SPEAKERS

Sidney Gottesman
CEO
FinSec Innovation Lab

Sidney is the CEO of the FinSec Innovation Lab, which provides incubation/innovation lab services to early-stage start-ups in cyber and fintech and operates under a license from the Israel Innovation Authority, National Cyber Directorate and Ministry of Defense.

At Mastercard, Sidney has held several roles, he was Senior VP Corporate Security and the program owner for employee identity and access management. Previously, he was CTO for Quality Assurance, responsible for functions that support the technology delivery of Mastercard’s products and services. This included Development Services, Testing Services, Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management and Customer Implementation Services (CIS). Prior to this, Sidney served as the Business Information Officer for Emerging Payments.

Prior to joining Mastercard, Sidney was chief operating officer at Bank Leumi USA, with responsibility for operations and technology support for the private, commercial and branch banking divisions. Before this Sidney has worked for Citigroup and IBM.

Sidney holds a juris doctorate from Brooklyn Law School in New York, MA in Computer Science and BA in Math and Computer Science from City University of New York.

Orly Glick
Co-Founder & CEO
ESGgo

Before setting up ESGgo, a B2B enterprise software start-up that monitors, collects, analyzes and optimizes ESG, Orly was a Partner at Vintage Investment Partners, where she invested in VC funds and start-ups while building and leading the value-added services practice, bringing start-up innovation to solve corporate challenges. Orly was the go-to person for hundreds of corporate executives seeking solutions to pain-points.

Prior to Vintage, Orly lived for 20 years in the US and Europe. She worked for HP in The Netherlands, McKinsey in Belgium, France and Israel, in the Fast Growth Tech division. She lived in California where she worked for Merrill Lynch in asset management and private banking. Orly studied at Maastricht University where she completed her Master’s degree and MBA in International Business and Finance.

Inbal Polak
Director, Investment Department
Israel Securities Authority

Inbal is the Director of the Investment Department at the Israel Securities Authority since June 2021.

She began her professional career in capital markets as a relationship manager at Psagot Mutual Fund Management. She then established and headed the fund assets rating unit (mutual funds and provident funds) at S&P Maalot. She also served as a fund analyst and portfolio manager at UBS Bank (UBS Wealth Management Israel).

Between 2017-2018, together with the investment house of Altshuler Shaham, Inbal established and served as CEO of Altshuler Shaham Alternative, which focused on alternative investments in and outside Israel. She also co-founded NEOME, a women angel club investing in early stage start-ups, where she served as partner and chief investment officer.

More recently, Inbal served as an advisor to YRD Capital, a fund of hedge funds focusing on digital assets. In this position she led the due diligence process and monitoring the funds' risk. She also served as a member on the advisory committee of the Dock Innovation Hub, a maritime venture capital firm.

Inbal assisted, as community service, the Wonder Jewel venture, which develops smart jewelry and accessories that identify and communicate stress to save lives while alerting an on-going attack. She was also active in Ze-Ze, a social venture to motivate young people to engage in volunteering.

Inbal earned a BA degree in business administration and sociology (magna cum laude) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and an MBA specializing in finance, accounting, strategy, and entrepreneurship from Tel Aviv University.

Yoav Soffer
Advisor to the Deputy Governor
Bank of Israel

Yoav is advisor to the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Israel, Andrew Abir, and Head of the Digital Shekel Project.

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Cecile Blilious
Head of Impact & Sustainability
Pitango Venture Capital

Cecile is the Head of Impact & Sustainability at Pitango Venture Capital, Israel’s largest VC, where she is responsible for adapting the worlds of ESG and the SDGs to the framework of mainstream venture capital. Cecile has extensive experience in the combination between the impact and technology worlds for almost 20 years. Previously, Cecile was the Founder and Managing Partner of Impact First Investments, Israel's first impact-tech investing company.
Before that, Cecile managed the Noaber Foundation's Israeli investments and held executive positions as a founder, CEO and board member is several start-ups. She was one of the initiators of the Al-Bawader private equity fund, the first investor in Arab-founded start-ups. Cecile founded the mentorship program at the 'Keren Shemesh' Foundation for the Encouragement of Young Entrepreneurs as her community volunteering work.
Cecile recently founded and is the chairperson of GITA - the Global Impact Tech Alliance – a global non-profit organization aiming to serve the impact-tech community worldwide and help it scale through community activities, data aggregation, training and consulting.
She is an alumnus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is an avid practitioner of Tai-Chi martial art.

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Adi Levanon
Founding Partner
Selah Ventures

Adi has been involved in global high-tech ecosystems for over a decade, with a myriad of experience as an early stage investor and operator at global enterprises. She has experience investing in US and Israeli venture funds - Fintech Collective, Symmetrical Ventures and Rhodium, focusing on fintech, D2C and SaaS start-ups in general. Adi has also worked for two $bn enterprises - Conduit and Payoneer, where she held positions of legal counsel, head of the compliance team and product manager. Her fintech portfolio includes successful $bn companies like Alloy and Moneylion, along with thriving fintech startups like Unit, Justt and more.

Adi is currently Principal at Flint Capital, a global early stage VC fund with a footprint in Silicon Valley, Boston, Israel and Europe. She is also a graduate of Kellogg's international EMBA program and a graduate from Reichman University, with a LLB in Law and BA in Business Administration, majoring in Finance. Adi lives in Tel Aviv with her husband Ariel and is mother to 2-year-old Noya.

LinkedIn

Ariel Yosefi
Head of Technology & eCommerce Regulation
Herzog Fox & Neeman

Ariel is highly-regarded for his prominent global practice and experience in advising on privacy and data protection, cybersecurity, AI law, online gambling and gaming, digital finance regulations, content and advertising regulations, digital transformation, computer and software protection, mobile and other app marketplaces compliance. He has deep knowledge and experience with the increasing volume of regulations, enforcement actions and legislative trends in many jurisdictions; with heavily 'regulated' platforms such as mobile app marketplaces and social networks; as well as with the respective industries’ best practices and leading self-regulatory guidelines.

Ariel’s clients vary between different industries and sectors including: eCommerce; adtech, e-marketing, and media; online gambling and gaming; fintech, digital payment solutions and crypto; cybersecurity and privacy compliance; content platforms and social networks; data enrichment and authentication tools; digital health and lifestyle technologies.

Rahav Revivo-Shalom
Head of Financial-Cyber Innovation
Ministry of Finance

Rahav established and manages the Financial-Cyber Innovation and International Engagements unit at the Israeli Ministry of Finance. She is the founder of the Fintech-Cyber Innovation lab program for the Ministry of Finance, the first initiative in the world that leverages governmental assets and data in order to promote Fintech and Cyber startups in an open innovation platform.

Rahav leads the Financial-Cyber International Relationship activities - with foreign governments, regulators and financial institutions. As such she developed and lead Collective Strength, the international financial-cyber simulation that was held in 2021, in which foreign Finance Ministries to discuss the financial impact resulted from a dramatic cyber-attack on the international financial eco-system.

Rahav established and is leading the Fintech Ladies IL community, she is also a member of the national committee to promote women in the science and tech industries.

LinkedIn

Salmaan Jaffery
Chief Business Development Officer
Dubai International Financial Centre

In his capacity as Chief Business Development Officer, Salmaan is responsible for developing and executing business strategies aligned with the DIFC’s 2024 growth ambitions. The business development team, under his direction, identifies and evaluates potential partnership opportunities that serve business and client growth within the DIFC community.
Salmaan has over 20 years of extensive operating and advisory experience working with global financial services and consulting firms across the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and North America. During this time, he has established a track record for earning trust and delivering value to clients by developing new revenue opportunities, improving performance and driving organisational change. Salmaan has cultivated a vast network of peer and C-Suite relationships and is an accomplished thought leader in customer centricity and Islamic finance.
Before joining the DIFC Authority, Salmaan held leadership roles in Conventional and Islamic Finance at PricewaterhouseCoopers and EY Middle East. Prior to that, he held operating and finance roles at Citibank and American Express in New York. He has also led client teams at Oliver Wyman focused on customer driven growth strategies and new venture analyses.
Salmaan holds an MBA from Cornell University and a BA in International Relations (Phi Beta Kappa) from Colgate University in the US. He is President of the Cornell University and Johnson School Clubs, Middle East and serves on the Boards of several non-profit organisations.

LinkedIn

Michael Shaulov
Co-Founder & CEO
Fireblocks

Michael is the CEO and co-founder of Fireblocks, a secure digital asset infrastructure company. Prior to Fireblocks, he co-founded Lacoon Mobile Security, which was acquired by Check Point, and was then appointed the Head of Products, Mobile and Cloud Security for Check Point. Michael is a serial cybersecurity entrepreneur and investor. He is also a recognized industry speaker, delivering talks at RSA Conference, BlackHat and Infosec. Before his commercial endeavors, Michael pioneered the mobile security field in an elite military technological unit (8200), where he received the Israeli Presidential Excellency Honor for his contributions. He holds a BSc in Computer Sciences and Physics from Ben-Gurion University, Israel.

LinkedIn

Neta Hamou
Associate General Counsel, Commercial
Meta
Mohammad Alblooshi
Sector Head Fintech & Innovation
DIFC

Mohammad has been working in the financial industry for over 13 years, currently he is the Head of Fintech and Innovation at the DIFC Authority, Mohammad contributes to the growth of the Centre by developing its fintech and innovations functions aligned with Dubai’s vision of becoming a global business hub for Innovation.

Mohammad also leads the recently announced DIFC Innovation Hub, with the mission of building the region’s leading hub for Innovative companies, and has been with the Centre for nearly 5 years, during his time at the DIFC Mohammad has attracted more than 370 fintech and innovation companies to the Centre.

Prior to DIFC Mohammad held several roles at the likes of Standard Chartered, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group.

Mohammad has an Executive MBA from London Business School.

LinkedIn

Iana Dimitrova
CEO
OpenPayd

Iana is the CEO of OpenPayd, a leading global payments and banking-as-a-service platform for the digital economy. Through its API-driven technology, businesses can embed financial services into their products and create the seamless user experiences needed to drive business growth.

OpenPayd’s platform removes the need to contract with multiple providers for different services and across different markets. Instead, businesses can access accounts, FX, international and domestic payments, acquiring and Open Banking services globally via a single API integration. With licensing across the UK, Europe, Canada and others, OpenPayd is committed to providing businesses with a fully compliant solution across all markets, leaving your business to focus on growth.

Iana has extensive experience in the fintech and payments industries. Prior to OpenPayd, Iana served in positions with increasing responsibility at Paysafe and previous to that she was working in private practice as a corporate lawyer.

Iana holds a masters in European Economics law and ICT Law from the University of Strasbourg and an Executive MBA from the London Business School.

LinkedIn

Caroline Isabel Emch
Director, Government Affairs EMEA
American Express

Caroline currently serves as the Director of Government Affairs at American Express overseeing the policy and government engagement practice in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Prior to this, she was based in Singapore, where she oversaw the South East Asia region. Prior to joining American Express, she worked for the US State Department, based in both Washington DC and Jakarta, Indonesia where she was appointed as a Franklin Fellow to work on issues of foreign trade and investment. She started her career in political risk and intelligence, working in New York and Singapore for Veracity Worldwide and Asia Group Advisors.

LinkedIn

Terrie Smith
CEO
DIGISEQ

Terrie has over 20 years in the industry, her experience in the payment’s world is unparalleled. In 2019 she was awarded the IET Achievement Medal, she was crowned as one of the 20 MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN in payments by PaymentsSource in 2020. Terrie has a proven track record that speaks volumes and is included in fundamental patents related to provisioning and tokenisation. She was instrumental in shaping the Mastercard Digital Enable System, used to support Apple Pay.
Terrie co-founded the award-winning IoT platform DIGISEQ in 2014 and serves as CEO focusing on revolutionising the wearable and IoT market while enabling manufacturers to deliver cutting edge functionality to their customers. DIGISEQ simplifies delivering payment accounts securely and enables almost anything to support contactless payments, grant access, reward loyalty, and more – unleashing the power of IoT – without disruption to the existing manufacturing and distribution process.

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David Birch
Global Ambassador, Consult Hyperion
Chairman, DIGISEQ

David is a renowned author, advisor and commentator on digital financial services. Principal at 15Mb, his advisory company, he is Global Ambassador for the secure electronic transactions consultancy, Consult Hyperion, Fintech Ambassador for Digital Jersey and Non-Executive Chair at DIGISEQ.
He is an internationally-recognised thought leader in digital identity and digital money. Ranked one of the top 100 fintech influencers for 2021, previously named one of the global top 15 favourite sources of business information by Wired magazine and one of the top 10 most influential voices in banking by Financial Brand, he created one of the top 25 “must read” financial IT blogs and was found by PR Daily to be one of the top 10 Twitter accounts followed by innovators (along with Bill Gates and Richard Branson).
His latest book “The Currency Cold War: Cash and Cryptography, Hash Rates and Hegemony” was published in May 2020. His previous book “Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin: From money we understand to money that understands us” was published in 2017 with a foreword by Andrew Haldane, Chief Economist at the Bank of England. The LSE Review of Books said the book should be “widely read by graduate students of finance, financial law and related topics as well as policy makers involved in financial regulation”. The London Review of Books called his earlier book “Identity is the New Money”; fresh, original, wide- ranging and “the best book on general issues around new forms of money”.
More information is available at dgwbirch.com and you can follow him on Twitter at @dgwbirch

LinkedIn

Ravi Bhalla
Head of Department for Innovate
Financial Conduct Authority

Ravi leads on the FCA’s market innovation services including Regulatory Sandbox, Advice Unit and Direct Support functions, as well as the FCA’s engagement with domestic and international fintech ecosystems and digital policy. This includes chairing the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN) and championing the Global Sandbox.
He is a high impact enterprise-level senior leader with over 16 years of management experience across telecoms, insurance and financial services in both industry (BT, AIG, Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds Banking Group) and consulting (KPMG).
Ravi was previously Head of Group Design, Strategy and Transformation for Lloyds Banking Group where he led an in-house strategy and transformation consulting function at Lloyds Banking Group. This included shaping strategic initiatives such as customer vulnerability, architectural simplification, advanced analytics, cloud operating model design, regulatory change design and operational resilience.
During his time at KPMG, Ravi worked with a number of challenger banks and fintechs and played a pivotal role in establishing KPMG’s fintech practice.
Ravi has a BSc (Hons) in Business Management from University of East Anglia and MA in Management, Economics and International Relations from University of St. Andrews.
Ravi has published a number of articles in internationally peer reviewed journals, including a co-authored paper with University of Cambridge, Judge Business School Fellow Elisabetta Osta: ‘Digital Transformation and the Covid Challenge’ (2021), Journal of Digital Banking. Others include ‘Fintech Innovation: Revolutionary or Evolutionary Business Model Disruption?’ (2019), Journal of Digital Banking; ‘The 12 Point Customer Engagement Model’ (2013), Journal of Brand Strategy; ‘Omnichannel: Driving Engagement through Digitization’ (2014), Journal of Digital Banking.

LinkedIn

Jon Medved
Founder & CEO
OurCrowd

Jonathan Medved is the Founder and CEO of OurCrowd.

Named by the Washington Post as “one of Israel’s leading high tech venture capitalists” and by the New York Times among the “top 10 most influential Americans who have impacted Israel,” Jon is a serial entrepreneur and investor, and one of the pioneers of Israel’s venture capital industry.

Jon is a regular television guest on CNN, BBC, CNBC, Bloomberg TV and Sky News, and is frequently quoted in major business publications. Start-up Nation, the best-selling book on Israel’s high-tech economy, describes him as “one of Israel’s legendary business ambassadors.”

A California native, Jon moved to Israel in his 20s where he successfully built and exited several start-ups. These include MERET Optical Communications, a fiber optics pioneer sold to Amoco; multilingual leader Accent Software (Nasdaq: ACNTF); and mobile video platform Vringo (NYSE:VRNG).

In 1994, Jon was a co-founder of Israel Seed Partners, one of Israel’s first venture capital funds. Including the OurCrowd portfolio, Jon has backed over 400 tech start-ups as a venture capitalist and angel investor.

Jon collects rare single malts and loud Hawaiian shirts and lives in Jerusalem with his wife Jane, his four children and eleven grandchildren.

LinkedIn

Pamela Negosanti
Global Head of Insurance
expert.ai

Pamela is the Global Head of Insurance at expert.ai. She specializes in helping companies in the insurance space, such as carriers, brokers, reinsurers, and TPAs execute business transformation through artificial intelligence. Pamela has spent most of her career in the technology sector where she has established expertise in artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, intelligent automation, natural language understanding and semantics, to name a few. She owns a degree in translating and interpreting with a specialization in computational linguistics, and speaks fluent Italian, English, French and German. Fueled by change and curiosity, she is firm believer in the power of knowledge share and communities.

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Adam Benayoun
General Partner
Collider Ventures

Adam founded Collider Ventures in 2019, a Venture Capital firm with over $250m in AUM. Collider Ventures actively invests in digital assets and early-stage startups to support the next generation of companies, protocols and products building the digital native economy.

Prior to Collider Ventures, Adam was the Israeli partner at 500 Startups and an entrepreneur for over 15 years.

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Dr Ziv Noar
Head of Economic Unit, Banking Supervision Department
Bank of Israel

Ziv Naor, PhD, is the Head of Economic Unit in the Banking Supervision Department at the Bank of Israel, responsible on analyzing the various risks of the Israeli banking system activity.

After writing a PhD in Economics at Tel Aviv University, Ziv joined the Research Department in the Bank of Israel and worked on several aspects with respect to banking and financial stability.

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David Avgi
Co-Founder & CEO
UNIPaaS

A seasoned entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in the area of online payments processing, eCommerce and financial services, David is Co-Founder and CEO of UNIPaaS, a newly hyper-growth startup that develops Embedded Finance for B2B SaaS Platforms.

Before founding UNIPaaS, David was Co-Founder and CEO of SafeCharge International Group, one of the industry's leading payment processing companies. In 2014 he led SafeCharge to a successful listing on the London Stock Exchange (AIM: SCH), in August 2019, SafeCharge Group was acquired by Nuvei Group for $890m.

LinkedIn

Cela Farhi
Director of Global Operations
nsKnox

A fintech and financial industry enthusiast for over a decade, Cela worked at fintech unicorn Payoneer (NASDAQ: PAYO) the world’s go-to partner for digital commerce for nearly 9 years where she built and operated the global banking infrastructure.
Cela has operated a global scale banking and payment providers network, managing the day-to-day relationships and operations, facilitating treasury funding flows, foreign exchange policies, localization and efficiency advocate in all aspects of the banking and cross-border payments operations.
She also stablished the Payoneer China - APAC banking and payment providers infrastructure and operations with a vast variety of banking partners globally. Cela recently joined nsKnox as the Director of Global Operations - building and operating the finsec, fraud prevention and cyber security methodologies while establishing the global banking infrastructure with banks and payment providers around the world.

LinkedIn

Edoardo Cassina
CMO
Enel X Financial Services

Edoardo has covered multiple leadership positions in international marketing and sales; he is now growing Enel's banking and payments solutions: Enel X Pay and Paytipper.

As CMO of Enel X Financial Services he is bringing to market innovative and accessible payment solutions globally, from Italy's HQ to the Americas and Europe.

Edoardo has covered leading digital marketing and sales positions for more than 10 years: Yahoo, where he was appointed Head of Social Media to Talenthouse (a community of 14m creatives) as CEO of Zooppa and finally Head of Social Media at HMD Global, the home of Nokia phones, where he ideated and deployed the company-wide consumer engagement strategy and launched the presence for Nokia mobile across more than 80 countries and 60 social accounts, growing its following from a few thousand to over 10m, and making Nokia the most mentioned brand on social at Mobile World Congress during the period.

LinkedIn

Hamzeh Ghosheh
Founder & CEO
Naviatx

Hamzeh is founder and CEO of Naviatx, the Palestinian Territory’s first insurtech company, here he's leading the disruption of current insurance industries and practices.

With operations in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Hamzeh is leading expansion into the rest of the MENA region as the first mobile telematics solution to quantify on-the-road risk levels and convert abstract driving behavior into statistically-calculated driving scores to reward safe driving.

With advanced education and credentials in the fields of management and finance, and a financial consultant and business development specialist, Hamzeh is naturally attracted to the latest trends in finance and fintech across the world and is a key player in the efforts to design and launch an entrepreneurial fintech sandbox in the Palestinian Territories.

LinkedIn

Arnon Barzilay
Head of Sales, Israel
Stripe

A seasoned Business leader with over 15 years of experience in enterprise software, customer experience and eCommerce. Arnon is Leading Stripe in Israel, overseeing Stripe's offering for hyper-growth start-ups, SaaS companies and global Platforms.
Before joining Stripe, Arnon was a Regional Vice President at Salesforce, Leading Salesforce Marketing Cloud Business in Israel. Prior to that, he worked at Oracle corporation in various sales roles.

LinkedIn

Shoham Ben Rubi
Head, International Affairs Division
Israel Securities Authority

Shoham is the Head of the International Affairs Division at the Israel Securities Authority. He represents the ISA in the many collaborations the ISA has with many regulators and foreign entities worldwide.
He is also an active participant in numerous international committees relating to securities regulation and financial markets policy, such as the IOSCO Intermediaries Committee, the IOSCO Fintech Network, the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN), and more.
Shoham joined the International Division after a few years in the Investment Department of the ISA. Before joining the ISA, heworked as an economist on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and as a lawyer at Deloitte.
Shoham holds a joint degree in Law and Business Administration from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and he is about to submit his thesis as part of his MBA.

LinkedIn

Eylon Aviv
Principal
Collider Ventures

Eylon is an entrepreneur and governance builder focused on decentralized technologies in the web3 ecosystem as an investor, advisor, and venture builder.

Currently a Principal at Collider Ventures, Eylon was previously the founder of The Builder Collective, as well as CEO at Comon. He also co-organized the Israel Bitcoin Summit.

LinkedIn

Brad Harrison
CEO
Venus

Brad is the CEO of Venus, the team behind one of the largest lending protocols in DeFi with over 10 years digital product management experience. He entered the DeFi industry in 2017 after roles in neobanks and Bank of America.

He earned his degree in Psychology from Harvard University. His software patent filings have been cited by Ebay and Amazon.

LinkedIn

Ran (Goldi) Goldshtein
VP Payments
Fireblocks

Ran is VP Payments for Fireblocks, an award winning provider of secure digital asset infrastructure. Before joining Fireblocks, Goldi was CEO of First Digital, a company focusing on payment acceptance for stablecoins and CBDCs, which was acquired by Fireblocks. Prior to establishing First, Goldi co-founded and managed an algorithmic trading company, acted as VP in a company he took public on the London Stock Exchange, and served as the head of IT investments for a private equity fund. Goldi is a former captain from the Israeli intelligence forces and holds a BA in Business Administration.

LinkedIn

Lior Navon
Head of Sales & Markets Development
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange

Lior is the Head of Sales and Markets Development at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Prior to this he served for 7 years as manager of the Foreign Securities and Trading Department at Harel Financial Products and Harel ETFs.
Lior holds an Investment Management license as well as a BA in Economics and Management and MBA in Business Administration, with a specialization in Strategy and Entrepreneurship, from the College of Management Academic Studies in Rishon Leziyon.

LinkedIn

Dr Sabah al-Binali
Partner & Executive Chairman
OurCrowd Arabia

Dr Sabah al-Binali is a seasoned executive with 20+ years experience and is an active investor and entrepreneurial leader, with a track record of financing, building and growing companies in the MENA region.

Sabah is currently Partner and Head of the Gulf Region at OurCrowd, Chairman of Universal Strategy and a member of the Advisory Board of Zayed University’s College of Business. He has served as Vice Chairman of the Board of the National Investor and Chairman of its Investment and Strategy Committee. Dr al-Binali has also served as Chief Investment Officer of SHUAA Capital, Director of the Board and member of the Audit Committee at Credit Suisse Saudi Arabia, Vice Chairman of Gulf Finance, Chairman of Zawya. He was the founding CEO and CIO of Saffar Capital and Head of the Treasury and Investment Division at Union National Bank.

Dr al-Binali holds a Diploma in Company Direction from the UK Institute of Directors. He received his PhD from Columbia University, dissertation title: Competitive Analysis of Risk-Taking and Valuation of Financial Derivatives, and holds a BSE from Princeton University.

LinkedIn

Ofer Brown
GM Israel & APAC
nsKnox

Leveraging over 20 years of global experience in the telecommunications, fintech, and banking sectors, Ofer serves as the General Manager for Israel and APAC at nsKnox.
Prior to joining the company, Ofer served as SVP, Head of Program Management APAC for Fundtech, which was acquired by D+H, now Finastra. In this role, he was responsible for the company’s expansion into the Asia Pacific region. During his 10 years at Fundtech, he held multiple executive positions, including Vice President of R&D for global banks.
Prior to Fundtech, Ofer held leadership roles in the R&D department at Amdocs, a leading telecoms services provider.
Ofer holds an MBA in Finance and Information Technology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a BA in Economics from Ben Gurion University.

LinkedIn

Elad Bleistein
CMO
ZenGo

Elad grows unicorns! Elad is the CMO at ZenGo: The Crypto Wallet for Everyone. Previously, Elad kickstarted and led the product & marketing mobile growth team for Wix, and built Fiverr’s marketing team from scratch. Today, Elad is a crypto evangelist that helps Web 3.0 companies scale.

LinkedIn

Ron Atzmon
Founder & Chairman
AU10TIX

Ron is Managing Director of AU10TIX, pioneers of multi-channel ID Authentication and record generation.

He has led the company to the position of technology leader and provider of choice of the world’s major players. Under his leadership, AU10TIX introduced the concept of “Secure Customer Onboarding”, enabled by next generation technology solutions that redefine performance, efficiency and best practices of customer acquisition in regulated markets.

Ron’s track record includes stretches across 20 years of leading start-ups and developing business in the areas of technology, internet and finance.

He hold a MBA from Imperial College London and a bachelor’s degree in Management and Marketing from the College of Management-Academic Studies, Rishon, Israel.

LinkedIn

 

Keren Chavkin
Co-CEO
Pai-Tech

Keren is Co-CEO of Pai-Tech

LinkedIn

Lyron Wahrmann
Founder & CEO
Topicx

Entrepreneur, executive manager, mentor and fintech Lecturer. Founder of start-up company Topicx, founder and General Manager of Citi R&D and Innovation Lab, and founder of fintech Surecomp digital Lab. Driver of change with extensive experience in creating productive business-technology relationships and in balancing short and long-term considerations in both large and small organizations.

LinkedIn

Esti Hadar
Partner, Banking & Finance
Herzog Fox & Neeman

Esti is a partner in the firm’s Banking and Finance Department. Esti combines legal and financial experience covering a broad range of sectors on financial and commercial activities.

Esti is advising domestic and foreign banks, financial institutions, financial services providers and corporations, on major lending transactions, securitization, sales of debt portfolios, capital relief transactions and derivatives transactions.

Esti also focuses in banking and broad financial regulation, including payments services regulation and the regulation applicable to cryptographic currencies.

Additionally, Esti has extensive experience representing clients in a wide range of corporate and commercial transactions and providing ongoing legal advice and legal opinions.

Prior to joining Herzog Fox & Neeman, Esti was an associate at another top rated law firm in Tel Aviv, after serving as an officer in senior economics positions at the IDF General Staff, and among other things, handled the initiation and execution of various commercial and financial transactions and a cross-organization policy in economic issues.

LinkedIn

Hadar Rottenberg
Technical Lead
GoodDollar

From a young age Hadar was interested in two things: computers and economic social justice. Hadar developed websites since the early days of the web, a few years after graduating in Computer Science he co-founded a start-up where he worked as CTO on search algorithms. In 2018 Hadar seized the opportunity to work in the emerging blockchain field where he could combine his two passions. Today Hadar is CTO of GoodDollar a non-profit delivering sustainable free crypto basic income.

LinkedIn

Dr Milly Perry
Director
NFT Israel

Milly is an entrepreneur, an internationally recognized blockchain expert and heads NFT Israel. She holds a PhD in Information Science as well as a PhD in Culture Stadies.

She serves as Head of Blockchain Excellence Center at the Israeli Chamber of Information and Technology and is a board member of the Israeli Fintech community CityTLV. Milly is the author of the open book Blockchain: Turning EGOsystem into ECOsystem

LinkedIn

Liran Amrany
VP Product
Team8 Fintech

Liran is VP Product at Team8 Fintech, focused on helping our foundry and portfolio companies launch new products and businesses. Liran has a history of innovation and entrepreneurship in financial services. Prior to joining Team8, he founded Debitize, a consumer finance app that helped users automatically optimize cash flow, save money, pay off debt, and build credit. Before that, he was an Executive Director at JPMorgan, where he spent 9 years developing and marketing new fixed income derivative products.

Liran has a Masters in Financial Engineering, as well as BAs in Economics and Molecular and Cell Biology, all from the University of California, Berkeley.

LinkedIn

Ofer Friedman
Chief Business Development Officer
AU10TIX

Heading global business development at AU10TIX, forerunners of 2nd generation ID authentication and onboarding automation. Long track record as head of marketing, building brands and business in competitive markets. Had the privilege of working with global tier-1 brands as well as startups and companies of virtually every size. Almost 15 years in the cutting edge of high tech and fintech. Specializing in early detection of market trends and behaviors, dynamics of decision making and influence, and breakthroughs in technology.

Roots in strategy and Marcom in key positions in BBDO and Publicis Marcom agency groups. Authored book and articles. Holds MSc in Management, specializing in persuasion and reputation. Lived and worked in Germany for over a decade. Inspired by Jules Verne, Steve Jobs, B.H. Liddell-Hart and Groucho Marx.

LinkedIn

Maia Naor
Chief Product Officer
INX

Maia is Chief Product Officer at INX, and has been with the company since its founding. Prior to that, she accumulated 10 years of fintech experience working for companies across Europe and Israel.

From 2010 until July 2017, Maia served as Vice President, Product in Anyoption, a leading European regulated trading group where she oversaw the planning, implementation and launch of several financial services and trading applications. She also gained experience in building and training teams of data scientists that supported the growth and optimization of the trading products.

Maia is a graduate of the Tel Aviv University School of Economics and Tel Aviv University School of Mathematical Sciences, with honors.

LinkedIn

Tomer Michaeli
General Partner
Viola Fintech

Tomer is a General Partner at Viola Fintech. He invests in fintech, insurtech and regtech companies and serves on the boards of Planck (Israel), Inshur (US & UK), Tookitaki (Singapore) and Omnius (Germany).

Prior to joining Viola, he was the co-founder (one of three) and VP Operations at Fundbox, a leading global fintech company in the credit and payments sector. As the VP of Operations, he built and managed several teams across two continents, including the payments operations, customer operations, compliance operations and most recently the collection operations teams which significantly improved the profitability of the company’s core product.

Tomer earned his MEng Cum Laude in Biomedical Engineering from the Technion, Israel’s Institute of Technology. He also has a BS in Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an MBA from INSEAD.

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Shy Datika
Co-Founder & CEO
INX

Shy is a founders and President at INX. Shy has more than 25 years of experience in the banking and finance industry. As founder and former Chief Executive Officer of ILS Brokers, a multinational brokerage house based in Tel Aviv, he has played a significant role in the adoption of electronic trading in the global OTC foreign exchange (OTC Forex) market as well as in the brokerage activity and online trading business.

During the last 20 years, Shy has been extensively involved in fintech as an investor, director or manager of several companies, including as CEO of ForexManage Ltd, a software company providing professional technology platform solutions for institutional risk management and trading activities in the forex and interest rate derivatives markets for the banking industry, anyoption, Ouroboros Ltd (CySec licenced CIF) and as an independent (external) director and Chairman of the Investment Committee and member of the Audit Committee of Altshuler Shaham provident funds and Pension Ltd. Prior to that, he was a senior dealer at Bank Hapoalim heading the G7 spot desk.

Shy possesses broad knowledge in the areas of fintech and trading and has an extensive track record in building sustainable businesses in the financial market. Shy serves as a director on the board of numerous private companies.

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Omer Unger
Country Manager
MasterCard
Eran Raz
Partner, Risk & Forensic Leader
PwC

Eran is the managing partner of the Risk and Forensics group at PwC Israel and has advised a wide range of clients on the topics of forensics risk management.

Eran has been in PwC for 11 years and provided advisory services in numerous projects including forensics due diligence, forensic investigation, fraud and anti-bribery and corruption assessment, evaluation of the residual risk, analyse of the in-place controls and corporate intelligence collection.

In addition, Eran has deep experience in: Enterprise Risk Management, compliance risk and control assessments and testing/audit, whereby he assists organizations in implementing new controls and processes to ensure compliance with public expectations and regulations.

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Tomer Bariach
General Partner
Flori Ventures

Tomer is Co-Founder and General Partner at Flori Ventures and a long time Crypto X financial inclusion entrepreneur. He was responsible for building the token model and protocol architecture at GoodDollar.

He is also a painter and father to a 6-month-old who doesn't like to sleep at night.

Tomer has a BA in Economics and Psycology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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Pietro Grassano
Business Solutions Director
Algorand

Pietro is Business Solutions Director for Europe at Algorand. He's an experienced manager with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry, with over 17 years at JP Morgan Asset Management. His last role was JPMAM's country manager for France. Pietro is skilled in Asset Management, Macroeconomics, Mutual Funds, Trading and Structured Finance.

He has Masters degree focused in Economics - Discipline Economiche e Sociali (DES) from Università Commerciale 'Luigi Bocconi'.

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Jacob Wikinski
Business Development Manager M&A
Earnix

Jacob is Business Development Manager M&A at Earnix

Andrew Takyi-Appiah
Co-Founder & Managing Director
Zeepay

Andrew is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Zeepay. He is an expert on Banking and Mobile Payments with over 15 years of experience in banking and business development. Andrew’s experience spans the world of marketing and banking as he has held various positions from being a brand manager for Nescafe to holding roles such as Head of Retail, Head Corporate – Manufacturing Business, Head Transaction Banking, General Manager Strategy, General Manager Business Performance all in banking and a Business Development Head and Lead Strategy Consultant for big-4 Consulting. Andrew has had the opportunity to work with institutions such as Commonwealth Secretariat, Nestle, Barclays UK, GT Bank, Ecobank, UT Bank and PwC.

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Igal Nevo

Advisor & OECD (BEPAB) Member

Igal is Head of INX Ventures at INX. He grew in the public sector, serving as Chief of Staff to Member of Knesset (Israeli Parliament) and manager of the Israeli hi-tech caucus.
As CEO of the Israeli Blockchain Forum, Igal led discussions between lawmakers and the blockchain industry, recomending regulatory models to help create a new and adjusted regulatory framework.
Igal is a member of the OECD's Blockchain Expert Policy Advisory Board, helping to identify the benefits and risks of blockchains for economies and societies, and examining how blockchain can help specific policy areas. In addition, Igal is a member of several ISO (International Organization for Standardization) blockchain committees.

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Thanos Mathiopoulos
CBO
FinSec Innovation Lab

Thanos is the CBO of the FinSec Innovation Lab, where he's responsible for the start-ups’ evaluation and acceptance into the Lab, as well as supporting the start-ups in formulating and evolving their business model according to global market needs.
Prior to this, he was the CFO of two high tech start-ups in the US: Electric Motor Works and Demand Energy. As the CFO, he led all activities related to finance, accounting, control, tax, and risk management. There he gained experience of working in fast-paced, rapidly expanding start-ups, who developed and sold Software and Hardware for EV and stationary battery charging applications.
Before entering the Financial Valuation team of EGP, Thanos served as Head of Economic Evaluation for Enel Green Power (EGP) where he oversaw the financial evaluation of all greenfield and M&A opportunities around the world. Prior to that he held a similar role as Head of Financial Valuation for EGP for Europe and Greece.
Before EGP, Thanos served as an integral part of the Start-up team in EGP in Greece, working in different project management roles covering several activities including business development, operations and construction.
He holds a PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and MSc in Renewable Energy Systems Technology from the University of Loughborough (UK) and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Warwick (UK). Thanos also received several awards from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and a scholarship for his studies at the University of Loughborough.

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Roy Frank
Account Manager
London Stock Exchange Group

Roy is an Account Manager at Refinitiv, a London Stock Exchange Group business, covering the Israeli market since 2018. Previously, Roy worked as a solutions project manager for Intercontinental Exchange.

Roy's field of expertise includes: Financial Information, Trading, FX, Wealth Management, Investment and Advisory, Risk and Compliance, Financial Crime (including terror financing, bribery and corruption), AML and KYX policies.

He graduated with honors from Reichman University (IDC) with a BA in Economics, Roy also holds a Black Belt in Judo.

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Eve Guterman
Research Fellow
Boris Mints Institute, Tel Aviv University

Eve is a research fellow at the Boris Mints Institute and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on leveraging the power of decentralized institutions for social welfare and individual resilience.

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Oded Salomy
Director, Payment Systems & Settlement
Bank of Israel

Oded is Director of Payment Systems and Settlement at the Bank of Israel, leading a team that supervises critical payment systems in the market. He manages operation of two significant payment systems, establishes policy for payments and serves as a c-level member of management at the central bank. Oded's prior roles include leading Visa in Israel and other markets, as well as founding Visa's Tel Aviv Innovation Studio; setting up global payment acceptance for HERE Technologies' mobility platform; and leading Fintivity, a Fintech advisory practice. He speaks frequently on topics relating to Fintech and Payments. A corporate attorney by training, Oded obtained a JD from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Harvard University. Oded founded and led the Harvard Club of Israel for nearly two decades, and founded a personal development initiative that gives ordinary people a physical stage to tell their extraordinary life stories.

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Arik Steinberg
Chairman
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange

Arik has served as the Director of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange since July 2020. He has had extensive experience as a director in both private and public companies. From 2012 to date, Arik has served as a director at Leumi Partners, the investments arm of Bank Leumi Group. Prior to that he was Chairman of REE, a public company listed on NASDAQ and he is currently finishing his term as a director at Paz Oil, a public company listed on TASE.

Arik was also among the investors in Mobileye. He also has held numerous executive positions in capital markets. From 2006-2010 he served as Chairman of the Board of Directors at Psagot Investment House Ltd as well as other companies in the Psagot Group on behalf of York Capital, after leading the acquisition of Psagot from Bank Leumi and Psagot's acquisitions strategy, including its sale to Apax. From 1999-2003 he was CEO of Ilanot Batucha Investment House Ltd of the IDB Group (then owned by the Recanati Family).

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Alon Shahak
BD & Partnerships, Cyber Lead Scout
Deutsche Telekom

Between his work as Global Cyber Lead Scout at Deutsche Telekom to his work as a Cyber Security research associate at Tel Aviv University's Yuval Ne'eman Workshop for Science, Technology and Security, Alon is a cyber security innovation expert. His main focus in recent months is on the topic of the Metaverse Security: Where is it going and how to be best prepared for it and Alon has already writtn a paper (pending publication) on "Metawars" and is involved in various Metaverse Security projects and events.

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Adrian Fritz
Research Associate
21Shares

Adrian is a Research Associate at 21Shares and Amun, creating data-driven analysis of the cryptoasset industry. In his role he meets with clients across EMEA to provide insight on macroeconomic trends as well as the entire crypto ecosystem. In addition, he is a lecturer for various crypto-related courses at Swiss universities and the CCFE (Certified Crypto Finance Expert). Previously, he worked as a financial analyst at Cellnex in Zurich and at Signature Management Consultants in Barcelona. After his Master's degree in international business, which he completed at the HULT International Business School in San Francisco in 2015,  Adrian began his career as a stock broker on Wall Street - further career stations led him to investment banking and management consulting.

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Dr Andrey Nayman
Founder & CEO
Magic Square

Andrey is the founder and CEO of Magic Sqare, the first community-driven multi-chain crypto app store.

An executive product owner and proven leader, Andrey has a deep background in algo-trading, start-ups and scaling tech oriented companies. His professional career started with 7.5 years at Final, one of the world's largest algo-trading companies. He also served as a CEO in Vidmid, a technology leader in OTT space, and Playtech where he was Head of Financial Products. For 5 years Andrey was the Managing Director at Radical Ventures, one of the most active VCs in Israel.

Andrey has a PhD in Mathematics from Tel Aviv University.

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Yaron Zurr
Co-Founder & CCO
Connected Insurance

Yaron is Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer at Connected Insurance, which enables businesses with digital touchpoints to offer intelligent insurance solutions, supporting them with all key aspects to deliver tailored, contextual, innovative insurance offers for clients.

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Saul Levin
Investment Team
Entrée Capital

Saul is an investor focused on supporting Entrée Capital’s efforts in early stage fintech and crypto. He began his career in investment banking, before joining the investment team of a prominent VC. Prior to Entrée Capital he spent time at Google in Dublin.

Saul has a degree in Economics from IDC Herzlia.

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Dan Pastor
Global GTM Lead, Cyber & Risk Services
MasterCard

Dan leads the global go-to-market strategy for Cyber and Risk Services in Mastercard Data & Services. He has more than 15 years of cyber, intelligence and risk experience, before joining Mastercard Dan was VP Product and Operations at Cytegic (acquired by Mastercard), and is a Major (res.) in the Israeli Military Intelligence.

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Dr Ira Sobel
Founder & CEO
Fintech 4Longevity

Dr Ira is the founder of Fintech 4Longevity, a research and consulting platform helping the financial sector be well prepared for the demographic trend of aging. She is an expert in the economics of aging with a particular focus on the role of fintech in improving the financial well-being of mid-life and older adults. In 2020, Ira joined a working group at the World Economic Forum on “Redefining Retirement”.

Ira is the founder of the International Financial Innovation for Aging and Longevity Forum, an international forum which deals with the intersection of longevity, finance and technology. Her academic research deals with the effect of retirement and changing health on the economic outcomes of households within different pension and healthcare systems.

From 2008 to 2019, Ira served as a non-executive director to numerous public companies in Israel including the Bank of Jerusalem and worked previously as an accountant at KPMG.

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Roy Ionas
Israel Country Head
Abu Dhabi Investment Office

Roy is the Head of the Israeli Office at the Abu Dhabi Investment Office.

Roy and his team manage ADIO's office in Tel Aviv, where they liaise with and support Israeli companies seeking expansion to Abu Dhabi. They are responsible for introducing Israeli businesses and companies from strategic industries to opportunities available in the emirate and supporting their integration into Abu Dhabi’s innovation and startup ecosystem.

Prior to joining ADIO, Roy was active in the Israeli business community as an entrepreneur and founded two companies, LeadSpotting and The Video Point. He led them from fundraising to international sales. Roy previously built his leadership portfolio in the Israeli hi-tech industry in various management positions within its research and development sector.

Roy holds a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Computer Science from Technion and a Master of Arts (MA) degree in Political Science from Haifa University.

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Duncan Johnston-Watt
Co-Founder & CEO
Blockchain Technology Partners

Duncan is a serial entrepreneur, technology pioneer and renowned keynote speaker with over 30 years’ experience in the software industry. His latest venture is Blockchain Technology Partners (BTP), a leading enterprise blockchain company whose partners include Digital Asset, creators of the open source Daml smart contract language, and US cybersecurity start-up Taekion. Prior to this, Duncan founded Cloudsoft Corporation, creator of the Apache Brooklyn open source project, serving as its CEO for 9 years. Duncan was founder and CTO of autonomic computing pioneer Enigmatec Corporation, which was sold to iWave and subsequently acquired by EMC. Earlier in his career he held a number of fintech roles culminating in Reuters Instinet where he led the delivery of their Fixed Income brokerage platform. In recognition of this work pioneering the use of Java enterprise technologies in financial services, he was nominated for a Computerworld Smithsonian Award.

Duncan holds an MSc in Computation from Oxford University where he was a graduate student at Balliol College.

Ouriel Ohayon
CEO
ZenGo

Ouriel is Co-Founder and CEO of ZenGo, a new generation of All-in-one crypto wallet focused on simplicity and safety.

He’s a former executive at ICQ/AOL, founder of TechCrunch France (sold to AOL), Isai.fr (leading French VC) and was General Manager of the internet Lab of Gemini and Lightspeed Ventures.

Ouriel is French and Israeli, based in Tel Aviv, and has an MBA from HEC Paris and a CEMS Master in International Management from Esade, Barcelona.

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Yuval Samet
CEO
RiseUp

Yuval is a product manager and entrepreneur with a passion for solving people’s pains through value-driven products. Yuval co-founded Analyzd, a fraud-protection company, which in 2011 was acquired by Klarna. He joined Klarna and there he built the Klarna Tel Aviv R&D center, founded the product group as Chief Product Officer and finally acted as Chief Technology Officer. After 5 years at Klarna and 3 in Sweden, he moved back to Israel to build Impact Technology products for Israelis.

In 2017 he founded RiseUp, a Profit-with-Purpose startup which uses cutting-edge technology to help middle and lower income Israeli families control their finances and start to save money. He is currently CEO and Product Manager of RiseUp. Yuval runs a Product Leadership bootcamp out of Tel Aviv, aimed to build the next generation of product managers in Israel.

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Shaul David
Head of Banking
Railsbank

Shaul is Head of Banking at Railsbank, a global banking as a service platform. In this role Shaul is responsible for developing the platform's network of banking partners and helping Railsbank and its customers reach more countries around the world.

Previously, as the UK Government's first Fintech advisor, Shaul collaborated with governments, innovative companies and financial institutions to accelerate innovation across industry verticals. At the Department for International Trade, Shaul helped build the UK Fintech ecosystem, cementing its global leadership position and supporting fintech companies growing cross border business.

Earlier in his career, Shaul held various roles within retail banking technology and finance. He is also a basketball junkie.

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Leib Bolel
Partner
Grayhawk Capital

Leib is a partner at US-based Grayhawk Capital an established early-growth B2B SaaS focused venture capital fund founded in 1999. As a founder and entrepreneur, Leib has led a number of organizations at the helm bringing his experience in the areas of business development, marketing and strategic partnerships, bringing these expertise to assist portfolio companies.

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Dr Saul Fine
Founder & CEO
Innovative Assessments

Saul is Founder and CEO of Innovative Assessments. He is a senior organizational psychologist and psychometrician, and a former university lecturer in psychology.

He has held senior management and research positions at Midot, CareerHarmony, and the Israeli Defense Forces, and has been developing and validating psychometric assessments for over 20 years for large private and government organizations around the world. His research in this area has been widely published, with over 30 articles in academic journals, and more than 50 papers presented at international conferences.

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Csilla Zsigri
VP Strategy
Blockchain Technology Partners

Csilla is VP Strategy at BTP, a leading enterprise blockchain company bringing the benefit of DLT and smart ledgers to businesses. She is a technology industry analyst, business consultant, and former elite athlete. Csilla worked for over 10 years at market research and advisory firm 451 Research (now part of S&P Global Market Intelligence) as an analyst covering blockchain technology, data marketplaces and cloud services; and prior to that, as a consultant on the company´s cross-technology advisory team. Csilla has led market intelligence and business exploitation work at a number of EU-funded research, development and innovation projects, and is co-author of several market studies prepared for the European Commission.

Csilla is multilingual and holds an MSc in business and economics. When she´s not working, you´ll find her playing beach volleyball or doing cross fit or martial arts.

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Adam Chernichaw
Partner
Allen & Overy

Adam is a partner in Allen & Overy’s Technology Transactions practice in the New York office. He advises clients in structuring complex (and often innovative and transformative) commercial transactions to help execute their strategic goals. Adam represents a variety of global businesses across a number of industry sectors including financial services, social media, life sciences, food services, commercial airlines, telecommunications, sports, hospitality and entertainment.

For over 20 years, Adam has had a particular focus in the fintech sector, representing buy-side and sell-side institutions, users of fintech products and services, and companies seeking strategic alliances and product integrations. Adam has extensive experience in information technology and business process outsourcings, cloud and "as a service" offerings, payment processing services (including BIN Sponsorship arrangements, P2P payments systems, and other payment services), mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures.

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Raul Shnier
CTO
Finsec Innovation Lab

Raul Shnier is the CTO of the FinSec Lab, a joint venture by Mastercard and Enel as well as the Israel National Cyber Directorate, Ministry of Finance and Israel Innovation Authority.
He is responsible for escorting start-ups in the domain of cyber security and fintech from initial evaluation through architecture and product planning support and designing and executing advanced test scenarios that includes complex attacks scenarios in multiple domains.
Prior to joining the Lab, Raul served in technical lead positions in several tech companies including Dell and Citi Bank.
Raul had served in the INCD as technical director leading the Threat Intelligence and IR efforts at national scale.

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Hanan Haviv
Partner
Herzog Fox & Neeman

Hanan is Herzog's Head of HiTech and is a leading partner in the firm’s corporate division.

Hanan has over 20 years of experience representing a wide range of technology companies from early stage startups to public companies and investors in diverse and complex transactions. His practice focuses on financing and M&A transactions, as well as advising companies on general corporate, securities law matters and all kinds of business transactions and guiding them on issues related to their business model, fundraising strategy, investor relations and board and shareholders management.

Hanan has substantial experience in both buyer and seller-side M&A transactions, including acquisition transactions of Israeli companies traded in the United States (such as Fundtech, Starlims, Voltaire, Lipman, Aladdin, Ezchip and more). Hanan has also significant experience in venture capital and other private financing transactions, representing issuers and investors in transactions ranging from seed financings to growth rounds and private equity investments.

Prior to joining Herzog in 2005, Hanan was a senior attorney in the Venture Law Group in the Silicon Valley officer of Heller Ehrman. Hanan is a member of the Israel Bar Association and the State Bar of California.

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Eran Vitkon
VP Product Payments
Finastra

Eran is VP Product Payments at Finastra.

Peviously he was VP Head of BaaS at PayKey and prior to that he was Head of Open Banking Solutions at Finastra.

A fintech veteran with over 10 years of experience servicing the worlds' largest banks, Eran has held a range of senior roles including product management, R&D, sales and services.

Eran focuses on innovative technologies such as the move to micro-services, artificial intelligence, blockchain, real time payments and regulations that can change the face of the financial industry.

He holds BA in Business Administration from IDC Herzliya, Israel.

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Eli Lazarev
Senior Manager, Risk & Forensic Services
PwC

Eli has more than 10 years of experience in the banking industry as a financial risk manager, credit analyst, innovative finance and banking products expert.
He leads in projects in digital and open banking, financial modelling, data analytics, model validation and internal audit, allowing him to accumulate specific knowledge of the banking sector, as well as consolidate an integrated view of best practices of core banking business, risk management and core processes delivery as a result of the experience of working with the main Israeli banks and contacting with the supervisor's expectations.

Eli has an MBA with specialization in Banking and Finance from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a BA in Credit Economy and Banking from Tashkent Financial Institute in Uzbekistan.

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Gil White
Managing Partner
Herzog Fox & Neeman

Gil is Herzog’s managing partner, and a first port of call for Israeli clients in regards to their commercial objectives internationally, especially in the eCommerce sector, with a focus on regulated industries. As the head of Herzog’s eCommerce Department, Gil has, for over a decade, counselled the world’s leading internet gaming and fintech companies with respect to corporate and commercial issues. Together with his team, Gil has led the development of Herzog Fox & Neeman’s industry leading Cryptocurrency Practice.
His practice focuses on advising clients in innovative industries on a range of issues concentrating primarily on matters pertaining to licensing, regulation, litigation and day-to-day operations. Gil’s experience in such industries has dove-tailed into advising cryptocurrency clients in their strategic planning towards Initial Coin Offerings and advising established clients looking to incorporate cryptocurrencies and block-chain technology in their existing businesses. In addition, Gil provides counsel to traditional financial sector players looking to expand their businesses into the world of cryptocurrency. Over the years, Gil has coordinated initial public offerings and M&A transactions on behalf of online gaming companies which have proved to be standard-setting in the nascent industry
Gil serves as Herzog Fox & Neeman’s International Relationships Partner, responsible for coordinating and maintaining Herzog Fox & Neeman’s relationships with international law firms and clients.

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Carmen James
Financial Services & ICT Sector Lead, FDI Dept
Abu Dhabi Investment Office

Carmen is the Financial Services and ICT Sector Lead at the Abu Dhabi Investment Office.

Carmen has been with ADIO since its early days and joined as one of the early members of the Investments team. Her team has been responsible for origination and analysis of innovative companies in the Financial Services and ICT sectors. She has been the ongoing relationship manager for signed deals to ensure investors’ smooth transition to Abu Dhabi. One of the biggest achievements of Carmen’s team has been the establishment of Anghami’s global HQ in Abu Dhabi, prior to its listing on Nasdaq as the Arab world’s first tech company.

Prior to joining ADIO, Carmen has spent several years in the UAE as a specialist in strategy, advisory and investments. She has worked closely both with the private and the public sector on end-to-end deals and relationship management.

As an analyst for a boutique fund research and advisory company she has been involved with strategic research, market entry, debt and equity financing for funds and companies from around the world.

Carmen has built her work portfolio for over ten years in financial research and communications across her native Australia and the Middle East.

She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Economics with minors in Finance and Business Law from the Sydney University of Technology. Proficient in French and English, Carmen obtained a diploma in Advanced French Literature from the Paris-Sorbonne University Paris IV in 2008.

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Liad Bokovsky
Senior Director of Solutions Engineering
Axway

Liad is  Senior Director of Solutions Engineering at Axway. He is a technologist specialising in digital transformation and innovation who has for many years been guiding and assisting organisations through their digital transformation journey, enabling them to make the necessary changes needed when integrating digital technology into all areas of the business, with the goal of driving operational efficiency and value to customers, while supporting them through the technological and cultural changes.

With a strong background in networking and cybersecurity, Liad has worked for a number of service providers, Content Delivery Network (CDN) companies and top security vendors. He has been helping companies, mostly technology start-ups and fintechs, to understand the value of their digital assets and then pivot towards a strategy that will best allow them to innovate while maintaining security and control over their data.

LinkedIn

Lee Noyek
Head of Israel Desk
Allen & Overy LLP

Based in Israel, Lee Noyek acts as the face of Allen & Overy on the ground in Tel Aviv, playing a significant role in developing business and servicing local clients. Lee has significant experience in financial services and financial technology mergers and acquisitions, with a focus on cross-border corporate work and has experience in a wide variety of corporate finance, M&A, divestments, joint ventures, public takeovers, refinancings and initial public offerings. He has had particular experience co-ordinating high profile and challenging multijurisdictional M&A transactions in Israel, the US and globally.

LinkedIn

Rowan Gallagher
COO
Fundsquire

Rowan is COO at Fundsquire and brings over a decade of experience in financial markets, alternative funding and debt capital markets. Fundsquire has provided over $75m of non-dilutive capital to quickly growing technology businesses. Rowan supports iniovative businesses identify and implement best-suited funding strategies based on their stage of business growth.

Prior to Fundsquire, Rowan worked with RBC Capital Markets and Ignis Asset Management before moving to the Innovation Consultancy firm, GrantTree, where he led their growth strategy for 4 years. He is passionate about sharing his industry knowledge and helping some of the most innovative businesses, globally, across all verticals access capital to scale.

LinkedIn

Josh Liggett
Principal, Investments Team
OurCrowd

Josh works on the Investments team at OurCrowd, focusing on fintech and blockchain. His first exposure to the pain points fintech companies solve was dealing with traditional factors in the mid-2000s while running an ecommerce clothing company. Soon after moving to Israel, Josh got involved in the Israeli fintech space. He started writing for the fintech media site Tearsheet in early 2016, where he covered payments and blockchain, joining OurCrowd a year later. Since then he has been investing in the blockchain space, speaking at events, and helping early stage blockchain companies grow. He has a true entrepreneurial spirit, and has made angel investments, sat on the board of financial institutions, and coordinated business development strategies to help his investments grow. Other roles include mentor at the Barclays Accelerator Powered by Techstars in Tel Aviv, Barclays Rise Ambassador, and Board Advisor and Mentor at Blockchain Israel.

LinkedIn

Nir Hemo
Business Solutions
Algorand

Nir is the Business Solutions lead at Algorand, blockchain infrastructure that offers the interoperability and capacity to handle the volume of transactions needed for decentralized finance (DeFi), financial institutions, and governments to smoothly transition into FutureFi.

Nir studied Economics, Data Science, and Finance at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzlia, and Bocconi di Milano and joined to Algorand in 2020. As a Business Solution Consultant who specializes in Gaming, NFTs and DeFi, Nir has helped dozens of companies raise funds, remove friction and achieve their business goals using blockchain technology.

LinkedIn

Shmuel Ben-Tovim
President
CityTLV

Shmuel is the President and CEO of CityTLV, the largest and most influential fintech industry organization in Israel. He is also the Director of FintechIL, the government-sponsored innovation community for fintech and insurtech.
He also serves as the Chairman of the Israel-Malta Chamber of Commerce and is a Founding Director of the Israel Smart Cities Institute (ISCI).

Shmuel’s career has encompassed both the private and public sectors. Among his previous positions he has served as:
Minister for Economic Affairs, the Embassy of Israel, London; Assistant Director General, Bank Leumi Group; Chief Economic Adviser to the Minister of Industry, Trade & Tourism; Israel’s Consul & Trade Commissioner to the US; Directly-elected Mayor of Kfar Shmaryahu; Executive Director of Ben-Tovim Consultants Ltd, a boutique investment banking and corporate advisory firm.

Shmuel has served as non-executive director in leading Israeli corporations, including: Bezeq Ltd, Israel Chemicals Ltd, the Jerusalem Economic Corporation Ltd and the Tel Aviv Development Corporation Ltd. He was the founding Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Israel Directors Union and a board member of the Tel Aviv Chamber of Commerce and of the Israel Export Institute.

Shmuel holds a BA in Economics and an MBA from the Hebrew University.

LinkedIn

Ziv Keinan
CEO
Simetria

Ziv is Co-founder and CEO of Simetria, a digital securities exchange targeting the Israeli market.

LinkedIn

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