Mr Marco Gercke, Director, Cybercrime Research Institute

Gercke is a global thinker, writer and international expert in the field of cyber security and cybercrime. He has been advising governments, international organisations and large enterprises for more than ten years. He is the director of the Cybercrime Research Institute, an independent global think tank dealing with legal aspects. Gercke was appointed as member of the ITU High Level Expert Group and advised the ITU Secretary General on the development of the Global Cyber security Agenda (GCA).

Mr Stéphan Levieux, Head of Deposit, Payments and Cash Management Strategy, Hang Seng Bank

Stéphan is responsible for the Bank’s strategy for its deposit, payments and cash management business. His work has a particular emphasis on the Bank’s proposition for its corporate, commercial and institutional customers. Prior to joining Hang Seng Bank in 2014, Stéphan spent 16 years with HSBC in Hong Kong. His last position with HSBC was as the Asia-Pacific Head of Product Management for the bank’s Payments and Cash Management business. Stéphan has worked in Asia since 1989. Before specialising in transaction banking, Stéphan also held roles in information technology and in relationship management with Banque Nationale de Paris in Hong Kong. Stéphan holds an MBA from the University of Warwick in the UK and the Association of Corporate Treasurers’ Certificate in International Cash Management. Stéphan was a member of the Payments Market Practice Group, representing Hong Kong from 2011 to 2014 and is a member of the Payments Maintenance Working Group since 2016. He chairs the SWIFT National Member and User Group in Hong Kong since 2013. He is also a member of the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Hong Kong.

Mr Soul Htite, Co-Founder of Lending Club, Founder and CEO, Dianrong.com

Htite co-founded Lending Club, the world's largest benchmarking peer-to-peer (P2P) company, received the prestigious Technology Pioneer Award at the 2011 World Economic Forum. He was also Lending Club’s head of technology until 2011. In 2012, Htite came to China and established Dianrong.com that focuses on the online marketplace and banking solution services on the basis of advanced technology. Dianrong.com is now China’s leading internet finance company.

Mr Pascal Bouvier, Venture Partner, Santander InnoVentures

Bouvier is a fintech expert and investor, who has been an operator and investor for large financial institutions, small-sized post revenue companies, and start-ups. He was previously general partner at the fintech investment arm of Route 66 Ventures, which he built into a global 20 fintech Venture Capital investor by the end of 2015. He holds a maximalist view that all participants in the industry have to be fintech companies and behave like tech companies, focusing on data, technology and user experience to deliver relevant services and experiences. 

Mr Lai Chi Ming Jim, Deputy President and Head, Financial Technology, Tencent(Parent company of WeBank,WeChat Pay, Li Cai Tong Fund)

Jimmy oversees the Tencent Financial Technology Department that provides convenient and safe mobile payments as well as financial and wealth management services to over 500 million combined users of WeChat Pay and QQ Wallet. As of May 2016, the average number of daily transactions on WeChat Pay and QQ Wallet combined exceeded 500 million. In 2017, the number of Tencent Li Cai Tong Fund users exceeded 100 million, with the fund’s inventory reaching over 100 billion Yuan. As of today, Tencent FiT’s mobile payment and financial application products have connected with over 200 financial institutions, and are integrated with more than 1.5 million retailer users. Under Jimmy’s leadership, the team has continued to innovate, the most noteworthy achievement being the WeChat Red Packet and QQ Red Packet, gained large popularity in China. In parallel, Jimmy proactively propelled Tencent’s innovation in blockchain technology and credit data, contributing significantly to Tencent’s leadership position in Fintech. He was named one of the “leading figures of enterprises under the 530 China national plan” by Wuxi of Jiangsu Province in 2009.

Mr Ron Suber, President, Prosper Marketplace

Suber has more than 20 years’ experience in sales, marketing and business development across the hedge fund, broker dealer, and registered investment advisor industries. As president of Prosper Marketplace, America's first peer-to-peer lending platform with more than two million members and over $4 billion in funded loans, Suber is responsible for the company’s business development, ensuring a balance between institutional as well as retail investors. Since its launch in 2006, Prosper Marketplace has evolved into a personal finance company that offers products and services beyond personal loans to help people get on top of their finances.

Barney Frank, Former congressman, co-author of Dodd-Frank Act

Congressman Barney Frank is the former chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee between the turbulent global financial crisis years of 2007–2011. As one of the sponsors of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, also known as the Dodd-Frank legislation, his efforts at closing the gaps in financial oversight such as creating a financial stability council, finding ways to liquidate systemically important firms, and strengthening the financial system against further shocks, were crucial for the recovery of the US financial services industry. Congressman Frank is also credited with many grassroot initiatives, including creating a low-income housing tax credit in the 1980s. He is widely respected by chairmen and CEOs of banks in the US, regulators, and fellow lawmakers.

Ms Cathy Lemieux, EVP, Supervision and Regulation, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Cathy Lemieux is executive vice president in charge of Supervision and Regulation at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Cathy directs the supervision and regulation of more than nine hundred banking organizations including bank holding companies, state-chartered member banks, bank and savings and loan holding companies, financial holding companies, and U.S. foreign bank branches within the Seventh Federal Reserve District. Additionally, she chairs the System's Large Banking Organization (LBO) management group and serves as the chair of the Federal Reserve System Subcommittee implementing Basel II training.

Mr Tang Ning, Founder and CEO, CreditEase

Mr. Tang Ning was educated at the School of Mathematical Sciences at Peking University, and continued his education in the field of Economics in the U.S. In 2006, recognizing the contribution that the 60 million small and micro enterprises make to the Chinese economy, and inspired by the fledgling microfinance sectors in other developing economies, Ning established CreditEase. The philosophy behind the business was and remains today that everyone deserves access to credit, and that credit can generate value for all sectors of the community. This guiding philosophy has underpinned the growth of the business from a single product business in 2006, to today's diversified financial services business. Heartened by the response of clients to the initial product offering, and their high creditworthiness, Ning has expanded the business to cover new customer segments and geographies. CreditEase now provides products and services to farmers and agricultural borrowers, microfinance clients, consumers, micro-businesses and wealth management clients covering 244 cities（including Hong Kong）and 93 rural areas across China.

Mr David Shrier, Founder and New Ventures, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

David Shrier is a seasoned innovation catalyst and co-author of “Frontiers of Financial Technology” and “Trust: Data.” He is the managing director of MIT Connection Science and Engineering. He also leads the creation and launch of other new initiatives for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches courses and workshops on the “Future Commerce”, “Data Academy”, “Big Data and Social Analytics”, and “Future Health”. He recently advised the European Commission on commercialising innovation with a focus on digital technology. He is also the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Distilled Analytics, an advanced credit risk solutions provider derived from MIT research and has started and/or led a number of private equity and venture capital-backed companies as CEO, CFO or COO.

Mr R Vivekanand, Vice President and Co-Head, TCS Financial Solutions

Vivek is responsible for the realization of strategic initiatives encompassing Cloud, Digital and Blockchain technologies. Vivek is also responsible for business development and market penetration of the TCS BaNCS suite of products, including Sales and Marketing functions. He is the executive owner for key relationships in the Capital Markets line of business. In the course of his 24-year career with TCS, starting with the Smithsonian award-winning project for the SIX Group, Switzerland, Vivek has played a key role in mission critical implementations in over 25 countries globally. In his previous role, he was responsible for product development and delivery of the Capital Markets solutions under the TCS BaNCS brand. He also led the conceptualization and growth of the TCS BaNCS for Market Infrastructure solution, with showcase implementations such as LCH, Euroclear and Strate (South Africa). His experience includes leadership of TCS BaNCS implementations that have been catalytic in driving market reform in high growth markets such as Russia, Brazil, India, Hungary, New Zealand, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Nigeria, Morocco, Bangladesh and the Philippines.

Mr Kelvin Teo, Co-founder and Director, Funding Societies

Teo is the co-founder of Funding Societies and Modalku, the first regional peer-to-business (P2B) lending platform in Southeast Asia, with operations in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, funded by Sequoia Capital India and licensed by the regulators. Prior to this, Teo served as a consulting professional at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, McKinsey and Accenture. He has also been featured in Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and Business Times. Teo graduated from Harvard Business School and National University of Singapore, and is a certified Chartered Accountant.

Mr Joel Yarbrough, Head, Corporate Development & Payments, Grab

In his role, Joel oversees M&A, Integration and Partnerships to enhance end-to-end product experience for Grab's passengers, drivers and partners. Through the Grab platform, he seeks to help drivers and partners build opportunities for themselves, while delivering safe and accessible transport to Southeast Asia. Joel brings over 20 years of solution and product management experience to Grab, having served in senior management roles in leading Internet, finance, and management consulting firms. Throughout his career, Joel has been passionate about connecting the dots to make product vision a reality. He relishes the challenge of taking a part complex technology systems and rebuilding them to address real problems. Prior to joining Grab, Joel spent over six years at PayPal overseeing product strategy and product delivery in APAC, as well as delivery of solutions for large online and omnichannel partners. Joel was also a founding board member of PayPal’s non-profit and charitable giving fund.

Mr Slava Solodkiy, Managing Partner, Life.SREDA

Solodkiy was recognised by UK magazine Institutional Investor as one of the TOP35 most influential fintech-persons in the world. He established Life. SREDA four years ago, which has invested in 22 start-ups in US, UK, Germany, CIS, Singapore, Philippines, India and Vietnam, including Simple, Moven, Fidor Bank, SumUp, Anthemis Group, Mobikon, and Lenddo. For the last one and a half years, the company heavily supported the fintech ecosystem in Singapore. It invested in eight companies; launched Inspir Asia co-working space and accelerator; and helped the Monetary Authority of Singapore in promoting Singapore as fintech hub across the world by launching www.BAAS.IS, the first pan-Asian bank-as-a-service-platform

Mr Kanags Surendran, Managing Director & Head, Digital Banking, CIMB

Mr Surendran is a passionate professional who operates at the confluence of design, business and technology with a broad skill set having operated across strategy, product management, operations and technology functions. Skilled at creative problem solving and in delivering rapid and sustainable impact, has a track record as a leader who thrives on inspiring and developing talent, driving change, and in bringing together cross-functional teams to launch disruptive & innovative solutions.

In the past 2 years at CIMB, Surendran has been driving the transformation of the digital channels and has increased usage of digital channels by more than 30% and mobile by almost 50%. He has been instrumental in launching new capabilities such as CIMB Pay and CIMB Eva that lets customers chat with the bank. 

Mr Jeremy Tan, Chairman, Korvac Holdings and CEO, Liquid Group

Liquid Group is a mobile payment platform company head quartered in Singapore with presence in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Hong Kong. Liquid Group offers an interoperable platform that provides banking, payment, and digital lifestyle services, revolutionizing the payment experience for both consumers and businesses. Jeremy is also the Chairman of Korvac Holdings Pte Ltd, an investment holding company founded in 1999, which invests in and develops payment and consumer data processing company and services. Jeremy is currently in the Singapore infocomm Technology Federation (SiTF), where he holds the position of Honorary Secretary. He also serves as the Chairman of SiTF’s Singapore Enterprise Chapter, covering Singapore SMEs and startups. Prior to this, Jeremy was also on the board of Infocomm Investment Pte Ltd from 2009 to 2017, helping support the rapid development of Singapore's startup ecosystem centered around Blk 71 and BASH. 

Mr Bobby Lee, Co-Founder and CEO, BTCC

Bobby Lee is co-founder and chief executive officer of BTCC, the leading bitcoin financial platform and the longest-running bitcoin exchange worldwide. Headquartered in Shanghai, BTCC serves a global customer base and has become an industry leader for security, risk mitigation, credibility, and technological innovation. BTCC’s mission is to provide the most convenient and trustworthy digital currency services. Lee also serves on the board of Bitcoin Foundation, a non-profit organisation that promotes the global adoption of bitcoin.  

Mr Ned Phillips, Founder and CEO, Bambu

Phillips has been involved in fintech since 1999 and has been through the first dot com wave in the early 2000'swith E*TRADE. He was then part of the transformation of stock exchange technology with the SGX and Chi-X. He is the founder of Bambu, a B2B robo advisor based in Singapore that offers digital wealth services to all companies looking to tap into the rapid change of financial technology. Bambu has partnered with world leading companies such as Thomson Reuters to create a cutting edge robo advisory service that is scalable and useable by the customers.

Mr Nicola Castelnuovo, Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer, Crowdo

Castelnuovo is co-founder and chief commercial officer of Crowdo, a leading financial technology company in Asia. Established in 2012, Crowdo offers a full suite of equity crowd funding and P2P lending solutions. It has a strong regional presence with offices in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia and has helped projects across six continents, raising funds from more than 70 countries. Castelnuovo has more than 15 years of experience in financial technology with significant expertise in investment, finance, internet and hi-tech. He spent eight years at Accenture and worked at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore as fixed income trader on Asian financial markets.

Mr Aaron Siwoku, Founder and CEO, TOAST

Siwoku has more than ten years of experience in mobile and cardless payment for digital content. In 2014, he founded Sigma X and started building Cryptosigma, a blockchain-based remittance and currency matching engine. After a successful proof of concept at the beginning of 2015, Siwoku and his development team began building TOAST on top of the Cryptosigma engine. TOAST is a consumer facing application for web and android that allows migrant workers to remit money home, much cheaper than existing banking infrastructure. 

Mr Shailesh Naik, Founder and CEO, MatchMove Pay

Naik is the founder and CEO of MatchMove Pay, one of Singapore’s fastest growing fintech company. MatchMove launched its first pan-Asia virtual cloud-based mobile payment card with American Express and MasterCard, enabling millions of uncarded consumers to go online and pay with a secure mobile payment method.The MatchMove Wallet OS, a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution is a proprietary cloud-based solution launched to enable any company the ability to operate their own secure mobile wallet and issue secure payment cards to their consumers.

Mr Vidit Agrawal, Strategic Vehicle Partnerships Lead, APAC, Uber

Agrawal is in charge of spearheading the vehicle partnerships of Uber in the region, and is responsible for the growth of the business. He works with various banks, financiers and car manufacturers across the region to help grow Uber's supply by setting up deals for financing Uber drivers. Agrawal has filled multiple roles at Uber in the past including strategic finance manager, general manager for Singapore and Johor Bahru, strategic finance for India and business launcher across the region. Prior to Uber, he worked for UBS in Singapore and at multiple start-ups in Singapore and Silicon Valley. 

Mr Charlie O’Flaherty, Partner & Head of Digital Strategy and Distribution, Crossbridge Capital

O’Flaherty is an international banking, finance and capital markets expert with more than 20 years’ experience in the Americas, Europe and Asia. He is currentlyhead of digital strategy and distribution at Crossbridge Capital, a global wealth management firm which provides independent and tailored investment solutions to private clients.In this role, O’Flaherty works on unifying the firm’s trusted and expert human advisors with the latest technology to meet the needs of the clients and to enhance their investment service offerings. Prior to joining Crossbridge Capital, Charlie spent more than fifteen years building businesses focused on structuring, trading, and distribution of private investor products for the wealth management industry. 

Mr Olivier Berthier, Co-Founder and CEO, Moneythor

Berthier is the CEO of Moneythor, a Singapore-based fintech company focusing on digital banking and customer analytics. He is a seasoned professional with 20 years of experience in banking technology and entrepreneurship. Berthier started his career at BNP Paribas, where he served as project manager in Europe, North America and Asia.  

Mr Constantin Robertz, MD, Zalora Philippines

Robertz is managing director of Zalora Philippines, Asia's leading online fashion destination with localised e-commerce sites across Southeast Asia. The company is part of the Global Fashion Group. Robertz is an entrepreneurial executive with background in building high-growth consumer internet companies with strong combination of results-oriented execution and strategic mindset. He previously worked with Rocket Internet in global venture development, building the company's e-commerce ventures globally in different functions, working with Zalando (Europe's #1 e-commerce company), Lamoda (Russia's leader in fashion e-commerce), and Zalora. 

Mr Ron Hose, Founder and CEO, Coins.ph

Hose is the co-founder and CEO of Coins.ph. Before this, he was a founding partner of the early stage venture capital fund Innovation Endeavors and co-founder of TokBox, a consumer video conferencing company backed by Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital, Stanford University and some of SiliconValley’s best-known angel investors. The company was later acquired by Telefonica.Hose is also an active investor and adviser to several Silicon Valley start-ups. 

Mr Bernard Leong, Head, Post Office Network and Digital Services, Singapore Post Pte Ltd

Leong is the head of post office network and digital services for Singapore Post, where he oversees the company’s post offices network and digital strategy across the organisation, manages the existing portfolio of products and builds the next generation digital products that integrates cross functionally with other business units in the organisation. Before joining Singapore Post, he was a serial entrepreneur in UK and Singapore. Leong is also a connector to the Southeast Asia entrepreneurial ecosystem, serving as an entrepreneur in residence in INSEAD Business School. He is also the founder of Analyse Asia, a weekly podcast focusing on business, technology and media in Asia. 

Mr Timo Dreger, Managing Director, Apeiron Investment Group

Dreger is managing director at Apeiron investment Group. He is currently responsible for early-stage tech investments primarily into fintech and insurtech and is consistently ranked as one of the leading fintech and insurtech influencers worldwide. Before joining Apeiron, Dreger served as vice president of insurance at Commerzbank-backed fintech start-up OptioPay. He was previously a digital transformation consultant at JDC Group, Germany´s largest Independent Financial Advisors network, and global head of innovation and new ventures at Varengold Bank in London and Dubai. 

Mr Tobias Puehse, VP Digital Payments and Labs,Innovation Management, Mastercard

Puehse leads the innovation management of Mastercard Labs Asia Pacific. In this role, he is responsible for activities that help generate unique and innovative ideas for the company. His focus spans ideation through prototyping and business case development, both developing new propositionsand determining which opportunities make the most sense for Mastercard and its partners to pursue and incubate. Most recently, Puehse was named as one of Next Bank’s Top 100 leaders in Asia’s fintech scene. 

Mr Kanags Surendran, Managing Director and Head, Digital Banking, CIMB Bank Berhad

Surendran operates at the confluence of design, business and technology with experience in working across strategy, product management, operations and technology functions. Skilled at creative problem solving and in delivering rapid and sustainable impact, has a track record as a leader who thrives on inspiring and developing talent, driving change, and in bringing together cross-functional teams to launch disruptive & innovative solutions.In the past 2 years at CIMB, Surendran has been driving the transformation of CIMB Bank’s digital channels and has increased usage of digital channels by more than 30% and mobile by almost 50%. He has been instrumental in launching new capabilities such as CIMB Pay and CIMB Eva that allows customers to chat with the bank in real time.  

Mr Aurélien Menant, Founder and CEO, Gatecoin

Menant is founder and CEO of Gatecoin, a regulated blockchain assets exchange based in Hong Kong. He is a founding member of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong, which works to raise awareness of blockchain applications among local financial institutions and regulators. Menant began his career as an investment banker, working on mergers and acquisitions and financial deals for major global corporate and investment banks in Europe and Hong Kong, including BNP Paribas, JP Morgan, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole. 

Mr Roger Crook, CEO, Capital Springboard

Roger Crook is the CEO of Capital Springboard, Singapore’s leading peer-to-peer invoice financing platform for SMEs. Capital Springboard facilitates trade for SMEs by granting them access to working capital provided by investors which include; accredited investors, institutional investors, HNWIs, IFAs and family offices. Launched in June 2016, the platform has garnered strong interest amongst accredited investors and local SMEs. As of 31st January 2017, the company had crossed SGD 134 million worth of transactions. Roger has over two decades of operational experience across 129 markets; and was formerly a member of the board of management, Deutsche Post AG (DeutschePost DHL) and global CEO of DHL Global Forwarding. 

Mr Frankie Phua, MD & Head of Credit and Country Risk, UOB

Phua oversees all risk management matters for UOB Group including credit risk, market risk, balance sheet risk, operational risk management, integrated fraud management and product control,and governance and risk analytics. He areas of expertise include credit policy, credit research, counterparty credit risk management, credit risk modeling, economic capital, credit portfolio management, country risk management, and stress testing. He also served as the Basel II Project Coordinator for UOB, overseeing UOB Group's Basel II Programme Management Office, successfully managing the Group's Basel II Internal Rating-Based implementation efforts. Outside the Bank, Phua is an active member of the risk management community. He currently serves as the chairman and director of the board of the Singapore Chapter of the Risk Management Association (RMA) in the United States.

Dr. Frederick Shen, Head of Business Management, OCBC

Shen is head of business management for global treasury at the OCBC Group, primarily responsible for strengthening the group’s infrastructure, processes, monitoring, and analytics group to tackle the increasing regulatory and risk requirements. He re-joined OCBC from Emirates NBD, Dubai. Prior to his Middle East assignment, Shen worked with OCBC Bank Market Risk for four years. He started his career as a Professor of finance at the University of Waterloo before joining the financial industry, overseeing the financial engineering trading group of RBC Capital Markets. His past stints include extensive assignments in various financial institutions and areas, including structured credit and real-asset securitisations, bank-wide economic capital and risk modelling, and life insurance and asset management

Valerian Crasto, MD, Markets and Treasury, DBS

As the chief operating officer (COO) of Treasury & Markets, DBS, Valerian is responsible for establishing the systems of governance and controls for the end-to-end process (front-to-back) across all locations. He is also responsible for the T&M’s business planning and strategy (including business responses to regulatory reform), product and customer support, and operational risk management. Prior to joining DBS, Valerian worked with the Bank of America from 2001 to 2005 in the United States. From 1994 to 2000 and from 2005 to 2007, he worked in Toronto, Canada with CIBC, Bank of Montreal and Ontario Pension Board. Valerian has also been the chairman of the Asia Pacific Regional Committee for International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) since January 2015.

Mr Yves Tomballe, Head of Liquidity Risk, Bank of Tokyo, Singapore

With more than ten years of experience in interest rates derivatives trading and riskmanagement, Tomballle is responsible for managing the market and funding liquidity risk of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (BTMU), as well as for overseeing the implementation of local regulatory requirements in the region. Prior to joining BTMU, Tomballe worked asan interest rates options trader at Standard Chartered Bank in London, Dubai and New York covering interest rates derivatives in G10, Latam, EMEA and SEA markets.

Mr Conor Cunningham, CEO, ACUO

Cunningham has worked in the derivatives industry for the past 20 years. His was formerly managing director and head of the Futures, Clearing and Collateral business for Citibank in Asia Pacific. He also served as chairman of the Futures Industry Association (FIA) Asia from 2014 to 2015. Prior to joining Citi in 2011, Cunningham worked with JP Morgan in London where he was responsible for its listed fixed income derivatives (EMEA ). Currently, he serves as CEO of ACUO, which specialises in providing collateral management solutions to bank and the buyside using cloud technology.

Mr Graeme Smith, MD, Asia Head of FM Risk, ING Bank

Smith started as Market Risk and Product Control in London. He spent three years in Moscow, Russia managing the Treasury function for ING's Russian subsidiary, ING Bank Eurasia, before managing the treasury function for Singapore and Hong Kong in 2012. In 2016, he served as head of ING Bank's management of market, counterparty and liquidity risk in Asia.

Mr Yash Misra, Director, Market Risk, DBS

Misra is head of issuer and counterparty risk at DBS Bank in Singapore. He has 16 years of experience in the global markets, based primarily in New York and Asia, working either as a trader (FX and rates derivatives) or as a risk person (including global markets, prime brokerage, private/consumer banking and alternative investments). Currently, his focus includes creating synergies across internal and external counterparty risk measures that include CCPs , margin, and relevant BCBS Regulatory Reform .

Mr Michael Syn, EVP, Head of Derivatives, Singapore Exchange

Mr Michael Lor, Former CEO, Canadia Bank Plc

Michael has led Canadia Bank's senior management team since 2011, successfully transforming the institution from a local bank into a regional financial services group. Under his leadership, Canadia successfully developed and launched a new partnership in micro finance with Fullerton Financial Holdings Singapore in 2013, and a new venture in life insurance with Muang Thai Life Assurance Thailand in early 2016. Prior to Canadia, he was group CEO of Eon Bank, leading Eon to consistent double-digit growth in PBT, total revenue, gross loans & financing and customer deposits. Before that, Michael held positions as head of consumer banking for RHB Bank and managing director of DBS Bank as part of his three decades long track record as a senior banker working across the Southeast Asia.

Mr Adinata Widia, Group Head, Transaction Banking & Wholesale Product, Bank Mandiri

Adinata Widia is head of transaction banking product development at PT Bank Mandiri responsible for profitably growing the bank’s wholesale banking capabilities by identifying and targeting market segments with product innovations. He addresses the minutiae of developing existing and new products focusing on for example dimensioning, segmentation, buyer behavior, pricing, sales cycles, and delivery channel capabilities. Prior to joining Bank Mandiri, he worked in a variety of senior product development roles at PT Bank Danamon, PT CIMB Niaga, PT LippoBank and Citibank N.A. Indonesia. Widia started his career with Ernst & Young Intl., Philippines.

Ms Stephanie Myers, Vice President Customer Strategy, Experience and Loyalty, Prudential

Mr Sreeram Iyer, Chief Operating Officer, Institutional Banking, ANZ

At ANZ, Sreeram is responsible for supporting Institutional business strategies across multiple countries, generating value for customers through Technology and driving Operations in all the regions of ANZ's business. Previously with Standard Chartered, he set up and ran their Offshore Hubs, deployed complex Technology platforms and was involved with the integration of a large global Private Bank business acquired by Standard Chartered. Sreeram has earned his learning experiences from MIT (Boston), London Business School, Henley Management College (MBA), and from INSEAD. Sreeram is active in LinkedIn on topics relating to the intersection of Banking with Fintech, Robotics, and Automation, and is a PolyFinTech100 mentor. He is also passionate about Financial Literacy for the under privileged and is a recipient of “Greatest Individual Contribution to Financial Inclusion in Asia” Award (2017). As part of his deep interest in education, he runs a program to build 10 schools for kids in Vietnam, impacting some 4,000 kids by 2018.

Mr Lito Villanueva, Smart Communications

Lito is among the few subject matter experts, thought-leaders, and practitioners in inclusive digital finance. He has over 20 solid years of experience in the fields of banking, payments and telecommunications industries. He started the fintech business in the PLDT Group in 2013 with trailblazing digital financial innovations meriting more than 30 global and regional accolades, including being cited as one of Asia's 100 Fintech Leaders, the first and only Filipino included in such list. Prior to his current role as managing director of FINTQ, the financial technology arm of PLDT and Smart's Voyager Innovations, he started his career with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). This was followed by his stint at the International Finance Corporation as consultant focusing on mobile money transfers in Mongolia. He was then invited by Visa to be the lead in customer strategy and market activation on global mobile payments covering 35 markets in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

Mr Yujiro Hayashi, Senior Architect, Future Architect

Yujiro Hayashi is currently responsible for cybersecurity at Future Architect, Inc. and has accumulated his theoretical studies as well as professional career through various consulting activities with financial institutions, manufacturing enterprises and public entities such as Japan Pension Services (survey committee for leakage of private information) and several local governments in Japan. In this process, Hayashi, together with his colleague, Kota Kanbe, developed security vulnerability scanner "Vuls", which in GitHub - the largest host of source code in the world - acquired the most recognised status among 30 million projects in October 2016.

Mr Pierre Gaudin, Senior Director, Enterprise Risk Solutions, Moody’s Analytics

Pierre is in charge of strategic initiatives in Asia-Pacific for Risk Appetite Management, Stress Testing and Origination at Moody’s Analytics, assisting with subject matter expertise, clients requirement analysis, and use case illustrations. He joined Moody’s Analytics via Fermat in 2004, and he has lead several Basel RWA implementations in Europe and Asia. He also developed Fermat Education services, designing and delivering regulatory compliance and ALM training to clients and system integrators worldwide. Pierre has 16 years of experience delivering software implementation services for capital markets and risk management solutions at major commercial banks in Paris, Bruxelles, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Pierre has a Master’s Degree in Systems and Networks Engineering from Supélec, France.

Mr David Brown, SVP & Australia Country Manager, Head of APAC Presales, D+H

David Brown has been with D+H for 15 years and is responsible for payment products in Asia Pacific region, working closely with the sales, services and delivery teams. He has over 25 years’ industry experience and has worked for over 11 years at Colonial State Bank in Australia. David was on the SWIFT and RTGS industry user groups for 10 years. David has been the part time senior onsite business person for clients like Citibank (2yrs), HSBC (2yrs), Barclays (2yrs), Bank of Ireland (1yr), and has been involved with Bank of China, OCBC, Deutsche Bank, ANZ, Westpac and other client projects and has worked with senior bankers to help establish how payments as a business can operate in a changing world.

Mr Venkat ES, APAC Head, Treasury Product Management, Bank of America

Based in Hong Kong, he is responsible for developing and executing the integrated strategy for the full end-to-end regional treasury products business in Asia Pacific, including Treasury Product Development & Delivery, Sales Enablement, Product Consulting, Balance Sheet Management and Product Innovation, Development and Management. Prior to assuming his position at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Venkat spent the previous four years as head of Global Transaction Services at Samba Financial Group (ex-Citigroup) in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He also brings broad experience from Citi, where he was the New York-based head of Corporate Payables and brand manager for FX multicurrency product Worldlink, earlier to that as Head of GTS for Middle East & North Africa and the Cash Product head for the Middle East, based in Dubai. Venkat also served as Citi India’s head of New Initiatives and Network Management, within the Mumbai-based cash product team.

Mr Ka Wei Yuen, Head of IT Security Governance, Asia Pacific, Deutsche Bank AG, Singapore

Ka Wei Yuen has been with Deutsche Bank in Singapore since 2001, initially in cash management product management for two years and, subsequently, in various regional information security roles. He brokered and helped incorporate the information security requirements within the then Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Internet Banking and Technology Guidelines into the global Deutsche Bank assessment process, and kept the process up-to-date with the changing regulatory requirements. Yuen is now a regional manager in the chief information security office, with the primary responsibility in supporting the branches in regulatory engagement.

Mr Sean Comeau, Security Consultant

Sean Comeau has a proven track record in innovative security technologies. Comeau was one of the founding members of the leading Canadian security conference, CanSecWest, and has presented technical innovations and research at many premiere community events. Previous experience includes network and application security assessment, service provisioning in the gaming industry and development of security appliance hardware. Working in the open source arena on the mail security standards rounds out two decades of technical experience.

Ms Val Jihsuan Yap, Founder & CEO, PolicyPal

Val leads PolicyPal, a an insurance player that uses artificial intelligence to simplify and digitise insurance for thousands people.Prior to founding PolicyPal, Val was an Assistant Vice President at OCBC Bank. Primarily focused on launching the digital initiatives and campaigns, working closely with the wealth, digital and marketing to drive innovations. Previously served as Risk Assurance Associate at PwC London office, worked with UK Financial Institutions to develop implementation plans for the changes required for USA Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) compliance and regulatory assessment.

Mr Amar Singh, CEO and Founder of Cyber Management Alliance

Amar Singh is engaged as a business and cyber security advisor and interim C level executive by organisations which need to reduce their risk exposure, deploy post incident remediation, build security teams, increase cyber resiliency and mature their information security and data privacy posture. His client profile includes Siemens, the BBC, Reuters, BP, ATOS, Gala Coral, Cable & Wireless, SABMiller and many more. In addition, Singh acts as a resident consultant on information security product development and market direction for several organisations based in the US and the UK. He is also retained as a senior analyst at Kuppinger Cole and chairs ISACA's UK security advisory group.

Mr Mike Kayamori, CEO, Quoine Corporation

Mike Kayamori is the co-founder and CEO of Tokyo-based Quoine, which was established in 2014 and today is among the largest blockchain/cryptocurrency companies worldwide. Prior to QUOINE, Mike was a Senior Vice President at SoftBank Group, managing its Asia / India operations, investments, and joint ventures with SingTel and Bharti Group as well as the Chief Investment Officer of Gungho Asia, the creator of Puzzle and Dragons. Before joining SoftBank, Mike was a Senior Director at Globespan Capital Partners, an independent Venture Capital with over USD1.2B under management, with responsibilities in Japan Investment as well as Asia business development. Mike graduated from The University of Tokyo and Harvard Business School.

Mr John Bailon, CEO, Satoshi Citadel Industries, Philippines

Satoshi Citadel Industries is a Financial Technology startup company building Blockchain services and products for the purpose of financial inclusion in the Philippines. John leads the Satoshi Citadel team as CEO, guiding the vision of the company and development of its products in bitcoin. John is convinced that money transfers is an enormous opportunity in the Philippines, with at least US$30 billion entering the country in 2014 alone, and another US$40 billion in internal remittances. In this field of money transfers, John is working with Bitcoin as the breakthrough technology that will revolutionize this industry.

Ms Nalinee Chinowuthichai, COO & Co-Founder, InvoiceInterchange

Nalinee is the co-founder and COO of InvoiceInterchange and an advocate for alternative finance. With a family background in invoice financing, she understands the importance of cash flow to the success of any business. Nalinee and her co-founder formed InvoiceInterchange to make invoice finance online and hassle free for businesses. Nalinee is a qualified software engineer with over 10 years of experience in banking and financial services across Australia and the UK. With extensive experience in managing the implementation of global IT projects in banks ranging from regulatory, sales support and operational process improvement. Nalinee oversees the ongoing build and enhancement of IT systems and ensures operational excellence at InvoiceInterchange.

Mr Thomas McMahon, CEO, Pan Asia Clearing Enterprise

Thomas McMahon has over 30 years of experience in International Exchange based Commodity and Derivative product creation, clearing, trading, and regulatory licensing. Over the past decade, Thom has worked broadly across Asia to bring to market major International Exchange formation and licensing projects in Singapore, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, Dubai, India, and along with the licensing and launch of the Singapore Mercantile Exchange in August, 2010, where he served as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director from April 2009 until June 2011. Prior to his role at the Singapore Mercantile Exchange, Thom was President and Managing Director, Deputy Chairman of the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange from April 2007 until April 2009, overseeing the development and implementation of the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange from the ground up.

Mr Hizam Ismail, Co-Founder and CEO of Onelyst

Hizam is the co-founder and CEO of Onelyst, a financial technology company that provides affordable and alternative credit access to the lower-middle income segment. A segment that is currently excluded from bank’s credit facilities. Its lending platform helps lower-middle income communities in South East Asia access personal loans and installments plans digitally, leveraging on new technologies to underwrite its customers.

Mr Nikhilesh Goel, Chief Operating Officer, Validus Capital

Nikhilesh Goel has more than ten years of private equity, investment banking and corporate strategy experience across ASEAN and India, which also include merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions across consumer and technology sectors along with portfolio management and value creation at small and medium sized enterprise(SME) companies. His key skills include corporate strategy, deal execution, portfolio management and operational improvement.

Mr David Gurle, Founder & CEO of Symphony

Author, inventor and leader, David's ideas have influenced the major trends in enterprise communications over the last 15 years. He defined Microsoft's unified communications strategy (Skype for Business) and as head of collaboration services at Thomson Reuters introduced federated communications to the financial services industry. Before founding Perzo/Symphony, he was VP and GM of Skype's Enterprise Business.

Mr Sian Goh, Managing Director, Head of Research & Strategy, Dymon Asia Capital

Sian is Head of Research & Strategy at Dymon Asia Macro. Since joining Dymon, Sian has been both a Strategist for the Macro Fund and a portfolio manager focused on Macro Equity Long/Short. Prior to Dymon Asia, Sian was an Associate Director at Abax Global Capital focused Asian Long/Short Equity and Special Situations Investments. He has worked in London, New York and Hong Kong as an Investment Banker and Lawyer with Merrill Lynch, UBS and Goldman Sachs and Allen & Overy focused on Global Mergers & Acquisitions. Sian graduated with First Class Honors LL.M from Cambridge University and Second Class (First Division) Honors LL.B. from Bristol University.

Mr Edmund Lowell, Founder and CEO, KYC-Chain

Edmund Lowell is a serial entrepreneur living in Asia since 2011, innovating at the crossroads of finance, technology and legal fields. Lowell has built a number of financial technology (fintech) and regulatory technology (regtech) products during this time including KYC-Chain, which uses distributed ledger technology to unlock greater efficiency and trust in both the know your customer (KYC) onboarding and refresh process for both financial institutions and account holders. He is also managing partner at Far Horizon Capital, a company that invests in emerging technology and emerging markets.

Mr Mark Mackenzie, APAC MD, Lenddo

Originally from Scotland, and having worked across Asia for the last 18 years Mark now manages Lenddo across East Asia and the Pacific region. Mark began his career in Construction Engineering but finding the Scottish climate not suited to prolonged periods of construction work, he returned to University to take an MBA. After a brief interlude in Academia where he worked in pioneering research in e-learning at Edinburgh University, he packed for Manila to take a consulting job and has never looked back! Mark considers working at Lenddo 'the best job in the world’.

Ms Sonal Bengani, Co-Founder, Monexo

Sonal is Co-Founder of Monexo - a P2P lending marketplace in India and in Hong Kong. She brings 19 years of experience working in leading software company and in startups. She held various leadership roles at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the largest tech company in India. She has led distributed teams on complex client assignments in the areas of process consulting, strategy, and business research and business management for Fortune 100 clients.

Mr Andrew Tan, CEO, CrowdPlus, Malaysia

Andrew is a serial entrepreneur and the founding partner in two venture capital firm where he managed a pool of funds totaling up to 50million USD in which he is leading the firm’s investment and management team. Prior to CrowdPlus, Andrew was the Managing Partner and a financial-services investor at Tinkbig Venture and Appshack Asia. While at TinkBig Venture, he led investments in thirty two startup deals with other co VC amounted a total of 20million USD committed fund. Prior to that, Andrew was a private-equity investor where he regularly advised his limited Partners on private-equity deals and fund formation. Andrew has been featured various publication and newspapers as an outstanding entrepreneur. His previous experience include EBay UK, TESCO, MAVCAP and CGC Malaysia.

Mr Suhail Amar Suresh, Group CTO, Maybank

Suhail first joined Maybank in October 2012 as the Head of Virtual Banking & Payments, Community Financial Services. He led the evolution of the Digital Strategy roadmap and was responsible for the roll out of several key digital platforms and capabilities across multiple markets. In June 2014, he was appointed as the Group Chief Information Officer, Group Technology and the Head of Maybank Shared Services of Maybank Group. Throughout his extensive career in other multinational organisations, Suhail oversaw overall technology investments and directed the implementation and integration of Technology services within the Asia Pacific region. Suhail has more than 30 years of global experience in various areas related to Corporate Strategy, Business Development & Marketing, Information Technology, Systems and Applications Architecture within the Banking and Telecommunications industries.

Mr Gitesh Athavale, SVP & GM, MatchMove Pay

An experienced payments experts with more than 14 years with Visa and American Express. Launched many successful card programs across Asia in partnership with banks, Telcos and consumer brands and corporates. Core expertise in Business development and Product management of payment products. Broad knowledge and understanding of payment systems and rules framework, revenue and risk impacts. Currently, he leads payments in Matchmove, which is one of Singapore’s fastest growing fintech company. In 2014, MatchMove launched a ground-breaking mobile virtual card with American Express, aimed at the millions of uncarded Asian’s who are going online and need new and secure mobile payment methods. This was followed by launch of MasterCard Virtual card in early 2015.

Mr Neil Parekh, General Manager, Asia, National Australia Bank

In his current role, Neil is responsible for all business, governance and regulatory matters in the Asia region for all countries except HK and Mainland China. Neil joined NAB from Natixis, where he was Head of Corporate and Institutional Banking Coverage for Asia and a member of the Executive Committee - Asia Pacific. In this role, he was responsible for all client coverage and deal origination in the region. Neil also worked with Bank of America in various product and client coverage roles. Neil contributes his time as a board director to Nautilus Insurance, Graymatics, The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE) and for SICCI. Additionally, he serves on the governing council of the ABS (Association of Banks in Singapore) and is Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the AICD (Australian Institute of Company Directors).

Mr Ng Ling Soon, Chief Technology Officer of BCSIS Information Systems

Ng has more than 20 years of IT experience in the Financial Industry. In the 20 years, he has successfully implemented many large scale projects and developed numerous infrastructure and application roadmaps for financial institutions with regional footprints. Among these projects were core banking replacement projects and consolidation of Bank’s Data Centres residing in different countries. He was also involved in the implementation of the world’s first Real Time Direct Debit system using ISO20022, which was launched in Singapore in 2014.

Mr T Prasanth Mathew, Director, Cash Management,Corporate& Trade Finance, Deutsche Bank

Based in Singapore, Mathew is a product specialist with 10 years of experience in Deutsche Bank. He focuses on managing the growth of the bank’s Cash Management Corporates and Trade Finance (TF/CMC) business with US multinationals in the Asia Pacific. Prior to his current role, Mathew was responsible for the German multinationals business in Asia. Mathew joined Deutsche Bank as a graduate trainee and in his first role after the graduate programme worked in a team which specialised in advising clients on regional treasury and shared service set ups. Mathew graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Degree in Mechanical Engineering and Minor in Business.

Mr G. V. Nageswara Rao, CEO & MDNational Securities Depository

He has been in his current position since July 1, 2013. Mr. Rao served as the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of IDBI Federal Life Insurance Company Limited of IDBI Bank Limited until June 30, 2013. Mr. Rao has over 26 years’ experience in various segments of financial services and has successfully built and managed several new businesses. Mr. Rao served as the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of IDBI Fortis Life Insurance Company Ltd. of IDBI Bank Limited. Mr. Rao served as the Chief executive officer of Commercial Banking Strategic Business Unit of Industrial Development Bank of India Limited of IDBI Bank Limited since April 4, 2005. He served as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of IDBI Capital Market Services Ltd., and IDBI Bank Limited. He serves as a Director of IDBI Capital Market Services Limited and National Securities Depository Limited.

Mr Lawrence Yong, Co-Founder and CEO, MoolahSense

Lawrence Yong is a recent entrepreneur, having stepped out of his corporate shell in September 2013. Prior to founding MoolahSense, a marketplace lending platform that seeks to expand small and medium sized enterprises’ (SMEs) sources of capital by connecting them to everyday investors, Yong worked extensively in the financial services sector for more than 12 years in the field, acquiring a combination of front-to-back, buy-and sell-side experiences in the area of fixed income. He spent the first half of his professional career in wealth management, with his last role heading a multi award-winning investment product team at Standard Chartered Bank. Before founding MoolahSense, Yong was a vice president at Macquarie Capital, where he was closely involved in developing its sales and structuring business at its fixed income division.

Mr Sandeep Bhatia, Founder & CEO,TrakInvest Group

After completing his undergraduate studies at the age of 19, Bobby started his career as an options trader at O’Connor & Associates (Chicago) in 1994. His 20+ years’ of experience in the trading and private equity industry saw him become a Principal of Asia’s first leverage buyout fund at JP Morgan Partners Asia as well as Managing Director & Head of Principal Investments APAC at AIG Financial Products. Bobby’s roots in investments and his entrepreneurial spirit drove him to establish Trakinvest Group that has two principal lines of business: (i) TrakInvest – virtual stock trading tool built for education and talent identification and (ii) Hyrd – end to end video based recruitment software for talent identification, qualification and acquisition. TrakInvest Group today includes a number of Global Corporates and leading Universities as it partners and clients.

Mr Jan Luebke, Head of Market Management Asia, Institutional Cash Management, Deutsche Bank

In this role, Jan is responsible for the cash management strategy for financial institutions in the Asia Pacific region. A banking professional with 17 years working experience in operations and transaction banking, Jan also has significant regional and global experience across the Americas, Asia and Europe. In the earlier years of his career he headed the high-value-payment operations, Quality Assurance Germany in Deutsche Bank, and in this capacity managed the Euro-migration as well as the Y2K challenge. His portfolio of responsibilities also includes projects such as Single European Payments Area and the re-development of Deutsche Bank’s legacy processing and messaging platforms. His broad operational knowledge led him to a sales position managing foreign bank clients for Deutsche Bank in Germany, and he subsequently joined the Asia Pacific office where he now lends his expertise and knowledge to clients in developing and developed markets in the region.

Mr Shekhar Bhandari, Senior EVP & Business Head, Global Transaction Banking, Kotak Mahindra

Shekhar is a finance veteran with over two decades of experience in the areas of transaction banking, cash management, risk management, structuring, foreign exchange, precious metals, derivatives, treasury and trade. Part of the key leadership group at Kotak, he plays a crucial role in strengthening Kotak Mahindra Bank’s (KMB) positioning as an important player in the Global Transaction Banking business. Shekhar helped to improve KMB’s market share and mindshare in Transaction Banking, facilitated escrow, trade services, cash management and foreign exchange as key activities for growing the business, developed partnerships with national and international players, facilitated trade tie-ups with Bank of New York and Commerz Bank Luxembourg. He is the leading voice to discuss issues and opportunities in trade and payments.

Mr John Wong, Head of Global Liquidity & Cash Management, Hang Sang Bank Limited

John possesses 27 years of solid transaction banking experience. His area of expertise is all round and covers across sales management, product development, electronic channel development as well as client implementation. He has spent his career on banking in Hong Kong, China and a few Asia Pacific countries. John worked in International Bank for 25 years prior to his current role in Hang Seng Bank since May 2016. John holds a Master of Business Administration from Henley Management College UK and is a Cert ICM.

Mr Satoshi Tateyama, Head of MUFG Innovation Centre, Asia & Oceania

Mr Tateyama is responsible for promoting MUFG’s FinTech activities emphasizing on research and analysis of the FinTech Ecosystem in the region. This includes advancing MUFG’s own Proof-of- Concepts (POCs) as well as participating in governmental POCs to create new business and forward digitalization using the latest information and communication technology. Mr Tateyama has 16 years of banking experience, specialising in IT banking solutions, from sales to development.

Mr Liam Gilligan, Head, Innovation Lab, Hong Kong, Commonwealth Bank

Mr Liam is an experienced business innovator, with 15 years’ experience across both startup and large corporates in innovation, product development, business development, strategy, and human centered design. Prior to working at CBA, Liam was the General Manager of Service Product Innovation at Telstra. Liam was responsible for developing and testing new business models in response to a multi-faceted disruption. Liam also ran Service Design and Operations for Telstra’s retail footprint and was product lead for several new service businesses in the Telstra portfolio. Before Telstra, Liam lead Business Development and Operations at Gizmo, an IT services startup, which appeared twice in BRW fast starters list.

Mr Mark Englehart, Senior Vice President, head of Innovation Management, DBS Bank, Singapore.

Mark leads internal innovation programs that enable DBS to discover and define the future of DBS products and services by experimenting with myriad tools, techniques and methodologies, such as Human Centered Design, Lean experimentation and more. Prior to DBS, Mark was based in Shanghai as Strategy Director for R/GA, a digital innovations agency, working with brands such as Beats By Dre, Nike, Old Navy & Western Digital. In Shanghai, Mark co-founded TechyiZu, an open-source volunteer organization that pillars the Shanghai technology and entrepreneurship communities through events. Originally from Tucson, Arizona, Mark holds a Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

Ms Fernn Lim, AVP, Fintech &Innovation Group, OCBC Bank

Part of the founding team of The Open Vault at OCBC, Fernn is currently leading OCBC Bank's Fintech ecosystem engagement plans. She drives OCBC's corporate innovation strategy and is in charge of running The Open Vault's Digital Fintech Leaders Programme. Fernn has worked in different sectors in both London and Singapore and believes that the next generation of financial technology will redefine banking. She is a double Masters holder (MEd Mathematics and MA Innovation Management) and has a degree in Mathematics.

Mr Dariusz P. Trocyszyn, Consultant, Corporate Banking, Comarch

After completing his studies in the field of Banking and Finance, Darius worked for 8 years in one of the leading Austrian Banks in Central Europe. During these fruitful years, he managed to deepen his knowledge on banking systems, international payments, claims, processes refining, cash handling and many more. Over 4 years spent in Internal Control resulted in thorough understanding of bank’s multiple internal systems, processes and products. Passionate about new technologies, processes optimization and with strong theoretical and practical background in the banking industry Darius participates in Corporate Banking software implementations across Europe, Asia and Middle East.

Mr Raymond Leung, Banking Operation Advisor

Raymond Leung is now an independent banking operation advisor working in the region. He was in Alliance Bank Malaysia as Group Chief Operating Officer from January 2011 to 2016. He oversees the operations, technology and various support functions of the Bank, and is instrumental in developing key strategies that encompass all aspects of the Bank’s business to drive growth. This includes product support, talent development, customer services and delivery. Prior to joining Alliance Bank, Mr. Leung had gained a diverse wealth of experience with over 30 years in Citigroup, with assignments in Hong Kong, Toronto, New York and Singapore. He held key positions in both country and regional capacities for operations, technology, internal audit and product management.

Mr Andrew Tan, CEO, CrowdPlus.Asia

Andrew is a serial entrepreneur and the founding partner in two venture capital firm where he managed a pool of funds totaling up to 50million USD in which he is leading the firm’s investment and management team. Prior to CrowdPlus, Andrew was the Managing Partner and a financial-services investor at Tinkbig Venture and Appshack Asia. While at TinkBig Venture, he led investments in thirty two startup deals with other co VC amounted a total of 20million USD committed fund. Prior to that, Andrew was a private-equity investor where he regularly advised his limited Partners on private-equity deals and fund formation. Andrew has been featured various publication and newspapers as an outstanding entrepreneur. His previous experience include EBay UK, TESCO, MAVCAP and CGC Malaysia.

Mr Alvin Wong, Head of Regional Products, SamsungPay

Alvin is based in Singapore and has more than 10 years of experience in mobile payments. He has deep experience in multiple perspectives within mobile payments end to end, from the early inception of NFC based payments from a service enabler, mobile proximity and remote payments, including mobile remittance during his time at SingTel and created mCash, now known as Dash. His current work focuses on building new experiences in the region on mobile value added services, online expansion, merchant partnerships and on mobile transit. He is also passionate about the user journey and experiences in mobile fintech as well as on digital security.

Mr Raju Nair, Managing Director- Regional Head Customer Journey Experience, DBS Bank

Ms Natividad Alejo, Executive Vice President, Consumer Banking Group Head, Bank of the Philippine Islands

Mr Sameer Gupta, Regional Head for Customer Experience and Business Analytics, Consumer Banking Group, DBS Bank

Mr Rakesh Krishnamuti, Head, Large Enterprise Acquisition & Relationship Management, Southeast Asia, PayPal

Rakesh Krishnamuti leads the Large Enterprise Acquisition & Relationship Management team for PayPal in Southeast Asia. Based in Singapore, Rakesh is responsible for driving PayPal’s business in the region through acquiring leading e-commerce merchants and engaging with PayPal’s large merchant portfolio in Southeast Asia. Rakesh has over twenty-years of experience in the consumer and merchant payments industry, covering product development, sales, relationship management and business development. In between corporate stints at Citibank, NETS and leading SEA payments provider 2C2P, Rakesh also co-founded and ran a regional marketing consultancy that served Visa, SingTel, MasterCard & United Overseas Bank. Rakesh graduated from Western Michigan University with a Bachelors in Business Administration.

Mr Sam Ahmed, Managing Director, Deriv Asia

Ahmed is the Managing Director and partner at Deriv Asia, a technical consultancy firm which provides strategic advisory and change transformation to banks in the areas of new derivatives businesses, risk policy and methodology, collateral management, vendor selection and regulatory implementation for various projects around Basel 3.
Ahmed’s career spans 18 years at top tier international banks such as Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Citi across Sydney, Tokyo and Singapore where he held management roles in FX Derivatives trading, credit risk and middle office. His last role was at Citi Singapore as Head of Collateral Services Sales for APAC.

Mr Jinesh Patel, partner, Dymon Asia

Jinesh Patel is a partner at Dymon Asia Ventures, an early stage Fintech-focussed fund targeting opportunities in the ASEAN region. In his capacity as Partner, Jinesh oversees all fund investments and leverages off the broader Dymon Asia platform. Prior to Dymon Asia Capital, Jinesh managed capital in the alternatives space. The early part of his career was spent on the TMT sector within the investment banking divisions of Goldman Sachs and UBS. Jinesh graduated with a BA Honours from the University of Exeter.

Dr Ron Leven, Professor (MBA) Columbia University

Ron's career started as a sovereign risk economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Over the next 20 years, Ron held senior strategy positions at Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan, in New York, Tokyo and Singapore. He also worked at several hedge funds, managing $150 million in a foreign exchange and fixed income leveraged strategy. Leven is currently a professor with Columbia University teaching courses on investing in emerging markets at Columbia’s School of International Affairs. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from Rice University and a B.A. in Economics and Chinese from Washington University.

Mr Umar Munshi, CEO, Ethis Ventures

Umar is the Founder of Ethis Ventures, an award-winning technology company based in Singapore, which builds and ventures with multiple Islamic Crowdfunding platforms. Munshi is also the CEO of EthisCrowd.com, the world’s first Real Estate Crowdfunding platform, focused mainly on Social Housing in Indonesia, and which won Best Islamic Crowdfunding Platform at the GIFA Awards 2016. Munshi is also the Chairman of the IslamicFintechAlliance.com. These groundbreaking initiatives led to his feature in the Islamica500 2016 publication of Islamic Economy influencers. Munshi sits on the Board of the Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce (smcci.org.sg) and is the Singapore Representative of TDA (tangandiatas.com), an Indonesian Community of 20,000 entrepreneurs. Umar believes that the time has come for Muslim entrepreneurs worldwide to step up and push themselves to create and re-create value-generating startups for Muslim needs.

Mr David Chance, SVP, Product Strategy, Dovetail

David Chance joined Dovetail in 2008 and has subsequently led the development and management of Dovetail products. David, with over 20 years in the industry, is a hugely experienced payments professional and recognised thought-leader, with significant global strategy, business and solutions development background. He is a regular participant in industry working groups. David’s experience includes senior roles at eFunds in corporate cash management, middleware and real-time payments, including supporting financial institutions in strategic planning for UK Faster Payments. David’s focus is now on ensuring our solutions remain at the forefront of financial services technology innovation.

Mr Ganesh Iyer, SVP, Product Development, HSBC Securities Services

Ganesh Iyer moved to Singapore in February 2013 as SVP – Market and Product Development for HSBC Securities Services (HSS). In his current role, Ganesh oversees all strategic, product and industry initiatives impacting the HSS business and its clients in Singapore. More recently, Ganesh also drives all Digital and Fintech initiatives impacting the securities services business in Asia in collaboration with colleagues global product management colleagues based in London and Hong Kong.

Mr Nick Walton, Head of ASEAN, Amazon Web Services

Nick Walton is the Head of ASEAN for Amazon Web Services (AWS). Prior to this position Nick held multiple roles across a career of close to 5 years with AWS. In that time he has been involved in some of the largest cloud transformations for enterprise companies including Qantas, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and Suncorp helping them realise agility, drive innovation and reduce cost with the AWS Cloud. Nick has built experience working on customer cloud initiatives ranging from enterprise transformation, to big data & real-time analytics projects, as well as new applications and innovation efforts.

Mr Marcelo Casil, Co-Founder and CEO, DXMarkets

Founder and CEO of DXMarkets, a start-up company building blockchain-based products for the financial services industry in areas covering capital markets, investment, payments and digital identity. Having previously worked at a number of large global banks, Marcelo has wide-ranging experience in designing and building large-scale enterprise-grade systems with a focus on investment banking and financial solutions.

Mr Jefferson Chen, CEO, Advanced A.I

Jefferson is the CEO of ADVANCE.AI, a Fintech & Artificial Intelligence company focused on Asia working on credit modelling and using big data to create credit profiles for financial institutions. He is also a Partner at GSR Ventures, a leading venture capital firm in China . Prior to starting ADVANCE.AI, Jefferson was head of private investing for Greater China at Farallon Capital (a leading alternative asset manager with AUM of over US$20 billion) where he led investments into Huarong AMC, Cinda AMC, Didi, ND Micro Credit and others.

Mr Hitesh Arora, Director, Strategy and Customer Advocacy, CRMNEXT

Hitesh Arora has over 25 years of experience in global technology, strategy, sales, and operations in financial, retail, and technology services. He has held leadership positions in organisations across emerging markets and Asia Pacific, including Bank of America, Max Life Insurance, Yum Brands, Nucleus Software, Polaris Financial Technologies, and NIIT Technologies. Arora has led transformational change in various organisations including delivering greenfield start-ups; ensuring an organisation’s future readiness; and building capacity in people, processes, and platforms. He has established global operating models and led transformation initiatives for analytics, share of wallet programs, and digital channels.

Mr Howard Mannella, Managing Principal, Alternative Resiliency Services

Howard Mannella is a thought-leader and executive in organisational resiliency, business continuity, disaster recovery, crisis management and related disciplines, and with his role as managing principal, he helps clients in many sectors to reduce risk. He was formerly principal resiliency strategist for Expedia, where he established the global program that covered over 5,000 people in a dozen locations across North America and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He spent most of his career in banking and capital markets.

Mr Keith Furst, Founder, Data Derivatives

Keith Furst is the founder of Data Derivatives, and has years of experience at financial institutions implementing, fine tuning and validating financial crime systems. His forte relates to transaction monitoring, customer due diligence, fraud and market abuse systems and the identification of suspicious activity outside of the traditional surveillance models. He is skilled at bridging the requirements of risk and compliance with technology, which include the execution of strategic programs such as ongoing data validation and quality. With deep knowledge of Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) message types and correspondent banking, he performed multiple risk assessments to ensure cross-border payment transparency aligns with both industry and internal policy guidelines.

Ms Rona Morgan, Managing Director, Asia, International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP)

Rona Morgan is an experienced banker and risk expert, with more than 25 years of banking experience in various fields, across multiple geographies. She has worked extensively in the regulatory space, leading the development of regulatory approaches for capital and risk appetite in major banks in Southeast Asia and Australia. Morgan spent most of her career with HSBC Banking Group. As former secretary of the Hong Kong Association of Banks in 2003, she was deeply involved in industry-wide banking issues, including personal data protection and cybercrime. Morgan is the data protection officer at a voluntary organisation in Singapore and is now leading the growth and development of International Association of Privacy Professionals across Asia.

Mr Jack Ow, Partner, RHTLaw Taylor Wessing

Jack Ow handles a broad spectrum of transactional and contentious matters in intellectual property and information technology. He has represented clients across various industries, including retail, financial services, information technology (IT), healthcare and critical infrastructure. He regularly advises info-communication and technology (ICT) businesses and users on technology transactions including data protection, cybersecurity and licensing issues. As a certified information privacy technologist accredited by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) and having a keen interest in ICT developments, Ow believes in seeking customised legal solutions that take into account the challenges in design, deployment and auditing of IT products and services, while balancing the role that technology companies increasingly fill as arbiters of trust in today’s data-driven global economy.

Mr Christopher Loh, Group Chief Strategy Officer & Head of Group International Business, RHB Bank

Christopher is responsible for developing the Group's strategic priorities, driving the Group’s Transformation Programme (IGNITE 2017) across the region and working closely with the businesses to execute strategies towards achieving the Group's aspirations. He also assumed the position of overseeing the Group International Business (excluding Singapore), where he is responsible for leading and managing the Group’s business operations outside of Malaysia and Singapore, driving the growth strategies, strategic partnerships and expansion into other ASEAN countries. After his stint with a leading UK banking group in London, he returned to Asia to help built and led a very successful risk management practice where he was the Managing Director before his departure. He has also spent several years with a leading insurer in Singapore, and had established and run a technology and media startup.

Mr Shankar Vaddadi, CEO & Founder, I-Lend, India

Shankar Vaddadi is an entrepreneur with success in C-level and leadership across various industries and public companies in India. He has wide experience in Technology, Financial Inclusion Architecture and Social Entrepreneurship. Presently he is the Founder & CEO of i-Lend, which is India’s first P2P / Social Lending marketplace and is at the forefront of evangelising alternate finance as well as propagating this sector with all stakeholders including regulators and eco systems participants. i-Lend is the most experienced and comprehensive P2P lending marketplace in India with a lot of firsts to its credit. It has been adjudged as one of the top ten Alternate finance companies in Asia and is at the forefront of fintech innovation in India. Shankar believes in democratising finance, moving from a sellers’ to a buyers’ market and making credit available at reasonable rates of interest leading to financial inclusion.

Mr Aditya Menon, Managing Director, Global Digital Strategy, Citigroup

Aditya currently drives global digital strategy at Citi in the capacity of a Digital Strategist, a Business Solutions Architect & Strategic Product Designer, with domain expertise in digital disruption across consumer & corporate banking, mobile & digital payments, data analytics and dynamic offers, digital identity, Open banking, API strategy & architecture, banking value added services and driving innovation through labs and hackathons. He played a leadership role in the Strategic design of Citi consumer bank’s next generation Digital architecture. He has worked on strategic architecture for real-time big-data analytics as well as next generation technology strategy on topics such as AI, BlockChain, IOT, Regtech, Augmented experiences and disruptive digital platforms - that are transforming banking. Prior to Citi, Aditya has been a serial entrepreneur in transaction/retail banking/payments, and a mobile payments/financial inclusion pioneer and evangelist.

Mr Mark Makdad, Co-Founder, Moneytree

Mark has lived in Tokyo since 2005, starting his career in IT consulting and project staffing. In 2012, he co-founded Moneytree, a personal financial management (PFM) service that strives to better connect individuals and small businesses with their financial institutions. Mark is responsible for Moneytree's financial data portability platform, Moneytree LINK. He also serves on the board of the Fintech Association of Japan and chairs the API & Security committee, regularly interfacing with Japanese regulatory and industry bodies on Fintech and API matters. He is a fluent speaker of Japanese.

Mr Alan Seow, Cybersecurity Practitioner, Singapore

Alan Seow has served for 12 years in government service. His last appointment was head of cybersecurity at the Ministry of Communications and Information, Singapore. He headed the cyber function in overseeing the resiliency of Singapore’s info-communication and media sectors, focusing on the cyber protection of the sector’s critical infrastructures. Prior to this, he was in charge of the whole-of-government level ICT Cybersecurity for the public sector. During his early years, Seow served in the Ministry of Home Affairs undertaking IT security consultancy work for various Singapore government agencies coupled with periods in academia where he held an academic chair (digital security & forensics) in a government tertiary institution.

Mr Kunal Sehgal, APAC Head of Information Security & IT Risk, Schroders

Kunal Sehgal is a specialised cybersecurity professional with more than 12 years of experience across multiple geographical locations in North America and Asia. He has extensive knowledge in setting up regional security services, with teams spread across Asia Pacific. He has defined actionable road maps for technically complex programmes and has worked on several initiatives, including the conduct of gap-assessments to improve the overall security posture of the organisations. Prior to his current position he was head of information technology (IT) security SG & APAC at BNP Paribas. Sehgal also held senior positions in risk, compliance and IT security at MetLife and Sun Life Financial.

Mr Nick Savvides, Manager, Cybersecurity Strategy, Symantec

Nick Savvides is an information security expert with more than 20 years of experience. In his current role, he is responsible for Symantec’s cybersecurity strategy across Asia Pacific. Savvides’ charter is to provide local market insights that influence global strategic planning and product development. He also works with organisations and governments to develop their cybersecurity strategies and solve complex business problems. He has worked on some of the largest business information security projects in Australia. Prior to joining Symantec, Savvides worked at The University of Melbourne in various IT related roles.

Mr Justin Wright, Regional Head, SEA, Beehive Asia

Justin, as the Responsible Executive for Asia, represents Beehive’s interests across the region. Having set up the strategic development and regional head office in Thailand, he is leading the growth of the Beehive Asia platform and promotion of P2P innovation throughout ASEAN, working closely with regulators and industry leaders to deliver smart finance solutions to SME’s. Justin has over 19 years of investment banking and funds management experience combined with more than 12 years in Asia Pacific deal advisory roles. Justin was previously a full time member of the Brussels based ‘EASDAQ’ market advisory committee and regular live commentator on CNBC Asia.

Mr John Krasnov, Managing Director, Forum Capital

John Krasnov is the Managing Director of Singapore-based Forum Capital where he oversees a portfolio of venture investments in Asian consumer finance space. Prior to founding Forum Capital, Mr.Krasnov had over 10 years of international private equity experience gained at Bank of America (London, Warsaw) and Innova Capital (Warsaw), where he focused on growth and buyout transactions across Developed and Emerging Europe. Mr.Krasnov also has a highly successful Emerging Markets operational track record as Founder and CEO of Platinum Bank, Ukraine. Over a period of 8 years, Mr.Krasnov developed Platinum Bank from start-up stage to a leader in consumer finance in its market with ca. 4,000 employees, and achieved a 3x+ capital gain for the bank's international private equity backers.

Mr Rohit Verma, Director,Global Markets, Futures and OTC Clearing, Citi

Rohit Verma is Citi's APAC Head of In-Business Risk. In this role, he is responsible for driving the risk agenda for clearing business. In addition, he also leads the Capital optimization agenda for Citi's business in the region. He also represents Citi at a couple of Exchange Risk Committees/ work-groups. Rohit joined Citi from Deutsche Bank where he was APAC Head of Risk Management for the Asset management business. As part of this function he set-up the independent risk management platform for the buy-side business and chaired the regional Risk committee. Prior to Deutsche, Rohit was at a number of leading international banks such as Credit Suisse and Landesbank.

Mr Tobias Fischer, Director, Corporate Development, Capital Match

Working in the largest P2P Lending Marketplace for SMEs in Southeast Asia, Tobias drives the platform development and is responsible for debt- and equity investments, new products and regional expansion. Having build P2P Lending Marketplaces across Europe for Rocket Internet, Tobias bridges extensive knowledge in Alternative Lending from Europe to Asia. Tobias also advises the Mekong Business Initiative, an innovative policy advisory and advocacy project on regulatory challenges of integrating financial technology in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand (CLMV). The Mekong Business Initiative (MBI) is an Asian Development Bank project focused on strengthening private sector development across CLMV, with particular focus on high-growth SMEs and the alternative lending sector. In his capacity, he actively works with senior financial regulators from CLMV and Thailand among other key ecosystem stakeholders. Tobias had devoted his bachelor thesis to the topic, Peer-to-Peer Lending in Southeast Asia - A realistic alternative to traditional consumer credit?

Mr Theo Nassiokas, Head, Technology Information Security (TIS), Unit Operational Risk Management (UORM), Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore

Theo Nassiokas is a security leader with over 20 years of diverse experience, with accountability ranging from law enforcement and criminal intelligence to risk and security strategy and policy development and implementation within the government and more recently, financial services organisations across Asia Pacific. In his current roles, he builds new capabilities, working closely with the information technology (IT) and operations risk & control team, group information security and the broader governance & change organisation, to deliver risk mitigation and alignment across information technology outsourcing (ITO). One of his accomplishments is the design and implementation of the data leakage prevention (DLP) governance and operating model used globally across ANZ bank's 31 markets, including ten Asian markets, while serving as the bank's head of information security and technology risk - international and institutional banking.

Mr Duncan Klein, Head of Outbound Product Management, BondIt

Mr Geoffrey Heenan, IMF Representative SE Asia

Heenan is the Singapore Resident Representative for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), covering Singapore and Malaysia, as well as regional financial sector developments. He has an extensive experience with Asian economic issues, having worked in the Asia Pacific Department of the IMF for over eight years. He also spent several years in the IMF's Monetary and Capital Markets Department, dealing with monetary policy formulation and implementation, market development, and financial stability issues. Previously, Heenan was an economist with the Economic Analysis Department of the Reserve Bank of Australia, working on a range of macroeconomic and financial sector issues.

Mr Gary Heatherington, International Resource Director, The Asian Banker

Gary Heatherington is a highly experienced industry leader with significant board and international experience in various companies in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. Since 2013, he has focused on creating jobs and economic opportunity in Asia. Working pro bono, he advised the Royal Government of Bhutan on economic, monetary, fiscal and regulatory policies, and assisted new business start-ups, creating employment opportunities and building long-term sustainability. He now volunteers in India and continues to head a payments-oriented US Bank. Heatherington is also chairman of a products marketing company, and a partner in several technology venture capital firms.

Mr Gordian Gaeta, International Resource Director, The Asian Banker

Gordian Gaeta has been a banking consultant for some 25 years. He has advised and served many of the leading financial services organisations across Asia and close to half of the top 100 banks worldwide. He specialises in developing and implementing analytical solutions for complex strategic issues in financial services-related industries undergoing significant change or being exposed to intricate risk issues.

Mr Bill Chua, Former Head, Financial Institutions, UOB

Bill Chua was former MD and head of global financial institutions group, UOB, managing relationships with banks, non-bank financial institutions, supra-nationals, sovereigns and sovereign entities. In his 34 years of experience in the financial services industry, he has covered institutional wholesale and consumer banking in the front, middle and back offices. Prior to joining UOB in 2000, Chua was with Citibank for 20 years. He serves as a director for several UOB-owned companies and/or joint ventures, and is also an active member of the financial and education communities in Singapore.

Mr Matt Dooley, International Resource Director, The Asian Banker

Matt Dooley is founder and director of Connected Thinking, providing digital strategy, marketing, and training to banks. He is a member of the Next Bank team with over 20 years international experience driving change at two of the world’s leading banks, across three continents. He was global head of Internet strategy and head of digital experience for the global commercial banking division in HSBC. He pioneered HSBC’s global Internet design standards as a result of establishing the first Internet banking platform back in 2000. He stays abreast of the latest trends in mobile and virtual technology as well as social media and is instrumental in helping participants develop their own personal disciplines in handling these areas.

Mr Axel Winter, CTO, Central Group

As global head of retail and private banking architecture at Standard Chartered Bank, Axel Winter is driving the retail transformation and digital strategy for the bank. In his current role he is adopting the API and big data architecture that he defined in his prior role as global head of process & data architecture. Previously, Winter has worked as CTO for Cisco Systems, global chief architect at GE Capital, and as a consulting executive for Deloitte and Accenture pioneering their cloud and e-business. In the earlier times he ran a startup aimed at implementing internet and e-businesses in various countries across the Asia region.

Mr David Gyori, CEO, Banking Reports

David Gyori is a globally renowned FinTech consultant, trainer, author and keynote speaker. He is CEO of Banking Reports Ltd London, providing top quality ‘FinTech Training for Bankers’ all over the world. In addition, Gyori holds a number of key international positions: He is founding member of the World FinTech Association as well as member of the panel of judges of the European FinTech Awards. He is co-author of ‘The FINTECH Book’, published by Wiley and Sons in 2016, quickly becoming a global category best-seller. Gyori is faculty member of the Retail Banking Academy (London), one of the most prestigious banker-training facilities globally. He serves on the advisory board of multiple FinTech companies in the United Kingdom.

Mr Robin Lee, Director, ICFE Group of Companies

Robin Lee is responsible for managing both external and internal experience of the business for Inzsure, a commercial blockchain-powered insurtech solution. He is also a co-founder of the RegTech Connection, a digital community of regtech enthusiasts. He began his career in Silicon Valley in various start-ups within the compliance space. Lee also launched The Governance Risk AML Compliance Ethics Foundation (G.R.A.C.E.), an edtech/regtech firm which was subsequently acquired by RHTLaw Taylor-Wessing. Following the completion of the integration of G.R.A.C.E. within RHT, he joined Datarama, a regtech firm that specialises in digitally enhanced due diligence. Lee also sits on the advisory boards of the International Cybercrime and Forensics Examiners, Governance Risk and Compliance Investments and Technology (RegTech Investments) and Dynamic GRC.

Mr Richard Hartung, International Resource Director, The Asian Banker

Richard has more than 20 years of experience in the payments and consumer financial services industry, primarily in the Asia Pacific region. Following work in retail banking in California and a short stint in government, Richard was part of the team that started up retail banking for Citibank in Japan. Richard joined MasterCard in 1993 and headed up Operations & Systems for the Asia Pacific region. He moved to Keppel TatLee Bank in 1999 and launched a new credit card program that became profitable in just over 1 year. He then managed the integration of Keppelcard into OCBC Bank and was the Card Center Manager at OCBC. Richard set up Transcarta in 2002 and focuses on assisting financial services companies with strategy, payments training programs, operations process enhancement, merchant acquiring, market entry and other business practices. He is also a freelance writer for The Asian Banker, Today, GTNews, Challenge and OOSKAnews

Dr. Alain Chevalier, Professor of Finance, ESCP Europe

Alain Chevalier is a full Professor of Finance at ESCP Europe. He is also a former Vice Dean, a former Vice Director General, a former Academic and International Dean and a former Dean of Faculty at ESCP Europe. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics (Paris Ouest Nanterre), a Ph.D. in Management (Paris Dauphine) and the French qualification for Ph.D supervision (Habilitation à diriger des Recherches-ESA Lille 2). He created and supervised the Finance concentration at ESCP Europe. He was also Chairman of the Finance Department for several years. Alain Chevalier was also one of the founders of the French Finance Association (AFFI) and is a former President of the European International Business Academy (EIBA). Dr Chevalier is presently a member of the technical committee of the convertible bonds index of NYSE-Euronext and is a board member of several scientific associations in finance, international business and operational research.

Mr Cesar Virata, Former Prime Minister of the Philippines and current corporate vice-chairman, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation

Cesar Virata is regarded to be amongst the most progressive political and financial leaders from the Phillippines, serving as Minister of Finance from 1970-1986 and Prime Minister from 1981-1986. Known for his tough economic policies and a clean international reputation, it was during Mr Virata’s time as Minister of Finance that the Philippines became economically strong through healthy trade and budgetary surpluses. Returning to private enterprise and serving as the president of the Bankers’ Association of the Philippines, he has been involved in strengthening the Philippines’ money exchanges. Mr Virata is now currently corporate vice-chairman of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation.

Mr Paul Chow, Former Chief Executive, Hong Kong Stock Exchange

Paul Chow has been a leading architect in the development of Hong Kong's modern securities and derivatives markets. He was former chief executive of the Hong Kong Exchange between 2003 and 2010 and a founding member of the Hong Kong Securities Institute. Previous to this, he was the Chief Executive, Asia Pacific ex-Japan Region of HSBC Asset Management (Hong Kong) from April 1997 to April 2003. Mr Chow has also made significant contributions to the development of global financial markets. He served as Chairman of the East Asian and Oceanian Stock Exchanges Federation from 1994 to 1995 and was Chairman of the Working Committee of the Federation Internationale des Bourses de Valeurs (FIBV, now known as the World Federation of Exchanges, or WFE) from 1995 to 1996 and an ex-officio member of FIBV's Executive Committee from 1994 to 1996. Mr Chow was Chairman of the WFE Working Committee from 2007 to 2008 and became WFE Vice Chairman in 2009.

Mr Tod Burwell, President & Chief Executive Officer, BAFT

Tod Burwell is president and chief executive officer of Bankers' Association for Finance and Trade (BAFT). He is responsible for leading the association in its mission to provide advocacy, education and training, and a common industry voice for the global transaction banking community. Prior to joining BAFT, he was a managing director at JPMorgan Chase. Burwell has over 25 years of trade, supply chain and cash management experience as a banking practitioner, as well as serving as a consultant to global corporations and suppliers of strategically integrated trade solutions.

Mr James Cullen, Former SVP, Wells Fargo

James Cullen is a financial executive with over 30 years of extensive domestic and international experience in commercial banking and corporate finance, acquired while based in Hong Kong, Singapore, and cities on the West Coast of the United States. His expertise includes dealing with the financial architecture and business requirements of public and private corporations as well as governments and government entities. He is a strategic thinker who is innovative, operationally astute as well as being highly focused on goals, results, and relationships. His banking career began and concluded with Wells Fargo, and in between included two decades of executive positions with Bank of America and US Bancorp.

Mr Mathew Welch, Partner, Asia Capital & Advisors

Mathew Welch has 24 years of senior executive experience in financial markets in Asia, having conducted business and led teams, transactions and projects in most major Asian countries. Prior to starting his own firm, Mathew was Managing Director & Head of Banks, Asia (ex-Japan) at Daiwa Securities Capital Markets, Managing Director and Head Financial Institutions, Asia at ING Investment Banking, Managing Director, Investments at Temasek Holdings and Global Head of Banks at Standard Chartered. He has a MBA degree from Harvard Business School.

Mr Damian Glendinning, President, Association of Corporate Treasurers Singapore

Damian Glendinning has over 26 years’ experience in the field of finance, accounting and treasury. He is currently vice president and group treasurer at Lenovo, which he joined in 2005 after 21 years with IBM. Prior to this, Glendinning was IBM’s Asia Pacific treasurer from 2001 to 2005. He was also director of their global treasury operations in New York. Glendinning also served in a variety of corporate finance roles at IBM, including accounting and internal audit.

Mr William Isaac, Chairman Fifth Third Bancorp

William Isaac is the chairman of Fifth Third Bancorp, a regional US bank with assets under care of $300 billion. He is also the senior managing director of FTI Consulting and global head of FTI’s Financial Institutions group, providing regulatory counselling and risk management services, strategy consulting, expert testimony, and corporate governance consulting for financial institutions, law firms and governments. He is author of ‘Senseless Panic: How Washington Failed America’, which provides an inside account of the banking and S&L crises of the 1980s, compares that period to the financial crisis of 2008, and recommends reforms to prevent future crises.

Mr Emmanuel Daniel, Chairman, The Asian Banker

Founder of The Asian Banker, the most respected provider of consulting and intelligence in the financial services industry in the Asia Pacific region and other emerging markets. Mr Daniel has led it to become a combination of leading industry research, publication and consulting house, with a strong reputation worldwide.