London 2024 Speakers

Aaron leads the Product Risk and Compliance teams at Wise responsible for supporting the launch and growth of products in a safe, risk-managed and customer-centric way. Prior to joining Wise, Aaron was the Head of Financial Crime and Fraud at Revolut, leading both product and operations teams to better detect and prevent illicit activities.

Previously, Aaron has specialised in regulatory compliance and financial crime matters for financial services and fintech clients at Ernst & Young and also led KYC and AML product development at regtech vendor Quantexa.

Alessio is a Senior Partner in McKinsey Digital with over 10 years of experience in management consulting. He leads McKinsey’s Payments Practice, in EMEA as well as McKinsey’s Digital team in the Mediterranean. He serves leading organisations in more than 20 different countries on topics ranging from strategic planning to large-scale innovation programs and growth strategies for tech-enabled businesses.

Alessio’s main areas of specialisations include: large-scale technology and digitization programs; growth programs for tech-enabled businesses (e.g., Payments & Global Transaction Banking); organisational redesigns, value assurance, and post-merger management; innovation strategy for large financial services players as well as fintechs and industry utilities.

Bhupen leads the Transactional FX (TFX) Trading business globally for Bank of America (BofA). One of six trading desks that form BofA’s Foreign Exchange and Local Currency Trading business, TFX is responsible for pricing and risk management for all FX flows across BofA’s Global Payment Services (GPS), Consumer Bank and (selected) Global Markets channels. In addition, Bhupen and his team are also responsible for evolving the client offering and ensuring successful technology deployment into client facing channels.

Bhupen joined BofA in 2014, where he led the TFX Trading business for the Asia Pacific region out of Hong Kong. He relocated to London in 2018, where he led the evolution and growth of TFX across the EMEA region. Leaving in 2021, he spent 18 months at JP Morgan before returning to BofA in his current role as Global Head for TFX.

Prior to BofA, Bhupen spent 4 years at HSBC focusing on FX and FX payments. His broader experience covers FX risk management, FX derivatives and structuring. 

Diana Avila is Global Head of Banking and Expansion at Wise and part of the leadership team, leading the international expansion of the company. She is responsible for building and leading the global team that is making Wise’s services available in more jurisdictions for their 16 million customers. The Banking and Expansion team works with over 80 global financial partners to enable customers to use Wise around the world. This team has contributed to Wise securing financial licences in 16 jurisdictions around the world, and they are continuously working on further expansions.

When she first joined Wise in 2015, Diana was responsible for taking on the challenge of expanding Wise’s operations to Latin America through partnerships with financial institutions and securing new regulatory licences. Diana is passionate about financial inclusion and innovation towards a better and more efficient financial system.

Prior to Wise, she was working as a Financial Regulatory Lawyer in Colombia, enabling foreign financial institutions to operate in the local market.

Jacintha leads the Finance and Treasury product teams at Wise. Treasury is the financial engine behind Wise’s products and the Finance team is responsible for building trust and providing financial insights as well as data for customers, investors, regulators, and teams across Wise.

Prior to joining Wise in 2021, Jacintha spent 10 years in trading product management at NatWest and four years in FX and interest rate derivatives.

Julie Arnoux is the Head of Commercial – Europe at Wise Platform, Wise’s market-leading global payment infrastructure for banks, financial institutions and enterprises around the world. Julie has nearly ten years of experience in the financial sector securing and managing strategic partnerships with banks and financial institutions. Julie has been with Wise since 2017 and prior to that she worked at Société Générale.

Kristo is the co-founder and CEO of Wise, the global tech company building the best way to move money around the world. Prior to starting Wise, Kristo was a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting & PricewaterhouseCoopers.

He worked with European banks and insurers to modernise their processes and systems. Stunned by their inefficiency, he teamed up with Taavet Hinrikus, then Skype’s director of strategy, to develop an entirely new system for moving money across borders. Kristo was selected as one of the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers 2015.

Maha is Centre Head, BIS Innovation Hub Singapore. The centre develops public goods in the technology space to support central banks in how they discharge their roles in a digital economy and improve the financial system using novel ideas and emerging technologies. 

Prior to this, Maha was Head of Department for Early and High Growth Oversight leading the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) response to the Kalifa review of Fintech. A Senior Leadership Team member, she is setting up this new department from the ground up as part of the FCA’s strategy. 

Maha served as Chief Payments Officer at Pay.UK on secondment from the FCA, responsible for running the payments operations of BACS, Faster Payments, Image Clearing Services and related managed services. 

Maha joined the FCA in 2017 to set up the first Payments Department and was responsible for crafting and implementing the FCA supervisory strategy for the UK Payments Sector. This included leading the implementation of the Second Payments Services Directive (PSD2) and Open Banking. 

Maha has a keen interest in observing and participating in the many exciting changes that are unfolding in the financial services, innovation and fintech environment. She recently sat on the SteerCo developing the strategy and blueprint for the UK’s newly created Centre for Finance Innovation and Technology. 

She has a Degree in Commerce from Macquarie University and a Masters in Public Administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Nilan is Chief Product Officer at Wise, where he leads on growth across channels including product and platform.

Prior to Wise Nilan was VP Growth at HouseTrip, in charge of scaling the company’s growth in the European market. He’s also worked as Chief Marketing Technology Officer at Holiday Extras, where he was responsible for all areas of technology, marketing and customer acquisition. Nilan also advises a number of early stage startups on growth and getting to traction.

Ritu leads NatWest Transaction Services and Trade team with a remit to drive business development strategy and PnL for Corporates and Financial Institutions across a payments products suite including digital solutions, trade finance, cash management and cards. Before joining NatWest in April 2022, she had a stint at a cross border payments start-up as their Chief Commercial Officer leading the UK strategy and launch. Prior to that Ritu led the Financial Institutions Payments Sales team at Lloyds Bank where she spent over 10 years across FI coverage and Transaction Banking.

Roisin Levine is the Head of UK & Europe at Wise Platform, Wise’s market-leading global payment infrastructure for banks, financial institutions and enterprises around the world. Roisin has nearly ten years of experience in the fintech sector securing and managing strategic partnerships with banks and financial institutions.

Prior to joining Wise, Roisin was the Head of Banks at Flux, and has been awarded the Women in Fintech ‘Rising Star’ title three times.

Sonia-Carla Ciocirlie is the Head of Business Operations at Wise Platform, Wise’s market-leading global payment infrastructure for banks, financial institutions and enterprises around the world. She leads the Servicing teams providing enterprise-level support to Wise Platform partners, ensuring scalability, whilst reducing costs and improving SLAs. The Servicing teams include Compliance Operations, such as KYC and KYB, Risk Assessment and Monitoring, Enterprise Support, Customer Success, FinCrime Operations and Payment Operations. Since joining Wise in 2016, Sonia has held various positions including in Marketing and Sales. 

Steve Naudé is the Managing Director of Wise Platform, Wise’s market-leading global payment infrastructure for banks, financial institutions and enterprises around the world. Wise Platform provides these organisations with the capabilities, technology and network to enable fast, secure and cost-effective international payments for their customers. Previously, Steve has worked on payments international expansion, as well as direct connections to payment schemes such as UK Faster Payments and Swift.

Tom is the CEO of GSS, a global platform that brings financial institutions together to deliver higher standards in compliance through defining standards and making them available to all. He has over 30 years of experience in the design, delivery and evaluation of compliance systems and controls, particularly in the field of financial crime risk. He has worked closely with regulators, law enforcement and counsel in the US, Europe and Asia.

Previously, Tom ran the AlixPartners EMEA financial crime business and before that was Deloitte’s EMEA head of financial crime as well as the global risk analytics leader. He has led over 100 reviews of sanctions systems and controls. He also served as the former Head of EMEA for a US software firm delivering cross-industry data management solutions to dozens of tier one clients.