SPEAKERS

Airidas is Fintech and Banking professional currently focusing on European business for Contis. Prior to that, Airidas co-founded and developed a FinTech venture, specialising in loyalty and mobile payments. He spent over 11 years in banking sector where he held senior roles including Head of Cash Management for Transaction banking.

Akvilė Bosaitė is a Partner and Co-Head of the Banking and Finance Practice Group. She has specialised in banking, finance, investment funds, project financing, restructuring of financing, securities and M&A for over fourteen years. Akvilė Bosaitė is a recommended expert in finance law by international law firm directories. During her legal practice, Akvilė Bosaitė has led a number of the largest financing, investment funds, capital markets and mergers and acquisitions projects both in Lithuania and foreign jurisdictions. She acted as an adviser in numerous banking-related assignments (including lending, refinancing and loan portfolio sale), one of the few initial public offerings of equity and debt securities in Lithuania, structuring and formation of various funds (including venture, seed and UCITS) and other finance law related projects.

Alex Gibb is the co-founder and a partner at Katalista Ventures. Alex is a catalyst and connector, and his role at Katalista Ventures sees him connecting the dots between his passions of entrepreneurship and sustainability to help startups grow and prosper. Alex left a corporate career in finance to pursue his passion and start Katalista Ventures, a hybrid startup accelerator and private equity fund which focuses on triple top line perspectives for startups. Alex had also been an investor for almost a decade, as well as a member of Lithuania’s angel investors network. Sustainability had a profound impact on his worldview, so Katalista was founded with the goal of supporting startups that benefit people and the planet, as well as building capacity in the wider ecosystem. Alex is a board member and mentor at various NGOs in Lithuania, including UNICEF. He is an experienced presenter and has spoken at TEDx. When not working on Katalista or other projects, Alex likes to spend time reading, traveling and experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen.

Andrius is a passionate blockchain visionary and prominent business development professional with a passion for new technologies and innovations. He is a solution architect and team lead of SUPER HOW? spinoff project “Depository Center” – a distributed central securities depository network running on corporate distributed ledger technology, and is a fully transparent, secure, and standardized system for the issuing, depositing and accounting of tokenized financial instruments – Smart digital securities.

Andrius has a huge experience working in large-scale innovative projects. Moreover, as a market professional, Andrius is an active participant of governmental and institutional working groups and projects setting the regulatory framework for digital assets in Lithuania and the European Union.

Andrius is a seasoned FinTech expert and enthusiast. He joined Revolut almost from the very beginning and jumped through multiple positions in the company, from business development, managing the Baltic region and then globally to the Global Head of People. Andrius recently joined the management of Revolut Bank and is now responsible for banking operations and expansion in Europe.

Anton Zujev is the Head of Business Development and Sales at Forbis in Lithuania, a leading provider of full-stack banking systems and Fintech expertise with more than 25 years of experience.  Passionate about Fintech and how financial institutions can grow and scale faster, Anton joined Forbis in 2015, and oversaw the creation of Fininbox, which deliver core banking Software as a Service to Neobanks, EMIs, credit unions and other financial institutions who value ease of setup and agility. Anton is also a board member at Contomobile, an electronic money institution licensed by Bank of Lithuania which account-to-account Payment Initiation Service and SEPA gateway to other Fintechs.

An active member of FintechLT (Infobalt) association, you can find Anton participating at different work groups, initiatives or representing Forbis group at different FinTech events worldwide.

Ash Costello is a blockchain and privacy lawyer, with a background in financial services law, and is the General Counsel of the Integra Network.

She is also a member of the Expert Panel of EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum  https://www.eublockchainforum.eu/

Audrius has been working in IT service delivery, consulting, and project management for over 20 years. His vision is to create a solution that will grant everyone control over their identity data and the power to manage that personal data however they want. Audrius is passionate about transforming visions into working solutions, about the Blockchain/DLT, IoT, AI. Audrius holds various degrees in Microelectronics, Finance, and Project Management and is currently based in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Barbara Halasek is the Head of Regulatory Affairs in Coinfirm responsible for regulatory compliance area within Coinfirm products. Formerly a Financial Crime Compliance Officer for UBS Investment Bank London, she has an extensive experience in a variety of AML Compliance matters- including KYC, Sanctions and Anti-Bribery advisory. She has been leading  a Compliance Delivery function in UBS Business Centre covering not only AML advisory matters, but wider Compliance related teams (marketing materials compliance advisory, monitoring & surveillance, compliance assurance). Within UBS she was also acting as a senior FinCrime Compliance expert in the re-definition of UBS Global Target Operating Model for Client Onboarding and  co-represented EMEA in the revision of UBS Global AML standards.  Moving from wider compliance to more focused operational environment, she has been EMEA KYC Policy Lead for Deutsche Bank responsible for the roll out of global KYC standards in EMEA local offices.  Her interest in technology supporting AML compliance resulted in the move to software sector.  Before joining Coinfirm, she has been acting as Lead Domain Architect managing the global business architect function and defining business functionalities of KYC and AML related solutions at Pegasystems product suite.

She holds an ICA International Diploma in AML, Software Development Higher Diploma from National College of Ireland  and CFA Claritas Diploma on investment industry.

Chia Hock Lai is the CEO of Switchnovate and Senior Blockchain Advisor of Tembusu Partners. He has two decades of experience in the financial and technology industries, having worked in Singapore’s GovTech and NTUC Income.

An alumnus of NUS and NTU, he is the co-chairman of the Blockchain Association Singapore, co-founder of the Global Fintech Institute, and former & founding president of Singapore Fintech Association. He is a council member of and strategic advisor to numerous tech start-ups and organizations such as Bondevalue, RootAnt, Morpheus Labs, IEEE C/BDL, Global Impact Fintech Forum and a Fellow of the Singapore University of Social Science (SUSS).

Having already founded several companies, Daumantas Dvilinskas is the Co-Founder and CEO of TransferGo – a high-growth digital money transfer service. Whilst leading the company, TransferGo has been nominated for “Fastest Rising Startup of the Year” at TechCrunch Europa Awards 2018, been through two successful funding rounds – most recently securing an additional £4m investment – and expanded to over 153 markets, supporting over 2.5million customers worldwide with over 10 million transactions. Daumantas is also a well-known advisor in the fintech scene, featuring in the 2017 Forbes 30 under 30 and was also part of the Innovative Finance delegation at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2016.

Diego Perez is the CEO of ABFintechs, the Fintech Association of Brazil, a not-for-profit organization that represents the common interests of the Brazilian Fintech Industry on the interactions with regulators and lawmakers. Diego is also the co-founder of SMU Investments, an investment based crowdfunding platform that connects investors to promising startup companies that are fundraising through a digital platform.

Dmitrij has long experience in emerging technologies and innovations with actual real-life demand. He started his crypto journey back in 2015 and follows evangelistic path till now, educating people about DeFi, Blockchain utilisation and even NFTs.

Domantas is passionate about digital security and anti-fraud technologies development. With almost 10 years of experience in the fraud prevention industry, he leads “iDenfy,” an identity verification and fraud prevention company. During his career, he has held CTO, COO, and CEO positions at fraud prevention and detection companies.

Dominykas Stankevičius is scouting, investing in and building the next fintech unicorns in the Baltics. He connects local startups with investors and partners in the US market. Dominykas holds an MBA from INSEAD and MSc in Global Business and Sustainability from Rotterdam School of Management.

Silicon Valley-Wall Street-Pentagon Digital Pioneer MIT-Princeton Industry Expert Dr. Yogesh Malhotra is the Founding Chairman & CEO of the New York, USA, based global venture capital and private equity firm Global Risk Management Network, LLC, the worldwide pioneer in AI-ML-DL-Quant-Cyber-Crypto-Quantum-Risk-Computing Practices. As CEO, CIO, CTO, and CISO of global Digital ventures with global clients-patrons such as Goldman Sachs, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and, Ogilvy, institutions such as Harvard and MIT, and, ACM, NSF, UN, U.S. and world governments, Dr. Yogesh Malhotra is an industry pioneer in Human-Centered and Meaning-Driven Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Uncertainty Time-Space Complexity practices. As Industry Expert and CEOs-CxOs Leader for MIT Computer Science & AI Lab, he recently led 200 Management & Leadership executives from firms such as Google, Microsoft, Tesla, and, Silicon Valley firms to develop, deploy, and, implement AI, Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning (DL), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) strategy road maps. As Industry Expert for the Princeton Quant Trading & Finance and Crypto-FinTech Conferences sponsored by firms such as Goldman Sachs and Citadel, his recent presentations advanced Cyber-Crypto resilience practices for AI-ML-DL-GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks) and Quantum Computing and Quantum Cryptography.

Eglė Markevičiūtė is the Vice-Minister of the Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania, responsible for innovation, industry and the digital policy. E. Markevičiūtė holds BA and MA degrees in Political science at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University. Previously she worked as a lobbyist and policy and public relations consultant. In 2011 co-founded European Students For Liberty – a global economic education organization in Europe.

Eimantas Vytuvis is currently leading the newly established Centre of Excellence in Anti-Money Laundering (public-private partnership initiative) in Lithuania. He started his career in the police, later working at the Special Investigation Service, with the main focus on corruption crimes investigation. Before moving to the Centre of Excellence in AML, Eimantas has been leading the Customer Risk Management unit in Lithuania, with main responsibilities of KYC, AML, Sanctions and Fraud investigations. Eimantas has a law degree and is certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (ACAMS).

Esther is currently actively involved in Fintech, advises Holland Fintech and is Executive Board Member at EWPN. She has a strong background in Banking, Payments & Fintech. She was Partner at Innopay, a Dutch strategy consultancy firm in digital transactions and worked for over 10 years in global transaction services at ABN Amro and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Esther is a strong advocate for a diverse and inclusive financial industry with inspiring male and female role models. As such she actively promotes the positive impact of diversity on the performance of businesses and digital transformation.

Evaldas has a B.Sc in Software engineering from Vilnius University as well as International Executive Master of Business Administration (E.M.B.A) from Baltic Management Institute, moreover, he is currently finishing studies of Psychotherapy and preparing for Economy PhD studies next year.

Evaldas is a Deputy director at Lithuanian Cybercrime Center of Excellence for Training, participating in couple of H2020 projects: SPARTA working as Research Programme Manager; Lion DC working as Project Manager and more.

As a professional, Evaldas has a working experience as a business development analyst and consultant, working in the service sector for more than 12 years as a consultant and manager with experience in the implementation, maintenance and support of high complexity information systems. Evaldas is certified Blockchain Solutions Expert.

As industry professional Evaldas is active participant of INATBA’s working group for digital asset standardisation and European Commission regulatory framework recommendations as well as participating in a governmental Cyber security and crime themed initiatives and working groups.

With a wealth of business experience, he is board member at various companies. Among his most interesting and most significant career achievements is his participation in the creation of successful companies that operate in the technology and finance industry, and investments in startup companies.

With over 12 years of experience in Bank Connectivity, George, Open Banking Product Director at Klarna has played a huge role in the current Open Banking landscape. His knowledge in the industry makes him a crucial piece when building Klarna’s Open Banking strategy and a big contributor to future Open Finance opportunities.

Gibson is Head of Solutions for EMEA at Sensedia and is based in Dublin. With over 14 years of experience in Software Development, Agile Methodologies and Architecture. He is an expert in APIs and has worked in multiple industries (Retail, Pharma, Health Insurance, Banking and some others) to support them changing their integration approach and API strategy.

Since 11 December 2020 Minister of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania. In 2016 was elected as Member of the Seimas (Parliament) of the Republic of Lithuania and re-elected in 2020 (Member for Panemunė constituency). Between 2007 and 2016 was Kaunas City Councillor. Worked as an expert at the Lithuanian Social Market Development Institute. Since 2005 is Member of the Homeland Union. Is a Member of Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union and Honorary Member of the Lithuanian Community of the Atlantic Treaty.

Hugo joined techUK in March 2019 as the Programme Manager for Financial Services and Payments.

Before joining techUK, he worked in policy and public relations for different bodies and agencies, including the economic and financial services team of the French Prime Minister’s EU affairs department, Edelman and CMS Strategic.

Hugo holds a master’s degree in Public Affairs from Paris Sorbonne University. In his spare time, he enjoys cooking and photography.

Jarosław is an experienced FinTech business and technology expert who supports organizations through facilitating and enabling the digitization and digital transformation processes and shows them the direction forward. He is also mentoring startups by sharing his knowledge and experience to help them meet their business goals.

Jarosław is a founding member at FinTech Connector – the exclusive, professional membership network that connects people, opportunities and capital to innovate financial services on a global scale.  Also, as a Community Partner at FinTech Connector Jarosław is building fintech communities in Poland and CEE Countries and connect them with global community.

Jennifer Reynolds is the President & CEO of Toronto Finance International (TFI), a public-private partnership whose mission is to promote and develop Toronto’s financial services sector, and to establish its prominence as a leading global financial centre.
Jennifer’s 20 year career in the financial services industry has included senior roles in investment banking, venture capital, and global risk management. Prior to joining TFI, Jennifer was the President & CEO of Women in Capital Markets (WCM), Canada’s largest industry association and advocacy group for women in the financial sector. Jennifer is a Director on the Board of Citibank Canada, Director on the Board of BF&M Insurance Group Ltd, Director on the Board of the Canada Development Investment Corporation (“CDEV”), and a Director on the Board of Women’s College Hospital Foundation. Jennifer is the Co-Chair of the UN convened Financial Centres for Sustainability (FC4S) network and also serves on the Advisory Council for the Institute of Sustainable Finance. In 2015 and 2017, she was named a Women’s Executive Network (WXN) Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award Winner. Jennifer is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Women’s Leadership program, and she received her MBA from McGill University, as well as a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Economics and Political Science from McGill University. Jennifer also holds the Institute of Corporate Directors Designation, ICD.D.

Jon Ølnes has more than 25 years’ experience from work on electronic identity (eID), electronic signatures and trust services services as researcher, consultant and in both the private and public sector. The last 3,5 years he has worked on product development for Signicat, one of Europe’s leading provider of identity-related services. Jon has for many years been heavily engaged in policy-level discussions around eID and trust services in Europe. Jon is an active member of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute’s (ETSI) Technical Committee on Electronic Signatures and Infrastructures (ESI), providing digital signature and trust services standardization for Europe. He is editor of ETSI’s recently published standard on identity proofing for trust service subjects.

Julija (JJ) is Black Unicorn PR’s founder and CEO. JJ is a trained journalist and counts with over a decade of experience in Public Relations and communications, and has worked both in-house and agency-side internationally with the world’s most renowned brands, including TomTom, ASUS and VISA until shifting her focus towards the world of startups in 2015. In 2018, JJ founded Black Unicorn PR to bring something new to the market – a PR agency that would put itself in the shoes of startup founders and support them as a true extension of their team. Black Unicorn PR has worked with clients globally, targeting the English-speaking media, including the UK, US, Germany, Australia, South Africa, Switzerland and Estonia among others.

JS KANG(CEO) has over 10+ years of experience at Citibank(M&A, risk management in retail banking), leading the overall Banking-as-a-Service and AI strategy to redesign Digital Banking with an automated banking operating system. He is currently part of the AI Working Group committee members under the Financial Services Commission to contribute to creating AI guidelines in the financial services industry and on the digital economy overall. He previously worked at the National Assembly of Korea under the former Financial Minister of Korea, and as an IT consultant at LG CNS. He was an early investor of Wipower, a wireless charging technology, which was later acquired by Qualcomm in 2010. Kang earned his MBA degree at Chicago Booth School of Business and is a graduate of Seoul National University.

Kalev has worked over 20 years in IT and cyber security field and has shared his experience and knowledge through various presentations to wide variety of audiences. He has contributed to the creation of Estonian national ID card, mobile-ID, e-residency program and Smart-ID, he is also one of the spokespersons for electronic signing in EU. Since 2008 he is CEO of SK ID Solutions, this is company responsible for eID infrastructure and were electronic Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians are created.

Liudas is an entrepreneur with over 15 years’ experience and knowledge in digital banking, Fintech, AML/KYC procedures, licensing and legal issues. In 2020, Liudas was nominated as Fintech Leader of the Year presented by Fintech Week Lithuania Awards. All his career, Liudas has held C-level positions in different types of companies and has dedicated the last seven years to the Fintech industry as an active Fintech community member. He is currently the Co-founder and CEO of Ondato.

Liutauras advises fintech companies looking to scale and lisence in Europe. He has worked with companies from the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Nordics and the United States helping them build their European operations by leveraging benefits of Lithuanian Fintech landscape: talent pool, infrastructure, and regulatory environment.

Prior to moving to the governmental sector, Liutauras worked in a fintech startup focusing on tokenizing real estate. With an academic backround in economics and political science Liutauras works on looking for new growth opportunities in Lithuania’s Fintech sector.

Mantvydas Štareika leads the first Lithuanian neobank SME Bank, which is focused to bringing the key banking services to underbanked SMEs via digital platform and expanding the neobank’s operations outside national borders.

Prior to joining SME Bank, Mantvydas lead one of largest international credit insurance company Coface in Baltic region.

Experienced in legal, credit risk management, debt collection, sales and general management, Mantvydas has a legal education and a master’s degree in business administration.

Marcilio is the Co-Founder and CGO of Sensedia – a leading integration solutions provider with more than +120 enterprise clients across a range of sectors.Master in Software Engineering by the University of Campinas and an Associate Professor at the University of Campinas and Metrocamp. Marcilio has also been a Research Lead at the Innovations Lab in University of Campinas.

Mariane ter Veen is director, lead data sharing and public services at consulting firm INNOPAY. She helps organisations to fully embrace the opportunities of the digital transactions era by adopting a more open outlook, collaborating across ecosystems and creating new value.

She believes in a world where trusted data exchange is the key to unlocking new business models and reducing costs.

As an enabler of this, she is a strong advocate of data sovereignty, which gives people and organisations control over their data. She is the coordinator of Data Sovereignty Now, a campaign of like-minded organisations urging European policymakers at all levels to ensure that control of data remains in the hands of the people and organisations that generate it.

Mariane has a wealth of experience in the domain of data sharing, both in public/private partnerships as well as helping individual organisations, and recently spearheaded the development of the iSHARE logistics data-sharing scheme.

With the experience of more than 15 years in Cyber Security Mario is dedicated to Design future of Trust.

He is an expert focusing in the application of Cryptography in complex infrastructures.

Marios Skandalis is a Fellow member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (UK), a licensed member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (US), a Fellow member of The Chartered Governance Institute – ICSA (UK) and a Certified Financial Consultant.  He is also a Fellow member of the International Compliance Association (UK) and a professional member of the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (US).

Today he is the Director of the Group Compliance Division of the Bank of Cyprus Group.  His professional career commenced in 1995 when he served as an Audit Supervisor and a Senior Management Consultant with Ernst & Young in the South-Eastern European region.  In year 2000 he moved to the Bank of Cyprus Group and took the post of Chief Financial Officer of the General Insurance of Cyprus for over a decade.  He then took the post of Manager for the Organization of the Bank’s Overseas Operations until 2013 when he was appointed as Legal Representative and head of the Bank of Cyprus’ operations in Greece.

Mr Skandalis is the President of the Cyprus Integrity Forum (CIF) and the Vice-President and founder member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (Cyprus).  He is also a Board member of the International Advisory Board of the International Compliance Association (ICA – UK).

Mr Skandalis is the past President of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus (ICPAC) and the former Executive Vice-President and founder member of Transparency International (Cyprus).  He is an active anti-fraud/corruption, compliance and corporate governance professional and chairs or participates as key note speaker to related international conferences/forums in Europe.

Mr Skandalis is the winner of the 2016 Banker of the Year Award – Cyprus by the AI Magazine in the United Kingdom.  He is also the winner of the 2017 American Academy Nicosia Alumni Achievement Award in recognition of his remarkable success and achievements in his chosen career of compliance, corporate governance and anti-financial crime.

Business and Technology executive with 15+ years of proven track record in developing digital products and accelerating growth in various enterprises. Experienced in the Global Finance industry, Marius is proficient at delivering highly scalable and reliable systems and platforms. Well-versed in organizational development and navigating teams of experts towards common goals.

Marius Pareščius is a Lithuanian entrepreneur, innovator, coach, and startup enthusiast. Marius will share his personal experience with the latest fintech crime trend and share ideas on how to protect yourself and your business.

Martynas is privacy practitioner and a co-founder of Privacy Partners, specializing in privacy and security for tomorrow’s data driven businesses. Future finance will be cross-industry business, blending finance with other industries data, with need for deep privacy, security in decentralized services and identities world. As certified CIPP/E and CIPM privacy practitioner I do strive to implement innovative approaches and build-in privacy in value chains of our customers, supporting and not disrupting business. Privacy audits, implementation of privacy programs and good IT governance practice standards for companies in Lithuania, EU and other countries. Developing Data Protection Officer knowledgebase and application in cloud (EU financed project). Prior to Privacy Partners, I have 16 years of Microsoft experience, also work in Public sector and IT companies association of Lithuania.

Martynas Kasiulis is a crypto content and business development expert with a focus on gamification. Before becoming the CEO of DailyCoin, a hybrid news outlet, and bespoke communication consulting agency, he was the creative and business lead for various IOT, digital marketing, and educational projects across Europe. He is currently working with various successful DeFi, NFT, and Fintech brands and projects as a business development and communication strategist with such industry-leading brands as BDSWISS, BitNuk, GCR, Swiss AMF, ChangeNow, and others.

Michel is General Manager Benelux at Mambu with 10 years of experience and a strong track-record in consulting and business development within the financial services industry. Motivated by helping banks and lenders create more value for their customers with flexible and scalable solutions, he leads growth and drives execution in the Benelux & Baltic region.

Mike Butcher MBE is Editor-at-large of TechCrunch, and co-founder of ThePathfounder.com magazine and its editorial events. Mike has been named one of the most influential journalists in European technology by Wired and The Daily Telegraph. He co-founded The Europas Awards for European startups, the non-profits TechVets and Techfugees, the co-working network TechHub. He is a regular tech commentator on the BBC, Sky News, CNN, CNBC and Aljazeera and has been a judge on The Apprentice UK. GQ magazine named him one of the 100 Most Connected Men in the UK and he’s a “Maserati 100 innovator”. He has advised the UK government on tech startup policy and awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Mindaugas is CEO of SME Finance, a leading B2B fintech platform in the Baltics, holding 14 years of experience working in finance. Passionate about revolutionizing finance and helping businesses to find the most optimal financing solutions. Determined to empower businesses to grow faster, easier and digital way!

Faisal is the Head of FC/AML and the resident SME at Sentinels.ai. Sentinels is an AI-based Client Risk platform and an AML transaction monitoring system. At Sentinels, Faisal assists the various product, innovation and GTM teams to develop advanced AML technologies for PSP’s, EMI’s and Bank clients. As an instructor at ACAMS and his decade of experience as a compliance officer across various fintechs, Faisal works with client compliance teams to ensure that the compliance program requirements are being met by Sentinels through continuous product iteration, training and development.

Patryk is a Blockchain Solution Expert at IBM. He participated in several projects focused on blockchain technology in CEE and specialise in business analysis and solutions architecture. Patryk has practical experience in delivering training and workshops in the area of blockchain. He is also a member of a blockchain special interests groups and a guest lecturer on University courses in Poland.

On a mission to redefine core banking. Neobank expert. Keynote speaker and mentor in several FinTech accelerator programs such as Startup Wise Guys.

Remco frequently organizes FinTech events on the future of banking aimed at creating a rare conversation between real heavyweights of incumbents, challenger banks and FinTechs to discuss the future of banking, competition, collaboration and everything in between.

Rolands co-founded Nordigen with his classmate from Stockholm School of Economics in Riga in 2016. Before Nordigen, Rolands spent his early career days working in FMCG and web development. Rolands has been awarded Forbes 30-under-30 in Latvia and has been featured as a Nordigen founder by TechCrunch, Financial Times and Sifted.

Economics and sustainability aficionado working within sustainable investments framework since the regulatory inception at a European level. Member of national and international expert groups on sustainable finance.

Rūta Bajarūnaitė is an expert at the Centre of Excellence in Anti-Money Laundering. Before joining the Centre of Excellence in AML she worked as a bilingual lawyer and supported an international law firm on a high-profile anti-money laundering investigation in Stockholm on behalf of a multinational financial institution with the focus on clients‘ data and identification of key documents, issues and compliance deficiencies. Later she joined KPMG Lithuania as an AML advisor where she helped financial market participants to identify, manage and mitigate their ML/TF risk exposures in line with legislative requirements and industry better practice. Rūta holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics, Master’s degree in international economics and politics and Master’s degree in law, with a specialization in international law.

CEO and co-founder of Baltic Sandbox accelerator, early-stage investor, mentor at differenet Europeaan acceleration and incubation programs and hackathons, women in tech and diversity advocate. Co-founder, CEO, and lecturer at Business Angel School: education programs for the EU-based business angels.

Sang H. Lee is the CEO and Co-Founder of digital asset management firm, VegaX Holdings. Formerly an investment banker at leading European investment bank BNP Paribas, Sang has significant experience in financial engineering, fintech and in the advisory and execution of more than $10.0 Bn equivalent of investment banking transactions in North America. He was recognized as “Top Global Talent,” providing him with exclusive opportunities to work with the bank’s Executive Committee on global strategic initiatives. Sang was also recognized as an ‘Under30CEO Entrepreneur to Watch in New York City,’ a ‘GOOD100’ fellow, and the founder of a non-profit for Korean Entrepreneurs (KSE). Sang is also a 3-time fintech founder of award winning fintech companies such as DarcMatter (est. 2015) and Konstellation (est. 2018).

As a true financial technology visionary, Sang has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career towards the promotion and adoption of necessary financial regulatory changes, as well as industry-leader buy-in, to support the significant evolutionary needs of the financial services industry through the use of key financial technology tools. Of note, “The JOBs Act,” “Title II” and “Title III,” are all regulatory innovations that Sang directly championed and brought to the forefront for regulators.

Sang is an internationally renowned keynote speaker, providing note-worth and press garnering presentations on various topics including financial technology, blockchain, and digital assets.  He has accepted speaking invitations from organizations such as the UN, International CES, Harvard University, MoneyConf, SuperReturn East/West, World Economic Forum (WEF), World Blockchain Forum (WBF), Korea Blockchain Week(KBW), and Asia Blockchain Summit(ABS).  He was featured in both domestic and international publications including Forbes, Bloomberg Radio, Private Wealth Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, CNBC, FINalternatives, CoinTelegraph, Korea Economic Daily, and many more.

Under Sang’s leadership, his companies have successfully secured various prestigious awards, of note: NextMoney “Best Growth Stage FinTech Company”, Korean Startup Grand Challenge (Top 4 out of 120), FinTech Breakthrough Awards “Best Innovation for Retail Investment,” and “Company of the Year in Banking and Financial Services” from The Stevie’s Organization.  Most recently, Konstellation won its first award, as “Best Blockchain Technology Provider” in the 2019 WealthManagement.com Industry Awards.  VegaX was also accepted into the prestigious global accelerator, Chinaccelerator, receiving investment from several VC firms post demo day in 2020.

Sang’s leadership as the co-founder and CEO of leading fintech companies, most recently including VegaX Holdings, touts a laser focus on successfully delivering upon the companies’ universal mission globally: Utilize key fintech solutions to enhance capital flow, create transparency, and provide efficient access to financial services globally.

Sarp Demiray began his banking career back in 1999 at Garanti BBVA, Turkey. After several years working in product development, CRM & Marketing, and institutional sales, he joined the Direct Banking department in 2005 as the Head of Marketing. He personally led the digital transformation journey from transactional migration to direct sales and then to new business development. In 2011, he was recruited by Akbank as SVP, Channel and Product Development, and then as SVP, Direct Banking. There, he led the strategies for direct banking services for retail, SME, and commercial clients as well as new channel initiatives. In 2014, he became the CEO of AtaOnline, the first online investment and brokerage company and one of the biggest finance groups in Turkey. During this time, he also took the role of Group CDO at the finance group. He joined Cigna, one of the leading insurance companies globally, as the EVP responsible for the channel, product, marketing, and analytics departments. Since 2021, he has been working as the CEO of European Merchant Bank, an ECB licensed bank that focuses on enhancing the access that SMEs and Fintechs have to banking services. He has an Electrical and Electronics Engineering MS degree and an MBA degree from METU, Turkey.

Shaul is Global Head of Bank Partnerships at Railsbank, a global banking as a service platform. In this role Shaul is responsible for developing the platform’s network of banking partners and payment schemes and helping Railsbank and its customers reach more countries around the world.

Previously, as the UK Government’s first Fintech advisor, Shaul collaborated with governments, innovative companies and financial institutions to accelerate innovation across industry verticals. At the Department for International Trade, Shaul helped build the UK Fintech ecosystem, cementing its global leadership position and supporting Fintech companies growing cross border business.
Earlier in his career, Shaul held various roles within retail banking technology and finance. He is also a basketball junkie.

At Huawei, she is building a new, global team from Oslo, Norway, aimed at the world’s banking and finance sector. Her accomplishments in the industry were awarded in March 2021 as she was named amongst Norway’s 50 leading women in tech.

Siri looks back at a successful track record of being a part in building up companies: she was one of the first hires at media agency OMD Norway, she was one of the first to be hired and helped establish national radio station Kanal 24 (now Radio Norge) working in radio sales, and she played a key role in Google Norway, hugely contributing to their success.

She was named Best Sales Person in the Media Industry in 2005 in Norway, which is what took her to Google in 2007. At Google, she worked for 12 years, where she was the Industry Leader for Travel & Finance and served as Brand & Culture/Innovation Evangelist in Silicon Valley and later as Leader of Digital Transformation. In 2016, she spent three months at Googleplex, Google’s headquarters, as a visiting Google evangelist.

She is a popular speaker on topics such as fintech, digitalisation, digital marketing, digital transformation, culture and innovation. She has 20+ years of experience across marketing, sales and tech and has held various board positions. Siri has a strong and passionate relationship with digitalisation, organisational culture, innovation and the opportunities technology provides, and how it can improve both the customer journey and not least the results.

Susan Oh is CMO for Beyond Imagination, the makers of the world’s most advanced multi-purpose humanoid AI robots, founded by XPrize cofounder Harry Kloor, and inventor  Ray Kurzweil (former Chief Scientist, Google).

She is advisor and global ambassador to NeoFlow Asset Management, and  Impulse4Women. She is also founder of Muckr AI, and a founding Board Member of Blockchain Commission For Sustainable Development with support from the Office of Partnerships UN GA. A former journalist since age 16 (CNBC, EIU, Newsweek), she speaks around the world on digital financial inclusion, including at the UN GA, ITU, The Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Maths and Sciences, and WEF Davos.

Taavi has been working in the financial crime-fighting field for over a decade. Starting out in Skype where he led Fraud, Analytics and Revenue Assurance teams, from there he moved to Wise where he helped to build the tools and teams for AML, Fraud and KYC solutions, ultimately leading the global AML team. In 2018, Taavi decided the time was right to launch his own regtech company, Salv, and focus his efforts on building the smart tools financial institutions need to fight financial crime more effectively. Taavi is also a Board Member and Head of the Fintech section in FinanceEstonia, the peak body for the Estonian finance sector, and Board Member and Head of the AML Working Group in the European Fintech Association.

Tee Pruitt is Head of Partnerships at Doconomy, a leading Climate Fintech startup based on Stockholm.

Tee has spent the last 3 years at the intersection of Fintech and sustainability, advising large global banks and insurers on building new digital ventures, strategic partnerships and investments around climate change.

Prior to Tee’s sustainability journey, he was a Fintech venture capital investor in London for 9 years where he led investments across stages and geographies.

Tomas is a senior IT security consultant at Transcendent Group. He is IT security professional with both practical experience in security management and theoretical background various IT security disciplines.
He has significant practical experience in security testing, security incident response, and security architecture.Before joining Transcendent Group, Tomas was responsible for overall coordination of IT security incident response and threat intelligence in Swedbank Group.

Tomas is CEO at Finbee Verslui, a leading crowdfunding platform for SMEs operating in Lithuania. Prior to Finbee Verslui, he was working in London at iwoca (one of the most innovative SME lender in Europe) and Paysafe (multinational online payments company). Tomas holds a Finance degree from the University of Stirling.

Tomas is passionate about making most of the value to the organisations through privacy and security leadership. He was Chief Information Security Officer in merged at that time and one of the largest financial services providers in the Baltics until changing the sector. Currently, he is a director of Privacy and Security at Vinted – the most extensive online customer to customer marketplace in Europe dedicated to second-hand fashion with a growing community of more than 37+ million customers. Tomas has combined technical and governance knowledge into effective leadership since the early journey of his carrier. He is sharing his experience as a keynote speaker in business conferences and academic communities.

Latvian-born Uldis Tēraudkalns is the CEO of Nexpay, a Vilnius-based fintech startup that provides banking infrastructure for the digital assets industry.

For any company working in the digital assets industry, Nexpay offers the convenience and security of conventional banking products while providing the entry point and infrastructure to enable the next evolution of finance and commerce as we know it. At Nexpay, Uldis is responsible for long-term strategy and vision, culture, partnerships, business development and investor relations.

Uldis is a graduate of the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) in Riga, one of Europe’s most prestigious business schools and holds a Master’s degree in Finance from SSE in Stockholm. Uldis previously worked in banking as well as investment management.

As Chairman of the Board at Globitex, Uldis  identified the need for financial services and banking infrastructure in a nascent digital assets industry. He took over as CEO at Nexpay in 2020.

Uldis is co-host of The Pursuit of Scrappiness, a leading business podcast in the Baltics that dissects the practices of entrepreneurs and startup founders with the objective of providing actionable insights.

Vaiva has been working with Fintech Ecosystem for a while. Currently, she leads Fintech Hub LT association. In her previous role, she together with other key Fintech ecosystem builders developed & implemented Lithuania Fintech strategy. She has worked in London for five years, where she implemented global service contracts for clients such as RBS Group, McKinsey & Company and Bloomberg, managed international teams around the world. She also holds a CAMS certificate and continues to upgrade her knowledge in AML.

Vytautas Karalevicius is a co-founder of Bankera – a bank account alternative for digital businesses and entrepreneurs (founded in 2017) and SpectroCoin – a cryptocurrency exchange (founded in 2013). He is a graduate of Cambridge University (United Kingdom) and a PhD in cryptocurrency candidate at KU Leuven (Belgium).

Vytautas Kašėta is a distributed systems architect, blockchain professional, entrepreneur, and a community builder. He is a Deep Tech and Next Reality enthusiast, a visionary, diving deep into the world of token economics, securitization, digital innovations, and crypto economy development.

Vytautas is a co-founder and digital innovations hero at SUPER HOW? – a private DARQ technologies lab; a president of Crypto Economy Organisation – an association uniting crypto, blockchain and distributed technologies ecosystem stakeholders and professionals; a co-founder of Blockchain Lithuania competence center; a member of the Vilnius City Council. Speaks and educates.

Vytautas is a graduate physicist of Vilnius University. He has a working knowledge in cryptography, information and communication technologies management, leadership, cyber and data security. Vytautas is a certified blockchain architect, information security officer and Microsoft Azure cloud professional.