Biography

Head of Innovation in ABI since May 2019. Graduated in Statistical Science and Economics, she worked for more than 15 years starting from its foundation in ABI Lab Consortium. Since 2017, project leader for the Spunta project, an initiative of implementation of DLT applied to the Interbank reconciliation process.

About the company

The Italian Banking Association - ABI - is a voluntary non-profit organization. Its purpose is to represent, defend and promote the interests of its member banks and financial intermediaries. It works, in this framework, for the development of the awareness in society and within the banking and financial system of the social and behavioral values that follow from entrepreneurial principles and from the formation of open and competitive markets.

Biography

Wouter Bossu currently serves as Senior Counsel for the Legal Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Of Belgian origin, he holds degrees in law (Leuven) and business administration (Louvain-la-Neuve). Prior to joining the Fund, he worked for the legal departments of the Belgian and the European Central Banks. He is specialized in the legal frameworks for monetary arrangements, central banking, financial markets and financial stability.

About the company

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), promotes international financial stability and monetary cooperation. It also facilitates international trade, promotes employment and sustainable economic growth, and helps to reduce global poverty. The IMF is governed by and accountable to its 190 member countries.

Biography

Serey Chea is an Assistant Governor at National Bank of Cambodia (NBC). Under her leadership, retail payment infrastructure has been modernized with the introduction of a national shared switch for cards transactions and FAST payment system, a real time fund transfer from a bank account to another bank account in Cambodia. As a chairwoman of Clearing House Operation Committee, she has been leading the Bakong Project, an initiative of the NBC in exploring and introducing a new generation of payment system using Blockchain technology.

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National Bank of Cambodia is the central bank of Cambodia.

Biography

Martin Diehl is currently head of section payment system analysis with the Deutsche Bundesbank. His analysis covers mainly financial market infrastructures, especially TARGET2. In addition, for a couple of years he has analysed developments in blockchain technology, DLT, related applications in the financial sector, and stable coins as well as digital money. He is particularly interested in efficiency and stability issues of financial transactions. He is a trained economist (Diplom-Volkswirt and M.A. econ.) and philosopher and got his PH.D. from University Gießen, Germany. He has joined Deutsche Bundesbank in 1998 starting as an economist. After five years as head of the speech writer group for the president he was seconded to the embassy in Beijing serving as a representative of Deutsche Bundesbank to China. In 2008 he joined the department for payment and settlement systems in Deutsche Bundesbank.

About the company

Deutsche Bundesbank is the central bank of Germany.

Biography

Prior to joining world-leading blockchain engineering firm ConsenSys, Charles was Head of Fintech with Hong Kong government (InvestHK).He served 450+ FinTech companies and steered the growth of the Hong Kong Fintech Week to 10,000 global attendees.Charles is also the author of the book "Block Kong, 21 brilliant Hong Kong blockchain entrepreneurs". Mr d'Haussy leads HKMA and BOT CBDC projects at ConsenSys.

About the company

ConsenSys is the leading Ethereum blockchain software company. We enable developers, enterprises to build next-generation applications, launch modern financial infrastructure. Our product suite serves millions of users, supports billions of blockchain-based queries for our clients. In 2020, ConsenSys was awarded CBDC projects with HKMA, Bank of Thailand, and Reserve Bank of Australia.

Biography

Aleksi Grym is an adviser at the Bank of Finland and former entrepreneur with two decades of experience in technology, startups and international business. At the central bank he manages a portfolio of cross-departmental projects related to the digital transformation of the financial industry, covering topics such as fintech, payment technologies and digital currencies.

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Bank of Finland is the central bank of Finland, part of the Eurosystem.

Biography

Scott Hendry was appointed Senior Director of Financial Technology for the Bank in 2016. He oversees the Bank’s efforts to monitor and research developments and implications of new technologies affecting the economy. This includes serving as the business lead on the Bank’s CBDC and blockchain research programs.

About the company

Bank of Canada is the central bank of Canada.

Biography

Head of Legal, Financial Markets, Mentor for UK FCA Digital Sandbox, R3 Ventures and Longhash. Co-chair of Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) Financial Services SIG & chair of FIA Fintech and Digital Assets Study Group.

About the company

Standard Chartered is a global financial institution operating a network of more than 1,200 branches and outlets across more than 70 countries and employs around 87,000 people.

Biography

Henry Holden is an Adviser at the BIS Innovation Hub. He joined the BIS in 2017 and is on secondment from the Bank of England where he worked on payment and clearing systems. His current responsibilities include work on central bank digital currencies, cyber risk and foreign exchange.

About the company

The BIS is owned by 60 central banks from around the world. Its mission is to serve their pursuit of monetary and financial stability, foster international cooperation in those areas and act as a bank for central banks.

Biography

Marius Jurgilas, Board Member at the Bank of Lithuania, is in charge of the fields of supervision, payment systems, innovation and research. In recent years Marius has forged a reputation as a leading European thinker on the future of banking with an expertise in the area of fostering innovation in the financial sector. During his tenure Lithuania has emerged as a top jurisdiction for fintech companies within the EU under the leadership of the Bank of Lithuania.

About the company

The Bank of Lithuania is responsible for implementing monetary policy (as part of the European system of central banks), ensuring stability of the domestic financial system, regulating and supervising financial market participants, maintaining robust financial market infrastructure, as well as conducting macroeconomic research and forecasting. At the international level, the Bank of Lithuania takes part in the activities of the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International Settlements and other European institutional bodies.

Biography

Pearl Kgalegi is the Head of Research, Policy and Strategy within the Currency Management Department at the SARB. She is responsible for conducting research on emerging developments in the currency landscape, developing innovative strategies and formulating innovative and futuristic policies. She is part of the core team working on the journey of the feasibility of a CBDC.

About the company

South African Reserve Bank is the Central Bank of South Africa.

Biography

Thomas Kudrycki has been a technology and product development leader at diverse US corporations from AT&T Bell Labs to various Silicon Valley startups. He is one of the founding members and a former CTO of eCurrency and works on CBDC standardisation within the UN ITU Digital Currency Global Initiative.

About the company

UN ITU Digital Currency Global Initiative (DCGI) set out to provide an open and neutral platform for dialogue, knowledge sharing and research on the applications of CBDC. The work is done in collaboration with the Stanford University’s Future of Digital Currency Program.

Biography

Jörg Kukies is State Secretay for financial policy and european policy since April 2018. Before that he was co-chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs AG and managing director of the Frankfurt branch of Goldman Sachs International from 2014 to 2018. He has previously held positions in the product development team of Goldman Sachs International in London, in the equities division for Germany and Austria in Frankfurt, and as head of equity derivatives for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Goldman Sachs International from 2011 to 2014. Dr Kukies studied economic sciences at Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris. He has a master's degree in public administration from John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and a PhD in finance from the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business.

About the company

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Biography

Marion Laboure is covering payments, digital currencies and fintech at Deutsche Bank Thematic Research team. She also lectures finance at Harvard University. Previously, Marion worked as an economist at the Luxembourg Central Bank, the European Commission and was also a fellow researcher at the IMF.

About the company

Deutsche Bank provides retail and private banking, corporate and transaction banking, lending, asset and wealth management products and services as well as focused investment banking to private individuals, small and medium-sized companies, corporations, governments and institutional investors.

Biography

Ashley Lannquist is the Project Lead for Blockchain & Digital Currency at the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. She manages projects related to CBDC, stablecoins, and blockchain for government transparency and anti-corruption. Ashley is the lead author of the World Economic Forum’s January 2020 “CBDC Policy-Maker Toolkit.”

About the company

The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.It was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Biography

Alistair worked at Cass Business School, Bank of England; University of Surrey, London Business School, HM Treasury and for the Government of Malawi. He has a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics. His research spans financial technology, money and central banking, bank capital and risk management, macroeconomics, financial regulation and applications of dynamic stochastic optimisation. He is the author of an account of the 2007-08 crisis “The Fall of the House of Credit”. Nowadays his principal research focus is data and related technologies in money and financial services. He is the principal investigator of the TECHNGI project (www.techngi.uk) part of the £20mn Next Generation Services Research Challenge supported by the UK government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. He has also worked recently on disaster risk finance and on the potential application of insurance solutions to the current Covid-19 and future pandemics.

About the company

 

Biography

Thomas Moser is Alternate Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank. He is also a member of the Managing Committee of the Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance at the University of St. Gallen and a member of the Board of Directors of Orell Füssli Holding Ltd. From 2006 to 2009 he was Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C., USA. Thomas Moser holds a MA and a doctorate in Economics from the University of Zurich.

About the company

The Swiss National Bank is the central bank of Switzerland.

Biography

With a background in financial services and consulting, Simit has held senior positions across analysis, strategy and product in organisations such as Visa, NHS, Experian and Logica. Simit has been a key architect in driving forward nChain's strategy around CBDCs and digital payment systems to take advantage of blockchain technology.

About the company

nChain is a pioneer in the concept, creation and implementation of transformative technological solutions based on blockchain. Designed and built by the same scientists and engineers who have filed over 1,000 patent applications worldwide, our platform enables organisations to leverage the unrivalled security and data immutability of the blockchain, without having to undertake complex development work. Abstracting the complexity of blockchain is key to enterprise adoption and this is what drives us.

Biography

Kalin has over 20 years of experience in innovation, and digital as a dimension, working on the intersection of technology and business. He joined SICPA in 2017 to develop security for digital societal systems, with focus on currency and identity. 

About the company

SICPA is a leading provider of physical and digital security, authentication, identification and traceability solutions. Founded in 1927, headquartered in Switzerland and operating globally, SICPA technologies protect the majority of the world’s banknotes, identity and value documents. Since 2016, SICPA has conducted applied research on central bank digital currencies (CBDC), focusing on solutions for tokenised retail CBDC. SICPA’s mission is to Enable Trust through constant innovation.

Biography

As Deputy Governor, Mr. Rolle oversees the payments function as part of his broader duties. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and Economics, College of William and Mary (USA), and a Master’s of Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and Quantitative Methods, University of Georgia (USA).

About the company

The Central Bank of The Bahamas, located on the island of New Providence, was established on 1st June, 1974, and is a monument to one of the most rapidly growing, international financial centers in the Caribbean. This unprecedented legal authority manages the financial policies of an independent nation, The Bahamas.

Biography

Prof. Dr. Philipp Sandner is head of the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center (FSBC) at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. His expertise includes blockchain technology in general, crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, the digital programmable Euro, tokenization of assets and rights, and digital identity.

About the company

The Frankfurt School Blockchain Center is a research center which investigates implications of the blockchain technology, crypto assets and distributed ledger technology (DLT) for companies and their business models. Moreover, it provides a platform for decision makers, startups, technology experts, and industry professionals to exchange their knowledge and share their visions.

Biography

Adolfo Sarmiento is responsible for the monetary policy implementation and the payment system regulation and supervision at the Central Bank of Uruguay. Furthermore, he is involved in FinTech, namely in the Digital Currency Project. As advisor he also takes part in the negotiation of MERCOSUR financial services issues and in Risk evaluation of the financial system.

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The Central Bank of Uruguay is responsible for monetary policy, financial stability and financial services supervision in Uruguay.

Biography

Cornelia Stengel is an expert for financial market and data protection law. She supports banks and insurance companies in connection with digitisation, FinTech, Blockchain/Distributed Ledger Technology and data policy. She combines her practical experience with scientific research and has also published on CBDC. As an expert, she supports the Federal Administration in connection with the DLT bill and is elected permanent guest of the Bankers Association's Commission for Digitisation.

About the company

Kellerhals Carrard is one of the leading Swiss commercial law firms with an international network and strong local roots.

Biography

Siegfried Utzig is an economist. For the Association of German Banks he analyses and evaluates fundamental economic policy issues and their impact on the financial sector.

About the company

The Association of German Banks represents the interests of private banks and financial services providers. It is the leading association for shaping the transformation of the financial industry and fostering innovation within it.

Biography

John is a Managing Director in Accenture’s Technology Consulting workforce, based in London. John is Accenture’s Global Blockchain and Multiparty Systems Lead responsible for Digital Assets, Custody and Central Bank Digital Currencies. He is currently leading several Blockchain engagements with top tier global organisations and central banks.

About the company

Accenture is a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries, we offer Strategy and Consulting, Interactive, Technology and Operations services—all powered by the world’s largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers.

Biography

Martin Walker is researcher and practioner in financial sector technology. He is the author of multiple papers, articles and books on Fintech, management and finance. Martin was instrumental in the UK parliamentary investigation (treasury committee) into cryptocurrencies, and has been mentioned in multiple newspapers, notably the Financial Times. He has an MSc on Computing Science from Imperial College, London and a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

About the company

The Center for Evidence-Based Management (CEBMa) is the leading authority on evidence-based practice in the field of management and leadership. It is an independent non-profit organization, founded by an international group of management scholars and practitioners. CEBMa provides support to those interested in learning about evidence-based decision-making.

Biography

Roger Wattenhofer is a full professor at the Information Technology and Electrical Engineering Department, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He received his doctorate in Computer Science from ETH Zurich. He also worked some years at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington, at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. His work received multiple awards, e.g. the Prize for Innovation in Distributed Computing for his work in Distributed Approximation. He published the book “Blockchain Science: Distributed Ledger Technology“, which has been translated into Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.

About the company

ETH Zurich is a public research university in Switzerland, focusing on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It is usually ranked among the top 10 universities in the world, and consistently called the best university in continental Europe.

Biography

Peter Wierts is currently project manager central bank digital currency at the payments and market infrastructures division of the Dutch central bank. He also holds a part-time position as associate professor of finance at VU University Amsterdam. Previously, he worked at the European Commission and the Dutch Ministry of Finance.

About the company

De Nederlandsche Bank is the central bank of The Netherlands.

Biography

Her research centers around monetary and central banking law, and interdisciplinary issues between private law and financial market law. She serves and has served as an advisor and expert to companies and authorities such as the Swiss Confederation, the BIS, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) and the Swiss Financial Market Authority (FINMA).

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The University of Basel is the oldest university in Switzerland. As a research-intensive university it offers a broad range of degree programmes. In 2020, the University had over 13'000 students and 378 professors. International students accounted for 27 percent of the student body.

Biography

Pēteris Zilgalvis is the Head of Unit for Digital Innovation and Blockchain in the Digital Single Market Directorate in DG CONNECT and is the Co-Chair of the European Commission FinTech Task Force. He was the Visiting EU Fellow at St. Antony's College, University of Oxford for 2013-14, where he was an Associate of the Political Economy of Financial Markets Programme. From 1997 to 2005, he was Deputy Head of the Bioethics Department of the Council of Europe, in its Directorate General of Legal Affairs. In addition, he has held various positions in the Latvian civil service (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Environment). He was Senior Environmental Law Advisor to the World Bank/Russian Federation Environmental Management Project and was Regional Environmental Specialist for the Baltic Countries at the World Bank. He has been a member of the California State Bar since 1991, completed his J.D. at the University of Southern California, his B.A. in Political Science Cum Laude at UCLA, the High Potentials Leadership Program at Harvard Business School. A recent publication of his is “The Need for an Innovation Principle in Regulatory Impact Assessment: The Case of Finance and Innovation in Europe” in Policy & Internet. An upcoming publication is “The Law and Political Economy of Decentralised Digital Ecosystems”.

About the company

The Directorate‑General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG Connect) is the European Commission department responsible to develop a digital single market to generate smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe.