Focus on India

Jean Claude Kugener is a career diplomat who is the current Ambassador of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to India since presenting his credentials to the Hon’ble President of India on 20 September 2018. He is also the non-resident Ambassador to Nepal and Sri Lanka and the designated Ambassador to Bangladesh.

He was previously the Deputy Head of Mission at the Luxembourg Embassies in London (2014-18), in Moscow (2010-14) and Berlin (2005-2010). He started his diplomatic career in December 2000.

Jean Claude Kugener has a European Master in Management and a Diplôme de Grande Ecole de Commerce from ESCP Europe and holds a Degree in Economics from the University of Nancy II.

Philipp von Restorff currently is Deputy CEO at Luxembourg for Finance (LFF), the agency for the development of the Luxembourg financial centre.

Prior to his appointment at LFF, he was serving as Head of Communication of The Luxembourg Bankers’ Association (ABBL), where he also held the position of Secretary of the Board of Directors.  Philipp has been Chairman of the European Banking Federation’s Communication and CSR Steering Committee from 2014-2018. Before joining the ABBL he worked for the Luxembourg Information and Press Services of the Luxembourg Ministry of State. 

He is elected member of the Board of Directors of LuxFLAG, the Luxembourg Finance Labelling Agency, as well as of the Luxembourg Sustainable Finance Initiative. Philipp is lecturer at the Luxembourg House of Training and financial education volunteer at “Jonk Entrepreneuren Luxembourg”, a branch of the Junior Achievement Network (JA).

Julie Becker has been at the helm of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) since April, 2021. She joined LuxSE in 2013 and was appointed to its Executive Committee in 2015, before being named Deputy CEO in 2019, and CEO two years later.

Her career in the financial sector in Luxembourg spans over two decades and includes positions at the Central Bank of Luxembourg and Dexia. In 2016, Julie Becker founded the Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX), the world’s leading platform for sustainable securities. A recognised expert in the field of sustainable finance, Julie Becker has represented LuxSE and LGX at numerous, international expert forums and conferences over the past years, including at the prestigious EU High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance from 2016-2018. She is also the Chair of LuxCMA, a capital markets industry association established in 2019.

Julie Becker specialises in regulatory and legal matters linked to capital markets. She holds a Master Degree in European & Corporate Law and a Master Degree (DEA) in Private Law from the University of Nancy II, France. She is also an alumna of the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

Emmanuelle Entringer is a Counsel in the Investment Management practice of Arendt & Medernach. She is Head of the Dubai office of the firm. She advises clients based in the region, as well as international asset managers on the structuring of Luxembourg funds.

Emmanuelle has over twenty years’ experience in the field of investment funds in Luxembourg, and over ten years in Dubai. She focuses in particular in product development, fund structuring and distribution of UCITS, AIFs and real estate funds, which she gained in the sectors of banking and asset management.

Prior to joining Arendt & Medernach she worked for various banks and spent 10 years with Fidelity, as Director of the European Legal Department.

Emmanuelle Entringer is a founding member of, and chairs, the Middle East Working Group of the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI) in Dubai.

She graduated in Law from the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and holds a post-graduate diploma (Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies) in Commercial Law (Droit des Affaires et de l’Economie) from the same University. Emmanuelle speaks English, French, German and Luxembourgish.

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.

Siddharth Karmarkar (Sid) is a Chartered Accountant and has studied business management at The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad – ranked amongst the Top 50 Global B-schools. He carries over 18 years of experience in the financial services industry. Having worked across the globe with American Express, HSBC, Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking and JPMorgan, he was Divisional COO’s at Edelweiss Institutional Equities, Forex & Rates, before joining CommSol Associates as Associate Director & Head – India.

Sid has been amongst the top performers throughout his career and draws a reputation of being extremely performance driven. He has consistently delivered innovative business solutions and has gained expertise in analysing and implementing strategies and practices to improve overall efficiency, drive business growth and improve financial performance in the leadership roles he played. He has been instrumental in collaborating with senior leadership and peers to drive business transformation and deliver best results- be it scale up of market share, expand geographies and/or product marketing capabilities.

Some of the key projects he led include – Implementation of Time driven ABM, Global Technology Roll outs, FATOM (Fund Accounting Target Operating Model) & Location Strategy, LEAN implementation, CRM roll outs, Interactive BI tools, ML/WC backed Infosystems, etc.

Sid has won several awards and accolades and is skilled in leading multiple complex assignments. He was adjudged finalist by the prestigious Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) at Genesis 2019 amongst 350+ participants.

Mattia Musetti is an Adviser for Luxembourg for Finance (LFF).

Mattia’s role is to advise LFF and its stakeholders on the strategic orientation of the financial centre, specializing on a number of topics including talent, insurance and private equity. He represents the Luxembourg financial industry abroad and helps others understand Luxembourg’s financial services toolbox and the industry in general.

He advises international financial services companies, FinTechs and MNEs to develop and scale up globally their cross-border financial operations through Luxembourg as the gateway to Europe. His geographic focus of attracting financial companies to Luxembourg is global, with specialties in ASEAN, India, Italy, Russia & CIS and Eastern Europe.

Prior to joining LFF, he worked in a major consulting firm in an advisory capacity in the corporate and asset management industry helping MNEs and asset managers with their regulatory and tax compliance.

Mattia holds a MSc in Law and Business and an LL.M. in international taxation, and speaks fluently 5 languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian) and has a good conversational level of Luxembourgish and Portuguese.

Xavier Parain joined FundRock in January 2019 as Group Chief Executive Officer and following the firm’s acquisition by Apex Group in 2021 is now Head of FundRock, in charge of its ManCo/AIFM operations globally.

Prior to that, Xavier worked for 7 years at Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), where he held the position of Managing Director at the Asset Management Directorate. At AMF, he developed strong relationships with European regulators and collaborated with them on several occasions, most notably in the case of Brexit through numerous working groups. Xavier has also solid experience in the banking and asset management sectors and has held executive roles within major international organisations. Among others, he served as the CEO of FundLogic, Morgan Stanley’s funds and hedge funds distribution platform and was also the President of Merrill Lynch Invest, Merrill Lynch’s asset management firm specialising in structured funds.

Xavier holds an engineering degree from the ENSTA (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Techniques Avancées) and is an alumnus of the Ecole Polytechnique.

Paul Péporté is a Partner within the International Capital Markets practice of Allen & Overy in Luxembourg.

He has over 15 years of experience specialising in securities law and capital markets transactions and regulation. Paul advises on the full spectrum of debt and equity transactions, including securitisation, structured products, covered bonds, IPOs, placements and buy backs of securities, exchange offers, listing applications and ongoing obligations deriving from such listings. He further covers capital market related regulatory aspects, such as derivatives regulation.

Paul regularly holds conferences on various capital market and regulatory topics in Luxembourg and abroad.

Shyam Sanker is an experienced Corporate & institutional banker with over 14 years of experience and is currently the head of Multinationals in HSBC Luxembourg. Prior to moving to Luxembourg, Shyam was a global relationship banker in Doha, covering large corporates headquartered in Doha. Shyam has also spent 4 years with HSBC London covering mid-market clients & has also worked in the management office for Global banking department. His areas of interest are credit risk & corporate finance.

Shyam holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) and completed a short exchange programme with Graduate School of Business Stanford. Shyam is a computer scientist by training & was a programmer prior to joining the banking sector – he keenly follows the developments in the fintech sector.

Martin Vogel is Chief Executive Officer Europe at Waystone and is a Board Member of the Waystone Holding Company following the merger of MontLake, MDO and DMS to create the leading global management company and governance firm.

Prior to the merger, Martin was the Chief Executive Officer of MDO Management Company.  As well as being active in all aspects of the business, Martin provided MDO’s clients with advice on product structuring, cross-border distribution strategy and product development.

Martin is a Swiss attorney-at-law and an alumni of IMD and INSEAD.  In 1996, after having worked as a lawyer specialising in banking and finance law, he joined Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd., where his final role was Managing Director and Member of the Executive Management Committee of Julius Baer Asset Management in Zurich.  After leaving the Julius Baer Group in 2008 to pursue his own professional career he took on the role of CEO at MDO Management Company.  Under his leadership, MDO Management Company developed into one of Luxembourg’s leading independent third party management companies which then merged in June 2020 with MontLake and DMS.

Martin Vogel is active in fund associations, advises asset managers on the third party management company landscape and is a regular speaker at international fund conferences.