speakers

Monica is a fintech product leader and financial wellbeing advocate who thrives building and scaling startups with impact. She believes the future of fintech is to make fintech more human.

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Monica is part of BigPay’s original team, which is now one of the largest NeoBanks in South East Asia. She’s built the product from zero to one, and has been fundamental in setting cultural change and structures in place to go from startup to scaleups.

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Prior to BigPay, Monica was one of the first joiners in UK Challenger Tandem Bank, where she helped build the digital bank from scratch. Previously she worked in leading FS brands like Visa and Barclays.

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She sits on the Board of PayEd, and is recognised as Singapore’s #Fintech65 Product Leaders and Women in fintech. Monica hosts "Purpose Driven FinTech" podcast, and mentors young professionals.

Alexis is an experienced product marketer and financial services thought leader, specialising in client payment solutions.

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Named on the 2023 Women In Fintech Powerlist, she brings a wealth of expertise to the rapidly evolving landscape of banking and payments.

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Alexis holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business Marketing from Florida State University and a Master's Degree in Business Administration from Auburn University.

Julieta currently leads all Marketing and PR topics at Upvest, a Berlin-based Investment API fintech.She has a decade of experience in B2B Marketing from a variety of industries, from e-commerce to procurement and fintech.

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Julieta has a demonstrated history of building, scaling, and leading the growth of B2B brands, as well as building a marketing function and team from the ground up.

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She is passionate about helping fintechs develop a distinct voice and a strong brand, and connect with their customers authentically.

Samantha Fogerty is Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of buy now pay later firm, Payl8r.

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After joining as managing director in 2016 at the age of 28, Payl8r has experienced exponential growth with 334% increase in lending volume and doubled its workforce year on year in that time.Identifying a gap in the market, Samantha leveraged her insight into the millennial finance dilemma to position Payl8r at the cutting edge of the industry.

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Samantha’s focus on responsible lending to date has enabled Payl8r to exist as the only retail finance entity to underwrite customers at the point of sale using open banking.

Alessandra Guion is the co-founder and General Manager of 'FinTech Belgium', the non-profit organisation federating and promoting fintechs active in Belgium, and supporting the biggest community dedicated to digital finance in Belgium.

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With nearly 25 years experience in management, innovation and communication, as well as a passion for sustainability and empowering women, she continues to reinvent 'FinTech Belgium', representing the ecosystem on many international stages and growing a very dynamic ecosystem.

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With FIRe innovation hub, the organisation aims to facilitate the development of Digital Finance in Belgium through collaborations and open innovation.

Yasmina Siadatan is Chief Revenue Officer at Dynamic Planner and part of the Senior Leadership Team and the Board. She is an integral contributor to decision making in the business, working in tandem with the executive team at Dynamic Planner to lead and deliver on its growth strategy and further build the Dynamic Planner go to market function.

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Yasmina worked for Lord Sugar in 2009 having won the fifth series of BBC One’s The Apprentice, heading up his flagship tech and digital media organisation. Following that she was headhunted by James Caan of Dragons’ Den fame to help run his private equity organisation.

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She graduated in economic history from the London School of Economics.

Hannah Martin is the founder of What Follows, a communications partner for tech startups and scaleups. Hannah has been working across Public Relations, Policy and Communications for the past decade.

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She has worked in-house at unicorn companies (Wise Series A-E) and has helped build some of the most progressive companies across sectors including fintech, healthtech and the Future of Work.

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Today, What Follows is a small team of senior comms experts that specialises in founder profile building and corporate communications. Working directly with founders and their teams, What Follows builds credibility for businesses in the UK and wider Europe, securing coverage in the likes of the BBC, Euronews, the Financial Times, TechCrunch, Sifted and Bloomberg.

Akila is currently reporting on all things retail banking and fintech for The Financial Times, with a specific focus on the major challengers as well as neobanks in the sector.

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Akila started at the publication on the Paul McClean graduate scheme, covering a range of beats from asset management to property to breaking news. She also has direct experience working in operations for one of the UK’s most high profile neobanks.

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Akila has an MA in International Journalism from City University, as well as a keen passion for diversity, equity and inclusion in the industry. She is particularly interested in financial inclusion for underserved customers.

Alisha is a profit-driven strategist and has been a leader of high-performance organisations for over 20 years, working across eCommerce, healthcare, health-tech, insurance & fintech.

She has a leading track record driving over $100m in revenue growth from partnerships and reducing customer acquisition costs. She is a passionate builder of authentic winning cultures and customer-centric teams, with extensive experience providing operational, fiscal, and cross-functional management within complex partnerships.Alisha is an expert negotiator and builder of strategic alliances and customer relationships, with proven success leading high-performance teams and managing successful partnerships.

Samantha joined Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) in 2021 and is responsible for leading the strategic direction on payments, including driving payments strategy, fostering payments partnerships and managing the Group’s external relationships across the payments industry and regulators.

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Samantha also delivers enterprise-wide services including; domestic and international payments settlement, liquidity and scheme management; payments design consultancy; and payments policy compliance.

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Previously, Samantha held roles at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), leading both payments supervision and the regulator’s globally recognised fintech agenda. Prior to this, Samantha held several senior positions at NatWest/RBS in Global Transaction Services (GTS) leading on digital innovation, strategy design, transformation, and regulatory change.

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A constant theme throughout her career has been driving progress on inclusion, diversity and allyship. Samantha was appointed as a Director of Swift in 2022 and Deputy Chair in 2023. She also sits on the LBG Fintech Investment Board, acts in a shareholder/advisory capacity to fintechs, and is the LBG payments representative on several prominent industry groups.

As CEO, Iana Dimitrova sets the strategic direction and vision, and leads the executive team at OpenPayd.

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She has extensive experience in the fintech and payments industries and holds a master’s degree in European Economics law and ICT Law from the University of Strasbourg and an Executive MBA from the London Business School.I

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ana has been with OpenPayd for over six years and prior to her role, was Head of Legal Affairs, Digital Wallets & Managing Director at fintech Paysafe Bulgaria.

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Iana is a champion of thought leadership, speaking at various fintech events including Money 20/20, Web Summit and European Blockchain Convention.

Kristin has built several companies – with no MBA or tech background. When she launched, grew, and sold her first financial technology company– inspired by her personal experience with predatory loans, Kristin was the only woman in the room.

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Through mentorship and tenacity, she taught herself to step into the role of Chief Product Officer– and now teaches other women to do the same through her newest venture, Tech AF.

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Kristin raised $55m in funding before successfully exiting her fintech startup LoanHero, a consumer lending platform. Since then, she has helped hundreds of underestimated founders through her work within the Atlanta community and beyond. Kristin launched Tech AF to bring more diversity to tech, smash the glass ceiling, and re-define what it means to have success in the tech industry for founders and investors.

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Today she helps banks move beyond buzzwords and turn innovation into execution. By aligning innovation with real business outcomes, she support banks in transforming ideas into scalable, sustainable strategies that drive growth.

Aysun is Chief People Officer for OpenPayd. An experienced people and talent professional with particular interest in talent acquisition and development.

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Aysun has a strong proven track record in delivering a diverse range of human resources functions that support management and staff in achieving organisational goals. Aysun has been with OpenPayd for over six years and has been in her role as Chief People Officer for four years.

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Prior to her role at OpenPayd, she was head of HR at technology companies such as TechToPay and Smart Gaming Group.

Lucy has a decade of experience in storytelling, from working in London’s newsrooms to spearheading content campaigns to raise awareness about the merits of impact investing.

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She previously managed the content output for CIRCA5000, a sustainable investing platform that launched a suite of Article 9 ETFs on the London Stock Exchange in June 2023. Lucy is passionate about using content to create clarity about financial matters for consumers and retail investors.

Sarah Häger is the CCO at Enable Banking where she is evangelising Open Banking, Open Finance and Financial APIs to further accelerate innovation in the financial industry.

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She has previously worked at Nordea bank, across several countries (Europe-wide) with the main mission to provide value for corporate customers.

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She has spent the last 7 years taking the Open Banking vision from just a powerpoint to the multi- award winning solution of today.

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She is passionate about innovation, technology and to create commercial opportunities out of regulation.

Rita is a results oriented executive specialised in leveraging the latest technologies and solutions in FinTech and Web3 to transform Financial Services.

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Currently, Rita serves on the Advisory Board of the pioneering DeFi startup, KIMA, and provides advisory services to a diverse portfolio of Web3 startups (defi, blockchain, custody, crypto).

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Rita is the author of the Book Web3 in Financial Services, which will launch in Jun 2024.

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The book demystifies the opportunities and challenges in Web3 for Financial Services.In her previous role as the Global Head of FinTech Partnerships at HSBC, Rita played a pivotal role in the incubation and acceleration of numerous disruptive technologies, carving significantadvancements in the FinTech landscape.