Jinhong is a highly skilled cloud and platform architect, with a strong passion for DevSecOps practice and cloud-native technologies. She holds an MSc. in Software Development and Technology, and is certified as a Kubernetes application developer, administrator, and security specialist. Currently serving as the Chief Cloud Architect & Global Head of Cloud and Container Platform Engineering at Saxo Bank, Jinhong works to bridge the gap between platform and application teams, with a focus on strengthening infrastructure platform offerings, improving the developer experience and maximizing productivity. She is a strong advocate for sustainable and secure ways of developing and managing applications and integrations. Jinhong’s passion for open source technology and community building has led her to become the organizer for the Kubernetes Community Days and Cloud Native Copenhagen groups, where she helps to spread awareness of open source technologies and grow the cloud-native community in Denmark.

Kåre Kjelstrøm has a Master’s degree in Computer Science and +25 years of industry experience working in Denmark, Canada, and the United States as a software engineer and manager. His resume includes work at Uber, Cloud Kitchens, Concordium, and at the consulting company Silverbullet which he co-founded and where he helped digitize the Danish Public Sector for 10 years.

Ville Sointu is the Chief Strategist for digital currencies at Nordea Bank. With a career spanning since 2002 in fintech, Ville has held pivotal roles globally, innovating in financial services and connected devices. His expertise is recognized in influential circles, including the European Central Bank’s former Digital Euro Market Advisory Group, the board of Mobey Forum and the advisory board of GSMA’s Inclusive Tech Lab. Ville has also contributed to a number of key industry and policy organizations like the EBF, OECD and EBA and in his free time enjoys co-hosting the ‘Fintech Daydreaming’ podcast, sharing his insights into fintech’s evolving landscape.

Saira Khan is the Head of Innovation and Partnerships for First Direct Bank(HSBC), was recognised in Innovate Finance ‘Women in FinTech Powerlist 2023 & 2022’. Having led the creation of innovation teams and centres in the United Kingdom, Asia, and the United States, while building and testing data management and open banking through global hackathons, she has developed a unique vision and reputation for being a catalyst for transformation around the world on leading deliveries with commercial impact. She is known as a key connector and championing moves towards a digital-first culture, enabling greater collaboration and connectivity between startups and corporations with proven results. While her passion and advocacy for change sets her apart from her peers in the finance sector, it is her work mentoring and supporting global talent in Africa, Asia, and the United States that drives Saira as she focuses and champions efforts around diversity, inclusion, education, and sustainability.

Bio Annet Steenbergen After many years working in international border management Annet co-founded/co-initiated the Aruba Happy Flow project in 2013 that created the world’s first seamless passenger facilitation uniting the public and private stakeholder at the airport in one identity management system using a single biometric token. Ever since digital Identity and innovation for the travel eco-system have been at the centre of her work. She is currently a consultant for the travel and tourism industry and works on projects with focus on implementing digital identity and digital travel credentials to create true Seamless Travel while preserving data privacy and data protection. She is a participant in the EU Digital Identity Wallet Consortium. Annet has been actively involved in IATA OneID working groups and task forces and in 2020 she was awarded the Women in Biometrics Award. She is also often asked as a public speaker and moderator.

I had the chance to work in different industries (Retail, Manufacturing, Banking and Insurance mainly), coping with several challenges of complex IT transformation programs as Executive and Advisory. Since 2016 I’m sharing my experience and vision on Cloud Computing, helping Medium and Large Enterprises on their journey. Strongly convinced that IT should enable business, enhancing the potential of the underlying technology stack that must be a commodity.

Originally a Commercial Banker, Helene is an Associate Director with the Centre for Digital Banking and Finance in LIBF, an experienced FinTech Programme Director, exited entrepreneur, educator and author. Her career boasts a number of ‘firsts’, including the creation of the FinTech Scale Colab Programme for Rainmaking, the Inaugural Programme of Education and Events for Innovate Finance, the FinTech on the Entrepreneurship Masters’ for UCL. Board and advisory roles include the Spanish digital identity scale up, Biid, the UK safeguarding RegTech, Kalgera, and the SME payments company, TomatoPay.  Helene was named on the Computer Weekly 100 Women in Tech Award, the Innovate Finance Women in FinTech Power List, and the Fintech Magazine 100 Women in Fintech list. She was also part of the FCA 2020 Data Sprint on SME Lending, and the recipient of the FT/Google Digital Pioneer Award. Her new book ‘Reinventing Banking & Finance: Frameworks to navigate global fintech innovation’ (Kogan) came out in November 2020, and was named the number one banking book for 2021 by Investopedia.

Barry has spent the past decade at the intersection of banking and technology, helping financial institutions move beyond legacy constraints to create real, customer-first strategies. As a Solutions Engineer at Backbase, he has worked with banks worldwide to rearchitect their approach to engagement—focusing on long-term relationships rather than one-size-fits-all experiences.

While many banks recognize AI’s potential for cost savings and automation, Barry believes the real opportunity lies in hyper-personalization—leveraging AI to anticipate needs, tailor experiences, and build lasting financial relationships. His expertise lies in helping banks rethink customer engagement across the entire lifecycle and accelerate AI adoption through a platform-driven approach, enabling faster time to value and deeper customer connections.

As Head of Banking Solutions, Giovanni works with global financial institutions to define strategic requirements and accelerate the adoption of advanced analytical capabilities for personalized pricing and decisioning using the Earnix platform. Giovanni joined Earnix in 2015 coming from an academia and for many years headed the Professional Services Banking Team, a global team of consultants responsible for the design, management, and delivery of implementation projects for different LOBs: from unsecured lending to mortgages, from auto lending to short- and medium/long-term lending facilities to businesses. Over the last decade Giovanni has designed and delivered projects that every month impact over €10bn in new lending contracts globally. Giovanni has also led strategic consulting projects with focus on advanced analytics and on change management processes and operations.

Rishi Chauhan is the Director of Product for Identity & Fraud at Veriff, where he drives the expansion of the identity and fraud detection capabilities. His current focus includes leveraging AI to enhance identity verification, tackling impersonation fraud such as deep fakes, and developing identity and fraud strategies for enterprise customers. With a forward-thinking approach to combating fraud in the AI era, Rishi brings years of expertise gained from various roles at prominent organizations such as Reach plc, Open Banking, Visa, eBay, and Mastercard. His insights into fraud challenges and innovative solutions position him as a thought leader in the industry.

Meera is a User Experience Lead at CACI. She has extensive experience in leading the user-centred research and experience strategy with a number of clients in the private and public sector, including European Central Bank, College of Policing, Arts Council England and Handelsbanken.

Ed is a Data Strategy expert who has significant experience of designing and leading enterprise change programmes that deliver optimised customer experience. He has an in-depth understanding of data strategy, technology, data science, proposition development and governance . He has a proven track record of developing, implementing and running programmes within leading Financial Services organisations.

Yaprak de Beaufort is an experienced leader in the financial services industry, with a focus on innovation and technology. She leads Value Added Services for Visa in UK and Ireland, with the objective of improving user experience and delivering value to clients through services that extend beyond basic payment processing. Previously, she served as Head of Strategy and Commercial Operations, where she shaped strategic direction and drove business growth and operational excellence. Before joining Visa in 2019, Yaprak held senior roles in investment banking at Lehman Brothers and Nomura; and in Fintechs such as Third Bridge and Credit Benchmark. She holds an MBA from INSEAD and has been trained as a management consultant.

Vishal Dalal is the CEO of Pismo, a next-generation banking platform provider acquired by Visa in 2024. Significantly, this role also includes the global go-to-market and product strategy for Visa’s Foundation Solutions. Before joining Pismo, he was a leader of McKinsey’s technology strategy service line for banking and financial services in Singapore, New York, and Sydney. His wealth of experience also includes heading large-scale core banking implementation projects while working at leading financial institutions, including Citigroup and Barclays. Vishal has 25+ years of experience in banking, including over a decade of advising clients on all aspects of core banking systems. He holds an MBA from India’s Indian Institute of Management.

Julien Defosse is a Worldwide Banking Specialist at Amazon Web Services (AWS). He supports banks to transform delivery of banking services with a strong focus on customer experience, operational optimization, and innovation, by leveraging AWS services and partner ecosystem. Julien has over 15years of experience leading product and digital teams, and P&L in banking across multiple lines of business. Prior to AWS, Julien worked at BNP Paribas in North America and EMEA, in positions including leading global strategy, digital transformation (chief digital officer) and ESG focused banking. With his experience across the bank’s operations, credit risk, sales, and specialized product such as FX/commodities, Julien brings an end-to-end view of business transformation and deep expertise in agile target operating model. Prior to BNP Paribas, he worked at a number European banks (ABN AMRO, Fortis Group) & For Bain & Company

Richard Caven is a Worldwide Banking Specialist at AWS. He is responsible for the development and execution of strategic initiatives to help customers migrate to the cloud and drive their digital transformation journey. Richard joined AWS in 2018 from Barclays where he was a Managing Director and COO for the Global Treasury function.

Francois is responsible for the EMEA technical go-to-market for Salesforce Data Cloud – our hyper-scale platform for activating data across the Customer 360 and delivering grounded AI experiences. He works with key customer and partner stakeholders across the region to define our joint Data and AI strategy and align on product roadmap and strategic directions. He has previously held CTO positions at Tableau and Hitachi and has a background in Analytics, Cloud Services, Data Integration and IoT as well as vertical solutions for Financial Services, Manufacturing, and Health & Life Sciences.

André is a Crossjoin executive leading the architecture and development practice and responsible for developing business in the North America region. André has more than 16 years of experience in the IT area with a broad experience in delivering highly complex projects, both on-prem and cloud. In the last years André has been very focused on helping companies build highly Dependable Systems which they can rely on, while keeping their costs down.

With nearly two decades of experience in transforming customer connections at one of the worlds largest financial institutions, Andrew has a proven track record in delivering meaningful change. In his current role as a Customer Experience Principal at Quadient he has been constantly in demand, sharing this knowledge and opinions at events ranging from Helsinki to Sydney, and from San Francisco to Tokyo and countless locations in between.

Adam Preis is a seasoned Director of Product and Solution Marketing at Ping Identity, based out of the U.K. He leads go-to-market strategies in the financial services industry globally. With extensive experience in the B2B/B2B2C space, Adam’s mission revolves around unleashing the transformative potential of technology while driving user adoption at scale. As a keynote speaker, he has spoken at events such as Gartner, Identiverse, KuppingerCole European Identity Conference, and MoneyLive, among others.

After completing a degree in Cognitive Science at the University of Exeter, Jeremy embarked on a career in IT consulting that has kept him busy for the last 25 years.,  During that time he has run projects to consolidate and optimise data centre infrastructure, build and deploy transformative applications, and more recently has helped clients to migrate at scale to public cloud.

Since 2020 Jeremy has been a Managing Director at Refractis, a boutique consultancy specialising in IT Transformation.

Gabriela is Vice President of EMEA at Veritran, a global tech company devoted to simplifying banking experiences and driving digital transformation into the financial industry trough innovation.

She leads the expansion of the company in the region and is also member of the Learning Innovation Unit at IESE Business School, where she collaborates in Executive Programs, mostly focused on digital transformation and the financial industry.

Gabriela is a former banker, professor, researcher, and mentor, having contributed to several studies, publications and consultancy projects in Latam and in Europe.

She also served the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Argentina as economic attachée by overseeing the promotion of international trade and investment between the country and Spain and supporting numerous tech companies to establish in the EU.

Gabriela holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Economics and a Master’s degree in Finance from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, as well as a Master’s degree in Financial Markets from Universidad de Barcelona.

Udi Ziv is a seasoned CEO with a proven track record of leading companies to scale. His 30 years of leadership span both entrepreneurial ventures and overseeing large-scale operations as a senior executive at some of the largest global enterprise software companies. Before joining Personetics, Ziv served as CEO of Earnix, guiding the company through a landmark period of expansion. Prior to Earnix, he led Pontis to a successful acquisition by Amdocs, was President at NICE Systems, Managing Director at SAP, and the co-founder of TopTier which was later acquired by SAP.

Laurie has spent over 20 years in the commercial application of consumer and behavioural data, using insights to help brands drive revenue. Laurie is currently Director of Market Insights at Similarweb, deepening customer engagement with Similarweb data through the creation of inspiring and actionable insights-led narratives. Laurie has held leadership roles within the media, adtech and market research sectors, including at Spotify, LinkedIn, Quantcast and Forrester Research. She is a regular speaker at industry events and conferences.

Russ is SVP of Go-To-Market for IDVerse, which provides online identity verifi cation technology for businesses of all sizes in the digital economy. Russ has spent more than 25 years building teams and delivering successful enterprise growth strategies across the UK, EMEA & US markets within fast-paced and high growth identity, online media, SaaS and data-driven technology solutions. His strong tech knowledge is coupled with deep experience building teams within advertising and marketing technology-driven revenue models. Russ was previously a key early member of the Google UK leadership team who grew the team from 25 to 3,000 people and the revenue from £10m to £1billion during his tenure. As SVP GTM he brings deep experience to the Product and Marketing teams to support international growth and product adoption. He has a passion for new market development, startup growth and cutting edge technology.

Spreading the word about products I’m passionate about and working for companies that value their people and growth.

Ludwig Mallia is a Fintech Expert and Digital Strategist with over 15 years of experience in IT leadership, focusing on the banking and finance sector. He has a comprehensive understanding of the industry’s nuances and has successfully implemented various digital projects. Ludwig has led the implementation of a Direct Digital Bank and a Corporate Challenger Bank. Ludwig has held senior managerial roles at two systematically important banks in Malta. He holds an MSc in Banking Practice and Leadership from The London Institute Banking & Finance , a BCom (Hons.) in Management, and a BSc in Business and Computing from the University of Malta. Ludwig is a Certified SAFe® 6 Agilist and Certified SCRUM Product Owner. He has been a featured speaker at several digital transformation conferences in Malta, London and Berlin. Ludwig is currently heading the Agile and Value Streams Delivery at Bank of Valletta with the responsibility of leading the enterprise-wide transformation within the bank by fostering Agile practices to maximises value delivery.

Mike Coley is a strategic commercial leader with over 15 years’ experience driving growth in financial services, specialising in lending and finance solutions for small businesses. As Product Director at Equifax, Mike leads the Commercial, Open Banking, and Debt Services product teams. He has a proven track record of building successful products and teams, demonstrated by his leadership at several fintechs, where he designed and built commercial financing products, helping SMEs to access finance to run and grow their businesses. Prior to that, Mike also spent time at Barclays and Citi, working in their Consumer Cards divisions. Mike is passionate about delivering innovative financial products and driving impactful results.

Andrea Cox is an industry expert specialising in affordability and financial vulnerability, with over 20 years of experience crafting data-driven solutions across diverse sectors. Her expertise includes conducting detailed income and expenditure assessments and identifying financial vulnerabilities early on. Throughout her career, Andrea has made a significant impact in various industries including banking, finance, retail, telecom, utilities and debt management. Her comprehensive understanding of the affordability challenges in these sectors allows her to develop tailored strategies that effectively address financial distress. As a thought leader, Andrea frequently shares her insights on affordability at industry conferences and workshops, where she is known for her forward-thinking approach and practical solutions. Her dedication to addressing financial vulnerability has not only influenced policy and practice but also helped countless organisations navigate their affordability challenges successfully.

Kamini is an experienced Analytics leader with 20+ years in the credit industry, with a significant wealth of experience in developing predictive models, credit and affordability strategy development and optimisation across the credit lifecycle; spanning across credit products including unsecured lending, mortgages, retail, auto, short term lending and telecommunications. Kam leads multi-disciplinary teams to deliver industry intelligence, analytics and consultancy to solve a broad range of business problems through the optimal application of data and analytics. Before joining Equifax 17 years ago, Kam worked in analytics roles with both Santander and HMRC.

Matthew is a published thought leader featured in podcasts and publications including Forbes, American Banker and The Sunday Times. Sharing his insights on the future of banking, payments, and financial institutions. A FinTech Judge and regular speaker at leading industry events including MEBIS, Self-Service Banking Europe and Women in Finance London. Holding senior leadership positions in Technology and Product across the Banking, Payments and FinTech ecosystem for the past 20 years, always with a passionate focus on innovation and digitisation, to constantly improve the consumer experience. He has launched multiple award-winning products and services including real-time settlement for HRMC Tax liabilities, Digitisation of DWP’s benefit payments, the GEO Payments network and more.

Kurt leads the delivery of consulting engagements for the Channels practice. He has supported some of the largest banks, fintechs and insurance companies across the U.S. and Canada in a wide range of strategic projects. Kurt specializes in partnering with financial institutions to leverage consumer insights that inform effective growth strategies.

Ala Presenti is the Co-Founder and CFO of Moniflo, where she has been instrumental in shaping the company’s financial strategy, fundraising efforts, and ESG vision since 2020. As a key architect of Moniflo’s growth, she has led capital-raising initiatives, built a high-performing team, and navigated the complexities of launching and scaling a fintech investment platform.

With over 12 years of experience in finance and accounting, Ala brings deep expertise in financial management, investment operations, and regulatory compliance.

Her expertise spans strategic financial planning, capital raising, fintech innovation, sustainable investments, and compliance. Passionate about building companies that drive impact, Ala continues to shape Moniflo’s evolution as a leader in the future of finance.

Ilya Brovin joined Sumsub in 2021 and was appointed as Chief Growth Officer in 2023. Ilya has over 20 years of experience in finance and private equity, having previously worked at such firms as Hellman & Friedman, Eton Park and Morgan Stanley. He has vast experience working with tech and financial services companies as an investor and board member/ observer.

At Sumsub, Ilya is responsible for growth and strategy, including key sales, strategic partnerships, fundraising, investor relations and M&A.

Ilya holds a degree in Economics & Finance and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He currently lives in London, UK, where one of Sumsub’s international offices is located.

Ilya has particular passion for Crypto and Web 3.0 topics and he is a seasoned expert in crypto operations and regulations worldwide.

Ilya has been featured on NBC Chicago TV Channel, in BBC Sounds and PayPod podcast, as well as quoted and interviewed by industry-leading media outlets such as CoinDesk, FinTech Magazine, FinanceFeeds among others.

Simon Murray is the Practice Director for Regulated Industries within Adobe’s Digital Strategy Group, partnering with senior marketing, digital and technology leaders to develop strategies for customer-experience transformation, digital innovation and business growth. Simon joined Adobe in 2019 having previously spent 20 years in Financial Services, the majority of which was spent at Morgan Stanley, and then more recently at Alliance Bernstein. During this time he built and led global teams focussed on leveraging digital channels and analytical insight across Investment Banking, Wealth Management and Asset Management. As a former practitioner, he has extensive experience of delivering customer-centric digital experiences in order to deepen customer relationships and drive new business opportunities.