Speakers

Alison Martin has extensive management, financial and commercial experience within the insurance sector. She was appointed chief executive officer Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) and bank distribution in July 2019 and is responsible for sustainability at Zurich Insurance Group. Prior to that, she served as Group chief risk officer from January 2018 to September 2019. A qualified accountant, Ms. Martin began her career at PwC, where from 1995 to 2003 she worked with insurance clients in audit and advisory roles. She then served in leading executive positions at Swiss Re, starting in 2003 as finance director, Life & Health. Starting in January 2011 she served as group managing director of Swiss Re’s Life & Health Products Division. She was appointed Swiss Re’s head of Life & Health Business Management in 2013, a position she held until joining Zurich as Group chief risk officer-designate and a member of the Executive Committee in October 2017.

Ashley Alder became Chair of the FCA Board in February 2023.

Ashley was previously the Chief Executive Officer of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in Hong Kong, a role he has held since 2011.

He also chaired the Board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).

Ashley began his career as a lawyer in London in 1984 and practised in Hong Kong for more than 20 years. He was Executive Director of the SFC's Corporate Finance Division from 2001 to 2004, before returning to private practice at Herbert Smith LLP, a law firm, as Head of Asia.

Roman Regelman is Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of Securities Services and Digital. He is a member of BNY Mellon’s Executive Committee.

Securities Services includes Asset Servicing and Issuer Services, which comprises the Corporate Trust and Depositary Receipts businesses. As CEO of Securities Services, Roman focuses on product strategy and development to accelerate the transformation of Securities Services into a more data- and analytics-led business. He is responsible for driving end-to-end delivery of solutions to our Asset Servicing and Corporate Trust and Depositary Receipts clients.

As Head of Digital, Roman sets the direction for the firm’s digital future and drives investments in our digital capabilities, including data management, analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics.

Prior to joining BNY Mellon, Roman took on senior leadership roles that spanned Chief Operating Officer, Chief Digital Officer, Head of Transformation and Head of Customer Journeys. He was a partner and managing director of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he co-led its Financial Institutions Digital business and led Customer Journey, North American Financial Institutions Operations and Lean Practices. At BCG, he ran numerous financial institution and service company transformations, including end-to-end customer journeys, process digitization, Agile, restructuring technology and operations. Prior to BCG, he worked at Booz and Company, Bain & Company, NerveWire/Wipro, Mitchell Madison Group, One Core, GTE/BBN and Gazeta Distribution.

Roman earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from St. Petersburg State Technical University, St. Petersburg, Russia and a Master of Business Administration from Olin Graduate Business School at Babson College, Wellesley, Mass. He is a recognized author and thought leader on digital and financial services industry topics.

Sandra is a proponent for ‘human-centric tech’.From investment banking and currency markets to blockchain technology, she is an early investor and advocate of cryptocurrencies and digital assets. She currently serves as the CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), the world’s largest leading Swiss-based non-for-profit association with more than 500 institutional members, 231 ambassadors, across 109 jurisdictions and disciplines.

In 2019, she was appointed as the Senate representative of the New York State Digital Currency Task Force, and serves on the AIFC Fintech Council (Kazakhstan), World Economic Forum’s Digital Currencies Governance Consortium, International Securities Services Association’s DLT & ISO Standards, GI Trust FATF Travel Rule Standards Task Force (South Korea), GBBC’s Global Standards Mapping Initiative, Blockchain for Climate (BxC) Board, Salesforce’s Web3 Advisory Board, Filecoin Foundation Advisory Board, and UN World Food Programme Innovation Accelerator Advisory Council.Sandra was a founding member of many of the earliest blockchain associations including Hyperledger Foundation, The Linux Foundation, the Post Trade Distributed Ledger Group (PTDL) and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA).

She is a frequent guest lecturer at universities discussing topics from fintech to data privacy and harnessing emerging technologies to solve real world problems and has testified in front of governments including the U.S. Senate Committee - Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry, UK House of Lords, Economic Affairs Committee, European Parliament, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, in both closed door and public forums.

Whilst at CME Group, she headed FX & Metals Research & Product Development and founded a new business unit, Digitization. Sandra and her team created the CME CF Bitcoin pricing index and reference rate, CME Bitcoin Futures, and post trade, clearing and settlement solutions as well as filing the first set of crypto derivatives patents with the USPTO. Sandra was one of the corporate digital asset pioneers to recognize the potential of this technology and its many applications; she presented at one of the first CFTC Technology Advisory Committee (TAC) on the potential of blockchain technology on February 23, 2016. Previously, she was a London-based derivatives banker at Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank in the foreign exchange and interest rate markets.

Sandra holds a M.B.A. in Finance and Accounting from London Business School, studied Computer Science at Columbia University, School of Continuing Studies and earned a double B.A. degree from Yale University in History (Military) and Studies in the Environment.

Benjamin is a Director of the Swiss National Bank and heads the Money Market and Foreign Exchange division in Zurich. He is responsible for the implementation of monetary policy of the SNB. Benjamin joined the SNB in February 2017.

Before joining the SNB, Benjamin spent almost 15 years at UBS Investment Bank in the FICC division.  He worked in Zurich, Singapore and lastly London, where he was Head of FX Exotic Options Trading for EMEA.

Benjamin is co-Chair of the Swiss Foreign Exchange Committee and a member of the board of ACI Suisse.

Brad is the CEO of Ripple and a member of the Board of Directors. Prior to Ripple, Brad served as the CEO of file collaboration service Hightail. From 2009 to 2012 he was President of Consumer Applications at AOL and prior to that he held various executive positions at Yahoo! from 2003 to 2009, including Senior Vice President.

Earlier in his career, Brad helped to pioneer the VoIP industry as CEO of Dialpad Communications. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of OutMatch and has held board positions at Ancestry.com and Tonic Health.

Carrie Suen is the Senior Advisor at Ant Group, where she is responsible to drive our global strategies and thought leadership of Ant's international policy objectives to bring more inclusive, green and sustainable changes to the ecosystem. She also oversaw the legal and privacy functions for Ant International Business Group.

Carrie is a seasoned lawyer and has experience in wide range of subject matters ranging from fintech regulatory, corporate governance, M&A, equity offerings to listed companies compliance. Since joining Ant in 2014, Carrie has been at the forefront of the global digital payment and regulatory development, where she accumulated practical insight of the market pain points. Carrie has been involved in regular direct communications and dialogues with regulators/government and international organizations, to raise awareness the importance of financial inclusion and help shape the policy landscape globally. Under her leadership, Ant’s International Legal team grew fourfold from 2017-2020, supporting over 100 markets/regions.

She is currently an advisory board member of the Emerging Payments Association Asia and a member of the women in fintech sub-committee of the Singapore Fintech Association, to drive more community support and sponsorship to champion for women leadership in Singapore and the region.

Mr. Leiming CHEN has been Senior Vice President of Ant Group since March 2016, responsible for International Public Policy and Government Affairs of Ant Group. He also leads the ESG initiatives and the implementation of the sustainable development strategy of Ant Group’s international businesses.

Mr. Chen joined us in March 2016 and served as our General Counsel from March 2016 to May 2020. In his day-to-day responsibilities, Mr. Chen undertakes a broad range of regulatory engagement in connection with our Group's international business activities. Prior to joining us, Mr. Chen was a partner and head of China practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, a New York-based international law firm, where he worked on a variety of equity and debt offerings and mergers and acquisitions involving primarily PRC companies, including his lead role in advising Alibaba in its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014. Mr. Chen has extensive experience in corporate governance and regulatory matters. Mr. Chen is qualified to practice law in the State of New York and is a solicitor of the High Court of Hong Kong. Mr. Chen obtained a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University in Toronto, Canada.

Chris works as an adviser at the BIS Innovation Hub’s London Centre having joined from the Bank of England. His recent focus has been on identifying how technological innovations can be applied to central banks’ work. At the Innovation Hub, Chris has been the lead on Project Meridian, which built a prototype for a new way to settle a complex transaction in RTGS systems. In previous roles, drawing on his background as an economist, he has led work implementing advanced analytic techniques to provide better insights for monetary and financial stability policy makers. 

Christian Spindler is co-founder of Sustainaccount. With his company, Christian helps real asset developers, asset managers and portfolio investors to make their assets resilient to climate change. Sustainaccount quantifies the financial risks implied by the changing climate, and develops optimal adaptation pathways. With the Sustainaccount solution, customers are enabled to both adequately report on climate risk alongside regulatory requirements such as SFDR, TCFD and CSRD, and also develop an optimal investment roadmap to develop climate resilient real estate and infrastructure assets.

Before founding Sustainaccount, Christian Spindler headed the development of products and solutions in the field of data science and sustainable finance in corporates such as PwC, Deloitte and ABB.

Christian Spindler holds a PhD in climate science and an MBA from the University of St. Gallen.

Christian is the Head of AI & Data Transformation at Zurich. He is a technology enthusiast who has worked on ESA and NASA space missions in the 90ies. In the early 2000s he started his career in consulting, where he spent 17 years, supporting many large companies on their technology journey towards data and AI-driven innovation, in financial services, healthcare, pharma and industrial manufacturing. His mission at Zurich is to drive the AI transformation in the most significant business areas of the company.

Christiane is heading the AI competence center at FINMA since 1 June 2022. She has over 20 years experience in pricing, trading and risk management in large international banks and 4 years as a co-founder of an AI start-up company.

Christoph has been with UBS for more than 22 years. The first part of his career was spent in Wealth Management, with clients, after which he held various senior risk management and operating office positions. He became interested in digital assets when he started to understand the potential that DLT has to significantly reshape the financial services industry. Christoph now leads the Digital Assets Center of Expertise for UBS, overseeing the management of the Group’s Digital Assets initiative globally.

Financial Market and Data Protection Lawyer. Commited to interdisciplinary cooperation for #fintech and #innovation in #banking and #finance.

Partner at Kellerhals Carrard; Co-Director at Swiss FinTech Innovations (SFTI); visiting professor and head of the interdisciplinary #FinTank at FHNW; permanent guest of the Expert Commission on Digitalisation of the Swiss Bankers Association.

Dea is Managing Director and Digital Assets practice lead for Forefront Advisers, a boutique Brussels and London-based political intelligence and risk firm. Her team forecasts and scrutinises the critical emergent political and regulatory risks affecting digital assets, digital payments, and artificial intelligence in the EU and UK.

Dea moved into this role, having led private sector EU advocacy campaigns in digital finance, crypto-assets regulation and AML, as Europe drafted its seminal regulatory framework in these areas.

Prior, Dea was part of the FinTech and Innovation Group of the MAS, responsible for market differentiating infrastructure for innovation initiatives. Dea spent 10 years in London, as an adviser on financial regulation in the 2008 re-regulation period as well as Head of Programmes for Innovate Finance, the UK FinTech trade association.

Dea is an affiliate with the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance and Evaluation Committee Member for IFSCA, Gujarat, India. She holds MSc in Financial Regulation from the LSE, and speaks Spanish, Russian, Bulgarian and Portuguese.

DC is the Head of HashKey Singapore, and CEO of HashKey Capital which invests in crypto and blockchain globally through three dedicated funds with more than $1 billion in client assets under management. Previously, DC was Managing Director at DataYes, a data-intelligent FinTech company, and a core founding member of Wanxiang Blockchain Labs. DC started his career with Bosera Asset Management and has a Master’s Degree from The University of Hong Kong.

Devina has over 20 years’ experience as a finance professional and has spent the last 10 years working with start-ups to prepare their business for investment, scale and high growth. As Zumo’s CFO, she has oversight of the company’s financial goals, objectives and budgets.

Devina is also an early-stage investor and Co-Founder of Galvanise Capital, an angel investment syndicate. She has multiple exits and funding rounds under her belt - most notably with I Spy to Dentsu Aegis, Encore Digital Media to Next 15 and Aquila Insight to Dentsu Aegis. Well known on the business scene, she holds several board NED and advisory roles; is a trustee of Re:Generate and Centre for Youth Impact; and is an advisor to One Tech. Devina is passionate about financial wellbeing and accessibility, and regularly hosts workshops on best investment practices.

Dino Kos is the Special Advisor to the CEO of CLS Bank International. Prior to that he was CLS’s Chief Regulatory Officer. He joined CLS in February 2013. He is also a member of the Strategic Committee of Agence France Trésor. From 1985 until 2007 he worked in various capacities at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, ultimately rising to be Executive Vice President and Head of the Markets Group, where he was responsible for open market operations, foreign exchange trading, treasury auctions, the discount window, and the correspondent banking services provided by the Fed to other central banks. He was also Manager of the System Open Market Account, reporting to the Federal Open Market Committee on the implementation of monetary policy and foreign exchange operations. Dino represented the New York Fed at numerous international meetings, including meetings of G10 central banks at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), at the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, and the Foreign Exchange Committee. Earlier in his career he was seconded to the Secretariat of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision at the BIS in Basel, Switzerland, where he worked on the development of a capital adequacy standard for market risk. Prior to joining CLS he worked for several firms providing macro research and advisory services to hedge funds, mutual funds, and sovereign wealth funds.

Dominic is a crypto theoretician and entrepreneur. His recent research includes Threshold Relay and PSC chains, Validation Towers and Trees, and USCIDs, and he proposes new ideas such as "The 3 E's of Sybil Resistance". Previously he ran a venture-backed MMO game using his own distributed systems that hosted millions of users.

Elif has a background in law (qualified lawyer) and business. She has over 15 years of project management, business development, and regulatory strategy experience in tech platforms and banks (Denizbank, finleap, Cringle, Lendico, etc.). She is the Founder of Contextual Solutions, a tech consultancy in Berlin specializing in venture development, marketing, and expansion. Elif is a design thinking expert and a published author ("The PayTech Book," "The LegalTech Book," "The AI Book," "Blockchain Applications Guidebook," and "FinTech Guide for Practitioners and Lawyers"). She writes columns for many tech blogs and is FinTech Istanbul's Germany representative. Elif is a Jean Monnet, Joachim Herz, and Break Fellow and has recently been listed as an Innovative Women Inventor by FICPI - International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys.

Emma is responsible for developing domestic and international policy in relation to traditional payment systems as well as more innovative forms of payment and settlement, including stablecoins and the FMI sandbox

Emma has almost 20 years of experience across a wide range of policy roles at the Bank of England. Prior to her current role, Emma worked in the Bank of England's financial stability area and supported the establishment of the Bank's Financial Policy Committee.

Emma holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in economics from Durham University and University College London.

Emma has two relatively young children and is committed to the promotion of flexible working.

Fabian Schär is Professor for Distributed Ledger Technology (Blockchain) and Fintech at the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Basel. In addition, he is the Managing Director of the University’s Center for Innovative Finance. He has a PhD in Cryptoassets and Blockchain economics, co-authored the bestselling book “Bitcoin, Blockchain and Cryptoassets”, published by MIT Press and several publications in scientific journals. His research is at the intersection of economics and computer science, with a particular focus on public Blockchains, Cryptoassets and Decentralized Finance protocols. His work has been featured in the Economist, the Financial Times and Forbes, and he has been listed in the NZZ ranking of the most influential economists in Switzerland.

Fernando Luis Vázquez Cao is an open-source software industry veteran with over 20 years of experience across technology innovation and governance, capital markets and digital assets. Fernando holds unparalleled knowledge of the Asian financial services sector from both a business and technical perspective.

He is currently CEO of SBI Digital Asset Holdings, a company that oversees and operates digital asset- related businesses, under the umbrella of SBI Holdings. Fernando started his career in academia where he became deeply involved with the Linux community. This led him to the corporate world with a number of roles at the Japanese NTT Group. Fernando has held different roles at SBI Group, including Director of SBI VC Trade, CTO of Japannext, CEO of SBI Digi Trust and CEO of SBI Security Solutions.

Francesco Di Salvo is a Senior Financial Sector Specialist at the World Bank’s Payment System Development Group. He joined the World Bank in 2020. He performs technical assistance to governments and central banks. The assistance is aimed to support policy reforms and implementations in a series of thematic areas related to the financial systems: regulatory and policy frameworks, payment systems development, innovation, digital identity, financial inclusion, government payments, and international remittances.

Previously, Francesco held several roles within Mastercard, the last being director of product management for the Data & Services unit. Moreover, he served for three years as a market infrastructure expert at the European Central Bank.

Germán Villegas Bauer is an Economist at the Macro-Financial Division of the IMF Research Department. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago. His research interests include institutional investors, financial markets, fintech, and climate change.

Hugo is a director for EU affairs at Binance. Previously, Hugo served as political advisor to the former Eurogroup President, Mário Centeno, a role in which he coordinated negotiations on the reform of the eurozone fiscal framework and the EU’s economic response to the pandemic. He also worked as a macro researcher and a journalist specialising in financial regulation and political economy. Hugo co-authored a critically-acclaimed investigative book on Portugal’s bailout and the Euro crisis.

Iota Kaousar Nassr is a Senior Policy Advisor at the Capital Markets and Financial Institutions Division of the OECD, where she leads the analysis around the digitalisation of finance for the OECD Committee on Financial Markets. Some of her recent work includes analysis of DeFi and crypto-assets; CBDCs; environmental impact of digital assets; asset tokenisation; initial coin offerings; marketplace and FinTech lending; artificial intelligence in finance; open banking and open finance; and country studies of national FinTech ecosystems. Prior to that, she worked on issues related to financial markets, SME financing, insurance intermediation and the accession reviews of new countries to the OECD for the Committee on Financial Markets and the Insurance and Private Pensions Committee. Prior to joining the OECD, Iota was an Investment Banker, working for the M&A desks of Merrill Lynch and Citigroup in London. She holds an MBA from ESSEC Grande École and an MSc in Accounting and Finance from Athens University of Economics and Business.

Irene Arias Hofman is the CEO of IDB Lab, the innovation laboratory of the Inter-American Development Bank Group, the leading source of development finance for Latin America and the Caribbean. The purpose of IDB Lab is to drive innovation for inclusion by supporting early-stage entrepreneurial solutions capable of transforming the lives of vulnerable populations.

Previously, Irene worked for 20 years at the IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, where she managed the Financial Institutions Group and also the LAC region with its 16-billion-dollar portfolio. Her focus has been on innovation and technology, venture capital, and organizational development.

Dr Iwa Salami is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Financial Law and Regulation at the Royal Docks School of Business and Law, University of East London (UEL). She is the Director of the Centre of FinTech at UEL and the Programme Leader for the LLM in FinTech Law. She has published extensively in the field of financial and FinTech regulation. Iwa is a highly sought-after voice in FinTech Regulation and is one of the leading minds in digital assets regulation. She is currently researching the legal and regulatory implications of the adoption of AI in Finance; regulatory frameworks for Web 3.0 application in finance, including crypto-assets, stablecoins, decentralised finance (DeFi) and Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the metaverse and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

Jesse is a founder and Chairman of the board of Monetago. MonetaGo is the world’s foremost provider of fraud prevention technology in the trade finance space. With multiple successful exits including Tremor Video and Image Space Media, Jesse is the definition of an entrepreneur.

Dr. Jez Mohideen is the CEO and a co-founder of Laser Digital. He was also a founder of Komainu, a Laser Digital portfolio company launched by Nomura in 2018, where he continues to serve as a non-executive director.

Prior to Laser Digital, Jez was Nomura’s Chief Digital Officer and Co-Head of Global Markets EMEA, responsible for the development and execution of Nomura’s digital strategy and flow trading. Previously, Jez was a partner at Brevan Howard, where he led the development of systematic trading capabilities.

Jez has a PhD in Process Systems Engineering and a Masters in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College, London.

Jo is a division head at the FinTech & Innovation Group (FTIG) at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Her division, the Payments Development and Data Connectivity Office, is responsible for developing the Singapore payments ecosystem and driving payments development initiatives in addition to the development and implementation of cross-border data connectivity. In her previous role as payments policy lead at FTIG, Jo was the project director for the Payment Services Act.

Prior to joining FTIG, Jo was Assistant General Counsel at the MAS Legal Department. In that role she advised extensively on financial services regulations and free trade agreements. Her private practice experience was at Allen & Gledhill and Amica Law.

Jo graduated from the National University of Singapore with an LLB (Hons) Degree, and was called to the Singapore bar. She has a Master of Laws from University College London, and is a non-practising solicitor of England and Wales.

Dr. Jochen Dürr is Chief Risk Officer for SIX and also a member of the company’s Executive Board. 

Prior to joining SIX in 2015, Jochen held various leadership positions in risk management with State Street Corporation and served as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company in Europe and the US.

Jochen holds a doctorate degree from the University of Rostock, a graduate degree in Economics from the University of St. Gallen and studied at the University of Warwick as well as Stern Business School.

John Jackson is the Policy and Product Lead for the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) Renewal programme, working in the Bank of England’s Payments Directorate.

During his 20+ years at the Bank John has worked in the Markets, Financial Stability and Prudential Policy areas. He has also spent a year on secondment at the New York Fed.

John joined the RTGS Renewal programme in December 2015 as the Business Lead. He played a key role in developing the Blueprint for renewing the UK’s RTGS service and is responsible for Policy and Product development on the future shape of RTGS. In 2020 John represented the Bank on the CPMI Cross-Border Payments Task Force.

John Reynolds is the COO and founder of Coadjute, a ground-breaking blockchain network revolutionizing the real estate industry. With 25+ years of experience in digital transformation, John excels in creating innovative solutions and fostering collaboration.

His achievements include winning and delivering an industry first distributed ledger project with HM Land Registry, collaborating with the Bank of England, Bank for International Settlements, and HM Land Registry to successfully deliver a synchronized settlement prototype, and serving in leadership roles across UK government and technology firms Dell, Fujitsu, and Lockheed Martin.

A passionate advocate for open data, John has been a key contributor to the UK's Open-Source Property Data Trust Framework, the open-source standard upon which the Coadjute network operates. A sought-after speaker and thought leader, John shares his insights on blockchain, real estate, and technology's future in the property sector.

Outside of work, he enjoys running, reading, and spending time with his family.

Jorge Familiar, a Mexican national, has more than 20 years of leadership experience in economic development, finance, and corporate governance. As Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank, he leads a global team of professionals in the prudent management of debt and asset portfolios for institutions in the World Bank Group (WBG) and over 70 clients. He is responsible for capital markets operations and oversees annual funding programs of US$60 to 70 billion through bonds issued by IBRD and IDA.  He also leads the World Bank Treasury’s capacity building, advisory and capital market intermediation services in financial analytics, asset management, and financial solutions for its clients. As Pension Finance Administrator of the World Bank Group, he supervises the investment and administration of the WBG pension plans with almost US$40 billion assets under management invested in a diverse pool of asset classes. Before joining the World Bank Treasury, he served in multiple roles in the World Bank Group: as a member of the Board of Executive Directors; Vice President for the Latin America and Caribbean Region; WBG Corporate Secretary; and Vice President for Finance and WBG Controller. Starting January 2022, Mr. Familiar is a Trustee at the IFRS Foundation, a public interest organization established to develop a single set of high-quality, understandable, enforceable, and globally acceptable accepted accounting and sustainability disclosure standards. He holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a master’s degree in finance from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, where he graduated with honors.

Joumanna Bercetche is co-anchor of the European edition of CNBC’s ‘Street Signs’. In addition to providing commentary and analysis on major company earnings and macro events, Joumanna spends much of her time interviewing policymakers and CFOs/ CEOs from across EMEA. She also reports live on monetary policy decisions of financial institutions around the world, such as the European Central Bank and Bank of England. 

Joumanna has led coverage on Italian politics and has reported on Spanish Catalunya events and Eurogroup meetings in the past. She has also moderated panels and hosted roundtables at the annual IMF, WEF and OECD conferences.

Bercetche joined CNBC in 2017 after 11 years in the City, working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs as a macro and fixed income specialist on the trading floor. She studied Economics as an undergraduate at the American University of Beirut where she was the recipient of the Penrose Award. A dual national with UK and Lebanese citizenship, Joumanna speaks Arabic and English fluently. In May 2022, she obtained her CFA in ESG Investing. 

Julian Osborne is the Founder & CEO of Pelt8, a Swiss startup specializing in making sustainability reporting easy and traceable for companies. 

Before founding Pelt8, Julian worked for almost a decade in various roles across the financial service sector and FinTechs, including a successful Exit from an AI FinTech company. 

Julian has a Master's degree in "Democracy, Development & International Relations" from the University of Zurich, during which he spent time in Central Asia collecting experience in various Microfinance companies. 

Karmela Holtgreve is Director General Strategy and Innovation at Deutsche Bundesbank and responsible for numerous digititalization activities, the development of the BISIH Innovation Hub at the Eurosystem site, and the digital agenda of the entire bank. She has been at the Bundesbank since 2012, where she was part of the G20 management.

Before that, Karmela Holtgreve worked for Hering Schuppener or Dow Jones News, among others. Karmela Holtgreve studied political science and law at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

Katalin Kauzli is the cofounder and business development director of Partner HUB Ltd, she has been with the company since 2017. Partner HUB develops a white label e-invoicing platform that can be integrated into online and mobile banking channels for providing value added services such the integration of e-invoicing and request-to-pay. In 2021 Partner HUB was the winner of the Sibos Perfect Pitch competition for the Partnership and Collaboration section and the winner of the payment startup category for the EFMA-Capgemini Newtech Challange. Katalin is an advocate for using invoice data in banking. She is active in several industry initatives regarding e-invoicing. Katalin has a background in corporate finance and business development in financial institutions.

Keith Desouza is the Managing Director of Treasury Liquidity Management at Treasury & Markets, DBS Bank. Leading a regional team based in Singapore, Keith is responsible for managing the bank’s funding & liquidity across the international network as well as funding programmes including USCP & ECP. In addition, Keith is also involved in the development of innovative digital strategies and products such as new digital payments and channels.

Prior to his tenure with DBS Bank, Keith has also worked in similar role at ING Bank and JP Morgan.

Keith is a member of the Financial Markets Association of Singapore (FMAS) and holds a Masters degree with University of Mumbai.

Kelvin is the Head of Global FX & Liquidity Centre of Ant Group. Since joining Ant Group in 2016, Kelvin took a number of leadership roles in our Global Funds & Treasury team where he led the team in building the world’s leading next-generation global liquidity and treasury system leveraging cutting-edge in-house developed decentralized technology to support the growing needs of our corporate clients in a more scalable and sustainable manner. Under Kelvin’s leadership, together with our major partner banks including JP Morgan, Citibank, Barclays and HSBC, we were able to propel transformation of FX and liquidity management framework connecting five global treasury hubs in Singapore, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, New York and London, covering more than 40 currencies and over 100 currency pairs across 60 entities. Ant Group was awarded the Adam Smith Awards Asia in 2021 as the winner in the best liquidity management solution.

Prior to joining Ant Group, Kelvin was the Head of Corporate Solutions Group for the China region from 2010-2016. He was also the Head of FX Sales of JP Morgan China from 2009 to 2010. Kelvin was an alumni of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Mr Ken Nagatsuka is the Executive Director of the Payments Department at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The department is responsible for the authorisation, ongoing supervision and policymaking in relation to payment systems and payment service providers, such as e-money issuers, remittance providers and digital payment token (more commonly known as cryptocurrency) service providers under the Payments Services Act.

Prior to this, Mr Nagatsuka has worked in the field of capital markets regulation for over 15 years and was previously Head of the Capital Markets Policy Division responsible for policy formulation and reviewing legislation in relation to capital markets and market infrastructures. In his role, he represented MAS on various international committees under the FSB, CPMI and IOSCO, on subjects such as OTC derivatives reforms and financial market infrastructures. Prior to that, he also served in various roles in exchange and clearing house supervisory functions.

Mr Nagatsuka holds both a Bachelor of Business Management and Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Singapore Management University.

Kimmo Soramäki is the Founder and CEO of FNA and the co-author of the book ‘Network Theory and Financial Risk’. 

Kimmo started his career as an economist at the Bank of Finland where in 1997, he developed the first simulator for optimizing intraday liquidity in interbank payment systems. In 2004, while at the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he was among the first to apply methods from network theory to improve our understanding of financial systems. 

During the financial crisis of 2007-2008, Kimmo advised several central banks, including the Bank of England and European Central Bank, in modeling interconnections and systemic risk. This work led him to found FNA for making systemic risks visible and financial market infrastructures and institutions more resilient and efficient. 

Kimmo holds a Doctor of Science in Operations Research and a Master of Science in Accounting (Finance), both from Aalto University in Helsinki.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/soramaki/

Zhu Kuang (ZK) is the Chief Digital, Data & Innovation Officer for HSBC Securities Services where he is responsible for driving digital transformation and digital products globally for the business.

ZK holds a BA with Honours in Computer Engineering from the National University of Singapore and an MBA from the Singapore Management University. He is currently doing his DBA with Singapore University of Social Sciences.

Marieke is a French-born computer engineer who has worked across the globe: from the luxury giant LVMH of Louis Vuitton fame to Expedia’s Hotels.com and now CEO of the NEAR Foundation, a Swiss non-profit that supports the on-going growth and development of the NEAR Protocol, a high-performance carbon-neutral blockchain that is designed to be super-fast, incredibly secure, and infinitely scalable. Before joining NEAR, Marieke pioneered turning niche blockchain products into globally recognised brands, scaling Circle from zero to two million users in less than two years and launching USDC. A passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, Marieke was recognised in the Women in FinTech Powerlist for 2017 and 2019 and she is frequently quoted by the press; including The BBC, The Telegraph, Fortune, The Financial Times, Reuters, Forbes, and City AM.

Marion Leslie joined SIX in January 2020 as Head Financial Information at SIX Group and a member of the SIX Executive Board. She is also a member of the BME Board of Directors. As Head Financial Information, Marion leads the SIX global data business, serving financial institutions worldwide with critical data and insights to support their clients.

Leading global businesses and operations at scale, with a strong emphasis on data and technology, are the hallmarks of her career in financial services. Prior to joining SIX, Marion was Managing Director, Enterprise at Refinitiv (London Stock Exchange) with responsibility for delivering market data, platforms and services to the global financial markets.

Marion was included in the World Federation of Exchanges Women Leaders List 2021 and was named one of the 100 Most Influential Women in European Finance by Financial News in 2020, 2021 and 2022. In 2017, she was nominated in the Cranfield University Female FTSE 100 Women to Watch Board Report and in 2014 was the winner of the Award for Achievement at the Women in Banking and Finance Awards.

In June 2021 Marion, was appointed to the board of Advance, the leading business association for gender equality in Switzerland and has been a Trustee at Prostate Cancer UK since 2016.

Martina is Head of ESG Product Management within the Financial Information Business Unit at SIX - the Exchange Group that operates the Swiss and Spanish Stock Exchanges. She has over 20 years of sustainable finance experience, in industry and academia, and is an award-winning ESG influencer, researcher, incubator and entrepreneur.

Prior to her role at SIX, she was Head of ESG Strategy at ODDO BHF Asset Management, Senior Vice President, ESG and Engagement Strategy at Moody’s, Global Head of ESG Index Products and Research at S&P DJI, Managing Director of Sustainable Investments Partners Ltd. and Vice President of ESG Solutions at MSCI. Earlier in her career, she worked in (ESG) product, research and engagement roles at Insight Investment, F&C AM and at Deutsche Bank AG.

Martina has an MBA certificate in finance and business from London School of Business and Finance in the UK, and a M.A. in Law and Human Sciences from University of Frankfurt in Germany. She is a fellow member of the Institute for Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (ICRS) UK, a honorary doctoral fellow of the Institute for Certified Risk Management Professionals (ICRMP) UK, and an alumnus of the German National Academic Foundation (“Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes”). She is currently undertaking a part-time PhD at University of Cardiff, UK, in sustainable accounting and finance.

Martina is an academic lecturer, writer and public speaker in sustainable investing and has co-authored a range of ESG and Fintech books, including “The AI Book” (Wiley, 2020), the “Handbook on Species Extinction Accounting and Biodiversity” (Routledge, 2022), and the text book on “ESG in Portfolio Analysis” (RiskBooks, 2022). She has formed part of various leading industry associations and initiatives and sits on the board of the Future of Sustainable Data Alliance (FoSDA), the industry’s leading body for the ESG data, ratings and index industry, and is FoSDA’s co-chair of the Policy and Regulations working group. Moreover, she is a member of the All-Parties-Parliamentary-Group (APPG) on ESG at Houses of Parliament UK, and a member of the European Law Institute’s Sustainability Regulations Advisory Group.

For her work in sustainable finance and leadership, she was awarded the title “Top 50 Woman in Finance” by the World Finance Forum (WFF) in 2022. For SIX, she has won two ESG-related Strategy (by Finance Magnates) and Initiatives (A Team Insight) Awards in 2022.

Mathias is a Co-Founder and Group CEO of Sygnum. Prior to Sygnum, he was General Manager at RNT Associates, Mr. Ratan N. Tata’s personal investment platform, which he joined as the first team member. He led multiple venture capital and private equity investments and participated in blockchain and DLT-related equity deals globally.

Mathias started his career at Bain & Company where he led advisory projects for private equity funds, family offices and technology companies.

He holds a PhD from the University of St. Gallen and a Master of Science from the London School of Economics (LSE).

Michael Baldinger is the Chief Sustainability Officer at UBS. In this role, he is responsible for the implementation of the Group Executive Board-sponsored sustainability and impact strategy and provides oversight for sustainability-related projects and activities across UBS.

He also represents UBS Group as a Board Member of Swiss Sustainable Finance and is President of the Swiss Banking Association’s Expert Commission, Sustainable Finance.

Michael joined UBS in November 2016 as Head of Sustainable and Impact Investing at Asset Management (UBS AM) with the mandate to establish UBS AM as a leader in sustainable and impact investing.

During this time, he established an industry leading Sustainable Investing (SI) platform, hired a dedicated SI Specialist team and elevated SI as a critical business driver for the Asset Management division.

Before joining UBS, Michael Baldinger was the CEO of RobecoSAM. In addition, he was responsible for driving the Robeco Group sustainable investing agenda. He was appointed CEO of RobecoSAM in 2011 having joined as Head of Global Clients & Marketing in 2009.

Michael joined RobecoSAM from Credit Suisse Asset Management where, as a Managing Director, he was Head of Distribution for the Americas in New York. Prior to Credit Suisse, he was a Managing Director Principal with Bear, Stearns & Co. in New York, responsible for Institutional Equity Sales for Swiss clients from 1999-2005.

Michael is the founder of Curve Finance, the largest decentralized exchange (by TVL). He also co-founded NuCypher beforehand. Holds a PhD degree in Physics

 Mirjam Staub-Bisang is Head of BlackRock Switzerland and a member of the EMEA Executive Committee as well as a Senior Advisor to BlackRock Sustainable Investing. 

Prior to BlackRock, Mirjam led an investment management firm focusing on sustainable investing based in Zurich. Mirjam also served as a non-executive director on the boards of public and private companies and as chair the investment committees of several asset owners such as pension funds and endowments. Prior to these roles she held senior positions in asset management and private equity investing at Commerzbank and Swiss Life and worked in investment banking at Merrill Lynch in London and Zurich. Today she also serves on the board of the global shoe retailer Bata as a non-executive director and the board of directors of the Asset Management Association Switzerland (AMAS) as well as Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF).

Mirjam holds a PhD in Law from the University of Zurich and an MBA from INSEAD. She authored the standard work ‘Sustainable Investing for Institutional Investors: Risks, Regulations, Strategies’ and co-authored the second edition of ‘Infrastructure as an Asset Class’. 

In 2009 she was elected a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and is a member of the WEF Global Future Council.

Nicolas Brügger is Deputy Head of Capital Markets & Infrastructure at the State Secretariat for International Finance (SIF). He leads the Swiss government’s work on several topics in the area of digital finance such as AI, Open Finance, stablecoins and other Fintech matters. He also represents Switzerland's interest in multilateral bodies.

Nicolette Bartlett is the Chief Impact Officer at CDP - CDP is an international not-for-profit organization providing the global environmental disclosure-based tracking system. In her role, Nicolette is responsible for leading on strategy development for the organization as part of CDP’s Executive Leadership Team and manages the Impact Department, responsible for Environmental Impact, Disclosure content and Thought Leadership, Policy, Development, and Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning.

Nicolette previously held the positions of Global Director of Climate Change at CDP and Carbon Pricing Director and has been the lead author of many CDP publications.

Before joining CDP Nicolette was a Senior Program Manager at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, leading on international climate policy projects; including the international engagement of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group, developing a Green Growth Platform in Pacific Alliance countries, supporting the development of business groups on climate change and research analyzing the role that non-state actors play in driving down emissions.

Nicolette sits on various boards and advisory bodies, including the Science-Based Targets Initiative and We Mean Business boards, the Voluntary Carbon Markets Initiative Expert Advisory Group, and is a Senior Associate at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

Ondřej is a Czech MEP, member of the Renew Europe political group. He is a member of the Economics and Monetary Affairs Committee, and in that capacity is the Chairman of the Working Group for Access to Finance for SMEs. He also sits on two further committees, Transport and Tourism, and Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.

In the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, his portfolio extends from SME financing to the research and the practical use of new technologies, for example those based on artificial intelligence, as well as broader access and use of digital finance, including digital assets for businesses and consumers. He held the role of negotiator and spokesperson for his political group on the EU's Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation

His career to date has been dedicated to public service, primarily in various roles within the Czech civil service, but also in European public administration specifically, at the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the Government, the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Ottawa, the Czech Ministry of Defence and the European Parliament.

A highly regarded voice on all things fintech and CBDC, Dr.Oriol Caudevilla  Founded and Hosts the “A Digital Tomorrow” podcast, with over 10k followers on YouTube and whose video views reach an average audience of 1.5k viewers.

He also acts as a Board Director and Secretary General at the Global Impact FinTech (GIFT) Forum, Member of the Board of Advisors at Blockchain for Europe (BC4EU), Research Contributor at the Blockchain Research Institute (BRI), Mentor at R3 (Singapore), Mentor at Cyberport (Hong Kong), Mentor at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park (HKSTP), FinTech Mentor at F10 Incubator & Accelerator (Singapore), FinTech Mentor at Rise by Barclays (London and Mumbai) and former chairman of the Private Digital Euro Working Group at the Digital Euro Association (D€A).

Oriol is also an Honorary Fellow at the University of Hong Kong’s Asian Institute of International Financial Law (AIIFL).

Furthermore, he has published articles and been cited by international media outlets such as Reuters, Forbes Middle East, the South China Morning Post (SCMP), Outlook India, China Daily, Asian Investor, Forkast News, and Cointelegraph.

Oriol is also a well-known international speaker: he was named Asian FinTech Speaker of the Year (2021) by FASTER Community and has participated in over 150 international conferences since 2020, talking about CBDCs, DeFi, the Metaverse, AI and the use of Blockchain in several industries, such as banking in general and also Islamic banking and finance.

CTO of Digital Ventures and InnovestX - both companies are subsidiaries of Siam Commercial Bank. Interested in DLT, Blockchain and Digital Currency. Involved in CBDC pilot with the Bank of Thailand.

Patrick Odier is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Lombard Odier Group since January 1st 2023 . He has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bank Lombard Odier & Co Ltd. since January 1st, 2014 until April 1st 2023. He was also Senior Managing Partner of the Lombard Odier Group from 2008 until 2022.

Patrick Odier joined the Lombard Odier Group in 1982 and completed his training in Zurich, New York, and Montreal, before becoming a Managing Partner in 1986. He holds an economics degree from the University of Geneva and an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago.

Patrick Odier is President of Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF). He is also Chairman of Building Bridges. He is member of the Board of economiesuisse (Swiss Business Federation). He was Chairman of the Swiss Bankers Association from 2009 to 2016. He is also a board member of several Swiss and international academic institutions and philanthropic organisations.

Infrastructure finance specialist that is passionate about end-to-end digitalization of sustainable infrastructure finance to help solve the climate funding gap.

Founder and CEO of Frigg, a Swiss-based start-up focusing on making sustainable finance accessible, efficient, and composable by tokenizing renewable energy projects.

Dr. Philipp Aeby is the CEO and co-founder of RepRisk. He is an expert in business conduct risk management, with a special interest in machine learning.

Before joining RepRisk in 2006, Philipp served in various managerial positions across Europe at Amgen, a global biopharmaceutical firm, and worked on a broad range of international assignments with the Boston Consulting Group. He started his career as a visiting scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia.

Philipp holds a PhD in Environmental Physics and a Master’s degree in Climatology and Hydrology from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland, where he earned the ETH Medal for outstanding research that involved applying neural networks to pattern recognition.

Iota Kaou

Pier Luigi Culazzo is the Group Chief Data Officer at Standard Chartered Bank and a member of the bank’s Group Operations Management Team.

Pier is responsible for developing, coordinating and implementing the Group Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategies supporting the business innovation plans and to capture new opportunities, especially related to the bank sustainability agenda in helping consumer and partners to reduce their C02 emissions.

In terms of governance, he is responsible to make sure the bank organise, use and treat its data correctly and in adherence with the current regulations, facilitating a consistent adoption and implementation of standards and policies and constantly working to improve the overall Data Quality across the organization.

Prior to joining Standard Chartered Bank, Pier was at Visa where he was the Head of Digital Identity, Data Products and Data Science and the Executive Sponsor for the company’s Diversity & Inclusion employee group. Prior to Visa, he held several leadership roles in Operations and Finance for General Electric in different countries around the world.

Appointed to the role in February 2021. Prag leads Citi’s Global Artificial Intelligence Centre of Excellence (“AI CoE”). The AI CoE enables Citi to use Artificial Intelligence in a way that supports Citi to innovate responsibly by ensuring appropriate levels of governance and risk management across the entire organization. The purpose of the AI CoE is to set standards and policies for AI and develop best practices, support infrastructure and tooling and enable state-of-the-art AI design, development and use at Citi across all its businesses.

Prior to this role, Prag led Citi’s Innovation Lab's Emerging Technologies Group. The focus of the group was on developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain-related thought-leadership and strategy, internal and client-facing partnerships, business development & lead-generation, information dissemination, R&D and engineering activities.

Prag has enjoyed a 15-year career which includes hands-on management experience in R&D and experimental design & development with emerging technologies in both business and academic environments with start-ups and multinationals.

Puneet is Managing Director and Head of Digital Assets for Citi Institutional Client Group.

As part of his responsibilities, he is leading Blockchain and Digital Asset initiatives across the business. He is leading the efforts in assessing and driving engagement in the Digital Asset space. His team provides subject matter expertise, drives product development and defines distinct strategy on digital asset opportunities including new products, new clients, and new investments. Puneet also leads the ICG’s engagement with stakeholders such as clients, fintechs and central banks, on digital asset opportunities.

Puneet has worked at Citi across the developed and emerging markets in various management roles within Markets & Securities Services and Trade & Transaction Services businesses. His roles have included leading Citi Financial Markets Infrastructure Team, Citi Global Clearing Payments Product, Citi Foreign Exchange Prime & Derivative Clearing Product Management, Trade Finance and Asset Backed Finance.

Puneet Singhvi has been serving on the boards of LCH ForexClear and DTCC DerivServ.

He has a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Jai Narain Vyas University. He completed his Master’s in business management from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

 NetGuardians CSO & Co-Founder, Raffael Maio is primarily responsible for securement of financing as well as business development in Asia. In 2020, he played a key role in securing CHF 17 million in the company’s third round of financing. He is a keen entrepreneur who, along with Joël Winteregg, is the co-founder of NetGuardians. On the technology side, Raffael brings several years’ experience in security software engineering, in environments ranging from a Silicon Valley start-up to a multinational product security company. In terms of business development, he is adept at both innovative and traditional models. He has a degree in Software Engineering as well as an EMBA.

Rehan Ahmed is General Manager and founding team member at Marketnode, an SGX Group and Temasek backed digital markets infrastructure operator. Within this role, he focuses on product development and the digitalization of capital markets products including bonds, funds infrastructure and sustainable finance.

As Head of Fixed Income Products & Digital Assets at SGX, Rehan oversaw the launch of a digital bond issuance platform that culminated in the Marketnode partnership. Rehan began his career at Bear Stearns (London) fixed income trading desk in 2005 and subsequently held positions within credit structuring & trading (UBS AG, London) and portfolio management at CDC Group UK (now British International Investment), a UK development finance institution.

He has been based in Asia since 2010, where he joined Bloomberg L.P.’s FICC trading team and oversaw a number of regional market trading initiatives such as the launch of Pakistan’s first online debt auction system and Sri Lanka’s interdealer debt trading platform. He joined SGX from IDFC Securities (Singapore) where he was responsible for overseeing India access products for global investors.

Rehan was involved in the launch of new platforms including SGX’s institutional bond trading platform (2016) and led its General Counterparty service (2018) rollout before focusing on digital assets. He was one of key SGX representatives on industry bodies such as ICMA, FIX Trading Community and Singapore National Markets Practice Group (NMPG).

Rehan attended Ecole Sciences-Po (Paris) before attaining his Bachelor of Arts from Concordia University and subsequently a Masters in Science from the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE).