Zurich - Digital Assets Workshop

Simon Gorbutt is Deputy CEO at Luxembourg for Finance, the Agency for the Development of the Financial Centre.

A lawyer qualified in England and Wales, and Ireland, Simon has worked in financial services in Luxembourg since 2007. He joined LFF from a leading Luxembourg provider of unit-linked insurance solutions where he was the company’s Legal and Tax Counsel for the UK, Northern Europe, Asia and International and, later, Director and Head of Wealth Planning, leading a team of specialists working on a global basis at the intersection of private banking, asset management, succession planning and insurance.

A qualified Director, Simon is a founding member of STEP Benelux a.s.b.l. and has served as Chairman of the STEP Benelux Board. He is a Board member of the Luxembourg Association of Family Offices and has also served as Chair of the UK and DAC 6 Working Groups at the Luxembourg Association des Compagnies d’Assurances et de Réassurances, Chair of the AmCham Luxembourg Insurance Committee and Deputy Chair of the Tax Committee at the Association of International Life Offices. Simon teaches on the Masters in Wealth Management at the University of Luxembourg, and on the International Management of Family Wealth programme at the International University of Monaco.

He holds a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from the University of Edinburgh and a Masters in Law, and has received the Certified Digital Asset Advisor designation.

Gerry Afentakis is Managing Director of Zodia Custody Europe and sits on the Board of Zodia’s Luxembourg CSSF regulated entity.

In this role he is responsible for all aspects of Zodia’s commercial, strategic and operational growth across the continent.

Gerry has 20 years of financial services expertise and has a unique track record of scaling early stage financial services businesses across both traditional asset classes and digital assets.

Boika Deleva is a Counsel at Clifford Chance in Luxembourg.

Boika specialises in banking and financial services regulation as well as derivatives, finance, securities, insolvency and general banking law matters.

She advises financial institutions and start-ups on digital finance matters, including tokenisation, issuance of digital assets and use of innovative technologies for traditional financial sector activities.

As an Executive Director at Clearstream, David Guerrero designs the future of digital securities custody. His work centers on digitising and tokenising assets and workflows to create new product categories for institutions, with a long-term strategy for B2B2C expansion. A key part of his role is helping expand post-trade market operations to a 24/7 framework and enhancing the utility of tokenised securities by delivering advanced collateral services. This includes driving the D7 platform, a digital ecosystem that streamlines the issuance of securities.

Before joining Clearstream, he spent eight years at Google building its Cloud organisation for financial services. There, he led innovation projects with major financial institutions. He worked with CME Group on their Cloud transformation and on advancing 24/7 trading capabilities, and with Goldman Sachs on modernising their global ledger.

His background also includes serving as CTO for two startups and holding foundational engineering roles at Microsoft and Disney.

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.

Laurent Marochini was appointed CEO of Standard Chartered Luxembourg in December 2024. He is very involved in the Fintech ecosystem, currently acting as Chairman of the ABBL (Association Banques et Banquiers Luxembourgeois) for the working group for Tokenisation and DLT and was co-chairman of the Working Group Blockchain & Crypto Currencies of ALFI (Association Luxembourgeoise des Fonds d’Investissements) from 1996.

Prior to joining Standard Chartered Luxembourg, Laurent was Head of Innovation at Societe Generale Securities Services in Luxembourg and Blockchain and Crypto Leader for Société Générale Group. He has held various management positions in the banking sector, including at BNP Paribas Securities Services and Credit Suisse.

The industry has recognised Laurent as: Fintech Entrepreneur of the Year by Finance Awards in 2025, Personality of the Year, Digital Assets by Deloitte in 2024, and Top 100 Movers and Shakers in the Banking Industry by Delano in 2023.

Laurent holds a masters in economics and finance as well as a masters in innovation.

Partner Tiago Nogueira’s practice focuses on banking, insurance and financial services regulatory matters.

He advises a large number of credit institutions, MIFID firms, insurance companies, professionals of the financial sector, payment/electronic money institutions and crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) on a wide range of regulatory matters, including CRD/CRR, MiFID, IFD/IFR, PSD, MiCA and AML.

Tiago specialises in the field of licence applications (including legal qualification of regulated services), governance and internal controls, banking, professional secrecy, AML, acquisitions/disposals of qualifying holdings, group reorganisations (including transfer of regulated business units/branches), buyer/vendor due diligences and inspections by regulatory authorities.