Judging Panel
We are delighted to welcome a stellar panel of judges from across the spectrum of the Open Banking eco-system. The events team at Open Banking Expo will ensure that there are no conflicts of interest during the judging process, and all judges will sign an NDA to ensure no information is shared outside of the judging process.
Alan Ainsworth
Alan Ainsworth
Policy & Strategy Director Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE)Alan Ainsworth is Head of Policy at the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE). OBIE was set up by the UK’s competition regulator the Competition and Markets Authority to develop open banking standards and ensure effective implementation by the UK’s biggest banks, with the aim of driving competition and innovation in retail banking. Alan has led the work of the OBIE in focusing on the customers’ ease-of-use when using open banking, and was instrumental in adding app-to-app authentication and the Customer Experience Guidelines to the Open Banking Standard.
Alan has been interested in and involved in open data for financial services since the early days of the UK’s “midata” programme in 2011, where he was an original Steering Group Member. He has advised businesses on payments and open banking legislation including the Interchange Fee Regulation and the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2).
Alan spent most of his career at Barclays, where he had senior roles in payments, retail banking, citizenship and government relations. He has also worked at global payments business Paysafe.
Andrew Moor
Andrew Moor
President & Chief Executive Officer EQ BankAndrew joined Equitable Bank (TSX: EQB) as Chief Executive Officer in 2007. Andrew’s focus in recent years has been in positioning Equitable Bank as “Canada’s Challenger Bank”. Andrew has been establishing EQ Bank as a leading digital banking player, with an easy to use mobile app that offers a unique combination of payments functionality and great savings rates. Equitable Bank is Canada’s ninth largest schedule 1 bank with over $30 billion of assets under management. Equitable was a founding shareholder in Borrowell, and participates in the Portage ecosystem through an investment in Portage Funds giving the Bank a view into the Canadian fintech ecosystem.
Andrew is a keen observer of the challenger and neo bank community around the world. He is interested in how banks can lever technology to improve the societies in which they operate. He is a member of the Executive Council of the Canadian Bankers Association and Chairman of the Banks and Trust Companies Association. Andrew is a Director of Sleep Country Canada Inc. (TSX:ZZZ) and a member of the Smith School of Business Advisory Board at Queen’s University.
Carlos Figueredo
Carlos Figueredo
Chief Executive Officer Open VectorCarlos is a senior executive and payments SME with over 20 years of global business and financial sector experience. His extensive leadership, payments and large-scale programme management skills have allowed him to work for some of the leading institutions in the industry in the integration of time critical, culturally diverse and cross border programmes.
In his previous role, Carlos was the Head of Data Standards and therefore co-author of the UK’s Open Banking initiative which is the first region globally to go live with an open banking initiative.
With this experience, Carlos founded and is CEO of Open Vector which is a professional consultancy firm comprised of previous senior heads of the UK Open Banking initiative assisting institutions, corporates and regions globally with their Open Banking, open data, PSD2 and GDPR initiatives.
Chris Higham
Chris Higham
Open Banking, Payment Strategy & Transformation in Financial Services Secure Trust Bank
Claire Melling
Claire Melling
Portfolio Manager, Bank of APIs NatWest
Daniel Szmukler
Daniel Szmukler
Director & Head of Innovation European Banking AssociationIn his current role, Daniel is in charge of business development, thought leadership, innovation, events and educational activities. He runs the association’s working groups, the EBAday conference and EBA’s professional training seminars and schools.
Daniel completed a first term of office as Head of Communications and Corporate Governance at EBA CLEARING from 2002 to 2012.
From 2001 to 2002, Daniel was a Payment Systems Advisor to the European Banking Federation (EBF) in Brussels.
He began his professional career in 1994 with SWIFT in Brussels. Daniel holds graduate degrees in business administration and management from Boston University, Mass. and from the University of Brussels.
David Beardmore
David Beardmore
David’s role at the OBIE is to lead the growth and development of the open banking ecosystem. His key objective is to facilitate and encourage end user adoption of products and services powered by open banking. This includes all marketing and events, bringing new participants into the directory, and developing effective propositions which allow consumers and businesses to derive maximum benefit from sharing their transactional data.
His 25 years in data-driven insight and marketing have seen him work with many leading brands in multiple sectors and countries. In addition to working for some of the largest players in the data world such as Experian, Callcredit and Telefonica, David also ran his own boutique data insight business, Thinkdata, for 5 years before its acquisition by Bertelsmann. Prior to joining OBIE, David spent 3½ years as the Commercial Director at The Open Data Institute where he also led their work on open banking, helping governments and regulators in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada. David regularly speaks on open banking at conferences in the UK and internationally, has co-authored a number of reports on Open Banking, and was interviewed on BBC TV on the day it officially launched in the UK.
Originally a classically trained musician, David has a Master’s from Cambridge University and an MBA in Marketing. He sits on the board of Open Data Australia, and also as a non-executive director for Boundless, a theatre company for young people. Ever the optimist, he continues to hold a season ticket at Nottingham Forest Football Club.
David Parker
David Parker
Founder & Chief Executive Officer Polymath ConsultingI have an in depth knowledge of Payments and Payment Cards. In particular the company and myself are very well known for our work in E-money/prepaid cards and emerging payments covering areas such as mobile money/mobile wallets and Mpos. I have also worked extensively supporting and advising SMEs having been involved in SME payments projects since the early 2000.
I am increasingly active in Fintech and am currently holding a range of positions including Board NED, Board Advisor, Advisory Board, Investor in companies including: Cybertonica, Itemize, Journolink, Curve, Bee Good, Konsentus, 3S Money, Trezeo, Zeux and PiePeople. I have previously enjoyed mentoring through startupbootcamp and was voted in both years as ‘Leading Mentor’.
Dr Ruth Wandhöfer
Dr Ruth Wandhöfer
Chief Executive Officer LeximarDr. Ruth Wandhöfer has been instrumental in shaping the future of finance during her impressive career over the last 19 years. She operates at the nexus of finance, technology and regulation and is passionate about creating the digital financial ecosystem of the future. She is a very influential female leader in the technology space, promoting the understanding, deployment and business models of our digital future across financial markets and processes.
With a diverse career across regulatory policy development, banking, Fintech/Regtech mentoring, investing and consulting she finds herself at the centre of the evolving digital ecosystem of players with the ability to advise, accelerate, promote and enable technology players to become an integral part of the new financial ecosystem.
Ruth began her career in banking. After a distinguished career of over a decade with Citi, Ruth is now an independent Non-Executive Director on the boards of Permanent TSB and Digital Identity Net as well as a Partner at Gauss Ventures – a VC firm focused on early stage FinTech investment.
She is also a Strategic Adviser of the European Third Party Provider Association (ETPPA) as well as Adviser of RTGS.global. Until recently she served as independent Non-Executive Director on the Boards of the London Stock Exchange Group and Pendo Systems Inc. and as senior adviser to KPMG.
Ruth was named as one of 2010s ‘Rising Stars’ by Financial News; named in Management Today’s 2011 ‘35 Women under 35’ list of women to watch and identified as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Finance 2012 by the Treasury Risk Magazine. She received the ‘Women in Banking and Finance Award for Achievement’ in 2015 and in 2016, 2017 and 2018 she was named on the global ‘Women in Fintech Powerlist’ of Innovate Finance. She is a 2018, 2019 and 2020 Top 10 Global Fintech Influencer (Fintech Power 50).
She speaks five languages, has completed studies in Financial Economics (MA, UK), International Politics (MA, FR) and an LLM in International Economic Law (UK). She was awarded a doctorate by CASS Business School, London and Tilburg University in 2019 for her PhD thesis in Finance on the topic of “Technology Innovation in Financial Markets”.
She published two books: “EU Payments Integration” (2010) and “Transaction Banking and the Impact of Regulatory Change” (2014), is a Fellow of CASS Business School City University London, a Visiting Professor at the London Institute of Banking and Finance and occasional lecturer at Queen Mary London School of Law.
Her views are widely sought after in the global press, and her opinions have recently been published in Sifted, FT and Forbes, to name just a few publications.
She balances this extraordinary career while raising her children and champions for a better work life balance for parents and more support for women entrepreneurs.
Emma Lindley
Emma Lindley
Payment Systems Regulator Digital Identity Expert
Eyal Sivan
Eyal Sivan
Head of Open Banking AxwayResponsible for the development, planning and execution of a comprehensive Open Banking strategy to position Axway as the leading solution provider in the space. Coordinates efforts across teams within the organisation, from marketing to sales to product, in order to ensure common strategic alignment and complementary messaging. A member of the Catalyst team at Axway, dedicated to providing global thought leadership in the realm of APIs, integration technologies and digital transformation.
Georgios Kolovos
Georgios Kolovos
Global Head of Product Partnerships PayPalA results-oriented business development executive with extensive experience building and strengthening businesses, building partnerships; improving customer experience, developing new online channels and entering new markets/segments. A leader with broad financial services and payments experience built while working in GE Capital and PayPal. Currently driving the expansion of the PayPal platform with new products and capabilities for both consumers and merchants incl. new Financial Service, Commers and Enablement propositions.
Harcus Copper
Harcus Copper
Corporate Bank Product Lead - Open Banking & APIs Barclays Corporate & Investment BankHarcus Copper is Head of Integration and Information Services globally, responsible for SWIFT and Host-to-Host connectivity propositions, APIs and Open Banking for corporate clients and Non-Bank Financial Institutions. Harcus has over 26 years’ experience in Cash Management developed over a number of roles covering multiple disciplines during his 31 years with Barclays.
Helen Bierton
Helen Bierton
Chief Banking Officer StarlingAs Chief Banking Officer at Starling, Helen is responsible for the commercial propositions within the bank including lending, SME and Retail Banking, Marketplace and Starling’s B2B Banking Services. She joined Starling, a leading digital bank, in 2018 from Santander, where she worked from 2007. Previously she undertook roles in Product, Pricing and Strategy at Alliance & Leicester and NatWest.
Since joining Starling Helen has led many key projects including the development of Starling Kite, a debit card for kids and the rapid launch of government backed loan schemes, the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBLIS) and Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS). Both loan schemes are providing support to small business customers across the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic.
She was recognised as one of the top 50 customer experience professionals in the country in Marketing Week’s CX50 list twice (in 2019 & 2020) and was recognised by Women in Banking and Finance in 2017 as a shortlisted finalist in the Champion of Women category. She was also included in Innovate Finance’s Women in Fintech Powerlist in 2019. She represented Great Britain in archery at the Athens Olympics in 2004.
Hetal Popat
Hetal Popat
Global Open Banking Director HSBCHetal is Director for HSBC UK and Europe Open Banking and PSD2 programmes. He is accountable for delivering the open banking solution specified by the CMA/PSD2 and also for supporting the businesses as they seek to develop propositions that use open banking to benefit customers.
Prior to this role he lead front office commercial/corporate banking teams at Barclays, as well as heading strategy functions at both Lloyds and Barclays. He is a keen adopter of new technologies and all things digital.
Holly Coventry
Holly Coventry
Vice President International Open Banking Payments American ExpressHolly is responsible for continuing to grow the UK business and creating the future vision and roadmap for Open Banking Payments globally. Holly is an accomplished, well-respected leader who is strategic and commercially focused in her approach. She has an entrepreneurial and partner centric outlook and is highly adept at working in the emerging fintech Open Banking space.
Joris Hensen
Joris Hensen
Founder and Co-Lead of Deutsche Bank API Program Deutsche BankJoris Hensen is responsible for the development of the Deutsche Bank API program, which he co- founded at the beginning of 2015. In his more than ten years at Deutsche Bank, he has worked in various international projects as a project and innovation manager.
Joris Hensen became enthusiastic about innovations and future trends at a very early stage and in 2012 he was given the opportunity to set up a corporate foresight program in which future scenarios and innovation strategies for Deutsche Bank were developed. From 2014 on, as part of this, he was also a guest lecturer at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen on the topics of foresight, innovation and design.
What once began as a foresight scenario was officially launched in November 2017 as a developer portal, which offers external partners the opportunity to connect personalized apps and services via the API of Deutsche Bank (dbAPI), thus opening up new areas of value creation for Deutsche Bank.
Joris Hensen understands himself as an intrapreneur and is dedicated about future trends and how they can change and improve people’s lives.
Follow him at @joris_hensen on Twitter.
Kate Frankish
Kate Frankish
Director of Strategy Pay.UKKate has worked in financial services for over 20 years. Through a number of diverse roles in marketing, product development, technology and payments, the common thread for Kate is the delivery of great customer journeys and solutions. Kate has a very strong focus on innovation, driven by consumer demand and global market movements. Kate actively works with Fintech companies and this has given her further insight into the types of problems that customers experience and how to go about providing relevant and meaningful solutions. Kate now leads the Strategy and Standards team at Pay.UK with the purpose of driving innovation in the payments ecosystem and enabling a vibrant UK economy.
Katrin Herrling
Katrin Herrling
Chief Executive Officer Funding XchangeKatrin co-founded FUNDING XCHANGE (FXE) setting out to use access to new live data sources and advanced analytics to disrupt the inefficient SME funding space by creating the first UK platform for businesses to easily access bank and non-bank funding solutions in one place. FXE launched in 2016, announced an exclusive partnership with MoneySuperMarket and was designated as an official finance referral platform by the British Government in November 2016.
Today, FXE is working with nine UK banks and 40+ lenders to help customers access SME funding solutions, delivering services to the UK’s largest price comparison websites and building marketplaces that are integrated into banks’ SME banking proposition.
FXE has pioneered the use of live, validated data sources to transform the underwriting of SME loans. By automating decisioning, FXE is reducing the costs for lenders by more than 70% and giving small businesses transparency of the options they are eligible for. With the advent of Open Banking in 2018, FXE is continuing to lead the integration of new data sources and making it possible for lenders to make instant lending decisions.
FXE is collaborating with Sage, Xero and Experian to demonstrate how access to transactional data is enabling the delivery of user-centric tools that enable small businesses to manage their cashflow more efficiently, build a stronger financial profile and avoid funding emergencies.
Before founding FXE, Katrin spent seven years at Bain & Company, working closely with banks and other financial services institutions across Europe. Prior to joining Bain, Katrin led American Express’ strategy and business development team in London.
Lana Tahirly Abdullayeva
Lana Tahirly Abdullayeva
Founding Director Chez FinTechThree decades in Tech & Fin internationally, across developed and fast-growing economies, creating portfolios of digital ventures to deliver impact – launching, investing and growing successful businesses and well-recognised brands.
Scientist by education, strategist by experience and visionary by heart, she has been instrumental in working with the market leaders and economic regulators, driving transformational changes towards the digital economy globally.
A seasoned executive, NED, Investor and Advisor, Lana brings a strong vantage point on how businesses evolve in the digital age. She advocates reshaping economics and governance over the traditional models to drive growth.
Leda Glyptis
Leda Glyptis
Chief Customer Officer 10x BankingAs Chief Client Officer, Dr Leda Glyptis focuses on driving client success for existing and new 10x clients.
Leda is a former banker, technology executive and founding CEO of 11:FS Foundry, where she led the growth of its modular core digital banking offering. Prior to that, Leda was Chief Innovation Officer at Qatar National Bank, the largest bank in the Middle East and North Africa, with responsibilities for employee-driven and market-led innovation strategy and execution.
Before QNB, Leda was a Director at business and technology consulting firm Sapient, focusing on digital transformation and emerging technologies, and led EMEA innovation at BNY Mellon. Leda joined BNY Mellon from fintech start-up Great East London Software, where she served as head of services development.
Leda holds an MA from King’s College, Cambridge, and an MSc and PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has taught politics, global governance and management principles, while working in management roles across various industries.
Mike Mann
Mike Mann
Finance Director Williams TradeWorked at Williams Trade as a Finance Director since April 2018. Mike is also a Non-Executive Director for NMBS
Prior to his role at Williams Trade, Mike was a Migration Project Coordinator for Frieghtliner Group, and the Group Financial Controller for AIM altitude.
Nida Sattar
Nida Sattar
Head of Product – Payments Allica BankNida Sattar is currently Head of Product – Payments at Allica Bank, based in London. In this role, she is responsible for the development and roll-out of a new Current Account product for SME clients.
Prior to this, Nida led the International Payments Product team at ClearBank, where she was accountable for ClearBank’s international expansion plans and product deliveries across payments and FX. She started her career at J.P. Morgan on the graduate scheme and made Vice President, with successes including launching J.P. Morgan’s SEPA Instant offering. Nida is a frequent speaker at various industry forums, including EBADay, Innovate Finance, Women in Payments, Fintech Connect, etc, and was in the Women in Fintech Powerlist 2021 as well as the Money20/20 RiseUp Europe Cohort for 2022.
Nida has a Master of Arts in Land Economy from the University of Cambridge.
Phillip Mind
Phillip Mind
Interim Director Digital Technology and Innovation UK FinancePhillip is currently employed as Principal Adviser to UK Finance, the trade body for the financial services industry, with a portfolio including payments policy and open banking.
Before that, Phillip worked at the Local Government Association leading on local government finance and public service reform. And at HM Treasury in a variety of policy roles, including leading policy reviews (the Independent Commission on Local Government Finance and Russell Commission on Youth Volunteering) and as the Budget Project Manager.
On secondment from the Treasury, he was CEO of the Giving Campaign, a national partnership between government and the voluntary sector to encourage charitable giving.
Phillip has a degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and a Master’s degree from Loughborough University.
Robert White
Robert White
Head of Payments SantanderRobert is the Head of Payment Services for Santander UK and is responsible for defining the strategy and future model of payments in the UK, as well as working with colleagues across Europe to support the Santander Group Payment plans. He is passionate about payments and innovation that can deliver excellent solutions to customers. His current role brings together the ecosystems of payments, cards and Open Banking, where he shapes discussions on businesses cases and investment strategies, governance and regulatory developments. He is a leading voice in the industry, bringing his knowledge and experience to bear through several industry and regulatory board seats.
Shekher Puri
Shekher Puri
Vice President Digital Components and Platforms RBCAs a leader with Canada’s largest Financial Institution, Shekher began his career at RBC in 2002, where he joined the branch network and held several leadership roles, including Regional Vice President, Integrated Markets, in GTR. He also brings experience from working in leadership roles at the Advice Centre, RBC Insurance and Mutual Funds Distribution. In 2019, Shekher took on leadership of the Digital Identity, Security, Access, APIs and Open Banking team, which has launched several industry-leading solutions that are being used across RBC Channels and Businesses, for example, North America’s first Digital Identity Verification solution in 2020. In his current role, Shekher is responsible for identifying, building, and deploying critical re-usable digital patterns, assets, and components to drive digital engagement, bionic sales, and strategic reuse. Shekher is accountable for scaling the manufacturing of re-usable components and rethinking how RBC manages digital capabilities. Shekher continues to also lead the Digital Identity, Access & Security, and Open Banking/APIs strategy for RBC.
Winston Pearson
Winston Pearson
Digital Product Manager & Head of Open Banking Goldman SachsWinston Pearson joined Goldman Sachs TxB in 2021 as UK Open Banking Product Manager. Based in London, he is responsible for the online product delivery – working with partners and leveraging the benefits that Open Banking can bring to Corporates.
Prior to joining, Winston worked at AccessPay developing multibank corporate connectivity applications and cash management tools for treasury and finance.
After seeing the power of embedding Open Banking as part of existing solutions, he continues to seek new and innovative use cases that can deliver value to corporates and treasury.