Jori Armbruster (Spain/Mexico), Blockchain and crypto beliver, descentralization advocate. Co-founder and CEO of EthicHub a multi awarded agro fintech enabling a fair global lending system for unbanked farmers which also re thinks the supply chain. He ran a coffee farm in Mexico and was CEO for a wholesaler with over 100 salespoints and over 800 employees, with prior experience in operations, HHRR ans M&A to name a few. He is fully commited with the SDGs ant to prove impact investing is not only necessary but a better investment in the long term. As part of his commitment he’s been speaker both in crypto and impact spaces at FLII (Foro Latinoamericano de Inversión de Impacto), TalentLand, StartupOle, OpenFinanceCDMX, INATBA, LisCon, DAOist and many more. He is also an occasional writer and a regular panelist on radio and events. He loves coffee and cacao and spends his spare time learning about new technologies and trends.

Susana Martín Belmonte is an independent economist focused on the democratic and environmental aspects of the monetary and financial system, and on the potential of the digitalisation of money for the transition to a fair and low-carbon economy. She has led several monetary and social innovation projects and campaigns including the Unlock campaign to foster cheap and accessible financing for green renovations, the REC citizen currency in partnership with the Barcelona City Council in the framework of the EU B-MINCOME project (2016-2019). She also co-founded the GmeRiTs consortium, which wonthe €1 million “2020 Blockchain for social good” prize on financial inclusion from the European Commission. Susana is the author of several publications including books, reports, and scientific articles and has a background in international trade, online business and a master’s degree in Economic Theory from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Susana is a collaborator with Dimmons Research Group at Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

Mariana de la Roche is the Senior Regulatory Affairs Expert of the IOTA Foundation. Since 2021, she has been the co-chair of the INABTA Social Impact and Sustainability Working Group. She is a Colombian human rights lawyer with a law degree obtained with academic excellence, a specialization in human rights and humanitarian law, and a master’s degree in public administration. She has over nine years of experience as a project manager and legal and regulatory advisor for different NGOs and social businesses in Colombia and Germany. Mariana has been leading the actions of the social impact and climate of INATBA, raising awareness and advocating for blockchain for good at the global level. She spoke and presented blockchain use cases for good in COP27, the EU blockchain week, and the Environment Ministerial For Europe Conference, among other relevant international spaces. Mariana is also part of the leading team coordinating Blockchcain 100+, an initiative supported by the UN’s General Assembly to create a charter for blockchain and the UN Values. Lastly, since 2023 she is one of the ambassadors of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC).

Bruno Delepierre is someone who is difficult to catch in one bucket: socially driven entrepreneur, innovator, author, speaker or scientist, these are labels you could possibly ascribe to him.  After an internship at the United Nations and a brief stop at a global business consulting firm, he started his own firm, age 26, eight years of entrepreneurship working with digital before digital was sexy,. After one year, he lost both his parents and besides his digital start-up, he also ran… a restaurant. During that period, he saw the ‘good, bad & ugly’ of entrepreneurship.   After he launched and managed the TED conferences in Leuven, one of the most innovative cities in the entire EU, he wrote “Roadmap to Utopia”, an economic cookbook containing 35 recipes to reconcile sustainability and economics, followed in 2016. Today, age 41, he runs Happonomy, an R&D centre exploring sustainable change and economics. The organisation helps people become aware of what colours their lives and develops solutions on how money, work and technology, the ingredients of our economy, can be used to enhance sustainability, regenerativity and quality of life.   Bruno Delepierre has a master’s degree in law, management and international business economics, He is currently pursuing a PhD at KU Leuven in behavioural economics. Besides Happonomy, he coordinates the Belgian chapter of the Global Entrepreneurship Network where he is looking at how to boost entrepreneurship together with Belgium’s largest employer organisations and universities. In addition, Delepierre is an MIT talent scout, a member of the Club of Rome and serves on the investment committee of the European Innovation Council, the EU’s investment fund for hi-tech growth companies.

Yaroslav Dubov is the CEO and Founder of Ninja Lender, a Fintech startup incorporated in Estonia, Poland, and Croatia, originally from Ukraine. It’s a B2B platform to help banks and credit institutions reduce the wastage of loan applications by matching rejected borrowers with other credit providers. Yaroslav started his career as a mathematician conducting scientific research in the field of Genetic Algorithms and teaching math at the university. Later, he became an IT entrepreneur and then the CEO of an IT company selling and implementing software and hardware solutions. Now he dedicated all his time and efforts to Ninja Lender, solving one of the largest inefficiency gaps in the financial world by helping rejected borrowers secure loans.

Shiva Dustdar currently serves as the Head and Director of the EIB Institute, which brings the values and mission of the EIB Group close to society through non-commercial activities supporting its climate, innovation and development priorities. Shiva has over 28 years of experience in the financial industry working for large private and public institutions in New York, London and Luxembourg. Since joining EIB in 2003, she has worked in risk management, lending, investing and advising in innovative companies. Until June 2022, Shiva headed the Innovation Finance Advisory (IFA) Division in the EIB, which she built and scaled up into a successful innovation financing advisory programme covering green, digital, gender-smart and health-related sectors.  Shiva started her career in 1993 at J.P. Morgan in Investment Banking in New York working in M&A, Project Finance and Emerging Markets before joining Fitch Rating Agency in 1999 to set up its European High Yield rating business. She holds a BA (Magna cum Laude) in Economics from Columbia University in New York and an Executive MBA from London Business School (LBS). Shiva is an innovation finance expert and regular speaker on innovation and impact financing, gender smart investing, digital and green financing and actively engaged in networks that promote sustainable and mission-oriented financing.

Dr. Gómez obtained her PhD with distinction with a thesis on the Redes de Trueque, the Community and Complementary Currency Systems in Argentina in the period 1995-2015. She has published widely on monetary systems with complementary currencies, solidarity and informal finances, grassroots economies, local economic development and institutions. She is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal Development and Change and the International Journal of Community Currency Research, and president of the Research Association on Monetary Innovation and Complementary Currency Systems.

Olena Gryniuk is a Host of SME Banking shows at SME Banking TV, and CEE Director at SME Banking Club, responsible for the development of the SME Banking Club in the CEE region. Before getting involved in the SME Banking Club activities, she was in charge of SME products and sales in Raiffeisen Bank and Eurobank groups, having 10 years of banking experience.

The “SME Banking Club” established by a team of former SME-bankers in 2010, as a professional network of bankers to exchange information and experiences in the segments of micro, small and medium-sized businesses. The SME Banking Club organizes regional SME banking conferences and webinars that bring together financial institutions, technology companies, and development finance institutions to share knowledge, spur innovation and promote the growth of SMEs in the region. Moreover, it provides its members with access to detailed analytical market reports and annual studies. SME Banking Club’s main activities are concentrated in Central and Eastern Europe.

Katalin Kauzli is the cofounder and business development director of Partner HUB Ltd.  She has been with the company since 2017. Partner HUB develops a white label e-invoicing platform that can be integrated into online and mobile banking channels for providing value added services such the integration of e-invoicing and request-to-pay. In 2021 Partner HUB was the winner of the Sibos Perfect Pitch competition for the Partnership and Collaboration section and the winner of the payment startup category for the EFMA-Capgemini Newtech Challange. Katalin is an advocate for using invoice data in banking. She is active in several industry initatives regarding e-invoicing, among others the US e-invoicing interoperability work group coordinated by the Business Payments Coalition. Katalin has a background in corporate finance and business development in financial institutions.

Piotr Koryński is an international economic and finance sector development specialist with significant field experience working in more than 30 countries globally. For over 10 years, Mr. Koryński led the efforts of Soros Economic Development Fund, a social investment vehicle of the Open Society Institute, to support alternative financial institutions and stimulate local economic growth. He is also a recognized expert in access to finance and financial inclusion, and serves as an advisor to central banks, regulatory bodies, and development agencies.

In his career, he helped to initiate and operate several alternative finance institutions as well industry infrastructure projects and policy programs to create appropriate legal and regulatory framework for access to financial services for low-income people. Piotr led the first Alternative Finance Forum in Warsaw in 2017. Piotr is a graduate of the Ohio State University and the Kellogg School of Management.

A member of Business Banking Unit in Comarch FBU sector – responsible for the Comarch Factoring Platform on the position of Product Development Manager. He graduated the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, with the degree in Management and Marketing in the Public Sector. Experienced in corporate banking for 10 years (Raiffesien Bank, BNP Paribas) as Relationship Manager and Factoring Sales Director – Southern Region Poland. Enthusiast of AGILE methodology, Proffesional Scrum Master.

Dimitris Litsikakis holds a BSc in Information Technology from Piraeus University and a MSc in Project Management from Lancaster University. He worked at IBM UK as a Project Manager delivering large scale IT projects. He then joined Edenred Greece as Digital Transformation Manager where he led the entire digitalization of the company’s solution offering, issuing hundreds of thousands of prepaid cards to beneficiaries. In 2018 he was appointed Country Manager Greece, Cyprus & Malta for Revolut, the fastest growing FinTech in Europe with a $33B valuation, delivering 400% client growth. In 2019, Dimitris moved on to spearheading the digital transformation of deVere Group, a financial consultancy with global presence with more than $12B assets under management, delivering cutting edge FinTech solutions and as the CEO of deVere E-money he delivered 10x user growth and record revenues. He’s now serving as CEO of Snappi, the new joint venture between Piraeus Bank and Natech, a new Digital Bank in Greece focusing in Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) micro-loans and Banking-as-a-Service offerings.

George has 15 years of experience in Finance and Shipping Management and more than a decade in building & scaling up tech startups, fundraising, and investments. As an entrepreneur, he successfully led the way towards his 1st exit while in the most recent past incubated & accelerated more than 40 tech projects, all the way up to fundraising. After building, from the ground up, a local fund for a Spanish VC, he joined SeedBlink, the innovative tech investment platform that builds an efficient investment infrastructure for individuals and institutions working together to source, vet, finance, and grow innovative European technology companies at all stages. Since 2022, George is leading SeedBlink’s Greek & Cypriot offices and operations.

Dr. Ira Sobel is the founder and Academic Director of Fintech for Longevity Academy, a trusted provider of financial longevity for corporate professionals around the world. Dr. Sobel specializes in the economic aspects of aging with a particular focus on the role of Fintech in improving the financial well-being of older adults and family caregivers. Dr. Sobel lives in Israel where she is currently teaching a course on “Financial Inclusion in the Fintech Age” at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is an international speaker and advisor to many Fintech companies and VCs around the world. Dr. Sobel has a PhD in Sociology from Tel Aviv University.

Maria is the Secretary General of the Digital 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.  A graduate in political sciences and European studies in Poland and Germany, Maria previously also worked in Brussels for the Council of the EU and at the Association for International Affairs.

Peter Surek is Head of Social banking at Erste Group and CEO of Erste Social Finance Holding. He is a retail and social banker with more than twenty years of experience in different Central and Eastern European (CEE) markets. Since 2013 he leads at Erste Group Social Banking development and within the last years he has consistently implemented social banking in all Erste core markets, building thus Europe-wide unique platform for financial inclusion. In 2019 – 2021, he acted as member of European Microfinance Network’s Board of Directors and since 2021 he is member of InvestEU Investment Committee.

Yannis Tsakiris holds a BSc and an MSc in Mining Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens and an MBA degree from the Management School of the Imperial College in London.  He started his career in 1995 in S&B Industrial Minerals, a European major industrial minerals producer where he spent 5 years in production, marketing and sales in charge of new products. From 2000 to 2006, he was Partner in Vectis Capital, a venture capital fund based in Athens with an investment focus in Greece and the Balkans.

He joined Europe Investment Fund in 2006 as a Principal involved in certain European venture capital markets that were under development phase. Then he continued as Head of Region in the Regional Business Development Division, responsible for South-Eastern Europe and Head of Unit for Special Programmes in the Institutional Business Development Division. He was appointed Head of Division for South-eastern Europe and EU Neighbouring Countries in the Mandate Management Department and he continued as Head of Division for Business Development. He has set-up and developed several investment and SME financing initiatives and platforms such as Equifund for Greece, Western Balkan Enterprise Development & Innovation Facility, JEREMIE for Greece and Cyprus, Portuguese Venture Capital Initiative for Portugal, the Grater Anatolia Guarantee Facility for Turkey, DCFTA Guarantee Facility for Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, etc.

From January 2015 until July 2019, he was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund (“GEEREF”) which is an innovative public-private Venture Capital fund of funds catalysing equity capital into clean energy projects in developing countries and economies in transition. He is also an adjunct professor in Venture Capital in the Luxembourg School of Finance of the University of Luxembourg.

Eleni has more than 15 years working experience mainly in Financial services & Banking.  She is currently Head of Growth at Pleo, Danish Fintech and leader in Expense management solutions. In present role, her team is supporting the expansion & growth of Pleo customer base in the UK/I markets.  Prior to that, Eleni was leading the Account Management team in Meniga, an Icelandic Fintech company that was focusing on Personal & Business Management Solutions. The team was responsible for maintaining an on-going collaboration with existing customers in 35 countries across the globe.  Earlier in her career, Eleni was working in Citi and Piraeus Bank, supporting digital banking projects in Greece.  She is fortunate to have been named in Women in Fintech PowerList, an initiative launched by Innovate Finance that aims to showcase women who are driving global success across the sector.  She is also shortlisted in GIWA awards in the category of Finance among a list of exceptional and successful women in the industry. Eleni is an active advocate on Diversity and Inclusion in Fintech industry, and she is has also been a Mentor in ‘’Women in Banking & Finance’’ (WIBF) and ‘’Reload Greece’’ organisations.  She holds a BSc Degree in Economics from Athens University (EKPA).