Inclusive FinTech Forum

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.

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.

Seasoned banking executive with over 15 years Fintech experience, Meagan is a critical leader in the Fintech ecosystem enabling Fintech’s to launch. She has spent most of her career enhancing the ecosystem through equity investments, bin sponsorships, regulatory frameworks and product development. At Visa Meagan’s passion is first and foremost Africa and how we use digital money movement to grow and nurture our continent for a better life for all. Meagan does this through enabling Fintech’s at Visa.

Michael | Serial Entrepreneur | 30+ Years Experience | Fintech & Payments Specialist | Digital Bank Platform Creator | UK Expat | Based in Singapore. Pioneering innovative fintech solutions for banks and telcos worldwide. Founder of Railpays, a groundbreaking digital banking platform that integrates a super-app, digital payment processing, and BaaS to support the digital transformation of our clients. With a decade of experience living in Asia and offices in India, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia, our 250+ dedicated team members are committed to driving success for our rapidly growing global client base. Professional, forward-thinking, and dedicated to pushing the boundaries of fintech innovation. Connect with me to explore new opportunities and collaborations in the ever-evolving world of digital banking.

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 CRESPIN Experienced Chief Executive Officer with a demonstrated history of building digital banks from scratch in several countries (India, Indonesia, Vietnam and United Arab Emirates). Skilled in Digital Strategy, compliance with regulatory requirements (qualified as a lawyer), Banking, business, operations, risks, ecosystem partnerships and Technology. Strong business development and implementation professional. International background as Olivier has been living and working across in Latin America, Asia, Europe, USA and Middle East. Due to his strong banking background (over 30 years) as well as his involvement in Digital Assets and Metaverse over the last 4 Years - Olivier is able to establish bridges between Crypto and Fiat as well as bridges between Trad FI and DEFI. Olivier is currently building an exchange for Giift a loyalty company. Olivier is program director for “mastering digital banking” curriculum sponsored by Central Bank of Egypt. Olivier is very present in media, and does regular keynotes/panels allowing him to convey his vision and strategy. Several awards winner such has Most Supportive Boss in Singapore, Digital Personality of the Year 2021 in Middle East and Finnovator of the Year 2022 by Finnovex Middle East Awards. Crespin is also an Institute of Banking and Finance fellow from Singapore.

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. 

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.

Rich Teo co-founded Paxos in 2012 and currently serves as CEO Asia of Paxos. Paxos is an institutionally focused crypto services provider that counts PayPal, Bank of America, Mastercard and Binance as clients. Prior to Paxos, he served as a Principal at Cedar Hill Capital Partners, overseeing the firm’s investments across the capital structure of various financial services institutions. Rich has more than a decade of experience in analyzing and investing in financial technology, market structure, and clearing corporations. He was also a Financial Analyst at Citi where he worked on mergers and acquisitions involving exchanges, trading technology, banks and brokers. Rich received a BBA from the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business.

Mr. Ritesh Shukla is Chief Executive Officer of National Payments Corporation of India, International (NIPL) & is responsible for formulating business strategies and leading business development by deploying NPCI's technology and solutions in International Markets.

His responsibilities include engaging and collaborating with traditional as well non-traditional players in payment eco-system to drive business strategy and achieve growth.

Mr. Shukla holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration with specialization in International Business. He has over 20 years of work experience with expertise in areas of managing country business, leading business development and relationship management.

Prior to joining NPCI, he was part of MasterCard’s business in Middle East and North Africa. During his 6 years with MasterCard, he has performed a wide array of roles in country management, business development functions, P/L functions to drive profitability and market share, a role in which he provided best-in-class financial services to top-tier multi-national corporations and financial institutions.

His previous stints include working with Visa Inc. and leading financial institutions such as Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and SBI Cards in payments business.

Sandra Yao is the SVP Africa at Thunes, Singapore based Fintech powering payments for the world's most ambitious businesses. Sandra is a seasoned leader in the payments space, having set up and grown the Africa region operations and has played a key role in building key partnerships and business opportunities while strategically driving smarter transfer solutions for cross border payments. Passionately working with industry leaders to continue shaping the African payments industry into a more inclusive ecosystem!

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.

Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli is the Division Chief of the Payments, Currencies, and Infrastructure division at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). His work focuses on digital currencies and payments, monetary policy, foreign exchange interventions, modelling, and central banking operations and communication. He has advised country authorities and published widely on these topics. Prior to joining the IMF, Mr. Mancini-Griffoli was a senior economist in the Research and Monetary Policy Division of the Swiss National Bank, where he advised the Board on quarterly monetary policy decisions. Mr. Mancini-Griffoli spent prior years in the private sector, at Goldman Sachs, the Boston Consulting Group, and technology startups in the Silicon Valley. He holds a PhD from the Graduate Institute in Geneva, and prior degrees from the London School of Economics and Stanford University.