Emily Campbell-Ratcliffe is Head of AI Assurance at the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). Emily leads DSIT’s efforts to support the growth of an ethical, trustworthy, and effective AI assurance ecosystem in the UK, a key pillar of support for realising the UK’s AI governance framework. She represents the UK at the OECD’s Working Party on AI Governance, and is also part of the OECD.AI network of experts, contributing to their Expert Groups on AI Risk & Accountability and Compute & Climate. Emily has worked in AI policy for several years, and prior to joining government worked in the private sector on international AI governance policy. Outside of her roles she has published work on the responsible publication of AI research, and how to manage its risks.

Isabel Al-Dhahir is a Principal Analyst in GlobalData’s Thematic Intelligence team where she works with clients across numerous industries to understand the impact of emerging disruptive technologies such as AI, robotics, and quantum computing on their business. Isabel holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in Materials Science.

Bernadette Wesdorp is a Partner in our Netherlands Leadership team and is the Responsible AI Netherlands Leader. She joined EY in November 2014 and, previously, was an IT consultant at a large telecommunications company.

Bernadette graduated from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam with a Master of Science in Consulting & Communication. She is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/e) from the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).

Bernadette is passionate about creating multidisciplinary, diverse, and inclusive teams, and is known for connecting the right people to the right clients. Bernadette is always looking for ways to help clients achieve their goals.

Adrian Cox is a Managing Director and Thematic Strategist at Deutsche Bank Research, focusing on the implications of Artificial Intelligence for investors, enterprises and society. He joined Deutsche Bank in 2009 and held senior leadership roles in Communications in London and Sydney before joining Research. He previously spent a decade covering finance and economics as an award-winning journalist and editor at Bloomberg News and the Financial Times in London, Brussels and New York. He is a graduate of Cambridge University and has an MBA from City University in London.

Matthew has a PhD in Statistics and is an ex-lecturer in Computational Statistics at Cardiff University School of Mathematics.  He has 20 years’ of experience in financial services, his team build advanced analytical tools across Credit Risk, Economic Crime and Collections & Recoveries.

His team delivered the first Machine Learning Credit Scorecard for a major UK financial institution, and he currently sits on the Nationwide AI Council with a focus on the creation of controls for Generative AI models.

He has a passion for learning and development creating and chairing the Risk Academy and enterprise-wide Nationwide Analytical Community.

Mari Parry is a Principal Engineer at BlackRock, focused on leveraging AI to support Portfolio Management workflows. She has 20+ years of experience delivering innovative solutions for the financial and media sectors in the UK and Germany.

Kelvin started his position as Customer Insights Manager at Lloyds Banking Group on January 29, 2023. His role focuses on understanding and improving customer experiences within the banking sector.

Dale has lead the Innovation & Insights team at NatWest Trustee & Depositary Services for the last 4 years and has 12 years of experience in the asset and wealth management industry. Prior to joining NatWest, Dale spent 8 years at PwC as a specialist in data analytics, technology and cloud transformation, working with multinational asset & wealth managers in consulting and audit practices.

Howie Epstein
Director of Product Management | GM & Strategy Lead, Data, API & Services

Howie Epstein is Director of Product Management at LexisNexis, where he leads core product strategy and development for the Data, API, and Services segments. He also oversees go-to-market and commercial strategy across these segments, operating in a hybrid GM and product leadership capacity. His role spans end-to-end ownership—from vision and roadmap to market delivery and growth acceleration.

Before joining LexisNexis, Howie held senior product roles at Kroll, where he focused on innovation in the risk, compliance, and investigations space. There, he played a key role in modernizing digital offerings and scaling global product lines. His work bridged product, engineering, and client-facing teams to deliver high-value solutions tailored to enterprise needs.

With a background in technology, operations, and cross-functional leadership, Howie excels at aligning diverse teams, translating market insights into actionable strategy, and driving adoption through clear, differentiated positioning. He is known for his customer-first mindset, ability to simplify complexity, and consistent track record of delivering measurable business impact.

With two decades of on-the-ground experience across the Americas (including Brazil and Mexico) and China, Grace has worked at TS Lombard since 2007 and specializes in energy, political risk, infrastructure and industrial/tech policy, plus their intersection with emerging new technologies as key research themes. She previously led Latin America research at TS Lombard and has broad sector expertise in core areas spanning clean energy, oil & gas and agriculture alongside trade and tech issues. Prior to TS Lombard, she worked as an EM journalist with articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and Dow Jones Newswires among other publications. She is a graduate of Harvard University and has an MBA from Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation.

Saby Roy is a Technology Consulting Partner at EY, specializing in Financial Services in the UK, with 22 years of experience in Applied Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and System Integration. He has previously held leadership roles at Accenture and IBM and serves as an AI advisor for the Chair of Robotic Surgery at Kings College, London. Saby has published work on Machine Learning and AI in leading scientific journals. His expertise includes cloud services (AWS), containerization, open-source tools (Tensorflow, Keras, Python), event orchestration (Kafka, RabbitMQ), and various digital automation products. He has led significant transformation programs in the UK across sectors like Insurance, Retail, and Private Banking, focusing on cost reduction, efficiency, compliance, and data-driven process improvements.

Yanna is a strategy and technology expert with extensive IT experience. Has successfully bridged the gap between business strategies and IT organisations. Has an established reputation in leading and delivering large-scale transformations. CIO (Head of IT) for Generali UK and for Generali Corporate and Commercial. Session Details: Welcoming digital change to the insurance business operating model and overcoming resistance to adapt

Alex is responsible for bank-wide data-led insights, executive risk reporting, risk assessments and MI strategy in NatWest Group Financial Crime Risk. Previously led the Group’s efforts to tackle tax evasion: responding to the Criminal Finances Act as well as wider tax transparency (FATCA, CRS) risk management.

Before this Alex was at Barclays, where he supported the front office and managed client and corporate tax risk, across Corporate Banking, Wealth Management, Investment Banking, and in-house mergers & acquisitions.

His Experience includes leading RBS’s response to the Criminal Finances Act 2017 (risk assessments, training, designing and implementing controls), M&A tax from conception to post-completion, including sale of Wealth Asia business and sale of UK trusts business, managing tax risks associated with a wide range of FS products and services including structured notes, prime brokerage, real estate financing, and secured funding (securitisations and covered bonds). He has significant experience working with Financial Crime on tax evasion risk and corporate tax compliance roles.

Mauricio Toro holds a PhD in Computer Science from Université de Bordeaux, France. As the principal data scientist at Cheddar,
best newcomer at the British Bank Awards 2024, he developed solutions to maximize user savings using AI and NLP.
Previously, as a technical leader at a large fintech company in latin america, he developed solutions for customer feedback
summarisation using AI and NLP.

Tom is responsible for Tungsten Automation’s global AI strategy, related product roadmap priorities and go-to-market value propositions, across Tungsten’s Intelligent Automation, Workflow, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and e-Invoicing platforms.

With more than 25 years in the software industry, Tom has hands-on experience with a wide range of integration, automation, cloud, data, and AI technologies, bringing a deep understanding of how different solution capabilities can complement each other to increase business value and accelerate innovation.

Zil is a Director at Celent, global research and advisory firm specialising in Financial Services. Zil leads the firm’s Retail Banking and Payments practice and is based in London. His research focuses on the impact of technology-driven change in banking, particularly on consumer payments, digital identity, and the open financial services ecosystem. Zil has a global perspective with an emphasis on market developments in Europe and North America.

Zil is a regular speaker, chairman, and panel moderator at the leading payments industry events, such as Finovate, Money 2020, FTT Embedded Finance and Super-Apps, and many others. He has also been widely quoted in the press, such as The Economist, The Financial Times, The Banker, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The New York Times, American Banker, PaymentSource, and other publications.

Prior to joining Celent, Zil was a management consultant, most recently at Oliver Wyman. He has over 25 years of advisory experience with a strong focus on cards and payments innovation and has worked with major financial institutions and technology players around the world on a range of strategic issues.

Zil has an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University and MSc in Applied Mathematics from Kaunas University of Technology. He is fluent in English, Russian, and Lithuanian.

Leanne is a Partner at KPMG in the UK, where she is the Head of AI, Advisory. With over 20 years of consulting experience, her proficiency encompasses a comprehensive range of data disciplines, including Data Architecture, Data Strategy, Data Management and Governance, as well as Advanced Analytics, AI and AI Ethics. Leanne excels in bridging the gap between business and IT stakeholders, ensuring seamless communication and understanding. Her adeptness in solving intricate technical challenges, coupled with her strategic foresight, has been instrumental in designing and leading the implementation of complex data-driven solutions. As the spearhead of Ethical AI initiatives at KPMG UK, Leanne is committed to fostering responsible AI practices that align with ethical standards and societal values.

Samed has been joint portfolio manager for ADAF since January 2022, a director of Altana UCITS Funds since 2017 and PM for the Global Billionaires Fund from 2020-23. Prior to joining Altana in 2014, Samed was a Derivatives Trading Analyst at SocGen, a Credit Quant Analyst at JP Morgan and an Associate Director at RBC Capital Markets where he covered senior quantitative and risk roles supporting derivatives trading. Samed is a CFA® charter holder and holds an MSc. in financial and mathematical engineering from Polytechnic Federal School of Lausanne, Switzerland. He also holds an Msc in computer science and applied mathematics from ENSIMAG (French engineering school ‘Grande Ecole’) in Grenoble.

Worked at Wall-Street investment banks: Deutsche Bank in New York and Wells Fargo in San Francisco.  And one of the biggest European investments company, Natixis. Subject expertise background in multi-asset derivatives and building out corporate large-scale institutional front-office trading platforms. 10+ years serving as a Senior Advisor in the Financial Services Industry, consulting on AI within: Security-Cyber, Data, Fraud-Identity, and Regulatory.  Bhavin has been recognised by media publications in New York and Washington DC.  

Dr. Scott Zoldi is chief analytics officer at FICO, responsible for artificial intelligence and analytic innovation across FICO's product and technology solutions. Dr. Zoldi is a named inventor on 140+ active patents and pending patent applications, with more than 100 granted. Scott is an industry leader in the responsible use of AI, Generative AI (GenAI), and Agentic AI, as well as an outspoken proponent of AI governance and regulation. His groundbreaking work in focused language models (FLMs) for GenAI and a patented use of blockchain technology for AI model development governance has helped propel Scott to AI visionary status. His recent awards include Constellation Research Award AI150, Tech Leadership Award from Banking Tech Awards, Tech Influencer Highly Commendable Award from DataIQ Data & AI Awards, San Diego Business Journal - Leaders of Influence in Technology (2025); Tech Leadership - Software & Services Provider from Fintech Futures, MachineCon AI100 Award, Innovator Award from American Banker (2024); Global Finance Innovator Award (FICO) (2023); and Corinium Future Thinking Award (2022). An enthusiastic member of the southern California tech community, Scott serves on the Boards of Directors of Software San Diego and the San Diego Cyber Center of Excellence. He received his Ph.D. degree in theoretical and computational physics from Duke University, and his work has been published in The Harvard Business Review and numerous scientific journals.

When not at his office or on a plane, Scott can often be found in his Ford Bronco, exploring the desert around San Diego with his family. To hear more of his views follow Scott on LinkedIn and BlueSky @ScottZoldi.

Dr Ryan Lemand is a seasoned finance professional with a diverse and extensive career as an Investment Manager and a Financial Regulator. He has deep experience in Fixed Income, Credit, Quantitative Asset Allocation and Risk Management, having managed significant portfolios of institutional assets in Paris, London and New York.

As a Senior Advisor to the UAE’s Federal Government, Dr Ryan worked principally on financial regulatory subjects where he both led and contributed to key initiatives that developed many of the core Financial Regulations in the UAE, including Regulations on Collective Investment Schemes, Financial Analysis and Consultancy Services, Market Making and others topics.

He was also principally responsible for leading the Funds and Investment Management team that handled the licensing and approvals for local and foreign mutual funds and investment managers. In addition, he advised on a variety of subjects relevant to the UAE’s macroeconomic policy.

Dr Ryan has a proven track record in green field projects and in growing and scaling companies, as demonstrated by his founding of the Wealth and Asset Management arm for the Abu Dhabi based ADSS Group, which grew to become one of the largest asset managers in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).

As a former Regulator, he is also well versed in advising on regulatory matters that range from obtaining financial services permissions to assisting in solving complex regulatory issues.

I focus on AI projects that enhance customer understanding and improve customer experience. I have worked on international projects, including 12 years at Intesa Sanpaolo’s International Bank Division, implementing and scaling machine learning across various banks and markets. I believe success comes from aligning AI initiatives with well-defined strategic objectives, a strong operating model and clearly measurable results. With a technical background, I understand both AI technology and its practical applications.

Alina is a seasoned expert in intelligent automation, with over a decade of experience at ABBYY, a global leader in Intelligent Document Processing. Responsible for identifying and implementing optimal solutions to address customer bottlenecks across Europe, Alina collaborates closely with clients and partners, to drive the adoption of AI technologies and accelerate process automation. Alina holds a Master’s degree in International Economics and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Data Science at University of London, with a focus on the trustworthiness of Generative AI.

Alexander Stumpfegger is Chief Sales Officer at CID, a digital solution and AI innovator. Over 20+ years at CID, Alexander has helped to develop technological solutions for web crawling, natural language processing, and semantic graphs to support information exploration to benefit clients in various industries. His background combines technological expertise with business-oriented approaches to AI and Big Data Analytics. Today, Alexander supports asset and wealth managers to leverage more actionable insights from quantitative, fundamental, and qualitative data sources to build better thematic investment products and to drive business development at wealth managers and private banks.

Based in the UK, Frank has been with CallMiner for 6 years, during which time we have seen significant business growth in the region. Frank holds a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) and a Higher National Diploma in Telecommunications engineering. He has worked in and around the contact centre and customer experience space for the last 25 years.

Sasha Tuel is Principal Solutions Advisor at Weave.AI, where she helps financial institutions harness next-generation AI to strengthen risk oversight, compliance, and strategic decision-making. She works with banks, asset managers, and insurers to design solutions that unify risk intelligence across domains—from market and operational risk to cyber resilience and regulatory alignment. Drawing on deep expertise in neuro-symbolic AI, Sasha advises on how to deploy agentic AI for continuous monitoring, explainability, and board-level insight—turning complex, fast-changing risk landscapes into clear, actionable strategies.

Piotr Kobziakowski is a Senior Principal Solutions Architect at Vespa.ai, where he leverages
over 20 years of expertise in software architecture, network security, big data, and search
technologies to design scalable AI-driven solutions for global enterprises. Based in Warsaw,
Poland, he specializes in advising organizations on data, analytics and search applications.
Prior to joining Vespa.ai in October 2024, Kobziakowski held progressive technical roles at
Elastic, where he architected search and analytics solutions for telecommunications. His career
spans across industry leaders like Akamai, Nominum, Cloudmark and Bytemobile, with a focus
on optimizing large-scale data and analytics infrastructure and security systems.
Piotr’s approach combines hands-on technical advisory with strategic problem-solving,
through delivering workshops and customized training programs. He is recognized for
translating complex technical concepts into actionable roadmaps, enabling enterprises to
operationalize technology capabilities. A frequent speaker at many events related to GenAI,
Data and Analytics.

Tyler is a GTM manager at Legora and a thought leader on the development of collaborative AI solutions for financial services. Before joining Legora, Tyler was a strategy consultant at McKinsey and practiced as an M&A lawyer at Linklaters and Sullivan & Cromwell. 

Tushar brings a unique Enterprise and Start-up experience to solve business and operational challenges, thanks to his understanding of technology, products, people, and operations.  His career is shaped by global experience, integrity, high-performance standards, a superior work ethic, a collaborative style, and a commitment to win.

Currently as the Chief Product Officer at Uniphore, which he joined in 2023.  He is the General Manager for Uniphore’s business, accountable for delivering on their Generative AI Products and Platform that support Global Enterprise Customers.  Since he joined, he has grown the customer base from 1200 to 1600.  He raised revenue by $150M, with a growth of 70% year over year. Product partnerships with NVDIA, Snowflake, AWS, MFST.

Serviced as the CEO of NationsBenefits Payments business in 2022.  He was responsible build a payments platform to deliver Medicare and Medicaid supplements to 10M customers, supporting $200M in payment integrations to retailers like Walmart, Kroeger, Albertson, CVS, Walgreens, local bodegas, and e-commerce channels

He was Senior Vice President at PayPal, which he joined in 2012. As Product and Engineering lead, Tushar managed credit, identity, risk, compliance, customer service, FX, machine learning, and AI platforms. Additionally, he supported the delivery of analytics, modeling, computation, big data, and platform services across PayPal, Venmo, Xoom, Honey, Braintree, and Hyperwallet platforms.

Tushar has played a key role in critical aspects of the separation between PayPal and eBay in 2015 and in the trebling of PayPal’s market cap since then. During his tenure he served 430M users and 35M merchants transact through the risk and compliance models, safe payment experiences, and modernized platforms his teams have engineered to move to a scalable and service architecture. His teams delivered revenue of $1.5B and cost reduction and avoidance of $500M.

He has led numerous PayPal change leadership and transformations that expanded innovation into the company culture. He led various regulatory and enterprise risk changes and was a member of PayPal’s Operating Group. He also served on the Board of Directors of PayPal 3PL business in Singapore, an entity that manages much of the company’s international business, corporate governance, and financial holdings.

Previously, Tushar spent ten years at Bank of America as a Technology Senior Executive for Consumer banking, E-Commerce, Sales and Services and software engineering. He was Key Product and Technology Leader supporting the bank’s major acquisitions (MBNA, USTrust, LaSalle Bank).

Umberto Malesci is the CEO of Kosmoy, a software company focused on AI governance and monitoring. He also serves as Non-Executive Chair of SBTi Services and as an Independent Director on the Board of Assicurazioni Generali. Previously, he co-founded and led Fluidmesh Networks, a pioneer in wireless networking, through its acquisition by Cisco in 2020. He holds a BSc and MEng in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. Today his work centers on helping large organizations adopt generative AI safely—bringing consistent controls, guardrails, observability, and cost discipline to move from pilots to production at scale.

Ben Carter is Client Director, EMEA at CoreWeave, where he leads enterprise adoption of GPU-accelerated infrastructure across the region. He partners with financial institutions to accelerate their time-to-market by leveraging CoreWeave’s platforms for machine learning research, risk modelling, and AI. Before joining CoreWeave, Ben spent over five years at AWS, most recently in the Capital Markets team, where he worked with leading quantitative and high-frequency trading firms to modernise their compute and cloud strategies.

Ben is an experienced product leader with a strong background in building and scaling AI-powered SaaS platforms for enterprise and high-growth technology businesses. As Chief Product Officer at Aveni, he focuses on aligning product strategy with customer needs and driving the development of transformative solutions for regulated industries. 

Ankor Rai is the CEO of Straive, a global leader in operationalizing data and AI for enterprises. With over two decades of experience, Ankor has successfully scaled data-driven businesses and delivered high-impact solutions to Fortune 1000 companies across North America, United Kingdom, and Asia. Before Straive, he served as Executive Vice President & Chief Digital Officer at EXL, where he significantly expanded the analytics division and drove its growth at a global scale. Ankor’s expertise in leveraging data, analytics, and AI positions Straive to continue driving innovation and value for its clients.

Jishnu Gupta, the CTO and Head of Analytics and AI at Straive, brings over 24 years of IT experience, including 15 years in investment banking. Jishnu has successfully led global transformation initiatives across Europe, the US, and Asia, driving technological innovation and supporting regulatory and business transformation programs. A strategic technology leader, he excels in managing global teams and collaborating with key stakeholders to align technology vision with business strategy. Prior to joining Straive, Jishnu served as Vice President and Program Manager for Counterparty Credit Risk Technology at Deutsche Bank, where he led critical programs in the financial services sector.

Simon is based in the UK and leads GFT’s AI, ML & AI practice. Simon brings nearly 30 years’ experience of working on using machine learning to create value for customers. His team brings a systematic and scientific approach to AI, drawing on GFT’s comprehensive and deep knowledge of financial services as an industry.

Jon Quayle is Product Evangelist at Deepdesk, helping financial services organisations and other leading global enterprises transform customer experience with AI. Deepdesk’s Virtual Agent platform spans AI Assistants for human agents through to fully autonomous customer-facing interactions. With 17+ years in communications, CX, and AI, Jon specialises in showing enterprises how to boost productivity today while building toward the future of agentic AI.

Colin Strasser is the CEO of Montrose Software, a software development consultancy with global clients in capital markets and healthcare. Montrose delivers AI-enabled solutions for trading, analytics, compliance, and process automation. Colin also founded web development agencies U2i and Online Magic, where he guided the digital transformation of The Economist Group's family of publications. Prior to that, he structured asset-backed securities at Lehman Brothers and wrote risk management systems for Prudential Securities. Colin is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Dale has lead the Innovation & Insights team at NatWest Trustee & Depositary Services for the last 4 years and has 12 years of experience in the asset and wealth management industry. Prior to joining NatWest, Dale spent 8 years at PwC as a specialist in data analytics, technology and cloud transformation, working with multinational asset & wealth managers in consulting and audit practices.