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Our Speakers

Meet the speakers who shared their perspectives and insights at #FDF2024.

Burkhard Balz

Member of the Executive Board
Deutsche Bundesbank

Sebastian Becker

General Partner
Redalpine

Jenny Bofinger-Schuster

Member
International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB)

Eric Demuth

Co-Founder & CEO
Bitpanda

Hélène Falchier

Partner
Portage

Alexandra Jour-Schroeder

Deputy Director General of Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services & Capital Markets Union
European Commission

Wiebke Merbeth

Partner Sustainable Finance, Deloitte Consulting & Member of the Sustainable Finance Advisory Committee of the German Federal Government

Philippe Oddo

Managing Partner and Chairman of the Management Board
ODDO BHF

Stephan Paxmann

Head of Digitalisation and Innovation
LBBW

Rupert Schaefer

Chief Executive Director Strategy, Policy and Control
BaFin - Federal Financial Supervisory Authority

Valentin Stalf

CEO & Co-Founder
N26

Martina Weimert

CEO
EPI European Payments Initiative

Burkhard Balz

Member of the Executive Board
Deutsche Bundesbank

Burkhard Balz has served on the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank since September 2018. He is responsible for the Directorate General Payments and Settlement Systems and the Directorate General Economic Education, University and International Central Bank Dialogue. From 2009 up until joining the Bundesbank, Mr Balz, who is a law graduate and trained bank clerk, was a Member of the European Parliament, where he sat on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and served as the financial policy spokesman of the European People’s Party (EPP) between 2014 and 2018. In his role as European Parliament rapporteur, Mr Balz presented reports on, inter alia, Latvia’s accession to the euro area, the Solvency II Directive, and regulations pertaining to the European Supervisory Authorities. From 2014 to 2018, he was a member of the EPP Group Bureau. Prior to his membership of the European Parliament, Mr Balz held various positions at Commerzbank AG in Hanover, where he most recently headed the department for institutional clients.

Sebastian Becker

General Partner
Redalpine

Sebastian is a partner at the early stage investor Redalpine, where he is in charge of the Berlin office. He began his investing career at Project A Ventures in Berlin, and previously worked at startup incubator Rocket Internet in global venture development. Sebastian has a background in business, having studied at both St. Gallen and Stanford University. He is passionate about technology and startups, and believes in their potential to solve some of the world's most pressing problems.

Jenny Bofinger-Schuster

Member
International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB)

Jenny Bofinger-Schuster was appointed as a full-time member of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) in August 2022, effective 1 December 2022. Prior to joining the ISSB, Ms Bofinger-Schuster served as Senior Vice President for sustainability and operational excellence at Siemens. In this role she was responsible for developing the company’s sustainability strategy and for implementing new disclosure requirements. Prior to this she held senior positions at Siemens Management Consulting and Horváth & Partners Management Consultants. Ms Bofinger-Schuster holds a Diploma in Business Administration from the University of Augsburg and an MBA from the University of Dayton, Ohio.

Eric Demuth

Co-Founder & CEO
Bitpanda

Eric Demuth is the CEO and co-founder of Bitpanda, one of Europe’s most successful fintechs and Austria’s first unicorn company with a $4.1 billion valuation. After initially embarking on a nautical career as a ship mechanic (with further ambitions of becoming captain), Eric quickly found this life wasn’t for him. Returning to dry land, he completed economics studies at WU Wien and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Delving into the world of crypto, he became frustrated with how hard it was to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. With this in mind, Eric co-founded Bitpanda in 2014 to break down investment barriers and make it simple, accessible and available to everyone to build financial freedom for their future. Today, Eric actively shapes the worldwide fintech community as an entrepreneur, investor and opinion leader in several fields.

Hélène Falchier

Partner
Portage

Hélène joined global fintech fund Portage Ventures as Partner in 2019 where she oversees European activities and serves on many fintech boards. Previously, Hélène launched CNP Assurances’ corporate venture program as Head of Private Equity, managing a portfolio of €7.5bn AUM. In 2015, Hélène launched the corporate venture program of CNP Assurances with €100M to deploy. This program is recognized for its capacity of building relationships between the startup ecosystem and CNP as well as for the financial returns it has been able to generate. Portage has made investments in 6 different countries in Europe (including the UK) and has doubled the number of European portfolio companies in 2021. Of the 8 French fintech unicorns at the end of 2021, Hélène initiated an investment in 2 of them (Alan and Lydia) as an investor in its early-stages. Hélène has the ambition to build the same track record at the European level. Hélène has developed a unique expertise in insurtech. Thanks to her experience in large insurance groups, she has not only acquired technical knowledge of the sector but also knows the weaknesses of the industry, which allows her to support innovative entrepreneurs in this sector and their strategies. Diversity in financial services is another one of her battles. As fintech is the financial services of tomorrow, Hélène is actively pushing for more women CEOs, diversity at the board level where she stands, and diversity at the C-level in fintech, hoping that these will be the CEOs of tomorrow. By being a Portage ambassador in Europe, Hélène attracts talents and tripled the size of the team based in Europe last year. On the investment side, she led 3 major deals in Europe in 3 different fintech sectors (Buy-Now-Pay-Later, Insurtech and Core banking system), plus many other seed checks. She is one of the leading figures in the insurtech ecosystem in Europe, able to bridge the gap between the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the corporate one.

Alexandra Jour-Schroeder

Deputy Director General of Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services & Capital Markets Union
European Commission

Alexandra Jour-Schroeder is Deputy Director General of the European Commission´s Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union since March 2021. In her function, Alexandra Jour-Schroeder supervises and monitors the policies of the Directorate General. Alexandra Jour-Schroeder is a graduate in law. Following initial assignments in the German federal government, she started working for the European Commission in 1996, holding several positions in competition, enterprise and industry policies as well as justice. From 1998 to 2007, she was Member of Cabinet for the Commissioners responsible for regional policy and justice and home affairs and for the Vice-President for enterprise and industry. Since 2017, she has been the Director for Criminal Justice in the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers, working inter alia on the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor´s Office and Anti-Money Laundering policies. From 2018 to 2021, she was also overseeing consumer policies as Acting Deputy Director General in DG Justice and Consumers

Wiebke Merbeth

Partner Sustainable Finance, Deloitte Consulting & Member of the Sustainable Finance Advisory Committee of the German Federal Government

Wiebke Merbeth is a partner in the strategy consultancy Monitor Deloitte. As an expert in sustainable finance, she helps to optimize sustainable transformation. She focuses on the integration of sustainability in strategy, products and processes. Wiebke is a member of the Sustainable Finance Advisory Board of the German Federal Government.

Philippe Oddo

Managing Partner and Chairman of the Management Board
ODDO BHF

Philippe Oddo is Managing Partner of ODDO BHF SCA and Chairman of the Management Board of ODDO BHF SE. Born on 26 September 1959 in Paris, Philippe Oddo is a graduate of the Paris business school HEC. He also studied at the Paris IX-Dauphine University, New York University and the University of Cologne. Philippe Oddo joined the family business, the fifth generation of his family to do so, in 1984 and became a partner in 1987. In addition to his executive role at ODDO BHF, he has been a member of the board of directors of several organizations on the Paris financial center: “Conseil des marchés à terme”, Euronext, ANSA (Association Nationale des Sociétés par Actions) and METI (Mouvement pour les Entreprises de taille Intermediaire). He is treasurer of the Bettencourt-Schueller Foundation and is involved in medical research foundations. In 2020 the German Chamber of Commerce awarded Philippe Oddo for the first time the prize for Franco-German personality of the year.

Stephan Paxmann

Head of Digitalisation and Innovation
LBBW

Stephan A. Paxmann is Head of Digitalisation and Innovation at Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW). He has been responsible for the bank's strategic digitalisation and innovation activities and projects since 2022. Together with his team, he steers innovation and trend management, analyses and tests new business ideas with digital solutions using the LBBW incubator, develops the digital roadmap for the relevant digitalisation initiatives and supports the banking group in the transfer of new innovative business models with digital solutions into everyday corporate life. Before joining LBBW, he held management positions at Deutsche Bank AG in Frankfurt am Main and New York and at IMG in St. Gallen as head of the German-speaking consulting business. From 2007 to 2010, he was Director International Banking at Allianz SE in Munich and Paris and Group Strategist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt am Main. In 2010, he founded TME AG, a consulting boutique for the digital transformation of banks and insurance companies in Frankfurt am Main, where he was CEO until 2022.

Rupert Schaefer

Chief Executive Director Strategy, Policy and Control
BaFin - Federal Financial Supervisory Authority

Rupert Schaefer, born in Würzburg in 1980, has been Chief Executive Director of Strategy, Policy and Control at the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht – BaFin) since November 2022. Before joining BaFin, Schaefer worked for the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Eidgenössische Finanzmarktaufsicht – FINMA) from 2010 until 2022, where he was Member of the Executive Board from 2015 onwards. Until 2020, he was responsible for the Strategic Services Division and following this was Head of the Recovery and Resolution Division. From 2010 until the end of 2014, he held various senior specialist and manager posts at FINMA. Prior to this, Schaefer was employed as research assistant at the Europa-Institut, Saarland University from 2008 until 2010. Schaefer studied Law at Saarland University and at the Université de Nancy in France. In addition, he holds a Master Degree in European Law (LL.M.) from Saarland University. Schaefer holds both German and Swiss citizenship.

Valentin Stalf

CEO & Co-Founder
N26

Valentin founded N26 (formerly Number26) in 2013 alongside his longtime friend Maximilian Tayenthal, with a shared vision of building a company that would make banking more reachable for millions of people around the world. Today, N26 is one of the fastest-growing mobile banks in the world with more than 8 million customers, a team of over 1,500 passionate employees of 80 nationalities, and offices around the globe.

Martina Weimert

CEO
EPI European Payments Initiative

Martina Weimert is the CEO of EPI Company, since the early days of the initiative established in December 2020. Martina has been supporting and guiding European banks and acquirers to build the foundation of the EPI Company, aiming to build an independent European solution and connecting Europe’s payment industry. With 20 years of experience in international consulting, she has in-depth experience in payments and payment solution set-up, fintech, blockchain and retail banking in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East. Prior to joining EPI, she was a partner in the Financial Services Practice of the consultancy Oliver Wyman in Paris, leading the European payments practice, previously holding the positions of Senior VP at Capgemini Consulting, and Marketing & Sales Director for Deutsche Bank in France. Martina graduated from the Institute of Political Science Paris in European business development and holds a Master degree in International Administration (DESS) from Sorbonne University, and studied before Political Science at the University of Bonn.

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