Chief Strategy Officer, Aviva Asia

Alex Kimura was appointed as Chief Strategy Officer of Aviva Asia in September 2014. His current responsibilities include Strategy, Corporate Development and Mergers and Acquisitions, Analytics and Transformation for Asia. Alex brings with him a wealth of strategic and operating expertise and experience in the financial services industry and the Asian markets.
 

He holds a MBA degree from Columbia University in Finance and International Business with Distinction and

completed Stanford University Executive Leadership Program.

Chief information Officer, AXA Singapore

DJ de Villiers is Chief information Officer at AXA Singapore, for both the Life and General Insurance businesses. He has been with AXA Asia since 2009 where he led the General Insurance regional target operating model transformation prior to his current role.

Before joining AXA, DJ worked in Enterprise Architecture at retail and investment banks in Australia and prior to that he spent 10 years in IT consulting, giving him exposure to multiple industries and multiple cultures. He started his career as an Army officer, then later worked as a software developer after graduating with a B-Sc Computer Science from the University of Stellenbosch in 1997.

Chief Information Officer, Tokio Marine Insurance Group

Mr. Cheong Wai Hon is the Chief Information Officer and oversees the Information Technology department. He is responsible for developing and implementing IT strategies and initiatives to support the business and leading all aspects of the Company’s technology, including compliance with the Technology Risk Management framework.

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Wai Hon has more than 18 years of IT experience and has held several leadership positions both within and outside the insurance industry. His recent roles include being the CIO for an established Insurer in Hong Kong and Malaysia as well as regional director setting up new insurance operation in Vietnam.

Wai Hon holds a Master’s Degree and Bachelor’s Degree (1st Class Honors) in Computer Science with University of Malaya.

Managing Director, Allied Insurance Australia

Dino has been a part of the insurance industry since 1999 and over the years he has worked with global insurers such as Zurich and Allianz. He's experience is across a number of roles, including claims, underwriting, business development & key account management, which has given him a deep understanding of insurance principles with a strong focus on client relationship management. After working for insurers for the past 17 years, Dino decided to start his own insurance advisory business, Allied Insurance Australia, to enable him to provide clients with a more personalised insurance service. His insurance advisory business has also allowed him to see how InsurTech can massively improve the insurance industry through all parts of the value chain.

Chief Innovation Officer, Metlife Asia

Zia Zaman heads up the innovation efforts for MetLife in Asia. In this chief innovation officer role, Zia is responsible for setting up an innovation centre and R&D lab in Singapore. He is a member of the Asia Leadership Group. Previously, Zia served in two roles at SingTel.

Most recently he was the Chief Strategy Officer and VP of Emerging Businesses for SingTel’s Group Enterprise. He also co-led the acquisition of US-based Amobee, jumpstarting SingTel’s entry into the mobile advertising market. Prior to arriving in Singapore, Zia was the Chief Strategy Officer for LG Electronics North America.  

At FAST, as CMO, Zia was instrumental in positioning FAST as a leader in the enterprise search space and redefining its market strategy, vision, and go-to-market activities, culminating in a successful exit via a US$1.2 billion acquisition by Microsoft. At Gartner, a research and advisory firm known for its “crystal ball”, Zia ran the North American strategy consulting practice.

Early in his career, Zia was part of the M&A team at Sun Microsystems, and led or co-led eight acquisitions and six venture investments. Zia has occupied board positions in a handful of tech startups and previously sat on the board of Viking. 

Zia holds an MBA from Stanford’s GSB. He also has an undergraduate bachelor’s of science degree from MIT in electrical engineering and a master’s of science degree in operations research, also from MIT.
 

Associate Principal, McKinsey & Company

Harry Seip is an Associate Partner in McKinsey’s Bangkok Office. Harry leads Digital McKinsey in Thailand.

Harry has served insurance players and banks on topics in digital, strategy and operations across SE-Asia and Europe. His focus area is digital transformations, from customer journey to technology architecture.

Harry holds an MBA from INSEAD. He also has an undergraduate bachelor’s of science degree from Delft University of Technology (DUT) in computer science and a master’s of science degree in artificial intelligence, also from DUT

Principal, Oliver Wyman

Bharath Sattanathan is a Principal in Oliver Wyman's Singapore office. Bharath is a member of Oliver Wyman’s Retail and Business Banking practice in APR and a part of the APR Digital platform responsible for Digital Strategy and Acceleration.

Bharath has close to 10 years of customer, digital and strategy consulting experience in Asia across a range of industries. During this time he has helped develop digital and customer strategies for several Banks, Insurers and Wealth players in the region.

Prior to joining Oliver Wyman in 2016, Bharath was a Director at Accenture Strategy where he was responsible for the Digital Strategy practice focussed on financial services in the region. Bharath holds a MBA from University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Bachelors in Commerce from Bangalore University. Bharath also represented first-class cricket in India before pursuing his interest in the field of sports management.

Vice President, Strategy & Innovation, Swiss Re

Sophia Van is Vice President, Strategy & Innovation at Swiss Re. Before that she was the Big Data & Smart Analytics Lead for Asia in Swiss Re. Based in Singapore, she is in charge of spearheading innovation and strengthening Swiss Re’s position as a knowledge company and thought leader in the midst of Insure Tech invasion.

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Sophia has in-depth expertise in various disruptive topics such as Telematics and Driverless cars, Big Data & Smart Analytics,  IOT, Connected Health, Platform Economy, and Artificial Intelligence. She is the author of various articles about impact of technology on different lines of insurance as well as a frequent speaker at many industrial conferences.

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Prior to her current engagement, Sophia had established expertise in using smart analytics to support sales, CRM, strategy development, and operation for insurance and healthcare industries. She is also experienced in leading cross-functional teams in multi-national cultures with a strong background in operations, change management and innovation.

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Sophia received an MBA from Duke University where she earned the prestigious scholarship, titled "Fuqua Scholar" - an honour given only to students at the business school who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class. She was also a bachelor scholar at Nanyang Technological University with a major in Computer Engineering.

Co-Founder & Managing Director, Galen Growth Asia

Julien is the founder of The Propell Group, the leading healthtech boutique venture investor and advisory firm, based in Singapore, and has over 15 years of experience in healthcare with leading brands including Eli Lilly, Boston Scientific, Baxter, GSK, Merck&Co. Julien believes strongly in the value of collaboration as a catalyst for the growth of healthtech ecosystem. He therefore contributes regularly to the space as an advisor to early stage companies and a mentor to incubators/accelerators. More recently, Julien co-founded Galen Growth Asia, with fellow healthtech entrepreneurs, which is fast becoming the Asia healthtech advocacy organization.

Sales Head, NTT Data

Krish, heads the sales for NTT Data’s core insurance suite of solutions across Asia, and is responsible for driving client acquisition and business strategy in the region. Having worked with Siemens and IBM in the past, he comes in with 15+ years of experience in sales, business development and technology. He has led defining and strategic transformation engagements with clients in banking, insurance, logistics and media and is a strong advocate of delivering successful business outcomes to clients by demonstrating value through technology.Bharath Sattanathan

Partner, Bain & Company

Harshveer Singh is a partner in Bain & Company, based out of Singapore. He is a leader in the firm’s Financial Services practice, with particular expertise in the Insurance sector. Harsh has more than a decade of experience in advising senior management teams across  Asia and the Middle East. Prior to joining Bain & Company, Harsh was a manager at another global consulting firm, based in their Asian practice. Harsh earned an MBA from INSEAD and holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics & Telecom) from the University of New Delhi.

AVP & Head of Emerging Delivery and Platforms, Manulife

Ryan has more than 7 years of experience at Manulife enabling the delivery of new and emerging technology solutions to their customers. Most recently Ryan has worked to establish the Lab of Forward-Thinking (LOFT) to explore and build insight within areas of uncertainty that will affect the future of the firm. He was a founding member of LOFT’s leadership team in North America and then led the extension of the global lab network to Singapore, currently overseeing the LOFT’s Asia operations and global research and development function. He draws on his experience to support working model and engineering culture evolution within the core functions in order to accelerate emerging solutions delivery.

FSI, Industry & Value Engineering, Asia Pacific Japan at SAP

Bhalaji P Raghavan comes with 30 years of industry experience in the Financial Services Industry across Asia Pacific and Europe, holding senior end user, vendor and consulting roles in different areas such as Banking, Insurance, Operations, Technology, Finance, and Risk management. He has worked with the Asia Pacific markets for over twenty years, half of which as FSI consultant within the IT industry. He has a dual degree in Metallurgical Engineering and Business Administration.

Executive Director, Ernst & Young

Adam has been working in technology and financial services for 20 years, the last 10 having spent on UBI.  He launched numerous UBI products, notably working with Insurethebox, Allianz, Zurich, Aviva, BMW, JLR, Coverbox and others.  Adam is now an Executive Director for EY, focusing on UBI and Insurance Innovation for EY in APAC.

CEO, Providend (DIYInsurance)

 Christopher has close to two decades of experience in the wealth management and financial planning industry. Professionally, he is a Certified Financial Planner and a member of the Financial Planning Association of Singapore.

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He also sits on the management committee of Securities Investors Association of Singapore (SIAS).  He has also spoken on financial planning issues to hundreds of entities, both local and overseas, including at the CFA Institute Annual Conference held in Singapore.

He received his Bachelor of Financial Services Degree with honours from the National University of Ireland. He also holds a Master of Business Administration Degree from University of Warwick, which has one of the top business schools in the world. 

CEO, Slice

Tim Attia is the CEO of Slice Labs; a technology company addressing challenges facing the on-demand economy. Prior to Slice, he worked with some of the largest global insurance carriers on technology and distribution. He started his career with a large technology and management consulting firm.

Senior VP Product & Business Development, GoBear

Marnix Zwart is the Co-Founder of GoBear.com and Kroodle.nl

He loves creating and building new things which give customers a great experience. Extensive experience in concepting, creating and successfully launching online businesses, building innovative online B2C and B2B products and expanding

Co-Founder, UEX

Greg is an early Insurtech & start-up passionate and experienced insurance executive with a strong track record of delivering value to insurance affinity distribution

Co-Founder & CEO, WeInvest

Bhaskar co-founded WeInvest & TrackWealth with the vision to help everyone take control of their finances and make better investment decisions. An executive with a proven track record, he has over the last 12 years consulted with various banks, brokerages, and asset management firms across India, Middle-East, US, and London.

Prior to founding TrackWealth, Bhaskar spent over seven years at Headstrong Capital Markets, where he was responsible for growing the Europe business and heading up the Asian business. He started his career at India’s largest private bank, ICICI bank. He holds Engineering degree from IIT Madras and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. He is an avid investor and enjoys trekking, Golf, Photography and the travel that comes with it

Founder & CEO, CXA

Frustrated by the lack of investment in technology to meet unaddressed client pain points, Rosaline invested all her savings of $5M and borrowed another $5M to build her start-up CXA. Within a year, her team built the platform, acquired Singapore's largest homegrown broker, won 20 Fortune 500 clients away from the global incumbents and was voted by HR as one of the best vendors.  Now CXA has received $11M in VC funding and are expanding to 10 countries across Asia.

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Rosaline supervised Procter & Gamble factory lines in Iowa and then worked in 8 different roles over 8 years at Bankers Trust on Wall Street.  She launched two dot-com start-ups in Asia before moving to ACE Insurance. Rosaline also grew Mercer Marsh Benefits' 14 APAC countries 800% over 8 years.  Rosaline graduated from UCLA Cybernetics and Columbia Business School.

General Manager, SEA & Hong Kong, Near

Nandita is responsible for scaling Near’s business in the region with key partnerships and strategic deals. She is also responsible for driving adoption of Near’s products amongst brands for marketing, business strategy and business operations.

Prior to Near, Nandita spent over seven years with Nokia, heading Services Sales for its smartphones portfolio. She also spearheaded the Product Marketing of Nokia’s location-based services for its mobile phones portfolio across the globe. Nandita was a pioneer member of the team that launched Nokia Maps.

Nandita has over 21 years of rich technology and mobile services experience in launching and selling new services. Her experienceencompass global commercial sales, business development and global product marketing as well as go-to-market in the mobile and location based services space. 

Born into a family of race drivers and sportspeople, Nandita is passionate about sports herself. She is an avidtraveller, always looking to experience new cultures and countries. She is currently based in Singapore. 
 

Instigator, Skuchain

Nolan was a researcher and writer for the Canadian Senate Banking Committee for several years, studying the 2008 financial meltdown, anti-terrorist financing and the future of Canada’s air industry. No study captured his imagination more than the Banking Committee’s report on cryptocurrencies.

Nolan is serial entrepreneur and is excited to contribute to the blockchain revolution. He is a techno-optimist, the author of several CoinDesk industry research reports (including one on Insurance) and the science-fiction novel, The Blue Moon as well as the upcoming Diamond Igloo of Iqaluit.

CEO, Playbasis

Robert Zepeda is an entrepreneur with an extensive background in the gaming industry. An American originally from California, Robert founded Playbasis in late 2012 to help large brands and enterprises engage millennials and become more playful. Today Playbasis works with majors brands such as Unilever, Visa, DBS, and more.

Founder & CEO, PolicyPal

A former banker at OCBC Bank. Previously, she worked in Regulatory Risk Assurance for PwC London after graduating from Imperial College London. She started PolicyPal early this year, mobile first insurance management platform for you to organise all consumers' existing policies, giving them a peace of mind, so that they always have access to their insurance policies even if the unexpected happens. 

The idea struck her when her family member's health insurance claim was rejected as it was lapsed for a few months. The "aha" moment came -- how to help people manage, track and figure out their insurance. It takes a long time to shop around for new policies and often it is not clear what we are covered for and what the premium difference is.

PolicyPal also aims to curb the hard selling and mis-selling problems in the insurance industry by bringing transparency. They would like to empower consumers to make the right decisions for their needs and deliver a social impact.

Blockchain Advisor, Bitsonblocks.net

Antony helps organisations understand the potential and pitfalls of cryptocurrencies and blockchains.

He is a former FX spot trader at Barclays Capital, and FX systems technologist at Credit Suisse.  After banking, in 2013-15 he was the Business Development Director for Asia at itBit, the first bitcoin exchange to get a Trust licence in the US.

Antony served as founding president of the Association of Crypto-Currency Enterprises and Startups, Singapore (ACCESS) in 2014.  He is a mentor at Startup Bootcamp FinTech accelerator, also named in Asia’s top 100 FinTech influencers and he writes a blog at www.bitsonblocks.net

Co-Founder & CEO, Attores

David Moskowitz – CEO / Co-Founder: Attores is David's second startup in the blockchain niche. David founded bitcoin brokerage Coin Republic in 2013, and sold it in 2015. Prior to the brokerage, he was a systems integrator, helping SME’s set up subscription systems online (SaaS). He has 20 years experience in product development, marketing and sales. He is also a board member of ACCESS The Singapore Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Industry Association.

Vice-President Asia, Floatility

Daniel Rosa is the Head of Business and Operations for Floatility Asia, an international Internet of Things / Mobility as a Service company solving the last mile problem with connected and shared light electric vehicles. Daniel is responsible for hacking the intersection of strategy, sales, and partnership growth, focusing on both public and private markets.

Daniel is an eco-prenuer with 15 years global corporate and consulting experience in accelerating and commercializing start-up companies with environmental innovations which solve problems in transportation, energy, food and shelter. In 2002, he co-founded Australia's first integrated solar power and water company, introducing evacuated tube technology, winning national awards for the best new energy saving service.

Since being acquired in 2005, Daniel relocated to Singapore successfully establishing & leading multiple regional offices and delivering megawatts of large scale solar & wind power systems for two of the fastest growing renewable energy companies. Born in Australia of European descent with qualifications in building, business and project management, Daniel loves cycling, yoga and property development.

Managing Director, Artemis Specialty Ltd

David V. Cabral is an insurance innovator with over 35 years of global (re)insurance experience, building successful franchises and delivering sustained profits across multiple products, divisions and geographical territories. His success is driven by his ability to identify and create disruptive opportunities within the (re)insurance industry. These initiatives consistently incorporate technology as an enabler to create efficiencies, develop new products, increase client service and satisfaction and generate sustainable profits.

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Mr. Cabral is the founder and Managing Director of Artemis Specialty Ltd, was a founding member of Endurance Specialty Insurance Ltd and successfully built and led specialty insurance operations in Bermuda, the United States and internationally via a number of management roles in operations, broking, underwriting, claims and technology transformation.

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He has also successfully led the turnaround of failing businesses, managed mergers and acquisitions and company run-offs and developed multiple underwriting and broking technology platforms.

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After decades of successfully leading profitable businesses, he originally created Artemis in 2005 to partner with private equity, hedge fund and venture capitalist groups to invest in and create new disruptive opportunities within the (re)insurance industry.

Co-Founder & CEO, Inzsure

Steve is CEO and co-founder of InsurTech start up Inzsure based from Singapore. Inzsure uses a digital platform to put corporate customers back in command of the insurance purchase decision. Blockchain based technology based on smart contracts rooted in ethereum allow secure, supercharged, procurement and claim settlement transactions with minimal friction, zero delay and at no cost to the corporate insured.

Steve also provides risk and insurance support to a select pool of global businesses based from Asia. He has 30 years of experience and 15 years with P&L responsibility. Managing Director or equivalent for five companies in four countries including two previous start-ups. Based in Asia for most of his career with experience in dozens of countries globally, Steve brings a broad-based approach to the management of both risk and opportunities.

Vice President Asia-Pacific, Dacadoo

Thomas Dijohn has been with dacadoo - a leading Swiss technology company -­ the last 3 years currently serving as the Vice-­President Asia-­Pacific.

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In 2015 Thomas was on a 12 months’ secondment to Sanofi – the world’s 5th largest pharmaceutical company – as Intrapreneur­‐in­‐Residence - to develop and implement a clinical behavioural diagnostic tool for the management of people with chronic conditions and for prevention in general. There he worked with universities and healthcare professionals. 

Prior to dacadoo and Sanofi he worked with Innovation and New Business in industries such as Media, Broadcasting, Telecom, Managed Services, and Retail. He has worked and lived in Asia‐Pacific the last 20 years and holds a MBA from Macquarie University (Sydney Australia).

He has featured in the media and conferences on a wide range of matters relating to his areas of knowledge and experience and is known for his visionary and thought provoking leadership.              

CEO, Insurance Market

Otbert de Jong, a senior banker and risk management expert turned FinTech entrepreneur, is CEO of Insurance Market Pte Ltd, a new online insurance broking platform providing comparison and real-time straight through processing capabilities for standard personal lines.

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After spending the first half of his career on the shop floor, has supported many financial services firms in enhancing performance and controls using new insights in governance, risk, strategyOtbert and technology. More recently, he is active in the financial technology industry and has been involved in the launch of innovative financial services such as peer-2-peer lending, e-commerce platforms and online insurance aggregation and brokerage.

Investor and Advisor

Hemant has 14 years of experience in Strategy, Business Development and Private Equity in the TMT and Finance sectors. He just left Google after having worked in Google Singapore, UK and Brazil for six years. Prior to Google, Hemant worked in Private Equity and Investment Banking in the UK and India, and as an Engineer at Samsung Electronics in India, Korea, and US.

Hemant is an Angel investor; a Limited Partner with Cocoon Capital and with INSEAD Alumni Ventures Fund, and a mentor at FinTech Bootcamp. He enjoys cycling, traveling and photography. He graduated from INSEAD MBA with distinction.

Founder & CEO, Smartly

Keir Veskiväli is the founder and Chief Executive Officer at Smartly.

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Keir was born in Tallinn, Estonia on 15 July 1990. He graduated from Tallinn University of Technology in 2014 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and Finance. During university days, Keir's passion spurred him to lead Estonia's biggest student-led accelerator program and towards writing his bachelor's thesis on how successful startups build their core teams.

After receiving his education, Keir has spent most of his professional career working with technology-based startups and, along the way, built a few companies under his name. Through this, Keir developed his expertise and further fortified his passion in the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation, and financial literacy. Keir's experience has lead him to life in US, Germany, India and Singapore, enabling him with an internationally well-connected network.

With Keir's avid fervour in driving communities towards positive changes and the belief of non-conformity to status quo, Keir is currently committed to driving Smartly. Smartly is the first robo-advisor in Singapore, offering a digital wealth management platform for retail investors.

With the on-boarding of technology, Smartly believes that effective money management can be offered with transparency at a lower cost to its traditional ways. In addition of a smarter approach towards investing, Smartly focuses on breaking down the myths associated with investments, by empowering people through engaging educational content. Smartly is built with the marriage of Keir's experience and aptitude, as well as an enduring devotion to creating value for a community.

Founder & CEO, Stark Group

Economist with a business & legal background (Chicago University – Chicago Booth, Sydney University – Faculty of Law), he has over 16 years of experience in P&C insurance in South-East Asia.

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Matthias spent 15 years in AXA Asia where he started as an actuary in 2001 before covering different management positions focusing in transforming the fast-growing organization.   

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Regional CMO and Head of digital for the General Insurance side in ASIA, Matthias leaves the insurance giant in December 2014 to spearhead a series of local start-ups under the umbrella Stark Group Private Limited.

Co-founder & CEO, Insbee

Yujun is the co-founder / CEO of insbee. insbee is developing Asia’s first social peer-to-peer (P2P) car insurance platform that reward car owners for responsible driving by giving them cash backs from their insurance premiums at the end of each policy year. insbee partners general insurers to offer car insurance to communities and introduces a social platform where members can form groups, invite new members, view claims made by other members, and in the process increase peer accountability and reduce over-claims and fraud.

Before insbee, Yujun spent almost 3 years as Head of New Markets, Asia, for Teralytics, a Zurich based big data analytics startup. As the first business employee in Asia, he was responsible for developing and driving Teralytics’ go-to-market strategy into new business verticals and geographical areas across Asia, including partnerships with mobile operators in order to monetize their anonymized mobile location and profiling data externally to B2B customers.

Prior to that, he spent 4 years in Citibank working in multiple departments including the corporate banking front office, the Singapore Strategy team and various corporate and consumer product departments.

Concurrently, he has spent the last 8 years running a non-profit, Energy Carta, which focuses on raising awareness of sustainable development and energy opportunities for youths. The organization has reached thousands of students, and was awarded the inaugural Singapore Energy Awards by the Energy Market Authority in Oct'13. The award recognizes organizations and individuals who have made outstanding contributions to Singapore’s energy sector.

Founder & CEO, Dragon Wealth Asia

Based in Singapore, Bert-Jan Van Essen is the founder and CEO of Dragon Wealth Asia. It is the first financial technology company that focuses on connecting wealth managers and banks with their investors through an online platform.

Prior to this bold business venture in 2012, he was the CIO of Credit Suisse Asia Pacific and Head of online banking who had clocked 11 years of working relationship with Credit Suisse. Led by his acute business acumen and supported by an expert team, Dragon Wealth quickly gained recognition within the industry.
 

However, it is not all work but no play. Bert-Jan, father of two, skateboards with his children in his free time. Not to forget he is also an avid fan of mountain hiking and skiing.

Principal Consultant, Press Start

  Michael is a passionate gamer since the introduction of the Atari 2600. He has 15+ years experience in supporting strategic decision-making at Microsoft and Asia-based FinTech startups.

Throughout his career he discovered how a combination of visual design and game techniques motivates employees and users alike resulting in increased engagement that drive business results and offers consumers a meaningful and fun experience.

In 2015 Michael decided to combine his passion for gaming, technology, design and operations and founded Press Start in Singapore to help businesses become more engaging & fun for their employees, customers and users. Press Start worked with companies such as Spotify, Dragon Wealth and GoBear.  

Founder & CEO, Bambu

 Ned has over 24 years of experience in Asia focusing on agency and electronic equity trading – in particular, on growing the alternative crossing network community. 

Ned was the Chief Executive Officer of Chi-East Pte Ltd, a sell-side Asian dark pool which was jointly owned by Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) and Chi-X Global. Prior to that, he was Chief Executive Officer of BlocSec, an electronic crossing network for the Asian markets which was wholly owned by CLSA.

Ned also served as the Managing Director for E*TRADE Asia and was responsible for the entire regional institutional equity business. He was also Head of Sales with Investment Technology Group (ITG) and established its Singapore office. Currently, Ned is a director of Alt Ex Advisory and 8Securities. 

Ned graduated with an honours degree in Economics from Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh in 1990. 

Founder & CEO, Bluzelle

  Pavel Bains is the CEO of Bluzelle, a blockchain platform that builds enterprise level financial solutions: real-time payments, dynamic insurance, and identity management. Bluzelle’s works with British Telecom, TEMENOS, Desjardins and many other banks and insurers.

In addition to fintech, Pavel is an expert in digital media having worked with Disney, Microsoft, Warners Bros, DreamWorks.

Pavel is also a frequent contributor to Forbes, Huffington Post and Fast Company, writing articles in the areas of finance and digital media.   

Chairman, ACCESS

Anson Zeall is the Chairman of ACCESS, Singapore's Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Industry Association. Anson is also the Co-founder/CEO of CoinPip, a money transfer service for businesses leveraging on blockchain technologies backed by 500 Startups, one of the most prominent venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. He is an instructor of blockchain 101 at General Assembly Singapore and taught blockchain 101 at INSEAD.  Prior to CoinPip, he ran a private family office in Singapore managing various asset classes, equities, derivatives and real estate. Anson is an alumni of University of New South Wales and Columbia Business School.

Co-Founder & CEO, Area 51

Ian is well versed in the mobile industry, spending the last 15 years in mobile, including running an advanced concept studio for Motorola, and the last 5 over years has been in payments.

He was Head of Payments, Group Digital Life in Singapore Telecommunications Pte Ltd (Singtel) where he was in charge or regional mobile money. He was also VP Technology Director, JP Morgan Chase, dealing with NFC technologies to next generation of payment UX.

Currently, Ian is a collaborator with carbon12 creative, advisor for Navdy and Co-founder & CEO of area 51. With a background in Design / Mobile & Payments, Area 51 is where Ian brings user entered experiences to payments, wear-ables and biometrics.

Founder, Oula.la

Coming soon...

CEO and Managing Partner, Life.SREDA VC.

Globally known fintech expert and evangelist, rated in top35 global fintech leaders, author of "Money of the Future" annual fintech-research.

Founder and CEO of leading non-corporate global fintech fund Life.SREDA VC, invested in more than 20 fintech startups in US, Europe and Asia with 6 successful exits to date. 

Previously served as top executive for leading banks and telcos in CIS 

Key areas in Life.SREDA: strategic vision, understanding of fintech trends and future, synergy opportunities, consumer sense, design thinking, networking mediation

Partner & Investment Director, Life.SREDA VC

Igor Pesin is a Partner and Investment Director at Life.SREDA VC, a global fintech-focused venture capital firm, headquartered in Singapore. Being responsible at Life.SREDA for the investments throughout their entire life cycle, Igor executed more than 20 fintech deals across the world – in the US, Europe, CIS and Asia. Some companies, invested by Life.SREDA, are very famous in the fintech space, for example Simple bank (sold to financial group BBVA), Moven, Fidor, Anthemis, SumUp, Lenddo etc.  Among 20 investments, Igor executed 6 exits.

Managing Director, Investments, Leo Tech

Patrick Kershaw is the Managing Director, Investments for Leo Tech. An active early stage investor, he has invested personally in over 25 start-ups and is an LP in several major funds. Experienced in emerging and frontier markets from projects in the Pacific with Digicel Group and CNP in Myanmar. He previously co-founded NZTG, building it to be one of the largest corporate broadband and outsource IT providers in New Zealand before being acquired in 2012.

Founder & Director, True Global Ventures

A Swedish “citizen of the world”, Worked for more than 20 years with Business Development primarily in E-payments/Fintech. Half of the time at GE Capital and Monabanq.com and the rest with own ventures/investments. Strong international network in Silicon Valley, New York, Berlin, Stockholm, Beijing, Singapore and Hong Kong. Has learnt 6 languages and as many cultures.

His network has helped the companies in my portfolio of 15 direct investments with:
– Gaining new customers and partners
– Internationalize
– Recruiting key individuals especially engineers
– Financing the company including introduction to VCs, Loans and Corporate Ventures 
– M&A Support and IPO preparation including Nasdaq Private Market

Partner, BeeNext

Dirk has founded 6 companies since college with the following scorecard: 2 exits, 2 dividend plays and 2 failures. In late 2014 he teamed up with his partners Teru Sato and Hiro Maeda to form BEENEXT an early stage Singapore based investment vehicle with focus on SEA and India.
 
Prior he co-founded as Managing Director Alps Ventures, an early stage investor and company builder based in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. At Alps Ventures he has incubated and/or invested in over 20 companies, which included a leading European online supermarket KochAbo (exit), Europe’s leading TechHub group Clusterhaus or Grey Orange Robotics.

Co-Founder & Partner, DigitalTech International

Luciano is Co-Founder and Partner of DigitalTech International, an Insurtech start-up that owns InsurTechNews.com, a complete online destination for breaking news, insights, and analyses on the insurance digital transformation.

DigitalTech International is also the creator of a plug & play SaaS which enables Insurers to manage the insurance IoT value chain from data gathering to service delivery with a smartphone-based customer-centric user experience. 

Luciano is also Co-Founder and Partner of Neosurance, the first start up to create an artificial intelligence engine that provides a virtual insurance agent to sell contextual insurances. 

Partnership Manager, Asia Pacific, BIMA

Ren is responsible for driving expansion of BIMA’s partnerships in the Asia Pacific region.
Prior to joining BIMA, Ren worked as a management consultant at Bain & Company, where she was involved with projects across the telecommunications,consumerproducts and public service sectors within Southeast Asia. She also worked on sales strategy and customer loyalty at Starwood Hotels. Ren has experiences with nonprofits and social enterprises in various markets, including The Rockefeller Foundation in New York and Off.Grid:Electric, a renewable energy start up in Tanzania.
Ren holds a B.A. in Economics from UC Berkeley and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Innovation Fellow, Lab of Forward Thinking

Philipp is an emerging innovation leader in Asia and expert in building trust and value in the digital age.

His eclectic experience across Fortune 50 financial services, management consulting, startup advisory and entrepreneurship culminate in a razor-sharp professional intuition, deep empathy and an uncanny ability to galvanise the people around him, spreading enthusiasm for new ideas.

In a whirlwind career, he has made principal contributions to 8-figure advisory engagements, helped establish financial services innovation efforts in Asia, built a vibrant entrepreneurship community and seeded a transformational innovation in insurance. In 2015, he was offered to co-lead a Fortune 500's Asia innovation efforts out of Hong Kong, but stayed true to the +65 instead.

Philipp loves to enrich the innovation domain and share his thinking and doing across conferences and preeminent publications, such as Esquire, Marketing Magazine, E27 and others.

Co-Founder, The Singapore FinTech Consortium

Gerben is a Co-Founder & Managing Partner at The Singapore FinTech Consortium. He is also a Managing Partner at IncubAsia and an advisor to a number of early-stage technology companies.  
 

He has gained over 12 years of international experience in private equity, mergers & acquisitions and corporate finance at RBS, Bank of America and Citigroup in Amsterdam, NewYork and London.  
 

He received a Masters degree in Business (Finance & Economics) from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and dual Masters degree in Business (Finance & Economics) from SKEMA, a Grande Ecole Superieure de Commerce in France.

Gerben is a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment and has been a registered Securities & Regulations, Corporate Finance Advisor with the Financial Services Authority in the UK.