2021 Speakers
Agustín Carstens became General Manager of the BIS on 1 December 2017.
Mr Carstens was Governor of the Bank of Mexico from 2010 to 2017. A member of the BIS Board from 2011 to 2017, he was chair of the Global Economy Meeting and the Economic Consultative Council from 2013 until 2017. He also chaired the International Monetary and Financial Committee, the IMF’s policy advisory committee from 2015 to 2017.
Mr Carstens began his career in 1980 at the Bank of Mexico. From 1999 to 2000, he was Executive Director at the IMF. He later served as Mexico’s deputy finance minister (2000–03) and as Deputy Managing Director at the IMF (2003–06). He was Mexico’s finance minister from 2006 to 2009.
Mr Carstens has been a member of the Financial Stability Board since 2010 and is a member of the Group of Thirty.
Mr Carstens holds an MA and a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.
Ajaita Shah is an entrepreneur, a mentor, a speaker, and board member. She is the Founder/CEO of Frontier Markets and the President of Frontier Innovations Foundation.
Frontier Markets is a rural marketing, sales, and service distribution company providing access to affordable and quality clean energy solutions and appliances to low-income households in India by building a network of rural entrepreneurs.
Ajaita has committed to empowering rural women across the developing world through market based business models, clean energy, technology, and inspiring women to push themselves beyond their societal boundaries.
Born in the US, Ajaita graduated Tufts University and started working in India from 21 til present. She started her career in Microfinance, where she won many award for her ground breaking innovation around healthcare, mobile technology, and social performance management in the sector.
Mr. Kelly joined Visa in October, 2016 as Chief Executive Officer and was elected Chairman of the Board in April, 2019. Mr. Kelly spent the majority of his career at American Express where he worked from 1987 to 2010. Over those 23 years, he held several senior positions, including serving as President from July 2007 to April 2010. Immediately prior to Visa, Mr. Kelly was President and Chief Executive Officer at Intersection, a technology and digital media company which is an Alphabet-backed private company based in New York City. Mr. Kelly was a Management Advisor to TowerBrook Capital Partners, L.P. in 2015, while simultaneously serving as Chair of Pope Francis’ visit to New York City. From April 2011 to August 2014, Mr. Kelly was the President and Chief Executive Officer of the 2014 NY/NJ Super Bowl Host Company, the entity created to raise funds for and host Super Bowl XLVIII. Prior to joining American Express, Mr. Kelly was the head of information systems at the White House from 1985 to 1987. Mr. Kelly also held various positions in information systems and financial planning at PepsiCo Inc. from 1981 to 1985. Mr. Kelly currently serves on the board of directors of Visa and Catalyst, as well as several entities in the Archdiocese of New York. He is Chairman of the Board of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation. He is also a Trustee of New York Presbyterian Hospital and Boston College. Mr. Kelly holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer and Information Science and a Masters of Business Administration degree from Iona College.
As Principal Specialist of the Laboratory of Innovation of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB Lab), Alejandro Pardo develops technology-enabled initiatives with exponential impact on social and economic inclusion. He possesses more than 20 years of experience promoting innovation and private sector development as part of the IDB Group. Alejandro is also the founder and leader of IDB Lab´s initiative LACChain, a regional program to develop the blockchain ecosystem in Latin America and the Caribbean, a blockchain-based public- permissioned network.
Alex Svanevik is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nansen, a blockchain analytics company founded in 2019. Alex is a pioneer of machine learning and DAO’s with a mission to surface the signal in blockchain data.
Alexandre is Director, Blockchain & Digital Assets at Citi Ventures. His team researches, engages and experiments on emerging use cases for blockchain technologies and digital assets.
Over the past 25 years, Alex has built a unique career combining finance at BNY Mellon, payment/securities infrastructures & standards at SWIFT, blockchain and digital assets at Onchain Custodian. As CEO of the Singapore-based company he co-founded, he led the building from scratch of a custody and prime brokerage service for crypto and other digital assets.
Alex is also involved in many industry initiatives, for example, as convenor of the ISO WG having produced the ISO 24165 Digital Token Identifier (DTI). In that capacity, he is a member of the DTI Foundation (dtif.org) Product Advisory Committee (PAC). Alex also served as co-chair of the Global Digital Finance (gdf.io) Custody Working Group.
Alfonso Garcia Mora is IFC’s Vice President for Asia and Pacific. In this capacity, Mr. Garcia Mora is responsible for all IFC operations in the region, including operationalizing IFC’s COVID-19 crisis response, building a strong Upstream pipeline rooted in country strategies and fostering more collaboration opportunities with a range of key stakeholders for broader impact.
Previously, Mr. Garcia Mora was the Global Director for the Finance Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice at the World Bank Group. He led the World Bank’s work on financial stability and integrity; financial infrastructure, inclusion and access; long-term finance and capital markets; and crisis and disaster risk finance across all regions.
Since joining the World Bank Group in January 2013, Mr. Garcia Mora has led different regional responsibilities as Manager and Director in Latin America, Middle East and North Africa, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, advising governments, supervisors and regulators on projects related to financial-sector development, access to finance, banking crises, capital markets and financial regulation. Mr. Garcia Mora managed the Financial Sector Assessment Program, leading several assessments, and represented the World Bank Group in different committees of the Financial Stability Board and other standard-setting bodies.
Before his World Bank Group career, Mr. Garcia Mora worked in the private sector for over 12 years, including as Partner-Managing Director at Analistas Financieros Internacionales Consulting Group.
Mr. Garcia Mora holds a PhD in Economics from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid and served as a visiting PhD student at Boston University. He also holds a Master of Finance from the Catholic University of Leuven. Mr. Garcia Mora has lectured and published extensively on banking and financial- sector issues.
Amit is founder and CEO at Ecosystm, a next generation Technology Research and Advisory Platform. Ecosystm is the pioneer in truly democratising data and making research available to a much broader tech ecosystem as technology markets evolve.
Ecosystm brings together three key stakeholder groups that make up the tech ecosystem –tech buyers, tech vendors and industry experts –and challenges traditional IT research practices by offering unrivalled accessibility, transparency and autonomy on its www.ecosystm360.com platform. As a global first, companies can leverage high quality industry research and data that updates in real-time for an affordable monthly subscription, enabling them to make better planning and purchasing decisions to shape their future digital footprints and roadmaps.
Amit holds a Master’s in Engineering Management (Hons) from the University of Auckland. Driven by his passion for innovation, Amit sits on the advisory board of several digital start-ups, he is the President and Board Chair for TiE Singapore, a Beachhead Advisor for Asia for the New Zealand government, and a global brand ambassador for the Singapore FinTech Festival by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
Amol Dethe works at The Economic Times and is an Editor for its online portal ETBFSI and ETCFO. ETBFSI does in-depth coverage of the BFSI (and FinTech) sector and ETCFO covers the CFO community.
He is a financial journalist who specializes in the Banking and Finance sectors. In the last fourteen years, he worked for various media houses across television, print and online, such as CNBC-TV18, Zee Business, DNA newspaper etc. He has also been writing for international magazines, and interviewed more than 500 CXOs in the last two years both – in India and abroad.
Graduate in finance and marketing from an overseas university and joined the finance industry after returning to Singapore. Working in Singapore and HK / China, with exposure in different areas in finance. Only involved in manufacturing since the year 2000 as CEO of Containers Printers from end 2012.
Amy Neale is Senior Vice-President at Mastercard where she leads a global Fintech & Enablers group. In this role Amy has responsibility for fintech engagement including Mastercard’s global ‘Engage’ partner program and the company’s award-winning ‘Start Path’ startup engagement program.
With 20 years’ technology & innovation experience spanning corporate, startup and University sectors, she holds a PhD in computational linguistics from Cardiff University and is a published academic. Amy is driven by a passion for new technology and making the world of technology fully inclusive.
Originally from the UK, she now calls Ireland home and lives in Dublin with her husband and son.
Dr. Ana Pinheiro Privette is a senior program manager with Amazon’s Sustainability group and she leads the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI), a Tech-for-Good program that seeks to leverage Amazon’s scale, technology, and infrastructure to help create global innovation for sustainability. Ana was trained as an environmental engineer and as an earth scientist at the New University of Lisbon (Portugal) and at MIT. She spent most of her career as a research scientist at NASA and NOAA. Later, Ana worked on the US National Climate Assessment (NCA) focusing on bringing more transparency and traceability of the data sources supporting this climate report, and led projects for the White House climate portfolio, including President Obama’s Climate Data Initiative (CDI) and Partnership for Resilience and Preparedness (PREP).
André Esteves is Senior Partner and controlling shareholder of BTG Pactual. Mr. Esteves joined Pactual in 1989, became a partner in 1993, and senior partner in 1997. UBS purchased Pactual in December 2006 and he was appointed CEO and Chairman of UBS Pactual. In 2007 he was also nominated Global Head of Fixed Income Currency and Commodities of UBS. In 2008, Mr. Esteves left UBS Pactual with a group of partners to found BTG Global Investment Company based in Brazil, London and New York. In 2009, BTG purchased Pactual back from UBS and Mr. Esteves became CEO and Chairman of the bank. He was previously appointed to Board roles as well as awarded by several media vehicles due to his leadership position in the Brazilian economic scenario. BTG Pactual has local coverage offices across Latin America, including Brazil, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico and Argentina, and has international presence in New York and London.
Andrew joined the BIS in April 2020 as the Centre Head of the Singapore Innovation Hub. Prior to the BIS, Andrew was Chief Information Officer & VP Payment at Payments where he was responsible for technology strategy and payment system operations. Under his leadership, Payments Canada embraced cloud technology, launched API services and led the ground-breaking blockchain research (a.k.a Project Jasper) alongside the Bank of Canada. Andrew has an MBA from the Ivey Business School and Bachelor of Computer Science from Carleton University.
Andy Zook is Senior Vice President of SAS in Asia Pacific. He has more than two decades of sales experience in the technology industry. This includes 17 years with SAS including roles with the Health and Life Sciences business unit and spearheading global projects. His broad experience and previous role of leading ASEAN provides a solid foundation for managing the business and cultural diversity of Asia Pacific.
Andy now leads regional sales and field operations across Asia Pacific, overseeing SAS’ business operations and the growth of its core analytics business in the region. He believes leadership is about serving others, being curious and providing inspiration to help teams succeed.
His focus will be to continue driving SAS’ leadership and expertise in analytics throughout Asia Pacific, empowering customers to fully capture the huge potential of their data. This will support them with unlocking actionable insights and smarter decision-making.
Prior to SAS, Andy worked at a variety of technology companies including GE Capital IT Solutions. His educational background includes Economics, Statistics, and Business Management. Outside of work he is passionate about spending time with his family, playing golf and enjoys college football and basketball.
Anjali is an international marketing, branding and customer experience professional in the media and tech industry. She was former APAC marketing head for Dow Jones, WSJ and has held positions with CNN, MSN, and BBC in Hong Kong, India and the United Kingdom.
Anjali is the founder of Alt Key Theory (AKT), an independent Web3 marketing consultancy, based in Hong Kong. She is a self-taught blockchain researcher and pioneered the concept of DeMar (Decentralised Marketing) to bridge the businesses and crypto culture, where brands intersect with digital communities via NFT’s and smart contracts. Her views and writing about DeMar topics on Substack have a growing subscriber base. Anjali is also a founder member and contributor to several DAOs.
Anjul Ray heads Experian Asia-Pacific’s Data Partnerships portfolio. She leads Experian’s alternative data practice for the region, providing strategic advice, practice and execution to the region’s telecommunications, SuperApp, payment, e-commerce and fintech companies, among many.
Anjul has put into practice Experian’s data-for-good ethos and has consistently delivered solutions with significant uplift to society. She is a risk and fintech professional with 17 years of extensive experience leading strategic partnerships to drive new value propositions, build expertise in client advisory on risk management and digital transformation, and formulate business strategies for growth.
Over this period, Anjul has developed deep expertise in customer acquisition and portfolio risk management for retail customers. Her career has enabled her to work across key Asia-Pacific financial capitals in India, Hong Kong and Singapore. Anjul holds a Masters degree in economics from renowned Delhi School of Economics.
Annabelle Kwok is the Director of Regional AI (Asia) at Prudential, where she employs a data-driven approach to calculate risk and pricing and builds AI learning loops to help individuals better manage their health. She was the Founder of NeuralBay, an AI company that specialises in building video analytics software for Multinational Corporations and Smart Nation initiatives and was also the Founder of SmartCow, a hardware company specializing in the deployment of AI. Annabelle has been featured on multiple occasions by media companies including Bloomberg, Business Insider, Forbes, and Apple, amongst others. She was a finalist of the Singaporean of the Year Award 2018 and Singapore Youth Award 2019. Annabelle is on the selection committee for multiple awards such as the President’s Science Award 2018 and 2019 in Singapore and the Tech Playmaker Award 2018 and 2019 by Booking.Com. She has been a volunteer at Make-A-Wish Foundation since 2011 and was one of 21 leaders chosen by U.S. President Obama to help design workshops on behalf of the Obama Foundation Asia Pacific.
After obtaining her master’s degree in Dutch Law from the University of Amsterdam, Annerie Vreugdenhil started her career as Account Manager Large Corporates with the Nederlandse Credietbank NV in 1987. In 1992 Annerie Vreugdenhil started at ING and held various positions, which revolved around maintaining and expanding relationships with clients in ING’s Wholesale Banking division, before being appointed as Head of ING Neo and Chief Innovation Officer in 2021. In the latter role she has been able to use her ability to see opportunities in all kind of situations, to challenge the status quo and to rethink services and processes. She is responsible for creating impact for ING with innovations, through Buy, Build or partner concept. Including responsibility for €300m Venture Fund and for the Labs in Singapore, London, Brussels and Amsterdam in which we work with start-ups and build our own start-up companies.
In 2000, Annerie founded and expanded ING’s Leveraged Finance team in the Netherlands. In 2006 she became Head of Corporate Clients Netherlands, a client group that consists of the listed and privately-owned large companies. In 2010, Annerie was appointed Head of Commercial Banking Netherlands and became a member of the board of ING Domestic Bank Netherlands. She was part of the team that designed and implemented the agile transformation. In February 2016 Annerie was appointed Global Head of Real Estate Finance within ING Wholesale Banking. In her last two roles she had successfully created new data and technology driven solutions for clients and ING employees.
In January 2018, Annerie was appointed Head of WB Innovation. In this role, Annerie was responsible for the innovation activities of Wholesale Banking, as well as the Advanced Analytics and blockchain team.
In addition to her current role, Annerie Vreugdenhil is the Chairperson of the Supervisory Board of Komgo, an ING co-founded DLT based start-up in Trade, member of the Board and audit and governance committee of R3, a DLT based software company and member of the Executive advisory Board of Squirro, an AI based software company. Annerie is married and has two sons.
Antonio Fatas is the Portuguese Council Chaired Professor of Economics at INSEAD, a Senior Policy Scholar at the Center for Business and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business (Georgetown University, Washington DC), a Research Fellow at the CEPR (London) and a Senior Fellow at ABFER (Singapore).
He received a Masters and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. He has worked as an external consultant for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve, the European Parliament, the OECD, and the UK government.
His research interests are in the area of macroeconomics. His work explores the causes and shape of business cycles, the determinants of long-term growth, the impact that economic policies (monetary and fiscal) have on economic outcomes and how new technologies are changing the way we think about money and the financial sector. He was the lead researcher of the CEPR Policy and Research Network on Fintech and Digital Currencies.
Arik is the CEO and co-founder of Rapyd, a global FinTech-as-a-service platform that helps businesses collect and disburse money via locally preferred payment methods. Arik is a cloud services advocate and was surprised by the challenges faced by how the legacy payments infrastructure is hindering growth in the payment space. Arik started Rapyd in order to help build a global financial technology infrastructure that allows online commerce companies, gig economy platforms, financial institutions or any digital business to embed financial services into their consumer offerings in a very simple way. A serial entrepreneur, Arik is experienced in building high-growth technology companies that leverage using cloud computing that scales to meet rapid global customer demand. Prior to Rapyd, Arik founded ITNAVIGATOR a cloud-based contact center and unified communications platform which was acquired by Avaya in 2013. Arik previously served on the board of directors at Vigilance Networks and mixeer by Creative Mass. Some of his past speaking engagements in 2019 include Paris Fintech Festival, Money/2020 Europe, and CB Insights Future of Fintech.
Arnaud has 25 years of M&A experience, including 20 years in Singapore where he is responsible for the M&A / investment banking activities in Asia
* Arnaud joined Greenhill in June 2019 as CEO of Greenhill & Co. Asia (Singapore) to establish the firm’s Singapore office to cover the region.
* Prior to joining Greenhill, Arnaud has served as the Head of Southeast Asia M&A for Barclays, a position he held since he founded the business in 2010.
* Previously, he was an investment banker at Credit Suisse for 5 years in Singapore, and began his career as a corporate and securities’ lawyer with Shearman &
Sterling and White & Case in New York and Paris.
* Arnaud received an MBA from INSEAD, and an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center. He was also admitted to the bar in New York and Paris.