Meet the 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.

Barkha Dutt, one of India's best-known journalists, is the Founding-Editor of Mojo Story, a multimedia digital platform. The recipient of more than 50 national and international awards - among them the Padmashri and the Global Leader for Tomorrow from the World Economic Forum- Dutt is also a columnist with the Washington Post, Hindustan Times and The Week. With 25 years of reporting experience, Dutt has reported from war zones and conflict areas across the world, including reporting the Kargil war from the frontline in 1999. Most recently, she won global acclaim for her path-breaking and unprecedented ground reportage of the pandemic through travels across India. A Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute at Oxford University and an Asia Society Fellow, Barkha Dutt is the author of two books - To Hell & Back, Humans of Covid and This Unquiet Land- Stories from India's Fault lines. Dutt studied at St. Stephens College, Delhi University and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. <br><br>Since its inception at the close of 2019, Mojo Story has been twice recognized as India's Best Digital Channel by the News Broadcasting Awards. Barkha Dutt is also the curator of We The Women, India's Biggest Women's Festival.

Charles Cascarilla is the CEO and co-founder of Paxos, a regulated blockchain infrastructure platform that enables the movement of all assets in a trustworthy way. With more than 20 years of experience in financial services, Charles has a unique perspective on integrating blockchain technology with traditional systems. He co-founded institutional asset management complex Cedar Hill Capital Partners in 2005 and its venture capital subsidiary, Liberty City Ventures, in 2012.
 
Charles has been a leader in introducing regulatory frameworks to the blockchain industry by securing the first Trust charter for digital assets and by testifying to the US Senate and House of Representatives on the merits of this technology for the global economy. He was also a founding member of CoinCenter and the Association for Digital Asset Markets. Earlier in his career, Charles was a portfolio manager at Claiborne Capital and an analyst at both Bank of America Securities and Goldman Sachs. He serves on the board of several charities and private companies including Project ALS and The Centurion Foundation.  

Charles holds a B.B.A. in Finance from the University of Notre Dame and is a CFA charterholder.

Mr. Eric Jing is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ant Group. He joined Alibaba Group in 2007 and became President of Ant Group in June 2015. In October 2016, Eric was appointed CEO of Ant Group, and in April 2018, assumed the additional role of Chairman.

Under his leadership, Ant Group's strategy is focused on inclusiveness, sustainability, and globalization, to bring small but beautiful changes to the world. Ant Group aims to support digital transformation with partners worldwide and to enable access to financial and technological services for consumers and small businesses.

Mr. Jing serves as a senior advisor to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, is a member of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders Foundation Board, and served on the UN Secretary-General's Task Force on Digital Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals.

James Verner is the Head of Aladdin Wealth Tech for APAC and is based in Hong Kong. Mr Verner has over twenty years’ experience in building and leading technology businesses in wealth and asset management in Europe and Asia Pacific. He joined BlackRock in July 2023 to lead Aladdin Wealth’s APAC business and is focused on partnering with wealth management firms to enable scalable business growth through leveraging the full suite of Aladdin Wealth’s capabilities.

Aladdin Wealth Tech solutions include Aladdin Wealth, iRetire , FutureAdvisor , Advisor Center & Team World, as well as BlackRock's stakes in partner firms like Avaloq, iCapital , Scalable Capital, Acorns & Envestnet.

As President of Microsoft Asia, Ahmed Mazhari oversees a vibrant and diverse region comprising 20 countries, 22,000 employees, and 100,000 partners.

He focuses on acceleration of the Asia Pacific region’s digital transformation enabled by Microsoft, as the leading productivity and platform company, through its product, service and support offerings. He also continues to build and reinforce Microsoft’s reputation as a trusted partner for individuals, organizations and governments.

Mazhari believes in deepening collaborations with Microsoft’s customers and partners in Asia to accelerate digital adoption and empower innovative advancements in the region. This is fueled by his deep understanding of business process transformation and his passion for embracing change and implementing creative solutions in a fast-paced world. He is a big believer in the power of long-term partnerships with both employees and customers to achieve stronger and longer-lasting growth.

He joined Microsoft Asia in February 2020, following 23 successful years at GE and Genpact (a spin off from GE in 2005) where he last served as Senior Vice President and Chief Growth Officer leading the company’s growth globally across all industry verticals, products, service lines and geographies. Prior to this, he held senior leadership roles at Xerox.

Joining SMBC (Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation) in 1990, Akio Isowa was engaged in corporate banking, legal affairs, corporate planning, human resources management. He established the Retail Marketing Department and IT Strategy Department as the General Manager and led the debit card business, and the UX project of their internet banking app. As the head of Transaction Business Division, he led product and sales planning for online payment services such as Bank Pay and Cotra. Since 2023, he has been leading digital innovation of the SMBC Group as the Chief Digital Innovation Officer.

Angela leads Asia Pacific public policy and strategic partnerships for TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence company that helps financial institutions, cryptocurrency businesses and public agencies detect and investigate crypto-related fraud and financial crime.

A former regulator, Angela spent over a decade at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), where she was most recently Deputy Director in charge of licensing for payment service providers. As part of the pioneering team for Singapore’s payments regulatory regime, she oversaw the development of the licensing framework, and the assessment of several hundred payments and digital asset license applications. Prior to this, Angela held a diverse range of roles at MAS including in regulatory policy, business development and consumer education, giving her deep insight into the full gamut of policymaking considerations for global financial regulators.

Angela was recognised as a LinkedIn Top Voice for Finance in Asia for her thought leadership on digital asset developments in the region. She holds an MBA from INSEAD.

Ari Redbord is the Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, the blockchain intelligence company. In addition to his role at TRM, Ari is Vice-Chair of the CFTC Technology Advisory Committee (TAC). Prior to joining TRM, Ari was the Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary and the Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the United States Treasury. In that position, Ari worked with teams from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and other Treasury components to use sanctions and other regulatory tools effectively to safeguard the financial system from illicit use by terrorist financiers, weapons of mass destruction proliferators, drug kingpins, and other rogue actors, including Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela. In addition, Ari worked closely with regulators, the Hill and the interagency on issues related to the Bank Secrecy Act, cryptocurrency, and anti-money laundering strategies. Prior to Treasury, Ari was an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia for eleven years where he investigated and prosecuted terrorism, espionage, threat finance, cryptocurrency, export control, child exploitation and human trafficking cases.

Dr Ben Leong is an Associate Professor at the School of Computing, National University of Singapore (NUS). He obtained his S.B., M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For most of his career, he has been teaching programming methodology, AI and advanced software engineering to undergraduate students. Over the years, he was recognized for excellent teaching with a number of teaching awards including the NUS Outstanding Educator Award in 2015.

From July 2014 to June 2019, Dr Leong served as the Director, Experimental Systems and Technology Laboratory at the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE), where set up an internal software engineering team for MOE and oversaw the development and deployment of the MOE Student Learning Space (SLS). From 2021 to 2024, he was Director of the Centre for Computing for Social Good & Philanthropy (CCSGP) at NUS. Currently, he is Chief Data Officer of AISingapore, Singapore's National AI programme and Director of the AI Centre for Educational Technologies (AICET).

Chris Coxon is the Chief Communications Officer at Accion. In this role, he leads all aspects of brand and strategic communications, including Accion’s executive education program on strategic leadership in inclusive finance at Harvard Business School.

Prior to joining Accion in 2022, Chris led a multi-functional global communications team at Heifer International, managing the organization’s reputation and building its brand in the international development space. He worked across 21 countries, establishing a strong strategic communications function, keeping stakeholders informed throughout the global pandemic.

Previously, as Director of Communications at ActionAid USA, Chris led international communications projects on issues ranging from land and food rights to women’s rights and biofuels, across written, broadcast, and social media channels. He also led communications campaigns for ActionAid while based in Rio de Janeiro and Brussels, and worked with former presidents, prime ministers, and business leaders on a global climate change agreement at the Club of Madrid.

His work has been covered by media outlets around the world, including the BBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian, and in multiple languages.

He has a graduate degree from the College of Europe, Bruges, and an undergraduate degree from Royal Holloway, University of London.