded in more than 20 years’ experience in developed and emerging markets.

In his most recent role, he drove cultural change around innovation, alongside creating a strong
brand profile as a top 100 financial sector influencer on social media.
Hence he is optimally placed to drive new growth in established and scaling financial services
businesses.

Nick is an established conference speaker at industry events: select engagements include keynote at
Finovate, FinTech Connect, Fintech World Forum, The Cards and Payments Summit, Lafferty
International Cards and Payments Conference and the Future of Payments Conference.
Nick has an established presence as a thought leader in payments as the author of many articles and
monthly blog.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-kerigan
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Nick_kerigan

Nameer Khan

Nameer Khan is one of the top leading fintech influencers and Chairman of MENA Fintech Association, MENA’s Fintech community. Nameer is a thought leader mentioned in Forbes (Middle East) and with his technical engagements works closely with regional central banks to establish a robust fintech framework.

Nathan Kinch

Nathan spends his days working with Boards, Executive Committees and practitioners, helping them develop the strategies, execute the tactics and monitor the metrics that will enable them to become ‘verifiably trustworthy’. His work is enabling organisations to transition away from Financial Services towards ‘Lifestyle Services’.

Recently he’s led programs of work for the Consumer Data Standards Body in Australia, the Open Banking Implementation Entity in the UK and a variety of global technology companies.

Amy Kroviak

Amy is a global corporate communications and brand strategist.  She has advised businesses across the financial services sector on the delivery of effective communications and engagement strategies that support growth and deliver brand value.

For the past two years, she was Head of Stakeholder Engagement at the UK’s Open Banking Implementation Entity where she introduced an integrated, issues-led approach to support the ecosystem’s delivery of open banking enabled products for SMEs and consumers. She is the co-founder of Open51, an association of senior women leading the transformation to the new era of Open Finance.

Amy helps clients navigate and take advantage of opportunities arising from new, open data technologies transforming the financial services sector.  She works with fintechs and financial services companies as well as regulators, government representatives and other key stakeholders to help ensure this transformation is inclusive, sustainable and robust.

Emma Lindley

Emma Lindley is co-founder of Women in Identity a not for profit organisation focused on developing talent and diversity in the identity industry, and executive advisor on digital identity for Truststamp a provider of privacy protecting technology for the identity industry.

Over a career of 16 years in identity Emma has held various roles, most recently as Head of Identity and Risk at Visa, previous board level roles at Confyrm, Innovate Identity and The Open Identity Exchange, and was instrumental in the commercial development of GB Group’s position in the identity market back in 2003. 

She has been recognised in the Innovate Finance Powerlist for Women 2016 and 2017, KNOW Identity Top 100 leaders in Identity in 2017, 2018 and 2019, 100 Women in Tech Awards 2019, and was voted CEO of the year at the KNOW Identity Awards. She has an MBA from Manchester Business School and completed her thesis in Competitive Strategy in the Identity Market.

Gavin Littlejohn

Gavin Littlejohn serves as Chairman of the Financial Data and Technology Association www.fdata.org.uk, the Global Open Banking Trade Association, where he successfully led the campaign to have account aggregation added to PSD2 in 2013. Through FDATA he is a leader of the Open Banking Movement and campaigns for common technical standards and a consistent liability models across the Globe.

Gavin was appointed as Convenor of the Fintech Stakeholder Group of the UK Open Banking Implementation Entity in 2016 and is now working with a number of other markets engaged on the same mission.

Gavin is a fintech entrepreneur with experience of developing innovative solutions to mass market problems and is well-renowned as the Founder of Money Dashboard, and acted as its CEO until 2015.

Will Mason

Will started his career as an Investment Analyst and then transitioned into leading product design for the Wealth sector. Since then he has moved into a strategy and business operations role leading the acquisition of Fintech Runpath into Experian. His remit is to lead and develop new opportunities across Experian’s Digital portfolio with a focus on maximizing the opportunity from both Experian data sources and the expanding open data landscape.

Marcus Mayers

Marcus Mayers is an expert in delivering new technology into the Railway Sector. After ten years delivering novel rail projects for blue chip companies, he was hired to help setup and deliver a £100m rail innovation programme for Railway Safety and Standards Board. This included delivering composites into rail. In 2016 Marcus setup RASIC Ltd to support out of sector companies deliver product into the rail. Marcus is a visiting fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University, in his field of expertise, and holds an MBA in Innovation.

Rafe Mazer

Rafe Mazer leads Innovations for Poverty Action’s (IPA) Consumer Protection Research Initiative. IPA brings together researchers and decision-makers to design, rigorously evaluate, and refine solutions to global poverty problems. IPA’s consumer protection research project integrates experimental research into the development of consumer protection policies in the context of financial inclusion. Rafe has worked for the past decade with providers, regulators, and researchers across the globe to improve consumer protection in areas such as financial advice, pricing transparency, data protection, and competition. His research and experiments have been leveraged to develop new product design by FinTechs and mobile money operators, as well as new regulations and guidelines from central banks and competition authorities

Laura McGortey

Chris Michael

Chris Michael

CEO @ Ozone | Head of Technology @ OBIE

Chris is an experienced industry expert in building cross functional teams, technology platforms and digital products for global brands. He is currently leading development of the UK Open Banking Standard, including creation of the collaboration and governance model which covers both regulatory compliance and commercial requirements. Chris is a strategic innovator and founder of Ozone, a FinTech providing Open Banking technology solutions and advisory services to banks, third parties and regulators in UK, Europe and Globally.

Peta Milan

Peta Milan is an international speaker, entrepreneur and award-winning filmmaker. She has decades of experience in management consulting and training leadership roles. She is the Founder and CEO of Transcendent Media Capital, Director and Co-Founder of Jade Eli Technologies, Associate Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Science, International Advisory Board Member of the World Sustainability Forum, inaugural Member of Future Capital and Council Member of the Digital Economist.

Transcendent Media Capital (TMC) is an award-winning media production and investment structuring company, specializing in social and environmental impact investment focusing on whole systems change. TMC combines media, technology, and proactive legal regulatory reform, developing programmes of investment which tackle global issues. TMC produces media content, both fiction and non-fiction across formats as part of its media portfolio. TMC has worked with NGO’s including Victim Support Europe, the European Commission and the World Bank and the United Nations. Driven by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, TMC is currently covering issues such as economics; agriculture and energy; cultural, religious and diversity education; sex and relationship education for kids; improving support for victims of crime; cybercrime; climate migration; counter-terrorism and counter-radicalization; biodiversity and conservation; sustainability and food security.

Anna Mitchell

As Head of Marketplace Anna is Starling’s product lead for the bank’s open API integrations. Providing customers with a range of complementary services they can access in-app and link to their bank account to enjoy extended functionality, Starling’s Marketplace is an exemplar of the potential value open banking can provide customers, both retail and SMEs. With 24 integrations already available – spanning accountancy software, communications platforms, and pensions – and a number of other exciting opportunities in the pipeline, the Marketplace is one of Starling’s most popular features with its 100,000+ SME customers. Anna has 7 years experience in tech, having previously worked on disruptive smart energy propositions at OVO Energy.

Adrian Mountstephens

With 10+ years’ experience in the data center industry, Adrian immerses himself in the Payment and Banking sector at Equinix, analysing how consumer behaviour, new technology, and regulation drive constant change.  As a trusted advisor, he helps clients grow their business with Equinix, guiding them through every step of their digital journey. This is underpinned by a core belief that customer success relies upon mutual trust and respect.

Nzomo Mutuku, MBS

Mr. Nzomo Mutuku, MBS, is the Chief Executive Officer of Retirement Benefits Authority in Kenya. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Mutuku worked at the National Treasury as the Senior Advisor, Financial Sector and Acting Director, Financial and Sectoral Affairs Department working on policy matters relating to financial sector development including financial inclusion, efficiency and stability.  Previously he was the Chief Manager, Research & Development at the Retirement Benefits Authority and has also worked in the Research Department of the Central Bank of Kenya.

Mr. Mutuku holds a Masters of Arts degree in Economics as well as a First Class Honours Bachelor of Arts (Economics) degree from the University of Nairobi and a Certificate in Digital Money from Tufts University. He has also undertaken training in pensions and financial markets in various countries including the UK and Canada and at Harvard University and the Wharton Business School in the United States. He has authored a number of papers on financial sector issues including “the Case for Consolidated Financial Sector Supervision in Kenya“ and “the Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on the Pensions Sector in Kenya” which are widely quoted in the region.

Gareth Narinesingh

Gareth is Yoti’s commercial director for financial services. He focusses on delivering digital identity solutions for regulated financial institutions who are keen to explore the opportunity for reg tech to drive robust KYC practices and standards. Before Yoti, Gareth spent 11 years working in various banking roles across front office, change management and COO roles. He then served as an FCA lead supervisor in the wholesale banking department. Eventually moving to Deloitte, Gareth advised executives and boards on undertaking wholesale financial crime remediation programmes and the impact of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime. He has notable experience of managing and advising firms on Section 166 Skilled Person financial crime reviews.

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez (antonionietorodriguez.com) is a thought leader, author, practitioner, and professor. He is the creator of concepts such as the Hierarchy of Purpose, featured by Harvard Business Review, the Project Economy or the Project Manifesto; which argues that projects are the lingua franca of the business and personal worlds from the C-suite to managing your career or relationships.

His research and global impact in modern management been recognized by Thinkers50 with the prestigious award “Ideas into Practice” and Global Gurus. Antonio was the Chairman of the Project Management Institute in 2016, where he co-founded the Brightline Initiative. He is the co-founder of the Strategy Implementation Institute.

Antonio is the author of “The Project Revolution” (LID, 2019). “Lead Successful Projects” (Penguin, 2019) and “The Focused Organization” (Taylor & Francis, 2014). He is a member of the prestigious Marshall Goldsmith 100 coaches group.

Pamela Novoa Ralli

Pamela is the Vice President of Product Management for Payments, Banking and Document Exchange at Sage. In this role, she leads the product strategy of integrated solutions that aim to simplify processes related to the movement of money for businesses and employees.

In her role, she collaborates with leading financial institutions and fintechs globally to enrich the experiences of their mutual customers through smart innovative technology solutions. She brings deep knowledge of customer needs and preferences as well as a passion for the financial services industry.

Pamela, who holds an EMBA from Cranfield university, relocated to Atlanta with Sage two years ago. Originally from Peru, she spent the majority of her adult life in London where she held roles with some of the largest global players in financial services. She is married with two children, whom she currently has the “pleasure” of homeschooling during the coronavirus lockdown.

David O'Neill

David is a serial entrepreneur with a background in mobile and testing technologies dating all the way back to WAP.

APImetrics was founded in 2014 to focus on the challenges we saw in monitoring the API economy – where conventional tools were completely missing the problems with APIs that were impacting developers. APImetrics now has hundreds of users all over the world and a client base full of household names across the telecoms, banking and industrial space.

APImetrics is headquartered in Seattle, WA, USA and has branch offices in the UK and New Zealand.

David Parker

David is the founder and CEO of Polymath Consulting who work on projects and advise organisations across the Cards & Payments industry.

David is also an active mentor, NED and advisor to boards. He advises and/or sits on the boards of: Cybertonica, 3S Money Club, Trezeo, Pie People and Curve along with others.

In consultancy he has worked across the complete value chain helping banks with their overall E-Money/Prepaid and Emerging Payments strategy right through to market entry analysis; as well as working with telcos, processors and programme managers on segment analysis, certification and membership applications.

Geographically his client assignments have covered Russia, South Africa, Middle East, Europe and Asia; in reality clients have come from all continents other an Antarctic.

He is an active contributor to forums on linkedin and a regular media commentator on the future of e-money/emerging payments.

He chairs conferences and events from Mumbai to Moscow; Las Vegas to London and Johannesburg/Nairobi in Africa to Colombo/Sri Lanka.

Rafael Plantier

Rafael Plantier (or simply “Rafa”) is Tink’s Country Manager for the UK & Ireland. Founded in Stockholm in 2012, Tink is Europe’s leading open banking platform that enables banks, fintechs and startups to develop data-driven financial services. Its current partners include PayPal, NatWest, ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas Fortis and Klarna.

Rafa has a background in economics and 15 years of banking experience across the globe, having worked in a broad range of areas – from consumer finance (Citi) to online payments (Stripe) – and in diverse business environments such as São Paulo, Mexico City, New York and London.

Philipp Pointner

Oliver Prill

Oliver joined Tide from German online lender Kreditech, where he served as chief operating officer and helped to transform the business into a leading global fintech company. He has more than 20 years of leadership experience in financial services, having worked across banking and insurance.

In many of his roles he worked closely with small business owners and has always been inspired by their energy and passion but knows that for too long, they have been let down by traditional banks. Oliver is adamant to put founders at the forefront of Tide’s agenda and bring a better business banking alternative to small businesses for good.

Richard Prior

With a deep and blended background embracing consular relations, consulting and academia, Richard Prior has a demonstrated presence in the global policy space. As a passionate advocate for open banking and open finance, his areas of focus include implementation architecture and design, international market landscape research, partnership cultivation, business development, data privacy and digital identity. His engagement has seen enthusiastic participation with multiple key industry and government entities around the world as a former member of the policy team at Kabbage Inc. and through his role at FDATA as Global Head of Policy and Research.

James Pyer

James is Chief Data Officer at Cashplus, a leading fintech providing specialist banking and credit services to UK SMEs and consumers.

Passionate about creating value from data, James has helped Cashplus to deliver eight years of operating profit through continuous innovation, establishing the technology platforms that allow customer to access and share the rich data that enable faster, smarter services.

James recently led the development of Cashplus’s Open Banking and Commercial API interfaces, and represented the prepaid sector on an Open Banking advisory panel. James holds an MBA from CASS Business School.

Charles Radclyffe

Hervé Robache

Hervé Robache has been involved since 1990 in the payments industry, particularly in the clearing
and settlement of retail payments.

As a computer architect in the former GSIT, he was hired by STET in 2005 to work on the design and
specifications of the CORE system, which now provides switching, clearing and settlement services in
Belgium and France, for SEPA and national payment instruments, including instant payments.

Hervé has also been involved in various standardization initiatives, such as the EACHA
interoperability framework and the SEPAmail standard. He is now coordinating the work on the STET
PSD2 API with Banks and TPPs and maintains close relationships with other initiatives, BERLIN GROUP
and OPEN BANKING UK, as well as with other standardization actors, SWIFT, ISO and W3C.

Bill Roberts

Bill is Head of Open Banking at the Competition & Markets Authority. He led the design of the Implementation Entity and the specification of the Implementation Trustee role. He has been heavily involved in the Open Banking rollout process since the launch of the project, including working closely with UK stakeholders and regulators in other jurisdictions contemplating or implementing Open Banking.

Before entering the world of regulation (initially at the Competition Commission) he held a number of senior commercial positions within the information businesses of Thomson Reuters. Prior to that he was Deputy Director of Which?.

Paul Rodgers

Paul is Chairman & Founder of European payments community, Vendorcom; European Evangelist at the
World Wide Web Consortium for the Payments Sector; Mentor at fintech accelerator, Level 39; and
Member of the UK Payments Systems Regulator Panel and provided the secretariat for the All Party
Parliamentary Group on Payment Systems in the last session of the UK Parliament.

Paul is passionate about the payments industry and the benefits to be gained by driving innovation
through collaboration. His work with Vendorcom ensures that all stakeholders in the industry are
connected and have access to authoritative, independent information on strategic and innovative
developments, standards, regulation and market opportunities. Paul is recognised for his broad
perspective on industry matters as well as his independence, authority and pragmatism in dealing with
the increasingly complex change that both merchants and solutions suppliers face.

Alex Roy

Alex set up the new Consumer Distribution Policy Department in the FCA in October 2018 and is
responsible for policy development across Banking, Payments, General Insurance and Retail
Distribution. Particular challenges include the successful implementation of Strong Customer
Authentication, increasing innovation in Payments and the desire to help facilitate Open Finance in
the UK. He joined the FCA in 2014 and has been working in variety of policy and strategy roles
including leading the team developing the FCA’s Mission. Alex started working life as an economist
before moving to a policy focus at the Association of British Insurers where he led their work on the
Retail Distribution Review.

Charlotte Sadd

Charlotte has been working for NatWest Group for the past 8 years, last 2.5 years in Personal Banking Innovation. With background and experience in IT Networking, Web development, IT Security Audit, as well as customer experience and very excited about the opportunities for Digital Identity and Data sharing in the Bank. Her interest areas lie in inclusion in the technology industry and bringing products and support to those who wouldn’t otherwise get it, for example, setting up coding clubs for school kids in the Bank.

Fred Schebesta

Fred has more recently been heavily involved in the cryptocurrency space. After launching crypto exchange comparison Crypto Finder in 2017 and crypto broker service HiveEx.com, Fred’s vision is to build a global crypto financial services company.

Angel Sierra

Industrial Engineer, MBA, FinTech entrepreneur and dialogue enabler; with the main purpose of accelerate innovation and financial inclusion with technology.

www.fintechile.org

Francesco Simoneschi

Eyal Sivan

Eyal Sivan is the Head of Open Banking at Axway, where he is responsible for positioning Axway as the number one thought leader and integration solution provider in the open banking space. As a member of the elite Catalyst team, he brings a high-degree of specialization in API and microservices technologies within the FSI sector, with a particular focus on how they accelerate digital transformation.

In his efforts to drive advancements in open banking around the world, Eyal has also created the unique personal brand Mr. Open Banking. Under this name, Eyal hosts the only podcast dedicated to the open banking community, where he interviews the key leaders, innovators and influencers who are driving and shaping the global emergence of open banking.

Chris Skinner

Chris Skinner is known as one of the most influential people in technology, and known as an independent commentator on the financial markets and fintech through his blog, the Finanser.com. Chris Skinner is known as one of the most influential people in technology, and as an independent commentator on fintech through his blog, the Finanser.com. His latest book (sixteenth!) is called Doing Digital, and shares the lessons of doing digital transformation learned through interviews with BBVA, China Merchants Bank, DBS, ING and JPMorgan Chase.  He chairs the Financial Services Club and Nordic Future Innovate, is a non-executive director of 11:FS and on the advisory boards of various firms. Mr. Skinner has been an advisor to the United Nations, the White House, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum, and is a visiting lecturer with Cambridge University as well as a TEDx speaker. He is also co-founder with renowned artist Basia Hamilton of The Portrait Foundation, http://portraitfoundation.com/, a non-profit platform to encourage children and the arts.

Martin Sladecek

Martin Sladecek is the Chapter Lead of Open Banking, Research & UX Testing for Komercni banka, Czech republic. Martin is responsible for the management of Open Banking and PSD2 business opportunities within digital banking, defines new customer value in the new challenging era of banking and evangelizes related & up-to-date topics such as the open economy, shared and aggregated services and API business across the bank with the special focus on banking & financial innovations, innovation culture, FinTechs, and emerging market trends.

Before joining Komercni banka, Martin has worked as advisor, management and business consultant with over 15 years of hands-on consultancy and managerial experiences in the business and ICT challenges of the banking and finance sector focusing on business innovations, digital marketing and communication, technology advantages and multichannel solutions delivered to banking market leaders such as Komercni banka (Societe Generale), VUB (Intesa Sanpaolo), CSOB (KBC) or Global Payments Europe. Martin holds an Ph.D. and Certificate in Management from the Czech Technical University in Prague and besides his banking career is running the coaching practice.

Marie Steinthaler

Marie Steinthaler is Vice President of APAC for one of the world’s leading providers of financial APIs, TrueLayer. She is currently spearheading TrueLayer’s expansion into Australia – it is the first European Open Banking company to do so. TrueLayer’s mission is to create a global Open Banking platform that empowers companies to develop new financial services and products.

Biju Suresh Babu

Biju is Managing Director, Banking & Financial Services at Fiorano, a mission-critical technology infrastructure specialist headquartered in Silicon Valley.

As traditional banks begin to change ambitions and approaches to market as a consequence of competition from fintechs and bigtech (largely enabled by PSD2 / Open Banking), Fiorano’s technology allows banks to work around constraints normally associated with legacy.

London based Biju leads product strategy for Fiorano’s Banking practice, specialising in BaaS, Modular Banking, Open Banking & ISO 20022.

Biju has broad commercial and operational experience across the UK, Europe, APAC and North America, and is part of taskforces working with banks and the industry to provide technology, standardisation and advice on next generation banking & payments ecosystems, globally. Prior to his current role, Biju was responsible for leading Fiorano’s work in Open Banking and PSD2.

Hayden Sutherland

Hayden Sutherland is the Founder and Chair of the Open Transport initiative, a group of industry and technical specialists who in January 2020 released two Open Standards for transport and mobility account interoperability. Described as the “Open Banking for Transport” this industry first is already building significant momentum across both the public and private sectors.

He is also the Director and lead consultant at Ideal Interface, a digital strategy, technology and marketing consultancy based in Glasgow, Scotland. With over 25 years of online industry experience, Hayden has been responsible for designing and delivering a many significant digital projects, primarily for Transport, Financial Services and Retail & eCommerce clients.

In his spare time he likes to make pancakes for his family and burn the calories off on his mountain bike.

Kevin Telford

Kevin is an innovative, curious award-winning business Strategy Leader, Founder and Advisor. He is a co-author, keynote speaker, lecturer and part of DataIQ Top 100 most influential people in data.

He has specialist skills in data driven innovation, digital transformation, tech engineering, propositions, models and agile ways of working for purpose driven organisations.

Currently engaged as an advisor, client engagement lead to the Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence and as a client partner at AND Digital. He is the owner of an advisory company with a value proposition for start-ups, medium to large size organisation cross sectors.

A leader in Open Finance and designer of the pathway to Open Life innovation. He is also the co- founder of an Open Finance company and advisor to social impact organisation.

Olaf van Gorp

Olaf van Gorp is an expert on API management. He has been working with API management solutions for close to a decade, the last four of which he dedicated to the Akana API Management Platform. As an Akana specialist, Olaf seeks to help customers that are looking for ways to effectively handle their APIs, in particular from an API security perspective. Security being among his foremost interests, it is not surprising that Olaf shows a keen interest in open banking and the role APIs play in that domain. He has published a number of blog articles on the subject and is intends to write many more. Also, Olaf participates in webinars and regularly acts as a speaker on international events.

Mariana Velazquez Suarez

With a Business Administration degree, Mariana has developed professionally both in the private and public sectors. At Citibank, in Mexico,  she worked  at the Securities and Custody Services area,  for several years, leading the  Account Representatives area. In those days she was key in the regionalization of the securities and custody system with the objective to transfer the client services to Tampa, Fl. in the USA.

Later she was chosen by Citi to be responsible for the translation and adaptation of the bank’s securities services platform for LatAm. This entailed working independently and being resourceful in finding the right contacts in achieving the highest standards and results. Then, she collaborated in the securities services area at HSBC, supporting the improvement of processes and services, as well as researching and developing the operational requirements to be presented to top management.

In 2016, she was invited to collaborate in the research and development of the Fintech ecosystem in Mexico, at the Securities and Banking National Commission. In the Regulatory Development area she participated directly in the drafting of the Fintech Law and its regulation, including the Open Banking preliminary regulation. Then, in 2019, she worked in the set up and launch of the Regulatory Sandbox.

Mariana recently joined Open Vector as Senior Consutant and her aim is to transmit the knowledge and  experience gained throughout the development of the Fintech ecosystem in Mexico (including Open Finance) among firms and regulators from LATAM and other jurisdictions worldwide, helping them to understand market players, benefits, challenges, risks and opportunities.

Vilve Vene

Vilve Vene is the CEO and co-founder of Modularbank, a new fintech company from Estonia that provides a flexible API-first cloud-based banking platform. For more than 25 years Vilve has been bringing technology to the finance world, having started devising innovative financial technology well before ‘fintech’ even became a tangible concept.

In 1992, just one year after Estonia gained independence, she joined Hansabank, a start-up formed by four economics graduates who wanted to modernise banking. With no initial capital or experience in commercial banking, out of both necessity and ingenuity, they built a bank that was digital from the very beginning. As early as 1993, Hansabank was offering PC banking to business customers. While Hansabank was on the way to become the largest bank in the Baltic States, Vilve was responsible for managing the IT Development Division with 150 employees. Eventually, Hansabank was bought by Swedbank.

In 2002, Vilve left Hansabank with a wealth of experience that enabled her to set up the fintech Icefire, which has successfully built more than 15 banks and financial institutions and is responsible for the infrastructure of the Estonian tax system. In 2018, Vilve co-founded the start-up Modularbank with the aim of taking fintech one stage further: to provide a flexible banking platform which allows any business to rapidly offer seamless, tailored financial services to their customers.

Jim Wadsworth

With engineering degrees from Cambridge University and more than 20 years’ experience in
the payments industry, Jim has run businesses for market leaders such as NatWest,
Barclaycard, JP Morgan and Vodafone. He has also led start-ups such as Simpay. He has a
strong track record of successfully building, launching and managing innovative payments
products and businesses.
There is a common thread that has run through Jim’s career to date; one where strategy
meets innovation. Jim has brought his strategic skillset to the table for businesses that are in
search of the next game-changer in payments technology. His career has progressed in
tandem with a payments landscape that has evolved rapidly over the past two decades.
Jim thrives on bringing bold ideas to life, and on driving results. He joined Vocalink in 2012
as he saw the huge potential that the business represented. Since then he has led
Vocalink’s core UK business; alongside which he has developed strategic propositions for
the business across areas such as alternative payments (mobile, digital), payments systems
access (PayPort) and data insights (Vocalink Analytics). He is now leading our proposition
and product development work on Open Banking, co-ordinating across Vocalink and Mastercard.

Rich Wagner

Rich Wagner is CEO and founder of Cashplus, a leading UK challenger to banks, and has over 30 years of experience in payments and banking, including executive roles at Visa, Barclaycard and Providian.

Since Rich founded Cashplus in 2005, the company has provided innovative digital banking services for more than 1.6m customers and delivered eight consecutive years of operating profit while continuing to rapidly grow its customer base and revenues. Cashplus now has ambitious plans to become the specialist bank for UK small businesses and is in the latter stages of approval for its full banking licence.

Outside of his work at Cashplus, Rich has been an active and vocal industry advocate and, as former Chair of the EPA, played a key role in gaining fair access to UK payments systems for non-banks.

Marie Walker

Marie is co-founder of Finance Edge, organiser of the Open Banking World Congress.  Finance Edge specialises in using content and community to explore and accelerate digital transformation trends. Of particular interest and expertise is the emerging open data ecosystem.

Harry Weber-Brown

Harry Weber-Brown is the Digital Innovation Director for TISA which includes managing a Digital Identity project for consumers of financial services products. He has worked on a number of digital identity pilots including an OIX led project, funded by the European Commission, focusing on opening bank accounts across European borders using Digital Identity delivered through the eIDAS framework.

Samee Zafar

Samee Zafarhas advised some of the largest financial services organisations in Europe and North America on competitive strategy, operations and technology. His expertise covers retail banking, card issuing and acquiring, electronic payments including Internet and mobile payments. Samee has deep experience in helping clients set-up Internet and telephone based direct banking and brokerage operations including the selection and management of technology providers and outsourcing partners. He has written several articles in leading publications, has spoken at conferences, and has recently co-authored a book on payment cards: “Developing and managing a successful payment cards business,” published by Gower. Previously Samee has worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers and Visa International in London and New York. Samee holds a B.Sc in Physics and Mathematics from University of the Punjab in Pakistan, is a chartered accountant, and was a Commonwealth Scholar at the Cass Business School of the City University in London where he received his MBA in Finance.