Past Speakers Europe

Mary Alcantara is the Head of Startups at MKB Fintechlab, Hungary’s first fintech investor and innovation lab owned by MKB Bank. Fintechlab’s mission is to transform Budapest into the fintech capital of the CEE region. At Fintechlab, Mary leads the incubation program, manages a portfolio of 26 startups, organizes periodic meetups and hackathons, and brokers bank partnerships with startups and scaleups. She is passionate about open innovation, building ecosystems, and helping banks create superior experiences for their customers.

Agnija is responsible for interactions with third parties and developers, community engagement, API consumer’s and providers’ onboarding. Member of multiple developer communities and forums. Enthusiast for exploring opportunities towards developer community.

Mahesh Bulchandani is the CEO and Director of FinIQ in Europe. He joined eight years ago to work with the company, to support its business growth and to assist in product development. Prior to joining FinIQ he worked in banking for 15 years, at Citi, Merrill and JP Morgan across various locations such as London, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. His last position before FinIQ was with JP Morgan, where he was heading sales and structuring for Asia

I am a creative and passionate hard worker motivated by challenge and committed to deliver in a changing global world. I have strong analytical skills and innovative business sense.

I was born in Athens on 1965. I have graduated from College on 1982 and studied Banking during 1995-1998. I finished my Master in Business Administration at ALBA University.

1990-1994 I was employed by Citibank.
From 1994 until today I am working in Eurobank Ergasias. I have been through a number of managerial positions in Custody, Sales & Customer Service, Product Development, Investment products, payments.

My International experience comes from business development in NEE countries, such as Poland, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Ukraine.

Currently I hold the position of Assistant General Manager Head of Deposits & Investment Business and Retail Payments

Specialties: Product Development, Wealth Management, Payments, Digital assets, Cryptos

Lukáš focuses on client needs, having led multiple successful data projects in a range of industry sectors, including banking, finance, automotive, and e-commerce. With more than 7 years’ experience in tailored
solutions delivery and consulting services, he has overall responsibility for client services within big data and data science at Profinit.

Vincent is the UK Director for Facepoint, and functions as a subject matter expert in AML/CTF screening. He has worked for 15 years with Anti-Money Laundering and due diligence solutions.
His expertise includes matching algorithms, onomastics, and the gamut of KYC processes. Prior to moving into the compliance sector, he worked as a statistical analyst for a US consultancy. Vincent has a degree in economics and philosophy from the University of York, UK.

Product lead for the digital channels – mobile bank, spare and online banking, within the retail banking segment in DNB.
Oscar is a product person with obsession for creating world class customer experiences. We work according to agile principles and a DevOps model, side-by-side with our design and technical friends.

René Konings has been Program Manager Enterprise Services at Credit Suisse since 2016. In his current role, he is responsible for the Central RPA (Global responsible of Standards & Guidelines RPA, product management for RPA, Centre of Competence for RPA, Operations & Support and Solution Delivery), and Business Automation Solutions incl. BPM and Business Rule application. His responsibilities include the bank investment & execution governance change, end to end program management, PPM, PMO, PMO deployment, operation & enhancement, project review & recovery; lean quality management, business case and benefits management, as well as project consulting and pre-studies. Prior to starting at Credit Suisse, René Konings has been working for almost 20 years in different positions in several leading companies in the industry, including ABN AMRO, Rabobank, and ING.

Chetan is the Head of the Strategic Development Lab within the Investment Bank’s Digital Platforms unit.
Focussed on the IB of the future, SDL is responsible for enabling the firm to innovate it’s business model in order to remain relevant in a digital disruptive age.
This includes running innovation pilots with clients, strategic partnerships with external firms and external direct investment with a long term horizon investment perspective.

Some of Chetan’s current areas of focus include:
1) Tokenisation – how blockchain technology enables digital assets, digital cash and digital custody in financial markets
2) Innovation mindset – how large established firms can innovate their approach and culture to remain competitive and relevant in a rapidly changing environment where FinTechs and BigTechs have are increasing prominence

Joining UBS as an intern in 1997 he has held several change management and transformation roles in both business and technology divisions out of London and Zurich.

Chetan is a UBS Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity Ambassador and co-chairs the IB DE&I council in Switzerland.
He’s an active member of the MOSAIC network that focuses on ethnicity DE&I, and leads the Refugee Engagement Stream as part of that network.

He holds a 1st class honours degree in Software Engineering from the University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology.

Originally from Nairobi, Kenya he lives with his wife and son in Zurich.

Julia has 20+ years international experience working in marketing and sales and then moving to the online analytics. She is currently working as a Digital Data Expert at the International Private Banking division of Dutch Bank ABN AMRO in Amsterdam. She is really passionate about her job and oversees a full analytics cycle from implementation to reporting to analysis of UX/UI of digital apps and portals. Her main expertise is always being commercially focused while working with data. She advises teams on product development and new trends of customer segments.

Banking and insurance professional with experience in integration and transformation initiatives. Proven ability to implement strategic and theoretical theories into practice while strengthening stakeholders relationships. Used to working in high pressure and quality driven environments.

Sergio Magalhães has more than 20 years of experience leading development teams and IT Departments in MillenniumBCP, a multinational bank, based in Portugal which is leader in innovation and customer experience. Since 2015 he is the Head of the Branch of The Future Department that is responsible for Branch Transformation projects, connecting the physical and the digital worlds, delivering the best customer experience. He oversaw the development of a new customer-oriented branch concept and with innovation features available in all 500+ branches of Millennium bcp in Portugal. In 2018 he assumes the role of Director in the Digital transformation Office of Millennium BCP. Today is responsible for the Application development of all the channels in Millennium BCP.

After obtaining her master’s degree in Dutch Law from the University of Amsterdam, Annerie Vreugdenhil started her career as Account Manager Large Corporates with the NederlandseCredietbank NV in 1987. In 1992 Annerie Vreugdenhil started at ING and held various positions, which revolved around maintaining and expanding relationships with clients in ING’s Wholesale Banking division, before being appointed as Head of Innovation Wholesale Banking in 2018. In the latter role she has been able to use her ability to see opportunities in all kind of situations, to challenge the status quo and to rethink services and processes. Since January 1st 2021, Annerie Heads the new business area ING Neo and acts as Chief Innovation Officer.

In 2000, Annerie founded and expanded ING’s Leveraged Finance team in the Netherlands. In 2006 she became Head of Corporate Clients Netherlands, a client group that consists of the listed and privately-owned large companies. In 2010, Annerie was appointed Head of Commercial Banking Netherlands and became a member of the board of ING Domestic Bank Netherlands. In this role she was responsible for all of ING’s wholesale banking activities in The Netherlands, including midcorpsand SMEs as well as Private Banking. Also she was part of the team that designed and implemented the agile transformation. In February 2016 Annerie was appointed Global Head of Real Estate Finance within ING Wholesale Banking. In her last two roles she had successfully created new data and technology driven solutions for clients and ING employees.

In January 2018, Annerie was appointed Head of WB Innovation. In this role, Annerie is responsible for the innovation activities of Wholesale Banking, as well as the Advanced Analytics and blockchain team, that all work towards developing new solutions for clients and employees that will disrupt the core of ING or go beyond banking with the aim to create strong new revenue streams and/or lower costs for ING.

In addition to her current role, Annerie Vreugdenhil is the Chairperson of the Supervisory Board of komgo, an ING co-founded DLT based start-up in Trade, member of the Board R3, a DLT based software companyand member of the Executive advisory Board of Squirro, an AI based software company. Annerie is married and has two sons.

Luis has been working for almost 20 years in the banking industry, first as a management consultant in firms such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers, IBM and KPMG. and later at BBVA. After 10 years engaging top tier international clients, Luis joined BBVA in 2011 as the Head of the Project Management Office for Corporate Functions, Business Intelligence and Risk Management, at Technology and Operations area for retail clients. In 2013, he landed the Business Process Engineering area at BBVA Corporate and Investment Banking area. Luis is an expert practitioner in operations transformation and business process redesign with Lean and Agile. Luis is passionate about the use of technology for creating new business models or improving business processes.

In October 2018, Luis was appointed as Head of Business Process Engineering at BBVA New York Branch.

Luis holds a MsC in Computer Science and MsC in Telecommunications Engineering

Gianluca D’Imperio works as Vice President in the GTB Regulatory Management of the Group Compliance at UniCredit S.p.A. He is accountable to ensure the correct implementation of EU rules on Payment Services (e.g. PSD2, CBPR) both at local and Group level. He specialized in Digital Business Transformation providing also advisory support to FinTech and RegTech initiatives of the Group. After completing his degree in economics Dr D’Imperio started his business career in 1999 at the first internet-only Bank in Italy, holding various roles and responsibilities. He joined UniCredit in 2003 and in 2006 he was appointed as Regulatory Compliance Analyst focused on the Italian and European laws concerning banking services. He is also member of Institute of International Finance (IIF) Digital Finance Working Group and the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) Data Strategy Working Group.

Manuela is the Innovation Manager at Banco Santander. Based in London, she is responsible for driving new business models and implementing novel technologies for the Group. Prior to banking, Manuela was heavily involved in the fin-tech space running a blockchain start-up and closely working with regulators, investors, incumbent financial institutions to develop new more collaborative approaches to rethinking financial services.

• Business Executive with over 20 years of international professional experience:
• Commercial Banking (20y) – Intesa, Poste Italiane, Abbey
• Branded Goods (4y) – Barilla and Seagram (Chivas Regal and MUMM Champagne)
• Business Executive experienced in spearheading major domestic and international projects that drove company-wide/ business restructuring and performance optimization.
• Extensive international exposure in some of the most complex and difficult economic environments developed exceptional interpersonal and communication skills. Flexibility and adaptability to new challenging environments, allow to deliver pivotal results despite limited resources and a strict sense of urgency.
• Start-up mentor with Startupbootcamp and PlugandPlay International startup accelerators.
• BA Graduated at “La Sapienza” University in Rome; Master in International Marketing & Trade at ITA in Belgium.

Antti Myllymäki is Head of Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence at OP Financial Group. Center of excellence makes machine learning happen at OP, both what (AI vision) and how (all development work). Key results include more than EUR 24M operational efficiency savings and more than 170 AI projects delivered. Antti has built and managed organizations focusing to large scale information management and artificial intelligence. Prior to joining OP, Antti worked with gaming, high tech and financial industries to improve their competitive position with data, advanced analytics and machine learning. He has worked e.g. at Efcode and Deloitte managing multimillion EUR projects with global scope. He has been involved in a wide range of improvement initiatives covering strategy, shared services, process re-engineering, operating model and technology implementation across industries.

Senior Manager with over 25 years’ experience in strategic planning and execution, human resources and business development, driving financial services transformation in Europe and Africa.
Pedro is currently ramping up remote banking at a major Portuguese bank (Caixa Geral de Depósitos – cgd.pt).
His core academic background is in economics but has continuously searched to embed new perspectives. Currently, Pedro is finishing a master in business intelligence and knowledge management, building on prior postgraduate degrees in information technologies management, labour law and executive education in human resources, artificial intelligence and digital transformation.
Profile: linkedin.com/in/pedromvtaborda

Michael Rennie is the Chief Digital Officer at Cynergy Bank. He is a highly experienced technology professional who has worked within financial services for 20 years across the UK, Europe, the Americas and South Africa.

Michael has been at the bank since December 2017 initially as the interim CIO and later became a member of the Executive Team. During this time he has led the IT and Information Security functions as well as being responsible for bank wide digital transformation. He is currently leading Cynergy Bank’s digital transformation programme which is focused on changing the way the bank services its customers and creating efficiencies through digitising its operations while maintaining strong human interface.

Michael joined Cynergy Bank from KPMG where he led the technology business management practice as part of CIO Advisory working with tier 1 financial services organisations across the globe. Prior to KPMG, he was the European Head of IT for Genworth Financial (previously GE Mortgage insurance).

Maurice has spent the last 15 years, taking care of the transformation of customer-facing channels in Intesa Sanpaolo, firstly for the Italian market and then in the International Subsidiary Banks Division. He leads the digital transformation process in all the subsidiary banks ecosystem of Intesa Sanpaolo, defining and implementing the strategic path of the transition from a “traditional” bank environment to an up-to-date, modern environment able not only to cope with technological and innovation changes, but also to exploit those changes for creating a competitive advantage. A passionate transformation and innovation addicted, he is present on the industry conferences, sharing his point of view and experience on the digital transformation journeys, evolving banking industry, digital strategy and customer experience.

Jenny works with digital sales and marketing in Swedbank. She works in a data-driven and customer-centric environment to promote and increase Swedbank’s sales and service in their digital channels, i.e swedbank.se – internet banking and the app. She believes that customer feedback, quantitative and qualitative data are keys to insights that lead to concrete actions to improve Swedbank’s digital service and customer offering. SEO, landing pages, conversion and frictionless customer journeys are common words at work. Her area of responsibility is Daily Banking – i.e everyday banking services that customers use every day. Her goal is to simplify and facilitate a customer’s life as much as possible.

She has a professional background in biomedicine and public health. She is also a passionate athlete in crosscountry skiing and ultratrailrunning.

Orest Dubay has more than 10 years of industrial experience in the development of risk management models and systems.
Currently he is a Head of AI Modelling, Nordea Bank Abp
Orest’s background is theoretical physics, he obtained a Ph.D. degree in Computational Materials Science. Orest spent most of his career designing and implementing mathematical models, analytical tools and methodology for risk management – covering areas like stress testing, scaling models for interest rate risk, historical and Monte Carlo VaR simulations, Incremental Risk Charge, idiosyncratic risk and machine-learning models for credit risk assessment and financial crime detection. Currently, Orest leads one of the teams introducing data science and machine learning technology in various parts of the organization, mainly focusing on credit area.
Orest has firsthand experience with designing and implementation of professional risk systems, expert knowledge in high-performance computing and a long-term passion for software development, machine learning and innovation

Vilhjálmur Alvar Halldórsson is the head of digital development and open banking at Arion bank. He holds a B.A. in Psychology and an executive MBA degree. Vilhjalmur has over 15 years of experience in the financial industry, including managerial experience in digital banking and transformation in both Arion bank, Íslandsbanki and Glitnir. Vilhjálmur has been deeply involved in pushing Arion Bank towards digital transformation and digital

He studied Business Administration in Karlsruhe, Germany. Then he worked 10 years for the Generali Group in Germany with responsibility for several huge distribution areas. In 2002 he joined Creditplus Bank AG in Stuttgart, a subsidiary of the Credit Agricole Group, as Chief Representative, responsible for the branch network, marketing and the digital activities. In 2011 he took on the responsibility for the strategic marketing department of Crédit Agricole Consumer Finance in Paris. In this time he was responsible, alongside others, for the digital transformation project of the Group. In November 2015 he joined Crédit Agricole Italy as Chief of Digital Transformation and steered the transformation process for 4 years. In August 2019 he returned to Creditplus Bank with the aim to restructure the back-office activities under consideration of modern technologies (chatbot, RPA, …).

Banking and insurance professional with experience in integration and transformation initiatives. Proven ability to implement strategic and theoretical theories into practice while strengthening stakeholders relationships. Used to working in high pressure and quality driven environments.

Gary Farrow is Director of Triari Consulting, a consultancy specialising in regulatory-techni¬cal consulting and provider of IT architecture advisory services for the financial sector. As a lead architect on many successful programmes, he has undertaken senior roles at major banks and financial services firms in the UK and was the Chief Architect on the UK’s Open Banking initiative. Gary has deep domain specialism in payments systems architectures and cash/liquidity management solutions and broad experience across multiple financial ser¬vices domains. Recent interests relate to the application of intelligent automation and AI to banking operational processing. His work on payments systems architecture has been widely published and is a regular contributor and reviewer for the Journal of Payment Strategy and Systems. His professional associations include Fellow IET, Chartered Engineer and is an Open Group Master Certified Architect.

Ritesh is a Co-Founder at Infynit – Humanising Credit and Credit Cards, he is a Former COO at HSBC. He is an Entrepreneurial Technology Leader & Board Advisor with global experience across various sectors including Payments & Banking, He led the future of payments for VISA and introduced Apple Pay, built a wealth management company as a founder CTO. Presently, he is a member of a G20 Initiative for financial inclusion; Advisor to Open Banking in EU & Africa, Harvard Business Review (HBR), payment regulators and government bodies for the initiative in social and financial inclusion and a member of MIT Global Tech Panel. Past roles include mentor to the UK Parliament Digital Service & Startups.