Jamal Saleh joined the UAE Banks Federation in July 2018 and was appointed as its Director General on 1st January 2019.  Prior to joining UBF, his last role was Head of Credit & Risk and Acting Regional Chief Risk Officer.

Jamal spent 29 years in banking (Conventional and Islamic) and covered Credit and Enterprise Risk Management (Credit, Market, Operational, Liquidity, and IT Risks).  His first 10 years were in the USA in Private Banking and Credit, and the last 19 were in the UAE in Corporate Banking, Credit, and Risk Management with three leading UAE banks.

He served as PRMIA’s UAE Director General for 7 years and was concurrently member on British University’s Advisory Board.

Jamal graduated valedictorian with distinction from New Jersey, USA, in Finance and Banking.

Mr. Saleem has more than 26 years of experience in Information technology with deep financial domain expertise and has worked earlier with Samba financial group in Saudi Arabia for 17 years and recently with First Abu Dhabi bank in Abu Dhabi for close to 5 years and has been instrumental in bringing to fruition several Global award-winning initiatives in these organizations while delivering core business value across the entire banking landscape.

He is currently responsible for all aspects of Information technology across Sharjah Islamic Bank and its group businesses (including the real estate and Islamic finance businesses). He is also currently the Chairman of the UAE Banking federation’s digital committee and also represents the UBF in the Arab Monetary Forum (AMF)’s fintech working group.

Mr. Saleem holds a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University in Chennai, India.

Chris Skinner is known as one of the most influential people in technology, and known as an independent commentator on the financial markets and fintech through his blog, the Finanser.com. His latest book (sixteenth!) is called Doing Digital, and shares the lessons of doing digital transformation learned through interviews with BBVA, China Merchants Bank, DBS, ING and JPMorgan Chase. ValueWeb describes the impact of Fintech and how mobile and blockchain technologies are changing the face of finance in building an internet of value.  

As a result of the emerging internet of value, banks have to become digitalised, and Digital Bank provides a comprehensive review and analysis of the battle for digital banking and strategies for companies to compete. Digital Human, released in March 2018, builds on these two themes but looks at the wider picture of digitalisation, and how this is a revolution as it allows everyone from the plains of Africa to the mountains of Tibet to be included.

Mr. Giorgio Andreoli is a Senior Executive with 25 years of experience in high-tech multinational corporations, with focus on digital business services and strategy consulting mainly for banks and telcos.

Mr. Andreoli's last positions were as Managing Director at Accenture (until March 2021), in charge for business development of AIP+ multi-cloud data platform and Open Banking / PSD2 / digital payments offering, and as Strategic Marketing Director at Ericsson South-East Europe (until 2010).

Currently a business angel and a strategic investor in Fintech, Mr. Andreoli holds a Master degree in Information Technology from CEFRIEL / Polytechnic of Milan, and a M.Sc. degree in Electronic Engineering from Rome University.

Mr. Kumar is the Chief Executive Officer of Magnati, the payments subsidiary of First Abu Dhabi Bank.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Kumar was the Group Head of Payments and Digital Banking at FAB, in which he was responsible for building lifecycle solutions for corporates encompassing Merchant acquiring, Government solutions, Prepaid solutions, Remittances and UAE’s first fully featured digital wallet -Payit.

Previously, he was Head of Global Transaction Banking (GTB) and was instrumental in building Middle East regional proposition for the Bank including products and channels across cash, trade and cards.

Ramana has special interests around innovation/ fintech/ financial inclusion /blockchain and the impact on the payments space. He was instrumental in first live implementation of Blockchain with Ripple for cross border payments. He has participated in many forums focusing on future of payments, financial inclusion, digital wallets, KYC and Identity, fintech / blockchain.

Ronit Ghose is Global Sector Head for Banks Research, Co-Head of the FinTech Group and Head of MENA Research for Citi.

Ronit is the lead author of Citi's GPS Bank of the Future and FinTech report series - the first edition has had more than 300,000 downloads making it the most read report ever published by Citi, and one of the most read FinTech reports ever published. Since joining Citi in 1997, Ronit has covered banks in the Americas, Asia and EMEA. He is also an Advisory Board Member at the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship.

Ronit previously worked at the British Bankers’ Association and as a research assistant in Parliament. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Oxford, a postgraduate diploma from University of London and is a CFA charter holder.

Jamie is the Head of Digital & Innovation at RBS International, where he acts as business owner of all customer-facing digital channels and holds responsibility for developing and driving the bank’s overall innovation strategy and agenda.

Having joined NatWest / RBS Group in 2008 as part of its Business Leadership graduate intake, the early years of his career focused on developing a broad range of banking and people leadership experience across branch management, change management and corporate banking, before moving into a series of leadership roles in product development and strategy.

Deeply passionate about driving transformation within the banking industry, in 2014, Jamie was named ’UK Young Banker of the Year' by the Chartered Banker Institute for innovations in the field of SME finance.

As the Chief Digital Officer of Novo Banco since 2018, João is the orchestrator of the Digital Transformation of the bank, working in coordination with all departments across the bank, to transform the way customers are served and the way to work for the digital world.

He is also Non-Executive Board Member at Best Bank in Portugal – the digital-first subsidiary of Novo Banco. João was previously a Partner in Digital McKinsey in Cologne and a leader of the Digital Services practice for 17 years. Throughout his career, he focused on transforming businesses, operations and technology in financial institutions across Europe.

Matthias is a Business Expert in API Banking Cluster at Commerzbank AG.

His responsibilities are mainly focused on monetization of APIs, open banking, API projects, & API trainings.

Matthias started his career in the strategy department, where he was responsible for digitalization and scaled agile portfolio management.

He holds a Bachelor Degree of Arts in Political Science and a Master of Science in International Economics and Public Policy.

Mr. Saleem has more than 26 years of experience in Information technology with deep financial domain expertise and has worked earlier with Samba financial group in Saudi Arabia for 17 years and recently with First Abu Dhabi bank in Abu Dhabi for close to 5 years and has been instrumental in bringing to fruition several Global award-winning initiatives in these organizations while delivering core business value across the entire banking landscape.

He is currently responsible for all aspects of Information technology across Sharjah Islamic Bank and its group businesses (including the real estate and Islamic finance businesses). He is also currently the Chairman of the UAE Banking federation’s digital committee and also represents the UBF in the Arab Monetary Forum (AMF)’s fintech working group.

Mr. Saleem holds a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University in Chennai, India.

Since becoming the Chief Executive Officer in May 2018, Olivier has focused on establishing Zand as the first fully digital bank in the region to combine both retail and corporate banking.He is committed to establishing state-of-the-art technology and processes, coupled with analytic frameworks and big data environments, to deliver a differentiated customer experience.

Olivier brings over 20 years of extensive expertise in digital banking and FinTech leadership roles across Latin America, the USA, and Asia. In June 2017, Olivier joined CIMB Bank as Chief Fintech Officer. In December of the same year, he successfully launched the first phase of CIMB’s fully digital banking capability in Vietnam.

In 2016, as the Group Head Digital Bank at DBS, he steered the bank’s flagship program Digibank India, the country’s first mobile-only, signatureless, and branchless bank. He successfully piloted the program in growing its customer base from zero to over 2 million in less than two years. Under his leadership, the DBS was recognised as the “World’s Best Digital Bank” by Euromoney for excellence.

His banking journey for the past two decades was mostly travelled through digital channels. Before taking the reign as the Group Head of Digital Bank at DBS, he was the bank’s Chief Data Officer and Chief Operating Officer for the retail and wealth businesses. He also managed the launch of DBS’s Singapore retail and digital wealth platforms. Before joining DBS, Olivier was Citigroup’s Global Head of Operations for Private Banking and the International Head of Smith Barney’s Operations. He also held different business and operational positions across Europe, Latin America, Asia and North America with Citigroup.

In addition to his banking roles, Olivier is also an entrepreneur. He successfully launched his own educational, financial site (asia.finance), which reach over 30,000 daily readers within days of its launch.

Mr. Yaser Alsharifi joined NBB in 2017 as the Chief Strategy Officer, leading the Bank’s transformation and innovation efforts, heading NBB’s project management office and business development arm, as well as the Bank’s operations in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Mr. Alsharifi was appointed as the Group Chief Strategy Officer in 2020. He boasts over 25 years of experience in investment management and corporate finance across the GCC, Europe and the US, with past roles as Deputy CEO in Al Rajhi Holdings W.L.L., and Partner at Ernst & Young.

Additionally, Mr. Alsharifi serves as the Chairman of the Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones (Danat). He is also a Board Member of Bahrain Real Estate Investment Company (Edamah), Bahrain Bourse, Bahrain Clear and Bahrain Car Parks Company B.S.C. Mr. Alsharifi represents NBB on the Board of Bahrain Islamic Bank, and is part of the Limited Partners Advisory Committee of the Al Waha Fund of Funds. Furthermore, he is a Member of the Young Presidents Organisation (YPO) and holds a Bachelors in Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.

Benoit Grangé is OneSpan’s Chief Technology Evangelist. He is focused on sharing OneSpan’s technology vision and deep industry insights with customers, partners and the broader global financial services market.

In his role, Benoit helps build critical mass in support of OneSpan's solutions to the technical standards in the marketplace around customer-centric anti-fraud solutions rooted in identity verification and management.

His extensive experience in product management, product strategy, and leading engineering teams helped OneSpan generate significant growth during his tenure as Chief Technology Officer. He holds an MMath from the University of Bordeaux.

Sabrina has over 20 years of experience in the field of UX and is passionate about design and user-centred product development.

Currently, she is Head of User Experience at VERJ (LAB Group) in London, UK. Sabrina earned her MSc in Psychology at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, where she specialised in Engineering Psychology and Cognitive Ergonomics. She completed courses in UX design, front-end web development and data analytics at General Assembly to complement her skills.

Sabrina co-founded one of the first usability agencies in Germany (eye square GmbH), and served for over 12 years as a managing director and partner, leading projects for numerous blue-chip clients in Europe and the US.

She is a member of UXPA International & UXPA UK and active in the worldwide UX community and frequently writes and speaks about UX.

Shahid is currently Industry Strategy Leader-ECEMEA at Oracle, where he leads multi-functional teams in many roles like Business Solution Leader, Business Advisory, Presales, & Consulting to develop Future Technology Roadmap for Oracle Financial Services Industry clients.

Prior to joining Oracle, Shahid was the Head of Business Management department at Mashreq Bank, in which he implemented the organizational IT Road Map for 3 years ahead in tandem with AT Kearney recommendations for Organizational strategic positioning and technology enhancements.

Earlier, Shahid founded an IT Consulting Company- Soft Solutions Inc., based in New Jersey & Detroit, and was a freelance IT consultant for leading companies such as Pfizer, Ford Motors, E&Y, & HBO.

Ronit Ghose is Global Sector Head for Banks Research, Co-Head of the FinTech Group and Head of MENA Research for Citi.

Ronit is the lead author of Citi's GPS Bank of the Future and FinTech report series - the first edition has had more than 300,000 downloads making it the most read report ever published by Citi, and one of the most read FinTech reports ever published. Since joining Citi in 1997, Ronit has covered banks in the Americas, Asia and EMEA. He is also an Advisory Board Member at the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship.

Ronit previously worked at the British Bankers’ Association and as a research assistant in Parliament. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Oxford, a postgraduate diploma from University of London and is a CFA charter holder.

Scott joined HSBC in 2017 as Head of Digital, with responsibility for overseeing the bank’s wealth and personal banking digital transformation for the UAE, Middle East, North Africa and Turkey.

He has over 20 years digital product management, sales and commercial leadership experience and has a passion for creating data led mobile propositions and seamless omni-channel customer experiences.

Prior to joining HSBC, Scott worked for Barclays in London for 10 years, in a number of digital leadership roles for the UK and International businesses.

Victor Matafonov is the Group Chief Compliance Officer at Emirates NBD and has more than 35 years of international banking experience across Australasia, Europe, Americas, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.  This includes more than 20 years in regulatory and financial crime compliance.  He has extensive experience dealing with regulators, industry bodies, correspondent banks and systems vendors in the Middle East, US, UK, Europe and Asia.  Currently, he is the Chairman of the Compliance Committee of the UAE Banking Federation and a founding member of the MENA Financial Crime Compliance Group.

Prior to joining Emirates NBD, he held senior Compliance, Risk and Audit positions with Standard Chartered Bank, Grindlays Bank and the Australian and New Zealand Banking Group based in Dubai, London and Melbourne.  He started his career with Coopers and Lybrand in Melbourne after graduating in Accounting and Economics at Deakin University.

Rashid is a financial services practitioner with extensive experience in overseeing enterprise-wide compliance function, building AML/CFT and regulatory compliance programs, fraud prevention, risk management, regulatory consulting, digital transformation, banking operations management, IT systems implementation, project management and business process improvement with Fortune 500 listed companies including Citibank, Western Union, PwC as well as leading microfinance bank and payments companies at global and regional level.

Rashid developed AML/CFT and Fraud Prevention Programs for leading financial institutions across Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific Region. He designed and implemented the full-service banking project for the leading Microfinance Bank that enabled the institution to offer a wide range of financial services to the unbanked population in Pakistan.

As part of PwC Rashid significantly contributed in establishing the Open Banking ecosystem for the Middle East Region including drafting open banking and electronic KYC regulations. His contribution in designing compliance minimum standards for digital payments supported the global payments company offering mobile based payments across Africa.

Rashid has collaborated with a number of Fintech companies and regulators in Middle East and South Asia region to establish fintech ecosystem focusing on digital payments, payment systems, digital banking, microfinance, and digital crowdfunding platforms. 

Sonia is Partner in McKinsey’s Dubai office. She is a transformational business and technology leader in transactional and consumer banking, with 25 years of experience across Europe, Asia and USA with passion, high energy and commitment levels, who managed change, innovated and restructured businesses and put them on the path of growth triggered by technology innovation.

Prior to joining McKinsey in January 2020, Sonia has served as Head of Technology Transformation at JPMorgan Chase in New York City, COO of digital bank at DBS in Singapore, Head of Consumer Bank in SCB Malaysia.

Prior to moving to Asia Sonia spent 18 years working for Citibank at Poland, for the last 6 years holding position of the bank’s deputy CEO.

Dr. Lukas Repa is a lawyer by training and graduate from the University of Vienna, Austria (Mag.iur and Dr.iur) and the College of Europe in Bruges (LL.M). After internships in Istanbul and New York, Lukas clerked at the Tribunal of First Instance of the ECJ in Luxembourg and the Austrian Administrative Supreme Court. He qualified as attorney at law at the bar of Vienna in 2003. In the same year, he joined the European Commission as civil servant. Lukas has a profound background in finance after working almost ten years in DG COMP’s Directorate D for financial services in payments, retail banking, insurance and capital markets. Lukas also worked as project manager in the Commission’s DG ENER and set up the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2013. He then worked on policy projects related to the internal market rules for electricity and gas. From 2017 to 2018, Lukas conducted research as fellow of the UC Berkeley, USA, on FinTech including on AI, cloud computing and blockchain technology.  Since December 2018, Lukas holds a position as senior policy officer for innovation in DG CNECT Unit F3 where his area of expertise is distributed ledger technologies and decentralised data ecosystems. Lukas set up the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA) and works on various legislative files including on crypto assets.

Marc is the Executive Director of the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications

(inatba.org), the pre-eminent nonprofit organization supporting the growth of DLT & blockchain technologies.

As executive director, Marc works with INATBA’s members to host bilateral conversations between governments (including the European Commission) and companies to inform policies and regulations and advance the international adoption of blockchain.

Most recently, INATBA, under Marc’s leadership, has been working to respond to the European

Commission’s proposed MiCA regulation, forming a public task force, as well as an internal task force led by the INATBA Finance Working Group. These groups have gathered feedback from the broader industry for presentation to EU stakeholders.

Marc has been active in the global blockchain ecosystem for more than six years, working across 20 countries, engaging with organisations from core cryptocurrency companies to governments and financial institutions, to large corporates and industry associations. Prior to joining INATBA, he was the Global Ambassador and head of Business Development for the Bitfury Group, one of Europe’s largest blockchain unicorns.

The founder of a successful modem distribution company, Nuvo, Marc has held leadership roles with many top technology companies, including Genesys Conferencing, the world's largest provider of unified communications services, and Promethean, a market leader in educational technology solutions.

Benjamin Quinlan is the CEO and Managing Partner of Quinlan & Associates. He is also the Chairman of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong (FTAHK), an Adjunct Professor at the AIT School of Management, a Conference Ambassador for the Hong Kong Tourism Board, sits on the Advisory Committee for Hong Kong Science and Technology Park’s (HKSTP) Technology Validation Initiative, and is a member of the Asian Financial Forum Steering Committee for the Hong Kong Trade and Development Council (HKTDC). In addition, he is a Senior Advisor for a number of leading startups, a Mentor for PingAn’s Cloud Accelerator, a Guest Contributor for eFinancialCareers and Regulation Asia, and was named as one of Lattice 80’s top 50 FinTech influencers in Hong Kong.

Benjamin has an extensive track record advising many of the world’s leading multinational companies, financial services organisations, SMEs and start-ups on a variety of high-profile strategic engagements. He is quoted extensively in the global financial press and is frequently interviewed by leading media outlets, including Bloomberg, CNBC, Reuters, and Channel New Asia. He is also a regular keynote speaker at leading financial services industry conferences across the world.

Prior to founding Quinlan & Associates, Benjamin was the Head of Strategy for Deutsche Bank AG’s Equities business in Asia Pacific and its Investment Bank in Greater China and sat on a number of the bank’s global and regional executive committees. He was also the global strategy lead for several of Deutsche Bank’s landmark projects executed out of London and New York.

Prior to Deutsche Bank, Benjamin worked as a Management Consultant at Oliver Wyman, a leading international strategy consulting firm. As part of the firm’s Corporate & Institutional Banking practice, Benjamin advised a variety of global and regional financial institutions on a range of strategic matters. He was also actively involved in the firm’s thought leadership publications and was widely regarded as one of Oliver Wyman’s global subject matter experts in investment banking and capital markets strategy.

Before joining Oliver Wyman, Benjamin worked at UBS AG in the bank’s Asia Pacific Client Coverage and Group Strategy departments, reporting into the regional President and CEO. He began his career in M&A and Capital Markets Advisory at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Sydney.

EDUCATION

Benjamin holds a Bachelor of Commerce / Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and a First-Class Honours Degree in Economics (on scholarship) from Macquarie University, Sydney.

An enthusiastic and passionate presenter, having presented ManageEngine solutions at over 200+ destinations.

He has over 15+ years of experience in IT and most of his time has been dedicated to promoting ManageEngine software. 

He has had the privilege to be a Guest Lecturer at the Caledonian College of Engineering, Oman and also at the National Institute of Ministry of Public Administration, Malaysia.