Speakers 2020

Clair Mills is the Director of Strategic Change and Operations for the Markets, Banking and Payments Deputy Governorship, at the Bank of England, and is responsible for middle and back office operations, which includes delivery of the Markets, Banking and Payments Operations and Data Strategy, Budget, Operational Resilience and Risk and the Investment and Change Portfolio. Clair has over 20 years’ extensive financial services experience operating at board level and leading successful strategic and transformational change in a number of complex organisations, having started her career in the Building Society and Retail Banking sector, before moving into Operational and Technological Change Management and Consultancy. Clair joined the Financial Services Authority in 2011 to lead the Internal Twin Peaks programme transition to the PRA and FCA regulatory model, moving across to the Bank of England with the PRA becoming the Chief Operating Officer in the PRA in 2018. In her current role, as well as providing the leadership, management and vision necessary to support the business and to ensure that the proper operational controls, administrative and reporting procedures, and people systems are in place, Clair is also responsible for leading the area’s extensive project portfolio, helping translate business and policy vision into deliverable change programmes, this includes giving key note speeches both in the UK and internationally on topics such as Financial and Regulatory Technology (FinTech/RegTech) and how Central Banks and regulators can take advantage of the advances in technology in the work we do.

David Copple is a policy manager in the Digital Currencies Team at the Bank of England. He contributed to the Bank’s recent Discussion Paper on central bank digital currencies and has a background as an economist.

Otar Gorgodze, CFA, FRM, Head of Financial and Supervisory Technologies Development Department at National Bank of Georgia, oversees Financial Innovation Office, Regulatory Sandbox, Open Banking and Information Exchange, AI model risk management, internal data science teams and Suptech applications. Previous change management portfolio includes Risk Based Supervisory change in banking supervision, development of cyber risk, operational risk, market risk, credit risk, macropudential risk, corporate governance and market conduct units. Acting member of Monetary Policy Committee. Contributed to change of monetary policy framework to Inflation Targeting. Prior to joining the public sector, has worked in private sector as a credit officer and investment analyst, held teaching positions at various universities. Has various publications on the topics of financial development and risk management.

Raphael Auer is Head of the BIS Innovation Hub Eurosystem Centre, which develops technologies to improve the functioning of the global financial system. His policy and research focuses on cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and CBDC. On these topics, he also contributes to BIS policy publications and various international fora, including the G20-CPMI Cross-Border Payments Taskforce. He has published extensively in the field of international economics, monetary policy and digital currencies. Before taking up his current position, he was Principal Economist in the BIS’ Innovation and Digital Economy unit, and before that, Deputy Head and Economic Advisor of the International Trade and Capital Flows unit at Swiss National Bank, Globalization and Governance Fellow at Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and visiting fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He holds a PhD in economics from MIT and serves as president of the Central Bank Research Association.

Stavroula Kampouridou is Head of the FinTech Innovation Hub and Advisor at the central Bank of Greece (BoG). Her focus is on the FinTech initiatives undertaken by the BoG, like the Hub created in March of 2019, and the upcoming launch of a Regulatory Sandbox. In addition, her focus is on the overall digital transformation of the bank through the fast procurement of relevant IT projects, like the new website that launched in September of 2019. Her main interests include: digital transformation, PSD2, SupTech, Blockchain, tokenization of assets, challenges that Big Techs pose for financial markets, and how all these can possibly transform the business model of supervised institutions and subsequently adjust the relevant regulations.

Before joining BoG she was an IT Procurement Manager at NBG Group (2009 – 2016), heading the efforts of the sourcing unit, charged with an annual spending IT budget of €50M. Prior to that, she was a Hardware Sales Manager at IBM (2005 - 2009), responsible for the hardware sales in the Banking and Telecom sectors in Greece (€35M sales annually), achieving “Rookie of the Year” status (highest sales in IBM EMEA) her 1^st year.

She holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Athens with distinction, and an MSc in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University (on a full scholarship).

Rita is currently responsible for the Payments Innovation and Policy Division from the Payments System Department at Banco de Portugal.

Her main tasks include the assessment of the compliance, by Payment Service Providers, of the technical requirements for the new payment services introduced by the Revised Payments Services Directive; the assessment of digital transformation in the provision of payment services; and the interaction with Fintech entities. She is responsible for the Operational Team of Portugal FinLab, a communication channel between entities with innovative projects in the financial sector and the Portuguese regulatory authorities. She is also a member of the secretariat of the High Level Task Force in charge of the digital euro project.

Prior to this, Rita has been a senior economist in the monetary policy implementation division from the Markets Department at Banco de Portugal. 

She holds a degree in Economics and a MSc in Monetary and Financial Economics.

Adil Zbir is Head of oversight of Financial Market infrastructures at the Central Bank of Morocco. With over than 14 years of experience in the Central Bank of Morocco and the private banking sector, he’s contributing to strengthen the resilience of moroccan payment systems and the modernization and digitization of the moroccan  payments market and its opening to new players notably FinTechs.

Adil Zbir earned a Master’s degree in economics from lille 1 university in France. He currently lives in Rabat, with his wife and two children.

Ryan Flood joined Vizor in 2004, and over the course of the following 16 years, he has been instrumental in the design and development of the Vizor suite of SupTech and RegTech products. He has spent significant time on-site with leading financial supervisors across the world where he has taken a lead role in the design and implementation of solution landscapes.  

In his current role as CTO, Ryan is active in various regulatory communities and heads up the company’s Product Design function ensuring Vizor products deliver the optimal user experience and value. Being a member of the Vizor innovation team Ryan, continuously innovates and evaluates new technology tools and trends for the company and the community we serve. He holds a BSc in Mathematical Sciences and Computing from University of Limerick and an MSc in Computer Science from and University College Dublin.

Gabriel Söderberg is a Senior Economist at Sveriges Riksbank and an Associate Professor in economic history at Uppsala University. He works with the Riksbank’s CBDC project and related developments in the financial and payments sectors. As a university researcher he currently investigates and writes a book on the nature of economic – including monetary and financial - instability and how society deals with them.