With a distinguished career spanning two decades in the financial services industry, Svetlana has excelled in senior, global, and strategic roles at prestigious institutions such as Barclays, HSBC, Pay.UK, Bottomline Technologies, MasterCard and Visa. Her expertise encompasses a broad spectrum, including strategy, product development, technology, and operations within the dynamic landscape of payments. Trained as a consultant at Capco, Svetlana has honed her skills in providing insightful solutions to complex challenges. Currently, she serves as a Non-Executive Director (NED) and Fractional Chief Operating Officer for FinTech ventures, showcasing her commitment to shaping the future of financial technology by supporting and empowering new talent entering the Fintech industry

Nadia Co-Founder of Harrington Starr Group, a leading FinTech recruitment firm. Having recruited in the financial services technology sector for 19 years, Nadia has been responsible for helping companies grow and people grow their careers whilst driving inclusion in the sector. As Chief Customer Officer, she hosts ‘Fintech’s DEI Discussions’ podcast, sharing stories of equitable change in the industry. Nadia authored ‘FinTech Women Walk the Talk,’ featuring 100+ podcast interviewees. Her gender equality campaigns include the award-winning “Talent Equity List.” A recipient of numerous accolades, she’s an Industrial Fellow at the University of East London and a Forbes.com contributor.

Rukayyat is the founder and CEO of PaceUP Invest in Germany and Nigeria; a Wealth Tech empowering women and underrepresented communities financially to build sustainable and generational wealth.

 

Rukayyat has over 16 years of experience in the financial industry: Investment banking, Investment Management, and Capital Markets in Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg, Reuters, and BMCE International London. She is a transcultural communicator and leader having worked on international assignments throughout her successful career. She is also the co-founder of Black Professionals Europe.

 

Rukayyat is currently on the board of Kassavex, a social impact agricultural company in Nigeria, a Founding committee board member of 100 Women in Finance Germany, and a mentor at The Migrant Accelerator and &ahead, Germany. She was listed in BWAM 40 under 40, Forbes Inspiring Founders Globally, and Innovate Finance Women in Fintech Powerlist. She is a Keynote speaker and regularly partakes in panels globally. PaceUP Invest is listed as one of The Most Influential Financial Technology Firms of 2023 by The Financial Technologist.

 

Rukayyat earned an MSc in Finance and Investment Management with a Distinction. In 2020, she earned a double Diploma Executive MBA at Mannheim Business School, Germany, and ESSEC Business School, France. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Melanie is Director Channel Partnerships Europe, Entersekt at Entersekt, a South African Fintech delivering mobile-first security and authentication solutions.

Melanie has extensive experience in the digital payments space with strong leadership and business development skills. Before joining Entersekt, Melanie spent more than five years at Wirecard, where she most recently served as Head of Presales Value-Added Services. Her experience in the payment space covers topics like issuing, acquiring, alternative payments (e.g. Alipay) and value-added service. The international client base Melanie has worked with ranges across various industries (e.g. financial institutions, MNOs, retail, travel and transportation).

Alongside her role at Entersekt, Melanie is an active member of the Professional Women’s Network (PWN) Munich, where she serves as a mentor. She has a strong passion for promoting equality in the workplace and for women lifting each other up and working towards a common goal, which is: To bring more female voices and diversity to the payment industry. Therefore, Melanie is very proud to contribute to EWPN as a country ambassador for Germany.

“The payments industry is a fascinating industry that continues to grow at such a tremendous pace. Even though there are many women working in this industry, there is no Pan-European platform created solely to celebrate and recognise women contributing to the industry. There is also no platform that offers that intimate woman-to-woman networking day where women could connect, learn, share and celebrate each other.

We do business cross-border; we shop across continents; we are living in a global village; yet we still have our own little corners where we feel more comfortable in. We are women in the industry, facing the same challenges across the border regardless of which part of the world we are located. The challenges might slightly differ, but they are very similar in so many aspects. We ask ourselves over and over again: where are the women in the top layer of the financial industry? Why are we not fully represented? Why are we getting stuck somewhere in between? What is holding us back? But then we still go back to our own local chapters and try to solve global issues instead of talking to each other on a global level. I want to go down to the root cause and try to figure out why we are so underrepresented.

I longed to have a platform where women within the industry can freely converse, forget about the level of career they are and just have a heart-to-heart conversation while we figure out how women who have been lucky to get to the top can nurture other talented women starting up or stuck somewhere in between. This is something that I personally missed after years of working in the payments industry. So I thought, why not create the platform myself? Therefore EWPN was born in 2015! Until we realise that we are stronger together instead of handling the challenges in smaller groups; we shall continue to be underrepresented. We transact cross-border, let’s converse cross-border as well!”

Martha Mghendi-Fisher brings on board years of experience in merchant acquiring, e-commerce, card-present, processing and payments in general, having worked first for a processor and currently for an acquiring bank.

Miranda McLean, VP, Marketing at ground-breaking financial utility, Banking Circle, has built a considerable reputation for developing and executing successful marketing strategies for a wide range of financial services businesses over more than two decades. Starting her career at Thomson Financial, Miranda was responsible for creating a centralised marketing communications team as well as implementing a new brand strategy delivering £1m in savings to the business. She also held senior leadership positions at Reuters, Standard and Poor and Lexis Nexis in the mid to late-noughties, leading and shaping marketing and CRM operations and building brand and sales strategies, with responsibility for multi-million-pound budgets.

With strong credentials for developing successful marketing strategies for corporate brands, in 2011 Miranda moved to credit and business information provider, Equifax. In 2012 she entered the payments arena, joining alternative payment brand, Ukash. Having supported the successful sale of the Ukash business, in 2015 Miranda was appointed by payments start-up Saxo Payments, to create the brand identity and marketing strategy which has taken the cross border financial utility to a multi-million dollar business in less than three years.

As a highly motivated marketer, Miranda believes barriers to opportunity only exist if vision is blinkered. She has committed to self-development and improvement at every stage of her career to build a wealth of experience in global and European brand development, execution and management.