Ready to hear from inspirational leaders who have successfully navigated process, product and institutional innovation?
#financialinnovation
2nd Annual
Financial Innovation Forum
12 OCTOBER 2023
Renaissance Hotel St Pancras - London, United Kingdom
OUR SPEAKERS
Chris Crespo
Founding Partner at Nordic Fintech Magazine
Chris is a Founding Partner at Nordic Fintech Magazine a media company covering the fintech space across the Nordics and Baltics . He uncomplicates finance through jargon-free financial media in plain and simple language. Chris is also a guest lecturer at Stanford University and Singularity University where he speaks regularly on the Future of Financial Services, the Future of Money Disruption and Entrepreneurship.
Marius Nedelcu
CMO at TransferGo
Marius has had an unconventional journey to becoming a senior marketing and brand strategist. After a successful music career in his native Romania, Marius spent 15 years in the health and fitness industry, managing country-wide marketing operations and brand development.
Now, as the Chief Marketing Officer at TransferGo, an international money transfer service that specialises in migrant remittances, Marius relies on his diverse marketing experience to guide the organisation’s sales and marketing efforts across complex international markets.
As a migrant himself, Marius is passionate about developing creative PR, social, out of home advertising and data-driven marketing campaigns to drive brand awareness amongst a dispersed customer base and against the backdrop of rising anti-migration sentiment.
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Matthew Bullivant
Director, ESG Strategy at OakNorth
Matt Bullivant is Director of ESG Strategy at OakNorth, having joined in December 2021. Previously at Close Brothers where he spent c.seven years in various roles across Finance, Investor Relations, and more recently as the group’s Head of Sustainability, Matt has a wealth of experience working within the ESG sector and will play a key role in OakNorth achieving its sustainability goals, as well as ensuring it continues to invest in good causes and make a positive societal impact.
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Matthew Osborne
Payments Policy Lead at Bank of England
Matthew works leads the payments policy team at the Bank of England. The team is adapting the Bank’s payments regulatory framework to reflect innovation, including the emergence of stablecoins as a means of payment. Matthew is a specialist in capital and liquidity management for financial institutions, and recently spent two years on secondment in NatWest Group’s treasury department. He also mentors with the Social Mobility Foundation. Matthew studied at Oxford University and London School of Economics and has a PhD from Bayes Business School.
Luis Parra
Director at ComplyPortal
Luis leads Complyportal’s RegTech solution as Director of ComplyPortal, simplifying their clients’ ability to meet their regulatory obligations. He is responsible for the day-to-day management of ComplyPortal and oversees the delivery of ComplyPortal’s compliance management software solutions to clients, ensuring their compliance processes and frameworks are streamlined, easy to manage and secure.
Luis has previously worked for a Fortune Global 500 company delivering document management solutions for legal and compliance needs. His work focused on creating efficiency and increased insight to information locked in unstructured data sources such as contracts and other records.
His experience with change management has helped him lead efforts to establish and implement best practices within legal and compliance service areas, enabling clients to adopt technology into their current processes.
He attended Loyola Marymount University and holds a B.A. in Business Administration and attended the MBA program at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School in Los Angeles.
Simon Separghan
Former Managing Director, Customer Experience & Contact at NatWest Group
Simon Separghan is one of the leading practitioners on innovation culture through purpose, customer experience, digital and technology transformation.
Having served as Managing Director, Customer Experience & Contact at NatWest Group, leading the strategy, execution and delivery of Customer and Colleague experience across a multi brand portfolio globally; Simon helps organisations make a difference by building emotional engagement in a digitally savvy world.
Prior to this Simon was at Barclays as MD, Global Contact and Digital Channels and Transformation Director where he transformed end to end operating models, processes and technologies to create a competitive advantage; developing AI, Biometrics and launching Europe’s first On-Demand Integrated Video Banking capability.
Having worked with some of the worlds most recognised brands, Simon has been relentless around creating a culture of care and ownership in organisations globally; recognising that in the moment, empathy, knowledge and disruptive technology is key to driving the best customer experience.
This culture has unleashed an unparalleled impact, turning mediocre NPS outcomes into best-in-class excellence and igniting colleague engagement to soar among the top 3% globally.
He cultivates innovation by showing leaders, teams and stakeholders how to approach, tackle and solve their business challenges. Applying the knowledge he has accrued across sectors, Simon has successfully unlocked an alchemy of opportunities to improve experience outcomes and crucially, the cultures that support them.
Passionate, refreshing and not afraid to confront past challenges, his high-energy approach to transforming experiences gets audiences into new ways of thinking about their business challenges.
Simon Separghan is based in the UK and loves travelling, learning about differing cultures and is also a haphazard co-parent of an adventurous Australian Goldendoodle called Skye.
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Fabian Meyer
Managing Partner at CORE SE
Fabian Meyer is Managing Director in Switzerland and a member of the board of CORE SE - a European technology think tank based in Berlin. As an expert in payment services and FinTechs, he is responsible for large projects with renowned clients in the financial sector in the DACH region and the United Arab Emirates. He has several years of consulting experience in the banking sector and in transformation engineering.
Maria Costa
Head of Sustainability - Wealth Management and Insurance at Santander UK
Maria Costa is an accomplished professional with a passion for driving sustainability and innovation within organisations. As an enabler who excels in building relationships and connecting people, she is dedicated to delivering value for individuals and businesses alike.
Currently serving as the Head of Sustainability for the Wealth Management and Insurance (WM&I) division at Santander UK, she plays a pivotal role in developing its Sustainability Strategy. Her accomplishments include spearheading ESG training for approximately 500 colleagues and launching sustainable investment products and services. She is recognized for her proactive engagement as a spokesperson on Sustainable Investing, both internally and externally, and for her ability to drive Sustainability innovation through market research, competitor analysis, consumer insights, and identification of potential partnering opportunities.
With a diverse background, she has held positions as Innovation Partner, where she successfully delivered a Carbon Footprint Tracker pilot in collaboration with Fintech Cogo, Change Consultant and Business Consultant within the bank. She holds an MBA from the University of Edinburgh Business School, where she specialised in Strategy.
Maria has demonstrated her commitment to continuous learning and professional development through certifications in Sustainable Finance and Investment, from Yale University, Business Sustainability Management from The Institute for Sustainability Leadership at Cambridge University and Disruptive Strategy at Harvard University. She is a versatile and reliable professional, always seeking collaboration and knowledge-sharing opportunities to promote a culture of growth and change.
Borja Garcia Fernandez
Head of Structuring and LATAM, Social Finance at Citi
Borja is Head of Structuring and Latin America & Caribbean (LATAM) at Citi Social Finance. In this role, he leads the team efforts across 19 countries in LATAM and lead globally the mobilization of resources with Development Finance Institutions and impact investors through innovative financial structures. He joined Citi from British International Investment -BII- (former CDC Group), the UK Development Finance Institution, where he spent some years structuring impactful transactions across the financial services sector in Africa and South Asia. He helped BII to set up the Financial Institutions debt business and on the last years of his time in BII he was leading their Risk Sharing/Guarantee business and working on Structured Credit transactions, working with financial institutions, special purpose vehicles and private credit and equity funds. He has extensive experience in development finance having worked with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), based in London, and the IDB Invest (Inter-American Development Bank private sector), based in Washington DC, where he structured debt and capital markets transactions across LATAM. He also worked for Deutsche Bank, also based in London. Borja was the 2X Gender Financial Services Lead for BII and co-led the 2X Investment Officers working group since inception in 2018. Borja sits on the Board of Directors of the 2X Global representing the private sector.
Michelle Auger
Former Sustainability Strategy Director at Wells Fargo
Michelle Auger advises on sustainability strategy for the Wells Fargo International entities with a focus on regulatory and policy matters. She has deep expertise in strategy and implementation planning to scale up sustainable investment activities on a cross-functional basis. Over the course of her career, she has advised investment teams on ESG and sustainable investing practices across diverse asset classes and strategies including equities, fixed income, hedge funds, supply chain finance, commercial real estate and infrastructure. Michelle Auger earned an LL.B. in Law from the University of Leicester and is a CFA charterholder. She has also completed the Postgraduate Certificate in Sustainable Business at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
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Oliver Smith
Managing Editor and Head of Content at AltFi
Oliver Smith is Managing Editor and Head of Content at AltFi. As well as covering the fintech sector, he is responsible for crafting the content of AltFi’s biggest events, including the Festival Of Finance, AltFi Lending Summit, plus AltFi’s Awards, Research reports and Money Talks webinars. He was previously a Senior Reporter at Forbes, The Memo and Technology Reporter at City AM, and is a Winner of the Gold Award at MHP’s 30 To Watch.
Rich Wagner
CEO at Cashplus Bank
Rich Wagner is CEO and founder of Cashplus Bank, a leading UK fintech challenger, and has over 30 years of experience in payments and banking, including executive roles at Visa, Barclaycard and Providian.
Cashplus was authorised as a UK bank in February 2021 building on its history of fintech and lending innovation and was awarded a BCR Capability and Innovation Fund grant in September 2021 in order to build out its range of smart, simple SME banking and lending products.
Outside of his work at Cashplus, Rich has been an active and vocal industry advocate, is currently a member of the UK Finance Payments Board and earlier played a key role in gaining fair access to UK payments systems for non-banks.
Marcello Calabrò
Group Chief Marketing Officer at UniCredit
Marcello has 25 years of experience working in the field of finance and financial institutions. He started his career at Unilever as Corporate Auditor and then moved to financial communication as Senior Consultant at Barabino & Partners.
Before joining UniCredit, he worked about 15 years in the asset management business, first for San Paolo IMI Asset Management SGR, where he set up the Marketing and Communication function.
In 2002, he joined Pioneer Investments as Head of Marketing and Investment Communications in Italy and further developed his career within the company. After holding the position as Head of International Marketing, he was appointed Global Head of Marketing, Identity & Communication in 2009.
From 2014 to 2022 he was Global Head of CIB Marketing at UniCredit. Marcello holds a degree in Business Administration from Bocconi University in Milan.
Kamilė Mazrimė
Head of Communication & Partnerships at ROCKIT Vilnius
As a Communication, PR, and branding specialist with a background in journalism and European politics, I'm truly excited about fostering connections and empowering individuals. My passion lies in raising awareness of impactful and positive initiatives, all while building strong networks that bridge organisations and professionals.
Currently, I'm thriving in the Fintech field as the Head of Communication and Partnerships. My role involves orchestrating groundbreaking projects, spearheading comprehensive programs, and devising strategic communication initiatives. I'm also enthusiastic about the dynamic world of conferences, where I can facilitate meaningful interactions and drive the conversation forward.
In addition to my professional pursuits, I'm keen on the realms of media and marketing. This passion fuels my dedication to financial technologies and the profound impact they bring to the table. My goal is to contribute to the industry's growth and innovation, aligning my skills with the ever-evolving landscape of the Fintech world.
Roberto Napolitano
Director of Marketing and Communications at Innovate Finance
Roberto Napolitano is the Director of Marketing and Communications at Innovate Finance, the independent industry body that represents and advances the global FinTech community in the UK.
He has 18 years of experience and passion for marketing and corporate communications in finance, technology and professional services, having worked for scaleups and large enterprises.
He is also the Founder of Intelligo Consulting, a marketing consultancy.
Roberto holds an MBA from Manchester Business School, an MSc from the London School of Economics, an MA from the University of Bologna and an LLB from the University of London.
He is a trained classical pianist and speaks Italian, English and French.
David McLaren
SaaS Commercial Director at Temenos
With responsibility for driving growth for Temenos SaaS across Europe, David has a passion for using innovation to help financial institutions deliver on business objectives.
Having spent over 20 years in Financial Services, in large Fintech's like Fiserv to start-up and scale-up businesses, David has experienced how leveraging technology can drive customer-focused innovation.
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Nick Kerigan
Managing Director, Head of Innovation at SWIFT
Nick is Managing Director, Head of Innovation at SWIFT. In that role, he is responsible for stewarding the innovation strategy, executing on the portfolio of innovation sprints and leading the response to disruptive 'new frontier' trends such as digital currencies and tokenised assets.
Nick has a wealth of experience from over 20 years working in payments and banking across developed and emerging markets.
Prior to joining SWIFT in July 2020, he was Managing Director for Future Payments at Barclays, creating next-gen customer experiences and partnering with FinTechs.
His expertise is in digital payments, growth strategies and product development, grounded in behavioural trends. Nick is a thought leader and top-100 financial sector influencer.
Sadaf Zahid
Head of Product - ML Labs at Tide
Currently the Head of Product at Tide and working on AI products and experiences driving customer engagement. Sadaf brings a unique perspective to product development having worked in companies at various stages of growth such as Amazon, scale-ups such as Tide and Typeform and early stage start-ups.
She worked on driving product growth, customer engagement, and loyalty in businesses growing at double digits in mature businesses and launching 0-1 products. She has led teams and built frameworks focusing on balancing short and long-term business needs through experimentation
She brings 13 years of experience in product development, venture capital investing and has an MBA from London Business School.
Shelly Tadjer
Head of Strategy and Go-to-Market at Visa Consulting & Analytics
Shelly Tadjer is Head of Strategy and Go-to-Market for Visa Consulting & Analytics in Europe. She is an expert in Digital transformation, operating model design, and Digital strategy for Banking and financial services institutions. As part of her remit, Shelly specifically looks after incubating emerging practices such as Sustainability Advisory and Product Experience & Design. She currently focuses on helping clients capture business opportunities in sustainability. Core to her approach is using a human-centred lens to create digital products and services, deeply rooted in customer insights. Shelly has extensive programme management and strategy consulting experience across various industries in North America and Europe and thrives in multi-cultural environments. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University in Canada and an MBA from INSEAD.
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Adam Tarpey
Head of Product at Metro Bank
Adam Tarpey is Head of Product of Consumer Finance at Metro Bank having joined after the acquisition of RateSetter in 2021. His experience at Metro Bank is focused on unsecured retail lending, secured motor finance and SME lending. Previously at RateSetter, his role encompassed the launch of new investments products and rollout regulatory changes within the peer-to-peer market.
Simone Paul Tamussin
VP of Global Product Management and Development - Payment Gateway Services at Mastercard
An Italian born in England, Simone would define himself as a Payments' geek, passionate about product management and growing product teams, he love challenges and changing the status quo. Currently leading the Global Product team for the Mastercard Gateway, previously in Bancoposta, PayPal and Banca Popolare di Milano.
Madhavan Vembakkam
VP of Technology at Bank of America
Madhavan Vembakkam is a VP of Technology at Bank of America where he works within the Enterprise Reporting function. Previously, he worked with NatWest Group, RBC, Credit Suisse, Nationwide Building Society and other global banks specializing in regulatory reporting and RegTech.
Madhavan holds a Computer Science degree and has recently pursued the Fintech Program from the University of Oxford.
Duarte Garrido
VP Growth Marketing at Volt
Duarte Garrido is the VP Growth Marketing at Real Time Payments company Volt. He was previously the Global Head of Omnichannel at Standard Chartered and has lead teams on both B2B and B2C Marketing departments at Coca-Cola, Philip Morris International, and Sky. He also sits on the Board of Advisors of Handprint, a sustainability-focused regeneration platform.
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Ziear Jacob Eagling-Rana
Global Director of Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) and the UK MLRO at Checkout.com
Ziear is the Global Director of Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) and the UK Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) for Checkout.com. Ziear has extensive experience tackling money laundering and other financial crime matters across different regulated financial sectors.
Umang Sota
Head of Product - SMB at Checkout.com
Umang is Head of Product at Checkout.com, a prominent fintech scale-up in Europe, overseeing their SMB Pillar. She is a product and global growth expert with a decade of experience in key roles at Amazon fashion, Alexa, Tata Group's cloud business, and various start-ups. In addition, Umang actively supports early-stage startups as an investor and advisor, focusing on ventures associated with Harvard Wyss Institute and Phoenix Venture Fund. Umang's expertise drives her efforts to build innovative products and support aspiring entrepreneurs. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor's degree in computer science.
Hani Hagras
Chief Science Officer and Director of the AI Business Unit at Temenos
Hani Hagras is Temenos' Chief Science Officer and Director of the AI Business Unit. He is responsible for product research, development, and management of Temenos AI suite of solutions. He is also a Professor, Head of the AI research group, and director of the Computational Intelligence Centre at the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, UK. His major research interests are in Explainable AI, Computational intelligence, and Data Science. He has published more than 500 papers in major international journals, conferences, and books and he holds 11 industrial patents in the fields of Explainable AI and Computational Intelligence. He is amongst the top 2% of the most-cited scientists in the world. His research won numerous international awards from the IEEE, and IET. He is a Fellow of IEEE, and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET (IEE). He is a principal fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (HEA) and a Fellow AAIA (Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association).
Sani Hashmi
Head of Retail Products and Customer Journeys at United Arab Bank (UAB)
Sani Hashmi is a seasoned professional with more than 18 years of rich and diverse experience in Retail Banking. Throughout his career, he has held key positions at renowned global banks, including HSBC in the UK, Standard Chartered in the UAE (United Arab Emirates), and Citi Bank in Pakistan. Sani recently embarked on a strategic career transition to the UAE, where he is now based, as he undertakes the leadership role in heading Products and Customer Journey for United Arab Bank (UAB), a UAE based bank. Prior to this, Sani held a pivotal role as the Global Head of Partnerships and Innovation for Retail Products at HSBC based in UK.
With a broad spectrum of expertise, Sani's proficiencies encompass Tech and Fintech Partnerships, Innovation, Product Development, Credit Risk Management, and Analytics. Notably, he possesses a profound passion for Embedded Finance, Payments and Loyalty Solutions. Leveraging this interest, he has been a driving force behind the successful launch of BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) and global Loyalty Programs in 4 different markets. Additionally, Sani's leadership has led to the management of 43 mobile wallets globally.
In this current role, Sani Hashmi is committed to leverage his wealth of experience and skills to identify real needs of UAE consumers and steer UAB to address them through innovative product and digital solutions.
Petru Metzger
President, Payments at Blankfactor
Petru leads Blankfactor’s Payments business globally. He has over a decade of experience in the industry - in his previous role, Petru oversaw the global payments business unit of one of the world’s largest IT services companies. His leadership guided over 13,000 people in delivering services to more than 100 payments clients in the United States and Europe. He is based in London.
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Chastity Murphy
Senior Advisor for Financial Institutions at the US Treasury Dept (Personal capacity/own views)
Chastity is a Senior Advisor for Financial Institutions, managing the cryptocurrency, digital assets, consumer protections, and financial inclusion portfolios. Chastity was previously a senior economic policy advisor for Representative Rashida Tlaib, pioneering legislation on e-cash, stablecoins and digital assets. As a policy advisor, she managed Tlaib’s Financial Services Committee and worked on anti-austerity, financial reform, racial equity, and financial inclusion policies. Chastity also worked with Representative Marcia Fudge as a legislative aide. Chastity has also been a cooperative education student and analyst at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. In 2020, Chastity was featured in the Forbes article “Women of Color Hill Staffers Talk New Economic Policy Making, Digital Cash Without Blockchain.” Chastity lives in Washington, D.C., and has a political science and economics B.A. from South Carolina State University.
Ishtiaq M AHMED
Global Innovation Lead – Embedded Finance at HSBC
Embark on an inspiring journey with Ishtiaq, a futures-thinking advocate reshaping financial services. With a keen focus on strategy, transformation, and innovation within HSBC's Wealth and Personal Banking, Ishtiaq's global insights, cultivated across three continents and 30 countries, bring a unique perspective to his narrative. Revealing a tapestry woven with culinary finesse and the genuine bonds of cherished connections, Ishtiaq's story is a testament to triumph over adversity—a living testament of resilient vision.
Veronica Maria Glab
Head of Partnerships, Investment Lead at Innovate Finance
As Head of Partnerships & Investment Lead at Innovate Finance, Veronica M Glab leads the organisation’s Capital & Investment Programme, starting with the Annual FinTech Landscape Report tracking global venture funding into the fintech sector. On the back of the report, Veronica leads events & partnerships designed to connect FinTech founders with investors and incumbent financial players.
Veronica comes from a long background in international trade, with previous roles strategising corporate partners with the UK/US Chamber of Commerce and Spanish retail brand El Corte Ingles.
Fabrizio Ballarini
Head of Organic Growth at Wise
Fabrizio leads Organic Growth at Wise, a financial company powering money for people and businesses in their increasingly global lives — to pay, to get paid, to spend, in any currency, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. Fabrizio team's mission at Wise is to acquire customers organically by building acquisition products, platforms and content that educate and solve customer problems. Everything that helps the marketing organisation being one step closer to Wise mission.
Gaurav Gaur
Head of Commercial Payment Product at RBS
As a Commcerial Banking leader, Gaurav has successfully delivered digital transformation across a breadth of Transaction Banking roles. He currently leads NatWest’s Commercial Banking payments Customer Journey teams, responsible for proposition design and product strategy across domestic and international payments.
Jeff Banks
CEO at Blue Train Marketing
Jeff Banks is the co-founder and CEO of Blue Train Marketing. Since its launch in 2014, the multi-award-winning digital agency has focused on accelerating growth for B2B and B2C clients across the financial services and payment ecosystem. From its base in London, Blue Train serves clients spanning the US, Europe and APAC.
The agency has been shortlisted for Best Marketing Partner at the British Bank Awards 2023 and has previously won Marketing Campaign of the Year and Best Professional Service Organisation Supporting Fintech at the Pay360 Awards.
Previously, Jeff was International Marketing Director for First Data (Fiserv), co-ordinating its campaign planning and execution across five international regions including 12 merger and acquisition projects globally. Jeff is on the judging panel for the PayTech Awards and his professional qualifications include Post Graduate Diploma from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), and Post Graduate Diploma in Communication Management with Merit from Kingston University.
Robert Courtneidge
Payment Industry Expert
Robert Courtneidge is valued and respected industry expert in the emerging payments industry. He is working with a number of businesses assisting them on their strategy and products using his 30+ years legal experience to give them practical and innovative solutions. He is co-author and Editor of The PAYTECH Book 2020. He was co-founder of the Prepaid International Forum and has worked with the Emerging Payments Association since it was founded.
He has been regularly featured in the prestigious Payments Power 10 (including being ranked #1 in 2015), a highly competitive ranking of the most influential contributors in payments. As a lawyer in payments he was voted in the top 10 in the world by US publication Paybefore in 2015 being the only European in the list. As a lawyer he has worked closely with The Payments Services Regulator, HM Treasury, UK Finance and Financial Conduct Association, in the UK as well as other compliance and industry bodies globally. Robert has deep expertise in electronic money and payment services and is highly skilled in all aspects of payment services including consumer protection, banking regulation and compliance, and AML/CTF. Robert is highly active on the conference front regularly chairing and moderating events as well as speaking on issues facing the European Payments’ Industry including laws relating to blockchain, digital assets and Central Bank Digital Currencies.
Darren Lewis
CSO Europe at Creatio
Over 15 years in SaaS leading sales team across EMEA & APAC in a variety of markets from data, CEM, digital marketing, Cyber Security and most recently CRM and No code. Most notably he grew the EMEA ARR at Duo Security by 15x in 4 years and led the team through the acquisition by Cisco. Darren has built and scaled BDR, SMB, MM and Enterprise sales teams aligning his teams to the different sales motions that come with each segment. His current role as CSO Europe for Creatio overseas 4 main regions in UKI, North, South and DACH / EE with responsibility for the GTM.
James A Carroll
SVP Mastercard Ventures
James Carroll joined Mastercard in 2014 and is now Senior Vice-president Mastercard Ventures. Prior to this role James was SVP of Digital Labs - a specialist advisory services business focused on Product Innovation and Digital Transformation.
James has over 30 years of working as both a start-up entrepreneur and in senior executive roles in large multinational corporations, with extensive implementation expertise across the spectrums of digital innovation, finance, technology, operations, and international marketing.
Sarah Sinclair
Co-Founder at Change-Gap Group
Sarah is a people-driven and commercially astute, trusted leader of business, technology initiatives and programmes with over 25 years of diverse FS experience spanning banking, insurance and investment management.
She is applying her technology background and ability to turnaround the impossible, closing Gaps in risk and regulatory compliance. Working with diverse clients and multi-disciplinary teams, Sarah still specialises in combining common frameworks with an ‘uncommon’ sense of know-how to help clients who face challenges in implementing risk and regulatory change.
As part of turning Change Gap’s mission into real and practical action, Sarah created the global Co-Labs initiative from scratch, gaining buy-in and support from regulators, trade associations, vendors, consultancies and academia, which is gaining fast traction in the UK as well as other jurisdictions based on partnerships created over the past 1-2years. The purpose of Co-Labs is to create an ecosystem of parties that provide and consume services and products to help bridge the gap between business and technology, focusing on FinTech, RegTech and ESG Tech. The Co-Labs ecosystem is distinct from a marketplace as it helps vendors be more interoperable and sustainable, and helps buy-side firms understand, integrate and leverage technology.
Sarah learned the art of collaboration during her many years in running and turning around large global regulatory programmes, where the gap between business and technology was only getting wider. She saw the waste of effort and money whereby firms where all creating the same programmes of work, and now vendors who are creating solutions in silos, rather than working with the business as part of a collaborative ecosystem.