Panel: Panel Discussion: Entrepreneurship in Finance: an Investor’s Perspective
Date: April 25th at 10.00 AM
Zennon is the Founder and Director of Kapronasia, one of Asia’s leading providers of consulting services focusing on the FinTech industry. Zennon has been involved in financial technology for over 20 years and covers all topics FinTech and blockchain. Before Kapronasia, Zennon was the Global Banking Industry Manager for Intel-based out of Shanghai, China and, prior to Intel, was the CIO for Citigroup Portugal. Zennon has testified in front of the U.S. Congress on issues of China FinTech and is the author of ‘Chomping at the Bitcoin: The History and Future of Bitcoin in China’ published by Penguin. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Syracuse University and an MBA from INSEAD.
Rakesh is an experienced banker with over 26 years of experience with HSBC – across Asia, UK and the Middle East, followed by a stint as the CEO of an independent Private Bank in India. Having done a variety of global, regional and country roles, his knowledge of the financial services industry ranges from Commercial & Corporate Banking, Trade & Receivables Finance, Investment banking and FinTech in recent years. With his background as an International Manager at one of the most global organizations in the world, he has understood and assimilated different cultures.
For the past three years, Rakesh has traveled extensively across Silicon Valley, New York, London, Hong Kong, Barcelona, etc to interact, learn and gain insights into the trends and growth of FinTech, on its new business models, delivery modes, analytics, data usage, and customer engagement merger and evolution. As a traditional banker, he is aware of the magnitude of disruption caused by new technologies, and understand the significance of a merger between traditional and new businesses to build a powerful hybrid of a future financial company.
Shalini Khatwani is a results-driven product marketer and digital business leader with 17 years of global experience in consulting, financial services and payment tech. Her experience crosses continental lines with leadership positions in India, USA, and Singapore; her most recent impact spanning 14 countries in the Asia Pacific region. Shalini began her career in consulting where she built a strong foundation of business strategy and executional discipline. She then transitioned to the financial services and payments sector in product management and strategy positions at premier financial institutions including Standard Chartered, HSBC and JP Morgan Chase managing high-value partner relations and portfolio P&Ls. As Head of Debit at Visa, she has been instrumental in the digitization of customer payments for emerging markets, created high-return engagement platforms and built innovative customer propositions. In each of her positions, Shalini has a reputation for being customer-centric, spearheading exponential growth in new businesses and markets and has perfected the art of meeting local market needs with scaled go-to-market solutions.
Aananth is a technologist with a passion for design-led innovation, which he has skillfully employed to build successful businesses in markets stretching from North America to South Korea. As the CTO and Co-Founder, he leads the technology and product development teams at WeInvest.
Before co-founding Weinvest, Aananth was a co-founder and CTO of welab.co, a Hong Kong-and-China-based mobile lending “Unicorn”. He played a key role in strategic business priorities, fundraising US$20 million and actively contributing towards IP development, customer acquisition strategy, risk management and regulatory compliance. Aananth led the mobile banking division for Standard Chartered Bank, and spearheaded the development and launch of Breeze – an award-winning mobile banking suite. Aananth started his career with Oracle and has made valuable contributions to various organisations including Amazon and Sequoia Capital.
Kelvin Teo is the co-founder of Funding Societies | Modalku, the largest SME digital financing platform in Southeast Asia. Chosen as the Top 200 FinTech influencers in Asia by Lattice 80, Kelvin has spoken at major conferences such as ASEAN Capital Markets Conference, LendIt Shanghai, and Money2020 Singapore. Prior to this, Kelvin served as a consulting professional at KKR, McKinsey, and Accenture. Kelvin graduated from Harvard Business School and the National University of Singapore and is a certified Chartered Accountant.
Panel Discussion: Digital Future of Finance
Date: April 25 at 2:20 PM
Jojo is Chief Executive Officer of Wing (Cambodia), a pioneering and leading Mobile Banking and Finance Institution that has the biggest mobile financial services footprint in Cambodia. Wing allows for the use of innovation and technology to give Cambodians, particularly the unbanked, access to financial services that have not been made available to them in the past.
Jojo is an experienced mobile money and mobile payments executive who brings with him extensive Mobile and Digital Financial Services (DFS) experience in emerging markets, working with key stakeholders in banks, regulators, MNOs, financial institutions, NGOs, international development firms, cooperatives, microfinance companies and global mobile money and financial inclusion organizations. He had worked with companies in the Philippines, Latin, and North America and Africa that married technology and finance that are relevant to the poor.
Alex is one of the inventors of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) with a foundational patent dating back to 1994 and is now working on MOIP (Money Over Internet Protocol) technology. Over 35 patents have been issued to Alex, relating to exchanges, VOIP protocols, messaging and communication.
Alex is a serial entrepreneur and founder of seven New York City-based startups, raising more than $1 billion and exiting over $3 billion. Alex founded two of New York City’s top 10 venture-backed exits since 2000: Arbinet, with a 2004 IPO that had a market capitalization of over $750 million; and Transit Wireless, valued at $1.2 billion.
Alex has received numerous awards for innovation, including being nominated twice by E&Y as ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’, in 2002 & 2011; Crain’s 2010 Top Entrepreneur; the prestigious 2000 Albert Einstein Technology medal; and the Technology Foresight Award for Innovation (presented in Geneva at Telecom 99).
As one of the pioneers of web-based exchanges, Alex authored patents that cover aspects of the Smart Grid, ad exchanges, Twitter, Skype, App Store, Netflix streaming concept and many other popular web companies. Additionally, Arbinet’s fundraising story was featured as a case study in 2001 by Harvard Business School.
Panel Discussion: Trends in Financial Markets and Services
Date: April 25th, 2019 at 11.50 AM
Yai Sukonthabhund is Partner and CEO of Crossbridge Capital Asia, based in Singapore.
Crossbridge Capital is a global wealth management firm that provides independent and tailored investment solutions to private clients. Yai joined Crossbridge Capital in 2010 to establish the firm’s regional presence in Asia. Under his leadership, Crossbridge Capital has seen record growth in assets under management; and initiated various innovative projects across the region. In 2016, Crossbridge Capital Asia launched CONNECT by Crossbridge, Singapore’s first and largest robo advisory platform.
Carl Ward is the Group Technology Officer for Accenture’s Global Health and Public Service business. He specializes in framing and architecting large-scale transformation programs for the public sector. Carl is responsible for the business and solution architecture for many of Accenture’s Public Service transformation opportunities, including work in Tax, Human Services, Health, Postal, Police, and Defence. Carl holds a first class BA (Physics and Theoretical Physics) and MA from Cambridge University, UK.
Digital Citizen Services
Carl is working with agencies on the next generation of digital citizen services. Citizen services are evolving to better support citizens through their lives. The next generation digital services will be based on guiding people through life events – understanding their specific circumstances to provide guidance on what services they are either obliged or eligible for – including non-government services. The experience will be through an AI-enhanced chat rather than forms. This will make services more accessible and understandable to the community.
Digital Trade
Kopal is a techie at heart with 19 years of experience in the financial services industry.
Kopal is currently working in Bank of Singapore where she is the product owner for the Customer Onboarding transformation program. Before joining the Bank of Singapore, she had worked with Barclays and JP Morgan.
