Rob Frohwein
CEO and Founder at
Kabbage
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In 2008, Rob Frohwein recognized that companies like eBay offered automated access to small business transaction data via APIs. Rob realized small businesses can simply share this data to allow underwriters to make better, faster credit decisions and provide a great user experience. He co-founded Kabbage in Atlanta, Georgia to leverage this power of real-time data automation through technology and has since expanded the business to serve all small businesses throughout the U.S. Rob holds a law degree from Villanova University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude. He is the listed inventor on ten United States Patents, a co-author of three books on intellectual property and has been recognized four times as one of the top 300 intellectual property strategists globally by Intellectual Asset Magazine.
Teck Chia
Head at
Binance X
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Teck Chia leads Binance X, an initiative to foster innovation on the Binance platform and the general ecosystem at large. Before that, he has played the role of an investor, entrepreneur, product manager and software engineer at companies like Facebook and Oracle. He discovered Bitcoin in 2012 and founded HashTrust.com, a smart contracts platform on Bitcoin. Teck holds a BSc. and MEng. in Computer Science from Cornell University.
Alastair Thompson
Global Head of Business Development at
TransferWise
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Prior to starting TransferWise, Alastair spent 10 years at international payment solutions provider Earthport Plc. Alastair worked across multiple functions including working from entry level to managing the entire back office, through product design and analysis, client solutions and onboarding.
Lu Zurawski
Practice Lead, Retail Banking at
ACI Worldwide
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Lu lives in London with his wife and two teenagers – a perpetual payments, big data and social media challenge. After a background in consulting and IT business services, Lu helps ACI Worldwide to develop strategic payments propositions, particularly in the emerging fields of digital Open Banking, new access models and real time alternative payment methods. Lu has over 25 years' experience across a wide variety of payments markets. Based on an interest in Behavioural Economics, Lu often creates thought-provoking (and sometimes unorthodox) viewpoints on public policy, consumer trends and regulatory drivers in the Financial Services industry, and is a regular speaker at industry events including Money2020 and SIBOS.
Ian Johnson
Head of European Growth at
Marqeta
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Ian Johnson is the Head of European Growth at Marqeta, where he leads a rapidly growing team based out of London, bringing the company's Digital Banking Solution and modern card issuing platform to the next generation of payments innovators. Prior to joining Marqeta, Ian was European Commercial Director at WEX.
Murat Abur
Co-Founder and CTO at
Suade
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Murat is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Suade, a software company that enables financial institutions to understand and deliver their regulatory requirements. Suade changes the way financial institutions absorb and react to regulations through a platform of automated tools and services driven by data. Prior to founding Suade, Murat worked in a variety of roles in banking at BNP Paribas and Nomura. Murat holds degrees in Physics and Math from the University of Chicago.
Conny Dorrestijn
Founding partner at
Bankifi
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BankiFi's Founding partner Conny Dorrestijn has worked in the international financial technology industry in a wide range of marketing and business development roles, most recently at Clear2Pay / FIS. She is an Advisory Board Member to Holland FinTech and AdviceRobo, Non-Executive Board Member at Arches Capital and Blanco Services and an Associate of the Digital Insurance Agenda (DIA) and the Blockchain Innovation Conference (BIC2019) and a Global Innovation Awards Judge at BAI (US) and Jury Chair of the Dutch NRC FinTech Live Awards.
Camila Russo
Financial Journalist and Founder at
The Defiant
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Camila Russo is writing a book on the history of Ethereum to be published by Harper Collins next year, and produces the daily decentralized finance newsletter The Defiant. In the previous eight years, she covered cryptocurrencies, European stocks and emerging markets for Bloomberg News based in New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires.
Stan Schroeder
Senior Editor at
Mashable
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Stan is a journalist and entrepreneur. He's been writing for Mashable for more than twelve years and is one of the company's first employees. He's covered blockchain tech for more than six years and interviewed some of the most prominent people in the space. In Croatia, he's run a short-lived but popular blockchain newsletter.
Nikola Pavesic
Head of Partnerships at
Nikkei
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Born and raised in Croatia, studied in Italy, Switzerland and the UK, matured in Tanzania and Japan. Nikola has worked as a lawyer and in the public sector for the UN which is how he originally arrived to Japan in 2011. He subsequently switched to the private sector working for startups and now for Nikkei. Graduate of University of Bologna and Newcastle University has a special focus on public-private partnerships in tech, regulatory solutions and policy implementation. Nik, as he likes to be called by people who can't get the accent right on Nìkola, has worked in tech for a number of years and is leading the partnership efforts for Nikkei in terms of startups, VCs and corporates.
Cyril Mathew
Business Development Leader at
Coinbase
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Cyril leads international business development efforts and special projects for Coinbase, based in their London office. Some of the initiatives he oversees include the Coinbase Card and USDC. Cyril has a strong track record of leading teams across strategic partnerships, product, and program management. Prior to joining Coinbase, Cyril led Business Development and Biz Ops for Uber in EMEA, based in Amsterdam. Prior to that, he helped launch the Ads platform and corresponding partnerships program at Facebook, beginning in HQ, and then from their London office.
Meg Nakamura
CEO and Co-Founder at
Apto Payments
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Meg Nakamura is the Co-Founder and CEO of Shift Financial, Inc. She serves as an advisor to Hard Yaka. Ms. Nakamura previously worked at Promontory and founded 3taps company, after studying at Princeton.
Jon Bradford
Founding Partner of
Dynamo Ventures
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Jon is a Partner at Dynamo Ventures, a seed fund focused at Supply Chain and Mobility. Previously, Jon was a Founding Partner at Motive Partners, the MD of Techstars London and co-founder of F6S and tech.eu. Jon is the Director of the Bradfield Centre.
Mehmed Atici
Principal at
Earlybird Venture Capital
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Mehmet is a founding team member at Earlybird Digital East Fund, he is currently serving on five portfolio company boards. Earlybird Digital East Fund (DEF) invests in high-growth, early-stage technology companies hailing from Eastern Europe and Turkey. DEF is one of the three autonomous, dedicated and specialised teams, focusing on different geographies and sectors, namely DEF, the Digital West Fund, and the Health Tech fund. With over EUR 1 billion under management, seven IPOs and 24 trade sales, Earlybird is one of the most successful venture capital groups in Europe.
Roland Yau
Managing Partner at
CoCoon Ignite Ventures
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Roland is the Managing Partner of CoCoon Ignite Ventures, L.P., a venture capital fund focusing on investments in early stage technologies. At CoCoon Ignite Ventures, Roland has led investments in companies including Cafe X, Soundbrenner and GoBee Bike. In addition to investing, Roland is also an active advisor to his portfolio companies, large corporations, founders and other venture capital funds. Roland graduated from New York University in 2004 with a bachelors degree in biology and graduated from the University of London in 2007 with a bachelors degree in law. Prior to establishing CoCoon Ignite Ventures, Roland was with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, an international law firm, from 2008 to 2015. At Freshfields, Roland worked on corporate financing and structuring transactions relating to fundraising, deal structuring and mergers and acquisitions.
Mike Sigal
FinTech Partner at
500 Startups
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Mike is an early-stage investor, entrepreneur, and strategic advisor specializing in innovation, business development, storytelling and transforming corporate culture. Over the last 8 years he has been specifically focused on innovation in financial services industry. Founded 7 startups, with 3 exits including an IPO, and advised dozens of corporations and institutions on implementing startup-inspired innovation practices and culture. Now, a Partner at 500 FinTech, which is 500 Startups' dedicated fund for investing globally in early-stage startups transforming the financial services industry (yes, including insurance).
Luka Sucic
Director of Investments at
æternity ventures
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Luka is an entrepreneur that likes to build new, yet unexplored things. After a long stretch of startups he decided to turn hats and swapped it for a corporate career working for a major telecom in various roles from product and innovation to investment manager. Ended up in the blockchain space in 2012 out of pure curiosity and luck. He is helping æternity incubate startups and build the next generation of blockchain.
Tom F. Lesche
Principal at
Speedinvest
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When Tom was co-founding a banking startup in Berlin, he realised first-hand how crucial it is to receive external financial and operational support early on. This experience keeps motivating him every day in his search for great founders and great ideas out there waiting for their success. As an investor, he is passionate about growth-stage companies and tech-enabled business models within the financial services industry, spanning from banking and insurance to asset management and specialty finance. Although always focused on the founders, Tom doesn’t mind the number crunching part where he can leverage his experience from many years in investment banking before joining Speedinvest Fintech. Most recently, he was a Vice President at Morgan Stanley in London, advising financial technology clients on a variety of capital markets and M&A transactions.
Vedran Blagus
Investment Manager at
South Central Ventures
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Vedran is Investment Manager at South Central Ventures (SCV), a leading SEE venture capital fund. At SCV, Vedran works on deal sourcing, screening, and advising portfolio companies. He also sits on the Board of Directors of two SCV portfolio companies. He refined his knowledge through experience working for Big 4 accounting companies as a management consultant on a multitude of projects for the Big 4 within the region. His focus and specialties within management consulting are market strategy & expansion, and process optimization.
Elena Lavezzi
Head of Southern Europe at
Revolut
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More than 8 years experience in growth, expansion, operations, go-to-market and business development in international tech companies (sharing economy, mobility and FinTech). Passionate about business models that are going to reinvent entire industries. Based in Milan after many experiences abroad (London, Paris, NYC and Mumbai).
Antonio Separovic
CEO and Co-Founder at
Oradian
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Antonio is a financial technology expert with more than 20 years of experience in technology and online businesses, including ten years in the microfinance sector. He specialises in using disruptive technology to drive financial inclusion in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Antonio also served as a senior adviser to InfoSec Global and Ruder Innovations, and advised multiple IT organisations. In 2012, Antonio co-founded Oradian, a FinTech company that provides a cloud-based core banking software designed especially for the microfinance industry. Using a SaaS model (Software-as-a-Service), Oradian makes cloud technology accessible to any type of microfinance institutions so they can grow and increase financial inclusion in their regions. Oradian is currently partnering with over 80 financial institutions in the Philippines and in Africa reaching over 4 million end-clients. As the CEO, Antonio takes accountability for creating a community of forward-thinking financial institutions around Oradian that will help to serve the 1.7 billion unbanked people at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid.
Kreso Zmak
Director Products at
Infobip
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Kreso Zmak is Director Products at Infobip, one of the world's largest communications platforms and mobile operator solution providers. Kreso got his start as a software developer at Siemens, and has worked in telecoms for most of his career, moving from software developer to Director of IT and BI at Croatia's Optima Telekom, before moving to Infobip in 2015. At Infobip, Kreso has progressed through several roles in product development to become Director Products. In this role, he is in charge of coordinating internal resources in product development and aligning them with client requirements and global trends in mobile and digital communications. Kreso holds a B.Sc. in electrical engineering and computing from Croatia's prestigious Zagreb-based FER.
Laszlo Csercsa
VP Sales at
SmartDisplayer
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Laszlo based in Slovakia, currently manages the display card sales for SmartDisplayer in the EMEA region. He has got more than 25-years sales experience, holding different sales positions, by working for US-based IT hardware companies and selling into the CEE-region, mainly. Before joining SmartDisplayer, Laszlo has collected knowledge on ID-documents as well as display card technology skills for identity and access-control markets.In his position, he is responsible to build up and extend SmartDisplayer global partner network, following SmartDisplayer's indirect sales model.
Alexey Malanov
Antivirus Expert at
Kaspersky Lab
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Alexey joined Kaspersky Lab in 2004 as a virus analyst. In 2008, he was appointed Head of Anti-Malware Team. His responsibilities included overseeing the procedure for processing the flow of incoming malware and organizing the virus analysts' work into round-the-clock shifts. However, in 2012, Alexey Malanov felt it was time to update — to change the profile of his activities and boost his expert skills. So he delved into the product technology. Now he analyses coming trends and potential risks and also shares Lab achievements and goals to colleagues and the general public: clients, journalists, partners and KL product users. Alexey holds a degree in Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics from the Moscow State University.
Dejan Davidovic
COO and Co-Founder at
Kriptomat
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"Co-founder and COO at Kriptomat, an established government-regulated European fin-tech start-up company bringing cryptocurrencies to a high-end market. Dejan is showing his great management skills as family guy and father to three, an entrepreneur and a manager with a great track record and more than twenty years of experience in management, sales, and marketing. He found his latest passion in fin-tech start-up Kriptomat that went from an experiment to a fast-growing company that reached a break-even almost a year after it went public!
With Kriptomat we believe that no matter who you are, where you're from, or why you're here, you deserve an equal chance to find freedom, fairness, and financial fulfillment. Our economy shapes our society and our currency shapes our destiny, that's why we need insight into how they function and we need a say in how they are managed. That's why we need crypto and that is why we designed a mobile and web platform available in more than 25 different languages, that thousands of users use to enter the worlds of cryptocurrencies and the new economy."
Jelena Svraka
Account Manager at
Microblink
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Based in Zagreb working as an Account Manager at Microblink, an R&D company developing proprietary computer vision technology optimized for real-time processing on mobile devices. Focused on knowing customer’s needs and building long-term quality relationships as one of the keys to a successful business. Dedicated and 5 years experienced sales specialist with almost 10 years of working experience.
James Dening
VP & Digital Worker Evangelist at
Automation Anywhere
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Automation Anywhere VP and Digital Worker Evangelist. As the first hire for AA in Europe, James has been instrumental in bringing the Automation Anywhere's vision of making work ‘human' to life in Europe by inspiring passion about business processes automation and building a regional team of over 200. Before joining AA, James was a member of the leadership team at XLN Telecom and a board member leading all commercial activities at Red Gate. Prior to that, James held a variety of sales and leadership roles including working as Head of Sales for Amazon UK, leading their B2B sales activities, Google, and several other companies.
Mel Gelderman
CEO at
Monolith
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Mel Gelderman is a Dutch entrepreneur and investor. He is the Co-founder of Decentralised Finance (DeFi) company Monolith (formerly TokenCard), having served as its CEO since 2016. He was named one of Business Insider’s ‘Fintech 35 under 35’, has been featured in Forbes, created one of the first use cases for Ethereum in the geothermal power sector, and has spearheaded one of the quickest ICOs in history raising over $17m in a matter of minutes. Before Monolith, he founded an Algae biofuel company serving the Asia-Pac market. Gelderman has a passion for decentralised finance and blockchain. He once travelled the world exclusively living on Bitcoin, untethered from traditional finance. During his trip he sat down with Vitalik Buterin in Taiwan, laying the framework for his eventual collaboration with co-founder David Hoggard to launch Monolith.
Antonela Mamuca
COO at
EPTI
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Being COO at EPTI equals balancing between perfect control and inevitable entropy while constantly moving fast forward. "Any company may call itself a dynamic one. At EPTI, this is an understatment." Antonela's career path started as an electronic engineer at casino industry. This was followed with discovering and sharpening Business analyst, Consultancy and Management skills through a rich list of business areas supported by IT, such as Enterprise and government processes, DMS and RMS, Access control systems, Payment and authentication, Travel and transportation, Ecommerce, Process management, Gaming etc. Antonela is FER graduate at University of Zagreb. She enjoys the thrill of acquiring new skills, anything from learning new language to skiing, even if it's just baby slopes. Less than a year ago, she became a mom.
Luka Tomaskovic
Head of Multichannel at
Zagrebacka Banka
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Luka has more than 20 years of experience working in banking. Currently working as Head of Strategy and multichannel for Retail division. Last few years my focus is on mobile banking development
Svjetlana Petrovic
Director of Online Banking Department at
Hrvatska Postanska Banka
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Svjetlana Petrovic has more than 16 years of experience working in the banking sector. Today she is digital banking director at Hrvatska poštanska banka, the largest Croatian-owned bank, where she participates in defining and implementing the digital banking strategy, developing the bank's digital channels and designing new digital products.
Daniel Lenardic
Partner at
KPMG
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Daniel is the Partner responsible for management and IT consulting services for KPMG in Croatia. Daniel has worked on numerous management consulting and digital transformation engagements for clients from the financial service industry, as well as other consumer focused industries.
Dejan Donev
Head of Digital Transformation Team at
KeksPay
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Dejan has been in the banking sector for 15 years, mostly focused on the area of Risk management. He initially started as a model developer, building credit scoring ML models, later as Head of the Risk management division responsible for loan underwriting, portfolio management, model development and validation, loan pre-approval systems and the like. Currently he Head of Digital Transformation Team at KeksPay a new FinTech product with over 60.000 users.
Nino Surjan
Board Member at
Koios Consulting
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Nino is a business intelligence consultant with over ten years of experience working in financial sector for several large banks in the region. As a data architect, business and data analyst and team leader, he worked on various projects in fields of risk management, regulatory reporting, compliance and customer relationship management. He is currently serving as board member at Koios Consulting.
Josip Maricevic
CTO and Founder at
Tolar.io
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Researching blockchain and related consensus algorithms, atomic cross-chain swaps and of- chain settlement protocols for the past 2 years. Also worked on development of a few signifcant blockchain products. Interested in general algorithm research and development. Worked for Shazam on application that implements Shazam song recognition technology to identify songs in your iPod library and play them with synchronized lyrics and visualizations. Also an owner of software development agency Moon Code which is offering services of developing custom Blockchain based projects, alternative cryptocurrencies and Ethereum smart contracts.
Lennart Koopmans
CEO at
Magnius
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Lennart Koopmans is an entrepreneur in the online industry with extensive experience in internet marketing, e-commerce and payments and founder of Magnius. He looks at payments from an omni-channel perspective since his fashion company with a high traffic webshop also had one of the biggest stores of the region. As a company with this early combination of clicks and bricks and experience in payments in several channels, he is extremely interested in omni-channel payments, customer experience, reconciliation, etc. That's why he started Magnius in 2015. The goal of the Magnius platform is to give customers the best payment experience possible and optimize conversion rates for merchants. The platform is sold mainly to banks, PSPs and acquirers to offer the services directly to their merchants.
Kresimir Hlede
COO at
Greyp Bikes
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Krešimir is a Managing Director with a degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA from IEDC. He has built his career in the top management of manufacturing organizations in various industries over the last 15 years, out of which 10 years he had full P&L accountability. He developed expertise in strategy, finance and process improvements in the context of manufacturing and repeatability, as well as the expansion of international sales channels in B2B and B2C. He joined Greyp in the early days and has been a driver in building a small department into a medium-size company with all necessary corporate functions. Kresimir has experience in acquisitions (Piramida) and fundraising (Greyp). Today, he is responsible for the overall company growth and performance, but his main focus is on strategy, R&D, production, marketing, and sales.
Gabriel Yang
Head of Asia at
Blockshow
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Gabriel Yang is the former Chief Operations Officer of Beyond Blocks, a leading platform connecting global blockchain industry leaders and communities, focusing on the latest trends and issues in Asia. Gabriel hails from a strong background in events and media, with over a decade of experience under his belt in building and growing impactful tech industry events. He boasts a deep understanding of the tech innovation and startup scene around Asia, having been a key organiser for many notable events in the region. When not connecting the dots, Gabriel spends his time sampling brews as a self-declared coffee connoisseur. Gabriel has recently joined Blockshow as their Head of Asia as they focus on this rapidly growing region.
Bilal Khan
Conference Host at
Shift
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Born and raised in NW London of mixed-ethnic background, following an MA in Theology from the University of Cambridge Bilal moved into a career in Youth Engagement, public speaking and facilitation and has delivered hundreds of speeches and workshops around social justice, enterprise and diversity and inclusion as a result. Currently working as a freelance facilitator, infrequent radio Breakfast Show Host and host of Over The Bridge Podcast, Bilal spends much of his time engaging audiences in critical thinking to understand the root causes of oppression and has subsequently written articles for the BBC . As a host, Bilal has had the privilege to work in multiple countries around the world with clients in both charitable and corporate sector industries and has spoken in venues such as the SSE Arena Wembley.
Ivan Burazin
CEO at
Shift
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Ivan is the founder of the Shift Conference. Alongside this he co-founded Codeanywhere, the first cross platform Cloud IDE, which now has over a million users worldwide.