CMO & CXO, Deutsche Bank
Tim Alexander joined Deutsche Bank in July 2017 and has been heading the newly established Client Management division as CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) and CXO (Chief Experience Officer) of Private Bank since October 2019. Customer Management covers all strategic and operational Marketing functions, Customer Experience Management, Customer Relationship Management and Complaint Management, as well as Data, Digital and Analytics. The goal is to create holistic brand and customer experiences that inspire and lead to recommendation. Products, processes, services and campaigns are developed together with customers and frictions at customer interfaces are the starting point for continuously customer experience improvements.
Tim Alexander joined from Swisscom, where he headed the marketing and communications department. Previously, he was Vice President Brand Management for the O2 brand in Germany and held management positions at the creative agencies Grey and Saatchi & Saatchi.
Chairman of the Board, Israel Innovation Authority
Dr. Ami Appelbaum is the Chief Scientist and the Chairman of the Board of Israel Innovation Authority. Dr. Appelbaum has more than 36 years’ experience in research, development and senior level management in the field of the Semiconductor. Prior to the current job as Chief Scientist, Dr. Appelbaum served for 22 years at numerous executive positions at KLA Tencor, $15.6B Market Cap and world leader in the business of capital equipment for the semiconductor industry based in the Silicon Valley, CA. His most recent position was Corporate Senior Vice President and president of KLA Tencor Israel. Dr. Appelbaum holds a Doctorate and Master degrees from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and an Engineering degree from Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheba, all in the field of materials engineering. Dr. Appelbaum is the author and co-author of more than 50 scientific and technical publications, and holds 7 patents in the field of semiconductor equipment and processing.
General Manager Financial Services and Technology, NVIDIA
John Ashley currently leads the Global Financial Services Industry Strategy team at NVIDIA. His team focuses on global trends and directions in accelerated compute and AI for the entire sector – from hedge funds, fintech, banking, and insurance. NVIDIA supports customers and partners in their adoption of accelerated computing and AI/ML techniques to improve time to insight, enable expanded analytics around risk and fraud, and dive deep into customer data to address key business problems.
He also started and led the Professional Services Deep Learning Practice for NVIDIA and the NVIDIA Deep Learning Professional Services Partner program; managed the relationship with IBM’s Software and Cognitive groups, was a Senior Solutions Architect covering Financial Services based in New York and then London, and supported NVIDIA’s work with the Square Kilometer Array radio astronomy programs. He holds a doctorate in Computational Sciences and Informatics, and both BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering. His past work experience can best be described as varied – he has been a data scientist, project manager, systems architect, DBA, and developer – working in vendor, consulting, and end user firms in utilities, government, and finance. He holds a US Patent in predictive analytics.
COO & Co-Founder, creditshelf
Dr. Daniel Bartsch is founding partner and managing director of creditshelf and has 15 years of international consulting and banking experience. At creditshelf he is responsible for operational business and relationships with customers and business partners. Previously, he held a senior executive position at UBS, managing the institutional distribution of bond and equity products. Professional assignments took him to Zurich and Singapore. He holds a degree in business administration from the University of Mannheim and a doctorate from the University of Düsseldorf.
CEO & Co-Founder, Elinvar
Chris Bartz is CEO & Co-Founder of Elinvar. Chris is responsible for the strategic development of Elinvar. He is driven by the goal to build sustainable partnerships with impact. As Chairman of the Working Group FinTechs & Digital Banking at Bitkom as well as the Chairman of the FinTechRat at the Federal Ministry of Finance, Chris advocates a strong ecosystem for fintech and digital banking as well as the benefits of digitalization.
General Partner, DIGITAL+ Partners
Patrick Beitel co-founded Digital+ Partners in 2015. He is Managing Director in the Frankfurt Office of Digital+ Partners, a B2B Technology Growth Fund. Digital+ Partners focuses on growth capital investments into fast growing technology businesses in particular in the areas of FinTech as well as IndustrialTech.
Patrick is responsible for all investments related to financial services and serves on the board of Cosaic, orderbird and Seven Senders. Furthermore, Patrick holds advisory board roles at KfW Capital and PBB. Prior to founding Digital+ Partners, Patrick Beitel spent more than 18 years at McKinsey & Company whereof 9 years as a Partner. At McKinsey, Patrick was part of McKinsey’s Financial Institutions Group serving banks, insurers, stock and derivatives exchanges, global custodians and settlement organizations across group strategy, business unit strategy, growth and operational improvement matters. He held several leadership roles including Head of the Corporate Finance Practice in Germany and Austria and Co-Head of the Global Financial Markets Infrastructure Practice.
Patrick started his career at Accenture where he worked within the Technology Competency Group helping clients with their IT architecture and improving IT-operating processes. Patrick holds a PhD in banking and finance from the University of Witten/Herdecke and an MSc from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
Board Member, Crypto Finance AG
Marc P. Bernegger is a Board Member of Crypto Finance AG, Vice Chairman of Crypto Broker AG, and a serial entrepreneur. He co-founded the party platform usgang.ch in his 20s, and later sold it to Axel Springer Media. Marc is also the co-founder of amiando, a ticketing platform, which was purchased by Xing. Marc has been active as a fintech investor since 2010 and explored bitcoin in 2012. Today, he is also a Board Member of CfC St. Moritz and Swiss Blockchain Federation, and he is the Chairman of Longevity Investors. He was named “Global Technology Pioneer” by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Marc holds a master’s degree in law from the University of Zurich and is an alumni of the Executive Programme at Singularity University.
Director General Market Infrastructures and Payments, European Central Bank
Ulrich Bindseil is Director General Market Infrastructures and Payments at the European Central Bank (ECB), a post he has held since November 2019. Previously, he was Director General Market Operations (from May 2012 to October 2019) and head of the Risk Management Division (between 2005 and 2008). Mr Bindseil first entered central banking in 1994, when he joined the Economics Department of the Deutsche Bundesbank, having studied economics. His publications include, among others, Monetary Policy Operations and the Financial System, OUP, 2014, and Central Banking before 1800 – A Rehabilitation, OUP, 2019.
Director, Sustainablility Research, EMEA, APAC, Morningstar
Hortense Bioy, CFA, has been director of sustainability research at Morningstar since 2018.
Based in London, Hortense leads Morningstar’s ESG research efforts for the EMEA and APAC regions, with the objective of educating investors and providing them with the tools they need to evaluate funds through an ESG lens. Prior to this, Hortense was European director of passive strategies research for seven years. She led an award-winning team that provides research on ETFs and index funds.
Hortense joined Morningstar as an equity ETF analyst in 2010 from Bloomberg where she was a financial journalist. She began her career as an M&A analyst at Société Générale in Hong Kong.
Director General Economic Sector, Financial Services and Exchanges at the Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport and Housing, State of Hessen
Dr. Stephan Bredt is Director General Economic Sector, Financial Services and Exchanges at the Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport and Housing in the State of Hessen.
He leads - among others - the development of the Financial Center Frankfurt, the supervision of the Frankfurt exchanges and the public banks, in particular the savings banks, the state bank and the development banks.
Prior to that he worked for Deutsche Bahn and at the German parliament.
Chief Risk Officer, ABN AMRO
Tanja Cuppen is ABN AMRO’s Chief Risk Officer. She was appointed to the Executive Board of ABN AMRO effective 1 October 2017. Tanja Cuppen began her career in 1994 at Rabobank where she had various roles before she became Global Head of Corporate Finance in 2007. In that position she was responsible for amongst others Acquisition Finance, Renewable Energy & Infrastructure Finance and Client Solutions. In 2013 she assumed the role of Chief Financial & Risk Officer at Rabobank International. Ms Cuppen was appointed Chief Risk Officer at Rabobank North America in 2014. Her responsibilities included establishing a regional head office in the US, leading a regulatory change program, establishing an enterprise wide risk management function and overseeing the bank’s activities in North America. Ms Cuppen holds a business degree in Econometrics and Business Administration.
Founding Partner, FDF Conferences
Corinna Egerer is a Founding Partner of FDF Conferences, the organiser of the Frankfurt Digital Finance conference. She has more than 15 years of experience in the targeted contentual development and design of business events as well as the presentation of events for various industries, mostly fintech and finance. After years of working in the area of communications and events for various international companies from finance and industry, she attends to a variety of businesses and institutions today. In addition, she is a member of the alumni board of the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.
Partner, HTGF
Dr. Tanja Emmerling is Partner at High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), Germany’s leading and most active seed-stage venture capital investor with a total fund volume of about €900 Mio, and is leading the Berlin Team oft the fund. She joined the Digital Tech Team of HTGF as Investment Manager in 2014. Her investment interests include Internet of Things, Fintech, Big Data, Logistics and Artificial Intelligence. Before joining HTGF, Tanja gained extensive operative experience as Head of New Ventures in the Media Industry being responsible for incubating B2B Digital Automated Services.
Geschäftsführer, Verband Kreditplattformen
Constantin Fabricius, born in 1972, was appointed Managing Director of the Association of German Lending Platforms (VdK) in January 2020. Before he had worked as Co-Head Legal & Compliance with Dexia Kommunalbank, Berlin (2018 - 2019), as Compliance Manager with Bank of Scotland, Berlin (2014 – 2018), as well as Adviser with the Association of German Covered Bond Banks (vdp), Berlin & Brussels (2008 – 2014).
Vice President of Decisioning – EMEA, Merkle
Neil Faulkes is Vice President of Decisioning at Merkle. He develops decisioning solutions and leads the decisioning teams. Neil is responsible for projects for companies such as Vodafone, BSkyB, TeliaSonera, Verizon Wireless, National Australia Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, British Airways and HomeServe. He has over 30 years of experience in the field and has worked with some of the world's leading financial services, media, telecommunications and travel companies. Neil also has extensive experience with CRM, decision-making and campaign management solutions.
Deputy Mayor, City of Frankfurt am Main
Markus Frank is Deputy Mayor of the City of Frankfurt am Main heading the Department of Economy, Sports, Public Safety and Fire Prevention. He started his political career in 1992 as Member of the district board of the CDU (Christian Democratic Party). In 1997, he became member of the city parliament of Frankfurt am Main. From 1999 to 2009, he was environmental spokesperson for the CDU´s city council fraction. Markus Frank is a trained motorcar mechanic, receiving his master craftsmen certification in 1992. He founded and operates a business in the automobile industry. In 2000, Mr. Frank was awarded the Founders Prize by the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts. Since 2005, he has been member of the board of the automobile guild.
Solution Sales & Partner Manager Big Data, Analytics & IoT, SVA System Vertrieb Alexander GmbH
Michael Garcke is part of SVA’s solution team big data, analytics & IoT. With 160 solution engineers, his team performs IT-projects at banking and insurance companies of all sizes. SVA supports customers from the very first step into data analytics up to the ready solution, covering IT-security, risk-management, compliance, NLP, forecasting and customer experience based on AI.
He works in IT for 24 years with a focus on IT-integration, data storage and software development as well as IT-security at Software AG, Sophos and IBM and now SVA. 8 Years ago his projects primarily changed to data analytic solutions and he built up the big data, analytics & IoT-team at SVA in 2016. SVA System Vertrieb Alexander GmbH was founded 1997 in Wiesbaden and is germany’s largest private IT system integrator and solution provider with 1.700 employees
CEO, TaKeTV
TaKeTV stands for Dennis “TaKe” Gehlen who decided to pursue a career as progamer in his favourite game called "Warcraft III" back in the early 2000s. He became one of Germany's most successful players at the time but quickly turned his eyes towards a different career path: use his gaming knowledge and popularity to become a commentator for the first German esports-TV-channels "GIGA 2" and "ESL TV".
After experiencing the life of an on-air personality for a couple of years and hosting shows on some of esports' biggest stages at the time Dennis decided to take matters into his own hands by starting his own tournaments on his own channel: TaKeTV.
That's why TaKeTV also stands for the HomeStory Cup, the iconic StarCraft II event that literally started in Dennis' living room in 2010. A couple of pro-players from around the world came to Krefeld, Germany to play for a prize pool of €500, hang out for a weekend and the whole world was watching.
The tournament's immediate success kick-started the company and gave Dennis the opportunity to build a successful business. Since then TaKeTV has moved to a 2000m² studio & bar in central Krefeld (Germany) and instead of a one-man show there's a team of 40 people working behind the scenes.
So finally, TaKeTV also stands for a young team with a strong passion for esports and gaming. Whether it's project management, event organisation, video & graphic creation or live broadcast production - the company can now cover all tasks necessary to run and produce a successful esports show.
CEO, Raisin
Tamaz Georgadze is co-founder and CEO Raisin (in Germany known as WeltSparen) and is focused on partner bank acquisition, business development, and legal and regional expansion efforts. Prior to building and scaling Europe’s leading marketplace for deposit-insured savings products and investments, Tamaz spent ten years with McKinsey & Co., the last three as a Principal leading McKinsey's Savings and Investment products service line for EMEA countries.
CEO and Co-Founder, Stocard
Björn Goß was born in Heidelberg. He studied at the
University of Mannheim and the London School of
Economics and Political Science. In 2012, Björn Goß
founded Stocard together with his colleagues David
Handlos and Florian Barth. Together they built today's
leading mobile wallet in Europe.
To found Stocard, Goß dropped out of his PhD and left
McKinsey.
Head of Business, SDX
Tim Grant joined SDX in March 2020 as Head of Business. He brings more than 20 years of deep technology and management expertise across institutional capital markets and enterprise blockchain businesses to the company. Prior to SIX Digital Exchange, Tim worked for UBS O’Connor, UBS Investment Bank, R3 Lab and Research Centre and DrumG Technologies. In his previous role as CEO of DrumG, he was responsible for the delivery and operations of enterprise-grade distributed ledger solutions for financial services.
Senior Associate VC, Blackfin Capital Partners
Romain is Investment Manager at BlackFin Tech, a pan-European Fintech-only VC fund investing at the series A & B across all sub-segments of financial services and the insurance industry, BlackFin’s sister investment strategy alongside our PE funds. Romain started his career as a VC in Munich and garnered additional experience in small cap M&A before joining BlackFin in 2017. Romain is a graduate from HEC Paris, a French business school.
Professor of Finance, SAFE Leibniz Institute and CFS Goethe University
Prof. Dr. Andreas Hackethal is a Professor of Finance at Goethe University in Frankfurt and heads the Household Finance group at the Leibniz Institute for Financial Market Research. His empirical research is on individual investment behavior, the role of financial advice, investor protection and on digitalization in finance. He is a member of the advisory council to the German Financial Supervisory Authority BAFIN, of the Exchange Experts Commission (advising the German Federal Ministry of Finance), of the working group consulting ESMA’s Financial Innovation Standing Committee and of the supervisory board of Frankfurt’s Fintech center Techquartier.com. Andreas serves on the supervisory boards of two tech firms.
Senior Managing Director, Accenture
Dr. Markus Hamprecht is Senior Managing Director at Accenture and heads Accenture’s Financial Services Business in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Russia. He oversees the business and strategy development of the overall project portfolio for Banking and Insurance Clients and holds responsibility for the operational delivery and management of large client projects. Markus has been working in consulting for over 20 years with deep experience in the areas of digitization, business transformation and innovation. His goal is to jointly with clients unlock potential in an industry which has been experiencing unprecedented market dynamics and changing customer behavior. Markus blogs regularly about industry trends and developments on LinkedIn and the Accenture Banken Blog.
Lawyer & Partner, Luther Lawfirm
Stefanie Hellmich is an attorney at Luther in Frankfurt since 1998. She advises on financial technology law questions particularly related to business models including the use of new technologies like distributed ledger/ blockchain, AI and Big Data applications in the financial sector. She supports IT and FinTech companies as well as financial service providers and banks. This includes drafting and negotiating of contract terms and conditions for electronic platforms, risk monitoring products, cloud based products including outsourcing arrangements and M&A transactions. She is a member of the German Society for Law and Informatics, co-author of the commentary Taeger/ Gabel, GDPR/ BDSG, publishes and gives lectures on IT and data protection law topics such as mobile payment systems, artificial intelligence, data analytics and big data in the financial industry, on the implementation of the requirements of the EU Data Protection Regulation and the EBA Outsourcing Guidelines.
Account Strategist / Account CTO Banking, Microsoft
Experienced Digital Strategy Advisor with a demonstrated history of working in the financial industry. I work with organizations to reimagine and transform their customer engagement, employee experiences, business models and operations, empowering them to reach their digital aspirations.
COO, Commerzbank
Jörg Hessenmüller serves as Chief Operating Officer of Commerzbank where amongst other things he is responsible for Group Development & Strategy, Digital Transformation, and Information Technology. Prior to that, he was CFO and deputy CEO of Commerzbank subsidiary mBank in Poland. He began his career at Dresdner Bank in 1989 with a banking apprenticeship and worked in interest rate derivatives trading and treasury, before assuming management positions in the field of financial controlling. Jörg Hessenmüller is a graduate in business administration (FH) from the College of Banking in Frankfurt am Main with a focus on banking and finance.
Founder & COO, Penta
Jessica Holzbach is Co-Founder and CCO of Penta. She started her career by studying General Management and Business Law, completed with a bachelor’s degree before completing her Master and pursuing her PhD. During her studies, Jessica already worked as a business consultant. She founded her first company in 2016 - a foodtech. A little later, Jessica switched back to banking and founded Penta 2017 with other founders. As CCO and MD she is responsible for marketing, sales and CRM and was honoured by Forbes on the “30 under 30” list and Capital on “Top 40 unter 40”.
Co Founder & CEO, NordXE
Anu Honkalinna is a serial entrepreneur with a passion to bring new ecosystems in life. She has 20 years of experience in managing legal and compliance teams in large financial corporates. Being passionate about bringing together people and businesses, she enjoys creating opportunities and scouting innovations. She has been building several Fintechs as a co-founder, CEO or other key roles in the startup.
CEO & Co-Founder, FINEXITY AG
Paul Huelsmann is the CEO and co-founder of FINEXITY AG – Europe’s leading blockchain-based real asset investment platform. He has been ranked as one of the top ten finance and insurance innovators in Germany in 2020 (Business Punk) and is a Regional Chair at the Fibree foundation (leading Blockchain and real estate foundation).
Before founding FINEXITY in 2018, he studied Management with a focus on Finance at the University of Warwick (UK), was the assistant of the Global Chief Controlling Officer for a large multinational corporation and co-headed an international incubator. Additionally he is an accredited financial advisor.
Founding Partner, FDF Conferences
Max Hunzinger is a Founding Partner of FDF Conferences, the organiser of the Frankfurt Digital Finance conference. He specializes in developing and designing top-level event concepts. For 20 years, he has been the managing director of MIT Event- & Incentive-Management GmbH (Frankfurt/Main), working around the world for clients from finance and industry. In addition, he is involved in local politics and is serving as a Honorary Consul General and as coordinator of the Hessian Consular Corps.
CEO & Co-Founder, auxmoney
Raffael Johnen is the co-founder & CEO of auxmoney, the leading marketplace for consumer credit in Continental Europe. He also co-founded Excellion Capital, a London-based merchant banking boutique specialised in corporate finance advisory and principal investments, leveraging technology. Prior to founding his own businesses, Raffael was a Vice President at Rothschild Investment Bank in Frankfurt.
One of the few female fintech founders in Germany, with 10+ years of experience and an extensive network in fintech and e-commerce. I am also proof that to be a successful founder you don't have to come from Berlin, from an entrepreneurial family, from WHU. After having worked in consulting, I co-founded and co-led "fino" - a German FinTech which I scaled from a single product focus to a company with three business lines, licensed by the German banking regulatory authority.
Professor for AI and Machine Learning, TU Darmstadt
Kristian Kersting is a Full Professor for AI and Machine Learning at the TU Darmstadt, Germany, and founding co-director of the Hessian Center for AI. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg, he was with the MIT, Fraunhofer IAIS, the University of Bonn, and the TU Dortmund. He is a EurAI and ELLIS Fellow and received the German AI Award and the EurAI Dissertation Award for the best AI Ph.D. thesis in Europe. To inform the broader society about AI, he co-edited one of the first German general introductory books on AI and started an AI column in the German newspaper Die Welt.
Digital Business Expert & New Business Builder, Innovator und Bank Manager, Commerzbank
Joachim Köhler is Managing Director Corporates - Program Lead Digital Banking at Commerzbank AG. Prior to that he acted as co-founder of #openspace GmbH in Berlin - which is a spin-off of Commerzbank AG - on a mission to help the German “Mittelstand” facing the challenges of digital transformation and creating new business models.
Joachim has been with Commerzbank since 2005, mostly in positions in Corporate Banking.
He graduated as Bachelor of Business Administration in Banking & Finance at Frankfurt School of Finance and Management
Member of the European Parliament
Elected Member of the European Parliament in May 2019, member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, the Chairman of the Working Group for Access to Finance for SMEs, substitute member in Transport and Tourism Committee and the Committee of Civil Liberties, Justice and Home affairs. He is also a member of the Parliament‘s Delegation for relations with Canada.
He studied international trade, international politics and diplomacy at the University of Economics in Prague and later completed an international program in public administration, regional development and EU programmes at the prestigious school for civil servants, the École nationale d'administration (ENA), in Strasbourg and Paris.
Between 2003 and 2010 he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague in the Economic Relations department and as Commercial Counselor at the Embassy of the Czech Republic to Canada in Ottawa.
In the years 2007 - 2009 Ondřej worked in the Office of the Government where he dealt with security, transport and coordination with the ministries during the Czech Presidency to the EU. Since 2010 he was the Head of Cabinet of the First Deputy Minister of Defence of the Czech Republic. After he was representing the Czech Republic at the European Defence Agency. From May 2013 until June 2019 he has served as Senior Adviser in the European Parliament and as Parliamentary Assistant.
Director, Swiss National Bank
Sébastien Kraenzlin is a Director at the Swiss National Bank and heads the Banking Operations division. Among others, he is involved in ongoing dialogue in and around the Swiss financial centre and in the area of innovation in payment systems and other Fintech initiatives. Mr. Kraenzlin is also responsible for joint work with the BIS Innovation Hub on the integration of central bank money in a DLT infrastructure. Mr Kraenzlin is also a lecturer at the University of Basel and teaches in the field of Applied Monetary Economics.
Managing Director & Co-Founder, Tangany
Martin is one of the co-founders and managing directors at Tangany GmbH. It offers a regulated white-label solution for digital assets on blockchain, which is used in the finance industry and for tokenization projects. They have more than 20 clients such as WEG Bank AG, CM-Equity AG, and many more. Furthermore, Martin is also a member of the board at Bundesblock e.V., the German blockchain association, to drive this new technology into politics and to spread knowledge in Germany.
Oliver is a veteran in the banking and insurance industry. He started his career at McKinsey where he specialized in credit risk management and Solvency II economic capital calculation. In 2006/2007 he was part of the turnaround team at Converium reinsurance. He is co-founder of more than 10 fintech and insurtech startups. In the last 2 years Oliver has been working for wefox, first as CEO for ONE Insurance, wefox’s risk carrier. From June 2020 he was responsible for all wefox operations including the distribution and koble businesses. Oliver is very close to the European fintech and insurtech scene and supports many CEOs with their fundings and exits.
Chairman, Business Angels FrankfurtRheinMain
Andreas Lukic is founder and managing director of ValueNet-Capital-Partners GmbH, Frankfurt/Munich, a family office investment and advisory firm. He was previously with Bain (London, Munich) in the Private Equity Group and started his career with Mitchell Madison Group (New York, Frankfurt) in investment advisory. He is member of several mid-cap supervisory and advisory boards and serving as Chairman of the Business Angels FrankfurtRheinMain e.V. and other startup/investor community building associations, like AIinFS e.V., as well as initiator of the German Fintech Award.
CEO, Valega
Sven Martinsson is a Swedish-Brazilian executive with a history of working in the information technology and services industry for the past 10 years. Skilled in Sales, Blockchain, International Relations, Management, Business Development and compliance. Sven Martinsson Co-founded the Company VALEGA Chain Analytics which runs its business by monitoring, analyzing and filtering out illegal and suspicious activities in financial Blockchain transactions to support Anti-Money Laundering processes and to help Counter Financing of Terrorism in a lean and simple way. It also caters to the centralized banking systems by offering enhanced due diligence as well as risk assessment of potential virtual asset holders, and ever growing community in traditional banking. VALEGA has been developing its services for just over two years and have been pictured in the media several times working on investigations relating to the Twitter Hack in June 2020 as well as the most recent ransomware attack, in the Finnish mental healthcare system, in October of 2020. It is considered the biggest data breach in Nordic history to date. Sven and his team are continuously working to make the financial industry, both decentralized and centralized a safer space for everyone.
Director, Digital Asset
Rodrigo is Director at Digital Asset and responsible for the performance, GTM, hiring and alignment of sales resources in EMEA.
He started his career in capital markets trading equity derivatives options in Chicago, Frankfurt and Dublin before switching into technology sales. Prior to joining DA, Rodrigo spent 4 years at Thomson Reuters (Refinitiv) as Global Account Manager and over 8 years at Salesforce working in various leadership positions. His last appointment was Chief Sales officer for Escher Group, a global POS vendor.
Executive Director, CAPCO
Kathrin Meuthen has spent most of her career in the fields of cyber, cloud and compliance consulting across industries, with a strong focus on financial services institutions. She has held leading roles at PwC, Deloitte and EY, and headed the delivery of several projects on cloud migration, cloud compliance, and cloud readiness. In addition, Kathrin has advised clients of all sizes on cyber forensics, cyber crime investigation, cyber compliance, cyber asset control management, and IT compliance. In 2018, Kathrin launched her own consulting firm, continuing with the end-to-end delivery of cyber, cloud and compliance-related projects across industries. In 2020 Kathrin joined Capco as an Executive Director and is leading the Austria, Germany & Slovakia cyber team.
Kathrin has been a speaker in various formats and events across Austria, Germany & the Slovakia region, most recently as an expert on cyber security and cloud computing.
Managing Director, Techstars Tel Aviv Accelerator
Hilla Ovil-Brenner is a serial entrepreneur in the high-tech industry for over 15 years. Named top 100 influential people in the hi-tech industry in 2015, Hilla started as a lawyer in Israel and NY and went on to co-found 3 companies, one of which is listed on TASE, and then went on to be a mentor and an investor. She is also the founder of "Yazamiyot", the largest female entrepreneurship organization in Israel, and created Campus for Moms, the first "baby-friendly" startup school at Google. Hilla is a true believer in innovation and team spirit, and is currently the Managing Director of Techstars Tel Aviv Accelerator.
Financial Services and Technology Developer Relationship Lead EMEA @NVIDIA and Gaia-x project FAIC Lead
Jochen has spent the last 15 years in various roles on the topic of AI in Financial Services, as a thought leader, implementer, researcher, and ecosystem shaper. He is a financial data scientist and received his degree and Ph.D. from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). As a consultant, entrepreneur, and researcher he worked with well-known asset managers, banks, insurance companies, and central banks.
He is a manager at NVIDIA and works with partners, communities, and developers in financial services in Europe and also in some global teams. Dr. Jochen Papenbrock is a board member of the EU Horizon 2020 project ‘FIN-TECH’, specialty chief co-editor (Co) at Frontiers ‘AI in Finance’, and project leader in GAIA-X.
He has published on AI and quantitative finance in Journal of Financial Data Science, Journal of Investment Strategies, Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Quantitative Finance, Applied Financial Economics, Frontiers Journal of AI in Finance, and Journal of Network Theory in Finance.
Carola Paschola is an experienced senior executive, general manager and fintech, payments and insurance expert.
She worked in Senior Management Positions at American Express (Vice President & General Manager Merchant Services), Vivendi (Vice President Business Development), Domestic & General (Managing Director Germany & Austria) and Dell (Director Business Operations EMEA). She currently runs her own consulting boutique focusing on digital finance, fintech, payments, digital transformation and strategy.
She holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a master’s degree in computer science and business from the Technische Universität Darmstadt. She is a board member of the Harvard Club Rhein Main and sits on the Advisory Board of the Blockchain Climate Institute. In addition, she is the leader of the International Affairs Network of the Wirtschaftsrat Hessen.
CEO Mindclip Behaviour
Maria Pennanen is ranked #1 top fintech influencer in the DACH region and also among the top 50 most influential women in startups in Europe. She is an investor and former CEO of Santiment Deutschland GmbH; a data insights provider for crypto markets. She is also co-founder of Accelerator Frankfurt, a go-to-market program for B2B startups. Maria has 20 years of in-depth experience in B2B sales and marketing within Europe and Asia. She is a qualified executive coach educated in INSEAD and is involved in numerous German, Finnish and Israeli start-ups. She has lately been focusing on fintech and blockchain.
CEO, Penta
Markus is Penta’s CEO and a proven expert in digital business models and platform economy. Markus has 20 years of experience in developing and implementing business and innovation strategies and has been responsible for a variety of product innovations in his career. Prior to joining Penta, Markus worked in various management positions for Deutsche Bank AG, most recently as a member of the Executive Board of DB Privat- und Firmenkundenbank and as Chief Digital Officer. He started his career at McKinsey Company.
Partner Banking & Capital Markets, BearingPoint
As Partner in the segment Banking & Capital Markets at BearingPoint, Yvonne Quint advises banks and investment companies regarding diverse capital markets and investment management topics. Sustainable Finance, capital markets compliance and optimization/digitalization of front-to-back-office processes for investment products are topics Yvonne focuses on. Her client base is quite broad and encompasses state banks, private banks, large international banks as well as investment companies. Before starting at BearingPoint mid of 2010, Yvonne had gained practical experience over several years in banks. Yvonne holds an Executive MBA dual-degree from EBS Business School and Durham University Business School.
Partner, EY
Jan is Partner at EY and is leading the Financial Services Capital Markets & Investment Banking Consulting practice in Germany. Additionally, Jan is responsible for EY's Financial Services Emerging Technology Consulting offerings around Cloud and Blockchain in Germany. Jan has more than 15 years’ experience within Capital Markets / Investment banking / Technology sector and holds a PhD in mathematics & computer science.
Head of Blockchain Center, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
Prof. Dr. Philipp Sandner is head of the Blockchain Center at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. He was ranked as a “Top 30” economist by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and belongs to the “Top 40 under 40”,a ranking by Capital (German business magazine). Philipp´s expertise includes blockchain and distributed ledger technology, crypto assets, Euro-on-Ledger, ICOs, security tokens, digital transformation and entrepreneurship. He is member of the Fintech Council (FinTechRat) of the Federal Ministry of Finance and also engaged in the EU Blockchain Observatory. He is founding member of the German Blockchain Association, the International Token Standardization Association and the Multichain Asset Managers Association.
CSO, Kapilendo AG
Jens Siebert is Chief Solutions Officer at Kapilendo and responsible for the business development of blockchain-based services.
Before Jens was co-founder and board member of wevest Digital AG. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, he was employed as a senior project lead at the Federal Association of German Volks- and Raiffeisenbanken. Jens holds a master’s degree in Finance & Investments from the Rotterdam School of Management.
CEO, Deposit Solutions
Tim Sievers is founder and CEO of Deposit Solutions. Having started Deposit Solutions in 2011, he is a pioneer of the FinTech industry and remains an active contributor to the community, for instance through his membership of the FinTech Committee of the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Digital Banking Project Committee of the Association of German Banks and as a speaker at international conferences. Prior to Deposit Solutions, Tim worked for 10 years in private equity and technology companies. He holds a doctorate in Economics from the University of Hamburg, an M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and an M.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford.
CEO & Founder, wefox Group
Julian Teicke is the CEO & Founder of wefox Group. He is a serial founder, investor and mentor, and an entrepreneur out of passion to fundamentally change the status-quo in the insurance industry. The wefox Group is one of the fastest growing insurtechs in the world and they are the force behind the consumer-facing insurance carrier ONE and the insurance platform wefox. They have successfully made their mark in Europe, are planning to expand globally and set to tell the world the story of their journey and speak about the future of insurance.
AI Expert & Customer Intelligence Lead Banking, SAS DACH
Dr. Nicole Tschauder works as a customer advisory for analytics for the DACH region at SAS. For more than seven years, she focuses on the use of machine learning and advanced analytics methods in different industries. Prior to this, she worked as a mathematician in the department of financial mathematics at technical universities, specializing in the application of financial and insurance risk models in natural sciences and engineering.
Head of Sales & Business Development, TechQuartier
Miriam Unser is Head of Sales & Business Development at TechQuartier, a cross-industry innovation platform in Frankfurt. TechQuartier’ s mission is to bring startups, corporates, investors, talents, mentors, and public stakeholders together to work, meet, learn, and collaborate. Miriam is responsible for growing TechQuartier’s community and creating new business opportunities for and in cooperation with its members and partners. Before that she has been working in the consulting & investment banking industry in Germany and Europe and has experience in digital business models, agile project management and investment analysis.
Country Lead DACH, Klarna
Thomas Vagner is Country Lead DACH at Klarna. In this role, he is responsible for all commercial activities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Vagner has been focusing on e-commerce & marketplace business models for over 10 years. He started his career at Rocket Internet, where as Global Venture Development Manager he helped build and grow Zalando and Westwing, among others. Before Klarna, Vagner was the founder and CEO of an automotive tech company.
CEO and Co-Founder, Tuum
Vilve Vene is the CEO and Co-Founder of Tuum, formerly Modularbank, the Estonian fintech offering a next-generation core banking platform. Vene started creating innovative financial technology well before the term “fintech” even became a tangible concept. For more than 25 years, she has been digitising banks and setting up financial technology companies. She is one of the bright minds behind the Estonian e-tax system and was recently recognised as “Highly Commended” Woman in Tech at Banking Tech Awards 2020.
Head of Strategy & Business Development, ING Deutschland
Jürgen von der Lehr is Head of Strategy and Business Development of ING. In this role he is responsible for ING’s strategy, M&A, innovation and sustainability activities. Jürgen has 20 years of experience in the Financial Services industry and has gained extensive digital skills as well as strategic and operational expertise in retail and corporate experience banking. Prior to his role at ING, Jürgen was Head of Digital Innovation and Head of Online Brokerage at Deutsche Bank and a Partner at Oliver Wyman. He has a degree in business administration (Diplom-Kaufmann) from Mannheim University.
Deputy-CEO, ING Germany and State Chair of the State Executive Committee of the Economic Council
Dr. Joachim von Schorlemer, deputy CEO of ING Germany, is State Chair of the State Executive Committee and Chairman of the Hessian expert commission Financial market policy and provision of The Economic Council (Wirtschaftsrat der CDU e.V.) a German business association representing the interests of more than 12,000 small and medium sized firms, as well as larger multinational companies. He is also an honorary member of the federal executive board there since 2019 as well as the national executive board Hesse since 2018. In November 2019 the Hessian national executive board appointed Dr. von Schorlemer as Chairman of the Financial market policy and provision expert commission.
The typical work of an expert commission of The Economic Council comprises the engagement with high ranking politicians from the respective policy area (facilitating a two-way dialogue between members and key decision makers), consulting leading academics in the field and on this basis formulating concrete policy proposals which best reflect the interests of the entire membership base of the Economic Council.
CEO, EPI European Payments Initiative
Martina Weimert has been appointed as CEO of the EPI Interim Company in December 2020. She has been supporting European banks since the beginning of the European Payments Initiative (EPI) as a Partner in the Financial Services Practice of the consultancy Oliver Wyman in Paris, where she was for 4 years in charge of the European payments practice of OW. With 17 years in international consulting, she has in-depth experience in payments, fintech, blockchain and retail banking in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East.
She developed strategy concepts, new business models and led major transformation programs and is known to be an instant payments specialist. She works with all players in the payments value chain: banks, retailers, merchant service providers, e-merchants, fintechs, infrastructure providers, PSP and regulators and she speaks at international conferences about payments, fintech and blockchain.
From 1999-2004, she was charge of business development and then head of marketing & sales in a greenfield-bank of Deutsche Bank for Europe. She started her career at the EBRD, in London before entering into consulting.
Martina Weimert 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 (Germany).
She published several payments reports and articles and intervenes in many industry events. Her working languages are: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. She is German and was born in Bonn but lived in Spain, Italy and the UK in the past.
Member of the Executive Board, Deutsche Bundesbank
Prof. Dr. Joachim Wuermeling took office as a member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank on November 1, 2016. He is responsible for the Directorates General Banking and Financial Supervision, Information Technology and Risk Control. Prior to taking on his current position, Mr. Wuermeling, who has a PhD in Law, held a variety of executive-level posts in the financial and insurance industries as well as in politics. From 2011 until his departure for the Bundesbank, Mr. Wuermeling was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Association of Sparda-Banken in Frankfurt am Main. Prior to that, he was a member of the Executive Board of the German Insurance Association for around three years. From 2005 to 2008, Mr. Wuermeling was State Secretary for European affairs at the Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology, where he was also responsible for coordinating European policy matters. Prior to this, he was a member of the European Parliament (CSU) from 1999 to 2005.
Connecting Europe’s Digital Finance Ecosystem.