2026 speaker list

Ambar Sinha is a Fraud & FinCrime Operations leader at Revolut, safeguarding more than 80 million global users while driving AI innovation across customer solutions. Previously, he led over $300 million in strategy, operations and supply chain transformations across Amazon Supply Chain and Amazon Ads.

Ana Carla Abrão is the CEO of the Open Finance Brazil. With more than 30 years of experience in senior roles across the financial and public sectors — including positions at B3, Tendências, Itaú, Oliver Wyman, the Central Bank of Brazil, and the Goiás State Treasury — she is an economist (UnB), holds a master’s degree from EPGE/FGV, and a PhD from FEA-USP. She is widely recognized in Brazil for her leadership in key debates on economics and public policy, combining long-term vision with consistent execution, always guided by governance, integrity, and positive impact for customers, shareholders, and the Brazilian economy.

She serves on boards such as SempreFEA, Fundação OSESP, Conecta, and RenovaBR, reinforcing her commitment to institutional strengthening and the country’s development. In academia, she has made significant contributions in the areas of financial regulation, credit, and banking spreads. She is also a columnist for O Globo, contributing to the public debate on the direction of the Brazilian economy and the efficiency of public management.

A dedicated mother, she is known for her collaborative leadership and her engagement with inclusion, women’s empowerment, and social and cultural causes.

Andrew Self is the interim Head of department for open finance and open banking at the FCA. He joined the FCA from the PSR, and brings a wealth of experience in open banking, having led the PSR’s work in this area since 2022. Prior to this, he was the senior manager responsible for access to cash and digital payments. Although he began his career in financial services, working on credit pricing and economic analysis, most of his experience is in regulatory policy. Before joining the PSR, he spent a decade at the energy regulator, leading teams in supervisory and policy roles across retail, wholesale, and regulated networks.

Andy Smith launched Snap Finance UK in 2017 and has served as CEO ever since, bringing more than 20 years of experience in consumer lending, including senior roles at Santander and NewDay.

As founder and CEO, Andy is focused on making near-prime retail finance more accessible, inclusive and customer-focused, while helping retailers grow sales. He believes the future of retail finance is about moving beyond a simple approved-or-declined model and matching customers with finance solutions that better fit their individual circumstances.

Over the past decade, Andy has helped build and scale Snap through regulatory change, economic cycles and rapid advances in technology. His focus today includes responsible lending, Consumer Duty, AI-driven decisioning and creating simpler, smarter customer journeys.

Andy was shortlisted for Consumer Finance Business Leader of the Year at the 2025 Credit Strategy Leadership Awards and regularly shares his perspective on retail, fintech, lending, technology, growth and innovation.

Anna Wallace is Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT), where she leads efforts to advance the UK’s role in shaping the future of global financial systems. She brings over two decades of experience across government, regulation and international development. At the UK Financial Conduct Authority, she founded and led the world’s first regulatory sandbox and helped establish the Global Financial Innovation Network, setting new standards for cross-border regulatory collaboration. She later contributed to global investment strategies in financial inclusion and regulatory technology, including through work with the Gates Foundation. She is recognised for combining deep technical expertise with policy leadership to drive systemic innovation in financial services.

Specialises in Payments product and propositions strategy

Dan joined ElectraLink in March 2016 to focus on the development of the Data Transfer Service (DTS) – the core information system supporting the UK retail energy market. Since then, Dan has re-procured and delivered the new cloud-based DTS system and taken Energy Market Insights (EMI) from a loss-making project to a highly profitable business unit delivering sustainable growth.

Since becoming CEO in 2021, Dan has focused on both the strategic direction of the business as well as introducing a new behaviour-based culture ensuring that ElectraLink is at the forefront of the energy market’s drive to increase inclusion and diversity.

Dan is passionate about making ElectraLink an exceptional place to work which will ensure that the company thrives as it navigates large-scale industry change and maximises the opportunities that the digitalisation of the energy system brings for ElectraLink and businesses in finance, real estate and sustainability.

Daniel Rajčan is Co-Founder and CTO of Plectrum Engineering, a boutique cloud engineering company helping fintechs, banks, and regulated enterprises build infrastructure that can be trusted. His relationship with cloud technology started early in 2014, while most of the industry still treated private cloud as an academic exercise, Daniel wrote his master’s thesis on OpenStack at the University of Žilina and began building real cloud environments professionally that same year.

Over the following decade, he worked as a cloud engineer and architect inside some of the most demanding environments in financial services, across banks, fintechs, and global enterprises throughout Central Europe and beyond. In 2023, he co-founded Plectrum, where he leads technical vision and architecture across AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, Terraform, DevOps, and AI, while also driving strategy, partnerships, and the growth of the team.

Daniel is equally committed to the next generation of engineers through Plectrum Academy, Plectrum Incubator, and Plectrum’s podcast, he invests in educating the cloud and DevOps talent of tomorrow. His guiding philosophy: “Escape the imperfect real world, and build the virtual one to be perfect”.

Dr Richard Snape is co-director of our Smart Energy Data Service. He is a senior modelling consultant at Energy Systems Catapult.

Richard has worked with energy systems data for the past 15 years, latterly in the Dynamic Energy Systems Simulation group at the Catapult following ten years in academia. He has managed large projects and teams in application areas from software engineering to railway maintenance.

Although an engineer at heart, Richard enjoys combining social and physical systems’ data to generate new insights and maximise social value from collected data.

Ekaterina Borisova is a Technical Specialist at the Smart Data Accelerator within FCA Innovation, where she leads the FCA’s work on smart data, digital verification and the technical infrastructure required to support secure, interoperable data ecosystems. She drives cross-sector and cross-border smart data initiatives, working at the intersection of regulation, innovation and technology to drive meaningful change. Previous expertise includes payments, open banking and crypto policy, as well as fintech and buy-now-pay-later.

Ezechi Britton MBE (Ez) is a prominent figure in the UK’s fintech sector, with a career spanning over 15 years. He began as a software developer, advancing to co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) roles before moving into venture capital. Ez co-founded Neyber, a fintech firm focused on financial well-being, where he served as the founding CTO. He also co-founded Code Untapped, a digital skills accelerator aimed at providing opportunities for underrepresented technologists. As a founding member, principal, and CTO-in-residence at Impact X Capital Partners LLP, Ez has supported underrepresented entrepreneurs in securing venture capital funding. In 2023, he was appointed the founding CEO of the Centre for Finance, Innovation, and Technology (CFIT), an organization established to drive financial innovation in the UK. In January 2025, Ez announced his departure from CFIT after two years at the helm. His contributions to diversity and innovation in technology were recognized in 2022 when he was awarded an MBE.

Ez now specialises in leveraging his extensive network and experience to build corporate-backed ventures and support startups, bringing ideas to life and making the impossible possible through his innovation consultancy and fintech fund Collectively Better

Garri Galanter is the Chief Executive Officer of Salt Edge. Garri’s experience in business runs back more than 30 years, dedicating the past 20 of them to finance, sales, consulting, and global and regional business development strategies.

He is passionate about identifying corporate growth opportunities, top talents in the open finance ecosystem, and leveraging disruptive technologies.

Gavin helps unlock data-enabled value at sector, national and international scale. He has created over a dozen companies, employing 100’s of people, and delivering $100M’s in measurable impact. He co-chaired the development of the Open Banking Standard, co-chaired the UK Smart Data Council, and was founding CEO of the Open Data Institute. He has mentored, chaired, and been a director of over 40 organisations across diverse sectors. He currently runs data governance organisation ib1.org to acceleratur Net Zero Future. Connect via dgen.net.

Hayden is a technology advisor, strategist, innovator and investor. He leads Ideal Interface, a technology & marketing consultancy based near Glasgow and has worked on many major digital, architecture & data projects across the transport & mobility sector. In 2019 Hayden founded The Open Transport Initiative, an organisation set-up to implement and encourage the adoption of “An Open Banking for Transport” based on interoperable customer account data sharing. More recently The Open Transport Initiative has been a finalist and runner-up in the UK Government’s Smart Data Challenge prize.

Helena is a Head of Economic Crime Strategy at City of London Police, the UK’s National Lead Force for fraud. She has over twenty years’ experience in tackling financial crime across the public, private and third sectors and has held a number of senior positions including at Cifas, the National Crime Agency and the Centre for Finance and Security at RUSI, where she ran the UK Economic Crime Research Programme and remains an Associate Fellow.

Henk 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 over 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, consumer-focused blue chip and start-up firms, including senior roles at Egg PLC, Prudential UK, and Belgian internet bank Beobank.

Janusz Diemko is a seasoned payments executive and fintech innovator with over 26 years of experience scaling businesses across the EMEA region. Throughout his career, he has held prominent C-level roles, including CEO of First Data Poland (POLCARD) , where he managed regional operations generating up to $130M in revenues , and CEO of CRE Polskie ePłatności S.A.. As a visionary entrepreneur, he also founded Xelo Pay, a PSD2-based open banking solution.

A highly respected voice in the European payments landscape, Janusz has previously served as a judge for the MPE Awards and Fintech Futures Banktech / PayTech./ Open Bank ex He is a frequent speaker and panel moderator at major industry events, including MoneyLIVE 2025, MPE, and Open Banking Expo. His regulatory expertise includes serving as Chairman of the Acquirers Committee at the Association of Polish Banks and as a member of the Payment System Council at the National Bank of Poland.

Currently, Janusz is an active angel investor and mentor, having invested in over 15 startups across Europe over the last ten years. Born in England, he holds a degree from University College London , is a UK Chartered Accountant (ACA), and recently completed a Post Graduate Course in M&A at Columbia Business School.

Dr Joanna Michalska is Founder of Ethica Group Ltd, an independent strategic advisory firm focused on executive authority under automation. She advises boards and named accountable executives in regulated industries, financial services, insurance, healthcare, pharma, and critical infrastructure, who are caught between tightening regulatory demand and the competitive imperative to scale AI. Ethica gives them what they need to defend AI to a regulator and scale it safely: independently verifiable evidence that AI systems can be intervened in, in time. Ethica’s methodology is jurisdiction-agnostic, mapping to the EU AI Act, FCA, PRA, DORA, FINMA and equivalent frameworks. Jo holds a PhD in Enterprise Risk Management and brings two decades of senior leadership in global financial services, including JPMorgan and HSBC. Her expertise spans enterprise risk, AI governance architecture, and decision authority under automation, with direct regulator and cross-jurisdictional engagement.

As bunq’s Chief Evangelist and former Board Member & COO, Joe Wilson helps define the company’s voice in the world: connecting its global mission to the everyday needs of real users. With over two decades as a frontline founder and senior executive across startups, scale-ups and big tech, he tells bunq’s story with the authenticity of both an executive and a user.

At bunq, Joe has done it all: scaled international growth, led the expansion in the US, and shaped the user journey end-to-end. Before stepping in as COO, he served on bunq’s supervisory board, giving him a front-row seat to bunq’s evolution and mission. Beyond bunq, Joe is a parent, spouse, expat, and lifelong digital nomad who has lived and worked in seven countries across three continents. Along the way, he’s built and exited companies, launched a sustainability fund, led global developer relations as well as other major business units at Microsoft, and directly advised 100+ Dutch scale-ups.

Whether it’s about bunq’s growth, product innovations, an ownership-driven culture, the future of neobanks in a world without borders, or how AI is transforming finance into something simple, intuitive, and built around real life – Joe speaks with the energy of a founder and the clarity of a user.

John Jackson is Head of the Wholesale Payments Division at the Bank of England. He is responsible for setting the Bank’s long-term strategy for innovation in sterling payments and promoting modernisation in the wider payments landscape.

Over more than 25 years at the Bank John has worked in the Payments, Markets, Financial Stability and Prudential Policy areas. He has also spent a year on secondment at the New York Fed, working in their Financial Institutions Supervision Group. He was the Product Lead for the Bank’s RTGS Renewal programme.

John Penrose is the Founder of the Centre for Small-State Conservatives. He is also Chair of the Conservative Party’s in-house think tank (the Conservative Policy Forum or CPF); an Honorary Professor at Kings College London; a member of Onward think-tank’s Editorial Board; an Associate Fellow at Bright Blue think-tank; a founding Board member of the Council for Countering Online Disinformation; and a founding Commissioner of the Commission for Carbon Competitiveness as well. He is a prominent policy thought-leader on the centre-right of UK politics, as well as a former MP, Prime Ministerial anti-corruption Tsar and serial Government Minister.

osh D’Addario is Head of Consultancy at the Open Data Institute, where he leads work on Smart Data, open data, and data stewardship across sectors including finance, energy, and agriculture. At the ODI and as a member of the Smart Data Council he has supported the design and delivery of smart data initiatives such as Open Banking, open finance and the Smart Data Challenge Prize, working with governments, regulators, and industry to unlock the value of data while ensuring it is used responsibly. 

Keith Grose is Regional Managing Director UK and Europe at Coinbase. He is based in London, leading product and business strategy in one of the world’s most dynamic fintech markets. A seasoned executive with a passion for building financial infrastructure, prior to joining Coinbase Keith led the establishment of Plaid’s UK and European operations, driving its growth as one of the largest private fintech companies globally, and served as COO of SequenceHQ, focusing on B2B payments. Keith began his career in Silicon Valley as a consultant at Bain & Company before spending many years at Google, where he played a key role in scaling the payments and mobile hardware divisions. As an investor, Keith supports ambitious founders driving financial freedom through technology with a focus on fintech & crypto startups.

Lauren has 15+ years experience in banking and payments. For the last six she has focused on open banking and data sharing ecosystems, working with FIs, fintechs and the public sector on developing sustainable and commercially viable solutions. She has led open banking advisory practices at Konsentus and was advisor at Raidiam. She most recently acts as Open Banking Lead at Paylume. She has worked on open banking projects on all major continents. She has previously been Head of Standards at Pay.UK where she led the payment standards policy on behalf of the UK market; and advised fintechs and market infrastructures on payments policy and strategy. She chairs ISO TC68 SC2 on security in financial services.

Liz is Cofounder and CEO of Ctrl-Shift and has spent her now long career focusing on the opportunities created where people, business and technology meets. Over the past 20 years Liz has focused on the opportunities that the sustainable use of personal data brings for businesses, individuals, and society. She has worked extensively with Blue Chip businesses, Governments and Legislators and Think Tanks to support the development of our personal data economy.

Throughout her career Liz has worked both in and for large corporates and has developed deep skills and strong networks across private, public and the third sector. She brings deep and strong experience in the impact of business models and operating environments on the shifting landscape of consumers, digital, trust and value.

Liz combines vision married with evidence and market knowledge, business strategy and operational implementation and the ability to bring together strong teams to deliver extraordinary results.

A creative thinker and thoughtful leader with over 15 years of experience in open data advocacy, research and development, innovation, strategy, and technology, alongside a stellar research and evidence-gathering background. Magdalena has led research programmes and the design and development of products and services across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors, as well as a startup environment (Smart Data Foundry, University of Edinburgh, Digital Curation Centre, BBC, Art Institute of Chicago). Entrepreneurial and a fast learner, Magdalena has held leadership roles in the media, higher education, and finance sectors. She is an alumnus of a prestigious Aurora women’s leadership programme, selected from hundreds of applicants to represent the University of Edinburgh in 2018. As Head of Research Growth at SDF, Magdalena manages successful relationships with senior stakeholders across UK universities, government funding councils, and independent charitable foundations to change how accredited researchers access private sector financial data and use it to drive evidence-based policymaking and decision-making.

Marion was appointed Chair and Trustee of OBL in February 2023. Her focus is on maintaining and protecting the CMA Order, and working with key stakeholders to support the continued adoption and growth of open banking in the UK.

As Chair, she oversees the transition to a Future Entity playing a central role in the move towards an economically sustainable and scalable open banking ecosystem.

Marion holds a portfolio of non-executive roles including Non-Executive Director at Bibby Financial Services, private bank C H Hoare & Co and Uber Payments UK Ltd.

She was previously Director of Payments at NatWest Group and President of MasterCard UK & Ireland. Prior to that, she served as Chief Executive Officer of Vocalink, a specialist payments partner to banks, corporate partners and government departments.

Mat Tuvesson leads Product at Volt, as the business evolves into a real-time money movement and treasury infrastructure platform. His role spans product strategy, roadmap prioritisation and cross-functional execution across Payments, Treasury, Account-to-Account (A2A) and Stablecoins. Before joining Volt in October 2025, Mat spent eight years at Checkout.com, where he held product leadership roles spanning payment processing, payouts, platform capabilities and international expansion.

Matthew currently leads product & proposition development for Open Banking payments at Santander UK. His focus since joining the organisation in 2024 has been helping evolve the Open Banking agenda from solely regulatory and mandatory delivery towards creating incremental customer value and sustainable commercial opportunities.

With a career spanning strategy, product development and transformation in financial services across two decades, Matthew brings practical experience of navigating the intersection of regulation, customer needs and commercial outcomes.

He is particularly focused on how Open Banking can move beyond compliance to deliver differentiated propositions and enduring value for customers and banks.

Matthew is Director of Data Enablement at Compare the Market, where he is responsible for data governance and quality, data privacy operations, business architecture, data risk and data ethics. His remit also includes the development of the organisation’s knowledge graph and its wider approach to the responsible use of data and AI.

Before joining Compare the Market, Matthew held senior global data leadership roles at Deliveroo, HSBC and Barclays, leading large‑scale data management and governance functions in complex, highly regulated environments.

His work in data management and AI has been recognised by Marketing Week, which named him one of its Future Leaders for 2026.

Maz has been in your home.
Not as a burglar.

As the creative force behind some of the biggest television shows on earth — Big Brother, The X Factor, The Celebrity Apprentice, Dancing with the Stars, The Weakest Link and Q&A.

Maz has spent more than 30 years creating the kind of shows people didn’t just watch. They talked about them. Argued about them. Voted, cried, auditioned, copied the catchphrases, filled the tabloids and came back the next week for more.
Maz has been the creative force behind cultural phenomena: leading huge teams, managing multi-million-dollar budgets, making high-pressure decisions, shaping talent, driving audiences, protecting brands and turning ordinary people, ideas and moments into things the public actually cared about.
She has worked with the kind of people who come with security, tinted windows, entourages, riders, NDAs and large people in black with headsets: King Charles, President Trump, Beyoncé, Pink, Usher, Richard Branson and Mel B.
That matters, because when you have spent your career working with world leaders, global artists, billionaires, broadcasters, business icons and household names, you know how to manage pressure, presence, messaging, reputation and rooms where every decision counts.
Her work has generated more than eight billion views and earned BAFTAs, Logies, ASTRAs, National Television Awards and a Bronze Rose de Montreux. She has built global audiences, shaped culture and once broke Twitter.
Deliberately.
Today, as an international keynote speaker, business strategist, trainer and MC, Maz brings that same rare producer brain, commercial instinct and cultural radar to boardrooms and leadership teams around the world.
Maz knows how to make people care at scale — and she shows businesses how to do the same.
She helps leaders, teams and brands communicate with clarity, confidence and authority; tell stories people remember; build influence before the pitch, meeting or moment begins; and turn expertise into commercial impact.
Her sessions are not a pleasant keynote, a water bottle and a branded notebook situation — they are funny, sharp, fast and practical, with tools audiences can use immediately to make ideas land, messages travel and rooms come alive.
Mel B says she has “The X Factor.” Usher thinks ‘Maz is smooth and I’d work with her again in a heartbeat.’
Audiences have called Maz “speaking royalty” and “the best speaker we have ever heard.”
Very little money changed hands.
So, if you want your business to have The X Factor – to be noticed, trusted, remembered, talked about, chosen and bought, Maz can create that.
She made the show & won a Logie for it.

Megan Caywood is the Founder & CEO of Caywood, an Agentic AI FinTech startup in London. Originally from San Francisco, she moved to the UK on the Exceptional Talent Visa for her pioneering work in fintech. She helped launch Starling Bank as Chief Platform Officer, earning Forbes 30 Under 30 recognition, before serving as Chief Product Officer at Barclays UK. Megan also chaired the Digital, Tech & Cyber Board at UK Finance. Today she is an Ambassador for Global Women in AI, recognized as a leading voice at the intersection of finance and AI.

Nick Davey is Head of Strategy at Open Banking Limited (OBL), leading strategic initiatives that shape the future of payments and financial innovation in the UK. With nearly 30 years’ experience spanning central banking, regulation and industry leadership, he has played a key role in the evolution of the UK’s payments ecosystem.

Prior to joining OBL, Nick was a Payment Specialist at the Payment Systems Regulator and spent almost 20 years at the Bank of England in senior payment systems roles. He is a recognised expert on payments, open banking and the opportunities driving the next generation of financial services.

Nicola is a seasoned executive over 25years of experience in building, transforming, and growing organisations, particularly in the tech sector. Currently, she advises banks on open finance strategy, AI implementation and transformation. She is a Senior Advisor and SME for Roland Berger’s global AI Lab and FS practice.

Early in her career, she established three financial services businesses during the emerging internet age and became MDof her first company at 26. Her venture capital experience sparked a passion for working with portfolio companies. She also gained extensive operational expertise in the global FMCG sector, Since 2016, Nicola has held Managing Director and C-level roles in financial services and tech companies, including a leadership position at PayPal. Recently, she has served as CEO and Managing Director in BaFin-licensed businesses, focusing on international strategy, business transformation, fundraising, regulation, organizational set-up, product strategy, marketing, sales, HR, and C-level team leadership.

Nicola is also an active angel investor and serves as a Board Director for three fintech companies. She also serves on the Strategy Board of House of Finance & Tech in Berlin and on the board of FRIDA – Open Insurance.

She is an internationally recognized expert in open finance and AI in wealth management, frequently speaking and publishing on the topic. Nicola collaborates with industry bodies, banks, insurers, and regulators to shape the future open data economy and is a co.founder of the German Open Finance Charta.

Raffaele leads the Open Banking Payments and Data Team at NatWest, where he is driving innovation through strategic partnerships with leading fintechs and embedding Open Banking solutions into NatWest’s customer journeys.

A senior leader with nearly 15 years of international experience in the financial services sector, Raffaele brings a strong academic foundation with a Bachelor of Science in Accountancy, Law and Finance, and a Master of Science in Public Management from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. Before joining NatWest Group, Raffaele spent four years as a consultant at Simon-Kucher & Partners in Milan, where he specialised in pricing and commercialisation strategies for Italian retail and investment banks.

Rebecca is a seasoned leader in financial innovation, currently leading the Innovation and FinTech practice at JLR Global Financial & Insurance Services, where she drives long-term strategy and innovation initiatives in partnership with a global mobility and FinTech ecosystem. Previously, she was the Head of APAC and Global Head of Data & Research at a Tel Aviv-based FinTech platform, enabling digital transformation for tier-1 global banks. With over a decade of experience in capital markets across the Asia Pacific region, Rebecca brings a wealth of expertise to her roles. Rebecca has also contributed to academia, designing and teaching the FinTech Entrepreneurship course for MBA students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and serving as a visiting researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Rob Bratby is General Counsel of the UK Payments Initiative, the independent, industry-owned and industry-led body responsible for defining and advancing commercial Variable Recurring Payments for the next phase of UK account-to-account payments. He advises the UKPI board on scheme governance, the shareholders’ agreement and the multilateral agreement subscribed by participants, and leads UKPI’s legal input into the regulatory workstreams now in front of the sector, including the modernisation of the Payment Services Regulations and the design of the future retail payments infrastructure.

He is also Managing Partner of Bratby Law, a specialist practice covering UK telecoms, data protection and payments regulation, and holds General Counsel appointments at TOTSCo, TelXL and Core. He is ranked in Chambers UK and recognised as a Leading Partner by The Legal 500.

Robert leads Token.io’s public policy and industry engagement function in support of the advancement of open banking and account-to-account payment policy priorities. He represents Token.io in external forums with regulators, trade associations and payment schemes across the UK and EU. He has over 10 years experience in the payments sector, including roles at a large global acquirer and at a payments regulator. He also worked for a number of years as an economic consultant at a Big 4 consultancy.

Rowan Millett-Ling is a Product Manager at Acquired, specialising in card payment performance for recurring and subscription businesses. Rowan leads the company’s authorisation optimisation work across Retry Advice, Account Updater and Network Tokens, with a current focus on turning decline data and scheme mandates into measurable uplift for merchants.

Rowan comes to Acquired from the merchant side, having been CPO at B2C gifting platform Collection Pot, with earlier experience across the gift card and card issuing sectors. With over eight years in fintech spanning issuing, merchant and acquiring, Rowan is passionate about the mechanics behind a failed payment: how smarter retry logic, richer decline messaging and up-to-date credentials can recover revenue merchants had written off, reduce involuntary churn, and give businesses and consumers a clearer view of why their money moves the way it does.

Russell Moore is the Co-Founder and CEO of amotivv, an AI infrastructure and governance company that helps regulated businesses build their own AI, own their memory and data, and prove every action with a tamper-evident audit trail. Before founding amotivv, Russell was Head of AI at Global Payments, where he built and led the GenAI Center of Excellence across thousands of developers, following a career in payments and issuing technology at TSYS. Today amotivv works across financial services and healthcare, and Russell speaks regularly on agentic AI, compliance, and the future of payments.

Following a 25-year career in counter-fraud and financial crime, including senior and executive roles at the Insurance Fraud Bureau, Motor Insurers’ Bureau and Cifas, Ruth joined UK Finance’s Economic Crime team in March 2025 as Director of Fraud Policy & Operations. In February 2026, Ruth was promoted to Managing Director of Economic Crime, spearheading collaboration between the financial services sector, government, and law enforcement across disciplines including anti-money laundering (AML), counter terrorism financing, anti-bribery & corruption, sanctions and export controls, fraud, law enforcement collaboration and information & intelligence sharing.

Sacha is a Senior product manager at the Government Digital Service (GDS), with responsibility for its online payment product GOV.UK Pay, a payment platform used by 1,000 public sector services. Sacha is currently leading the work to integrate a new payment provider, and has also lead the work to bring Pay by Bank to the platform. He has worked on GOV.UK Pay for the past 6 years and previously worked on supporting government services in their digital transformations.

A people and technology leader with 30+ years of experience in financial and FinTech, in senior roles.

Retail Finance Subject Leader at GFT, leading the product development of Banking and FinTech solution delivery.

Director of Engineering Metro Bank – Leading a 1,600+ FTE function through a digital transformation, implementing Agile/SaFE Value Stream feature teams.

CTO Orwell Group – Designed and implemented the first UK combination Payments system (Faster Payments, CHAPS, SWIFT, SEPA) and distributed ledger certified for Cloud by regulators in UK and France (FCA/ACPR). Winner of 2018 FIA Award. Open Banking TPP pilot for IATA and 4 airlines.

Chief Architect: New Payments Architecture for PSR – Replacement for real-time UK Faster Payments with ISO20022

Head of Payments & Regulatory Architecture: Lloyds Banking Group – Technology sponsor for all regulatory projects at the Bank Payments Services Directive (PSD1 & PSD2), Open Banking UK technical standards lead, 5AMLD, GDPR, CRS, CASS, payM and IT Resilience and CyberDefence. Lead the payments architecture for the merger of Lloyds Bank and Halifax-HBOS and the demerger of TSB Bank. Lead for Faster Payments architecture.

CTO Travelex – Delivered a consolidated global payments capability from US, UK, to AUS,  Commercial FX Portal and Cash Ordering for UK Banks as an API.

Chief Architect (ETC) JPMorgan – Leading architecture at JPMC Glasgow technology centre and Fintech engagement at LabMorgan.

Samantha Emery is a financial services executive, NED and advisor committed to advancing thinking on the economics of inclusion and responsible innovation. Her portfolio sees her at the forefront of industry, including roles as an independent Director of ClearBank UK and an advisor to Women in Banking and Finance on AI & Digital. She has wide-ranging experience as at Lloyds Banking Group and NatWest, leading payments and digital transformation; as a regulator driving innovation enablement and payments sector development at the FCA; and as the deputy Chair of Swift, the global financial market infrastructure.

Samantha Ewing is Digital Identity Lead at NatWest, responsible for the bank’s participation in the Digital Verification Service being developed with other banks and UK Finance. She brings together stakeholders from across the industry to help shape a trusted and interoperable approach to digital verification in the UK.

 With over ten years’ experience in financial services, Samantha has worked across onboarding, open banking, payments and customer journey transformation. She is passionate about using innovation and collaboration to tackle fraud and reduce customer friction.

Simone Plances leads the Smart Data Accelerator at the FCA, driving innovation in the infrastructure, standards and technologies that will power the future of open finance. He brings together industry, policymakers and technology partners to test new approaches to data sharing, digital verification, infrastructure, interoperability and consumer empowerment through proofs of concept, technology pilots and collaborative innovation programmes. With international experience across Italy, Brussels and London, Simone combines expertise in financial services, emerging technologies and regulatory policy to help shape the next generation of digital financial ecosystems.

Soeren Rode Jain Andreasen has held various leadership roles in the financial sector and is known for his expertise in digital transformation and driving the adoption of new technologies in the banking industry. Andreasen’s professional journey includes working at prominent financial institutions where he has played a pivotal role in leading transformative change and innovation. He spent over a decade at Danske Bank, where he served as the Chief Digital Officer and was responsible for the bank’s digital transformation efforts in the United Kingdom. During his tenure, he played a crucial role in implementing innovative solutions, launching Open Banking, and improving the backend systems of the bank. In 2024, Andreasen joined the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) as the Enterprise Digital and Innovation Officer. This appointment came after CIBC signed a multi-year agreement with Microsoft to migrate many of its operations to the cloud. Andreasen’s role at CIBC involves leading the bank’s digital strategy and driving innovation in the organization. Notably, Andreasen currently heads Daily Banking & Channels at Nordea, the largest bank in the Nordics. In this role, he is responsible for Digital Channels, Onboarding of clients, the origination and servicing of everyday banking products, digital money transfers, and the optimization of the retail payments experience. Andreasen is a sought-after speaker at conferences and events worldwide, where he shares his insights on topics such as open banking, customer experience, data & AI, and the paramount importance of enhancing backend operations in the banking sector.

Sovon Chatterjee is the Director of Product Management at HSBC; an accomplished Product Management expert, bringing 20+ years of extensive experience in the banking and finance sectors. His career spans various roles in Sales, IT, Operations and Product Management across Asia and Europe, allowing him to develop a comprehensive understanding of both market dynamics and technical requirements, enabling him to effectively engage with clients and stakeholders whilst driving product adoption and satisfaction.

Throughout his career, Sovon has successfully led the development and management of key products and propositions, leveraging his engineering expertise to bridge the gap between technical teams and business objectives.

Steffen Vollert, CEO and Co-Founder of real-time, rail-agnostic payments powerhouse Volt, is the technical mastermind behind Volt’s vision and products from day one. Having previously led global expansion at Adyen, he has served as Volt’s CTO, COO, and now CEO. Steffen has guided the firm from its inception to global scale across Europe, the UK and Australia.

Stephen Winyard is the Chief Sales Officer and Director at Salt Edge, a leading fintech company specialising in open banking. With over 30 years of experience, he has co-founded and managed several disruptive technology companies, generating millions in revenue and significant shareholder returns.

Stephen has been involved in open banking for several years and was part of the founding team of a UK-regulated PIS/AIS company. Additionally, he has served as a council member and key advisor to the UK government through the Digital Policy Alliance, which frequently convened in the House of Lords in Westminster.

Currently, Stephen leverages his extensive expertise in building sustainable relationships with financial institutions across multiple sectors, helping them implement the most effective open banking strategies.

Tim heads up D•One – the B2B open banking services division of the ClearScore Group. Tim is passionate about the ability of open banking to effect positive change within the lending industry, and as such set up D•One to help facilitate and accelerate open banking adoption for the benefit of both consumers and lenders alike.

Before joining ClearScore, Tim spent a number of years leading the HD Decisions business following its acquisition by Experian in 2014. Prior to that he spent his early career working in analytics at Capital One having previously studied engineering at the University of Nottingham. He is a keen sports and music fan.

Todd Clyde is the CEO of Token and an established operator of Silicon Valley software companies. He has an over twenty-year track record of bringing groundbreaking technologies to market, including e-learning, internet banking, mobile banking and now open API banking. Token is Todd’s fifth technology start-up, and he has navigated his previous four to successful exits, including one $2B exit. Todd joined Token in 2016 to modernise payments and drive a shift from traditional payment methods to account-to-account payments.

Oriol Tintore is co-founder and co-CEO of Belvo, the leading Open Finance platform in Latin America. Founded in 2019, Belvo builds the financial data and account-to-account payments infrastructure that powers credit, payments, and financial services products across Mexico and Brazil. The company serves more than 150 clients, including some of the region’s largest banks, fintechs, and lenders, and is backed by leading investors such as Kaszek, Visa, Citi, and YCombinator, having raised more than $70 million to date.

Before founding Belvo, Oriol built his career across two worlds: aerospace engineering and fintech. He began at NASA’s Ames Research Center, where he spent four years developing small satellites. In 2015, he enrolled at Stanford University to pursue an MBA, supported by a full tuition scholarship from Obra Social de La Caixa, and while there, co-founded Capella Space, a satellite data startup backed by Spark Capital that has raised over $50M.

Upon graduation, Oriol moved into business development at Flex in the Bay Area before joining Verse, one of Europe’s leading P2P payments apps, as CEO. Oriol holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC).

Vladimir Bendikow is the Chief Data Officer at FBN Bank Limited, with over two decades of experience in data management and analytics. He has transformed the bank’s data strategy, implemented self-service analytics, and established a comprehensive data governance framework. Vladimir is a thought leader who frequently shares his insights at industry conferences, advocating for a proactive approach to data management. He aims to drive innovation and help organizations optimize their digital ecosystems, with a vision of making FirstBank UK a data-centric, digital organization.