Digital Finance Forum 2024

Emilie Allaert is an innovation passionate who aims to implement impactful solutions. She is renowned for her DLT and tokenisation expertise associated with her in-depth knowledge of the financial industry challenges and is convinced technology and innovation are the paths to follow to maintain one’s business competitivity.

With experience as the Head of the Luxembourg Blockchain Lab, and previously at the LHoFT, KPMG, JP Morgan AM and Alpha FMC, she has a deep understanding of a number of industries and is able to make the connection between various industries. She recently founded Digital Minds to address the needs of companies to be guided in their innovation digitalisation journey.

In addition to her expertise in DLT technology, digital assets and STO, areas where she published various reports and is part of numerous working groups, she is able to educate on and help navigate various technologies and regulations such as Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, E-signature and digitalisation as a whole.

She believes dissemination of knowledge is key to adoption and gives lectures on digital innovation and DLT technology.

Emilie holds a BSc in Economics and Management from the University of Luxembourg; a MA in Financial Management from the University of Durham Business School and a Certificate in Climate & Renewable Energy Finance from the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. She recently followed the Aspiring Directors Programme at INSEAD.

Emilie’s contribution to the industry has been widely recognised, including by a nomination in the Women in Fintech Powerlist 2017, in the 50 Who’s Who in Tech in Luxembourg in 2021 and more recently by being listed in the Tech 100 in Luxembourg.

Thomas Berger is Head of Luxembourg Litigation and Investigations practice at A&O Shearman.

He specialises in domestic and cross-border litigation and pre-litigation matters within the realm of financial, commercial and corporate law. He has a specific focus in professional liability in the financial sector in particular in relation to fraud-related matters, anti-money laundering (AML), and “white-collar” criminal law aspects.

He also assists clients facing dawn raids and has extensive expertise in internal and external investigations for clients of the financial sector (banks, investment funds, insurance companies and other professionals of the financial sector). Thomas also regularly advises on regulatory issues related to AML, PSD, MiFID and banking secrecy.

He joined the firm in 2013.

Judith Bogner is a television presenter, event facilitator and commentator for international finance, business and geopolitics based between the UK and Germany. For more than ten years she was one of the main European anchors of the financial news channel Bloomberg Global Television in London. Since 2012 Judith runs her own business, offering event and business facilitation, client advisory boards and strategic consulting. She is also a UK accredited mediator.

Judith regularly leads public and private events for corporate and institutional clients in the financial sector and beyond. Her list of clients include the Federation of German Industries, the Euro Finance Week (Frankfurt), Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Bank of New York Mellon, The Brewers of Europe, Luxembourg for Finance, the Dutch Development Bank FMO, Ergo Insurance, State Street, Scope Ratings, the Institute of Culinary Art, Allianz Global Assistance, Wacom and the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Born in Germany, Judith has lived in Switzerland, China, Ukraine, France and Italy. She is bilingual in English-German and also speaks Italian, French and Mandarin Chinese. Judith holds a degree in International Business Management and Chinese from the University of Applied Sciences in Bremen.

John Cronin is the CEO of Zodia Custody Europe.

Zodia Custody is a digital asset custodian backed by Standard Chartered, Northern Trust, SBI and National Australia Bank.

Zodia Custody has a unique ability to provide the digital asset custody that enables global institutions, corporations, and professional investors to embrace the digital asset future without compromising on security, standards and principles that have existed for decades.

Registered with the FCA, CBI and CSSF, Zodia Custody brings together unparalleled Tier 1 insight, global custody expertise and leading-edge technological innovation, to providing client-focused digital asset custody within a secure framework of oversight and governance.

Thibault de Barsy is the Vice-Chairman and General Manager of The Payments Association EU.

Thibault has launched the Payments Association EU (PA EU)  in February 2020. The Payments Association EU is a business club of decision makers in the payments industry. Its members are the enterprises forming all the components of the payments value chain in the 27 countries of the European Union.  PA EU builds on the international network of its London-based sister organisation, the Payments Association (PA).

Thibault was formerly CEO of Keytrade Bank Luxembourg for 5 years and has over 20 years of experience in the financial and ICT sector. Thibault is also a guest lecturer at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management. Since October 2019, he has participated as a recurrent guest speaker on the Belgian news TV channel LN24 as an Economics columnist.

Before settling in Luxembourg, he held different marketing & sales positions across banks, insurance, telco and credit card companies.

Thibault holds a Master of Science in Management from the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and a CEFA certificate from the Belgian Association of Financial Analysts.

Thilo Derenbach is the Head of Sales & Business Development Digital Securities Services at Clearstream Banking.

23 years at Deutsche Börse AG, of which the last 18 years have been at Clearstream, primarily in sales roles, several years of product development responsibility in the asset servicing area and now responsible for business strategy, business development and sales of Clearstream’s digital products globally.

Chris Hollifield is head of business development at Luxembourg for Finance, where his work involves advising FinTech and financial companies looking to develop cross-border activity through Luxembourg-based platforms. He also advises on the development of the ecosystem in Luxembourg and on synergy creation with other key financial centres, with a focus on East Asia.

Prior to working at Luxembourg for Finance, Chris worked in the strategy department of Clearstream Banking SA, an International Central Securities Depository that facilitates the settlement of interbank transactions in over 50 markets worldwide. Here, his work focused particularly on strategic projects concerning distributed ledger technology and other FinTech topics.

Biba Homsy is lawyer in Luxembourg and Switzerland. 

She is active in the Blockchain and crypto space since 2015 and runs her boutique law firm Homsy Legal with 4 associates in Geneva and Luxembourg supporting private actors with specialisation in regulatory, compliance, financial services and crypto-assets. 

Before that, she was heading teams at the Swiss regulator FINMA for 5 years, and was also Chief Compliance for Credit Suisse where she was in charge of Luxembourg and its European branches (France, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands) with oversight of 40 people.

She has been designated one of the 30 worldwide crypto experts by the International World Economic Forum (WEF) to support the WEF in the digital expansion.

She is a lecturer for several universities in compliance, AML and Fintech. She holds two masters of Law (French & Swiss Universities) and a certification from Harvard Law School on regulation.

She sits on the board of directors of three major banks in Europe, one alternative investment fund manager, and one asset manager.

Steve Jacoby is the Regional Managing Partner for Continental Europe of the Luxembourg office of Clifford Chance and co-heads the Luxembourg Banking, Finance and Capital Markets practice, handling lending, securitisation, capital markets, regulatory, derivatives, general banking law (including litigation), corporate law and insolvency matters.

His practice focuses in particular on financial regulatory matters as well as on Fintech and innovation. Steve is also an associate lecturer (Chargé de Cours Associé) at the University of Luxembourg in Banking, Finance and Capital Markets law.

Nadia Manzari is the Co-founder and Partner of Bock Manzari Legal, a Luxembourg law firm focusing on tech law, financial services, FinTech, AML/CTF, regulatory, compliance, corporate governance and innovation.

I am a passionate pioneer in the FinTech space. In finance for more than 20 years, I contributed and assisted to the development of the payment and FinTech ecosystem in Luxembourg.

From 2018 to 2023, I was a partner in a Luxembourg Law firm specialised in financial technologies. Previously, I was the Head of the Innovation, Payments, Markets Infrastructures and Governance Department at the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF, the Luxembourg financial industry regulator), where I started my career in 2001.

I regularly speak at national and international conferences covering payment services, financial technologies, artificial intelligence, crypto assets, AML/CTF and corporate governance topics.

Currently, I am a lecturer for FinTech and digital finance law and regulation in the Master in Finance Economics and Tech law (MScFE) at the University of Luxembourg. I regularly conduct boardrooms trainings on topics such as corporate governance, technology law and financial regulations.

Ami Nagata is the Director and CEO at bitFlyer Europe.

Ami is a leader in both TradFi and DeFi with over 20 years of experience in various global roles at Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas and MUFG. Ami has been at the forefront of the crypto-asset ecosystem and routinely mentors aspiring entrepreneurs to drive strategic initiatives and operational excellence.

She holds a MBA from HEC School of Management in Paris, France.

John O’Neill has more than 20 years of experience in financial services. He is Managing Director, Global Head of Digital Assets Strategy at HSBC, responsible for the approach to CBDCs, digital assets and asset tokenisation. In this role, John is responsible for HSBC Orion, the propriety digital assets platform that financial institutions and corporations are able to use to issue digital bonds on blockchain.

Prior to joining HBSC, John held various roles at ICE Futures Europe (previously the London International Financial Futures Exchange – LIFFE), finally becoming head of the FICC business.

Dr. Jochen Papenbrock is Head of Financial Technology EMEA / Lead Developer Relations Manager Banking Global at NVIDIA, the globally leading accelerated computing platform company.

He has spent the last 25 years in various roles on the topic of AI in financial services. He works with executives, data scientists, developers, and partners in the global NVIDIA ecosystem.

Jochen is a financial data scientist and received his degree and Ph.D. from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Before NVIDIA he worked as a consultant, entrepreneur, and researcher with asset managers, banks, insurance companies, and central banks.

Rhomaios Ram has been the CEO of Fnality International since 2019 and Consortium Executive of Utility Settlement Coin, its research based forerunner, since 2017.

He is a former banking executive with more than 22 years of experience in traditional banking, including Global Head of Product Management for Transaction Banking and Global Head of Electronic Trading and Sales for Capital Markets at Deutsche Bank. Rhom has developed an interest in creating digital businesses for finance and finance related areas. He brings experience of working across a wide variety of wholesale banking businesses and functions including sales, trading, product management, and technology to his role at Fnality.

Pascal Steichen is Founder and CEO of the Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity.

For over 20 years, Pascal is involved in the main cybersecurity initiatives of the Luxembourg Government. He was laureate of the Information Security Personality of the Year award in 2017 and elected as the first chairman of the ECCC (European Cybersecurity Competence Centre) in 2022.

In 2002, he joined the Luxembourg Government, as advisor and project manager in the area of network and information security for the Ministry of the Economy.

From 2003 to 2014, he was representing Luxembourg as an alternate member of the management board of ENISA.

In 2017, Pascal lead and contributed to the creation of the Cybersecurity Competence Center a unique facility to strengthen the resilience of the Luxembourg economy by helping organisations to test and improve their cybersecurity competence, which evolved into the National Cybersecurity Competence Center in 2022.

Building on his huge experience in cybersecurity, Pascal is involved in key communities in Luxembourg and Europe. Member of the Luxembourg Cybersecurity Board, lecturer in information security at the University of Luxembourg, member of WomenCyberForce, and involved in the curricular board of the BTS cybersecurity.

At an international level, Pascal participated in the founding of ECSO, was part of the 2021 judging panel of the IFSEC Global Influencers in Security and Fire Award. In 2024, he became Chair of the European Advisory Board of the Forum InCyber.

Pascal holds a master degree in astrophysics and, in parallel of starting his career as a software engineer, he graduated in applied information technology.

Basak Toprak is responsible for product development, business development and regulatory interaction across the product lines for JPM Coin, Programmable Payments, Partior and CBDCs in EMEA for Onyx Coin Systems.

Prior to this role, Basak was Head of eCommerce Solutions for J.P. Morgan’s Payments business in EMEA, responsible for designing and deploying integrated banking and payments solutions for the leading global technology and payment platforms. With over 20 years in banking leadership roles across treasury services and payments, Basak has in depth experience across digital transformation, emerging payment methods and technologies.

She holds an MBA in e-Business from Bayes Business School, London.

Martin Watkins is Chief Executive of Montis Group where he is building digital CSDs and applying for regulatory approval to settle natively digital and non-native digital securities tokens using blockchain technology, alongside conventional equity and debt instruments. Montis was founded and is majority-owned by Archax, the first ever FCA regulated digital securities exchange that also has FCA brokerage, custody, and crypto-asset permissions.

Prior to Montis, Martin was at Ernst & Young (EY) for 7 years where, as EMEIA Lead for Exchanges and Financial Market Infrastructures, he worked on twelve blockchain initiatives. Before EY, Martin was a member of senior management at Euroclear in London settling £2 Trillion of equity, fixed income, and MMIs per day and was elected Chairman of the Euroclear Group Operations Task Force focused on harmonising services. This followed several years in Paris as an Executive member of AtosEuronext, running all LCH.Clearnet SA IT services across Europe, clearing €1.7 Trillion per day.

Martin is a former Board member and Trustee of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (CISI), where he was Founding Chairman of the International Regulations Forum and Chairman of the FinTech Forum. He is responsible for the group relationship and participation in the International Securities Services Association (ISSA).

Dariush Yazadni, Partner, leads the Global AWM & ESG Market Research Centre at PwC Luxembourg.

He has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services industry. He has led and contributed to numerous strategic consulting, research and thought leadership studies. Clients include global asset owners (pension funds, insurance companies and SWFs) and asset managers, financial services institutions, banks, governments, supra-national institutions and pension and mutual fund associations.

He also teaches asset and wealth management at the University of Luxembourg.

He holds a MBA from the University of Chicago, GSB.