Leveraging Fintech for Business

Jai Arya

Jai Arya is a Senior Adviser to the Dean, NUS Business School, Singapore and Head of Executive Education. He is also a member of the Board of the UK based research consultancy, the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF). In addition Mr. Arya is also an independent director of Max Financial Services, the parent company of Max Life Insurance, India’s largest non-bank owned private insurance company. He has also been a Senior Adviser for Asian banking to Mckinsey & Company, and has also consulted on a project basis for the Asian Development Bank.

Prior to this Mr. Arya worked for Bank of New York Mellon for 27 years and Bank of America for 10 years, in various Asian locations. Before leaving BNY Mellon in April 2014, Mr. Arya was an EVP and global head of their business with sovereign Institutions, as well as a member of the bank’s Global Operating Committee as well as Asia Executive Committee. Earlier roles included head of Asia client relationships and Asian country offices.

Mr. Arya received an MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University and a BA(honours) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

Ernie Teo

Ernie Teo is a tech economist with a specialization blockchain and fintech. He is Chief Technology Officer at JEDTrade, where he leads the research and development of the blockchain platform, Jupiter Chain.

Ernie is active in the blockchain community in Singapore, giving talks and seminars both in the industry and at universities. His last position was as a Research Scientist at the IBM Center for Blockchain Innovation where he was involved in developing blockchain projects for industry.

Ernie received his PhD in Economics from the University of New South Wales, Australia. He’s also held academic positions in Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University.

Chris Boncimino

Chris Boncimino leads Visa’s Innovation & Design team in Asia Pacific, which includes the award-winning Singapore Innovation Center.

In this role, Chris works closely with clients and partners using the Innovation Center’s proven methodology that drives new ideas to market. Chris and his team are focused on shaping the future of commerce as payments move beyond physical cards into new digital form factors. Just a few examples of projects Chris and his team have worked on are: giving consumers more control over how they use their payment cards, bringing payments into the Internet of Things and exploring ways to replace paper receipts with more useful digital versions.

Prior to Visa, Chris ran Product Strategy and Solution Management at PayPal. He is an alumnus of JPMorganChase where he built JPMC’s B2B Global ACH products and JPM ACCESS products. Chris was a management consultant with Diamond Management Partners with clients such as Goldman Sachs, the United States Federal Reserve, and other financial services and telecom clients. Chris earned his Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Michigan Business School.

Sopnendu Mohanty

Sopnendu Mohanty is responsible for creating development strategies, public infrastructure and regulatory policies around technology innovation. Mohanty has spent over 20 years in various leadership roles globally in technology, finance and innovation. He has co-authored several patented works in area of retail distribution of the financial sector. Mohanty extensively engages with ecosystems of various jurisdictions on innovation, policy-making and tech-enabled financial services. He is on the Institutional Investor’s list of influential FinTech global dealmakers. Mohanty has been recognised internationally as a FinTech thought leader and he was recently named the Market Reformer of the Year by IFL, Euromoney.

Mikko S. Niemelä

Mr Mikko Niemelä is the CEO of Cyber Intelligence House, a leading cyber intelligence agency which he established in Singapore in 2015 to help organisations and individuals detect and monitor their cyber exposure. He is also the Founder of Silverskin, a cyberattack company he established to help organisations test and improve their cyber resilience.

Mikko has more than 15 years of experience in cyber security having served as an analyst and consultant on security testing, information systems audits, security leadership and management, incident response and digital forensics, cyber defence, and exploit development. He has analysed the exposure of more than 6,000 organisations and helped more than 140 organisations assess and mitigate risk of their cyber exposure.

Mikko was ranked as one of the Top 100 Cybersecurity Influencers by Onalytica in 2015. He has lent his cyber intelligence expertise to assist with cybercrime investigations and the training of law enforcement agencies such as INTERPOL, armed forces and a number of intelligence agencies, as well as advising the European Central Bank in its efforts to improve cyber resilience. He also collaborates with OMFIF (Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum) in joint research and provides support for its members.

Mikko was formerly the programme director for the Hands-on Cybersecurity Manager programme at the University of the Free State, South Africa. He is a regular speaker and participant at conferences, forums and dialogues on cybersecurity, which most recently included the Cyber Fraud and Technology Conference 2018 by the Singapore Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and the Technical Talk on the Darkweb and Deepweb by the Singapore Chapter of ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association).

Mikko holds a degree in computer science and possesses the following Global Information Assurance Certifications (GIAC), the highest standard in cybersecurity certifications: GIAC Systems & Network Auditor (GSNA), GIAC Certified Incident Handler (GCIH), GIAC Web Application Penetration Tester (GWAPT), GIAC Security Leadership (GSLC) and GIAC Law of Data Security & Investigations (GLEG). He also holds a certificate in Global Management and Corporate Governance from INSEAD.

He is currently pursuing his doctorate degree in their implications of cyber exposure and cyberattacks in decision making at both the management and board levels. Mikko also holds a patent in cryptography and is the author of the book Anatomy of a Cyberattack, which is used as part of course curriculum at NUS Business School and INSEAD.

Carlos Quaderi

Based out of Singapore, Carlos leads Microsoft’s customer and industry teams across Asia Pacific to enable our Strategic, Enterprise Commercial & Public Sector customers across all industries achieve more through AI, Digital Transformation, Business Applications, Smart Data, ISV/SI partner solutions and Cloud enabled technology platforms. He owns and drives Microsoft’s Enterprise business for Asia Pacific across customer success, cloud adoption, sales, business development and partner strategy & enablement. He is also the executive sponsor for a number of strategic customers & partners and regularly represents Microsoft in industry, partner and customer forums.

Carlos joined Microsoft in July 2015 to design, execute, enable and land Microsoft’s worldwide Cloud focused services transformation across Asia Pacific. In this role, working with Microsoft Corp HQ and McKinsey he was accountable for the pan APAC strategy and execution to re-align Microsoft’s traditional Services business (793 Enterprise customers, 648 employees, 148 partners across 14 countries) to better enable customer success with the right capabilities, portfolio, go to market motion and delivery excellence as part of Satya Nadella’s Cloud First, Mobile First vision for Microsoft. Carlos joined Microsoft after a decade long career at HP in both country (Australia/NZ) and Asia region based roles across Consulting, Delivery, Sales and General Management. Prior to HP, his career spanned 12 years in international roles working for EDS, AT Kearney and Sun Microsystems across the UK, EMEA, US and Asia Pacific.

Carlos is a dual British and Australian citizen and completed an Executive MBA as part of SUN’s global executive graduate program from Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, Colorado. Outside technology, his passions include Boxing, Kendo and Sailing; all of which he has actively competed in. He also enjoys travelling and has been an avid technology enthusiast since being inducted into his school computer club in the 1980’s.

Joydeep Sengupta

Joydeep is a Senior Partner with McKinsey & Company. He heads McKinsey’s Global Client Council in Asia. He is also a leader in their global banking practice.

Over the last two decades, Joydeep has served leading financial institutions across multiple markets including the UK, Europe, Australia, China, Japan and South-East Asia. Joydeep has deep expertise in architecting and executing large scale performance transformations, and has partnered with banks and insurers on several multi-year transformation journeys. To enable this, he brings a combination of deep expertise in functional areas such as strategy, organization, digital, risk, change management and CEO counseling, with expertise in several business areas, including retail banking, CIB and Insurance. Joydeep’s recent work includes supporting the transformation of leading banks and insurers in Asia with a focus on innovation and changes in business models and culture, driven by the new digital economy.

Joydeep is one of McKinsey’s foremost leaders in the area of financial system development and financial market development. Over the last two decades, he has served several Central Banks and Regulatory bodies on wide-ranging themes, including with the Monetary Authority of Singapore on Financial Centre development, with central banks of India, Thailand and Indonesia on financial sector development, capital markets, talent management and governance, among others. Joydeep has authored several publications in the areas of digital banking, CIB, retail banking, infrastructure and organizational change. Joydeep is also deeply involved in helping boards and board members enhance their performance, and has served on several committees to enhance the quality of governance of companies in Asia.

Joydeep received an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and prior to joining McKinsey, worked with HSBC in various management positions.

Robin Speculand

Robin is a global pioneer and expert in strategy implementation. He is the founder and CEO of Bridges Business Consultancy Int and creator of the Implementation Hub—the first portal in the world dedicated to strategy implementation and featuring over 500 resources. He is also the co-founder of the Strategy Implementation Institute.

Since assisting its first client, Singapore Airlines, Bridges has worked with governments, multinational corporations and local organizations across five continents to execute their strategies. Guiding Bridge’s clients’ implementation journeys involves transferring knowledge, tools and templates developed over two decades. Tools Robin has innovated include the Implementation Compass™, a proprietary and proven framework for successful implementation, IMPACT, a toolkit with a structured approach for implementing actions in 90 days and Readiness2Execute, an audit of your organization’s execution capabilities.

A prolific writer and thinker on implementing strategy, Robin is an international bestselling author. His books include Bricks to Bridges–Make Your Strategy Come Alive, which set the benchmark for new thinking in his field, Beyond Strategy–The Leader’s Role in Successful Implementation, John Wiley & Sons, Building Your Execution Plan–182 Strategy Implementation Questions and Excellence in Execution–HOW to Implement Strategy, Morgan James, that provides a new approach to adopting the right mindset, toolset and skillset.

His pioneering work has been featured on various media: BBC U.K. & Global, CNBC, Financial Times, Sunday Telegraph and Singapore Straits Times and in strategy journals and international print. A sought-after global keynote speaker at strategy and business forums, Robin is also an award-winning case writer, an educator for Duke CE, and an adjunct faculty member at the Office of Executive and Professional Education in Singapore Management University. Outside of work, he’s a die-hard ironman athlete.