Home >> Previous Editions >> Conference 2020 >> Speakers
Home >> Previous Editions >> Conference 2020 >> Speakers
Andrea Pinna is currently Lead Expert in the Innovation team in the Market Infrastructure and Payments Department at the European Central Bank, where he is responsible for the work on the possible design of a ‘digital euro’. He coordinates the secretariat of the Eurosystem High Level Task Force on Central Bank Digital Currency and the participation of the ECB in international groups dealing with this topic. Andrea represents the ECB in the market contact group dealing with FinTech issues such as crypto-assets, stablecoins and the modernisation of the securities and payment infrastructures. Before joining the ECB in 2015, he held academic positions in International Finance and Capital Markets in Italy and the UK. His background is in the areas of theoretical Market Microstructure and Financial Stability.
Elisabeth Noble is a Senior Policy Expert at the European Banking Authority. She leads the EBA’s work on crypto-assets, DLT and the platformisation of financial services and coordinates the European Forum for Innovation Facilitators. She represents the EBA in EU and international standard-setter policy work streams relating to FinTech, market-based finance, financial system interconnectedness, market access and the regulatory perimeter. She is contributing to the delivery of the EU Digital Finance Strategy and was a member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Regulatory Obstacles to Financial Innovation (now disbanded). Prior to joining the EBA, Elisabeth spent 7 years at HM Treasury advising primarily on the UK government’s response to the financial crisis and the post-crisis domestic and EU regulatory reforms (2008-14), including the reforms to the regulatory architecture in the EU (Banking Union). Elisabeth has also spent some time in the private sector.
Since January 2018 Roberto Baldoni is the Deputy Director General of the Department of Information for Security (DIS) with responsibility for national cybersecurity. He is currently on leave from the Sapienza University of Rome, where he is a full professor of computer science. Baldoni chairs the Italian Cybersecurity Management Board (Nucleo Sicurezza Cibernetica), an inter-ministerial organization established at DIS and further empowered via executive decree (DPCM 17/2/2017). The NSC implements and oversees the prevention and management of large scale cyber crises and coordinates national cybersecurity operation centers including the National CSIRT, Postal Police (Ministry of the Interior), the Network Operation Command (Ministry of Defense) and the intelligence agencies. The NSC is also responsible for national cybersecurity policy positions in international organizations and for fostering Italian cybersecurity cooperation between government, research, and industry. As Deputy Director General of DIS, Baldoni is the national contact point of NATO for cyber policy and the head of the Italian NIS point of contact (Dlgs 65/2018). Roberto Baldoni is currently leading an inter-ministerial working group for drafting the five executive decrees of the “National Security Perimeter for Cyber” law (DL 105/2019).
Harish leads a global team working on payments and market infrastructures topics in the Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice at the World Bank. His work spans Payments and market infrastructures, Financial Inclusion, Digital ID, Digital Economy and FinTech. Harish represents the World Bank in several international working groups on these topics. Harish was a lead contributor to the preparation of the IMF-World Bank Bali Fintech Agenda and is a co-chair of a CPMI-World Bank taskforce on Payment Aspects of Financial Inclusion. Harish is on the editorial board of the Journal of Digital Banking and is a guest editor at the Journal of Payments Strategy and Systems.
Prior to joining the World Bank, Harish worked in senior level positions at Visa in business development, operations, and risk management. Harish holds an under-graduate degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology -Madras, India and a Post Graduate Diploma, from Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta, India specializing in IT systems and Finance.
Philipp Paech is an Associate Professor of Financial Law and Regulation at LSE and an attorney at law in Frankfurt and Berlin, specialising in digital financial services. He was the chairman of the EU Commission’s expert group on Fintech regulation (ROFIEG), leading the development of the group’s 30 Recommendations on Regulation, Innovation and Finance. Philipp is the Director of LSE’s Law and Financial Markets Project and a fellow at the Institute for Law and Finance at the University of Frankfurt. Before joining the LSE, he spent many years at the heart of international legal and regulatory reform of the financial sector, working from 2007-2010 for the European Commission DG FISMA, and from 2002-2006 for UNIDROIT in Rome. He is also a CEDR-accredited mediator in the UK.
Graduated in Economics at L.U.I.S.S. University (1981). Dottore Commercialista (1983) Revisore Ufficiale dei Conti (1999). Worked at CONSOB since 1986 involved in regulatory and surveillance issues, at domestic and international level. Head of the stastics and studies office (1995); head of markets surveillance office (2001); Director of the of the Market Division (2013): currently Secretary General. Member of various international working groups dealing with regulation on secondary markets and intermediaries. Currently, member of the LEI ROC Regulatory Oversight Committee for global legal entity identifier (LEI) system.
Filippo Annunziata is Professor of Financial Markets Law at University Bocconi, Milan since 2007. He is Co-Director of the Unit “ at Baffi-Carefin Center, University Bocconi. He is Member of the Academic Board, European Banking Institute, Frankfurt, of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), of the Comitato di Redazione of “Rivista delle Società”, of the Association Européenne de Droit Bancaire et Financier – Italy. He is also Member of the Scientific Committe – Annual conference 2021 of the Comissão do Mercado de Valores Mobiliários (Portugal) and the founder of the network Annunziata&Conso. He has published extensively in the field of Financial Markets and Banking law. He is also professor of Musicology at the University of Milan, and author of several publications in the field of Law and music.
Francisco Rivadeneyra is a Director of CBDC and Fintech Policy and Research at the Bank of Canada. His research is broadly divided into financial economics and payments research. He is interested in how agent heterogeneity and payments infrastructure affect asset prices and welfare. His recent academic research focuses on the implications of technological innovations, for example electronic money and distributed ledger technologies, for the mandates of central banks. His recent policy work has been to develop computational tools to measure the risk and efficiency of payments systems. Earlier work focused on the management of domestic debt and foreign reserves portfolios.
Mr. Rivadeneyra holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago.
Passion for Innovation
Looking after the Innovation @ Banca Mediolanum Group
Passion for entrepreneurship
Co-Founder at FoolFarm spa, the first European AI-only Startup Studio
Passion for dissemination
Contract professor on “Digital & Social Enterprise”, “Digital Transformation” and “Innovation management” at Venice’s Ca’Foscari University and Milan’s Cattolica University.
General Manager Intesa IBM & Blockchain Leader IBM Italy
Pietro Lanza is currently working as General Manager of Intesa IBM (a company fully owned By IBM Italia Spa) other than Financial Services Solutions and Blockchain IBM Leader for IBM Italy. Before joining IBM last June, Lanza has held positions of increasing responsibility in the development and implementation of solutions dedicated to digital transformation with particular focus on financial, insurance, telco and utilities sectors. He was VP Global Sales & Marketing of Euronovate SA, a global player focused on digital identity solutions and previously Partner with responsibility for the business unit financial services of Eurogroup Consulting, a company operating in management consulting in the main European countries. He worked in some of the leading Italian and international banks, such as Banca Sella, Credem Banca, Nordea Banking Group, Fineco Bank and Banca Mediolanum. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Finance from the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), several postgraduates courses from the University of Stanford (USA), the Bocconi University (Milan, Italy) and the Luiss University (Rome, Italy. His numerous publications in international journals and magazines cover several topics, as technology and innovation policies, blockchain, studies on the determinants of innovation, technology and knowledge transfer, strategic management of intellectual property and finance for innovation. He currently serves as President of the internal controls board of Bwin-Party Gaming (Austria and UK).
John Ho is the Global Head of Legal, Financial Markets for Standard Chartered Bank (“SCB”), overseeing and providing legal advisory, transactional and documentation support for Financial Markets (FM) business globally for Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), its branches and affiliates. Mr. Ho is also the co-chair of the ISDA South East Asia Legal and Regulatory Committee.
Mr. Ho plays an active role in implementing changes within SCB to conform to applicable OTC regulatory reforms impacting FM business. He has been involved in fostering closer working relationship and rapport with industry groups and regulators on key global and regional regulatory reform changes, including Interbank Offered Rate (IBOR) reforms, MIFID II/MIFIR, Dodd Frank, EMIR, CRDIV, FATCA, CCPs and Margin Reforms for Uncleared Derivatives.
In addition, Mr. Ho has supported digitisation in SCB and adoption of new or innovative technology initiatives such as blockchain, distributed ledger technology and smart contracts. He is an active participant in the industry’s Fintech events and has shared insights on the legal and regulatory framework relating to the development of Fintech, Stablecoins and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Mr Ho is the chair of the FIA Fintech and Cryptoasset Study Group and the global co-chair of Financial Services SIG, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA). He is a mentor of R3 and LongHash, both global incubator networks which provide a full range of support for start-ups working on blockchain or distributed ledger related projects.
Prior to joining SCB, Mr. Ho was the Managing Director Principal in the legal department of Bear Stearns (Japan), Ltd (“Bear Stearns”) where he supported the Asia franchise (including Tokyo, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Korea, India and South-east Asia) from January 2003 to August 2008 covering various structured products and derivatives including equity derivatives, credit derivatives, fixed income and commodities.
Prior to joining Bear Stearns, Mr. Ho worked as Asia equity counsel for Lehman Brothers in Tokyo with experience dealing in convertibles, options, warrants, delta one products and other types of equity derivatives transactions, equity finance and equity capital markets. He is qualified as an advocate and solicitor in Singapore since 1995 and he received his law degree from the National University of Singapore.
Giancarlo Sfolcini began his career in 1990 in Snam as a telecommunication network specialist, followed by various experiences in the telecommunications industry, such as BT, covering different roles in sales and marketing area as bid manager, but also in planning and control function as business unit controller. He moved to management consulting firm Between (now EY) in 2004 leading innovation projects for major corporates in different industries, such as manufacturing, banking, telco&media. In SIA from 2015, Sfolcini contributed to the establishment of the Digital Innovation Department within which he mainly deals with the study of new business models enabled by emerging technologies and coordinates SIA participation in EU-funded research and development projects.
He is member of several working group on blockchain applications both at national and European level.
Doug Schwenk is Co-Founder & Chairman of Digital Asset Research, Inc. (DAR) an institutional cryptoasset research and data firm. DAR focuses on high-quality data and insights by applying rigorous, transparent, and objective diligence and analysis to digital asset markets. DAR is partnered with FTSE for crypto asset indexes: https://www.ftserussell.com/digitalasset
He has over 25 years experience in capital markets, including: Co-Founder, Chairman, & CEO Digital Asset Research, Co-Founder & Chairman Digital Asset Custody Co., Partner LabCo.io, Founder & CEO Advise Technologies, Partner & COO Trafelet Capital Management.
Jorge Lazcano holds an engineering degree in Technology and Telecommunication Services from the Politécnica University of Madrid. In 2018, he joined Iberpay after working for three years in consultancy, where he was mainly involved in the areas of strategy & operations and in Management Consulting. His current position at Iberpay is Head of the Project Office, highlighting the management and monitoring of the project portfolio among his duties, as well as being the Head of blockchain initiatives. Among these projects, the final Spanish financial sector initiative Smart Payments stands out, as well as the new Smart Money initiative.
Jorge also represents Iberpay in various forums and groups. He has a background in integration, transformation, and optimization projects, with great impact on the business. He is passionate about innovation and emerging technologies, with a clear focus on DLT / blockchain technology.
Alberto Marchetti-Spaccamela is Full Professor at Sapienza University of Rome. His main research interests concern algorithm analysis and design, and their applications to real time systems, cyber-security and computational biology. He has authored more than 160 papers in journals and international conferences in these fields.
He is currently Director of the Research Center of Cyber Intelligence and Information Security (CIS) at Sapienza University of Rome.
He has been PI (principal investigator) for Sapienza University of many European projects.
He is Editor of Theoretical Computer Science and has been guest editor for special issues of ACM Computing Surveys, Discrete Applied Mathematics, J. of Discrete Algorithms.
He has co-founded two spin-offs (WLAB, WSENSE) of Sapienza University of Rome.
Graduated in law from “Università degli Studi di Torino”. After working as a lawyer Andrea entered the Sella Group Compliance in 2015, specializing in investment services regulation. Currently he is Head of “Banca Sella Holding Compliance Research and Consulting”, whose duties are proactive analysis and compliance assessments on innovative technologies (including DLT and Crypto-assets) and strategic regulatory developments
Ciaran McGonagle is Assistant General Counsel at ISDA and leads ISDA’s Legal Technology and Fintech Legal Working Groups. Ciaran also supports ISDA’s legal, documentation and policy work on EU and UK financial services regulation. Prior to joining ISDA, Mr. McGonagle spent over five years at Deutsche Bank, where he worked in the bank’s legal department specializing in derivatives and structured products. He also spent some time in Deutsche Bank’s Global Regulatory Management Group. He has also worked at Morgan Stanley and at Allen & Overy. Mr. McGonagle has a law degree from Queens University Belfast.
Prof. Philipp Sandner has founded the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center (FSBC). In 2018 and in 2019, he was ranked as one of the “top 30” economists by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), a major newspaper in Germany. Further, he belonged to the “Top 40 under 40” — a ranking by the German business magazine Capital. Since 2017, he has been a member of the FinTech Council of the Federal Ministry of Finance in Germany. The expertise of Prof. Sandner includes blockchain technology in general, crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, the digital programmable Euro, tokenization of assets and rights and digital identity.
Wataru Takahashi is Professor of Monetary Economics at Osaka University of Economics, Research Fellow at Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration of Kobe University and Visiting Research Fellow at Nissay Research Institute. He worked for the Bank of Japan for 35 years, was an Advisor to the Governor of the International Department, and a Director-General of the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies. At the International Department, he was responsible for Asian financial cooperation. In addition to bilateral talks, he participated in numerous international conferences such as G20, Euro50, Bellagio, ASEM, ASEAN + 3, and EMEAP. He also attended Monetary Policy Meetings. In addition to the Central Bank Conferences, he has presented research on the independence of the Central Bank and the Japanese and Asian economies at ASEM, Bruegel, Cornell, LSE, ANU, etc. He obtained M. Phil in Economics at St. Antony’s College, the University of Oxford (Tutor: Professor John Muellbauer /Nuffield).
Giovanni Sabatini, General Manager of the Italian Banking Association (ABI) since 2009, was appointed as the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the European Banking Federation for a two-year term from January 2016 and was re-elected for a further term of office starting from January 2018. He has been the Chair of the EBF Steering Committee for Financing Growth since 2020. He is also member of the European Economic and Social Committee, Vice President of Bancomat S.p.A., Vice President of CBI S.p.c.a, member of the Board of Directors of Fondo Italiano di Investimento (Italian Investment Fund), member of the Italian Corporate Governance Committee and member of the Advisory Committee of Borsa Italiana (Italian Stock Exchange), of which he was Chairman from July 2009 to 2014. From June 2008 to June 2009, he worked for CONSOB (the supervisory authority for the Italian financial products market), serving as Director of the Issuer Division. From June 2006 to May 2008, he served as Head of the Banking and Financial System-Legal Affairs Directorate at the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance. During this period, Giovanni Sabatini was the Ministry’s representative on the Consiglio Superiore of the Bank of Italy, as well as a member of the board of Alitalia – Linee Aeree Italiane S.p.A., member of the Strategic Committee of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (the National Promotional Institution) and member of the Strategic Committee for the Italian Financial Market. From September 2004 to May 2006, he was Director of the Intermediaries Division at CONSOB. From 2001 to 2004 he was also CEO of Monte Titoli S.p.A (a companyowned by the Italian Stock Exchange Group) and Chairman of ECSDA (the European Central Securities Depositories Association). Giovanni Sabatini graduated cum laude in Economics and Business from the LUISS University in Rome and, from 2009 to 2015, he was a fixed term professor of Business Financial Analysis at the Faculty of Management Engineering of the Sapienza University in Rome.
Antonio ADINOLFI has been working as Head of Office since 2003 within the Treasury Department, DG Prevention of Use of the Financial System for Illegal Purposes, now DG Banking and Finance, Ministry of Economy and Finance.
Since August 2015, he has been member of the G7 Cyber Expert Group (CEG) on cyber security in the financial sector.
In October 2018, chair of the Contact Group for Saudi Arabia’s accession process to the FATF.
Membership and in November 2018, co-chair of the International Co-operation Review Group (ICRG) of the FATF/GAFI, a working group in charge to assess jurisdictions with serious and strategic vulnerabilities in AML/CFT. Previously, since 2012, he has been Italy’s delegate of ICRG.
Since September 2020, he is substitute member of Financial Security Committee in charge of preventing use of financial systems for the purpose of terrorist financing and freezing funds and economic resources so as to combat terrorist financing and activities of Countries that threaten international peace and security pursuant to United Nations Resolutions and European Union decisions.
Institutional tasks include Italy’s Central Means of Payment Anti-Fraud Office (UCAMP), aimed at tackling euro counterfeiting, fraud on credit and banking cards, receiving banking and financial transactions communications related to the weapons trade and identity theft (SCIPAFI Project, an interconnected network with public databases: Inland Revenue Office, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Transport, and social security institutions (INPS, INAIL).
Furthermore Mr. ADINOLFI participates in Informal Sanctions Experts Meeting on international financial sanctions (financial embargoes), adopted via UNSCRs and was moderator for the “Corruption related drivers and implications for illicit financial flows” session during the OECD Meeting within the Task Force on Charting Illicit Trade (TF-CIT).
Mr. ADINOLFI is a chartered lawyer with experience in criminal law, and a lecturer at Italy’s Scuola di Polizia Tributaria of Guardia di Finanza on the AML/CFT legal framework.
Xiaochen Zhang, President of FinTech4Good, UN ESCAP Sustainable Business Network (ESBN) Executive Council, a co-chair of the World Digital Economy Council, a co-chair of the CBDC Committee, a member of the UN ESCAP Digital Economy Task Force and Green Business Task Force. Listed as one of the Top 100 Blockchain Influencers by Lattice80, Xiaochen leads the design and implementation of FinTech4Goods’s strategy to introduce the most disruptive technological innovations in frontier markets. FinTech4Good was awarded the Best FinTech Impact Investing Network 2019 and 2020 by Wealth & Finance International. As a trusted figure in the digital economy and blockchain, he addressed 100+ high-level international forums as a keynote speaker and produced three blockchain and Fintech shows with 500K+ followers. He worked with many portfolio companies in launching new offers, entering into new markets and building transformative collaborative initiatives with the most reputable organizations from all over the world. In the past 18 years, Xiaochen has built strong collaborations with government agencies, multinational organizations, and financial institutions through work with the World Bank, United Nations, Inter-America Development Bank, Astana International Finance Center, Israeli Blockchain Association, IIB Council, Crowdfunding Professional Association, and many other international platforms.
Christian Cachin is a professor of computer science at the University of Bern, where he leads the cryptology and data security research group since 2019. Prior to that he worked for IBM Research – Zurich during more than 20 years. He has held visiting positions at MIT and at EPFL and has taught at several universities during his career in industrial research. He graduated with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from ETH Zurich in 1997. He is an ACM Fellow, an IEEE Fellow, recipient of multiple IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards, and has also served as the President of the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) from 2014-2019. With a background in cryptography, he is interested in all aspects of security in distributed systems and especially in cryptographic protocols, consistency, consensus, blockchains, and cloud-computing security. He has developed many cryptographic protocols, particularly for achieving consensus and for executing distributed cryptographic operations over the Internet. In the area of cloud computing, he has contributed to standards in storage security and developed protocols for key management. He has co-authored a textbook on distributed computing titled Introduction to Reliable and Secure Distributed Programming. While at IBM Research he made essential contributions to the development of Hyperledger Fabric, a blockchain platform aimed business use.
Dr. Taiji Inui worked for Bank of Japan as Director responsible for IT planning and involved in developments including RTGS and CSD systems including network infrastructures for the Bank’s businesses. He was Member of BIS Group of Computer Experts and Working Party on Security Issues for many years. He established EMEAP ITDM (central banks’ IT Directors’ Meeting in the region). He was Head of Payment Policy of the Bank until June 2008. After that he worked for NTT Data Corporation which is one of the biggest IT company globally providing new technologies and payment infrastructures as the leading IT vendor in Japan. As such, he has experiences in the field of IT and payment systems. From 2017, he has been supporting Central Bank of Myanmar as Chief Advisor attached from Japan International Cooperation Agency to foster the development of FMIs in the country. Also, he has been supporting Asian Development Bank as a consultant in the field of standardization and linkages of CSD and RTGS systems promoting ISO 20022 in ASEAN+3. Currently, he is trying to promote Asia Digital Common Currency.
Fabrizio D’Ascenzo is full professor of Production Management and Business Information Systems in the Faculty of Economics of Sapienza University of Rome. He is the Dean of the Faculty and Director of the Research Center “ImpreSapiens” of Sapienza University. He is the coordinator of the Master course in “Economics and Communication for Management and Innovation” and Director of the post graduate course in “European projects” of the Faculty of Economics. He is the Italian responsible of the Master course “Economy of enterprise, Quality and Innovation” conducted in partnership with the University of Economics (UNECON) of St. Petersburg in Russia and responsible for the agreements of Sapienza with the University of California – Berkeley, with the University MGIMO of Moscow and with the Bucarest University for Economic Studies. He is author and co-author of more than two hundred books and papers published in Italy and abroad.
Daniele A. Previati is full professor in Financial Markets and Institutions at the Department of Business Studies of the University of Rome III, and fellow of SDA Business School, Bocconi University, Milan. Nowadays he is President of the Italian Association of University Teachers of Banking and Finance, ADEIMF http://www.adeimf.it/. He has been teaching Banking and Finance topics for more than 30 years, with particular focus on bank management, strategy and organization in financial services industry, e-finance, fintech, alternative finance and crowdfunding, also with specific reference to creative and cultural industries. His main research interests relate to various perspectives on bank management: human resources management, intellectual capital, organizational change, stakeholder management, reputation and reputational risk, operational risk, internal and external communication. He has published widely, in academic and professional journals and books. He also acted as a consultant for banks and Italian Central Bank on organization design and human resources management.
Silvia Attanasio works as 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, the Research and Innovation centre for banks, promoted by Italian Banking Association. She is focused on Process management, benchmarking on operations processes and contact centers. Since 2017 she is project leader for the Spunta project, an initiative of implementation of DLT applied to the Interbank reconciliation process.
Currently Executive Vice President at Scrypta Consortium business network & member of the Board of Scientific Advisors at Scrypta Foundation, blockchain ecosystem.
Extensive background as a manager, professional and international business developer, gained in leading companies and innovative startups in Europe and Southeast Asia, mostly in the real estate, financial services and information technology industries.
Inspired by an authentic passion for innovation and technologies, particularly Fin-tech, Prop-tech and eHealth topics, practicing DLT/blockchain technology since 2017.
Anton is a Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) specialising in banking and finance law, with a focus on FinTech, RegTech and cybersecurity. He is a Russian qualified lawyer with over 10 years of experience as in-house counsel for major commercial banks in Moscow and as senior associate at a law firm in London. His experience covers advising on banking regulations and legislation applicable to financial intermediaries, as well as a wide range of financing transactions. Anton also specialises in the area of secured transactions law and transnational commercial law: he is the author of a monograph on the documentary history of the Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment and the general editor of the Cape Town Convention Journal. Anton holds several law degrees from Russia and the UK, including a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Oxford.
UNSW Sydney staff profile: https://www.law.unsw.edu.au/staff/anton-didenko
Start-up: Fintipay
Co-founder / CEO / Fintech / Payments / Digitalization / Financial Inclusion
Jose is an entrepreneur currently developing an e-wallet for South Asia under the Fintipay brand. Fintipay plans to launch payments solutions and remittance services for the region in 2021. These financial tools have success cases in financial inclusion across Africa. Jose also has strong experience developing fintech projects in up and coming economies, and also has previous experience in other ventures as a mentor or executor. Fintipay adopts a strong social approach and supports financial inclusion, digital economies and women empowerment.
Jose holds an undergraduate degree in International Business from Schiller International University (located in Spain/UK) and he also holds an IMBA from Universidad Europea (based in Madrid, Shanghai and Santiago de Chile).
Jose also has additional qualifications including:
IE (Instituto de Empresas):
Specialisation in Mobile Business and Mobile strategy
Internet of Law and Social Media.
CEF ( Centro de Estudios Financieros):
Tax planning, tax law and taxation
Stanford University:
Technology Entrepreneurship
Universidad Austral:
Course in Disruption in Blockchain, cryptocurrencies by Buenos Aires
MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology):
Just Money: Banking as if Social Matters
Dario Cerchiaro works as Manager in everis UK since January 2020. Graduated in Management Engineering at Politecnico of Milan University, during the years he gained a strong experience in managing large-scale digital strategy transformation projects related to different industries (Banks, Manufacturing, and Fashion) with both functional and technical expertise.
He worked for 5 years within the Finance and Risk service practice at Accenture Italy before to spent some time in few Italian startups and software houses.
Passionate about new emerging digital technologies with a specific focus on Blockchain and DLTs, he is now helping spreading the everis Blockchain value offering to the existing and potential cross industries clients.
Dean has been working in the Financial Services industry for the past 15 years. By operating at the intersection of business, technology and innovation, he has earned his current (very cool) title of a Digital Transformation Leader and Blockchain Evangelist.
Dean believes that the only sustainable way into the future is with an integrated approach combining business strategy, creativity and technology! Yes, he loves technology, and truly believes in technology serving the planet and humans! He is passionate about the potential for societal change through technological innovation.
Dean is also a speaker and blogger, and often participates in the Financial Industry conferences and panels. His main interest lies in the application of the emerging technologies to business model transformation. He is a member of both London and Paris Fintech and Blockchain scenes. He chairs the FinTech group of Paris Tech Advocates and mentors at Level39, the largest technology accelerator in Europe as well as at Corda blockchain startup incubator.
Dean proudly holds an MA in Applied Imagination in Creative Industries from the Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts in London since it immensely enriched and broadened his engineering background. Hence, he is the author of “Rolling Concepts in Design Thinking”, a method which triggers creative thinking and increases the scope of generated solutions in Design Thinking and Innovation. He is also one of the co-authors of WelthTECH book. He contributed the section ‘How Blockchain drives innovation in Asset Management’.
Learn more about Dean at linkedin.com/in/deandemellweek and @DeanDemellweek
Marco Severi is an EMEA Account Executive & Italy Director at Chainalysis, the new Blockchain analytics unicorn.
Graduated in Business and Administration at University of Bologna, Marco moved to France for a MSc. in Financial Markets at Skema Business School. Soon after that he started his career at Bloomberg LP in London covering Financial Institutions in the UK, France, Switzerland and Italy. During this time he had the opportunity to manage big enterprise projects and help his Institutional clients that were going through stricter regulations (e.g. Mifid II). Three years later he decided to follow his big passion for cryptocurrencies and joined Chainalysis in order to grow the EMEA Financial institutions segment while also contributing to the growth of the Government Agencies segment in Italy.
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 Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Bank of Thailand CBDC projects at ConsenSys.
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.
Roger Wattenhofer’s research interests are a variety of algorithmic and systems aspects in computer science and information technology, e.g., distributed systems, positioning systems, wireless networks, mobile systems, social networks, financial networks, deep neural networks. He publishes in different communities: distributed computing (e.g., PODC, SPAA, DISC), networking and systems (e.g., SIGCOMM, SenSys, IPSN, OSDI, MobiCom), and algorithmic theory (e.g., STOC, FOCS, SODA, ICALP). 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 to Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.
Pietro Grassano, Business Solutions Director – Europe at Algorand. Algorand is a novel blockchain protocol founded by Prof. Silvio Micali (MIT, Turing Avard).
At J.P. Morgan Asset Management from 2002 until 2019, Pietro has been Country Head for France since 2014: beforehand he had been Head of Sales for Italy and responsible for business in Greece. Before 2002, he held commercial functions at BNP Paribas Asset Management in Milan. He has more than 20 years of experience in the asset management sector. He was previously a consultant in the financial pole of Andersen Consulting. Pietro started his career in Brussels, in a commodities trading company. He holds a Master in Economics and Social Sciences (DES) from Bocconi University in Milan, and a baccalaureate in humanism (maturità classica) at the “Andrea Doria” High School in Novi Ligure. He is a proud supporter of the Torino Calcio football team.
Martin is a key member of the Research Team at FTSE Russell, which he joined in early 2012. Prior to joining FTSE Russell, Martin spent over a decade working in algorithmic trading, financial engineering and high performance computing at tier one financial services firms.
Martin designs alternatively weighted indices for use in the asset management, ETF and structured product spaces. In his role, Martin develops new index concepts that span equity, fixed income, commodity, FX and derivative based indices. In recent years, Martin’s focus has been on alternative assets, such as private equity and more recently digital assets and cryptocurrencies. He is the research lead on FTSE Russell’s Digital Asset Initiative, which is a ground up project developing robust prices and indices suitable for use by institutional clients looking for exposure to the likes of Bitcoin and other digital assets. Martin was instrumental in forming FTSE International’s partnership with Digital Asset Research (DAR).
Martin holds a BSc, BSc Hons, MSc in Physics and Mathematics from Victoria University of Wellington.
Giacomo Vella is a researcher in the Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Observatory of Politecnico di Milano, where he has been working since its creation in 2017. He is also a PhD Candidate in the Department of Management, Economic and Industrial Engineering. His research topic are the business applications of Blockchain and DLT technologies.
Carla Stamegna studied Economics in Rome. She holds a PhD in Financial Systems, Risk Management and Regulation. She is legal auditor and chartered accountant. Since 2016, she has been seconded as national expert to the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), where she works as a policy analyst in the field of banking and finance. From 2012 to 2016, she was financial attaché at the Permanent Representation of Italy to the EU and dealt with many institutional negotiations on EU recent financial legislation. From 2008 to 2012, she worked in the Public debt Unit of the Bank of Italy. From 2005 to 2008, she was policy advisor at the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance and at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development. She has published articles on various economic and financial issues.
Umberto Filotto is Full Professor of Financial Intermediaries in University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. He held previous positions in Bocconi University, Parthenope University of Naples, University of Parma and University of Lecce. He is currently teaches Banking Management and Retail Banking; in the past he has also taught Economics of Financial Intermediaries, Corporate Finance and Economics and Finance of Insurance Companies. He is an Affiliate Faculty of SDA Bocconi – School of Management.
He is the coordinator of the Scientific Committee of the Feduf (Foundation for Financial Education). Since 2018 he has been a member of the BeFairly steering committee (Behavioral Financial Regulation and Policy) promoted by the Herbert Simon Society and by the Harding Center of the Max Planck Institute. He is a member of the Editorial Board “Bancaria”, of “Strumenti finanziari e Fiscalità”, of the steering committee of “Rivista di Regolazione dei Mercati”. Since 2015 he is co-editor of the Video-Encyclopedia of Financial Education promoted by Adeimf http://www.adeimf.it/multimedia/video.html
He is full member of AIDEA, the Italian Academy of Business Economics and of Adeimf, Association of Teachers of Economics of Intermediaries and Financial Markets and Corporate Finance and is currently President of the Association’s Auditors Committee. He is General Secretary of Assofin (Italian Association of Consumer and Mortgage Credit). He is Vice-president, member of the Board and President of the Statistics Committee of Eurofinas (European Federation of Consumer Credit), Brussels. He is member of the Board of Directors and of the Internal Controls and Risks Committee of Cardif Vita S.p.A. From 2008 to 2016 he was member of the Board of the Italian Financial Ombudsman; since 2016 he is member of the Steering Committee. From 2009 to 2015 he was a member of the board of the Institute of Advertising Self Discipline. His research interests and publications are focused on Consumer Lending, Financial Education, Behavioral Finance and Fintech.
Since 1990 he is a full professor of Computer Engineering at the Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica of the Politecnico di Torino (Turin, Italy), and since 2004 adjoint professor of the University of Illinois at Chicago, IL (USA). His research activities are mainly focused on Hardware Security, Digital Systems Design & Test, System Dependability. He is currently serving as director of the CINI Cybersecurity National Lab. From 2013 to 2019 he served as president of CINI (Italian National Inter-University Consortium for Informatics). In 2012 he was honored of the title “Doctor Honoris Causa” of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania). In the term 2010-2014 he served as appointed member of the Scientific Committee of the French “Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique” (CNRS). In the term 2013-2019 he served as Vice-chair of the IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing) Technical Committee TC 10 – Computer Systems Technology, whereas in the two terms 2000-2003 he served as elected chair of the IEEE – Computer Society Test Technology Technical Council (TTTC).
Mario La Torre is Full Professor in Banking and Finance at “La Sapienza” University of Rome, and Chair of the Center For Positive Finance. Among its main research areas are banking, financial intermediaries and financial markets, sustainable finance, impact finance, microcredit, audiovisual and art finance. Author of numerous publications, Mario La Torre is also editor of the international series Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance and author of the blog Good in Finance. He has held various institutional positions, including that of a member of the G8 Task Force on Social Impact Investments, advisor to the Minister for Culture, member of the Board of Directors of Cinecittà Holding. Currently, he is a member of the Board of the Italian National Agency for Microcredit.
https://web.uniroma1.it/dip_management/node/5606
I am a Lecturer in the Finance Group of Essex Business School (University of Essex).
After receiving a Bachelor’s Degree (Business Administration) and a Master of Science (International Management) at Bocconi University (Milan, Italy), I pursued a challenging path that combined managerial experience in banking with a rigorous doctoral program. I felt that this combination would best prepare me to pursue my passion for an academic career in finance.
On the one hand, before joining Essex Business School in October 2017 I had worked for the Intesa Sanpaolo Banking Group since 2010. In the period 2010-2014 I worked in commercial banking and my job responsibilities put me accountable for the management of a portfolio of large corporate clients, for developing the firm-bank relationship and for providing the bank’s clients with advisory services on ordinary and extraordinary finance issues such as setting up the credit concession proposal, issuing bank guarantees, letters of credit and bid/performance/advance payment bonds, assisting clients on M&A transactions, securitization deals, credit derivatives and computing internal ratings through the credit scoring methodology adopted by the bank. In the remaining three years of my banking working experience, i.e., from 2015 to 2017, I worked for IMI Bank, the investment bank of Intesa Sanpaolo Group, in the Structured Finance Department at the bank’s headquarters in Milan (Italy). Moreover, before joining Intesa Sanpaolo Group in 2010, I worked for UniCredit Group in the Corporate and Investment Banking Division.
On the other hand, in March 2014, under the supervision of Professor Alberto Zazzaro, I was awarded a Ph.D. in Economic Sciences by the Polytechnic University of Marche (Faculty of Economics “Giorgio Fuà”, Ancona – Italy), with a specialization in empirical banking and finance. During my Ph.D. Programme, I spent a semester as a Visiting Scholar at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business (Bloomington – USA) hosted by Professor Greg Udell.
My research is novel and addresses up-to-date research questions that have relevant policy implications not only for financial institutions but also for the real economy. My current research agenda focuses on several aspects of banking and finance. The first of these investigates the use and transmission of soft, unverifiable information in large organizations. This process is often severely affected by agency problems and institutional frictions. Specifically, in my job market paper, that builds on my Ph.D. dissertation, I examine the effectiveness of hardening of soft information in credit scoring methodologies along the organizational hierarchy of large banking institutions. A second focus of my research analyses several aspects of securitization, such as its nexus with the financial crisis, the role of credit enhancements generally provided in the transaction and its impact on banks’ credit risk-taking behaviour. I am also actively involved in research activity investigating other topics, such as the effects of bankruptcy reforms, Islamic banking and bank lending, among others.
Rod Garratt is a Professor of Economics at the University of California Santa Barbara. He has served as a Technical Advisor to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), a Research Advisor to the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, and is a former Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. At the FRBNY he co-chaired the Virtual Currency Working Group for the Federal Reserve System. After leaving the FRBNY he consulted for Payments Canada and R3 on Project Jasper: a proof of concept for a distributed-ledger-technology-based wholesale interbank payment system. He also served as a committee member or significant contributor on multiple BIS-led reports on digital assets, including the recent G7 report on global stablecoins. Garratt received his BA from the University of Waterloo and PhD from Cornell University. His research areas include monetary theory, payments economics, financial network analysis and auctions. He has published in the top economics journals including Econometrica, the American Economic Review and the Journal of Political Economy. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Financial Market Infrastructures, the Journal of Network Theory in Finance and Digital Finance.
