The Global Platform for Financial Inclusion & FinTech for Good

Irene Arias Hofman is the CEO of IDB Lab, the innovation laboratory of the Inter-American Development Bank Group, the leading source of development finance for Latin America and the Caribbean. The purpose of IDB Lab is to drive innovation for inclusion by supporting early-stage entrepreneurial solutions capable of transforming the lives of vulnerable populations.

Previously, Irene worked for 20 years at the IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, where she managed the Financial Institutions Group and also the LAC region with its 16-billion-dollar portfolio. Her focus has been on innovation and technology, venture capital, and organizational development.

Since 2018, Jochen Biedermann has served as Managing Director of the World Alliance of International Financial Centers (WAIFC), an international non-profit association registered in Belgium, representing 27 leading international financial centers across five continents. WAIFC members are government agencies, associations, and similar institutions developing and promoting their financial centers. WAIFC facilitates cooperation between its members, exchanging best practices and communication with the general public.

Also, Jochen is the Managing Partner of FinTech Consult, a network of FinTech experts in Asia, Europe, and Africa supporting FinTechs in raising capital and expanding globally.

He serves as an expert at the Sino-German Center for Finance and Economics in Frankfurt, backed by the central banks, government institutions, and leading universities in China and Germany. He is also a Fellow of the Think Tank of the Asian Financial Cooperation Association, based in Beijing.

Jochen is a long-standing advisor at Frankfurt Main Finance, the Frankfurt financial center initiative. Furthermore, he is a mentor at OneEleven in Toronto, the Plug and Play Tech Center, and the Accelerator Frankfurt. Jochen is a board member of several FinTech and Blockchain companies. Finally, he is a working group member of the new DIFC Digital Economy Court in Dubai.

Jochen holds a diploma in mathematics & computer science from the University of Goettingen and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Cottbus, Germany. 

Joseph Joshy is the Chief Technology Officer at International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), a unified financial sector regulator for IFSCs established as a statutory authority by the Government of India. He is a Senior Technology Leader driving FinTech, Supervisory Technology (SupTech) and other strategic initiatives including contributing to the FinTech Agenda at India UK Financial Partnership, India US Financial Regulatory Dialogue, India - Japan Macroeconomic Policy Dialogue, Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN), Inter Regulatory Technical Group (IRTG) on FinTech under the Financial Stability and Development Council - SubCommittee (FSDC - SC), FinTech bridges with Overseas Regulators [like Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)] among others. He is the architect of the unique FinTech Entity Regulatory Framework which provides regulatory authorization to FinTechs and TechFins at GIFT IFSC.

Prior to this stint, he was part of the Management team (Sr Vice President and Vertical Head) that co-founded Reserve Bank Information Technology (ReBIT), the IT Subsidiary of Reserve Bank of India, India’s Central Bank. Joshy had worked on RBI’s Technology Vision with the Information Technology Sub-Committee of the Central Board of the RBI. He was associated with numerous Technology Projects and Initiatives for the Reserve Bank of India across 25+ Departments spanning across Inspection, Supervision, Enforcement, Risk Monitoring, Currency Management, Foreign Exchange, Consumer Education and Protection among others. He was member of more than 20+ Technical Advisory Groups, Committees and SubCommittees at Reserve Bank of India.

He is an experienced professional with more than 2+ decades in technology, consulting and delivering transformational technology projects for Government/Regulators and Fortune 100 clients with stints in the US, Canada and Mexico. During his tenure with a Tier-1 IT MNC, he had managed a portfolio size of more than 100+ MUSD with 450+ team size across different time zones and geographies spread across US, UK, LATAM (Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua), Philippines, China and India. He was also involved with the Start-up Ecosystem and has experience in setting up a Technology Business Incubator as its CEO.

Martha Mghendi-Fisher is a fintech & payments thought leader, an immigrant, a social entrepreneur, diversity & inclusion advocate, and a philanthropist with years of experience in cards, payments, the financial industry, NGOs, and social entrepreneurship.

As an immigrant from Kenya, Martha has worked her way to become a respectable, trustworthy and thought leader. She is a highly sought-after and inspirational speaker, with a talent to connect with her audience from different demographics, industries and backgrounds by being her authentic self.

A naturally born leader and community leader, she is involved in many initiatives that are committed to championing and supporting women, marginalised communities and children.

This can be seen in her work through organisations that she has founded, including: European Women Payments Network (EWPN); African Women in Fintech & Payments (AWFP); Dali Spaces and InvestFem.

She sits on various Boards as Trustee, Advisor & Non-Executive Director, including, Sote Hub; CodeOp,Bleu, PaceUp Invest, Women Economic Imperative (WEI), to name just a few.

Her full bio can be found on her website: https://www.marthamghendi.com/

Mayada El-Zoghbi is Managing Director at the Center for Financial Inclusion, US. Mayada started her career working with several non-profit organizations establishing inclusive financial institutions in the Palestinian Territories, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo. Later in her career, Mayada served as Lead for Strategy, Research & Development for CGAP. In that role, she led strategy development and research on women’s financial inclusion and financial services in crisis environments. Prior to this, she managed CGAP’s work with the donor and investor community based in Paris, France. Mayada founded and managed a development consulting firm (2002-2009). She has also led numerous technical assistance, evaluation, and research assignments and served as a research director for a USAID initiative and lectured at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Olayinka David-West is a Professor of Information Systems with professional experience in the IT and financial services industry and a passionate advocate for digital transformation and inclusive finance. Her research and practice engagements involve policy and strategic management interventions towards digitally transformed businesses and society.

Professor David-West is actively engaged in the implementation and effective use of IT in business organisations and governments; focusing on organisational design and business transformation challenges. In addition, she focuses on digital policy formulation. While her goal remains to optimise the effective use of ICTs, her experiences span multiple domains including, but not limited to software selection practices, change management, strategic planning, IT Governance, and IT competency assessment across various industry sectors. With contextual knowledge in emerging markets, she has developed approaches to plan, design, implement, manage, measure, and sustain changes in business processes and work practices as a result of IT systems deployments. In government, this practical knowledge has been employed in the analysis and development of policies, especially in local content, broadband and financial inclusion.

Professor David-West is a thought leader and active participant in the Fintech (IT, financial services and regulation) and financial inclusion ecosystems. With the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), she leads the Sustainable and Inclusive Digital Financial Services (SIDFS) initiative, a research and advocacy programme dedicated to enhancing financial inclusion in Nigeria. With her technical knowledge and communication skills, she frequently facilitates active discussions in the capacity of technical Master of Ceremony (MC), panel discussion moderator and interlocutor. She has led consulting engagements for organisations including the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), the World Bank Group (WBG) and Microsoft Nigeria. She is the author of several academic papers, technical reports and case studies.

Professor David-West advocates engendering male-dominated industries and mentors young women in STEM. She has featured on the Tech Women of Lagos exhibition, listed among the Leading Women in Nigeria’s Financial Technology Industry, and profiled in FintechTimes as a leading African financial inclusion expert.

Olivier Lens is the head of Sub-Sahara Africa for SWIFT, based in Johannesburg, leading a team across three offices, and delivering on SWIFT’s ambitious Africa growth plan.

Prior to this, Olivier was part of the Capital Markets Strategy team at SWIFT, tasked with defining the cooperative’s global capital markets strategy for the future, from a technological, product and segment perspective. 

Olivier joined SWIFT in 2012 to manage SWIFT’s Funds & Investment Management business across EMEA and in 2014, Olivier took over responsibility for the Benelux sales and relationship management team, supporting banks, payment service providers, corporates and market infrastructures across the region. 

Prior to joining SWIFT, Olivier worked for Euroclear, covering several functions from operational management to network management.

Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola is the Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, an organization committed to growing businesses in emerging economies. A serial entrepreneur with two exits under his belt, GB has over 15 years of experience in building scalable financial technology firms.

GB has been instrumental in leading the development of Fintech solutions for several organizations and financial institutions such as PayPal, Standard Bank and Google, among others. His last Fintech venture focused on easy Alternative Payment Methods and was acquired by a top bank in Nigeria.

GB’s software engineering background and expertise in enterprise architecture and payments got him the rare opportunity to work with institutions such as the Royal Bank of Scotland as a Business Entrepreneur and Africa Fintech Foundry as a Senior Entrepreneur in Residence.

GB's well-rounded background includes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Wharton School of Management and the University of Westminster. He has been named African Leadership Magazine's Young Business Leader of The Year (2020). GB has been recognized for his achievements in leadership and innovation by Fortune Magazine's prestigious 40 under 40 lists and Time Magazine’s 2021 Next 100 list, respectively.

In October 2022, GB was conferred with the National Honor; Officer of the Order of the Niger by President Muhammadu Buhari of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. 

Parul is a co-founder and director of pinBox. She has extensive experience in conceptualizing and implementing innovative financial literacy models and strategies, as well as technology-led outreach platforms for micro-pension and micro-insurance inclusion in developing countries. Parul developed and implemented "gift-a-pension", the first P2P eCommerce platform globally for pension and insurance inclusion of home help (nanny, drivers, guards, cooks) and blue-collar workers in garment export units.

At pinBox, Parul has worked in Rwanda, India, Uganda, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea and Kenya on designing a replicable and inclusive model and for contributory microPension programs. She was also part of World Bank, United Nations Development Program and FSD teams on advising pension regulators and finance ministries in developing field-tested strategies for expanding voluntary pension coverage. Parul has ~10 years of experience as a journalist at BBC, CNBC and NDTV.

Raagulan Pathy is the Vice President, Asia Pacific for Circle. Based in Singapore, his responsibilities include the go-to-market strategies, operations and representing Circle in the region. He leads the charge in building Circle’s presence across the region.

Raagulan was previously the Head of Enterprise for the Asia Pacific region at Zoom, and he brings decades of business leadership experience within technology and financial services.  Prior to his role at Zoom, he held senior roles at Facebook, Amazon Web Services and as co-founder of a Cloud software company. 

Rachel Freeman is the Chief Growth Officer of Tyme and represents Tyme on the GOtyme Board of Directors and the Board of Tribe Fintech.  Rachel Freeman is an experienced and internationally recognized financial expert, particularly in the areas of financial inclusion and innovative financial technologies. From 2001 to 2017, she held several senior positions at IFC in Central Asia, Africa and Asia. Prior to joining IFC, Rachel was involved in several entrepreneurial ventures in the US and Russia. Tyme is the technology and solutions firm powering TymeBank, the first digital bank in South Africa with almost 7 million customers, and GOtyme, our licensed bank in the Philippines launched in October 2022. Tribe Fintech, a partner company to Tyme, provides underserved SMEs all over the world with simple business tools and networks to help them make better business decisions and improve their financial health.

Mr Ravi Menon was appointed Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in 2011. He was previously Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Trade & Industry and Deputy Secretary at the Ministry of Finance.

Mr Menon began his career at MAS in 1987. During his 16 years in MAS, he was involved in monetary policy; econometric forecasting; organisational development; banking regulation and liberalisation; and integrated supervision of complex financial institutions. Mr Menon spent a year at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, as a member of the secretariat to the Financial Stability Forum. A recipient of the Singapore Government's Meritorious Service Medal and Public Administration (Gold) Medal, Mr Menon has served on a variety of boards in the public, private, and people sectors in Singapore. On the international front, Mr Menon chairs the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System as well as Chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero APAC Network Advisory Board. He is also a member of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) Steering Committee. Mr Menon holds a Master's in Public Administration from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) in Economics from the National University of Singapore.

Serey Chea is the Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Cambodia. She is passionate about financial inclusion and women economic empowerment. Achievements under her leadership include the establishment of Credit Bureau Cambodia in 2012 that propelled Cambodia's Ease of Access to Finance to number 7 worldwide in 2017 by the World Bank, the introduction of Bakong, a national backbone payment system using DLT allowing interoperability amongst all financial service providers making financial services more accessible and affordable, and the introduction of financial literacy into the general education program. Serey hold a PhD in economics and is a member of the Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.

Hon. Soraya Munyana HAKUZIYAREMYE was appointed Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Rwanda in March 2021. 

Prior to that, she served as Rwanda's Minister of Trade and Industry, from October 2018 to March 2021; she began her tenure as a Cabinet Member right after her time as Vice President in the Financial Institutions/Financial Markets Risk Department at ING Bank in London.

Hon. Soraya M. HAKUZIYAREMYE has had an extensive career in global banking; she worked in various positions at BNP Paribas Group in Paris, Fortis Bank and the Bank of New York Mellon in Brussels. She also served as Senior Advisor to Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2014.

She holds a postgraduate degree in International Management from the Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Management in the U.S., as well as a Masters in Business Engineering (Ingénieur de Gestion) from the Solvay Business School at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.

Tidjane Thiam is the Board Chairman of Rwanda Finance Limited as well as being the Executive Chairman of Freedom Acquisition 1 Corporation. He is also the Chairman of the Audit Committee of the Kering Group, a member of the International Olympic Committee, and a Special Envoy on Covid 19 for the African Union. 

Before this, Mr. Thiam was Chief Executive of Credit Suisse from 2015 to 2020 and Group Chief Executive of Prudential plc from 2009 to 2015, after one year as Chief Financial Officer. Between 2002 and 2008, Mr. Thiam held various leadership roles at Aviva after being a partner at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. From 1994 to 1999, he was Chief Executive of the National Bureau for Technical Studies and Development and subsequently Secretary of Development and Planning for Côte d’Ivoire. 

Mr. Thiam co-chaired the World Economic Forum 2016 in Davos and joined the Group of Thirty (G30), a select group of leaders in international finance, in 2015. He has been on the Board of Directors of 21st Century Fox from 2014 until 2019. He was named Chairman of the Board of the Association of British Insurers from 2012 to 2014. In 2018, Mr. Thiam received the Euromoney Award for Excellence ‘Banker of the Year’. 

Mr. Thiam is a graduate of the École Polytechnique and the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris and holds an MBA with distinction from INSEAD. Mr. Thiam is a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour.