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Keynote Speakers
Speakers
Chair Persons
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Claudia Guagliano heads the Innovation Products and Technology Unit in ESMA’s Risk Analysis and Economics Department. The Risk Analysis and Economics Department is responsible for ESMA’s work on identification and assessment of risks to investors, markets and financial stability in the EU in the area of securities markets.
Prior to joining ESMA in June 2014, Claudia has worked in the international financial relations department of the Italian Treasury and at Consob.
She holds a PhD in international economics from Bocconi University, a master in economics from Pompeu Fabra University and a degree in economics from Bocconi University.
Alistair is Professor of Financial Economics at the School of Business and Economics at Loughborough University. Previously Alistair worked at Bayes Business School, Bank of England, University of Surrey, London Business School, HM Treasury and for the Government of Malawi. He has a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics. His research spans financial technology, money and central banking, bank capital and risk management and financial regulation. He is the author of a comprehensive account of the 2007-08 crisis “The Fall of the House of Credit”.
His current research focus is on the economics of data and related technologies in money and financial services. Much of this work is on payments technologies and digital currencies. He is the principal investigator of the TECHNGI project www.techngi.uk on AI and insurance, part of the UK £20mn Next Generation Services Research Challenge. He has also worked recently on disaster risk finance and on the potential application of insurance solutions to the current Covid-19 and future pandemics.
Pietro Grassano, Business Solutions Director – Europe at Algorand. Algorand is a Layer-1 blockchain protocol founded by Prof. Silvio Micali (MIT, Turing Award).
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.
After graduating in Computer Engineering, Francisco began his career in NTT DATA in 2015, designing and developing solutions for technologies such as Virtual Reality, 3D Simulation, IoT and most recently, Blockchain. Since 2018 he has been Head of Blockchain at NTT DATA and leads the introduction and development of innovative projects to foster cultural, technological and business change.
Salvatore Lo Giudice is Responsible for the Post-trading Office of CONSOB – the Italian Securities Regulator – Markets Division. In this capacity, he is responsible for all post-trading (CSDR, EMIR, SFTR, SHRD, SFD) and short selling (SSR) activities at Consob. He is also deeply involved in the work carried out by CONSOB in the fields of Distributed Ledger Technologies and crypto assets.
He is the CONSOB member of the Post-Trading Standing Committee (PTSC), the CCP Policy Committee and the CCP Supervisory Committee of ESMA and of the BCBS-CPMI-IOSCO Joint Working Group on Margins. Within the PTSC he coordinates the Task Force on CSDs and settlement. In the past he served as national expert at the European Commission, Directorate General Internal Market and Services, where he was deeply involved in all dossiers related to financial markets infrastructures, including the work on the Code of Conduct and the work of the Clearing and Settlement Advisory and Monitoring Expert (CESAME) group.
Salvatore received a degree in Economics at the University of Siena and a Master of Science at the University of Bristol. He was also a visiting scholar at Columbia University (New York).
Dr. Cyrus de la Rubia is chief Economist with Hamburg Commercial Bank covering economic forecasts, interest rate analysis and the foreign exchange markets as well all issues with respect to the token economy. Monetary policy and central banks are among his focus themes. Additionally, Dr. de la Rubia is an adviser for Emerging Markets with Berlin Economics and was a lecturer at Frankfurt School of Finance and Management eight years.
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 (now Nexi) from 2015 as senior product manager within Digital Currency & DLT Unit.
He is member of several working group on blockchain applications both at national and European level.
Professor Christian Grothoff is a professor for computer network security at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, researching future Internet architectures. He is an Ashoka Fellow and co-founder of Taler Systems SA. He served as an expert court witness and has reported on technology and national security as a freelance journalist.
Juan has a wide range of financial experience from a central bank to a crypto startup. He has also worked at a stock exchange, a global FX bank, a central counterparty and the world’s largest FX clearinghouse. Juan noticed Bitcoin in 2015 and took a keen interest in what it meant for digital money. For a few years now he’s been documenting CBDCs in Twitter as @nomemenomoney. In 2020 Juan was a financial advisor for a crypto startup that helped venezuelan emigrants send money home.
Mr. Pietro Lanza currently serves as Banks & Insurances Director at IBM, with a particular focus on large digital transformation projects and strategies for large enterprises in several industries (financial services, energy-utilities, automotive, etc.).
He formerly acted as President of the Board of Intesa Spa, an IBM Company.
He currently serves as President of the internal controls board (dlgs. 231/01) of Bwin-Party Gaming (Austria and UK).
He served as VP Global Sales & Marketing of Euronovate SA of Euronovate is a global player focused on digital transformation solutions and consulting (Switzerland).
He served as Managing Director of Ambroadvisory, an swiss-italian corporate finance boutique focused on the development of small-mid caps (Italy, UK) where he managed several listing on AIM Market.
He served as Corporate Development Manager of Siamosoci, one of the most important equity crowdfunding platform in Europe (Italy).
He served as Equity Partner of Eurogroup Consulting, one of the most relevant management consultancy firm in Europe (HQ in Paris, France).
Prior to his appointment he served as Director of Group Strategy and Innovation for Sella Bank Holding from July 2005, to August 2007 (Italy)
He served from July 2000 to July 2005 as Project Manager of Credem Bank Group (Italy).
He served from July 1999 to September 2000 as Project Manager of Nordea Banking Group (Sweden).
He served from July 1998 to September 1999 as Project Manager of Fineco Bank (Italy).
He holds a Bachelor of Science 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: technology and innovation policies, studies on the determinants of innovation, technology and knowledge transfer, strategic management of intellectual property and finance for innovation.
Paolo Brignardello is one of the founders and the Chief Commercial Officer of FundsDLT, a fundtech company created in 2020 by Credit Suisse Asset Management, Natixis Investment Management, Cleastream Bank and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. FundsDLT is a cross-boundary, decentralized, blockchain-based platform offering next-generation services that make investment fund distribution easier, cheaper and transparent.
Prior to joining FundsDLT, Paolo spent seven years in the role of Head of Product Management and Marketing at Fundsquare, a leading investment fund information and regulatory services company, subsidiary of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. During his time there, from as early as 2016, he was part of a core team involved in the inception the ground-breaking FundsDLT project and its subsequent incubation by the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and Fundsquare.
Paolo has wide-ranging expertise in cross border fund distribution and the investment fund supply chain, having covered roles of operational responsibility and commercial support during more than twenty years of professional activity in companies such as RBC Investor & Treasury Services, KPMG, and FastNet (acquired by Caceis).
He holds an MBA from the Open University and a degree in economics from the Sapienza University of Rome.
Dr. Taiji Inui worked for Bank of Japan as Director responsible for IT planning and involved in developments of RTGS and CSD systems including network infrastructures. He was a member of BIS Group of Computer Experts (GCE) and Working Party on Security Issues (WPSI) for many years. He established EMEAP ITDM (Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks IT Directors’ Meeting). 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 companies globally providing new technologies and payment infrastructures as the leading System Integrator 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 (JICA) to foster the development of FMIs in the country. Also, he has been supporting Asian Development Bank (ADB) as a consultant in the field of standardization and linkages of CSD and RTGS systems promoting ISO 20022 in ASEAN+3. He is a member of ISO/TC68 SC2 (Financial Services, security), AG5 (Digital currencies), as well as ISO 20022 Payments Standard Evaluation Group (SEG) and Securities SEG. Currently, he is trying to promote Asia Digital Common Currency (ADCC).
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. Member of the Digital Euro Market Advisory Group of the European Commission since October 2021.
Giuseppe Perrone is a EY Partner that leads EY EMEIA Blockchain and the Innovation Consulting practice in Italy. He focuses on business transformation capabilities through emerging technologies, as well as driving the EY engineering solution initiatives.
Giuseppe holds a master’s degree in Engineering from the Università di Roma Tor Vergata.
Andrea Lapomarda leads the Enterprise Risk practice for Financial Services in Italy. He focuses in regulatory compliance and in internal controls transformation also leveraging on emerging technologies and RegTech solutions.
Andrea holds a master’s degree in Economics from the Università del Salento.
Deborah is a IT Consultant at Reply. She graduated in 2012 in Computer Science at “Università Statale di Milano” and then started her working career in consultancy.
Since 2018 she is in Blockchain Reply, the company inside Reply which is focused on studying, designing and delivering blockchain-based solutions, in which she contributed to the design and development of the Sureties solution.
Giorgio Pavia is a Partner at Reply.
He has 12+ years of professional experience in Financial Markets and Risk Management. He has developed a strong expertise in topics related to DLT applied to banking system and he is specialized in Regtech, CCRisk, Market Risk, ALM, Liquidity Risk, IRR, Capital Markets, Derivative Pricing, Fair Value Adj, Collateral Management, Clearing OTC, Tail Risk Management, Asset Management
Vid Hribar is part of the Blockchain Hub at Raiffeisen Bank International AG. His main responsibilities include initiating, managing and steering of blockchain projects and PoCs and collaborating with different business lines in order to prepare blockchain strategy for the group. He has legal background and previous experience from various departments of the bank, especially operations.
Francesco Noviello is a Partner at Reply.
He has 9 years of professional experience in Financial Services and Asset and Wealth Management. After graduation, he has worked for large Italian family office and for HNWI clients. In Reply, he has been involved in the transformation of the banking market, more specifically in Private banking and Network Banking, with strategic roles in the most important banking groups.
Giuseppe Santucci is full professor and head of The Research Center of Cyber Intelligence and Information Security (CIS) at “La Sapienza” University of Rome.
His main research activities concern visual languages, visualization, and visual analytics, focusing on both theoretical issues, like progressive visual analytics and visual quality metrics, and domain specific applications, like information retrieval and cyber security. On such topics he published 200+ papers on international journals and conferences. More about his research: http://www.diag.uniroma1.it/~santucci
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.
Romano Stasi is Managing Director of ABI Lab, the Italian banking research and innovation centre. He has a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from La Sapienza University and a MBA from SDA Bocconi School of Management. He has served in various capacities in international consulting firms such as Accenture, Capgemini and Ernst & Young, developing and implementing projects in the financial services and ICT sectors. Mr Stasi is part of several working groups at the European level and, since 2017, has chaired Spunta Banca DLT, an initiative that has moved the Italian interbank reconciliation process onto DLT. He is also founder and Director of CERTFin, the national centre of excellence on cyber security for the banking sector promoted by ABI and Bank of Italy.
May Michelson is the Director of Global Sales at GK8. May has multiple years of experience working with both traditional and crypto-focused financial institutions. May’s role at GK8 involves structuring and developing strategic opportunities with traditional financial services to support the growth of the GK8 platform. Prior to GK8, May was a Director of Sales at PayKey, where she focused on helping financial institutions to speed their digital transformation, and improve the bank’s engagement with its customers. Prior to PayKey, May was a software engineer at Intel. May is the Co-Founder of Fintech Ladies IL Community – a community of executive women in fintech with the aim of professional empowerment. May hold a dual degree in Computer Science and Business from Tel Aviv University.
Akira is specialized in payment systems analysis and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) application in finance. He has been involved in multiple DLT, crypto asset, CBDC projects in the company and supported regulators, payment system operators, IT companies and fintechs.
Conrad Kraft is an Executive Director at the Digital Euro Association. He holds a master’s degree in Digital Currencies and Blockchain from the University of Nicosia and has undertaken research in the areas of DLT, CBDCs and the use of exponential technologies in the public sector.
Michele Curtoni works as Head of Strategy for SDX – SIX Digital Exchange, a SIX company. Prior to his current role, Michele was VP in State Street’s Digital Product Development and DLT team. He focused on cryptocurrencies’ safekeeping & custody, asset tokenization, and technology deployment projects for blockchain-based initiatives. Before joining State Street, he was manager and strategy leader for LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group) Emerging Technologies group. At the LSEG Michele also worked in the Group Strategy division, taking a central role in several of the Group’s high-profile acquisitions and corporate partnerships as well as other Group strategic initiatives. Michele has more than 10-year experience in financial services, FMIs, and banking, at the juncture between traditional finance and the Fintech space.
Michele holds an MSc from the University of Warwick in Economics and International Financial Economics (EIFE) and is based in London (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 (1) the ISDA South East Asia Legal and Regulatory Committee and (2) the ISDA Asia Pacific ESG Working group.
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 co-chair of Financial Services SIG, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA). He is a mentor for the UK FCA Sustainability TechSprint, FCA Digital Sandbox, 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.
Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo (PhD, FHEA, FRHistS, FAcSS) is Professor of Fintech History and GlobalTrade at the Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University (UK) and Research Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universidad Anáhuac (Mexico). He has published more than 45 articles in internationally peer-reviewed journals and five academic books (PalgraveMacmillan, Routledge, Oxford University Press). Bernardo has combined full-time appointments with consulting and executive training in Europe, the Gulf States, Latin America, and Asia. Since1999 he has been the curator of a weekly report (nep-his) on new working papers in business, economic, and financial history. The blog with this report was launched in 2010 and has been referenced in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and The Economist. His research papers on ATMs and the history of fintech have been published or cited in The Conversation, Bloomberg, Smithsonian Magazine, Fortune, The Atlantic, and Wired. Email: bbatiz64@gmail.com
Lior Lamesh is the Co-Founder and CEO of GK8, a Tel-Aviv based blockchain cybersecurity company that has recently been acquired by Celsuis for $115M, an astonishing achievement for a company that has raised less than $10M. GK8 developed the world’s first true air-gapped vault that enables to create, sign, and send secure blockchain transactions with no internet connectivity, hence eliminating all potential cyber-attack vectors. Recently selected by the Forbes’ 30 under 30’s list, Lior is an experienced speaker and shared his expertise at leading industry conferences such as AIBC Dubai, CryptoWorldCon, Asia Blockchain Week, San Francisco Blockchain Week, The Block, etc.
Sabrina Leo (PhD) is a Tenure Track Assistant Professor at the Sapienza University of Rome. She is a Lecturer in Bank accounts strategies and performance and Digital Banking, and Economics of Financial Intermediaries. Her primary areas of research are related to innovative topics and traditional ones.
The first is related to DLT, Digital Payments, IT Governance in banks, Impact and Sustainable Banking, Social Impact Finance, Audio-visual, and Art Finance. More recently, she has been focusing on innovation in the payment system and the impact of technologies such as AI and ML in the financial system.
The second looks at the banking and financial market, credit management policies and financial intermediaries, and the regulation of non-bank financial intermediaries.
She is a Research Fellow of D€A – Digital Euro Association. She was a Scientific Observer of the Italian Advisory Board at the G8 Task Force on Social Impact Investments.