Global advisory board
Our advisory board includes industry innovators, disruptors and visionaries to ensure everything we bring to market is relevant, incisive and helps drive the adoption curve of Open Banking, Open Finance and beyond.
Abdi Hersi
Abdi Hersi
Regulatory Research, Developments & Payments Innovation WealthsimpleAs a member of the Payments Team at Wealthsimple, Abdi is responsible for regulatory strategy relating to payments modernization and open banking. He represents Wealthsimple at the open banking consultations that include industry, government regulators, and consumer stakeholders. Abdi is also a board member at Open Finance Canada. He has experience in government, banking and tech sectors. He is passionate about giving back to the community and advancing financial inclusion.
Ana Climente
Ana Climente
Head of Open Banking BBVA SpainAna Climente is Head of Open Banking at BBVA Spain in charge of connecting with new ecosystems to promote partnerships with 3rd parties and developing new ways of distributing financial services through APIs. Before, she was Head of Digital transformation for enterprise clients at BBVA Spain leading the creation of solutions leveraged on data for enterprise clients to help them make better financial decisions.
Previously, Ana was Vice President of payments and collections in the transition to SEPA and was in charge of developing cash management solutions at BBVA. And has also represented BBVA and the Spanish financial sector in different EBA and EPC working groups.
Ana joined BBVA in 2005. Before that, she worked as strategy consultant at Accenture, specialized in B2B solutions for Europe, Middle East and Africa. She also started up Adquira, a leading Spanish procurement company.
Ana graduated in International Business Administration with a double degree in Spain and Germany in 1998.
Andrew Moor
Andrew Moor
Chief Executive Officer & President EQ BankAndrew joined Equitable Bank (TSX: EQB) as Chief Executive Officer in 2007. Andrew’s focus in recent years has been in positioning Equitable Bank as “Canada’s Challenger Bank”. Andrew has been establishing EQ Bank as a leading digital banking player, with an easy to use mobile app that offers a unique combination of payments functionality and great savings rates. Equitable Bank is Canada’s ninth largest schedule 1 bank with over $30 billion of assets under management. Equitable was a founding shareholder in Borrowell, and participates in the Portage ecosystem through an investment in Portage Funds giving the Bank a view into the Canadian fintech ecosystem.
Andrew is a keen observer of the challenger and neo bank community around the world. He is interested in how banks can lever technology to improve the societies in which they operate. He is a member of the Executive Council of the Canadian Bankers Association and Chairman of the Banks and Trust Companies Association. Andrew is a Director of Sleep Country Canada Inc. (TSX:ZZZ) and a member of the Smith School of Business Advisory Board at Queen’s University.
Bhavna Saraf
Bhavna Saraf
Head of Payments Products & Propositions Santander UKSeasoned executive with deep expertise in financial services, covering Product Management, Sales, Innovation , Transformation, Strategy, Partnerships and Credit at Santander, Lloyds, Citi, HSBC and Rabobank. Incubated and scaled a start-up. A product evangelist and an innovator at heart, with the purpose to deliver sustainable and desirable growth for customers.
Carlos Figueredo
Carlos Figueredo
Chief Executive Officer Open VectorCarlos is a senior executive and payments SME with over 20 years of global business and financial sector experience. His extensive leadership, payments and large-scale programme management skills have allowed him to work for some of the leading institutions in the industry in the integration of time critical, culturally diverse and cross border programmes.
In his previous role, Carlos was the Head of Data Standards and therefore co-author of the UK’s Open Banking initiative which is the first region globally to go live with an open banking initiative.
With this experience, Carlos founded and is CEO of Open Vector which is a professional consultancy firm comprised of previous senior heads of the UK Open Banking initiative assisting institutions, corporates and regions globally with their Open Banking, open data, PSD2 and GDPR initiatives.
Chris Sweetland
Chris Sweetland
SVP, Payments Strategy & Transformation CIBCChris Sweetland is CIBC’s SVP of Payments, Strategy & Transformation and resides in the Personal & Business Bank (PBB) arm of the Canadian retail bank. Chris is responsible for our Payment Strategy, our exploration of new products, services, platforms and partnerships related to PBB commerce and payments, and advises the broader organization on investments, priorities and roadmaps in support of all retail lines of business.
Before CIBC, Chris led Square’s Industry Relations and Payments Operations & Partnerships teams. Chris represented the interests of the small business and microseller community against an increasingly complex backdrop of payments and commerce The Operations & Partnerships function under Square’s Payments organization where Chris looked after Square’s Seller communities in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan. Before joining Square in 2017, Chris led a Business Development and Commerce Partnerships team at Google focused on mobile, online and in-app payments that solicited card network, financial institution, card issuer, and digital payments participation in Google Pay (previously, Android Pay).
Prior to Google, Chris was Vice President of Corporate Initiatives at Visa Inc., and led the business development and product partnerships engagement of the major US financial institutions and their participation in the launch of the Visa Token Service in support of the introduction of Apple Pay.
In nine years between Visa U.S.A. and Visa Inc., Chris led a team based in Singapore focused on Emerging Payments Partnerships and Industry Programs across Asia Pacific, Easter Europe, Middle East, and Africa. He participated in Visa’s 2008 IPO, while managing a team of corporate strategy professionals who oversaw the financial restructuring and network pricing overhaul in the transition of the network association to a for profit, public company. Prior to his work tied to the IPO, Chris managed numerous pilot programs for Visa U.S.A. as a Product Innovation manager focused on mobile and contactless initiatives between 2006 and 2008. Before 2006, Chris consulted various companies including Visa in the payments, financial services and technology industries at Accenture. He spent four years between Accenture
and Economists, Inc. advising businesses and law firms in areas including marketing, technology, antitrust, competition, and litigation.
Chris holds a B.A. in Economics from Colgate University. He’s a former chapter President of the Omecron Delta Epsilon academic honor society. In 2001, Chris was named to the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All America team for his participation in the Colgate University cross country and track and field teams
Cindy Zhang
Cindy Zhang
Senior Associate, FS Regulatory BLGCindy is a financial services regulatory lawyer. She advises clients in a variety of legislative matters with a focus in banking regulatory, fintech, payment processing and advice that includes extensive knowledge in anti-money laundering (AML), cost of borrowing, and consumer protection. She serves as co-chair to the firm’s national race action committee, and is an active mentor as part of various EDI initiatives.
In the fintech sector, Cindy is an advisor to the Board of the Open Finance Network Canada (formerly OBIC), a member of the Canadian advisory board of the Open Banking Expo, serves on Canada’s Digital Governance Council (Conseil de Governance Numerique) Technical Drafting Committee for Open Finance, and serves as an industry expert for Fintech Cadence (Canada’s Fintech Hub). She has also taught as returning faculty of The Osgoode Certificate in Blockchain Law on the subject of central bank digital currencies, and sessional at Queen’s University, Faculty of Law on the subject of AML laws (international business crime). Cindy speaks and publishes regularly on the evolution and advancement of these legal topics in Canada, including co-chairing The Canadian Open Banking Forum recently in April 2023.
Cyrielle Chiron
Cyrielle Chiron
Senior Vice President, Product Strategy & Innovation Peoples GroupCyrielle Chiron is the SVP, Product Strategy & Innovation at Peoples Group. She leads the development of new products and services including the Innovation Hub’s activities. Prior to Peoples Group, she was with Payments Canada as Chief Strategy Officer where she was responsible for leading the research and strategy teams. Cyrielle offers a wealth of payments, retail and commercial financial services knowledge, and has an extensive international career in research and consultancy in the financial industry. She is also a regular speaker at thought leadership events and was the host of the PayPod while working at Payments Canada. Prior to Payments Canada, she was Managing Director, North & Latin America for RFi Global and was responsible for all research programs, sales & operations across North and Latin America. Prior to RFi Global, she was with IAG as Senior Strategy Analyst and CoreData as Head of Research Asia Pacific.
She has two BBAs in international Business (Helia & Rouen Business School), and a Master’s Degree (Hons), MSc International Marketing and Communication Management (Ecole supérieure de Commerce de Toulouse).
Peoples Trust Company, part of Peoples Group, is a leading issuer of prepaid payment cards and an innovative merchant acquirer. They are an entrepreneurial organization that excels at customizing solutions to fit the needs of their clients. As a result, they have been recognized as a pioneer and innovator of prepaid cards in Canada, and as an early adopter of payment solutions. Peoples has partnered with many of Canada’s FinTechs, giving them the tools and guidance to help realize their success.
David Beardmore
David Beardmore
Ecosystems Development Director RaidiamDavid joined Raidiam, a company specialising in creating the world’s smartest data sharing ecosystems, in January 2023 as Ecosystems Development Director.
David has been a passionate advocate of Open Banking since 2016 when he spent four years as the Commercial Director at The Open Data Institute leading their work on Open Banking, helping governments and regulators in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada.
Most recently he was at the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) where, as Ecosystem Development Director, he led the team charged with growing and developing the Open Banking ecosystem. His key objective was to facilitate and encourage end user adoption of products and services powered by Open Banking. This included on-boarding new participants into the Directory, developing effective propositions to increase the adoption of Open Banking in the UK, and all OBIE marketing and events. By the time David left the OBIE, there were 90 banks and 250 fintechs using open banking to regularly share data from 7 million consumers and small business.
His nearly 30 years in data-driven insight and marketing have seen him work with many leading brands in multiple sectors and countries. In addition to working for some of the largest players in the data world such as Experian and Telefonica, David also ran his own boutique data insight business, Thinkdata, for 5 years before it was acquired by Bertelsmann.
David regularly speaks on the benefits and use cases for Open Finance at conferences in the UK and internationally, has co-authored a number of reports on Open Banking, and was interviewed on BBC TV on the day it officially launched in the UK in January 2018. In addition to his role with Raidiam, David is also Strategic Advisor, Open Banking for EML Payments, an Australian payments organisation with businesses in the UK, Ireland and across Europe.
Originally a classically trained musician, David has a Master’s from Cambridge University and an MBA in Marketing.
David Parker
David Parker
Director Polymath ConsultingI have an in depth knowledge of Payments and Cards. In particular the company and myself are very well known for our work in E-money/prepaid cards and emerging payments covering areas such as mobile money/mobile wallets and Mpos. I have also worked extensively supporting and advising SMEs having been involved in SME payments projects since the early 2000. I have been involved in co-founding two companies involved with open banking; KYP and Konsentus.
I am increasingly active in Fintech and am currently holding a range of positions including Board NED, Board Advisor, Advisory Board, Investor in companies including: Hands In, KYP, Konsentus, Itemize, Edfundo, Swiipr and Unizest.
Dr Ruth Wandhöfer
Dr Ruth Wandhöfer
Global Fintech 50 InfluencerDr. Ruth Wandhöfer has been instrumental in shaping the future of finance during her impressive career over the last 19 years. She operates at the nexus of finance, technology and regulation and is passionate about creating the digital financial ecosystem of the future. She is a very influential female leader in the technology space, promoting the understanding, deployment and business models of our digital future across financial markets and processes.
With a diverse career across regulatory policy development, banking, Fintech/Regtech mentoring, investing and consulting she finds herself at the centre of the evolving digital ecosystem of players with the ability to advise, accelerate, promote and enable technology players to become an integral part of the new financial ecosystem.
Ruth began her career in banking. After a distinguished career of over a decade with Citi, Ruth is now an independent Non-Executive Director on the boards of Permanent TSB and Digital Identity Net as well as a Partner at Gauss Ventures – a VC firm focused on early stage FinTech investment.
She is also a Strategic Adviser of the European Third Party Provider Association (ETPPA) as well as Adviser of RTGS.global. Until recently she served as independent Non-Executive Director on the Boards of the London Stock Exchange Group and Pendo Systems Inc. and as senior adviser to KPMG.
Ruth was named as one of 2010s ‘Rising Stars’ by Financial News; named in Management Today’s 2011 ‘35 Women under 35’ list of women to watch and identified as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Finance 2012 by the Treasury Risk Magazine. She received the ‘Women in Banking and Finance Award for Achievement’ in 2015 and in 2016, 2017 and 2018 she was named on the global ‘Women in Fintech Powerlist’ of Innovate Finance. She is a 2018, 2019 and 2020 Top 10 Global Fintech Influencer (Fintech Power 50).
She speaks five languages, has completed studies in Financial Economics (MA, UK), International Politics (MA, FR) and an LLM in International Economic Law (UK). She was awarded a doctorate by CASS Business School, London and Tilburg University in 2019 for her PhD thesis in Finance on the topic of “Technology Innovation in Financial Markets”.
She published two books: “EU Payments Integration” (2010) and “Transaction Banking and the Impact of Regulatory Change” (2014), is a Fellow of CASS Business School City University London, a Visiting Professor at the London Institute of Banking and Finance and occasional lecturer at Queen Mary London School of Law.
Her views are widely sought after in the global press, and her opinions have recently been published in Sifted, FT and Forbes, to name just a few publications.
She balances this extraordinary career while raising her children and champions for a better work life balance for parents and more support for women entrepreneurs.
Eyal Sivan
Eyal Sivan
Mr Open BankingEyal Sivan, also known as Mr. Open Banking, is one of the foremost global experts in the open banking space.
In his efforts to drive advancements in open banking worldwide, Eyal created the unique personal brand Mr. Open Banking. Under this persona, he hosts the only podcast dedicated to the open banking community, interviewing the key leaders, innovators and influencers who are driving the emergence of open banking around the globe. Since its launch in 2020, the podcast has grown to over 60 thousand subscribers, with Eyal being recognized by Open Future World as the number one Open Finance Influencer in the world for 2022.
Today, Eyal is the General Manager for North America at Ozone API, global pioneers of open banking who’s platform powers some of the largest and most advanced data sharing ecosystems on the planet. In his role, he is responsible for expanding the firm’s global position as a leading open banking solution provider to the United States, Canada and beyond.
Gonzalo Escribano Tamayo
Gonzalo Escribano Tamayo
Head of Public Policy for Open Banking BBVA MexicoGonzalo serves as the Director of Public Policy for Open Banking at BBVA since 2023. Prior to this, he held the position of Director of Public Policy for Latin America at Stripe until 2022.
With extensive experience in public affairs projects, public policy, and corporate relations, Gonzalo has been pivotal in shaping the public policy landscape for the European mobility company FreeNow (under the Beat brand), initially for Mexico and subsequently founding and leading the function and team across Latin America.
He has also been a consultant, the director of government relations practice, and the deputy country manager for the global consultancy firm Speyside Group, operating across Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Additionally, Gonzalo was the Director of Domestic Political Relations at the British Embassy in Mexico.
An esteemed university professor and political commentator across various media outlets, Gonzalo holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA) and has earned multiple advanced degrees: a Master’s in International Public Management from Sciences Po Paris, a Master’s in International Relations from the London School of Economics (LSE), and a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Bath.
Harcus Copper
Harcus Copper
Head of Integration & Information Services BarclaysHarcus Copper is Head of Integration and Information Services globally, responsible for SWIFT and Host-to-Host connectivity propositions, APIs and Open Banking for corporate clients and Non-Bank Financial Institutions. Harcus has over 26 years’ experience in Cash Management developed over a number of roles covering multiple disciplines during his 31 years with Barclays.
Hetal Popat
Hetal Popat
Director, Open Banking HSBCHetal is Director for Open Banking services provided globally across HSBC. He is accountable for delivering and operating the open banking solutions being required in markets across HSBC’s global footprint. He also closely supports the businesses as they seek to develop propositions that use open banking to benefit customers.
Prior to this role he led front office commercial/corporate banking teams at Barclays, as well as heading strategy functions at both Lloyds and Barclays. He is a keen adopter of new technologies and all things digital.
Holly Coventry
Holly Coventry
Vice President International Open Banking Payments American ExpressHolly is responsible for continuing to grow the UK business and creating the future vision and roadmap for Open Banking Payments globally. Holly is an accomplished, well-respected leader who is strategic and commercially focused in her approach. She has an entrepreneurial and partner centric outlook and is highly adept at working in the emerging fintech Open Banking space.
Jag Bhogal
Jag Bhogal
VP of Enterprise Architecture & Technology Innovation Coast Capital SavingsAs Chief Architect, I have led the Enterprise Architecture program at Coast Capital Savings on a transformational journey, building the architectural foundations required to innovate, grow and making game-changing contributions. Provided over 200 million dollars of architecture leadership.
Led the advancement of the Enterprise Architecture team to work closer with the business to support strategy execution and provide architecture governance across the enterprise. Supported this advancement through trendspotting of emerging technologies to help advance business’ strategy and governing and guiding technology and architecture across the organization.
Helped drive innovative, cutting-edge investments in technology (Mobile, RPA, AI/ML, Data lake, API) to meet the changing needs of members and the changing landscape of financial services. Played a key role in the overhaul of all base technology including steering Digital transformation. Identified the critical need for roadmap planning, blueprint guidelines, marketplace trends analysis.
Jason Chomik
Jason Chomik
Canadian Director Financial Data ExchangeJason Chomik, a seasoned Canadian technology executive who has been active in the payments and digital transformation space for over 25 years. Jason is the Director of the FDX Canada working group to cultivate a culture of collaboration, communication, and technical inclusiveness within FDX between different market segments of the Canadian financial services ecosystem. Jason also serves as the primary FDX resource to FDX Canada members to make the FDX workflow more digestible, and to ensure that all FDX Canada members, regardless of firm size or resources, have the ability to meaningfully participate in FDX technical standards development.
Joris Hensen
Joris Hensen
Founder and Co-Lead of Deutsche Bank API Program Deutsche BankJoris Hensen is responsible for the client facing business of the Deutsche Bank API Program, which he co-founded in 2015. With more than 50 partnerships and a company-wide coverage of data-based products, Deutsche Bank is now one of the world’s leading open banking players. The Developer Portal of Deutsche Bank gives partners quick and easy access to more than 40 API products, enabling them to connect personalized apps and services and thus open up new areas of value creation.
Joris’ work includes brand and partnership development in the area of open banking as well as the expansion of internal processes and structures to accelerate the bank’s digital transformation.
In his more than ten years at Deutsche Bank, Joris Hensen has worked as a project manager on various international projects. He became enthusiastic about innovations and trends early on and set up a corporate foresight program in which he developed future scenarios and innovation strategies for Deutsche Bank. He now regularly writes and publishes on the topics of foresight, innovation, and APIs.
In his spare time, Joris is committed to supporting entrepreneurial school and financial education as well as social entrepreneurship for more than 400,000 young students in India (www.karmaheld.de).
Kate Frankish
Kate Frankish
Chief Business Development Officer Pay.UKKate has worked in financial services for over 20 years. Through a number of diverse roles in marketing, product development, technology and payments, the common thread for Kate is the delivery of great customer journeys and solutions. Kate has a very strong focus on innovation, driven by consumer demand and global market movements. Kate actively works with Fintech companies and this has given her further insight into the types of problems that customers experience and how to go about providing relevant and meaningful solutions. Kate now leads the Strategy and Standards team at Pay.UK with the purpose of driving innovation in the payments ecosystem and enabling a vibrant UK economy.
Lana Tahirly Abdullayeva
Lana Tahirly Abdullayeva
Executive Board Member TFPAThree decades in Tech & Fin internationally, across developed and fast-growing economies, creating portfolios of digital ventures to deliver impact – launching, investing and growing successful businesses and well-recognised brands.
Scientist by education, strategist by experience and visionary by heart, she has been instrumental in working with the market leaders and economic regulators, driving transformational changes towards the digital economy globally.
A seasoned executive, NED, Investor and Advisor, Lana brings a strong vantage point on how businesses evolve in the digital age. She advocates reshaping economics and governance over the traditional models to drive growth.
Lauren Jones
Lauren Jones
Senior Vice President, Global Advisory KonsentusLauren Jones has over a 13 years’ experience in banking and payments. As Director of Market Development at Open Banking Exchange, she supports central banks, regulators and market infrastructures in their delivery of open banking, including standards, governance and use case design. Formally, Head of Standards at Payments UK (now Pay.UK), she was responsible for the UK’s standards policy on behalf of banks, government, and the wider industry. She was also involved in the early-stage development of Open Banking data standards in the UK. She has represented the UK market at European Payments Council and various groups within the European Central Bank, Berlin Group and SWIFT and now chairs the ISO committee on ‘Security, Financial Services’. She has also spent time advising fintechs, market infrastructures and hardware manufacturers on their payment strategy and product development.
Michelle Beyo
Michelle Beyo
Chief Executive Officer, Finavator President, Open Finance Network Canada
Michelle Winsor
Michelle Winsor
Chief Executive Officer Accelera EcosystemMichelle has prowess as a strategist, advisor, and systematic problem solver with nuanced experiences navigating the complexities of business growth in the 21st century. As an innovative entrepreneur, visionary, thinking partner, and advisor, Michelle Winsor has been relentlessly pursuing her dream of breaking down barriers to employment, growth in business and the access to affordable technology. She is passionate about inclusivity and fair competition. After consulting for some of the largest financial companies in North America, she founded Accelera; a company that aims to revolutionize the financial world. Accelera is Michelle’s embodied passion to make technology flexible and accessible to businesses of all sizes. She believes in the power of creating an inclusive ecosystem of people, communities, and businesses through the collective will of organizations that have a desire to grow and build together for the future. Her powerful analytical mind, empathic leadership skills and resourcefulness drives Michelle to create extraordinary results.
Nezihe Aquino
Nezihe Aquino
Senior Vice President, Enterprise Risk & Chief Risk Officer VancityNez Aquino is the SVP Enterprise Risk and Chief Risk Officer at Vancity. Her team oversees the credit, legal services and enterprise risk management functions while supporting the organization to make timely, strategic decisions that help to deliver a differentiated member experience.
Nez has held progressive roles at Vancity over the last 15 years leading Finance, Payment Solutions, and Retail Banking prior to her role as the CRO. She is a Chartered Professional Accountant with over two decades of experience in banking. Prior to joining Vancity, Nez worked at the Bank of America’s credit card division supporting the business performance of that organization. Nez is a Board Director at Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
Nez is a values-based, resilient and high energy executive who is passionate about giving back to the community. In her spare time, Nez enjoys cooking, doing yoga and is an opera enthusiast.
Nida Sattar
Nida Sattar
Head of Product – Payments Allica BankNida Sattar is currently Head of Product – Payments at Allica Bank, based in London. In this role, she is responsible for the development and roll-out of a new Current Account product for SME clients.
Prior to this, Nida led the International Payments Product team at ClearBank, where she was accountable for ClearBank’s international expansion plans and product deliveries across payments and FX. She started her career at J.P. Morgan on the graduate scheme and made Vice President, with successes including launching J.P. Morgan’s SEPA Instant offering. Nida is a frequent speaker at various industry forums, including EBADay, Innovate Finance, Women in Payments, Fintech Connect, etc, and was in the Women in Fintech Powerlist 2021 as well as the Money20/20 RiseUp Europe Cohort for 2022.
Nida has a Master of Arts in Land Economy from the University of Cambridge.
Nilixa Devlukia
Nilixa Devlukia
Chair Open Finance AssociationNilixa is the chair of the Open Finance Association, an industry body representing the demand side of open banking and open finance.
Nilixa is also the founder of Payments Solved a consultancy advising on the regulatory framework open banking and open finance. Digital assets, CBDC and payment services both in the UK and globally. Nilixa is an experienced regulatory expert and lawyer with a Masters in European Competition Law and over 20 years of banking and payments experience gained from her time at Barclays, the FCA, the European Banking Authority and as Head of Regulatory at the Open Banking Implementation Entity. Nilixa has worked extensively with the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the World Bank and regulators across the globe. Nilixa has represented the UK and FCA on various EU and UK level committees including the ECB SecurePay Forum, the EU API Evaluation Group, the UK Payment Strategy Forum, the ECB Market Advisory Group for a Digital Euro and currently sits on the EU Payments Systems Experts Group and Data Expert Group. Nilixa is a well know public speaker and works with industry, regulators and legislators to drive changes in the financial services ecosystem for services that are secure, transparent and inclusive.
Phillip Mind
Phillip Mind
Director for Digital Technology & Innovation UK FinancePhillip is currently employed as Principal Adviser to UK Finance, the trade body for the financial services industry, with a portfolio including payments policy and open banking.
Before that, Phillip worked at the Local Government Association leading on local government finance and public service reform. And at HM Treasury in a variety of policy roles, including leading policy reviews (the Independent Commission on Local Government Finance and Russell Commission on Youth Volunteering) and as the Budget Project Manager.
On secondment from the Treasury, he was CEO of the Giving Campaign, a national partnership between government and the voluntary sector to encourage charitable giving.
Phillip has a degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and a Master’s degree from Loughborough University.
Roy Kao
Roy Kao
Senior Advisor AccuracyRoy Kao is a recognized executive, advisor, and dot connector in Canadian financial services transformation and fintech innovation development with over 25 years of leadership, advisory, and entrepreneurial experience.
He is currently a Senior Advisor at Accuracy, a global boutique advisory firm, and serves as an Advisory Board Member for Open Banking Expo as well as a Board Member at both Fintech Cadence and Open Finance Network Canada (OFNC).
Previously, Roy held leadership roles in consulting, innovation and policy advisory, and at a fintech startup driven by the common mission to elevate financial inclusion and literacy and enhance the delivery of financial services.
Shekher Puri
Shekher Puri
Vice President Digital Components & Platforms RBCAs a leader with Canada’s largest Financial Institution, Shekher began his career at RBC in 2002, where he joined the branch network and held several leadership roles, including Regional Vice President, Integrated Markets, in GTR. He also brings experience from working in leadership roles at the Advice Centre, RBC Insurance and Mutual Funds Distribution. In 2019, Shekher took on leadership of the Digital Identity, Security, Access, APIs and Open Banking team, which has launched several industry-leading solutions that are being used across RBC Channels and Businesses, for example, North America’s first Digital Identity Verification solution in 2020. In his current role, Shekher is responsible for identifying, building, and deploying critical re-usable digital patterns, assets, and components to drive digital engagement, bionic sales, and strategic reuse. Shekher is accountable for scaling the manufacturing of re-usable components and rethinking how RBC manages digital capabilities. Shekher continues to also lead the Digital Identity, Access & Security, and Open Banking/APIs strategy for RBC.
Simon Cureton
Simon Cureton
Chief Executive Officer Funding OptionsSimon Cureton is Chief Executive Officer at Funding Options, where he’s using his extensive experience in the alternative finance sector to ensure the company is at the forefront of Open Banking and other innovations within the industry. Before becoming a founding member of Esme Loans, Simon was a graduate of investment banking, holding senior posts globally at Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley. His travels have taken him as far as Hong Kong and Australia, where he now has dual citizenship having spent eight years working in finance, most notably at CBA where he started his fintech journey. His international pedigree leaves him well placed to lead Funding Options through the evolving landscape of digital finance.
Steve Boms
Steve Boms
Executive Director FDATA North AmericaSteve Boms, Executive Director of the Financial Data and Technology Association of North America, has more than 15 years of experience working inside government, public and private companies, trade organizations, and the technology industry, and assists member companies and clients in working with policymakers in Washington, in statehouses across the United States, and internationally. Steve has spent his career focused on complex financial services public policy issues, having worked in the United States Congress on the committee with jurisdiction over banking issues. He has led advocacy efforts and public policy teams globally for equity options exchanges, large U.S.-based financial institutions, and leading fintech firms. A recognized expert in the intersection of financial technology and public policy, Steve has testified before the United States Senate, the Senate of Canada, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development regarding financial services and technology.
In addition to working directly with FDATA North America’s members, he is a frequent conference panelist and his perspective is solicited by reporters on the technology, financial services, and regulatory beats.
Steve is also the President and founder of Allon Advocacy, LLC, a public policy firm that helps technology, fintech and financial services firms navigate complex public policy and public affairs environments around the world.
Tanja Imamovic
Tanja Imamovic
Strategic Partnerships & Ecosystems Raiffeisen Bank InternationalWith more than 15 years’ experience in areas of digital transformation, strategy development, product management, innovation and advisory, Tanja is responsible for Open Banking in Raiffeisen Bank International. She started her career in Digital banking development for Retail and Corporate customers in Raiffeisen Bank Bosnia & Herzegovina where she was responsible for digitisation projects. Following successful digital transformation initiatives, she continues her career as Head of Product development where digitisation strategy meets balance sheet. After establishing the first Digital Banking Competence Center in Bosnia & Herzegovina, she is joining Raiffeisen Bank International on the path of transforming PSD2 regulation into the full scaled business known as the Open API Tribe. Focusing on value, big picture, people empowerment, awareness and technology are for her key pillars of successful business. She strongly believes in balanced life and accepts change as one of the constants in our journey. She considers her family as the main cell of the life, and enjoys a good book, movie and yoga.
Victoria Clark
Victoria Clark
Associate Vice President, Payments, Client Experience & Technology ATB FinancialVictoria is a Managing Director in ATB’s Payments and Banking Products team, supplying solutions for ATB’s 815,000 clients. In addition to setting the direction and leading the team accountable for ATB’s card solutions, and co-elevating ATB’s payments strategy, Victoria is leading the working committee to enable ATB’s open banking strategy.