GSMA FinTech Forum

Richard heads an international team at the GSMA and is responsible for developing new innovative products and services beyond the core network in IoT, Identity and Big Data for the mobile ecosystem. ​

As the key lead for GSMA engagements in the vertical industries, specifically; FinTech, Automotive, Aviation and Manufacturing, Richard has recently launched the GSMA Innovation Foundry, creating a collaborative platform for GSMA members and partners to work together on the major challenges facing the industry. ​

In addition, Richard is responsible for the GSMA’s Strategy Group which regularly convenes to address strategic topics within the industry and supports the GSMA Board. ​

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Brian is the FinTech Vertical Lead at GSMA leading activities to enhance collaboration between the Financial Services vertical and the mobile eco-system. This reflects the strategy requested by the GSMA board to get closer to key verticals and better understand their needs.

His career includes product and commercial management in banking and mobile telecoms including O2, Lloyds and Barclays. As well as Telecomms, heading up the Digital Product team, Commerce, at Telefonica UK.

Brian leads innovation for Accenture’s Communications and Media Industry globally with a focus on the metaverse, Web3 and the future of the internet. He has a passion for technology since receiving a Sega Megadrive as a child and loves that he gets to combine this with solving for human needs, working with clients to ignite change in The Dock, Accenture’s global R&D and Innovation centre in Dublin, which he helped set up in 2016. Over the past 15 years Brian has helped leading organisations to expand globally, accelerate product development cycles and embed a culture of innovation. Outside of Accenture, Brian served as Irish President of Junior Chamber International, the worldwide leadership development organisation and sits on the Governing Authority of his alma mater, Dublin City University.

Luis is the Founder and CEO of Mawari. In this role, his mission is to enable Synthetic Reality for everyone. He is committed to experimenting and developing with emerging technologies such as 5G, cloud rendering and streaming, in order to build a patent pending 3D Streaming CODEC for Mawari 3DXR Content Streaming Platform, a next-generation XR distribution technology for the metaverse.

Mawari’s proprietary CODEC enables the highest visual quality to be streamed to mobile XR Devices by substantially lowering the heavy processing requirements of rich interactive and ultra-realistic 3D content like real-time digital humans, reducing cost, data size and battery consumption while unlocking scalability.

Prior to Mawari, he spearheaded and co-founded the Japanese version of MUTEK, a world-renowned festival dedicated to the dissemination and development of digital creativity in sound, music, and audio-visual art. He also served as a Global Head of Marketing at MUSIC Tribe, one of the world’s largest holding companies for pro audio and music instruments.

Julia is a strategy and business development executive, with over 20 years of experience within blue-chip organizations specializing in Telecom & Media, blockchain, crypto, and start-up ecosystems. Recognized as an industry thought leader due to entrepreneurial and business-focused mindset, Julia has cultivated an international profile by supporting projects across Europe, UK, the USA, Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Julia is currently the Global Head of Telecom & Media strategic partnerships at cLabs, working on Celo, a mobile first L1 open-source blockchain.

Innovation and technology is a passion for Jens, Senior Expert Corporate Strategy at Deutsche Telekom. Being in the telco business for more than 18 years now, he combines his technology and business background with entrepreneurship, foresight topics, as well as strategy and investment work. Jens is driving and advising major blockchain and crypto related developments at DT.

As Accenture’s Communications and Media Industry Leader, Andy is responsible for the strategy, offerings, and business, as well as, the network of more than fifty thousand professionals who serve our Media and Communications clients around the world.

Andy has consulted to Communications, Media and High Tech clients for more than 20 years, and has advised leaders across the industry on issues ranging from their fiber strategy to the profitability of their customers & products to margin improvement efforts.  As well, Andy has been an advisor on multiple mergers, acquisitions and divestitures across the industry, and has helped a number of clients launch new businesses, including new wireless businesses, technology services businesses, and segment specific businesses.

Prior to his career in consulting, Andy spent 4 years serving as a policy advisor to several Members of Congress who served on the House Telecommunications Committee.  During this time, he worked on a number of efforts related to the liberalization of the U.S. telecom market.  He is a frequent speaker at conferences, and has published in the M&A Journal, the Journal of Telecommunications, CFO.com and WSJ.com, among others.

Brian is the FinTech Vertical Lead at GSMA leading activities to enhance collaboration between the Financial Services vertical and the mobile eco-system. This reflects the strategy requested by the GSMA board to get closer to key verticals and better understand their needs.

His career includes product and commercial management in banking and mobile telecoms including O2, Lloyds and Barclays. As well as Telecomms, heading up the Digital Product team, Commerce, at Telefonica UK.

Fraser is a founding member of Vodafone’s Big Data and Advanced Analytics business unit and now heads up commercial strategy for Vodafone’s Mobile Identity portfolio globally. Fraser thrives on challenging the norm, burning the rulebook and realising the profound possibilities technology creates to improve human life.

Julia is focusing on CBDC strategy, design principles, assessing capabilities & technologies, and creating the  CBDC a suite of products and services for FIS to support full payments value chain. How CBDCs could uplift the nations, whether through financial  inclusion, financial deepening and digitization. Julia is also responsible for developing, maintaining, and  strengthening of relationship with central banks, regulators, and policy makers and private sector institutions on the topic of CBDC and supporting full payments value chain, including central infrastructure and applications.

Julia worked on several flagship CBDC projects with central banks and  other financial market infrastructure players. Julia also contributes to CBDC and digital assets point of views and consultation responses.

In 2018, Julia joined OMFIF a central bank think-tank based in London as a Director of Fintech & Private Markets. In 2020 Julia launched OMFIF’s Digital Monetary Institute (DMI) an independent platform for convening central banks on CBDCs, digital payments, the DLT and blockchain.

In 2013, Julia joined a single-family office in London. Julia was responsible for marketing and analysis of  funds and hedge funds, before moving to the investor relations department. Here she was responsible  for fundraising and marketing for project finance, private equity and venture capital co-investments. Julia has developed several significant relationships with family offices, sovereign funds and  international commercial and development banks in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Julia holds a BA (Hons) from EBS London in International Business and Finance. She speaks English, German and Arabic.

Sandip is Regional Head of Liquidity Management Services for the Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) in Asia-pacific, a business unit of Citi’s Institutional Clients Group. TTS is Citi’s core business, offering award-winning integrated cash management and trade solutions to multinational corporations, financial institutions and public sector organizations across Citi’s Global network including 16 countries in Asia Pacific.

Based in Hong Kong, Sandip is responsible for providing an integrated suite of Citi’s Liquidity and Investments solutions across all 16 countries in Asia-pacific. These services are at the core of supporting clients’ Commercial and Treasury activities with an aim to optimize Liquidity and Vehicle using Innovative Solutions. He is also responsible for developing Digital Assets Strategy for LMS business. This business oversees USD 135 Bn of Client Deposits earned through Liquidity and Payment Structures. He is a member of balance sheet and various risk committees at Citi.

Sandip started with Citi as a Management Associate and in the last 26 years, he has held numerous positions in India, Thailand as well in Citi’s regional office in Hong Kong. His experience spans across Sales and Client Management, Product Management, Risk Management as well as eBusiness Development functions both, locally and regionally. Prior to current role, Sandip was the Asia Sales Head for Financial Institutions Business as well as Asia Business Head for Payments, Receivables and Channels Services for TTS Asia.

Sandip holds a Master of Management Studies as well as a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering Degree from University of Mumbai, India. He was a Government of India’s National Merit Scholar and has received numerous awards including Citi’s prestigious Global Chairman’s Club award.

Passionate not only about driving financial inclusion but also on growing financial health, Sammy has had a career spanning +15 years in telecommunication, banking, and financial services with this objective in mind.

He has been at the fore front of championing digitization across multiple industries to enhance access to financial services like credit, savings investments, remittance, and insurance. He knows the mission is far from done and focuses on creating positive impact in the lives of every day Africans by working on building collaborative co-creative environments across different sectors to get the best minds to deliver African Born solutions to African problems.

He worked in various leaderships roles in different institutions including NCBA Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Airtel, and Visa inc.  before finally joining M-Pesa Africa as the Executive head of Business Payments  in 2021.

Marco Torrente is the Executive Head of the Marketing and Digital Department as well as a member of the Executive Leadership at Vodacom Financial Services.

Marco’s professional experience includes Business Intelligence, Financial Technology, Organisational Effectiveness, Product UX & UI, Process Engineering and now, full Marketing and Digital responsibility. His ability to create effective processes, strategies and solutions allows Marco to lead fast paced teams and spearhead innovative and disruptive business propositions.

Marco holds a MSc degree in Management Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Turin, Italy.

Puneet Chopra is the founding member and Chief Growth Officer at Yabx. He has over fifteen years of experience in the mobile telecommunications and fintech industry across consulting, market expansion and business development. Technology and Innovation have been the core themes and passion across his professional journey of launching greenfield telecom operators, transforming technology stacks and delivering new age solutions to solve real life problems for both B2B and B2B2C.

Yabx is a fintech venture, leveraging technology and analytics to reduce the cost of delivering financial services in a scalable and sustainable manner. Yabx enables banks and micro finance institutions to acquire and service tens of millions of new customers in a pure digital model in partnerships with telecom and other consumer networks.

Brian is the FinTech Vertical Lead at GSMA leading activities to enhance collaboration between the Financial Services vertical and the mobile eco-system. This reflects the strategy requested by the GSMA board to get closer to key verticals and better understand their needs.

His career includes product and commercial management in banking and mobile telecoms including O2, Lloyds and Barclays. As well as Telecomms, heading up the Digital Product team, Commerce, at Telefonica UK.