Speakers

Dr Darian McBain is the Founder and CEO of Outsourced Chief Sustainability Officer Asia, and a Visiting Professor In Practice at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is the former Chief Sustainability Officer for the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Global Director of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability for Thai Union, a global food producer. She has over 20 years experience in sustainability and ESG, working for corporates, government, the UN, academia, with startups and NGOs. She is highly awarded for her work, including being named one of Asia’s Top Sustainability Superwomen in 2019, one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business 2020, and a UN Sustainable Development Goal Pioneer in 2021.

Darius Sit is a Founder and Chief Investment Officer at QCP Capital, a full-suite crypto trading firm and global leader in the options market that brings institutional strategies and solutions to clients. Headquartered in Singapore, QCP Capital aims to unlock new opportunities for clients at the forefront of crypto markets, through providing institutional-grade liquidity, infrastructure and research.  Under his leadership, QCP Capital has been an active early-stage investor in the crypto and blockchain ecosystems including core trading infrastructure and data, token ecosystems and DeFi protocols. Darius was formerly a trader at Dymon Asia Capital and BNP Paribas in Singapore and New York. He graduated from the National University of Singapore with First Class Honours in Finance, with a minor in Comparative Religion.

Deborah Young is the founding CEO of The RegTech Association, a global non-profit industry member body focussed on accelerating adoption of RegTech solutions and creating a global centre of excellence. Since helping to establish the Association in 2017, she has led the growth to 170 organisations. The cohort includes top tier banks, global technology companies and consulting firms. She has advocated for the industry with Government, regulators, investors and trade agencies. Deborah is a sought-after leader and advisor on the global RegTech industry, a regular speaker, presenter and designer of RegTech programs and engages with regulators globally. Deborah is driving the Association’s global market program.

She is member of Chief Executive Women, a member of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Digital Panel, she sits on the global advisory committee of Women in Regulatory Innovation and on the Alliance for Innovative Regulation Global Advisory Council and Griffith University Advisory Board Member for their Academy of Excellence in Financial Crime Investigation and Compliance.

Deborah is an accomplished chief executive, non-executive director, mentor and strategic business consultant. She is a passionate diversity advocate and volunteers for a human rights organisation to limit food waste and provide food to those in need. She has over 30 years' experience as a senior executive across financial services, including investment banking, private equity, venture capital, superannuation and insurance spectrums. Deborah holds an Executive MBA (Global) from UTS Business School and was named as one of the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence in 2019 for Innovation.

Dennis Tan is the Chief Executive Officer of Prudential Singapore. At the Group level, he was also appointed Managing Director of the Strategic Business Group covering Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam since July 2022. In this role, Dennis is responsible for the business and operational results of the three markets.

A veteran banker, Dennis has 26 years of experience in consumer banking spanning product development, segment management, marketing and sales and distribution.

Prior to joining Prudential, Dennis was with OCBC Bank for 10 years, of which seven were spent leading a 3,100-strong consumer banking division as Head, Consumer Financial Services.

Dennis also spearheaded the growth of OCBC’s Premier Banking business in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and China as Head of Branch and Group Premier Banking. He was also a member of OCBC Bank’s Management Committee.  

He is also President in the Life Insurance Association’s Management Committee, Council Member at IBF Singapore, Multilateral Healthcare Insurance Committee Member at Ministry of Health Singapore, Board Director at the Council for Third Age and a Global Asia Insurance Partnership Advisory Council member.  

Dennis is Singaporean. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business (Honours with Distinction) from Indiana University and has completed the Stanford Executive Programme at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He is a Certified Financial Planner.

Diana Guzmán is Group Director ESG for Prudential Plc. She brings with her a wealth and breadth of experience working with public and private institutions across sustainability themes.

Before Prudential she was Head of Sustainable Development Investment Partnership & Development Finance at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Geneva, where she spearheaded global alliances to create innovative de-risking approaches through blended finance and inclusive net zero transitions and other sustainable development goals across emerging and developing economies. Before the WEF, Diana was Director for CDP, the global environmental disclosure system, where she was responsible for driving listed companies, investors and cities to effectively measure and manage environmental risks and opportunities to drive investment decisions.  Before that, she worked in the carbon markets in Asia, Africa and Europe developing and trading emission reduction certificates.

Born and raised in Mexico, Diana has worked in America, Europe, the Middle East and China (including Hong Kong) and is fluent in Spanish, English, Italian and conversational in Mandarin and French.

Diana Paredes is the CEO and Co-Founder of Suade, a software platform that enables financial institutions to understand and deliver their regulatory requirements. Prior to founding Suade, Diana had a successful career in investment banking, covering all asset classes at Barclays and Merrill Lynch, across sales, trading & structuring. Whilst working in the industry, she saw an opportunity to innovate and launch her current Fintech/Regtech startup. She believes that a data-driven approach to regulation is the key to preventing the next financial crisis.

Dirk van Quaquebeke is a Managing and General Partner at BEENEXT, a Singapore-based early-stage venture capital firm investing in India, Southeast Asia, Japan, and the U.S. He has been living in Asia since 2009 and has been building and investing in early-stage tech companies for over 20 years. He actively participates in over a dozen company boards and has led investments in over 50 companies, such as Trusting Social, Toddle App, Bank Open, M2P Fintech, Cropin, Skuad.io, Kenko Health, and successful exits of Paystack, Wallex, Coins.ph. He has helped create billions of dollars worth of enterprise value and supported the portfolio to raise hundreds of millions in equity rounds. His portfolio companies have frequently attracted follow-on capital from global blue chip names like Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, or Insight Partners.  

Prior to BEENEXT, he co-founded and led the company builder Alps Ventures out of which more than a dozen incubations and investments were done where he headed in an active operating role in three different ventures. He started his career for 5 years in London’s banking and private equity world. 

Originally from Europe Dirk completed a degree in Computer Science from the University of Hildesheim and a dual MSc. in Corporate Finance & Macro Economics as well as the CEMS degree from Copenhagen Business School & ESADE.

Douglas W. Arner is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law and RGC Senior Fellow in Digital Finance and Sustainable Development at the University of Hong Kong, where he is also a Senior Fellow of the Asia Global Institute, Associate Director of the HKU-Standard Chartered Foundation FinTech Academy and a Member of the Management Committee of the Techno-Entrepreneurship Core as well as principal of the Reg/Tech Lab and Faculty Director of the Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreurship Programme (LITE). He is a non-executive director of NASDAQ and Euronext listed biotechnology firm Aptorum Group, an Advisory Board Member of the Global Impact FinTech (GIFT) Forum, SuperCharger Ventures, Policy 4.0, the International RegTech Association, the Alliance for Innovative Regulation and the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE), and co-founder and an executive board member of the Asia Pacific Structured Finance Association. He leads the largest FinTech online course on edX, now with over 120,000 participants drawn from (almost) every country in the world. Douglas has published twenty books and more than 200 articles, chapters and reports on finance, technology, regulation and development, including most recently FinTech: Finance, Technology, Regulation (Cambridge 2023 forthcoming, with Ross Buckley and Dirk Zetzsche).

Dushyant “D” Shahrawat is a senior member of Rosenblatt Securities’ FinTech Investment Banking group on Wall Street. Rosenblatt is the largest floor broker on the New York Stock Exchange with a track record of 40+ years. D leads the Banking group’s business development efforts responsible for building relationships with leading FinTechs, investors, and financial institutions. He is also responsible for thought leadership and actionable ideas that drive banking deals (Capital raising, Restructuring, M&A) across public and private markets. His expertise spans all FinTech verticals and extends into Crypto, Blockchain, and Digital Assets. 

With 25 years of industry experience as an analyst and executive advisor, he has been a Fellow at MIT Sloan during 2014-2015 and has guest lectured at BC, Columbia, MIT, Northeastern, and NYU. He is active on the global FinTech scene having spoken at the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s FinTech conference, advised the Chinese government on regulating FinTech, and served on the World Economic Forum's Cybersecurity committee. He earned two MBAs from Northeastern University and MIT Sloan, holds a CFA charter, and is licensed as an investment banking representative having passed FINRA’s Series 79 exam. 

Evangeline is an Executive Director, Assistant General Counsel at J.P. Morgan. She leads a team of lawyers supporting the APAC Payments Business of the Bank. She has advised on various aspects of the Payments Business spanning across Treasury and Liquidity Services, Merchant Services and Global Trade. She is currently the product legal lead for APAC Payments and Commerce Solutions and Merchant Services, focusing on supporting the fast evolving Payments business with a strong pipeline for commercialisation and growth. Prior to this, Evangeline was the head of APAC Payments Transactions Legal, that consists of a team of lawyers responsible for handling all the Payments and Trade transactions deals across the region. Evangeline holds an LLB from the National University of Singapore. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Evangeline practised law in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, general corporate and commercial work.

Gene Hoffman currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer and President of Chia Network. Chia is a technology infrastructure company building a transformative open-source, public blockchain focused on real-world utility that is secure in approach, regulatory compliant, and sustainable by design. From 2017 to 2019, Hoffman was an advisor to the board of Chia Network before joining the Company as COO and President in August 2019. 

Throughout his career in technology, Hoffman has built and scaled companies in enterprise software and SaaS, subscriptions, cryptography, and software development, served as a chief executive of a publicly traded company, raised over $215,000,000 in public and private markets, acquired four companies, and successfully sold three companies to PGP, Inc., Vivendi-Universal, and Amdocs. His success demonstrates the vital element of his entrepreneurial philosophy - deeply understanding the technology and starting with real utility and industry application creates foundational use cases and unlocks future potential.

Prior to joining Chia, Hoffman served as co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Vindicia, a consumer subscription infrastructure company from 2003 until its sale to Amdocs in 2016. Previously, he co-founded Emusic.com, serving as CEO and President from 1998 to 2002. Hoffman has 23 years of experience in high compliance security environments, including 12 years of managing PCI and SSAE-16 compliance for the storage of 220,000,000 credit cards. 

As a true cypherpunk, he helped end U.S. export controls on cryptography while at PGP, Inc. in 1997 by personally exporting the PGP Source Code book. Just as Hoffman has spent his career driving adoption of digital transformation, today he sees decentralized blockchain technology as the next step toward the future of finance. 

George is an Asia-based, Canadian entrepreneur and insurance innovation leader.

Following a successful corporate career, where he had managed large, distributed teams, George jumped into fintech and built both InsurTech Asia Association and a startup venture, which got acquired. In his most recent role, George was a Chief Commercial Officer at an Asian fintech unicorn. 

George is passionate about helping entrepreneurs succeed and sharing his knowledge through speeches at leading events. His views are regularly featured across global publications. George contributed as a co-author of “The InsurTECH Book,” published by John Wiley & Sons in 2018.

George holds an MBA from the University of Western Ontario and a Bachelor of Computer Engineering from the University of Manitoba, Canada.

Prof. Dr. Joachim Wuermeling took office as a member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank on November 1, 2016. He is responsible for the Directorates General Data and Statistics, Controlling, Accounting and Organisation as well as Information Technology and Risk Control. Prior to taking on his current position, Mr. Wuermeling, who has a PhD in Law, held a variety of executive-level posts in the financial and insurance industries as well as in politics. From 2011 until his departure for the Bundesbank, Mr. Wuermeling was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Association of Sparda-Banken in Frankfurt am Main. Prior to that, he was a member of the Executive Board of the German Insurance Association for around three years. From 2005 to 2008, Mr. Wuermeling was State Secretary for European affairs at the Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology, where he was also responsible for coordinating European policy matters. Prior to this, he was a member of the European Parliament (CSU) from 1999 to 2005.

Jonathan Larsen is now Chief Innovation Officer of Ping An Group and Chairman and CEO of the Ping An Global Voyager Fund.

Jonathan spent 18 years at Citigroup where he was most recently Global Head of the firm’s Retail Banking and Mortgage businesses, generating ~$12Bn in Revenues and spanning 19 countries. He has been at the leading edge of the financial services industry for the last 31 years across the Asia Pacific region and globally. He brings a unique blend of strategic vision, operational depth, and understanding of the new technology landscape. He has led multiple large-scale, successful businesses across a wide range of markets and has extensive experience in negotiating and managing partnerships and M&A transactions.

Prior to Citi, Jonathan was a Principal in the Financial Services Practice of global management consulting firm, Booz Allen & Hamilton where he spent eight years advising large banks and other financial institutions across Asia, Australia and New Zealand and in the United States and Europe.

Jonathan is a Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Banking and Finance, Singapore and was named Retail Banker of the Year in 2011 by Asian Banker magazine. He has been widely quoted in major business publications including the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Economist as well as local media throughout Asia Pacific. Jonathan holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from the University of Melbourne.

Karolis Zemaitis is the Vice-Minister of the Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania, responsible for attracting investments and talents, trade relations and favourable start-up ecosystem.

K. Zemaitis holds a MA degree in International Marketing and Management from ISM University of Management and Economics, currently studies at Saïd Business School of University of Oxford. In his previous career, K. Zemaitis led the ‘Go Vilnius’ team, responsible for the competitiveness of the capital city Vilnius. Prior to joining Go Vilnius, K. Zemaitis worked in ‘Invest Lithuania’ and various pan-European advocacy platforms working with the EU and Council of Europe.

Kfir L Godrich, Managing Director, is Chief Innovation Officer for BlackRock. He is responsible for driving firm's innovation agenda, the connection with the broad financial and technology ecosystems, including partnerships and ventures that accelerate growth. He is continuously exploring new and emerging technologies under an applied innovation strategy, to practically implement them at BlackRock. In addition, he is responsible for Information Security, Aladdin Data and BlacRock's AI Labs. He also serves as a member of BlackRock's Global Operating Committee.

Mr. Godrich service with the firm dates to 2014 as Global Head of Technology for BlackRock. Prior to that, Kfir served as CTO for Hewlett Packard Co. (HP) Technology Services, where he was responsible for road-mapping technology for company's Consulting and Support business units, as well as Advisory Board for HP Labs. He international experience lays in complex systems. Over the years Kfir's worked spanned chronologically from C4ISR to Data Centers, Alternative Energy, Fintech, Cyber, Data and Analytics and ML/AI. He received National Security awards, has been recognized as AI Pioneer at the United Nations, and has a rich portfolio of technology IP. Kfir began his career in the IAF after completing Electrical and Computer Engineering studies at Ben Gurion University.

Julian Teicke is the CEO and founder of wefox, which is a full-stack digital insurance company that is making insurance 10x better.

wefox has raised more than US$1 billion in funding since it was founded in 2015.

Julian graduated with a BA in Business Administration in St. Gallen.

Karan is a Director at PwC’s South East Asia Consulting practice in Singapore, and is dedicated to expanding the firm's Sustainability practice throughout the region.

Karan's expertise lies in bridging the gap between sustainability and digital transformation, and he is currently spearheading the development of an AI platform in collaboration with the Singapore government. This innovative initiative aims to accelerate the transition to a net-zero future.

Previously, he played multiple leadership roles in Proxtera - a start-up incubated under the Singapore government's 'Business sans Borders' initiative, with a goal of connecting the world's SMEs through a digital network to facilitate trade and financial inclusion.

I'm a technologist, and my interests lie at the intersection of technology, payments, and innovation.

I'm deputy director, Financial Services for the Poor, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading the Level One Project initiative to foster deployment of digital payment and identity platforms to serve the poor (http://leveloneproject.org).

I'm Chair of the Board of the Mojaloop Foundation (http://mojaloop.io), which hosts the Mojaloop open-source software making it easy and free to interconnect payment systems. I serve on the board of the InterLedger Foundation (http://interledger.org), the home of the open protocol for sending payments across the internet.

Previously, I was the co-founder and leader of Innotribe, the SWIFT initiative to enable collaborative innovation in the financial industry. At SWIFT, I was also the chief architect of SWIFTNet, the backbone worldwide secure network currently connecting 8,000 banks and 1,000 corporations, and servicing daily the world economy.

I'm the author of "The Castle And The Sandbox", a book explaining how to foster innovation in established systems and companies.

Kunal Shah is a financial services entrepreneur and investor. He founded one of India’s earliest fintech firms, FreeCharge, which pioneered online payments. Kunal’s latest venture, CRED, founded in 2018, is a platform that brings the benefits of high-trust communities to creditworthy individuals, brands, and financial institutions. An advocate of India’s startup ecosystem, Kunal has over 150+ angel investments, several of which are in fintech. He has been an advisor to the board of Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. [India’s largest publisher], the Chairman of the Internet and Mobile Association of India, and an advisor to Sequoia Capital India. He is also on the board of Pine Labs. Kunal actively promotes and participates in financial literacy and female workforce participation initiatives.

With over 25 years of experience in the financial services industry, I am a senior executive, board professional, and senior advisor with a passion for driving digital transformation and innovation. I have held several CEO and COO positions at banks and payment infrastructures.

Currently, I hold several board positions and act as a senior advisor to several banks and fintech companies in the Nordics, both established and start-ups, helping them to grow, scale, and succeed in the rapidly changing and competitive market. I also leverage my expertise and network as a Senior Advisor at McKinsey & Company, where I support clients across the financial sector with strategic advice, insights, and solutions. I am a proud Ambassador of Emerging Payments Association Asia .

Lawrence brings more than 20 years of deep and diversified experience to his position as Group CEO of NETS.

He is responsible for the companies in NETS Group, positioning the organisation as the industry operator, builder of payment infrastructure and winning the hearts and minds of consumers and merchants. Under his leadership, Lawrence has successfully increased digital payment adoption through NETS wide merchant network domestically and enabled cross-border payments where connectivity with overseas payments rails have been established.

To differentiate NETS in the rapidly evolving digital payment space, Lawrence is focusing on driving NETS value proposition through innovative solutions, aligning to the organisation’s purpose statement – Connecting Communities, Empowering Lives.

Prior to joining NETS, he served as Vice President – Regional Client Management, Asia Pacific for Visa and was responsible for managing regional acquirers and regional merchants. Lawrence also previously held leadership positions at PayPal and American Express. At PayPal, he was Vice President and General Manager for Japan and Southeast Asia. He also served as a Director on the Board of PayPal Pte Ltd until 2015. At American Express, he was based in Japan for four years, where he led the Merchant business before returning to Singapore and assuming the position of Senior Vice President, Global Payment Options, Asia Pacific.

Lawrence currently serves as Alternate Chairman for the Payment sub-committee at the Singapore FinTech Association and as a Fellow at Singapore University of Social Sciences, where he provides advice and serves as a resource in the university’s FinTech teaching and research activities. Additionally, he serves as a Board member of the Catholic Foundation, a non-profit organisation.

He earned his Bachelor of Science in Economics (Honours) Degree from The London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.

Mahendra Nerurkar is committed to Amazon Pay's mission of simplifying lives and fulfilling aspirations by making digital payments trusted, convenient and rewarding. Amazon Pay is a convenient one-stop-shop which simplifies everyday payments and empowers customers to earn rewards to save more, avail credit to afford more, buy insurance to protect their assets, and invest smartly to grow their wealth. From Pay Later, to Cash Deposits at Doorstep, to Pay with Alexa, to Smart Stores, Amazon Pay has invented multiple successful customer backwards products for Indian consumers and merchants; and continues to have an exciting innovation pipeline.

Mahendra leads Amazon Pay India as VP and CEO, overseeing product, technology, design, marketing, sales, and operations. Prior to Amazon Pay, Mahendra led product and general management roles for Amazon Home Services, Junglee.com, and Fulfillment by Amazon. Before Amazon, Mahendra led strategy and technology consulting roles at Oliver Wyman and Computer Sciences Corporation working with clients across North America, Europe and Asia.

Mahendra holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Mumbai

Marco Pistoia, Ph.D. is Managing Director, Distinguished Engineer, and Head of Global Technology Applied Research and Head of Quantum Computing at JPMorgan Chase.  He joined JPMorgan Chase in January 2020. Formerly, he was a Senior Manager, Distinguished Research Staff Member and Master Inventor at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in New York, where he managed an international team of researchers responsible for Quantum Computing Algorithms and Applications. Dr. Pistoia was at IBM Research for 24 years.

In August 2022, Dr. Pistoia was certified as the 250th most prolific inventor of all time He is the inventor of 271 patents, granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and 319 patent-pending applications. In March 2023, Dr. Pistoia was one of the 12 technologists included in the HPCwire People to Watch 2023, a 21-year-old program that "recognizes HPC professionals who play leading roles in driving innovation within their particular fields, making significant contributions to society as a whole. Over the course of the program, HPCwire has recognized nearly 200 HPC luminaries who have gone on to achieve extraordinary things."  In May 2023, Dr. Pistoia received the Instinet Positive Change: Visionary Markets Choice Award. He has published numerous conference papers and journal articles in the areas of Cybersecurity and Quantum Computing.

Dr. Pistoia received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from New York University in May 2005. He is the lead author of nine printed books, including Enterprise Java Security (published by Addison-Wesley in English and by Tsinghua University Press in Chinese) and Java 2 Network Security (published by Prentice Hall), both used as textbooks in many universities worldwide. He is also a coauthor of the online book Learn Quantum Computation using Qiskit. Dr. Pistoia has been the recipient of several awards, including five ACM/IEEE Distinguished Paper Awards.

Namatame joined Tokio Marine Holdings in 2018 and assumed Managing Executive Officer and Group Chief Digital Officer from 2021. Prior to Tokio Marine, he was Managing Director, and the member of the board at BlackRock Japan. Before that he had a number of senior executive positions at Visa Worldwide Japan, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank. He started his career at Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan. In addition to his career positions, he assumed the non-executive director at Mercari, Inc. and an advisor to Japan&#39s Financial Services Agency. He graduated from University of Tokyo and earned MBA from Harvard Business School. 

Mathias is the Co-Founder and Group CEO of Sygnum Bank, the world’s first digital asset bank. Sygnum is a digital asset technology group with a Swiss banking and securities dealer licence (issued by FINMA), as well as a capital markets services (CMS) licence in Singapore. With a broad product and service offering focusing on digital assets, incl. a convenient gateway between fiat and digital assets, Sygnum empowers institutional investors to invest into this new asset class with complete trust.

Prior to Sygnum, Mathias was General Manager at RNT Associates, Mr. Ratan N. Tata's personal investment platform, where he joined as first employee. He led multiple venture capital and private equity investments and participated in Blockchain/ DLT related equity deals globally.

Mathias started his career at Bain & Company where he led advisory projects for Private Equity Funds, Family Offices and Technology companies.

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

Matthew Gamser is the founding CEO of the SME Finance Forum, the world’s leading industry association for knowledge exchange, good practice promotion and public-private dialogue in this field. The SME Finance Forum is managed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, for the G-20 countries’ Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion. The SME Finance Forum’s network includes over 250 banks, fintech companies, development banks and other institutions involved in financing SMEs. Its members operate in over 190 countries and serve as key partners for the G20, APEC, OECD and other multilateral institutions in their work on small business financing and financial inclusion. Dr. Gamser has over 40 years’ experience in private enterprise and financial sector development. He has worked for IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, for over 18 years in various positions from Washington, DC, and Hong Kong, where he has focused on SME finance and on financial sector development.  Prior to that he spent 25 years in management consulting and in senior leadership in an international NGO. He holds A.B. and A.M. degrees from Harvard University, and M.Sc. and D.Phil degrees from Sussex University (UK), where his work focused on the management of technological change. 

Matthew joined the FCA as the new Director of Payments & Digital Assets in October 2022. In his role, Matthew is responsible for Market Interventions, Market Analysis and Policy across the Payments and Digital Asset Portfolios. In addition, Matthew continues the FCA’s leadership in international crypto initiatives as the Lead of the IOSCO Fintech Taskforce Crypto and Digital Assets Working Group.

Matthew is the former Director of the National Economic Crime Command within the National Crime Agency (NCA). His responsibilities included leading the multi-agency National Economic Crime Centre which has a strategic UK system leadership role for economic crime and illicit finance. He also led the UK Financial Intelligence Unit (UKFIU) which has national responsibility for receiving, analysing and disseminating financial intelligence submitted through the Suspicious Activity Reports Regime. At the NCA, he has driven the public-private partnership with financial services to find solutions for government and industry problems together, most recently with a Crypto Summit. Matthew works to balance risks and opportunity of innovation and has carried this into his role at the FCA.

Operationally, he is a multi-agency Commander with extensive experience in leading international initiatives and collaboration, including through his work with Interpol, Europol and international roundtables on serious and organised crime. Prior to this, Matthew was leading the response to Organised Immigration Crime, Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, Drugs, Firearms, Borders and the programme to build the National Data Exploitation Capability. Matthew’s career began as a detective in Kent Police where he qualified as Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) having led over 400 investigations, including a number of high profile child abuse operations.

He is proud of his international collaboration in both illicit finance and child exploitation delivering both operational and policy results. He received national and international awards for his investigations and innovation.

Matthew holds a PhD in Risk Management and has been part of a team creating worldwide child abuse risk assessments. In his academic life he is currently working on applying child abuse risk models to terrorism.

Mohan Kankanhalli is Provost's Chair Professor of Computer Science at the National University of Singapore and the Deputy Executive Chairman of AI Singapore. He was formerly the Dean of NUS School of Computing from 2016 to 2022. Prior to becoming the Dean, he was the NUS Vice Provost (Graduate Education) during 2014-2016 and Associate Provost (Graduate Education) during 2011-2013. Mohan’s research interests are in Computer Vision, Multimedia Computing and Multimedia Security & Privacy. He has made fundamental contributions in image and video understanding, content authentication, privacy and trustworthy AI. He is currently the director of N-CRiPT (NUS Centre for Research in Privacy Technologies) in which he leads initiatives on multimedia privacy and trustworthy machine learning. Mohan is a member of World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Future of Artificial Intelligence.

Mona Zoet, founder and CEO of RegPac Revolution, has over 20 years of experience in the Financial Services Industry within the Legal, Risk, and Compliance areas of top-tier Financial Institutions around the globe before becoming an entrepreneur.

She started RegPac Revolution more than five years ago to build an ecosystem collaborating with public/private and connecting the dots globally. RegPac also educates and advises about Regulatory Technology (RegTech) and helps startups scale and expand into SEA.

Mona is a frequent guest speaker at several conferences in Asia and globally and she holds various RegTech Committee Memberships (SFA, IRTA). She furthermore is a mentor for multiple entrepreneurial(Tech) projects, and is a nonexecutive board member for a couple of companies within the GRC space. More recently, Mona has been eager to create more advocacy about impactful risk management and sustainability awareness and is very keen to assist in accelerating ESG adoption on a global scale.

She has contributed to several publications, including “The Legal Aspects of Blockchain,” a book published by the UNOPS focusing on the legal implications that blockchain can unlock. Mona furthermore shares co authorship for the books #RegTech Blackbook and #RegTech Blackbook “The Sequel,” which highlights all the latest developments in RegTech. And Mona has been mentioned as one of the RegTech top 100 influencers, according to a report created by Analytica One.

Naveen Mallela is the global head of the Coin Systems team at Onyx by J.P. Morgan, which focuses on building innovative payment products and infrastructure based on digital currencies and blockchain technology. Most recently Naveen led the pilot launch of Tokenized Deposits for J.P. Morgan as part of Project Guardian – a flagship industry initiative anchored by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). He was previously the chief designer and product lead for JPM Coin, which is a cornerstone product offering of Coin Systems. Prior to his current role, Naveen was the Digital Payments lead for JPMorgan’s Corporate and Investment Bank in the Asia Pacific region and as part of his role he spearheaded the co-founding of Partior, a Singapore based technology company seeking to provide a first of its kind multibank ledger solution for payments clearing and settlement. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan , Naveen was a technology strategy and transformation consultant for a global consulting firm, providing advisory and transformation services to global banks across Japan, U.K. and Singapore. Naveen is also a certified Chartered Financial Analyst from the CFA Institute, and holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB).

Ned Lowe is the CTO of MISSION+, where he helps interesting people build interesting products using nearshore development teams. He is passionate about building tech teams and reducing complication in the product development process until it is "Uncomfortably Simple".

Previously, Ned was the Chief Technology Officer of Singlife, a Singapore based digital insurer. He began his career in the banking sector at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. After spending 12 years working in equity and fixed income trading technology, he was bitten by the startup bug and moved into FinTech, setting up his own SaaS firm, Argomi. Ned then joined Amazon Web Services to help financial institutions with their digital transformation strategy.

Oliver Bussmann is a globally recognized technology thought leader and driver of large-scale transformation at multi-national organizations and portfolio companies of private equity firms. The Founder and CEO of Bussmann Advisory AG, he advises enterprises and private equity companies looking to stay ahead of the digital disruption curve in the financial services and high-tech industry.

He is a Non-Executive Board Director at Bank of America Europe, Abu Dhabi Ports Group, BSI Software (Capvis portfolio company), Board Chairman at xSuite Group (3i Group portfolio company) and Advisory Board member of the largest European Asset Manager Amundi, Royal London and Actico (Bregal portfolio company).

In addition, he also holds important mandates in industry associations, including Board Member at Elevandi as part of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Oliver was Co- founder and former President of the Swiss Crypto Valley Association which is the largest blockchain ecosystem with over 1’500 startups in Switzerland.

From 2013 to 2016 Bussmann was Group Chief Information Officer of UBS, where he successfully led a major Business and IT transformation effort, instituted a new group-wide innovation framework and established UBS as a pioneer in the development of blockchain for use in financial services. Prior to joining UBS Bussmann was Global Chief Information Officer at SAP, where he also spearheaded significant technology transformation and integration of company acquisitions, and before that CIO for North America & Mexico at Allianz. Previous roles have included executive positions at Deutsche Bank and IBM.

Bussmann's achievements and thought leadership have been widely recognized. He was named COO/CTO of the year by Financial News/The Wall Street Journal, European CIO of the Year by INSEAD/CIONET, Top FinTech Influencer to follow by Onalytica, Swiss FinTech Award, received the Elite 8 Award, which is given to the most innovative leaders in technology working in capital markets by Wall Street & Technology Magazine, and has twice been included on the Financial News "FinTech 40" list of innovators shaping the future of finance. 

Parul is a Partner with PwC South East Asia Consulting and currently leads the Sustainability practice in the region. Parul brings to bear a whole-systems perspective when she partners with organisations to enable their sustainability journeys. She has recently led work with financial services organisations and governments on Net Zero strategies, Sustainable Finance taxonomies, data and technology for sustainability reporting and workforce levers for sustainability transformation.

Paula Bellizia has more than 29 years of executive experience leading multinational technology companies in Brazil and Latin America. She is currently partner and the President of Global Payments at EBANX, global payments fintech. Most recently, she served as Google's VP of Marketing for Latin America, Microsoft's COO for Latin America, President of Microsoft Brazil, and Apple's Country Manager in Brazil. Bellizia has also worked at Facebook, Telefonica and Whirlpool. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Technology, a postgraduate degree in Marketing, and an MBA from FIA-USP. Bellizia has chosen the topic of diversity and inclusion as a priority on her agenda. In 2019, she moved with her family to the United States, and during the pandemic, she returned to Brazil.

Paula Hunter is the Executive Director of the Mojaloop Foundation – a charitable nonprofit organization focused on extending the financial inclusion efforts of the Mojaloop open source software project. She leads the organization’s strategic planning and direction; grant, membership and strategic partnership development; and evangelism for the organization and its mission. Ms. Hunter is an open source and technology leader with nearly two decades of executive director-level experience managing industry advocacy groups, open source organizations, and standards associations. She was tapped by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop the plan and structure of the open source-based Mojaloop Foundation, which successfully launched in 2020. In addition, she has extensive open source experience.

René Michau is Global Head of Digital Assets and is responsible for coordinating the strategic approach across Standard Chartered and SC Ventures, aligning innovation and capability delivery to provide clients with safe access to digital asset solutions. René led the establishment of the Fintech Banking business at SC and has worked across Financial Markets, Transaction Banking, Risk and Technology for several banks including HSBC, ANZ and NAB. His early career was spent as an Officer in the Australian Defence Force. 

René also leads the development of crypto trading, and custody products for Standard Chartered and co-chairs the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) Digital Finance Institutional Crypto Working Group and the Institute of International Finance (IIF) Digital Assets Forum. René is also a member of the Digital Asset Markets sub-committee of the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)’s Global Markets Advisory Committee (GMAC) 

René is a strong advocate for innovation and contributes his time collaborating to community building, podcasts, academic research and speaking engagements. René is passionate about the empowerment of the amazing women in crypto and fintech and advocates for the power of diversity.

Mr. Ritesh Shukla as CEO – NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), will be responsible for formulating business strategy, leading business development and driving profitability by deploying NPCI's technology and solutions in International Markets. His responsibilities include engaging and collaborating with traditional as well non-traditional players in payment eco-system to drive business strategy and achieve growth.

Ritesh has over 20 years of work experience with expertise in areas of managing country business, leading business development and relationship management.

Prior to joining NPCI, he was part of Mastercard’s business in Middle East and North Africa. During his 6 years with Mastercard he performed a wide array of roles in sales, business development and P/L functions. His previous stints include working with Visa Inc. and leading financial institutions such as Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and SBI Cards in payments business. He holds MBA in International Business.

Ronghui Gu is a computer science professor at Columbia University. He obtained his Ph.D. from Yale University and a bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University.

He is the primary designer and developer of CertiKOS, the first verified concurrent OS kernel--a major milestone toward building secure systems software. Gu co-founded CertiK, a Web3 cybersecurity unicorn startup valued at $2 billion. CertiK has collectively served over 4,000 enterprise clients and secured more than $360 billion worth of assets in cryptocurrency. For his work in systems verification, Gu received: a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a VMware Systems Research Award, three Amazon Research Awards, an OSDI Jay Lepreau Best Paper Award, an SOSP Best Paper Award, and a CACM Research Highlight.

Rob Schimek is the Group Chief Executive Officer of bolttech. He leads the bolttech team across our operations globally, overseeing our growth and partnership opportunities.

With more than 30 years’ experience in the financial services industry, Rob has previously held senior leadership roles in insurance, including Managing Director & Group Chief Operating Officer for FWD Group, President and CEO of AIG’s commercial insurance businesses worldwide and Chief Executive Officer of the Americas for AIG. Prior to that, Rob served as President and Chief Executive Officer of EMEA for AIG and was the Chief Financial Officer of AIG’s global property and casualty insurance business.

Before joining AIG, Rob was a partner at Deloitte & Touche L.L.P. where, for 18 years, he used his public accounting experience to serve global financial institution clients, including MetLife, The Prudential Insurance Company of America, and Merrill Lynch.

Rob is a C.P.A. He earned his M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Rider University in New Jersey.

Outside of work, Rob can be found in the gym or competing in some of the world’s toughest endurance competitions such as the FWD 78° North Marathon, one of the most northern marathons in the world, and the Ironman World Championships.

Bob is an economic sociologist on the Finance faculty of the University Cambridge Judge Business School with expertise in regulatory innovation and the digitisation of the financial system. In 2021, he was awarded the CJBS Excellence in Teaching Prize and in 2022 was awarded the School’s Sandra Dawson Research Impact Award for his research applying machine learning models to regulatory information. This research led Bob to found a spun-out company, called RegGenome, which has established itself as a leader in the emerging field of computational regulation. Prior to spinning-out RegGenome, Bob was the founding Director of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), a world-leading research centre based in Cambridge studying the global development of digital financial services, where he remains a Director and is a Member of its Oversight Committee.

Prior to embarking on an academic career, Bob had 25-year career as a professional investor, most recently as a Managing Director in the investment group of one of the largest privately-owned companies in the United States. He has held several board directorships and advisory roles with academic, governmental, and commercial organisations over the course of both his academic and non-academic career and is currently a member of the Advisory Council of the Central Bank of Mauritius. Bob holds a BCom from Queen’s University in Canada, an MBA from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Salim Dhanani is CEO & Co-Founder of Pave Bank, a digital bank built for a new financial world with programmable money and regulated digital assets. Prior to Pave Bank, Salim co-founded and was the CEO of BigPay, one of the largest Southeast Asian neobanks raising over US$165m in capital and with 1.3m users, was responsible for the EMEA division of Carta Worldwide, a digital payments platform, and worked for the World Bank Group in South America. Salim has built his career in financial services, focusing on banking and payment technology for a diverse range of companies – including established banking players and fintech unicorns. Salim is an active angel investor in the fintech and Web3 space through Thurloe Partners.

Sandra Ro serves as CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), the world’s largest industry association for the blockchain and digital assets community. As a proponent of ‘human-centric tech,’ Sandra advances responsible innovation and inclusion as an angel investor, board director, advisor, guest lecturer, media commentator and cofounder of social impact and tech start-ups. From investment banking and currency markets to blockchain technology, Sandra has spent her career advocating using digital tools to solve big problems. She holds an M.B.A. from London Business School, studied Computer Science at Columbia University, and earned a double B.A. degree from Yale University. 

Dr. Sara Saeed Khurram has over 8 years of experience in the field of Digital health care as the Co- Founder and Chief Executive Officer.

Sehat Kahani is a widely used Digital Health Care platform in Pakistan with the vision to democratize health care access for all using technology and a committed network of doctors with the commitment to enable flexible work opportunities for female doctors otherwise facing socio-cultural barriers to practice.Sehat Kahani’s platform as available as an Mobile Application for the mass consumers and corporations and as e-clinics in low income communities.

Sehat Kahani’s mobile application is used by 1.5M+ consumers, and 725+ corporates today. Sehat Kahani also has the largest network of 62 E-clinics nationwide. Over 2.5 M+ consultations have been conducted on the platform overall impacting 7.2 millions lives till date via consultations, counselling and health education.

Dr. Sara Saeed Khurram is A Young Global Leader(class 22) by World Economic Forum, an IWLS Fellow by National Defence University(Pakistan), Rainer Arnhold Fellow by Mulago Foundation, A Cartier Fellow 2018, an Acumen fellow 2016, a Tedx speaker and a Cherie Blair Foundation alumnus. She is the also the first Frontier Innovator from Pakistan in 2017.

Dr. Sara Saeed Khurram has won notable awards for her work such as the Heroine of HealthCare Award 2022 by Women in Global Health Forum, Stuart Weitzman Bold Move Award 2022, We-Empower award 21,the Rolex Awards 2019 as Associate Laureate, TIAW Award, CRDF Global Awards, Ashoka Changemakers, ISIF Asia, The Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards, The UNICEF Global Goal Campaigner Award 2016 and Arpatech Young Entrepreneurs Award 2017 for her work.

Dr. Sara Saeed Khurram serves on the advisory board of CLUE, a Menstrual cycle tracker app and serves as member of Policy forum on Gender and Finance by State bank and Technical Advisory Committee, National Human Development Report 2023.She was a part of the WGH Pakistan Power Delegation in Paris 2021.

Saurav currently serves as the CEO & MD of Proxtera Private Limited, a company born out of Business sans Borders (BSB) initiative.

BSB, is a global initiative, by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to create an open connector of business platforms, trade associations, government bodies, financial services and other services providers. Proxtera reason for existence is to help MSME’s in growing global cross-border trade.

Saurav was the Founder CEO of Quantum Inventions (QI), a company focused in Mobility Intelligence for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) which was wholly acquired in 2017 by Continental Corporation. 

Saurav is the immediate past President of Intelligent Transport Society of Singapore (ITSS), and now serves it as an Advisor. Amongst other appointments, he serves as the Board Member & Invest Panel of SEEDS Capital, and as the Deputy Chair of Action Community for Entrepreneurship.

At 24 Kapur left a career as a Chartered Accountant/Management Consultant to pursue a career in the Arts. Has created iconic award-winning films and TV shows in India , as well as in Hollywood and the UK. His films have been nominated for several Oscars. Has created major theatrical musicals in the West End, Broadway, Europe, and Dubai. Has served as International Advisory Board Member for the Singapore Media Development Authority. And served on the National Innovation Council under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and most recently on the Board of the Dubai Expo. Till recently was Chairman of the Indian Film and Television Institute.

Has taught Film at Tisch Singapore, at Film School in Doha, and also as Hony Researcher at MIT.

Is an early-stage digital start-up/founder entrepreneur in India.

Sopnendu Mohanty, currently the Chief Fintech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, is responsible for creating development strategies, public infrastructure, and policies around technology-driven innovation. Mohanty has over two decades of public and private sector experience in technology, operations, digital Finance, and investment strategies.

Mohanty extensively engages with global technology and financial services ecosystems and has championed notable collaborative public goods like API Exchange (APIX), Singapore Fintech Festival, Payment Rails, Data exchange platforms, and experimental programs like Project Ubin. In addition, Mohanty advises many international global advisory bodies on Fintech, Innovation and Inclusion. Within five years of his leadership, Singapore has become a leading global Fintech hub producing unicorns and home to many vibrant fintech companies.

He has co-authored several patented works in the application of digital technology in Finance and won many industry recognitions.

Staci Warden is the CEO of the Algorand Foundation, the organization dedicated to enabling an inclusive, decentralized, and borderless global ecosystem based[KO1]  on the Algorand blockchain technology. She speaks, writes, and advises globally on the potential for blockchain technology to address financial inclusion and create market opportunities. Prior to her current role, Staci was on the executive management team of the Milken Institute, where she led its work on capital market development, crypto/blockchain solutions, and innovative finance. Before Milken, Staci led JPMorgan’s EMEA public sector practice, based out of London. Before JPM, she ran the Nasdaq’s two markets for microcap companies. Staci has also had senior roles at the U.S. Treasury Department, the Center for Global Development, and the Harvard Institute for International Development.

Staci sits on the Board of the Global Blockchain Business Council and serves on the advisory committees of the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), the European Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee (STOA), the U.S. Financial Technology Association, and Evolution Environmental Asset Management. She is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Stefan Flueckiger is a former Swiss senior diplomat with special expertise in international finance, sustainable finance and green fintech. He advises on various start-ups and is the Honorary President of the Swiss Green Fintech Network. He entered the Swiss diplomatic service in 1989 and served at the Swiss Embassy in Harare, worked as World Bank Staff in Washington and Haiti, headed the Economic and Finance Team at the Swiss Embassy in Berlin, and was the Swiss Ambassador to the OECD in Paris. Stefan Flückiger served as member of the board of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), and headed the Special Foreign Economic Services, directing negotiation teams for bilateral and multilateral trade and investment agreements. From 2020-2023 he was the Deputy State Secretary for International Finance (SIF) and acted as Switzerland’s G20 Finance Deputy, leading bilateral financial dialogues with China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Russia and the UK. During his time at SIF he oversaw the government’s strategy on financial markets, with a focus on digital finance and sustainable finance. Stefan Flueckiger holds degrees from Zurich University and Yale University.

Steven is an award winning journalist with over two decades of experience behind him. He currently anchors current affairs programme Talking Point which looks at current issues affecting people in Singapore. Prior to that Steven helmed both the morning and evening prime time news bulletins on CNA. Outside of work, Steven is an avid volunteer. He sits on the board of the YMCA of Singapore, is a member of the Charity Council and also an advisory board member for the Communications and New Media Department at the National University of Singapore.

Fascinated by software development since his childhood in Germany, Thomas Dohmke has built a career building tools developers love and accelerating innovations that are changing software development. Currently, Thomas is Chief Executive Officer of GitHub, where he has overseen the launch of the world's first at-scale AI developer tool, GitHub Copilot -- and now, GitHub Copilot X. Before his time at GitHub, Thomas previously co-founded HockeyApp and led the company as CEO through its acquisition by Microsoft in 2014, and holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from University of Glasgow, UK.

Todd Schweitzer is co-founder and CEO at Brankas, a leading global open finance technology provider. Brankas partners with financial institutions to launch and monetize API products for real-time payments, identity verification, new account opening, remittances, and more. With Brankas, online businesses, fintech companies, and digital banks can use Brankas APIs to create new digital experiences for their users.

Todd has held senior roles in private equity and management consulting, spanning technology, the public sector, and financial services. He is also the founding Director of Open Banking Exchange Asia, convening policymakers and industry leaders across the region to develop common standards and best practices.

Todd holds dual Bachelor's degrees with honors in Economics and International Studies from the University of California, Irvine, and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government with a focus on economic development policy. He lives in Manila, Philippines.

Tram Anh Nguyen is co-founder of CFTE, a global impact platform for education in Fintech and the future of financial services.

Tram Anh strongly believes that in a world dominated by technology, people must remain at the centre of society and organisations, and that education and training are key to helping individuals adapt to a fast changing world. This was the motivation that drove her to launch CFTE to help finance professionals up-skill, find more opportunities and build better finance.

CFTE platform includes 400+ industry experts (from heads of innovation in banks to CEOs of challenger banks and CEOs of Fintech VCs), she created a platform that helps the industry acquire this knowledge quickly, from Fintech to Artificial Intelligence with an engaged community of 100,000+ alumni from around the world. 

She is instrumental in providing lifelong learning solutions working with governments, policymakers, industry experts, and academia to push initiatives in financial education for Finance 2.0. She followed her passion to bring about a skills revolution in finance to not only transform the industry but to help a multitude of stakeholders, like women and people from different backgrounds and walks of life, to enter the new world of finance and to provide education of the Fintech at - global scale.

She is the co-author of a few books, including the Fintech Job Report book, The Fintech job report is the first of its kind in history, where the major developments in the field, possible work roles, and pertinent employability skills required to help governments, regulators, employers, and job applicants with future job creation and prospects have been outlined.

Tram Anh serves as a Non Executive Director of Passerelles Numeriques. She holds a few advisory Board Member roles. Honoured Ambassador to the Singapore Fintech Festival and Ambassador to the Inclusive Fintech Forum.

She is one of the Entrepreneurship Expert Saïd Business School, Oxford. She is an Industry Fellow of Imperial College. Prior to co-founding CFTE, she has navigated between the corporate and entrepreneurial world, she has a diverse background in finance with 18 years of experience having worked in trading, institutional sales and private banking for major financial institutions such as Standard Chartered in New York, Dresdner Kleinwort and UBS Wealth Management London, Advisor to family offices.

Of Vietnamese origin, Tram Anh was born in France and lived in Paris, New York, and now London. Advocate for Women leadership in Fintech, Top Senior Leader Women in Fintech on the Powerlist, Awarded Top 10 Asia Tech Pioneers in the UK’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Builders, Top 10 Women transforming Tech.

Umar Farooq is the Global Head of Financial Institution Payments and CEO of Onyx by J.P. Morgan. Onyx is a J.P. Morgan business unit that leverages cutting-edge technologies like Blockchain to develop innovative products, platforms and marketplaces.  Prior to this Umar was the Global Head of Digital Wholesale Payments and Head of Blockchain for the Corporate and Investment Bank (CIB). Previously he was the CFO responsible for financial oversight and business management across CIB Technology, Operations, and Controls. Umar has also held leadership positions in Chase Bank in the past including Head of Small Business Segment and National Sales Manager for Chase Business Banking.  Umar holds a B.S. in Computer Science, B.S. in Economics and M.Engg. in Computer Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Umar received his JD from Yale Law School.

Varun leads Innovation and Ecosystem at homegrown financial services company, Singlife. He collaborates closely with both internal and external stakeholders to adopt transformative ideas as well as develop partnerships with key industry players.

Prior to joining Singlife, Varun was responsible for FinTech business development in 130 emerging markets across the globe. He has been involved in various technology companies throughout his career and he is co-founder of the Singapore FinTech Association and ASEAN FinTech Network.

Varun is the founder of "The Fintech Nation" project comprising book, podcast and investment fund to support fintech ecosystem in Singapore. He is also actively involved in other investment vehicles and funds, focused on early and growth stage investments in emerging markets.

He holds a Master of Business Administration in Strategy and Organisation from National University of Singapore and a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science Engineering from India. 

Vinod Nair is the founder and CEO of MoneySmart Group. Passionate about entrepreneurship and the Internet, he established MoneySmart.sg in 2009, today a leading online personal finance platform offering a range of financial products and services to help individuals make informed decisions about their money. Under Vinod’s dynamic leadership, the MoneySmart online marketplace and content platform has achieved strong growth in the past decade with presence in both Singapore and Hong Kong. MoneySmart Group has since expanded its ecosystem with the founding of Bubblegum in 2022, an insurance brand that aims to revolutionise the insurance landscape by bringing consumers the best value insurance products and seamless end-to-end digital experience. Vinod continues to play an instrumental role in guiding the business to the forefront of the sector.

Vinod is passionate about people, culture and innovation. He’s an avid reader and learner and brings the best of what he’s learned to inspire people, develop a strong company culture and push the boundaries of innovation. 

Vinod holds a Bachelor’s Degree majoring in Computing, with a Minor in Technopreneurship from the National University of Singapore. He was also a part of NUS Overseas Colleges Programme where he gained entrepreneurial experience at Silicon Valley between 2005-2006, supporting his journey in starting up in very own businesses.

Yee Lee was the first team member to join Terraformation and currently serves as VP Growth & Capital Markets. Yee has an extensive track record as a serial entrepreneur with involvement in many of the most impactful companies in the tech industry.

Yee began his career in Silicon Valley as an early team member at PayPal and, over the course of 25 years, has served in engineering and product management roles at companies like eBay, Google, Skype, TaskRabbit, and Facebook.  Yee founded four startup companies in the social network, ecommerce and fintech sectors. These roles have allowed Yee to leverage his extensive understanding of engineering, design, social, and fintech to scale transformative products.

At Terraformation, Yee leads the Growth team, focused on finding ways to help foresters be more successful and to start more new forestry projects in order to accelerate the growth of the global regenerative forest restoration industry.

Yee holds degrees in engineering from UC Berkeley and Stanford.

Dr Yuhui Yao, PhD in Artificial Intelligence (AI), is the Group Chief Data Officer at FWD. Based in Singapore, he is currently leading FWD’s Big Data, AI and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). With over 20 years of Big Data Management and Analytics experience, Dr Yao has served in multinational companies including PingAn, UOB, IBM and Cisco to drive data-driven decision. In addition, he has published more than 15 research papers on the topic. The excellent work has earned him accolades and industry-wide recognition, and he has participated as a speaker in many conferences such as The Economist, FST Media’s Future of Financial Services, ASEAN and Insurance Analytics & AI Innovation Asia Pacific, to name a few.

Zennon is the Managing Director of Kapronasia, an Atlas Technologies Group Company. Kapronasia is one of Asia’s leading providers of consulting services focusing on the fintech industry. Zennon has been involved in financial technology for over 20 years and covers all topics fintech and blockchain. Before Kapronasia, Zennon was the Global Banking Industry Manager for Intel based out of Shanghai, China and, prior to Intel, was the CIO for Citigroup Portugal. Zennon has testified in front of the U.S. Congress on issues of China fintech and is the author of ‘Chomping at the Bitcoin: The History and Future of Bitcoin in China’ published by Penguin. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Syracuse University and an MBA from INSEAD.