Judges

Dr Christopher Sier is the Fintech Envoy for England for the UK HM Treasury and chairman of Fintech North, the innovation community for the North of England.

He also chaired the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s panel investigating costs, fees and transparency in institutional investment, wrote the LGPS cost transparency standard and has worked with the World Bank, EIOPA, the Committee on Workers Capital and institutional investors around the world on the same subject.

Combining these two worlds he is chief executive officer and co-founder of ClearGlass, a technology platform that sits between asset managers and pension funds and operates a near-zero price model for the collection and analysis of pension fund cost data.

In addition, Chris is Visiting Professor of Financial Technology at the University of Leeds.

Jan Boehm is president of the European FinTech Association and director of Government & Public Affairs of N26 Group.

Jan has a long career in FinTech, financial services, investment banking, capital markets, regulation and public policy. He worked in capital markets with Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch in London, and in corporate finance with Deutsche Bank’s Financial Institutions Group in Frankfurt. As managing director, he headed Deutsche Bank’s Government & Regulatory Affairs hubs in Berlin and Brussels.

In January 2020, he joined N26, Europe’s leading Digital Bank.

Kevin is head of digital banking and financial services at Bitkom where he represents a heterogenous finance community, existing of incumbents, fintechs, big techs as well as third party providers.  

He focuses on the dialog with political decision makers, regulators and the general public to further the transformation of our digital finance ecosystem.  

In Germany and on EU level he specialises on issues related to payments, banking and fintechs.  

Prior to joining Bitkom, Kevin worked for a global consulting firm where he advised international companies—predominantly in the field of financial services—with regards to regulatory issues and political positioning. 

Maria is the secretary general of the European Digital Finance Association, a trade association of the European national fintech associations, which she helped found in 2020. She is based in Brussels working towards the creation of a Pan-European digital finance ecosystem, collaborating for better financial services.

Since 2010 Maria held several executive positions with focus on digital and public policies, including the work as executive director at the Czech Fintech Association and deputy executive director at the Aspen Institute Central Europe.

Maria previously worked in Brussels for the Council of the EU and at the Association for International Affairs.

Robrecht Vandormael is a senior managing director at FTI Consulting, a global business advisory firm. He acts as secretary general of Payments Europe, the European trade association that represents the interests of the global and European card-based payments industry.

Robrecht is also a selected member of the European Commission Payment Systems Market Expert Group (PSMEG), assisting the Commission in the preparation of legislative acts or policy initiatives regarding payments.

Thomas Jensen is chief executive officer of Copenhagen Fintech – a non-profit, award-winning innovation hub founded in 2016 in Denmark, with the mission to foster innovation within the financial sector, by building a thriving fintech ecosystem. He is also co-founder and member of the investment committee of Upfin, a Nordic VC specializing in early-stage fintech.

Thomas has extensive experience of leadership and management in large national and global organisations on a senior level and has practiced leadership (from mid to senior management) in a “change management” context. Whether operational or strategic, the keywords have been management of significant changes along with the ability to execute and transform strategies into everyday actions.

Thordis Alda is a project manager at the Icelandic Fintech Cluster and board member of the Icelandic Blockchain Foundation.

Experienced in marketing and various work within the tech industry, her specialty lies within international business, management, tech, marketing and sustainability. Thordis knows the fintech scene in Iceland well and has worked with the other Nordic fintech hubs, gaining a good insight into the fintech industry today.

Yvonne de Ville is the chair of Finance and FinTech Group with Institute of Directors. She is a Finance & Fintech Activist and voice for women in Finance and Tech.

Yvonne de Ville has over 20 years’ experience in supporting and managing international programmes and business changes/transformations within Credit Suisse, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, Travelex, Clifford Chance, Schroders, PwC.