Judging panel

Rachael is Central Banking's Associate/Commercial Editor. She graduated from the University of Nottingham with a first-class degree in classical civilisations. Rachael also manages the Book notes section and is editor of Central Banking’s FinTech & RegtTech Global Awards.

Eugéne Etsebeth is currently the business unit head for Central Banks, ACH and Payments at Sybrin. He previously worked at the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) as a senior business analyst for the National Payment Systems Department. He was the founding chair of the Virtual Currencies and Distributed Ledger Technology working group at the SARB.
 

Richard Heckinger is a financial markets management professional.  He retired in 2015 as vice president and senior policy advisor of the Financial Markets Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He started his career in financial markets at the Chicago Board Options Exchange in 1973, with subsequent executive positions at the Montreal (Stock) Exchange, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as Clearing House Manager. He has also worked as Chief Operating Officer of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, and eventually Chief Executive and Board Member of its subsidiary, the Hong Kong Securities Clearing Corporation.  
 

Devie Mohan is an influential writer, speaker and commentator on fintech, and is the co-founder and chief executive of Burnmark, a fintech research company which supplies research and data to all players of the fintech ecosystem. She is also a proponent of a fintech ecosystem where banks and startups collaborate to drive innovation. She is a panel member on the ING Group Think Forward initiative on better financial decision making. 
 

David Birch is an author, advisor and commentator on digital financial services. He is Global Ambassador for secure electronic transactions consultancy Consult Hyperion, Technology Fellow at London-based think tank the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI) and Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey Business School. He is also principal at 15Mb, his own advisory company. Dave is one of the most influential voices within the fintech community. 

Robleh Ali is a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab's Digital Currency Initiative. His main focus is on how national currencies can be issued digitally outside the existing banking system and the role of central banks in such a system. The overall aim of the work is fundamentally reforming the financial system by changing the way money is issued. He previously led the research into central bank issued digital currency at the Bank of England.

David Hanson and his company aim to create robots as socially adept as any human being. A former Walt Disney Imagineer, Hanson creates humanlike robots with intelligence, feelings, and expressions. Hanson’s most famous creation is Sophia, who has spoken at a number of FinTech events around the world.

Gregor Heinrich is the former head of secretariat to the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems at the Bank for International Settlements. He is now a member of the Systemic Policy Partnership which provides advice to governments, central banks and other financial authorities on the design and governance of public policy institutions responsible for financial, monetary and economic policy. Its focus is on frameworks for financial stability.