Australia Financial Information & Technology Summit

Shumi Akhtar is an associate professor at the University of Sydney Business School. Her research publications have appeared in leading international and Australian peer-reviewed journals. Akhtar has received a number of highly competitive external research grants, and regularly attends, presents and chairs sessions at top financial economic conferences, including the American Finance Association, American Economic Association, European Financial Management Association and Asian Finance Association. A number of her research papers received local and international awards. Akhtar was visiting scholar at Harvard, MIT and Stanford among others. She was invited to share her expert opinion before the Australian Parliamentary Senate Inquiry on Tax, International Trade and Investment and her recommendations were implemented. Akhtar's research scholarships have been recognised by the Australian Research Council, US-Australia Fulbright and Oxford University Fellowship/Scholarship.

Bora Arslan has decades of global leadership experience in the field of data design and strategies, decision sciences including change management, digital transformations, customer experience, personalization, dynamic pricing, automation, strategy and execution of loyalty programs.

Bora recently was the Chief Data and Analytics Officer at ASB for Commonwealth Bank of Australia, focusing on the data and analytics components of the bank’s long term transformations with concentration on cloud migration, personalisation, and decisioning. Before Bora was the Chief Analytics Officer for Insurance Australia Group, enabling analytics solutioning through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Previously Bora was the executive lead for all analytics operations with the focus on digital and retail touchpoints and performance management for Ford Motor Company through its exclusive marketing partner GTB. Bora joined GTB from BGL Group in the UK where he was the executive lead for data informed business transformations.

Bora’s responsibilities were similar to his earlier role at Walmart, where he was the VP of Global Decision Sciences and Analytics Strategy. His main objective with Walmart was to develop and maintain customer focused services and operations, utilizing advance technologies and emerging big data methods across all international operations.

Before Walmart, Bora led enterprise capability development efforts for Walgreens as the Head of Customer Analytics. Prior to Walgreens, Bora provided consulting services to a wide range of leading companies from several industries. 

As Managing Analytics Partner for Peppers and Rogers Group, Bora was especially recognised after pioneering several successful efforts of creating synergistic customer experience infrastructures for large conglomerates.

Michael has over 20 years’ investment management and consulting experience and joined BTIM from First State Super, where he was Head of Investment Strategy since January 2014. In this role, Michael was responsible for the establishment of an active asset allocation process and led the Fund’s Investment Strategy Team. Prior to this appointment, Michael was Head of Diversified Strategies at Perpetual for over five years, with portfolio management responsibilities for the manager’s range of diversified funds. Michael’s prior experience includes over 10 years in consulting roles at Watson Wyatt (now Willis Towers Watson) and NSP Buck.

Jonathan Chung is Senior Manager, Portfolio Risk at State Super (SAS Trustee Corporation). He is responsible for setting and monitoring investment risk appetite and parameters for the Fund, and ensuring this aligns with State Super’s investment policies and objectives. He is also responsible for developing infrastructure to provide portfolio analytics, and supporting the investment team in portfolio constructions, asset allocation and risk mitigation strategies.

Jonathan joined State Super in 2020 and was previously an Asian Fixed Income Analytics Manager at Schroders, and held roles as EMEA Investment Director, and Quantitative Risk Researcher at JPMorgan Investment Management. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Economics and is a Chartered Financial Analyst holder.

An aspiring CISO with 20 years' experience of defining IT Strategy to support the business and successfully leading large-scale Cyber Security & GRC programs in Banking and Financial, Local Government, Telecommunication, and Management Consulting in four geographies. Help Organisations to adopt Cloud native services without compromising security and reliability requirements. My leadership style: Genuine Empathy, Engagement and Empowerment. A change agent who can communicate to C level about the big ticket items and in securing funding and consensus building with engineers through effective communication to adopt and adapt standards and best practices including ISO, COBIT, NIST, ITIL . Hands on expertise in Cloud Security, Cyber risk assessment and Solution architecture. Always inspiring teams to achieve Continual improvement in an innovative way.

Pallab Dey is a quantitative research/analytics and technology professional and is currently leading a data science & data solutions group in the systematic trading and strategy research space in Boronia Capital. His key expertise areas include financial market assets (with exposure to equity cash and listed futures and options), low latency automated trading product development, microstructure research & analytics, statistical/predictive modelling, and big data software solutions utilizing high-frequency time series data.

Pallab Dey has held various positions in financial markets and trading areas, including research, algorithmic product design and management, and engineering roles while working with hedge fund, FinTech firms, and sell-side institutional division in investment banks. He has also conducted lectures and designed courses in UNSW business school related to trading and FinTech.

Pallab Dey holds a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), a master's degree in Risk and Investment Management (Financial economics track), and a bachelor's degree in Computer Science & Engineering. He has authored academic research working papers in the area of Microstructure of the Market, Market Liquidity, and Short Selling, and frequently presents and chairs in finance conferences.

Viisti is an Industry Expert at UTS, with both public and private sector including as a Senior Director in top tier consulting firms and in-house, across financial services, telecommunications, media, and education sectors. She focuses on helping organisations with their biggest challenges - including M&A, Diversity and Inclusion, Culture change, Risk, Innovation and ESG - often on high priority programs. Her focus on business transformation is commercial, strategic and pragmatic.

Viisti is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, jas a Masters of Law (USyd), Masters of International Relations (UQ & Sciences Po Paris), and a Bachelor of Business (QUT). She has lived and worked in France, UK, Chile and Vietnam.

Rafae Khan is a seasoned financial crime professional currently working with Citibank and with NAB as an AML Specialist & Subject Matter Expert . His expertise includes ECDD, internal risk policy development, Transaction monitoring, Risk and Control Analysis, Strategy development, and Global Stakeholder management. 

As an AML Specialist & Subject Matter Expert, Rafae wears multiple hats. His responsibilities include managing teams of AML Professionals, training AML Analysts in conducting enhanced customer due diligence, transaction monitoring, sanctions screenings, ensuring strict adherence to internal risk SOPs and guidelines. Rafae is also responsible for conducting local and APAC wide periodic Quality control testing and reviews, ensuring strong adherence to processes, policies, and procedures.

He has previously worked in the California State Legislature lobbying for higher education, worked in various voter registration drives in California, and was also selected to be part of the Prestigious Panetta Institute of Public Policy.

Rafae graduated with a Gold Medal from California State University, East Bay with a Bachelor of Science (Hons.), Business Administration specializing in Finance and Business Economics. Rafae also completed his Masters of Commerce in Financial Crime and Governance from Macquarie University. 

Rafae is an avid follower of global politics and finance. He is often seen helping recent graduates and graduating seniors build strong result oriented resumes and takes a strong interest in helping candidates prepare for job interviews.

Sanjay Khanna, a member of the executive leadership team as a C-level leader, possesses an impressive track record in assisting global banks in effectively addressing market and business challenges arising from the emergence of digital banking technology. By leveraging state-of-the-art digital tools and techniques such as blockchain analysis, microservices, OpenAPI, cloud computing, and DevOps, Sanjay has successfully facilitated the transformation and enhancement of digital assets for financial institutions, enabling them to meet the ever-growing demand for digital banking services.

Sanjay's outstanding contributions have garnered recognition from esteemed organizations, including the Asian Bankers Association in 2016 and FINSEC in 2018. Notably, Sanjay's accomplishments were further acknowledged in the DigiBank 2020 Technology Leaders Powerlist, where he was honored as a distinguished Banking Technology leader.

Daminda is currently heading the Cybersecurity function for the Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation (Australian Federal Government agency). With over 25 years of experience in information technology, he has worked with global organisations across manufacturing, supply chain, construction, and safety industries to help operate and implement mission-critical technology services. Daminda is also a visiting associate professor for Macquarie University's cyber security hub and was appointed as a non-executive director for CREST Australian and NZ 2019.

Victor has 20 years of experience in financial services, specialising in risk modelling and technology changes. He has held various quantitative and technology roles across Market risk, Counterparty risk and Balance Sheet management functions at Westpac. He has extensive experience in data analytics, modelling, systems implementation and execution of cross-disciplinary projects that involve front and back-office technology in institutional banking. As Head of Business Development, he is part of a fast-growing team at ActiveViam, a global software provider to the financial services industry that delivers a fit-for-purpose data analytics platform to accelerate confident decision-making.

Aanya relocated from London to Sydney to support the expansion of the London Stock Exchange Group into APAC, following the acquisition of Refinitiv in 2021. She currently has a dual role, leading the Enterprise Data team in Pacific as well as supporting business development for Equities Trading across APAC.

From an Enterprise Data perspective, Aanya covers the whole suite of products including our Ultra-low Latency Feeds, PCAP Data, Real-Time Consolidated Feeds, Tick History, Intraday & EOD Reference Data, and Market & Trade Surveillance solutions.

In the Trading space, she focuses heavily on bringing to market Equities Trading Solutions for the Group and driving order flow from APAC to our UK and European Equities trading venues.

Aanya has been with LSEG for over 6 years and prior to her relocation to Australia, was based in London focused on Capital Markets Product and Business Development within the Regulatory space, bringing MIFID II products to market.

Mr. Pai engages with prospective clients to assess their data & analytics needs and determine appropriate solutions delivered via Aladdin. Prior to his current role he was the Lead Relationship Manager for Australia based Aladdin Institutional Business clients and has also worked in Aladdin Implementations team for several years before that involved in Aladdin on-boarding for Australia based Asset owners and Asset Managers.

Mr. Pai's service with the firm dates back to 2005, including his years with Barclays Global Investors (BGI), that merged with BlackRock in 2009. At BGI, Mr Pai served as Principal in the Global Database team managing Database and Unix Administrators.

Mr. Pai earned a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Kylie-Anne Richards is the deputy chief investment officer and leads the implementation of responsible investment practices at Fortlake Asset Management, and is also a member of the Fortlake Asset Management Board and a board member of IAM Funds. She has worked at Macquarie Group in Hong Kong as head of financial engineering for Asia-Pacific and head of indexation and quantitative trading research at CLSA in Sydney. Most recently, Richards was director and portfolio manager at QTR Capital. She is a tenured academic at the University of Technology Sydney with research and teaching interests in sustainable finance, green finance, ESG and high-frequency finance. Richards is an internationally published academic with papers appearing in the International Journal of Financial Engineering and Statistical Inference for Stochastic Processes. She is also a board member of Sport & The Spectrum, a not-for-profit organisation enriching the lives of children on the autistic sectrum through sport.

Maria is a financial services regulation specialist currently working with China Everbright Bank, Sydney branch as its Chief Compliance Officer and previously at HSBC, CBA and Morgan Stanley. Maria is a practising solicitor for the last 20 years and is a Certified Expert in Sustainable Finance.

Maria leads with an innovation mindset and recognises that all decision makers need to maintain an eye on the horizon in order to keep abreast of the ever evolving regulatory landscape.