SPEAKER PROFILES
Robert Courtneidge
Industry Expert
Robert was appointed CEO of international payments business Moorwand Limited following a distinguished career in the card and payments industry. For the past six years, he has been named in the Payments Power 10 (including being ranked #1 in 2015), a highly competitive ranking of the most influential contributors in payments. Robert has deep expertise in e-money, and is highly skilled in all aspects of consumer finance issues, including consumer protection, banking regulation and compliance and anti-money laundering.
In the UK, he works closely with The Payments Services Regulator, HM Treasury and Financial Conduct Association, and other compliance and industry bodies globally. He is also currently Non Executive Board Director/Strategic Advisor to over 15 diverse payment and payment related companies. Previously, Robert achieved success as a senior legal professional specialising in matters relating to cards and payments. He regularly speaks on issues facing the European Payments' Industry including laws relating to Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).
Nick Kerigan
Future Payments Expert and Innovation Leader, ex. Managing Director, Future Payments at Barclays
In this role, he is responsible for driving innovation globally across the Cards and Payments businesses, creating customer and commercial opportunities from the rapid changes in payments. His team is responsible for designing and developing exciting new innovations such as the award winning grab+go and dine and dash.
https://www.home.barclaycard/about-us/innovations/lab.html
Nick is a seasoned conference speaker at industry events: select engagements include keynote at The Fintech World Forum, The Cards and Payments Summit, Lafferty International Cards and Payments Conference and the Future of Payments Conference. Nick has an established presence as a thought leader in payments as the author of many articles and active on social media.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-kerigan
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Nick_kerigan
Nick has been with Barclaycard since 2011 and with Barclays since 2006, in various digital, market intelligence and strategy roles including Head of Strategy for Retail and Business Banking. Prior to that, Nick was Principal Banker in private equity at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), where his role included restructuring financial institutions in Central and Eastern Europe. Earlier in his career, Nick worked for the Financial Services Authority supervising banks. Nick has a First Class Honours Degree in Philosophy, Politics, Economics from Magdalen College, Oxford University.
Pedro Pinto Coelho
CEO & Chairman at Banco BNI Europa
“Innovative, agile and multi-award winning banking leader with over 25 years' international financial services experience with leading blue-chip institutions across three continents in progressive leadership roles, both executive and NED, in Investment Banking, Wealth Management, general management, business development, strategy and latterly in FinTech.
His value proposition is centered around enabling challenger banks to establish strategic partnerships with FinTechs to create profitable financial products using an 'open architecture model.' Expert in driving digital banking transformations both in terms of creating 'best in class' digital customer experiences, and transforming key internal support functions to fully align with the overall digital transformation programs of financial institutions.”
Aleksi Grym
Head of Digitalisation at Bank of Finland
Mr. Grym is Head of Digitalisation at the Bank of Finland. He manages the digital programme of the bank and projects related to the digital transformation of the financial industry, covering topics such as fintech, distributed ledger technologies, digital currencies, payment technologies, cyber security, and data analytics.
Before joining the bank he worked in the consulting and technology investment industry for 15 years. Mr. Grym holds a double Master’s degree in economics and international business.
Kevin Mountford
CEO & Co-Founder at Raisin
Over the last 20 years Kevin has operated in a range of Snr Management & Exec roles and he has been employed by a number of large UK brands including Bank of Scotland, Halifax and Birmingham Midshires, where he was Head of Sales and Marketing for their Savings business.
In 2001 he was appointed as ‘Head of Partnerships’ for HBOS, responsible for a portfolio of c70 brands and held Directorships in a couple of JV’s and was responsible for a multi-million pound P&L. Thereafter he went on to join moneysupermarket.com as channel ‘Head of Money’ areas incl Cards, Mortgages and Savings. During his time with ms.com, Kevin has established himself as a recognised and respected industry spokesperson, working across press, radio and TV.
In Jan 2011 Kevin founded a start-up consultancy & marketing business; Plan B Funding specialised in assisting banks to raise retail deposits in the UK and wider Euro market. Kevin since led negotiations with Raisin GmbH and a deal to acquire Plan B was announced Sept 2017 where he co-founded the Raisin UK business which is now part of one of Europe's leading Fintech businesses.
Marius Nedelcu
Director of Brand Marketing & Market Expansion at TransferGo
Marius has had an unconventional journey to becoming a 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 director of brand marketing and market expansion for 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 direct marketing campaigns to drive brand awareness amongst a dispersed customer base and against the backdrop of rising anti-migration sentiment.
Massimo Buonomo
Global Expert in Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, FinTech and RegTech at United Nations
Massimo is a highly regarded professional in the blockchain field. Massimo solves business problems using a lateral thinking approach. Massimo promotes simple decisions which help customers solve problems from different angles,i.e. personal, financial, environmental sides.
After working in international financial markets for 20 years as Senior equity banking analyst, Massimo has worked also as a university professor of fintech and international finance in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, Turin Italy and Wuhan China.
Anna Maj
FinTech Leader, Co-Author The PAYTECH Book at PwC
Anna has been involved in the financial and payments services sector since 2000. She acquired experience in the banking and telecommunications while working in Polish and foreign corporations (Citigroup, T-Mobile) as well as a consultant and advisor. She was a CEO of one of the leading Polish payment institution and acquirer – PayTel SA. She is involved in fintech and startup advisory projects (PwC Startup Collider, Ashoka). Featured in the TOP 20 Women in FinTech Report (IIG, March 2017).
Anna graduated of Interdepartmental Individual Studies in Humanities at the University of Warsaw and International MBA program at the Warsaw University of Technology accredited by the London Business School.
Christian Luckow
Chief Customer Solution Owner at Danske Bank
With the future of payments in the Nordic moving towards open-access and common infrastructure, the question becomes - how will financial institutions differentiate themselves in a harmonised market? In 2019 Christian returned to Denmark after 15 years overseas, to help Danske Bank answer this exact question. Combining strong business acumen with deep technical understanding, he has been the driving force behind a number of digital financial platforms and deep integration of financial services within 3rd party platforms.
Prior to joining Danske Bank, Christian headed up the expansion of a Nordic finance company into the Australian market where he successfully developed financial solutions for verticals that were under-serviced due to legislative, operational or legacy complications.
Diederik Bruggink
Head of Innovation and Payments at European Savings and Retail Banking Group (ESBG); Chair of the Cash Efficiency Working Group at European Payments Council (EPC)
Diederik Bruggink holds responsibility at the two savings and retail banking associations for all payments topics from a worldwide perspective. In that role, he analyses the multiple dimensions of the payments market, proposing and assisting in agreeing member positions with respect to their payments’ and related businesses. He is also advocates the associations’ positions on payments with policymakers, regulators, standardisation bodies, industry associations, and enabling a constant member dialogue on developments, with a particular focus on innovation.
Prior to joining WSBI-ESBG in 2017, he managed since 2012 his own consultancy practice that provided international expertise in cards, payments and market infrastructures. Before then, he was since 2009 the Vice President of card schemes at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Prior to that, he was appointed in 2005 within ABN AMRO’s market infrastructures department as Vice President of payments and cards. He also worked previously with Mastercard where he was a senior business leader in the global debit team. He started his career with Capgemini Global Financial Services in 1996.
He is one of the key authors of the first three editions of the World Payments Report, makes regular appearances at industry conferences and serves as a member of the editorial board of, and regulator contributor to, the Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems. He is also a Board Member of the European Payments Council (EPC) and within the EPC he is also the Chair of the Cash Efficiency Working Group.
Kristin Riise
Head of Innovation at DNB
Kristin is the Head of Innovation in DNB. She leads the division Innovation Management & Practice and is responsible for DNB’s innovation strategy and plan. Kristin har extensive experience working in the finance industry in Sydney, London, New York and Oslo. Kristin has broad knowledge from several areas within banking, having held many roles in DNB since her start in 2002. Starting as key account manager for large international corporates, she has primarily worked with strategy spanning areas from healthcare to Trade Finance. She was head of strategy in DNB’s Corporate Banking area when DNB started focusing on start-ups and the fintech community.
Amit Varma
Executive Director, Country Technology Head at DBS Bank
Senior Executive & visionary technology leader with a strong track-record of strategy creation & execution, technology innovation, product/ solution engineering, talent growth/empowerment, digital/ IT transformation and delivery excellence. Through thought leadership, IT strategy formulation, product roadmap development, technology innovation, planning and flawless execution, Amit has delivered award-winning software products, solutions & services, thereby leading to significant new business revenue & efficiency gains.
Over 22+ years, Amit has pioneered technology innovation & product development based on Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Cloud, Big Data, Machine Learning, Cryptocurrency, Microservices, Biometric Digital Security, Web & e-Commerce technology. Amit is an excellent organisation-builder and team-nurturer, who thrives at the opportunity to build & grow organisations/teams and to mentor, guide the talent and goals’ fulfilment of his team-members.
With a passion for IT transformation/ continuous improvement & strong expertise in Agile, DevOps, Design Thinking, CMMI & ISO practices, Amit has established greenfield sites and reinvented brownfield IT ecosystems for large-scale/ start-up Financial Services, Banking and Telecom firms.
René Plank
Deputy Head of Unit, DG Competition, Antitrust Payment System at European Commission
René Plank is Deputy Head of Unit in the European Commission, DG Competition, Antitrust Payment Systems. He previously worked in Antitrust Financial Services, State Aid Policy and competition law private practice.
Pedro de Sousa Avelino
Chief Information Officer at NN Insurance
Pedro is the Chief Information Officer of NN Hungary and acting as a thoughtful leader in the Central European markets, he constantly challenges the status quo of the Financial Services and Insurance industries, reshaping outdated operating models so that companies can fully realize a digital-first delivery mindset and disrupt their markets by bringing their customers and their employees at the center.
Before joining NN (Nationale-Nederlanden) Insurance International, Pedro worked for more than 10 years in the Telecommunications industry in several roles providing state of the art services for the top Mobile Network Operators throughout the world and this experience in an industry that has an unparallel pace such as Telecom, allows him to enable Banks and Insurers with ideas, and execution strategies, that pave their way through their digital transformation journeys while being successful at it.
Maria Archontoulis
Senior Strategic Partnership Manager at DNB
Maria is a senior strategic partnership manager in DNB. The strategic partnership team is an important building block in succeeding with innovation, through 3rd party collaborations. In the team, Maria is responsible for partnerships with startup´s and leading the corporate accelerator program, DNB NXT. The program enables the bank to work with the most promising tech startup´s in Norway and explore commercial win-win opportunities.
She has a background in the Telecom industry where she has operational and strategic experience in both core and disruptive business areas such as eHealth, IoT and Smart Cities. Maria is an intrapreneur at heart and most of her previous work has been developing new digital products and concepts.
Harry Xenophontos
Head of Acquiring & Digital Payment Services
at RCB BANK LTD
A business professional with over 15 years of professional experience in Management Consulting, IT and Risk related services; including pragmatic senior management experience within the Banking and Card Services corporate environments.
A “Big 4” background that drives professional attitude and quality driven results. A leader with excellent people skills and very well known in the consulting environment and payments industry locally.
Passionate of the emerging innovation and transformation of the financial services industry, looking to empower the consumer payment experience and services, towards a better digital economy.
Paul Marcantonio
Executive Director of UK & Western Europe at ECOMMPAY
Paul Marcantonio is Executive Director of UK & Western Europe at ECOMMPAY, establishing the payment service provider as a trusted partner to e-Commerce merchants throughout the region.
He has 20 years of experience working for representatives of the payments industry, including popular e-Wallets, and tier 1 interactive gaming brands, such as Ubisoft and THQ. Paul is committed to driving success across the diverse landscape of digital payments, facilitating a frictionless user experience for merchants and their customers.