Professor David W Mills

Professor of Practice of Law, Stanford Law School and Partner and Advisor to Chairman of Fortress Investment Group

Professor David Mills has a distinguished career in law and investments. Mr Mills is a Professor of Practice of Law at Stanford Law School. He is the Founder and the first director of the Stanford Law School clinical program which provides legal services to people who cannot afford traditional representation. Professor Mills is also the Co-chair of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, America's premiere legal organization fighting for racial justice. It is a leadership position he has held for over ten years. Professor Mills has had a life-long dedication to social justice issues. Three years ago Professor Mills received the Thurgood Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award. Professor Mills has also had a lengthy legal career representing a range of well-known white-collar crime defendants as well as driving the strategy for a number of well-known investment firms in various civil and regulatory matters. In addition, he has had a successful career in the business and investment realm. He is currently a partner at Fortress Investment Group and advisor to its chairman and a partner at Divco West ( a real estate investment and development firm) and other high profile investment-related organizations.

Professor Mills graduated Rutgers Law School in 1973 magna cum laude. Following Law School, he joined the law firm of Lowenstein, Sandler, a major law firm where he eventually became a senior tax partner. He was also Adjunct Professor of Law at Rutgers University, Chairman of the Partnership Tax Section of the American Bar Association and Chairman of the Tax Section of the New Jersey Bar Association. In 1986 Professor Mills moved to Los Angeles to work at Cambrent Financial Group, in association with the firm of Victor, Sandler and Cogut. In 1988 he founded Mills & Lynn enterprises for the purposes of undertaking personal financial transactions. He still holds that position but the name has changed to Mills Family Enterprises. In 1991 he became the chief executive and sole shareholder of Harbourton General Corporation, the General Partner of Harbourton Holdings, LP. He resigned from Harbourton in 2016.

Prior to Law School, Professor Mills went to Rutgers University where he graduated in 1969. Following graduation from University, Professor Mills undertook Rabbinical Studies, first at the Jewish Theological Seminary and then at the Reconstructionist Rabbical College in Jerusalem. David resides in the San Francisco Bay area.

Anne Devereux-Mills

Founder, Parlay House

Anne Devereux-Mills spent the first half of her career building and running advertising agencies in NYC as Chairman and CEO. When hit with the triple threat of progressing cancer, an empty nest and an unexpected job loss, she took time to reassess her career trajectory and hierarchy of needs. In 2012, long before the #MeToo movement, she founded Parlay House, a salon-style series of gatherings which now includes over 5,000 women across the US, Europe and the Middle East. Parlay House’s objective is to provide thought-provoking content and a safe space for women to have intimate and authentic conversations that don’t happen in other aspects of their lives, and to connect with women outside their traditional social, demographic and career-influenced circles.

Her commitment to issues related to inclusion and empowerment run deep. Beyond Parlay House, Anne is a mentor for SHE-CAN, an organization supporting and grooming the next generation of female world leaders coming from post-genocide countries. An activist on issues related to social justice, Anne was a key member of the team that helped pass California's Proposition 36, which brought fair sentencing to thousands of non-violent inmates as part of California's Three Strikes reform. Following that victory, she was the Executive Director for the Emmy-nominated documentary film entitled, The Return and is currently Executive Directing two additional films, Mississippi Red and The Green Dress. Anne supported Stanford University by serving as the Executive Director of Healthy Body Image Programs.

Prior to her philanthropic ventures, Anne was Chief Integration Officer at BBDO and Managing Director of their highly successful healthcare unit. She then became Chairman and CEO of LLNS and TBWA/WorldHealth. She also served as CEO of Consumer Healthworks, a division of Merkley and Partners, as well as President of Harrison & Star. Anne also helped launch the iHUG Foundation, a not-for-profit school in Uganda supporting some of that nation's most needy children.

A 2003 Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, Anne has been honored by a range of organizations including SHE-CAN, Advertising Women of New York, The All-Stars Foundation, Project Kesher and Worldwide Women.

Sara de la Torre

Head of Financial Services and Insurance, NCC Group

Sara is the Head of Financial Services and Insurance in NCC - the largest independent global cyber security consulting business. She is responsible for market activity across banking, financial services and insurance in the UK. As part of her role, she works with financial institutions to improve resilience, quantify cyber risk and turn cyber security and sustainability into integral parts of their digitalisation. She is an entrepreneurial leader with experience across fintech, bigtech, management & technology consulting in financial services. Aside from her job, she also mentors female teenagers as part of a charity, in an effort to help them overcome obstacles and size opportunities in a future.

Philip Doran

Director, Banking, Financial Services & Insurance, Hitachi Vantara

With over 30 years experience, Phil is a highly experienced, passionate and positive business leader, who thrives when creating business value for organisations by delivering transformational products, software, services and consultancy.

Since joining Hitachi Vantara in August 2019, Phil has quickly established a business stream that helps multi-national banks, insurance and financial institutions enterprises take significant cost and risk out of their businesses whilst providing data management solutions and capabilities that significantly reduce operational risk whilst providing an environment and capabilities that improving the productivity of both their businesses and employees.

This is driven out of a detailed understanding across the key technologies and solution agendas providing a clear insight into how to address the more compelling needs and customer insights within the financial services market; mitigating risk, managing effective compliance, providing platforms for growth, productivity and transformation.

Suranjan Som

Vice President, Head of Financial Services, Digital Solutions, Hitachi Vantara

With over 23 years experience within the software and consulting industry, Suranjan is responsible for the Financial Services industry within the Hitachi Vantara Solutions Business in Europe. Suranjan has been both a delivery and sales leader in this space and has produced innovation and RegTech solutions for some of the largest banks and asset managers in the world.

Suranjan is a technology and industry thought leader, assisting some of the largest financial institutions in their agenda across business optimisation, value maximisation and regulatory compliance. He is a regular speaker and blogger in RegTech circles. At this point, he is focussed building an extended ecosystem of capabilities both within and outside of Hitachi’s wider group companies, with a view to serving the industry in new and innovative ways. The Ashurst relationship should help accelerate this process even further.

Cedric Bouche

Cedric Bouche is part of the Global Finance Incubator at Societe Generale, a business development team which focuses on developing innovative business solutions for the Corporate & Structured Finance division. The team develops new financing solutions through the incubation of internal startups or by partnering with promising companies.

Cedric is a seasoned technology manager who spent 10+ years in New-York, Paris and London managing the design and delivery of IT solutions dedicated to the Structured Finance and Securities Services divisions. Embracing the values of innovation and growth, Cedric has managed multiple initiatives leveraging emerging technologies. Cedric holds two French Master of Science from EM-Lyon Business School and EPF Engineering School.

Peter Hewlett

Partner Strategy at PWC

Peter is a Partner with Strategy at PWC, as part of their Retail Banking and Payments practice. His 25 year career has seen him support retail banks and payment firms from around the world with major digital transformations. As an advisor, Peter has supported the launch of two new banks into the UK market and so learned many of the lessons as to how to be successful, and sometimes how not to be, when attempting to disrupt an incumbent market.

Prior to consulting, Peter worked with Barclays Bank, launching their first online banking proposition, way back in 2001. He spent many years building, developing and streamlining the customer experience at Barclays, as consumers started their own journey to the digitally led market that we see today.

Today, Peter spends much of his time working with the large banks and payment firms as they look to transform their legacy businesses - often through building partnerships with the FinTech community; with payments firms who are looking to take advantage of the changing landscape to build new business models and relationships; and with the FinTechs themselves to support their drive to scale and engagement with the incumbent players.

James Bowater

City A.M.’s Crypto Insider

Best known as a leading commentator, connector and influencer in the U.K. Blockchain space, James founded Crypto A.M. in partnership with London’s City AM newspaper launching on 18th June 2018 as a double page spread. City A.M. to date are the only mainstream publisher to have such a dedicated regular section covering AI, Blockchain, Crypto and DLT.

The COVID-19 crisis has meant that the newspaper is not being produced and as such the focus is digital and CryptoAM.io was launched on 31st March 2020.

Crypto AM is supplemented by a number of very active WhatsApp Groups, a Telegram Group and numerous networking events. James, in association with City A.M., organised the inaugural Crypto AM Awards that took place on the 11th March in London’s Canary Wharf where 12 awards were handed out in front of a packed audience including Alderman William Russell, the Rt Hon Lord Mayor of London.

James is also the founder of the London Blockchain Forum the leading cross-community platform (Telegram and Meetup) for the UK AI, Blockchain, Crypto and DLT industries.

With all of this fully established James also serves as an advisor to a number of projects and is equally known for connecting people and companies together.

Lawrence Wintermeyer

Lawrence is a globally recognised digital financial advocate and has over 25 years’ experience as an advisor, executive and board member working with companies from start-ups to global brands in the financial services, TMT and energy sectors. He is the former CEO of Innovate Finance, the UK FinTech members association, and a Co-founder of Global Digital Finance, a not for-profit promoting fair and transparent markets for digital and crypto assets.

He is experienced in the alternative asset management sector with a focus on systematic investment management strategies, big data analytics, machine learning, and distributed ledger technologies. Based in London, he is the Principal of Elipses, a digital advisory and investment management firm, has an MBA, and sits on several commercial, not-for-profit and charity boards. Lawrence promotes ethical and sustainable finance policies for a transparent, secure and quality digital future for everyone, and is a regular Forbes contributor.

Tom Graham

Accenture and FinTech Innovation Labs

Tom Graham is a Managing Director in Accenture’s UK Banking consulting practice, helping clients deliver change and innovate. He also sponsors the successful FinTech Innovation Labs in London, which, partnered with 30+ banks and insurers, takes 20 startups a year through a rapid accelerator for growth and partnership.

Anthony Woolley

Anthony is an entrepreneurial banking and financial services technology executive with expertise in Capital Markets, Investment Banking, Trade Finance and Wealth Management. He has a particular interest in Fintech, Digital Securities and the transformation of Wholesale Banking.

Having collaborated with a multitude of FinTechs and high growth companies in his capacity as a Banking CIO, Anthony recently took the opportunity to work independently with a small number of high potential companies that he really believes in. These business have some common characteristics - Highly credible leadership teams; a strong vision; disruptive business models and the ability to deliver.

Anthony joined Schroders Investment Bank in 1994 where he led their Corporate Finance technology department. Subsequent mergers with Salomon Smith Barney and Citibank saw him progress in various front office technology leadership roles. He managed the CitiFX e-commerce and pricing technology programme in London during a period of dramatic transformation of the high frequency trading and auto-hedging of Foreign Exchange products. He left Citi in 2009 to lead the FX e-trading programme at HSBC before joining Societe Generale where he headed the UK Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities technology department. He was appointed the UK Chief Information Officer in 2013 and in 2017 he was given the opportunity to set-up a new innovation function working at a Group Level.

Anthony is a regular presenter at industry conferences and has become a recognised thought leader on the application of blockchain technology to the regulated financial services industry.

Shelley Bays

Shelley Bays is a founding partner at SAYJ Global Partners, an international firm committed to supporting startups to achieve their investment / strategic growth goals and to provide investors with customized investment opportunities. Shelley also founded the Paris chapter of Keiretsu Forum, a global angel investing network, and is now President of both the Paris and London chapters. These groups have funded and supported companies from multiple countries within Europe.

Prior to these activities, Shelley held senior and executive management positions in a variety of industries (consulting, food and beverage, paper manufacturing). Her primary concentration, however, was in financial services where she focused on starting up and growing businesses, both within the US and overseas.

Her specific financial services experience includes Manufacturers Hanover Trust, Bank of America and Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. She was SVP/Chief Administrative Officer for the Retail Division of Schwab during a time of rapid growth and had responsibility for branch and call center expansion, finance, technology and customer service quality. Later as head of the Exchange Trading Division of Schwab Capital Markets, Shelley was responsible for all listed equity and options trading in the US and led an organization of over 250 people. She then moved on to be CEO of Schwab’s and TD Waterhouse’s joint venture in London. Shelley has held Director positions on the Boards of the Boston and Pacific Stock Exchanges, as well as advisory roles for pan-European financial services initiatives. She was also named a winner of the Women in Private Equity Award.

Shelley has a BA from Warwick University (UK) and an MSc from University College London. She also has an MBA from Fordham University in New York.

Craig Hollingworth

Business Development Officer

Craig is Co-Founder and CDO of Concirrus, an enterprise software platform for Insurance, using machine learning and AI to disrupt underwriting for Marine and Motor lines, leveraging his years of experience as a mobile and Internet of Things specialist.

With over 20 years of experience, having held senior board positions in O2, Telefonica, France Telecom and Masternaut. Craig also founded Red Squirrel, a consultancy practice that handles mergers and acquisitions within the IOT and technology space.

More recently, he has been a lead advisor to a number of large corporations, private equity firms, venture capitalists and emerging technology companies, which have benefitted from his technology know-how and strategic acumen. Working with clients such as Securitas, Cloudview and Trimble, he advised them and many other high-profile clients on strategic growth acquisitions.

He is passionate about using his innovative and business focused acumen. For Craig, Concirrus is the epitome of his years of knowledge, experience and hard work.

Nick Andrews

Nicks career has been in the financial services sector and has included being on the Board of a large multi-disciplined securities broker/dealer, head of credit at the UK banking subsidiary of Japanese securities house and many years in senior credit and compliance roles.

Nick is the founder and Managing Director of MPAC Limited, one of the preeminent compliance and regulatory companies in London, the CEO of EddieUK Ltd., a digital investment bank, director of Supermoney Ltd, a blockchain tech company, co-founder of a crypto trading entity and an Independent Non-Executive Director, Chair of the Audit and Chair of the Nominations Committees at the UK subsidiary of one of the largest banks in America (Wells Fargo).

He speaks at various conferences and panels and is an occasional guest lecturer at two universities on topical financial sector issues. With a keen interest in history and the City of London, Nick was the Master of The Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers in the year 2015 to 2016

Ehsan Haque

Ehsan Haque has spent nearly 20 years working as in-house counsel for a variety of institutions including top-tier investment banks, broker-dealers, and fintech startups. He has spent the last 10 years in leadership and senior leadership roles.

After a career in advertising, Ehsan trained at Slaughter and May in London before working as a global markets / equities sales and trading lawyer for Deutsche Bank, RBS Global Banking and Markets, and Nomura, where he was part of the senior management team of the EMEA legal department and led the Equities legal product coverage in EMEA supporting Nomura’s equities sales and trading businesses.

More recently, Ehsan was the first General Counsel at Lendingblock, an institutional cryptocurrency borrowing and lending platform and General Counsel at Alphaswap, an alpha capture and investment management platform. He is ex-EMEA General Counsel at Amber Group. Ehsan is currently Head of UK Legal & Compliance and Global Trading Lead at Laser Digital, a Nomura Group company. Ehsan also acts as an advisor to various fintech accelerator programs. He is also active in mentoring junior professionals in the legal and finance sectors.

Natasha Jones

Natasha joined the Future of Money team at Octopus Ventures in 2020 bringing with her a keen interest in financial services, insurance, blockchain and climate risk.

Natasha worked as an algorithmic trader at Credit Suisse where she gained a deep understanding of the trading infrastructure involved in capital markets equity trading as well as the various data, regulatory and administrative systems used in large financial institutions. Natasha also previously worked in two fintech startups in London and Paris and set up her own sustainable retail business whilst at university.

Natasha graduated from UCL with a MSc in political economics focusing on green energy entrepreneurship and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Modern Languages from Oxford.

Martin Eisenring

Martin has been practicing corporate law in a global context for over 20 years. He is active in financial markets, digital assets and private equity. He advises companies namely in the area of blockchain technology and FinTech.

In addition to his boutique law practice, he is a partner at DALAW, a firm focused on providing legal and financial advice to tokenization projects. He also serves as Chairman of the Investor Group of the Crypto Valley Association (CVA) in Switzerland. He serves as a member of the board of directors of selected companies."

Vardaan Ahluwalia

Banking Lawyer, Economics Nerd & Impact Finance Enthusiast

Vardaan has been practicing finance law in India for more than a decade. Having practised as a partner at a leading law firm in India, he has deep transactional experience in private equity, venture capital, banking, structured finance and special situations.

Advising fintech start-ups and multinational financial institutions on matters of regulatory structuring, Vardaan witnessed how technological solutions democratised financial access in India. Early in his career, he joined a start-up law firm where he gained insights into the workings of small businesses and how technology can help them scale. This inspired him to mentor a legal tech and legal education consultation start-up.

Presently, Vardaan is the Head of Legal (India & USA) at Premji Invest – one of India’s leading private and venture capital family offices. Vardaan graduated from the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, India, where he is a visiting lecturer of Insolvency & Finance Law. Recently, he studied MSc in Law and Finance at the Said Business School (Oxford) and was the President of the Oxford Fintech & Legaltech Society.

He regularly publishes at leading business law blogs and academic journals. A true Oxonian, for Vardaan, an evening well spent involves examining current affairs through the prism of economics, law and technology at a pub.

Cam Ross

COO, Green Angel Syndicate

Green Angel Syndicate was established in 2013 and specialises in the fight against climate change. It is one of the largest angel syndicates in the UK with over 300 members and a current portfolio of 28 companies. The syndicate draws on the strength of its wide and experienced membership to identify, assess and support the early companies in this valuable and rapidly growing area of investment. The syndicate co-invests with its own Climate Change Fund and has been awarded £5M co-investment funding from British Business Investments, a subsidiary of British Business Bank, to support regional companies with a climate focus.

As Green Angel Syndicate COO, Cam and his team manage deal flow, systems, due diligence and post-investment engagement.

Prior to joining Green Angel Syndicate, Cam co-founded, jointly ran and raised two rounds of angel funding for a contact centre payments business, with an exit to AIM-listed Eckoh. Cam is an Aeronautical Engineer by training, and has experience in creating, commercialising and patenting new technology. He has more than a dozen granted patents in the fields of telecommunications, payments and customer authentication. He has a practical ability to analyse and improve complex processes, from manufacturing to software systems.

Cam is also a Board member of SocietyWorks, the commercial arm of the not-for-profit social enterprise mySociety, which builds technology to help democracy and community in the UK and overseas.

Eloise Morgan

Director of UK FI, Paragon International Insurance Brokers Ltd

Eloise has over 16 years’ industry experience and whether you are an investor, start-up or scale up seeking funding, provides independent, specialist insurance solutions for those across the investment ecosystem.

Her main areas of expertise are Fintech and Insurtech, where companies will often be required to have specialist insurance as part of their regulatory permissions.

There are still relatively few options available to Fintech’s (and even more so for Insurtech’s), so it’s crucial that companies are receiving the right guidance from an experienced broker, and one who is able to access the right Insurers and policies to offer not just the required regulatory cover, but policies that provide protection to enable companies to grow.Investors will also expect companies to have certain insurances in place as part of their due diligence, and Eloise helps to get companies “Investor Ready”.Eloise is involved with a number of investment networks and has previously been named by Angel News as one of their ’15 Heroines of the UK Angel Market’ for her work with the Angel Investment Community. She also holds an Enterprise Investment Scheme Accreditation.

Will Kier

Head of Intellectual Property Solutions EMEA, Aon

Will lead’s Aon’s Intellectual Property practice for Aon across EMEA.

Will specializes in structuring complex IP lending transactions, enhanced with insurance. Will is responsible for driving Aon’s go-to-market strategy in EMEA and leads engagement with both insurance providers and lending capital partners. Will also advises Aon’s European-based clients on their IP Risk needs, including the availability and applicability of innovative insurance solutions.

Will has been with Aon for over ten years sending time in both London and New York. He has always focused on intangible asset solutions for multinational clients, first as a broker within the Financial Services Group, and more recently as a Director within Cyber Solutions.

Prior to joining Aon in 2011 Will was at the University of Birmingham. During his time in the industry he has become an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute (ACII).

Currie Rutland

BDO Partner, Innovation Incentives

Carrie is a chartered accountant and prize winning chartered tax advisor with 25 years financial services experience. She started her career as a Financial Services auditor with PwC, prior to moving in house with Deutsche Bank, Swiss Re, Barclays Capital and Lloyds Banking Group. She joined BDO four years ago, to build and head up the firm’s FS and Fintech innovation incentives team and has significant experience in leading some of the most complex IT related research and development tax credit claims including those of FinTech unicorns, large multi-national banking and insurance groups, quantitative / algorithmic traders and asset management companies. Outside work she is both a mentor for Women in Banking and Finance, plays the harp and sings with the Houses of Parliament Choir.

Susanne Chishti

CEO of FINTECH Circle

Susanne Chishti is the award-winning CEO of FINTECH Circle and a FTSE Board Member. As fintech Investor and Editor of The FINTECH Book Series she lives with her family in London and is a Non-Executive Director of CMC Markets PLC and Crown Agents Bank. She is also an in-demand keynote speaker at leading finance and technology conferences globally.

Susanne is the CEO of FINTECH Circle, Europe's 1st Investor Network focused on fintech investments and a leading fintech innovation, learning and communications platform. She is also the Co-Editor of the Bestseller "The FINTECH Book" which has been translated into 10 languages and is sold across 107 countries, The WealthTECH Book, The InsurTECH Book, The PAYTECH Book, The AI Book and The LEGALTECH Book. Susanne’s awards include “Top 10 global fintech influencers in 2022” (Evening Standard), “Top 5 ESG Influencers Globally” (Refinitiv/LSE) and the Fintech Champion of the Year in 2019 (Women in Finance Awards).

She has also been a fintech TV Commentator on ITN and CNBC and a guest lecturer on financial technology at the University of Cambridge and Warwick Business School. After completing her MBA she started her career working for a fintech company (before the term "fintech" was being invented) in the Silicon Valley 25 years ago. She then worked more than 15 years across Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Morgan Stanley and Accenture in London and Hong Kong.

Susanne is an award-winning Entrepreneur and Investor with strong FINTECH expertise. She is a Judge and Coach at global FINTECH events and competitions and a conference keynote speaker. Susanne leads a global community of more than 200,000 fintech entrepreneurs, investors, financial services professionals globally (www.fintechcircle.com). Follow Susanne on LinkedIn/Twitter and Instagram on @SusanneChishti @FINTECHCircle

Marlon Hüttebreucker

Co-Founder and Managing Director of Trustventure

Marlon is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Trustventure. Marlon started his career in private equity in Zurich, before joining the leading restructuring consultancy in the DACH region. After having worked in corporate finance with SMEs, he founded Trustventure to provide financial advisory to venture-backed tech-companies as well as Venture Capital firms. He holds B.Sc in Economics in Law from the WWU Münster and a L.LM in Merger and Acquisitions from the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and is also Member of the NACVA/EACVA as certified company valuation analyst.