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.
Alexandra Bloomfield
Alexandra Bloomfield
Assistant Commercial Director HM Revenue & CustomsA South African in North Yorkshire! I’ve worked in various roles across Orange/EE/BT over the last 10 years, with my most recent appointment being the Payments Strategy Lead for the Group. As well as being the outward facing industry person, I’m also the business owner for our internal PSP, so a significant proportion of my role is to balance the needs of our customers against cost to serve, and ensure an exceptional digital experience whilst balancing the need for efficiency and compliance. I’m a passionate advocate for Open Banking, across all forms, and it’s my ambition to embed it in every part of our ecosystem across our brands.
Ana Climente
Ana Climente
Head of Open Banking BBVA SpainAna Climente is Head of Open Banking at BBVA Spain in charge of connecting with new ecosystems to promote partnerships with 3rd parties and developing new ways of distributing financial services through APIs. Before, she was Head of Digital transformation for enterprise clients at BBVA Spain leading the creation of solutions leveraged on data for enterprise clients to help them make better financial decisions.
Previously, Ana was Vice President of payments and collections in the transition to SEPA and was in charge of developing cash management solutions at BBVA. And has also represented BBVA and the Spanish financial sector in different EBA and EPC working groups.
Ana joined BBVA in 2005. Before that, she worked as strategy consultant at Accenture, specialized in B2B solutions for Europe, Middle East and Africa. She also started up Adquira, a leading Spanish procurement company.
Ana graduated in International Business Administration with a double degree in Spain and Germany in 1998.
Andrew Moor
Andrew Moor
Chief Executive Officer & President 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.
Archi Shrimpton
Archi Shrimpton
Senior Manager, Open Banking & Open Finance Lloyds Banking GroupArchi has 15 years’ experience in financial services, having worked in a variety of strategy, outsourcing, transformation and change roles. Today he leads industry engagement on Open Banking and Open Finance for Lloyds Banking Group.
Chris Higham
Chris Higham
Head of Payments & Cards Secure Trust BankChris heads up the Payments and Cards function at Secure Trust Bank, a specialist savings and lender serving the UK market. He was previously Head of Open Banking at Virgin Money and is focussed on how alternative ways to pay and use customer data can lead to better outcomes for customers, banks and society as a whole.
Conrad Ford
Conrad Ford
Chief Product & Strategy Officer Allica BankConrad Ford is Chief Product & Strategy Officer at Allica Bank (www.allica.bank), recently named by Deloitte as the UK’s fastest-growing fintech firm ever, and backed by TCV – investors in the likes of Netflix, Revolut and Spotify. Allica is reimagining banking for established SMEs with the latest technology. Previously Conrad was sole founder of Funding Options – a fintech listed in the 2022 FT 1000 list of Europe’s fastest-growing firms – that latterly sold to leading neobank Tide.
Daniel Szmukler
Daniel Szmukler
Director & Head of Innovation Euro 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
Ecosystems Development Director RaidiamDavid joined Raidiam, a company specialising in creating the world’s smartest data sharing ecosystems, in January 2023 as Ecosystems Development Director.
David has been a passionate advocate of Open Banking since 2016 when he spent four years as the Commercial Director at The Open Data Institute leading their work on Open Banking, helping governments and regulators in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada.
Most recently he was at the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) where, as Ecosystem Development Director, he led the team charged with growing and developing the Open Banking ecosystem. His key objective was to facilitate and encourage end user adoption of products and services powered by Open Banking. This included on-boarding new participants into the Directory, developing effective propositions to increase the adoption of Open Banking in the UK, and all OBIE marketing and events. By the time David left the OBIE, there were 90 banks and 250 fintechs using open banking to regularly share data from 7 million consumers and small business.
His nearly 30 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 and Telefonica, David also ran his own boutique data insight business, Thinkdata, for 5 years before it was acquired by Bertelsmann.
David regularly speaks on the benefits and use cases for Open Finance 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 in January 2018. In addition to his role with Raidiam, David is also Strategic Advisor, Open Banking for EML Payments, an Australian payments organisation with businesses in the UK, Ireland and across Europe.
Originally a classically trained musician, David has a Master’s from Cambridge University and an MBA in Marketing.
David Parker
David Parker
Founder & Chief Executive Officer Polymath ConsultingFounder & Chief Executive Officer Polymath Consulting
I have an in depth knowledge of Payments and 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 have been involved in co-founding two companies involved with open banking; KYP and Konsentus.
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: Hands In, KYP, Konsentus, Itemize, Edfundo, Swiipr and Unizest.
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.
Ellie Hewitt
Ellie Hewitt
Director, Payments Consulting KPMGEllie is a Director in KPMG’s Payments Consulting practice, leading payments strategy, commercialisation and product; as well as KPMG’s Open Banking and Open Finance teams. She has extensive experience in the payments industry, recently leading product strategy for open banking and real time payments for Visa. Ellie has extensive experience in product innovation, use case design, M&A activity, and running large transformation programmes. Ellie’s experience extends across Europe and Australia, working across the industry with large banks, payment schemes, payment infrastructure operators, fintechs and regulators.
Euan Ballantyne
Euan Ballantyne
Product Director Pay.UKEuan has 22 years experience in leading product management and development teams in cards, payments and lending. Having originally moved into financial services with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney, further spells back in the UK with Visa, Tesco Bank and RBS/Natwest led him to join Pay.UK as Product Director in 2022. Euan’s team works on developing and managing great customer and end user focused products and services that are provided by Pay.UK to the UK market. A keen outdoor enthusiast, Euan is always up for a mountain hike or an outing on skis, bikes, or boards.
Eyal Sivan
Eyal Sivan
General Manager, North America Ozone APIEyal Sivan, also known as Mr. Open Banking, is one of the foremost global experts in the open banking space.
In his efforts to drive advancements in open banking worldwide, Eyal created the unique personal brand Mr. Open Banking. Under this persona, he hosts the only podcast dedicated to the open banking community, interviewing the key leaders, innovators and influencers who are driving the emergence of open banking around the globe. Since its launch in 2020, the podcast has grown to over 60 thousand subscribers, with Eyal being recognized by Open Future World as the number one Open Finance Influencer in the world for 2022.
Today, Eyal is the General Manager for North America at Ozone API, global pioneers of open banking who’s platform powers some of the largest and most advanced data sharing ecosystems on the planet. In his role, he is responsible for expanding the firm’s global position as a leading open banking solution provider to the United States, Canada and beyond.
Georgios Kolovos
Georgios Kolovos
Director, Payments & Artificial Intelligence ExploreAIA 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.
Ghela Boskovich
Ghela Boskovich
Head of Europe Financial Data & Technology AssociationGhela Boskovich is the Head of Europe for the Financial Data and Technology Association; she is also a well-known advocate for improving inclusiveness and diversity in Financial Services.
Ghela’s past work was centered on fast-tracking internal innovation and the practical application and commercialisation of fintech/bank collaboration. Currently, she focuses on fostering an ethical data democracy, individual consumer empowerment over their data, data economy disruptive business models, and facilitating banks’ emerging technology consumption.
Ghela takes product, service, journey, and business model redesign from initial concept to go-to-market delivery. Her strong regulatory economic background lends an ability to navigate compliance mandates with a commercial angle, as well as identify new commercial opportunities in a rapidly deregulated landscape. She is an evangelist for Open Banking and Finance as a means to nurture Customer Lifetime Value, and transform Financial Services for the greater good.
Gonzalo Escribano Tamayo
Gonzalo Escribano Tamayo
Head of Public Policy for Open Banking BBVA MexicoGonzalo serves as the Director of Public Policy for Open Banking at BBVA since 2023. Prior to this, he held the position of Director of Public Policy for Latin America at Stripe until 2022.
With extensive experience in public affairs projects, public policy, and corporate relations, Gonzalo has been pivotal in shaping the public policy landscape for the European mobility company FreeNow (under the Beat brand), initially for Mexico and subsequently founding and leading the function and team across Latin America.
He has also been a consultant, the director of government relations practice, and the deputy country manager for the global consultancy firm Speyside Group, operating across Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Additionally, Gonzalo was the Director of Domestic Political Relations at the British Embassy in Mexico.
An esteemed university professor and political commentator across various media outlets, Gonzalo holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA) and has earned multiple advanced degrees: a Master’s in International Public Management from Sciences Po Paris, a Master’s in International Relations from the London School of Economics (LSE), and a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Bath.
Harcus Copper
Harcus Copper
Head of Integration & Information Services BarclaysHarcus 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.
Henk Van Hulle
Henk Van Hulle
Chief Executive Officer Open Banking LimitedHenk was appointed CEO in January 2022 to implement an effective and appropriate governance and management framework for the organisation, and to manage the delivery of the CMA Roadmap and the operations of OBL.
He is now leading the next phase of the development of open banking as it moves to a new regulatory framework and Future Entity.
Henk joined OBL from Post Office Ltd, where he had more than nine years’ experience in senior roles in innovation, including Managing Director of Digital Services and as Deputy CEO, Financial Services and Telecoms.
He has considerable expertise in managing profitable and consumer-focused blue chip and start-up firms, including senior roles at Egg PLC, Prudential UK, and Belgian internet bank.
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.
Huw Davies
Huw Davies
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer Ozone APIHuw brings over 25 years in banking, leading payments globally at HSBC and former Head of Digital Payments at MasterCard.
He led the growth of open banking in the UK as Ecosystem Development Director at OBIE. He has successfully built high growth businesses both within large corporates and as stand alone start ups.
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.
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.
Lauren Jones
Lauren Jones
Senior Vice President, Global Advisory KonsentusLauren Jones has over a 13 years’ experience in banking and payments. As Director of Market Development at Open Banking Exchange, she supports central banks, regulators and market infrastructures in their delivery of open banking, including standards, governance and use case design. Formally, Head of Standards at Payments UK (now Pay.UK), she was responsible for the UK’s standards policy on behalf of banks, government, and the wider industry. She was also involved in the early-stage development of Open Banking data standards in the UK. She has represented the UK market at European Payments Council and various groups within the European Central Bank, Berlin Group and SWIFT and now chairs the ISO committee on ‘Security, Financial Services’. She has also spent time advising fintechs, market infrastructures and hardware manufacturers on their payment strategy and product development.
Mark Akerman
Mark Akerman
Chief Digital and Technology Officer Tandem BankAs Chief Transformation and Technology Officer, Mark is supporting Tandem Bank’s ambition to become the UK’s leading fairer and greener bank through delivering best in class digital journeys and leading the development of Tandem’s technology estate.
Mark has spent over 25 years in Financial Services across a range of large banks, building societies and insurers, harnessing technology through a combination of Cloud, DevOps, Scaled Agile and more, for maximum business impact.
He has a genuine passion for the possibilities that are opened by technology and making customers lives simpler through these, as well as having a keen eye on the ethics of using data and tech responsibly.
Phillip Mind
Phillip Mind
Director, Digital Technology & 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 & 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.
Simon Lyons
Simon Lyons
Chief Strategy Officer Obconnect.ioSimon is Ex OBIE and now a Standards transformation lead at Pay.UK. During his time at OBIE he was intrinsic in the UK Government delivering their Open Banking effort which has matured to process over £6BN in perfect tax payments. He now continues to work with the standards of Open Banking from Pay.UK where he leads an initiative to deliver a solution to a legacy problem that 45% of the UK workforce faces every single week. Continued engagement with the tax authorities has allowed Simon to assist HMRC in the expansion of Open Banking into areas that have always faced legacy challenges.
I firmly believe that the biggest change I will see in my career in Banking is the availability of standardised APIs. Getting the bank you want not the one you are given is immensely powerful. Starting the banking journey from within existing channels is the shift change. The benefits are clear to see.
Steve Boms
Steve Boms
Executive Director FDATA North AmericaSteve Boms, Executive Director of the Financial Data and Technology Association of North America, has more than 15 years of experience working inside government, public and private companies, trade organizations, and the technology industry, and assists member companies and clients in working with policymakers in Washington, in statehouses across the United States, and internationally. Steve has spent his career focused on complex financial services public policy issues, having worked in the United States Congress on the committee with jurisdiction over banking issues. He has led advocacy efforts and public policy teams globally for equity options exchanges, large U.S.-based financial institutions, and leading fintech firms. A recognized expert in the intersection of financial technology and public policy, Steve has testified before the United States Senate, the Senate of Canada, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development regarding financial services and technology.
In addition to working directly with FDATA North America’s members, he is a frequent conference panelist and his perspective is solicited by reporters on the technology, financial services, and regulatory beats.
Steve is also the President and founder of Allon Advocacy, LLC, a public policy firm that helps technology, fintech and financial services firms navigate complex public policy and public affairs environments around the world.
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.