speakers

Aleksandra has worked in fintech for almost a decade, seven years of which have been as an investor.

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After spending the first five years of her career at Markit (fka: IHS Markit) (now S&P Global) across sales and corporate development and strategy, she later joined a US-based private equity fund for two years focusing on the European opportunities within financial services and technology.

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She now works with Element Ventures, an early-stage fund investing in fintech start-ups, where she's a member of the investment team.

Sheena has spent 14 years in the finance space. Prior to working for Coinshares as a crypto asset manager and Maven a propriety trading firm, Sheena spent two years with Morgan Stanley in the Sydney office.From 2009 to 2012 Sheena was with Goldman Sachs in the London office.

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She completed her work placement in 2008 with Goldman Sachs and was offered an unconditional offer after university.Sheena graduated from Aston Business School, Birmingham 2009 with a degree in Business Management and International Relations.

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Sheena also the founder of ElevatHer, a technology led networking tool for women in finance and tech.

Becky George-David is a seasoned professional with nearly a decade’s experience designing, building and  operationalising digital products for the Financial Services sector. She holds an MBA from Imperial College Business School, specialising in Strategy and a BSc in Computing from the University of East London.

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She is an Executive Director, Product at JP Morgan Chase & Co. where she leads the discovery of customers’ needs and delivers delightful products that they love. She previously sat on the Technology Operating  Committee as a trusted adviser to the CIO and CTO on Release Engineering and Change Strategy for Chase UK,  JP Morgan’s first digital banking proposition outside of the US. Prior to this, Becky spent the first 5 years of her career as a Front End Engineer building Automated Trading Application for Fixed Income.

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Becky is passionate about diversity in the corporate world, and co-leads Career and Talent for JP Morgan’s Black Employee Network across the EMEA region, contributing her own quota to building a  more inclusive workplace for other talents to thrive. She is also serves as a STEM ambassador, encouraging other  women to explore careers in STEM. Becky loves being invited to events where she gets to share valuable  insights from her years of hands-on experience as an Engineer and Product leader.

Fliss was originally a professional musician, before moving into the corporate world and re-training as a lawyer.

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She worked for several years in private practice as a corporate and commercial lawyer with City firms, before moving in-house in 2013 to work across payment systems in the UK. She then became the Head of Legal, Regulatory and Corporate Governance for Faster Payments and Paym.

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Following the consolidation of the UK payment systems into Pay.UK, she co-founded the fintech company, Ordo, in 2018, that makes getting paid easy.At Ordo, Fliss is responsible for the strategic direction and growth of the company, and manages legal, regulatory, corporate governance and marketing matters on a daily basis.

Rachael Oku is VP Brand and Communications at PensionBee, where she’s passionate about championing the stories of customers and helping people from all walks of life save for a happy retirement.

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Rachael was one of PensionBee’s first Diversity Champions, responsible for facilitating events, ensuring the promotion of diversity across the business and creating safe spaces where everyone can bring their full selves to work.

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Before joining PensionBee Rachael worked at the British Business Bank on launching a new finance hub for small businesses.

Romi Savova founded PensionBee in 2014 to simplify pension savings in the UK, following a difficult pension transfer experience of her own. As the Chief Executive Officer, she has played a pivotal role in advancing consumer standards in the pensions industry, from reducing transfer times to campaigning for the full abolition of exit fees.

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Romi is also a member of the government’s Pensions Dashboards Programme Steering Group, which was set up to advise on the delivery of pensions dashboards.

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Prior to founding PensionBee, Romi worked at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Benchmark, holding varied roles in risk management, investment banking and financial technology. Romi received an MBA from Harvard Business School as a George F. Baker scholar and graduated summa cum laude from Emory University.

Lisa Picardo is PensionBee's Chief Business Officer UK, facilitating the ongoing execution of the company's strategy and corporate development in the United Kingdom.Lisa is a member of the Department for Work and Pensions’ Small Pots Delivery Group and represents PensionBee at the Association of British Insurers.

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Having joined PensionBee in 2020, she previously led the company's 2021 Initial Public Offering on the High Growth List Segment of the London Stock Exchange, its subsequent transfer to the Premium List and initiatives to grow the business profitably.Lisa previously held senior roles at Morgan Stanley, with 13 years spent in the European Mergers & Acquisitions department and the Global Private Equity Fund.

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She then founded and ran LITTLECIRCLE, an online fashion retailer. Lisa is a Founding Member of the Breast Cancer Now Development Board.

Gerisha is a Product Operations industry expert who heads up the function at UK payments scale-up, Dojo. She previously did the same at Open Banking unicorn, TrueLayer.In addition, she also launched the Product Ops Podcast (POP) last year to amplify the voices of diverse individuals working in the industry, as well as to share learnings on a developing business area, and build a sense of community.She is an experienced speaker, moderator, panellist and podcaster who was recognised as a rising star on the Innovate Finance Women in FinTech Power List.

Uneesa is the founder of Ayda Invest, an on-demand financial literacy platform for women powered by AI.

An experienced speaker, moderator, and panellist, she’s passionate about helping women achieve their financial goals through tech.

Uneesa has been included in the Innovate Finance Women in FinTech Powerlist 2024 and 2023 respectively.

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Sarah is a seasoned business leader with a wealth of experience in corporate, 17 years at IBM, and startup experience having been a founding member of the team behind Starling Bank.

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Sarah is currently Chair at Fintech Wales, having held the role of CEO for for over three years. The group is the voice of Fintech and Finance in Wales. She is also a trustee for Surviving Economic Abuse.

Laura Rofe is a fintech leader with over 15 years of experience driving growth and innovation across the Australian, European, and UK markets.

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As Director of Partner Management at Thunes, she specialises in building strategic partnerships that power global payment networks. Alongside her work in fintech, Laura is a driving force for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across the industry.

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As an Executive Board Director and Country Ambassador in Spain for EWPN, she actively champions diverse leadership and inclusive opportunities in financial services.

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She is also the Founder of EmpowerMatch, a soon to launch mentorship platform dedicated to breaking down barriers and supporting underrepresented talent.

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A passionate advocate for mentorship, inclusion, and industry transformation, Laura doesn’t just talk about change—she drives it. Whether through thought leadership, curating high-impact events, or building platforms that open doors for others, she is committed to shaping a more inclusive and connected financial ecosystem.‍

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After 27-years working within the credit management industry, with 15 of those years spent successfully running one of the UK's leading commercial debt recovery companies, Darcey Quigley & Co; Lynne has gained a wealth of knowledge on the implications late payments and increased debtor days have on businesses of all sizes and industries.

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After founding Darcey Quigley & Co in 2007, Lynne decided to enter the world of fintech in 2019 and created the Know-it platform, an all-in-one solution for businesses to take control of their credit management.

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Lynne is a serial entrepreneur and was recently featured as one of Insider's top 20 women to watch.

Chanelle Pattinson is leading a new generation of ambitious and future-focused financial planners wanting to help millennials and Gen Z manage their money.

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She is the creator of the Her Future Bright podcast , a platform she launched to encourage more women into the finance profession.As well as hosting the podcast, Chanelle is a Chartered Financial Planner and co-founder of Money Means, a financial planning subscription service and platform.

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She has a deep desire to help people understand money and how to use it to unlock the life they want.

Laura has extensive experience in fintech having supported businesses on a number of products in areas such as pension investments, mortality, insurance, trading and financial standards. Earlier in her career, Laura managed the legal support for business acquisitions involving property.

Laura has a rich tapestry of experience that enables her to help develop and support business arrangements for new products, commercial and regulatory considerations involving fintech. Laura also provides training and discussion forums for teams to develop or hone their negotiation skills.

Laura was recently at Open Banking Limited where she supported the Board in developing and completing (with the CMA and the CMA9) revised governance arrangements for the organisation that underpins access to account data to enable innovation and competition to thrive.

Laura is currently an Axiom lawyer working at American Express in data protection and privacy.

Nadia Edwards-Dashti co-founded the Harrington Starr Group in 2010, a leading Financial Technology recruitment business with offices in London, New York and Belfast.

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With 18 years in the financial services technology sector, she has been responsible for helping over 2000 people find jobs and has grown from a trainee to a Chief Customer Officer. She runs the Podcast Series ‘FinTech with Nadia: The DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) Discussions’ to discuss the challenges and successes of this industry.

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Nadia has also written a book through Palgrave Macmillan, ‘Fintech Women Walk the Talk: Moving the needle for workplace gender equality in financial Services and beyond’ and within it quotes 100+ of her podcast interviewees.

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Her accolades include: Winner of Investing in Talent 2019 Awards - Most Inspirational Recruitment Leader, Innovate Finance: Women in FinTech Powerlist, FinTech Magazine Top 100 Women in FinTech 2022, Industrial Fellow at the University of East London: Centre of FinTech.

Banking transformation veteran and economist Sofie Blakstad built multiple core banking and payments systems for 8 international banks in 60 countries, and led whole business transformations, before founding hiveonline, the first DeFi for African smallholder farmers.She holds an MSc in informatics, chairs the Edinburgh Futures Institute's FI and Fintech Industry Advisory Board, is author of Fintech Revolution: Universal Inclusion in the New Financial Ecosystem and advises the UN, Central Banks, NGOS and others on blockchain for impact and sustainability, DLT policy and economic impacts of emerging technology.Sofie has been included in the Innovate Finance’s Women in Fintech Powerlist three years running and named one of the top 10 Women in Crypto.