Archives: Speakers

Monika Kashyap

With over 25 years of experience, Monika is a Data and Decisioning Leader across Banking & Financial Services, Telecoms, Insurance and Travel domains who has led the omni-channel design and delivery across the globe through customer touchpoints (digital and staff assisted) and helped businesses enhance customer engagement, NPS, growth and retention strategies. Monika has worked with major banks & blue-chip companies in the UK implementing Data and AI driven orchestration, deriving meaningful insights, driving hyper-personalisation, actionable intelligence, and optimising business outcomes whilst balancing customer needs.

Mari Parry

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.

Emily Ellison

Emily is our Technical Services Director responsible for the delivery of our training courses, file review services, technical manuals and consultancy services. Emily is supported by our team of technical consultants across tax, audit and accounting. Before joining Mercia in 2010, Emily was with KPMG for nine years working in both tax and audit.

Adrian Cox

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.

 

Julie Smith​​

Julie has over two decades of expertise working for a large Life and Pensions Organisation in the UK.  She started off her career in the Claims Department where at that time processing was all paper based and quickly became involved in a large digital modernisation program which would help shape the organisation and her future.
In her journey she has specialised in Business Architecture, Process Design, Change Management and Solution Delivery. 3 years ago, Julie moved to ai4process (A consulting organisation who brings Digital Process Automation to clients, using the power of market leading low code technology) where she continues to use her skills and dedication to customer success to drive outcomes to the wider Insurance and Financial Services Industry.

Apurva Mehta

Apurva co-founded GroWize to help audit firms in the UK and US solve one of the profession’s most pressing challenges: the shortage of skilled audit talent. Having spent over a decade delivering complex audits across geographies, he recognized the growing strain on mid-tier and growing firms to maintain quality, meet deadlines, and scale sustainably—especially in the face of evolving standards and private equity demands. GroWize is his response: a strategic talent partner offering firms the audit-specific support they need to compete at the highest level.

A qualified Chartered Accountant with 12+ years of experience, Apurva started his career at Deloitte and later joined Grant Thornton, working across diverse sectors including technology, retail, hospitality, and green energy. His hands-on experience spans across US & UK GAAP, IFRS. He is known for his rigorous approach to audit quality, strong stakeholder management, and ability to tailor solutions to a client’s unique risk profile and operating environment.

Throughout his career, Apurva has successfully built and led international audit teams, delivering high-stakes audits while navigating cultural complexities and time zone challenges. Now, through GroWize, he is focused on helping firms reimagine how they build capacity—by leveraging offshore talent in a way that is compliant, efficient, and aligned with long-term quality goals. His mission: to elevate audit delivery standards while future-proofing firms against the industry’s most critical resourcing risks.