Greg Palmer has more than a decade of fintech experience working for Finovate, a fast-paced, demo-first showcase of the latest innovations and ideas in financial and banking technology. Greg is Finovate’s resident MC, hosting Finovate’s live events, podcast, and video pieces. He’s also an accomplished public speaking and demo coach.

These experiences have given Greg a unique bird’s-eye-view of the fintech industry as it has come to prominence. He’s seen thousands of demos and interviewed countless industry experts, watching not only individual innovations as they gain traction, but also the high-level trends that have shaped the industry. While he sometimes serves as a “fintech translator,” taking ideas and language from inside fintech and making it accessible to those “outside the bubble,” Greg’s true passion lies in pushing financial service providers to do more for the people all over the world who need new technologies to create a brighter financial future for themselves. A more diverse, inclusive, resilient financial ecosystem benefits everyone, and there’s nothing Greg likes more than providing a platform and a spotlight for fintech’s innovators and dreamers.

Malin Lignell has over 20 years of experience working with advisory services for both individual customers and corporates within Handelsbanken. More than ten of these years were spent in leadership roles at several Handelsbanken branches. In 2018 Malin joined the team for Technology & Innovation strategy, where her work now encompasses communications both within the organisation and externally at the strategic and operational levels. The team identifies and evaluates important trends within emerging technologies and explores these in practice. Insights built through dialogue internally and externally, as well as from field experience, are used to drive, inspire and challenge the organisation to become more innovative and focus on the opportunities and challenges that come with the bank’s digitalisation journey. Focus areas are understanding changes in customer behaviour and business models following trends in emerging technologies. Published author in Journal of Digital Banking and Journal of AI, Robotics and Workplace Automation. Both journals by Henry Stewart Publications.

As Chief Client Officer & Managing Director, Katharina Lüth is responsible for communications, operations and customer service across the entire company. She has been and is pivotal in establishing Raisin as a leader in the savings and investments space. Before becoming managing director Katharina focused on Raisin’s internationalization across the EU and UK. A sought after speaker and expert voice in the field of banking and fintech, she’s been featured in top tier German and international media and conferences.

Prior to joining Raisin, Katharina spent seven years at McKinsey & Co. As a senior project manager there, she primarily advised large European universal and private banks on asset management and private banking, pricing, advisory concepts, and lean transformation. Core projects included the end-to-end transformation of a large European bank, the development of advisory concepts and strategies for a number of private banks and asset managers after the financial crisis, and the pan-European analysis of deposit products. Katharina has worked primarily in Europe but also in Latin America and Africa. She holds an MBA from IESE Business School and a BSc in international business, focusing on finance, jointly from Northeastern University in the U.S. and Reutlingen University in Germany.

In her private life Katharina has two young daughters and enjoys running, yoga and traveling.

Saira Khan is the Head of Innovation and Partnerships for First Direct Bank. Having led the creation of innovation teams and centres in the United Kingdom, Asia, and the United States, while building and testing data management and open banking through global hackathons, she has developed a unique vision and reputation for being a catalyst for transformation around the world. She is known as a key connector and championing moves towards a digital-first culture, enabling greater collaboration and connectivity between startups and corporations with proven results. While her passion and advocacy for change sets her apart from her peers in the finance sector, it is her work mentoring and supporting global talent in Africa, Asia, and the United States that drives Saira as she focuses and champions efforts around diversity, inclusion, education, and sustainability.

Taner Akcok is a serial entrepreneur, intrapreneur and investor. He works at Deutsche Bank as Head of API Platform and Integration Services and is also an advisor at Boston Consulting Group Digital Ventures. He has 2 exits and is listed as Forbes 30 under 30 in Europe. Taner started his career at Microsoft and after 4.5 years of experience founded AppAnalytics, which became the second fastest growing B2B startup in the world according to Business Insider. In 2016, he sold his analytics company to Nomad Commerce and joined Webtrekk, where he built the first GDPR-compliant customer intelligence platform in Europe. Webtrekk became the fifth largest analytics solution in the world according to Forrester Wave Research and was acquired by Mapp in 2018. Taner then founded finleap connect and worked there as Managing Director, CPO and CTO. finleap connect became the leading financial API platform in Europe. Taner has extensive experience with API platforms, Open Banking, Banking as a Service (BaaS), Embedded Finance and Contextual Banking. He studied Business Administration at Istanbul University and Innovation Management at Stanford University. He is a full-stack business and tech leader with strong technical understanding and experience.

Richard is currently Senior Policy Lead for the Open Banking Implementation Entity responsible for delivery of its forward looking policy agenda supporting the development of the evolution of open banking, the Future Entity and the extension of data mobility in other sectors. He has over 35 year’ experience in payments and banking and was previously Director of Cards & Unsecured Lending at UK Finance delivering positive industry outcomes and a number of globally-recognised projects. Prior to that he worked in payments for a number of retail banks.

Jacob leads Forrester’s research on the future of banking, the future of payments, open finance, and platform business models in financial services. He advises leaders how to drive forward their digital agenda; how culture, organizational change, and emerging technology can accelerate transformation. He contributes to and is quoted by media such as the Australian Broadcasting Company, The Banker, Bloomberg, The Economist, Forbes, The Financial Times, The Financial Brand, Les Echos, and La Tribune.

Sarah is a fintech and insurtech strategist with over 10 years industry experience. She works with organisations of all sizes across the financial services industry, enabling them to succeed by using expert insight and analysis to identify opportunities and how to capitalise on them. Now a freelancer, she previously worked at Founders Factory, 11FS and Business Insider Intelligence.