2021 Speakers

Speakers

Headshot: Jennifer Klimko Courant
Jennifer Klimko Courant

Chief Data Officer

DWS Asset Management

Jennifer is the Chief Data Officer at DWS Asset Management. Prior to this role, she served as Head of sustainability, culture and talent for Deutsche Bank. She joined the bank in 2019 from Deloitte, where she spent two years as a Managing director in the risk advisory practice, specializing in data solutions for large, multinational financial institutions. Before that, Jennifer was a Managing Director at Citigroup, where she spent 18 years in the risk management organization in a number of leadership roles. In her last role at Citigroup, Jennifer was Head of risk systems and technology, where she was responsible for the decision-making, strategy, architectural design, execution and management of Global Risk Management’s core systems and infrastructure. This included the oversight and execution of multiple large-scale regulatory programs with the goal of remediation, mitigation and prevention of issues from Citi’s global regulators. Jennifer was also responsible for various enterprise-wide initiatives, including the firm-wide reconciled Risk and Finance Data Warehouse, the firm-wide Data Roadmap and the build out of Data Governance and a Data Office for Risk Management.  Jen holds a BS in economics and mathematics from Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA and has completed graduate studies in economics at Boston College.

Eileen M. Vidrine

Chief Data Officer

Department of the Air Force

Eileen M. Vidrine is the Department of the Air Force Chief Data Officer in Washington, D.C. She develops and implements strategies for enterprise data management, analytics, and digital transformation to optimize performance and drive innovation in and across all missions and operations.

Ms. Vidrine began her government career in 1986 as an enlisted member of the U.S. Army and was commissioned in 1987 through the U.S. Army Officer Candidate School Program as a Transportation Officer. Later in her Army career, she was selected and integrated into the U.S. Army Acquisition Corps. She began her civilian career as a senior faculty member at the Joint Military Intelligence College and led the college’s technology transformation as the first Director for the Center for Educational Technologies.

From 2006 to 2012, Ms. Vidrine served in various positions of leadership at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) culminating as the Chief of Staff for the Assistant DNI for Human Capital. In 2012, she was selected to serve as the DoD Intelligence Community Enterprise Architect assigned to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Human Capital Management Office (HCMO), and in 2014 assumed HCMO chief of staff responsibilities. In 2016, Ms. Vidrine was selected as a White House Leadership Fellow, supporting the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management. After her fellowship she was detailed to the Executive Office of the President Office of Administration. Ms. Vidrine was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in June 2018.

Beatriz Martin Jimenez

UK Chief Executive & Group Treasurer

UBS

Beatriz is Group Treasurer having been appointed in December 2020. She is also the UK Chief Executive for UBS AG London Branch.

Beatriz served as Global Chief Operating Officer for UBS Investment Bank from 2015-2020, UK Chief Operating Officer for UBS AG London Branch from 2014-2019 having joined UBS in 2012 as Chief of Staff to the CEO of the Investment Bank.

Before joining UBS, Beatriz held senior positions at Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank.

Beatriz has a Masters in Business Administration and is fluent in English, Spanish and German.

She currently sits on the Supervisory Board UBS Europe SE and as well as the industry renowned UK Finance Board.

Joseph Lodato

Managing Director, Global Head of Compliance Surveillance and Technology

GUGGENHEIM PARTNERS

Joe Lodato is a Managing Director, Global Head of Compliance Technology and Surveillance for Guggenheim Partners. Previously, he was the Chief Compliance Officer for Guggenheim Securities.

Earlier in his career, he held positions in Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer roles in a variety of settings, from startup organizations to large global services organizations, including Bank of America, Lehman Brothers, Barclays Capital and AllianceBernstein. He frequently speaks at industry conferences and events such as Waters Technology.
Joe earned his BBA from the Lublin School of Business at Pace University.

 

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Keith Lubell

Chief technology officer

BERKERY NOYES

Keith Lubell is CTO at Berkery Noyes. Since 2002, Keith has been developing an application and database of the Mergers and Acquisitions marketplace, encompassing more than 47,000 transactions and 123,000 companies in the software and information industry, including a toolset to understand business models and identify short and long-term trends. Prior to Berkery Noyes, Keith worked as Director of Application Development at Valinor – Ikon Office Solutions, where he obtained certifications as a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, Microsoft Certified System Engineer and Microsoft Certified Trainer. 
 

Connie Zhang

U.S. Data & Analytics Officer

Agricultural Bank of China

Connie currently is responsible for all types of data domains include risk, finance, KYC, BSA/AML. Before that she was at the Bank of China overseeing risk data (BCBS239), Financial Data (2052a) and KRI (Analytics & Reporting) as well as front-to-back financial data reconciliation. 

Connie has 23+ years’ experience in unifying financial service business, operation and technology based upon GRC requirement. Focus on Enterprise data Management & Risk Analytics Solution to streamline and transform Business Data & process (L1/L2) into practical technological solution includes Market Risk/Credit Risk/Model Risk Management/Operational & IT. She led many large scale projects involves large volume data implementation such as enterprise data management, mortgage data analytics, global core banking, credit risk forecast tool, prepayment model and online trading application by incorporating massive data analysis, prediction and reporting in both of low-latency and warehouse solution.

Before joining Bank of China, Connie was Director and Quantitative Business Manager in DTCC’s Enterprise Risk Management. She managed Quantitative Risk Management’s (QRM) analytics development projects, interfaced with internal and external stakeholders, and provided robust governance and control of QRM’s infrastructure and applications. Before that, she was Sr. manager with global management consulting practice serving major U.S. clients such as Bank of America and wells Fargo, where she also did cross-industrial information architecture projects via transforming financial data model into Parma. model for J&J and Eli Lilly.

She has Master Degree in Computer Science from City College, and MBA in Investment Management from Lubin School of Business.

Suvrat Bansal

former Chief data officer

UBS

Suvrat Bansal is President and Founder of Stellar Data Labs, an innovative data company helping clients in harnessing the power of data and analytics. Prior to forming Stellar Data Labs, Suvrat was the Chief Data Officer for UBS Asset Management, where he led the full suite of data and analytics capabilities from data management and governance to AI/ML and advanced analytics. Suvrat has 25 years of leadership experience in driving data and analytics strategies for global organizations.

Michel Finzi

Managing Director, Product Management

Enfusion

Michel Finzi is Managing Director, Product Management. He leads the global Product team, responsible for the Enfusion platform, in gathering and prioritizing product and customer requirements, defining the product vision and roadmap, and delivering weekly functionality enhancements as part of an exceptional customer experience.

Appointed to the role in September 2020, Finzi has 30 years of experience building businesses, developing products and organizations, and growing revenues for public and private companies at all stages of development. He has held senior leadership positions at capital markets companies as well as for innovative financial technology and quantitative research firms. 

Finzi previously served as Chief Commercial Officer of Tassat, a digital payments and exchange FinTech company. In earlier roles, he was Managing Director of the Equities Division at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital, and spent 15 years at Instinet Corporation, where he served as Managing Director of the Institutional Client Group, and Senior Vice President for International Trading.

Finzi holds a bachelor’s degree from Ohio Wesleyan University.

Lou Rosato

Managing Director

BlackRock

Louis John Rosato, III, Director, is a member of BlackRock's Investment Operations Group. He oversees Business Strategy and Industry Relationship Management with Blackrock’s Counterparties, Providers and Industry Partners within Investment Operations. He is a member of the BlackRock’s Fixed Income, Foreign Exchange, Equity, Liquidity, Cross Trading and Product Resource Oversight Committees.

Before taking on his current role, Mr. Rosato lead the Global Trade Operations Teams in the US and EMEA. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2004, Mr. Rosato was with Jennison Associates, LLC where he was responsible for establishing and managing the firms Retail Separately Managed Account Trading and Operations Teams. He performed similar roles for 1838 Investment Advisors and Rittenhouse Financial Services, and worked as an Equity Specialist Clerk and Foreign Exchange Options Floor Broker for Dean Witter Reynolds on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. He began his career in 1987 as an Operations Analyst with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

Mr. Rosato is a Board Member of ISITC, and Chairperson of the Investment Company Institute Securities Operations Advisory Committee. He is a Member of the SIFMA Operations and Technology Committee and Chairperson of the AMF Operations Leadership Committee, and active participant and Co-Chair of several ISITC, SWIFT, FIA and FIX Trading Community Committees and Industry Working Groups. He previously represented BlackRock on the OMGEO Regional Advisory Council in the Americas. He earned a BS degree in Business Administration from Widener University.

Eric Hirschhorn

Chief Data Officer

BNY Mellon

Eric Hirschhorn is the Chief Data Officer (CDO) of BNY Mellon. He is part of the Global Operations and Technology Executive Committee and reports to the firms CIO, Bridget Engle. As CDO, Eric is focused on digital transformation, operational efficiency, artificial intelligence/machine learning, regulation and helping the firm evolve to become data driven by design.

Before joining BNY Mellon, Eric was the Chief Information Officer for Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC Partners. Prior to Cantor, he spent several years in various senior roles on Wall Street, most recently as Managing Director of Global Fixed Income eTrading & Rates Technology at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. 

Prior to Bank of America, Eric was at Morgan Stanley serving as CTO of Fixed Income, at Citi where he ran Global FX technology, at Lehman where he was responsible for Global Fixed Income eTrading, and at JPMorgan Chase where he ran International Treasury technology. His professional life has taken him around the world including several years living in London. Eric is an authority on how technology drives transformation in financial markets. He has been involved in various industry working groups.

Eric graduated Cooper Union in 1989. He holds a Bachelors of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering and current serves as Vice Chair of the Board Trustees at the Cooper Union. Eric lives in New Jersey with his wife, Hillary, and their two children.

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Sumanda Basu

Head of Data Quality, Société Générale Americas

Societe Generale

Sumanda Basu is currently leading Data Quality and Controls for Société Générale Americas. He was previously responsible for data governance and data management technology. Before joining Socgen, Sumanda had several data and technology management leadership roles in JP Morgan Chase, Citi and HSBC.

David Wright

Chief data officer, Data & Analytics Solutions

BNY Mellon

David Wright has led financial services and market data strategy across process, technology, and people to advance data management practices for nearly 20 years. Over his career, he has been surrounded by data, data analytics and system architecture which are the pinnacle to materializing proper enterprise data management and strategy. David is currently the Chief Data Officer for BNY Mellon, having previously led the data strategy for Commerzbank NA including alignment with the Enterprise Chief Data Office to improve data integrity, gain operating efficiencies, and transform data to enable insight. Prior to that David led a global team boosting the data governance ecosystem including the principal framework, data dictionaries, tools, and data integrity to enable strategic data management practices across all S&P Global Ratings key domains. And, while a part of JPMorgan Chase, David grew the Reference Data Chief Data Office as part of the developing enterprise CDO functions.  He also enabled data management strategy while leading enterprise finance initiatives including global ledger platform and functional consolidations including related corresponding logical and physical data model development.

Carson Boneck

Chief Data Officer

Balyasny Asset Management L.P.

Carson Boneck, CFA, is the Chief Data Officer and a member of the firm's Management Committee.  He is responsible for data sourcing, data science, webscraping, and data engineering across all of the firm’s strategies and business lines.  Carson joined BAM as a Director of Quantitative Research in 2016, building and overseeing a research team which created systematic strategies for the firm’s discretionary Long/Short investors.  Prior to joining BAM, Carson was the Global Head of Investment Management at S&P Global Market Intelligence for eight years.  At SPGI, he founded and built the firm’s data science team and Capital IQ’s acclaimed Quantamental Equity Research group. He began his career in management consulting specializing in company valuation, corporate finance, and M&A advisory.  Carson holds a B.S. in Finance and International Businesses from Indiana University.  He has been a CFA charterholder since 2001.

Shivaji Dasgupta

Managing Director, Global Head of Data Products and Artificial Intelligence

Deutsche Bank

Shivaji Dasgupta joined Deutsche Bank in 2018 and leads the conceptualization and implementation of data-driven products, especially innovative cloud products and AI themes across the group.

He is part of the Cloud and Innovation Network team within Technology, Data and Innovation at Deutsche Bank.

In addition, he also leads the Bank’s position on data economy and cloud use with sensitive data towards external cross-industry forums such as German Banking Federation (BdB), European Banking Federation (EBF) and European Cloud Initiative Gaia-X.

Shivaji studied Physics at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and did his PhD on Quantum Computation at Technical University Munich in 2008. He has worked at McKinsey & Co., Inc. in their Munich Office as Engagement Manager, thereafter at ProSiebenSat.1 as Senior Vice-President for Data Technology and Versicherungskammer (Sparkasse-Group) as Chief Data Officer.  

Rochak Lamba

Industry Architect for Capital Markets

Google

Rochak is a capital markets industry architect at Google helping link Google Cloud Platform’s products and solutions with inherent challenges faced by the industry.

Prior to Google, Rochak worked at prominent capital markets firms (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and London Stock Exchange Group) in front-office strategist roles systematising the business. Rochak holds B.E. Software from Sydney, Australia and has a Masters in quantitative finance from London Business School.

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Dessa Glasser

Principal

FRG

Dessa Glasser is FRG’s Principal for the data strategy advisory and analytics practice, providing innovative solutions to clients in data, risk, and analytics. She is an independent board member of Oppenheimer & Co. Inc; and chair of the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF).

Before joining FRG, Dessa was the Managing director at JPMorgan Chase, responsible for the Capital Stress Testing Analytics and was the Chief data officer for Asset and Wealth Management. As Deputy director of the Office of Financial Research, she received the US Treasury Exceptional Service Award. Dessa was the Chief risk officer for Bunge and held senior positions at Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch, IBM, and KPMG.

Dessa has a B.S. from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from Fordham University, where she is on the advisory board for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. 

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Victor Anderson

Global content director

WatersTechnology

Victor Anderson is editor-in-chief of Waters magazine and WatersTechnology. He joined the Risk Waters Group, now part of Incisive Media, in 2001. Victor was born and grew up in South Africa and was an English, History of Art and Director of Sports teacher before making the change to journalism. Before leaving South Africa, while working for Redsand Publishing, he edited a number of magazines for the United Cricket Board of South Africa, the South African Rugby Football Union, and the Professional Golfers' Association of South Africa. 

David Sharratt

Global head data product monetisation

Standard Chartered Bank

David has unique experience spanning the full trade lifecycle, execution to ledger. An experienced C-suite executive, David has significant exposure reporting to and working alongside CEOs and other C-suite focusing on strategic direction and operation of firms.

His geographic experience spans London, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Moscow and Johannesburg having held senior executive positions in ask these locations. His experience spans established and emerging markets.

Currently based in Singapore he is looking at opportunities to work with businesses focused on growth and geographical expansion where his strategy and build experience can be leveraged.

David Ng

Chief operating officer

David joined CSOP Asset Management Limited as COO in 2017 and oversees Trading, Client Solutions, Risk Management, Operations, Technology and ETF Operations for the firm. He is responsible for designing and driving the infrastructure strategy of CSOP to support its business growth and development and is also currently leading the digital transformation initiative for CSOP.

Prior to joining CSOP as COO, David was the Head of Business Controls and Management for South East Asia at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, responsible for the governance and business management of the Global Banking and Markets Businesses in the region. David is also part of the local management committees of Merrill Lynch Singapore, Bank of America Singapore Branch and Bank of America Securities Limited

Previously, David had worked in a number of large financial institutions such as Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley in a variety of roles covering operations, middle office and finance. David started his career in Deloitte as an auditor in Australia.

David holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago – Booth School of Business and a Master of Applied Commerce(Accounting) and a Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of Melbourne.

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Katie Palisoul

Global Brand Director

WatersTechnology

Laura Hamilton

Managing director - global head of treasury technology

Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Laura Hamilton is Managing Director, Global Head of Corporate Treasury Technology and Financial Forecasting Technology at Bank of America. Prior to joining the bank in 2017, Laura was the Chief Information Officer for Enterprise Stress Testing Technology, Global head of Compliance Technology, America’s Head of Risk Technology at Deutsche Bank. Laura spent twenty years in various roles across J.P. Morgan where she was Chief Technology Officer delivering global enterprise business initiatives and industry-leading technology programs within Corporate and Investment Banking (Global Markets). Other experiences include the launch of technology innovations for eCommerce platforms for brands such as Nike, Estee Lauder and Best Buy.

Laura has extensive experience setting technology strategy and delivering business value through innovative and cost effective technology across various roles including: Line of Business IT Development, IT Infrastructure, Risk & Control, Chief Data Office/Data Architecture, Financial Crime Compliance, Technical Architecture, Regulatory Reporting, Corporate Treasury (Capital, Liquidity, Funding, Market Access). Laura’s experience spans Lines of Business including Global Markets, Commercial/Business Banking, Wealth Management, and Consumer Retail. Laura evaluates emerging technology and design principles with an entrepreneurial spirit along with a mindset of controls, ongoing sustainability and reusability. Laura has successfully implemented programs leveraging Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics/Process Automation, Public Cloud, and Advanced Data Analytics. She has a proven track record for delivering collaboratively with Agile and Lean principles to focus on the highest business value. Multiple Patent applications.

Laura is a passionate technologist who enjoys helping individuals develop professionally in their careers, especially women in technical and applied STEM roles.

Jay Wolstenholme

Research Director

Chartis Research

Having joined Chartis in July 2020, Jay’s primary focus is to lead and build-out our offerings for the buy-side, both in asset management and wealth management. Buy-side is a focused area of Chartis’s expansion and we are delighted to have Jay leading this area which is increasingly important for both our clients and the industry in general. Jay was most recently a Senior Principal at Finastra. Prior to this he spent 4 years as a Senior Analyst at Celent, 4 years as the Director of Capital Markets at HP, 5 years as a Research Director at Gartner and his first 8 years in industry as a Group Manager in fixed income IT at UBS.

Jay holds a BFA from Cooper Union, a BA from Saint Lawrence University and an MBA in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business. Additionally, Jay is Series 7 certified with FINRA.

Michelle Bonat

Head of AI Innovation, Digital

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Emmanuel Richard

SVP & Theatre GM, North America

Rimini Street

Emmanuel Richard is a seasoned software executive with over 20 years of experience building and running field operations in America and in International theaters.

At Rimini Street, he serves as Group Vice President and General Manager, responsible for overseeing sales and service delivery for the Eastern Region in North America.

Most recently Mr. Richard built the US East Coast operations from the ground up at Kyvos Insights, a pre-venture startup disrupting the Cloud Analytics market. Prior to that, he spent 9 years at MicroStrategy, the largest independent Business Intelligence vendor, where he operated as General Manager for worldwide Indirect Sales for 4 years, after co-developing the GM model in EMEA for 5 years.

Mr. Richard spent the first decade of his career as a sales executive at Microsoft, Borland Software, and Quest Software.

He holds a diploma of arts and history from Université Paris-Sorbonne.

Victoria Haverson

Global Head of Business Development

SmartStream

With 15 years dedicated to sales within financial services, Victoria always wants to understand why customers buy the way they do, how she can help them build better organisations to better service their customers, and how she can help them achieve their goals. Having worked with global banks and fund managers for many years Victoria has a sound knowledge of capital markets, treasury and finance, and the regulatory landscape in front, middle and back office processes with the skills to manage multi-functional teams and provide business or technical leadership.

Yu Yu

Director, Senior Principal Data Scientist, Advanced Digital Solutions

BNY Mellon

Yu Yu joined the Advanced Digital Solutions team at BNY Mellon in 2019, bringing over 10 years of statistical modeling expertise to the firm. She is responsible for developing and validating AI and Machine Learning solutions that can help improve business outcomes for the bank as well as for its clients by driving automation, reducing risk and delivering actionable insights. She recently worked with BNY Mellon’s Corporate Treasury and Corporate Technology businesses to develop an AI solution for liquidity forecasting that won the 2020 Gartner Eye on Innovation Award for financial services, Americas. Prior to joining BNY Mellon, Yu Yu held data science positions at both Point72 and AIG Science, where she leveraged cutting-edge statistical modeling and machine learning techniques to solve a wide range of investment and business problems. Before her industrial career, she was a tenure-track professor of marketing at Georgia State University for nearly five years. Yu Yu holds a Ph.D in Quantitative Marketing from Cornell University, a master’s degree in Economics from Indiana University Bloomington, and an undergraduate degree in Finance from Nankai University.

Rafael Jimenez Jimenez

Head of Transformation & Platform Management, Global Markets

BBVA

Global Head of Transformation & Platform Management team in charge of managing the evolution and support of BBVA Global Markets Platform. The main duties of the team involve platform strategic design, transformation programmes definition and execution acting as Product Owners, senior management reporting, vendor management and functional configuration of FO systems.

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Max Bowie

Editor-at-large

WatersTechnology

Max is editor-at-large at WatersTechnology.  Max is editor of Inside Market Data and Inside Data Management. Max joined then-Risk Waters Group (prior to its acquisition by Incisive Media) in 2000, and has worked as a reporter on Risk MagazineFX WeekTrading Technology Week (now Sell-Side Technology) and Buy-Side IT (now Buy-Side Technology), before joining IMD as European reporter in 2003. He moved to New York as US reporter in 2005, and became editor in 2006.

Max lives in Astoria, New York with his wife and twin girls, and enjoys playing rock music, wine tastings, and market data.

Matt Wells

Managing Director and Head of Global Payments and Treasury Services Operations

BNY Mellon

Matt Wells is Managing Director, Head of Global Operations for Payments, Treasury, Issuer Services and Markets at BNY Mellon. He is responsible for the enterprise-wide services that support our clients' global markets, payments, issuer and loan services and treasury services needs. Strategically located across the globe, Matt’s 4,500-strong team—in close partnership with Technology—leverages industry-leading solutions to deliver seamless, around-the-clock coverage for our clients.

Matt’s career in financial services spans more than 20 years, starting when he joined Operations at the Bank of New York in London in 1997. He spent time working in London, New York and Manchester in a wide variety of operations- and technology-focused roles. In 2015, Matt was appointed as Site Executive for Manchester where he was responsible for the overall location strategy, including talent development, employee engagement and workplace excellence. He has been in his current role since 2018 and is based in New York.

Driven by relentless curiosity and a desire to find solutions, Matt has extensive experience in leading and delivering change through enterprise-level strategic projects, organizational restructuring and regulatory compliance. He is equally passionate about people and enjoys helping teams perform their best today while preparing them for the unknowns of tomorrow in this rapidly changing industry.

Matt is a member of The Federal Reserve Payments Risk Committee and The Bank of England’s RTGS Renewal Advisory Body and was previously a Board Director for CHAPSCo in the UK. Matt earned an Executive MBA from the University of Manchester’s Business School in 2012.

Daniele Magazzeni

Managing director and head of Explainable AI Center of Excellence

JP Morgan

Dr Daniele Magazzeni is Managing Director at J.P. Morgan, where he is AI Research Director and Head of the firmwide Explainable AI Center of Excellence. Daniele is also Visiting Professor at King’s College London.

His main research interests are in AI Planning and Machine Learning for efficient resource allocation and processes optimization, and Explainability and Fairness in AI. Daniele is the former President of the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS), and General Chair of the ACM International Conference on AI in Finance (ICAIF).

Bjorn Austraat

Senior Vice President & Head of Artificial Intelligence

Truist

Bjorn Austraat brings more than two decades of diverse experience in taking complex business problems and finding pragmatic, profitable solutions to them through machine learning, AI and other technologies.

Currently, he serves as SVP and Head of AI at Truist where he is building out the new AI & Analytics Accelerator (A3) to enable innovation and accelerate scalable solution deployment for AI and analytics across the enterprise. The Accelerator will provide a complete incubation environment including open source and commercial software, AI-optimized hardware, design thinking and Agile methodologies as well as synthetic data to support and empower teammates across Truist to grow ideas from early stage to MVP to fully deployed solutions.

Formerly, Bjorn was SVP for Agile AI at Wells Fargo, Global Cognitive Finance Leader with IBM for a top-3 International Bank and the Global Leader for Cognitive Visioning and Strategy for IBM Watson, where he provided strategic direction for marquee engagements including H&R Block and Vodafone.

Prior to joining IBM, Bjorn held a number of senior leadership roles in companies ranging from Silicon Valley startups to large, multinational consulting enterprises working with companies such as Apple, AT&T, Microsoft and Ford.

Bjorn holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, an M.A. in Translation and Interpretation from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and an M.A. in Conference Interpretation from the University of Vienna, Austria.


When he is not busy with all things technology, Bjorn spends his time with photography, international travel, nutritional science and AI ethics.

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Joanna Wright

European editor

WatersTechnology

Joanna Wright is EMEA Editor for WatersTechnology. She was previously a US correspondent for Risk.net and reporter at Inside Reference Data. She was born in South Africa, and began her journalism career as a sub-editor at newspapers there. Before moving to London, she gained business reporting experience in a number of industries and topics, including media, advertising and tech, and large-scale infrastructure projects in pioneer markets.

Ajit Naidu

EVP - Acting Head of Client Services & Technology

TIAA

Dynamic blend of talent and expertise, extending from leadership to organizational development / transformation, operational efficiency/excellence, strategic growth/expansion, and technology advancement. Broad technology background aligned with organizational strategy, including AI/ML, Blockchain, Data & Analytics, digital transformation, and more.

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Vikramaaditya

Former chief transformation & administration officer, HSBC Global Asset Management

Vikramaaditya is former Chief Transformation & Administration Officer for HSBC’s global asset management business. He had responsibility for leading the global portfolio of business and regulatory change initiatives including global digital and infrastructure transformation. He also led the Global Operations and Administration functions focusing on delivery, first line risk activities and the optimisation of operating models for the global business. HSBC Asset Management is a full service asset manager with assets under management of over USD 600Bn and operations in 26 countries and territories across the world.

Vikram has over two decades of experience in the financial services sector across asset management and asset servicing businesses in UK and India. Vikram was earlier responsible for global business strategy for HSBC’s asset management business and was CEO for HSBC’s asset management business in India. Vikram has also led HSBC’s Securities Services business in India. Vikram was also the non-executive Chairman of HSBC ETFs plc which oversees HSBC’s global ETF fund range domiciled in Ireland.

Dayle Scher

Research Director

Chartis Research

Dayle joins Chartis Research as a Research Director focused on the asset management pillar. She brings to the team more than 40 years of financial services industry experience, having held senior operations and technology roles at Morgan Stanley Investment Management and MFS Investment Management, as well as spending five years at State Street Corporation across various product-focused functions.

In between industry roles, Dayle served as a Research Director at both the former TowerGroup (now CEB/Gartner) and TABB Group, where she covered equities and capital markets technology across the back-, middle- and front offices and performed vendor analysis and due diligence for clients. Most recently Dayle was a Strategy Director at the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), where she undertook research, analysis and scenario planning across areas of impact for the firm, including macroeconomic, regulatory and legislative, technology and market structure trends; she also monitored the competitive landscape and client priorities driving the business.

Dayle received her undergraduate degree from the University at Albany, SUNY, and earned an MBA in Finance from the Fordham Gabelli School of Business. She has also served on the board of ISITC, where she led the Investment Management member forum and other various working groups formulating trade communications market practices. Dayle also holds a certificate from the Centre for Economic and Political Studies in London.