Judges

Ana-Maria is an experienced delivery manager with a 20 year history of working in the banking and fintech technology industry. She is co-founder of Smart Fintech, the first third-party provider in Romania authorised by the National Bank of Romania on both open banking services: account information and payment initiation and Executive Partner for IT Smart Systems, a well known service and consultancy company for the financial industry.

Ana-Maria is acting as board member of the EDFA (European Digital Finance Assoc) and board member of the Romanian Fintech Association. RoFintech was established in January 2020 as a professional entrepreneurial association to represent the interests of Romanian-founded enterprises that are developing proprietary technological solutions. Within the Romanian Fintech Association, Ana-Maria coordinates the Romanian Open Banking Initiative – ROBI. Through ROBI, RoFin.Tech aims to facilitate enhanced cooperation, efficiency, and progress within the local ecosystem, ensuring that the benefits of open banking are fully realised by all stakeholders.

Jarek Sarwa is a fintech growth strategist and ecosystem connector with 15+ years of hands-on international business development and advisory experience, helping fintechs enter Switzerland and scale across Europe and APAC region through a market-entry and product/market-fit approach. As an International Relations Strategic Lead at Swiss Fintech Association and an active bridge across global ecosystems, he opens doors to clients, partners, and revenue streams by spotting high-leverage synergies. He works personally and impact-first, combining target-market analysis with practical deal support—from discovery and validation to traction and closing.

Lars Sjögren is a board chair, board member and senior advisor with deep experience across banking, payments and financial infrastructure. He serves on the board of the Swedish Fintech Association, and holds board and advisory roles across banks, fintechs and Asia-Pacific payments networks. As a global advisor on financial services and payments strategy at a leading global consultant firm, he brings a board-level perspective on financial services.

Miranda is an award-winning marketing leader with more than 25 years’ experience in strategic and operational marketing in financial services and fintech. Before joining Ecommpay as chief marketing officer, she led the creation, launch and development of the Banking Circle and Banking Circle Group brands globally. Throughout her career, she is proud to have also been responsible for successful marketing programmes for leading professional corporate brands, including Equifax, LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and Standard & Poor’s.

Passionate about championing the skills and expertise of diverse and underrepresented groups, Miranda sits on the Executive Board of the not-for-profit European Women Payments Networks (EWPN), as well as the Advisory Board of the FinTech B2B Marketing Community.

Miro is chairing the Board of the Czech Fintech Association and brings over 20 years of experience in global finance and technology. He held several executive positions, including leading regional operations and heading global product development at Mastercard, Chief Commercial Office of global cybersecurity leader Whalebone, CMO at a private bank. He was a McKinsey manager focused on growth projects in finance, hi-tech, telco, and retail. His expertise include global strategy, sales, marketing and business development, partnerships, regional operations, product proposition, and transformation in start-up, scale-up and corporate environment.

Peter Strikwerda is overseeing the digitalisation and innovation agenda at APG Asset Management. He previously held positions as practice leader at a strategy consultancy, Head of strategy and research at ING, and business development executive at Capgemini.​

Sarah is a senior commercial leader with over 25 years’ experience driving growth for fintech start‑ups and scale‑ups. She specialises in go‑to‑market strategy, revenue acceleration, and strategic partnerships across global financial institutions, with a career spanning data, analytics, benchmarking, and pre and post‑trade operational efficiency at Thomson Financial, Data Explorers (now S&P Global), Taskize, Duco and Hoptroff. 

A Women of FinTech Ambassador and committed advocate against ageism, Sarah champions gender diversity and multigenerational inclusion as core drivers of innovation and sustainable growth. 

As a certified Habit Mechanic Coach, Sarah brings a neuroscience‑based approach to strengthening resilience, performance, and leadership in high‑pressure, fast‑moving environments.

Thomas Krogh Jensen is the CEO 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 in Denmark and the Nordics, by building a thriving fintech ecosystem 
 
He is also the CEO of Nordic Fintech Week, the flagship yearly conference of Copenhagen Fintech, where the local and global sector gathers to create connections and partnerships that will lead the way to the financial industry of tomorrow. 
 
Thomas has extensive experience of leadership and management in large national and global organizations 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. 

Tīna Lūse is the Managing Director of the Fintech Latvia Association, leading the organization since January 2021.

She works to unite financial service providers using financial technologies, from alternative financing players to fintech-driven institutions and key ecosystem stakeholders pushing innovation forward.

The Association represents fintech interests nationally and internationally, while supporting sustainable growth across Latvia’s financial sector.

Zoltan began his career in economic journalism before founding a media start-up in 2011, which he led through a successful funding round. He later served as Head of Innovation at Design Terminal, working with over 200 startups over eight years, and subsequently advised companies across FMCG, financial services, manufacturing and defence, focusing on innovation management.

In 2020–2021, he was Director of Innovation at MKB Fintechlab, and from 2022 CEO of MKB (later MBH) Fintechlab and Head of Innovation at MBH Bank. Since 2014, he has been a part-time lecturer at several universities.

From 2024, he has served as Deputy CEO of MKIK Fund Management Ltd. and as Director of the Supervisory Board of Pay10’s European subsidiary, a Dubai-based licensed payments and fintech services provider operating in 16 countries. He is an active angel investor and Chairman of the Hungarian Fintech Association.