Jessica Ramos is the Head of Regulatory & Oversight Affairs and ad interim Head of Finance at EBA CLEARING.

Prior, she held a number of positions at SWIFT, namely in Oversight Affairs, Legal & Compliance, Finance and as Chief of Staff to the global CEO. She was also responsible for diversity and inclusion initiatives for the business.

She started her career in 2006 as an Associate in Consortium Central America, focusing on banking, finance and corporate law.

She is a member of the Belgian Company Lawyers Bar, the New York Bar, the Honduran Bar and the In-house Competition Lawyers Association. In addition to her Law Degree, Jessica holds an MBA in Finance, an LL.M. in Corporate Law from New York University (NYU) and an LL.M. in Competition Law and Economics from the Brussels School of Competition. She has recently been certified in Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC), Cyber Security for Business Leaders and Social Media Marketing and is currently pursuing studies in Law, Cognitive Technologies & Artificial Intelligence at the Brussels School of Competition.

Jessica founded Mizbiz in 2016, an organisation aiming to connect, inspire and empower women in Belgium. She is a Board Advisor to CyberWayFinder and The Nine, Belgium Ambassador for the European Women Payments Network and a ConceptionX Expert. Jessica is a frequent speaker at financial industry events on topics ranging from Payments, RegTech, Compliance, Financial Crime, Cyber Security, Diversity and Inclusion and ESG.

Dr Estelle Brack is an International Consultant in Banking and Financial Services, and Founder & President of KiraliT, helping its clients with:

  • Strategy in financial services
  • Better understand global evolutions of banking and financial services (digital currencies, CBDC, etc.)
  • Building digital banks, especially for small resilient/circular economies (Africa, Caribbean, etc.)
  • Promoting financial education in Africa
  • Funding (women) entrepreneurs in Africa
  • Project management for innovative/digital transformation for Tier one banks.

She was previously Chief Economist and Program Director for International Payments and Solutions at BPCE (Banques Populaires – Caisses d’Epargne), the second largest French Bank and then at its subsidiary dedicated to Payments – Natixis Payment Solutions – between January 2014 and April 2019. She founded KiraliT in 2019.

From 2006 to 2013, she was Deputy Director for European and International Affairs at the French Banking Federation, Senior Adviser for International Affairs and Senior Economist.

She held the Chair of the Statistics Working Group of the European Banking Federation from 2009 to 2013 and was as well a Member of the International Affairs and the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committees.

She began working for Payments in 2000 when she joined the Head Office of Banque Populaire Group in Paris, as Project Manager in charge of implementing and supervising the introduction of coins and banknotes in Euro (as well as the taking out of circulation of the ancient French Franc). After 2002, she moved to strategic projects and inter-banking relations for card payments and electronic money.

She started her professional carrier in 1999, as Director of strategic studies for the Japanese company, KSM.

She is co-Ambassador for France of the European Women Payments Network (EWPN), and Fellow for France at the dGen think tank.

Estelle is Senior Lecturer at iReMMO, dedicated to Middle East and Mediterranean Studies.

She has written two books1 as well as many papers and articles in banking and development economics. She is a regular contributor to African Banker and African Business. She is a member of the OECD-MENA Women’s Business Forum and promotes actively Financial Education Programs implementation in Africa.

Estelle earned a PhD in international economics, money and banking with honours from Paris Panthéon Assas – Paris 2.

Thea is a committed, energetic, and creative professional with nearly two decades of experience working in the #financial and #technology environment. Her main focus is on business development, #sustainableinnovation, and bridging the divide between a good idea and its actual execution (#accelerator).

Thea currently works at CM.com, a global communications and #payments platform empowering businesses to engage with customers across multiple mobile channels. She has previously held various positions at ABN AMRO Bank NV in commercial, management and product development areas.

At CM.com, Thea holds the position of Strategic Business Developer within the Strategy Office and she is responsible for Proof of Concepts. She researches and initiates new business developments, converts them into a concept, test them and builds the business case for feasibility and added value for the CM platform. In addition to (technical) feasibility and innovativeness, the revenue model is also an important touchstone. To achieve this, she often works together with prospects and existing customers, strategic partners and is mainly focused externally.

Her innovative mind has resulted in the successful implementation of several new business projects and models in the payment and identity industries. She recently completed a pilot for the CM softPOS solution; an App that transforms your regular smartphone or tablet into a secure payments terminal, enabling it to immediately begin accepting card payments.

Thea’s aspirations for EWPN NL are to bridge gaps between payments and tech, utilize the EWPN community’s brainpower in hackathons or think tanks. Instead of focusing on the differences, monetize them! Preferably combining her passion for sustainability and innovation.

Annabel Keulen is a consultant at INNOPAY, a Dutch strategy consultancy in digital transactions, based in Amsterdam. Annabel is mainly involved in strategic projects on topics like payment innovation, open banking and open finance. She is committed to help guide organisations world-wide to fully embrace the opportunities of the digital transactions era.

Annabel strongly believes in the power of an inclusive and diverse workplace with inspiring role models for young professionals. However, as a young professional in the financial industry, she found it challenging to find and connect with role models and peers in the industry. This became even harder due to COVID-19. Therefore, Annabel initiated to relaunch the EWPN Young Leaders Programme to empower and inspire young professionals and to connect them with their role models.

 

 

Iris Kok is a Finance trainee at ING Bank N.V. She joined the company in 2019 after completing two Masters, one in Change Consulting and the other in Financial Management. In the first 8 months of her traineeship, she joined the Capital Management department within the Treasury domain. She did her second rotation in the Group Management Accounting Advice team and is now part of the Financial Reporting department at ING Domestic Bank Netherlands. She is involved in statutory and regulatory reporting matters and several change projects ranging from financial innovation to HR-related topics.

Iris is a big advocate for diversity and inclusion as she believes that these are key influencers in today’s society. Following this, she decided to join EWPN where she is involved in setting up the Young Leaders Programme. She feels that senior leaders in the industry should be more accessible and therefore the barrier to connect with senior leaders should be lowered. Being a young professional at the start of her career, she would like to help others accelerate in their careers.

 

 

Sandrine Wagner is an award-winning German student in her final year at Kingston University in the UK. She is on track to graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in International Business in the summer of 2021.

Sandrine intends to pursue a career in digital marketing and data analytics in an international environment when she graduates, having won multiple awards at Kingston University, including outstanding performance in the modules ‘International Marketing’ and ‘Data Analytics’. 

Alongside her studies, Sandrine has undertaken two part-time marketing internships.  At EWPN (European Women in Payments Network), she is responsible for posts in the portal forums and social media channels, as well as data analytics on a weekly basis, in line with the EWPN strategy.

As a marketing intern at Sophia Marketing, a company that offers strategic marketing services to the technology and FinTech sectors, she is assisting with social media engagement, digital marketing and customer analytics for a client in the RegTech (Regulatory Technology) space.

 

Throughout her career, Alana has led commercial and business development projects in multinational companies, mainly in consumer products, ecommerce and finance sector. Her fields of expertise are sales, international business development and business management. Graduated from Webster University with a degree in Management and Psychology.

Since joining paysafecard, part of Paysafe Group in 2016. Today, Alana is an Indirect Sales Manager in the Payment Service Provider team. Her key responsibilities include client acquisition, expansion of new business, onboarding and management of all new clients and partner development. Alana is passionate about payments industry, innovations in fintech and has an extensive knowledge of alternative payment methods.

Adela Knox is the Content & Strategy Director at Finovate. She joined the company in 2018 to oversee the content development, strategy and delivery of the Finovate events globally, specifically focusing on content quality and customer experience, including the VIP strategy development and execution.

Prior to joining Finovate, Adela has held various positions at Ascential, UBM, Haymarket Business Media and Marcus Evans, carrying the strategic responsibility for the portfolio growth and international launch strategy and scale up.

Adela’s experience and expertise covers the whole range of B2B event formats, including global conferences, meet the buyer events, in-house & public training courses, exhibitions and large-scale hybrid events in both the commercial conferencing and publishing sectors.

Adela has an extensive understanding of the banking/financial technology industry and focuses on creating events which serve as the breeding ground for collaboration and partnerships for attendees across the FI vertical, including banks, financial institutions, startups, VCs and investors, and service providers. She specializes in covering fintech, paytech, wealthtech, insurtech, proptech, digital lending and regtech markets.

Adela was recently awarded Innovator 2019 issued by CFTE – Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship – the industry body recognises people who have been pushing boundaries in the new world of Finance and also being helpful to bring more impact to people.

Founding partner Conny Dorrestijn has worked in the international financial technology industry in a wide range of marketing and business development roles (Nixdorf, ACT, Clear2Pay, FIS) whilst at the same time developing study trips, projects and concepts around fintech and innovation.

Speaking frequently at international events such as BAI, EBA and Money2020, she is an Advisory Board Member to Money2020 Europe, Holland FinTech and AdviceRobo, Non Executive Board Member at Arches Capital and Blanco Services, an Associate of the Digital Insurance Agenda (DIA) and a Global Innovation Awards Judge at BAI (US).

Helen is a marketing communications consultant with 20 years’ experience supporting B2B companies ranging in size from small startups to global corporations.

Helen has been working in the payments industry since 2007 when she joined global payments processor First Data. She now works as an independent consultant, working with payments processors, FinTech’s, SaaS operators and service companies in the UK, US and Europe.

Helen specialises in helping businesses who have a niche or complex offering to cut through the crowded marketplace and communicate their story and values through Strategic Marketing, content creation, and targeted campaigns. She also helps businesses with their corporate communications approach during periods of evolution such as M&A, IPO, structural and cultural change activities.

“I strongly believe in the power of diversity in the workplace and I’m keen to advocate and assist the promotion of improved inclusion and access to opportunity within the payments industry. Given the amount of change and reinvention that is necessary for all players in the ecosystem, a broader range of talent and new leadership skills are absolutely vital.“