Hugo is a seasoned financial services professional with experience in managing risks in different parts of the globe. Hugo is currently responsible for the management of the credit risk appetite for the retail portfolio at BOI UK, alongside portfolio insights, debt management strategies, MI and credit forecasting tools, using technologies and data in ways to bring to the forefront emerging credit risks and mitigating strategies.
Hugo is passionate about leadership, innovation and analytics and focused on driving strong stakeholder relationships.

Tibor Bartels heads-up the ING Transaction Services department for the Americas region. He is responsible for Payments and Cash Management solutions, Liquidity Management, Working Capital optimization and Traditional Trade solutions.

Starting 2016, Tibor moved to NY to build an on-the-ground presence for Transaction Services in the region. Currently he leads a team of product specialists that have in-depth discussions with America’s based multinationals on how to improve their daily banking set-up.

Tibor has been with ING for over 16 years and started his career as a trainee and worked in various departments of the bank. In 2007, Tibor joined the Transaction Services department with regional responsibility for the United States. Currently he is a considered to be a specialist for treasury optimization and market trends in Europe and has been regularly been interviewed by sector magazines.

Assad Bouayoun has over 15 years of quantitative analysis experience in investment banking. He is a quantitative finance specialist focusing on total valuation including funding and capital cost, xVA, risk, stress and reverse stress testing. He was responsible for designing industry standard hedging and pricing systems in equity derivatives during his time in Commerzbank, and had the same responsibility in credit derivatives while working for Credit Agricole, and also in xVA in institutions like Lloyds, RBS and Scotiabank. He lead the modelling team responsible for the research and development of the simulation engines used for exposure computation within HSBC in London. Now he is XVA and Credit Derivative quantitative analyst at Daiwa Capital Market.
During the different projects Assad has undertaken in quantitative finance, he integrated new technologies such as Cloud, GPU and QPU; new design (parallelization using graphs) as well as new numerical methods such as AAD. He also participated to the firmwide data standardization and integration that are essential aspects of the success of these projects. He is also leading an effort to leverage quantum annealing for financial quantitative reverse stress testing.
He holds a MSc in Mathematical Trading and Finance from Cass Business School and an MSc in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from UTC (University of Technology of Compiegne, France).

Enrico Cacciatore is a Senior Quantitative Trader, Head of Market Structure and Trading Analytics for Voya Investment Management. Enrico runs trading for the quantitative equity team as well as program trading for the fundamental active equity team. In addition to trading, Enrico leads the effort in evaluating and improving the overall trading process from both an execution and systems prospective. Enrico was the 2018 Markets Media Buy-Side Quantitative Trader of the Year, a member of NASDAQ’s Institutional Traders Advisory Committee (ITAC) , ITG’s Analytics Advisory Board as well as FinTech Advisory Board Member for Center for Financial Professionals. Enrico earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (Aerospace Systems) from the United States Military Academy at West Point, as well as graduate studies in Computational Finance (MSCF) from Carnegie Mellon University.

Stefano Canossa’s biography will be coming soon!

As the Head of Model Risk Management for Signature Bank, Albert is responsible for ensuring that all models used by Signature follow FIL 22-2017 (i.e. SR 11-7 and OCC 2011-2012). These model types include ALM, Liquidity, CECL, Stress Testing, DFAST and AML/BSA. Prior to entering the model risk management space, Albert held various roles which gave him the opportunity to perform research and present his work during outreach engagements. Albert holds graduate degrees in both economics and statistics.

Brooke Cooper’s biography will be coming soon!

Hakan Danis is currently Director in MUFG Union Bank where he is managing a team that is responsible for designing scenarios and projecting macroeconomic and financial series for BAU baseline, CECL, CCAR/DFAST, Resolution and Recovery Plan scenarios, JFSA (Japan Financial Services Agency) and MUFG Japan internal scenarios. He is model owner of several macroeconomic and stress testing models that have been used during CCAR/DFAST submissions. He has also developed a model that has been used to rank scenarios based in their severity and constructed ad-hoc macroeconomic models to help Credit Strategies Group on stress testing related projects. He actively participates in Review & Challenge and Overlay Committee meetings for credit loss and PPNR forecasts during CCAR/DFAST processes. Prior to joining MUFG Union Bank, he was Senior Economist in the Research Department at BBVA, where he was responsible for macroeconomic analyses and forecasts of the U.S. economy for the BBVA Group. These forecasts were accepted one of the most accurate forecasts of U.S. economic trends in 2010 and 2011 by Bloomberg. He holds a PhD in Economics from Terry College of Business, UGA and is expert in time series econometrics and monetary policy. He has published several academic papers and worked as editor and guest editor in academic journals.

Dipanjan Das (DD) is a strategic thought leader and proven general manager with 15+years of experience in P&L Management, Banking Compliance and Regulations, Product Management, and Digital Marketing spanning multiple industries. In his current role, DD leads all aspects for multi-product cross-sell and 3rd party strategic partnerships  for Capital One Retail and Direct Bank, especially in the New-to-Credit segment. In 2016-17, he was intricately involved in Capital One Retail Bank’s response to the FS industry-wide sales practice exam conducted by the OCC.

At Ally Financials, he led the analytics team focusing on the online auto auction business and the web analytics strategy for their dealer facing businesses. DD has a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering and a Masters degree in Operations Research and Statistics from UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a huge foodie who also loves to cook, travel and dabble with projects around the house. He lives with his wife and 2 adorable kids in the
suburbs of Washington DC.

I was delighted to be asked to become a member of the FinTech Advisory Board.
Brandon is a Trustee of the Institute of International Monetary Research at Buckingham University and of the Responsible Finance Investment Foundation.

He has had a 50-year career in finance and today his main role, currently, is as the author and lecturer of the banking course for the MSc in Money, Banking, and Central Banking at Buckingham University, he is also developing a new MSc in Investment, Money, and Payments in co-operation with Prof. Tim Congdon and a series of post graduate courses for finance professionals.

Last year Brandon also re wrote and lectured on the BSc finance course for the university.

Brandon is a member of the Financial Markets Group at the London School of Economics and has sat on the advisor panels for the Professional Risk Managers Association and The Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation and Long Finance.

He has been a non-executive for two fintech companies, for two banks and has been the chairman of a private equity company.

Brandon has also headed the Global Association of Risk Professionals risk academy and developed professional qualification programs for commercial banks in Indonesia and the Peoples Republic of China in co-operation with their central banks.

Most of Brandon’s executive career, some 32 years, was with Barclays Bank. Brandon retired from Barclays Bank in 2004 where he had been Treasurer of retail and corporate banking operations of the group and a member of the banks Executive Committee. Prior to that appointment he spent much of his career in investment banking where he worked in London, New York, Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore and became the first Head of Structured Products at Barclays Capital.

Chris Ekonomidis’ biography will be coming soon!

Alessia Falsarone, SASB FSA, is a Managing Director with PineBridge Investments in New York, a global asset manager focused on high-conviction investing. She is responsible for the alignment of portfolio strategy and investment risk across the developed markets credit platform, including as head of sustainable investing. Prior to PineBridge, she held senior investment roles at AIG, Citigroup and Credit Suisse. Ms. Falsarone is a mentor in the Stanford IGNITE accelerator program and a Member of the Board of 1787fp, a digital platform focused on consumer finance. Ms. Falsarone is an alumna of Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Co-Founder of Plootus, a FinTech start-up in the Wealth Management industry, based out of New Haven, Connecticut. Sunil has led multiple teams and projects at GE, ING, and PwC in strategy, finance and risk management. He is a 15-year financial services veteran with experience in Asset Management, Lending, and Capital Markets. He is an MBA from NYU Stern, a Chartered Accountant and a finance graduate from Shri Ram College of Commerce. He has also completed an executive program in FinTech from MIT.

Seth Giovanetti is the Head of Operational Risk at Cross River Bank, an American financial services organization that provides technology infrastructure to fintech and technology companies. He has over 25 years of experience in Enterprise Risk, Operational Risk and Control, Governance, IT Security and Regulatory Compliance across multiple industry sectors with a primary focus on financial services.

Prior to joining Cross River, Seth held Sr. roles in some of the world’s largest financial institutions where he was responsible for creating and executing full scale firm-wide enterprise governance and operational risk and control programs, regulatory compliance oversight frameworks as well as acting as a primary regulatory exam liaison to the OCC, FRB, SEC, Japanese Financial Services Agency, and the Prudential Regulation Authority of the UK.  He has recently served as Head of Operational Risk Management at Oportun, a financial technology company focusing on providing inclusive, affordable financial services to their customers to help them build a better future.

Seth has also held ERM and ORM leadership positions at TIAA/Nuveen Asset Management, HSBC, PwC, Bank of Tokyo/MUFG, State Street Bank and American Express. Seth holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA in International Business from The George Washington University.

Mariana Gomez de la Villa has joined ING in 2015 and is currently the Distributed Ledger Technology Program Director at ING, with overall responsibility for driving research, development and implementation of Distributed Ledger Technology as well as capitalizing on its potential in order to unlock mass-scale value.
Under Mariana’s leadership,  the Blockchain program has delivered over 44 proofs of concept and 8 live pilots in collaboration with the following business areas: payments, trade finance and working capital solutions, financial markets, post-trade, bank treasury, lending, compliance and identity.
Mariana is also responsible for setting up long-term purpose and vision, including the governance of the program within ING globally. Mariana is an active leader in global consortia, outlining the Distributed Ledger Technology strategy and envisioning market landscapes.
Mariana’s accountabilities include the definition of products, services and business models, as well as foresight to business, technology, leadership communities and international stakeholders, including regulators.

Sergio has been working for more than 10 years in the capital market and financial services sector for a primary consultant company in an international investment bank, where he led business initiatives and IT projects.  He has an academic background with a PhD in Statistics and Quantitative Finance and the PMP® certification. He is passionate and enthusiastic about how digital transformation is radically changing the financial services sector.

Jason is a retail and commercial banking expert and strategic advisor with 30 years’ experience working with clients delivering innovative and complex programmes to solve business critical issues. He has market leading knowledge and insight in the challenger banking and SME banking sectors, and has led numerous strategy and transformation programmes for a wide range of start-up, mid-tier and universal banks.

Glenn Hursh’s biography will be coming soon! Find them on LinkedIn below

Noah Kessler is a Director for Protiviti, a global consulting company focused on helping organizations with their regulatory, internal audit and technology risk (including cyber and privacy) needs. Noah serves as Protiviti’s New York technology industry leader and in this role has serviced the largest FinTech companies in the world. Noah is a thought leader in the firm and has authored Protiviti whitepapers and a blog series for emerging tech companies seeking to fund and scale their business. Noah is well-versed in the FFIEC IT handbooks, cloud security alliance, cybersecurity frameworks and a variety of regulatory requirements that have implications on the FinTech sector.

Armel R. Kouassi is a senior finance professional with broad-based experience in Banking, Fintech, AI, Asset Liability and Treasury Portfolio Modeling. His experience includes a wide range of products with assignments in several major financial institutions and a Big 4 Audit Firm. He has worked and lived in numerous locations throughout the United States, Europe & Africa. Recently Mr. Kouassi is Head of Balance Sheet and Asset Liability Modeling for Northern Trust headquartered in Chicago. Armel has shifted between entrepreneurial and senior banking roles in his career.
Armel is certified Financial Risk Professional and a member of Global Association of Risk Professional. Armel received an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, a master’s in finance from ESCP Europe, Paris, France and a master’s in statistics and economy from ENSEA Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Armel is a father of 3 girls, speaks three languages, he is passionate of economic empowerments, Arts and Music and is member of the Board of Directors of the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra. He is a board member of NewArts/12.14 Foundation in Connecticut, USA. The 12.14 Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering well-being in children by instilling grit and resilience through a character development program coupled with high-level mastery experiences. Armel is member of the Board of the Wharton Club of Africa, promoting and helping to invest in Africa.

Sabeena serves as Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer to the investment banking division of Bank of China International – specifically, BOC International (USA) Holdings Inc. and its two subsidiaries, BOCI Commodities & Futures (USA) LLC, a registered futures commission merchant and CME Group Inc. clearing member, and BOC International (USA) Inc., a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA (collectively, “BOCI”). Prior to joining BOCI, Sabeena served as Futures & Derivatives Counsel and Compliance Advisor to E*TRADE Financial Corp., E*TRADE Clearing Corp. and E*TRADE Securities Corp. Her previous professional work also includes the Office of General Counsel at Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Incorporated, the Division of Enforcement at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Bank of New York Mellon’s Legal Division, the Securities Fraud Prosecution division of the Attorney General’s Office for the State of New Jersey, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer to Alpari (US), LLC and Alpari Securities LLC.

Sabeena is licensed to practice law in New York and New Jersey and is an active member of the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association and the New Jersey State Bar Association. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology and Political Science from the University of Toronto, a Master of Arts in International Relations from Columbia University and a Juris Doctor from the St. John’s University School of Law. She also serves as Chair for the New York County Lawyer’s Association Futures & Derivatives Committee, and member of the Foreign and Comparative Law Committee and Futures and Derivatives Committees of the New York City Bar Association.

Steve is Head of Liquidity and Capital Risk at Celsius Network, where his current responsibilities focus on cryptocurrency risk management of liquidity, market, credit, and capital. Steve has over 20 years of industry experience in risk management and quantitative modelling, with experience building portfolio management and analytics infrastructure at Merrill Lynch, Bank of Montreal, ABN AMRO, and Regions Bank. Steve has a Ph.D. in applied physics from Northwestern University, a B.S. in physics from University of Colorado in Boulder, and has held Series 7 and Series 63 certifications

Michael is a financial services executive with experience across a broad spectrum of the asset management industry, including operations management, compliance, and product focuses.

Bradley Mirkin is a Cybersecurity, Financial Crimes and Regulatory Compliance expert. He is a former securities regulator, broker-dealer Chief Compliance Officer, senior compliance officer leading Cybersecurity, AML and Fraud Compliance for one of the world’s largest investment advisors and law firm partner representing US and foreign investment advisors, hedge funds and broker-dealers in investigations and enforcement actions brought by the SEC, FINRA and other US financial regulators. The focus of his practice is on regulatory compliance in areas such as Cybersecurity, Anti-Money Laundering and Financial Crimes with a special emphasis on issues involving Information Security and Compliance Software.

He is the former co-chair of the American Bar Association’s International Anti-Money Laundering Committee, was appointed to the ABA’s Task Force on Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Initiatives and is the former vice-chair of the ABA International Law Section’s International Financial Products and Services Committee. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, the London School of Economics and Political Science and Brandeis University.

A seasoned professional that has enjoyed a diverse career spanning over 30 years in various segments of Real Estate, Capital Markets, Banking and Technology.  In his current role at Cushman and Wakefield, he leads advisory teams addressing a myriad of bank compliance and risk challenges for some of the largest banks in the world. Joe is also highly focused on identifying and creating cutting edge solutions to replace the antiquated technology that still plagues the banking sector.

Allan heads up the Nominated Office/AML, Sanctions & CTF Operations function at Tesco Bank and is the Deputy MLRO. He has a leading role in their AML, Sanctions & CTF Change Programme which is delivering complex customer and compliance improvements.
He has held a number of senior Financial Crime Prevention positions with Sainsbury’s Bank, RBS and their Williams & Glyn subsidiary over the past 8 years which have been pivotel in improving the use of technology to mitigate risk and improve the customer experience.
Having completed the International Compliance Association’s Diploma in AML & Sanctions and Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Crime Compliance, he holds Fellow status with them.

Mr. Sangha is the Global Head of Data Science , Risk, and Market Intelligence for State Street Verus and leads a risk and investment strategy team for an artificial intelligence platform that integrates machine learning, natural language processing, portfolio and risk management, and human experiences to explore connections and extract relevant insights between market-moving events and multi-asset class portfolios.

Mr. Sangha is an accomplished global macro portfolio manager, strategist, and risk manager, with over 20 years’ experience. He has advised firms on developing quantamental approaches to trading — strategies at the intersection of structural, statistical, and fundamental trading, utilizing data science, machine learning on both structured and unstructured data, and behavioral analytics.  Further, he has led several investment strategy and risk management teams and held a number of senior positions, including Chief Investment Strategist at a $6 billion global macro volatility hedge fund, and Senior Global Macro Trader at a $400 million hedge fund.

Mr. Sangha began his career at Goldman, Sachs & Co.,in the Global Investment Research Division.  He received honors at the International Mathematics Olympiad, served on the Canadian Mathematics Olympic Team, and is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Brown University.

Peter has over 40 years experience at Senior Manager & Main Board level in UK Financial Services. Currently his main focus is working with industry, ministers and regulators on the UK’s Digital Strategy Plan to help integrate emerging technology and digital distribution with statute and regulation both in the UK & worldwide. This includes helping the understanding of regulatory approach & implementation, including automated supervision and next generation technology.
He is a Non – Executive Director of Seneca Investment Managers as well as Independent Industry Consultant at FinTechReguLabs and currently sits on a number of industry think-tank & lobby groups. He has previously sat on a number of UK Regulatory Steering Groups. He liaises with regulators and ministers on all new developments in financial services, fintech & regulation. He is a regular contributor to industry publications and conference speaker providing commentary on various industry issues.
Until very recently he was Digital Ambassador for TISA leading on digital & FinTech helping to shape UK industry policy & deliver on UK digital innovation projects and liaising with FCA, ICO, Treasury and the UK fintech ecosystem as well as European Regulators. He is a regular speaker and commentator at industry conferences & events.
He sat on the steering committee for the FCA Industry Sandbox consultation and was a founding member of the industry Pensions Dashboard project working in collaboration with Government & the ABI led project team. He also led the Industry Data Portal project on GDPR with the Information Commissioners Office for UK Financial Services and FinTech and is a contributor to the governments APPG on FinTech.

Craig has over 30 years of governance, enterprise risk management, business development, technology and audit experience gained from working with the world’s top institutions (First Data, RBS, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Dean Witter, & Merrill Lynch). Currently, Craig is Head of Enterprise Risk Management Strategy at First Data and is also the CEO & Founder of RiskTao, LLC which specializes in Enterprise Risk Management training.
Prior to these roles, Craig was RBS’s Global Head of Operational Risk Systems & Analytics and was responsible for providing strategic direction and oversight. In addition, Craig was Head of Operational Risk Management for RBS – Americas where he was responsible for driving the buildout of Americas ORM practice, Compensation Initiative, 2nd line challenge and managing regulatory relationships. In addition, Craig co-chaired the Americas Compliance and Operational Risk Committee and represented ORM on several domestic and international senior risk committees.

Vivek Tyagi is Managing Director, Head of Risk Management for Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Transaction Services group – a Fortune 350 equivalent business division. In this capacity Vivek is responsible for all business risks globally, including Credit, Operational, Regulatory Compliance, AML, Market and Strategic risks. Previously, Vivek served as Chief Risk Officer and division risk executive at JP Morgan, Genworth Financial and Citigroup.

Venkat Vedam’s biography will be coming soon! Find them on LinkedIn below

Danielle is committed to issues such as women in leadership and their progress within the workplace. She also co-founded Women in Cyber Network @ BNP Paribas, a global community that aims to bring more women to technological jobs, especially Cyber Security.

Danielle hold certificates from Harvard Business School in Disruptive Strategy, Sustainable Business Strategy, a master on Design Thinking from MIT and she became a Futurist certified from Institute for the Future in 2020. She is passionate about people, Sustainability and Innovation.

Stan is the Head of Americas Supervision at Citadel Securities covering trading, technology, and risk management, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law teaching Trading, Risk Management & Market Structure Regulation.  Stan previously worked at Marshall Wace architecting the US compliance program and scaling globally to EU and APAC.  Prior to that he worked at Knight Capital Group focusing on algorithmic trading, market structure, and surveillance. He holds a J.D. in Law from Fordham University School of Law where he was an Associate Editor on the Journal of Corporate & Financial Law, and additionally holds an M.Eng. in Engineering Management, M.S. in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Engineering, and M.A. in Technology, Policy & Ethics from Stevens Institute of Technology.  When not lecturing on regulatory trends, product development, and technology, Stan can be found on the tennis courts.

Sean (Xiaoling) Yu is a SVP and Director of Model Validation at KeyBank. He has over 10 years of experience in the financial services industry in different quantitative modeling roles. His areas of functional expertise include Consumer and Commercial Credit Risk, Stress Testing, Allowance/Reserve, Capital Modeling, Risk Analytics, and Model Governance. Prior to Key, Sean was Sr. Group Manager of Quantitative Analytics and Model Development in PNC Financial Service Group. He started his financial services career in National City Bank as a Sr. Capital Allocation Analyst after worked as a Research Consultant at the Center for Regional Economic Issues of Case Western Reserve University. Sean has a Ph.D. in Economics from Case Western Reserve University, and a Master in Management Science and a Bachelor in Industrial Economics from Tianjin University.