2026 Speakers

Ashley Alder became Chair of the FCA Board in February 2023.

Ashley was previously the Chief Executive Officer of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in Hong Kong, a role he has held since 2011.

He also chaired the Board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).

Ashley began his career as a lawyer in London in 1984 and practised in Hong Kong for more than 20 years. He was Executive Director of the SFC's Corporate Finance Division from 2001 to 2004, before returning to private practice at Herbert Smith LLP, a law firm, as Head of Asia.

Ashley also holds the position of PSR Chair, effective 26 January 2026.

Ayaz Baetov is the Special Representative of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, Permanent Representative of the Kyrgyz Republic to the United Nations, and First Deputy Chairman of the Management Council of the Special Financial and Investment Territory (SFIT) Tamchy.

He previously served as Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers and Minister of Justice of the Kyrgyz Republic, contributing to legal and institutional reforms and the modernisation of public administration.

Mr. Baetov has coordinated the establishment and development of the Tamchy SFIT, including the development of its legal and regulatory infrastructure, institutional framework, and governance mechanisms. His work supports the creation of a modern investment environment designed to attract international capital, promote innovation, and strengthen the Kyrgyz Republic’s integration into global financial markets.

A distinguished legal scholar and public policy expert, Mr. Baetov holds a Doctor of Legal Sciences degree from Kyrgyz National University and a Master of Public Policy degree from the National Graduate Research Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, Japan. He was also a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program.

His professional experience spans government, academia, international development, and legal reform. He previously served as Country Director for Uzbekistan at the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative and held senior positions in the judicial and public sectors.

Mr. Baetov is a Professor and author of academic publications, legal textbooks, and analytical papers. He is fluent in Kyrgyz, Russian, and English.

Bilal Bin Saqib, early Bitcoiner since 2016 and active angel investor in the space, is Pakistan’s Minister of State, and Chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.

He holds a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, has a keen interest in AI, quantum, and robotics, and is committed to channeling emerging technologies into Pakistan’s growth story. Recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30 and honored as an MBE by King Charles III, Bilal blends policy, technology, and purpose.

Denis Beau has been Deputy Governor of the Banque de France since August 2017 and First Deputy Governor since January 2024. In this capacity, he represents the Governor as Chair of the Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR) and has chaired the Observatory for the Security of Payment Means since January 2024. He is also a member of the Board of the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) and of the ECB Supervisory Board, and has chaired the ECB Budget Committee since 2023. At the international level, he co-chairs several groups dedicated to payments, market infrastructures and financial stability. In particular, he has co-chaired the Working Group on Modernisation (WGM) of the Financial Stability Board since March 2026.

His responsibilities cover in particular microprudential supervision, payments and market infrastructures, innovation, currency activities, the Banque de France branch network, and internal management.

As graduate of Sciences Po Paris and INSEAD, Denis Beau joined the Banque de France in 1986. He has since held numerous senior positions in financial markets, payments and financial stability, including Director General of Financial Stability and Operations from 2012 to 2017.

Appointed by Sovereign Order No. 8-230 of 20 August 2020, H.E. Ms Marie-Pascale BOISSON is Monaco’s fourth Ambassador to China since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in January 1995.

A lawyer by training, she initially practised in the private sector before joining the Monegasque civil service in 2000.

After eight years with the State’s Legislative and Legal Affairs Services, she continued her career at the Directorate of Judicial Services, then, from 2011, within the Department of Finance and the Economy, before being appointed in 2011 as Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit, responsible for combating money laundering, the financing of terrorism and corruption.

In her various roles, she was called upon to work on the implementation of numerous international conventions, particularly in the banking, financial and judicial sectors, before joining the Monegasque diplomatic service.

Skills and experience: Georges has almost 30 years of experience in the banking industry across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and has held a number of executive roles at a regional, global business and functional level.

Career: Georges was appointed Group CEO from 2 September 2024. He most recently served as Group CFO between January 2023 and September 2024. Georges joined HSBC in 2005 with extensive trading experience in London, Paris and Tokyo. He has since held a number of senior leadership roles, including Head of Global Banking and Markets, Middle East and North Africa; Chief Executive Officer for HSBC, Middle East, North Africa and Türkiye; Global Head of Markets; and co-Chief Executive Officer, Global Banking and Markets based in London. He was named Euromoney’s Banker of the Year in 2026.

He holds a degree in Engineering from the École Polytechnique in Paris, France, as well as a postgraduate degree in Statistics and Economics from the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Économique (ENSAE).

External appointments:
– Member of Monetary Authority of Singapore, International Advisory Panel
– Member of the Asia Business Council
– Member of the International Business Leaders Advisory Council (Beijing IBLAC)
– Member of the UK-India CEO Forum
– Member of the Semafor World Economy Global Advisory Board
– Member of the Board of Directors of the Peterson Institute for International Economics
– Member of the World Bank Private Sector Investment Lab
– Member of Advisory Board of The China Children Development Fund
– Principal Member of The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero
– Member of Financial Services Task Force of the SMI

Bill Winters was appointed to the Board of Standard Chartered PLC as Group Chief Executive on 10 June 2015.

Bill has had a distinguished career in banking, having spent 26 years with JP Morgan in diverse leadership roles, becoming co-Chief Executive Officer of the Investment Bank in 2004 until he stepped down in 2009. Bill was the only career banker to be invited to be a committee member of the Independent Commission on Banking, established by the UK government. Subsequently, he served as advisor to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards and was awarded a CBE for his services to the UK economy and financial services.

In 2023, Bill was appointed UK chair of the India-UK Financial Partnership formed between the Ministry of Finance of India and HM Treasury.

Bill is an Independent Director on the Board of Stripe Inc, Board Advisor of the International Rescue Committee and Chair of The Coronet Theatre Board of Trustees

Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors and Executive Director of Bank of China since January 2025 and President of the Bank since December 2024, Chief Compliance Officer of the Bank since February 2026, and Deputy Secretary of the CPC BOC Committee since November 2024, concurrently as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of BOC Hong Kong (Holdings) Limited since February 2025,

Mr. ZHANG served as Executive Vice President of China Development Bank from February 2021 to November 2024. Prior to that, Mr. ZHANG had worked in Bank of Communications for many years, and he served as Chief Risk Officer from July to November 2020. Mr. ZHANG served as General Manager of the Risk Management Department and Director of the Internal Control and Crime Prevention Office from February 2019 to November 2020, General Manager of the Risk Management (Asset Preservation) Department from February 2017 to February 2019. Before that, he held a number of other positions at Bank of Communications, including President of Guizhou Branch.

Jenny Johnson is Chief Executive Officer of Franklin Templeton. In a career spanning more than 35 years, she has been a driving force behind the company’s transformation into one of the largest global investment managers with $1.7 trillion in assets under management.

Ms. Johnson held leadership roles in all major divisions of the business before becoming CEO in 2020. She has led the evolution of the business in recent years, further diversifying the company’s investment capabilities and solutions for clients. Ms. Johnson was named to Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women” list in 2026, recognizing the world’s most influential business leaders. She has also been named to Forbes’ “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” list and Barron’s list of the “100 Most Influential Women in US Finance.” The Committee for Economic Development honored Ms. Johnson with a 2024 Distinguished Leadership Award. In 2026, she was named a CNBC Changemaker. A sought-after speaker at industry conferences and global forums, Ms. Johnson frequently shares her perspective on leadership, the evolving investment landscape, technology, innovation and digital assets.

Ms. Johnson serves on the board of directors of Thermo Fisher Scientific, the Investment Company Institute and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Foundation. She is a member of the International Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Advisory Board on AI in Finance for Luxembourg and the Advisory Group to the Asian Development Bank, and serves on the NYSE Board Advisory Council.

Ms. Johnson earned her B.A. in economics from the University of California at Davis.

Fred is Primavera Capital Group’s Founder, Chairman and CEO. He oversees the firm’s overall strategy, talent development and culture, and assumes the primary responsibilities in establishing and maintaining the firm’s long-term partnerships with global investors. Fred initiated and led investment transactions such as Alibaba Group, Ant Group, Yum China, ByteDance, Xpeng Inc., Kuaishou Technology, SenseTime, and Mead Johnson Greater China.

Prior to forming Primavera, Fred was Partner and Chairman of Greater China at Goldman Sachs and a member of Goldman’s Partnership Committee. He previously served as an economist at the International Monetary Fund. He also served on the Hong Kong Government’s Strategic Development Committee and the Advisory Committee for the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, and was an independent director of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and ICBC.

Fred is currently the non-executive chairman of Yum China Holdings Inc. and serves on the boards of UBS Group AG and Chubb Limited. In addition, he is a member of the The Nature Conservancy’s global Board of Directors and the co-chair of its Asia Pacific Council, a trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) and the China Medical Board, a member of the HKEX Mainland China Advisory Group, the Global Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business at Columbia University, Harvard Kennedy School’s Dean’s Leadership Council and Harvard University’s Global Advisory Council.

Fred holds a Master in Engineering Science from Tsinghua University and a Master and PhD in Economics from Harvard University.

In 2026, I joined the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University as a Chair Professor. Returning to Hong Kong is a full-circle moment for me. Twenty years ago, I received my M.Phil. degree from the Multimedia Laboratory (MMLab) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong under the supervision of Prof. Xiaoou Tang and Prof. Jianzhuang Liu. I then moved to the United States to pursue my Ph.D. at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign under the supervision of Prof. Thomas S. Huang.

Before joining PolyU, I was a Principal Engineer and Director at Google DeepMind. For more than a decade, I have worked on intelligent assistants and AI agents, contributing to Gemini, Google Assistant, Apple Intelligence, IBM Watson, and Switi Inc., a startup I co-founded that was acquired by Google in 2018. More recently, my research has focused on AI assistants for special education, particularly for children with autism.

My research interests span computer vision, large language models, speech and multimodal AI, intelligent agents, and AI for education. I currently serve as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI).

Professor Zhaoyuan Ma is currently a professor at the School of Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech). He is a fellow of IOP, a foreign academician of RAE, and an honorary professor of Korea University.

He has previously served as assistant dean of the Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, principal investigator at The Future Laboratory of Tsinghua University, professor of Intelligent Manufacturing at the University of Sheffield, UK, and a Hundred-Talents Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

He designed the world's first space cold atom experimental platform on the Chinese Space Station "Tiangong-4." He is the author of Logic of the World, Quantum Dialogue, AI-Not, and Made-in-China Made China.

Maggie Ng is the Chief Executive Officer for Hong Kong at HSBC, while also serving as the Head of Retail Banking and Wealth (RB&W) in Hong Kong. In her dual role, Maggie oversees HSBC’s Hong Kong franchise, and leads the strategic growth of the Bank’s flagship RB&W business.

Maggie has a proven track record of delivering growth, particularly in wealth management, improving customer advocacy; driving digital transformation and effectively managing risks – all underpinned by a people-focused culture.

She joined HSBC in 2020 from IG Group, a leading online trading provider, where she was the Greater China CEO. Prior to that, Maggie co-founded a fintech wealth management and asset management company – Assured Asset Management – which was recognised in 2019 as the “Best New Wealth Management Platform” by AsiaAsset Management magazine and “Editors’ Triple Star” by the Asset magazine.

With over 20 years of experience in the finance industry, Maggie is a seasoned banking professional, having held a number of senior local and regional positions at Citibank in both business and risk management. In her earlier career, Maggie worked for leading professional services firm Ernst & Young (Australia) and global resources company BHP Billiton.

She holds a Bachelor of Technology in Business Information Technology from the University of New South Wales, Australia, and an MBA in Accounting and Finance from California State University, Hayward.

Aveline San was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Citi Hong Kong in 2022. She became Hong Kong CEO and Head of Banking in 2023. Aveline also serves as Board Director and Chairman of Citibank (China) Co., Ltd.

Aveline began her career as a banking and capital markets lawyer after qualifying as a solicitor and barrister in Australia in 1997. She joined Citi in April 2019 as Regional Chief Compliance Officer for Asia Pacific (APAC). Prior to Citi, she spent 14 years with UBS in various senior management positions, including APAC Group Regional Head of Compliance & Operational Risk Control, General Counsel of Wealth Management for North Asia, and Supervisor of the Board of UBS’ China banking entity.

Aveline is passionate about promoting industry collaboration on innovation. She currently serves on the board of FinTech Association of Hong Kong. Aveline was conferred as an Honorary Certified Banker by the Hong Kong Institute of Bankers in 2024.

Gaurav is currently Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Greater China & North Asia and Chairman of Anchorpoint Financial Limited. He was previously CFO for Singapore and ASEAN Cluster (Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Trust Bank). He joined the Bank in 2009 and has held numerous key positions in Standard Chartered such as Chief Financial Officer of Cluster Markets (Philippines, Sri Lanka, Australia, Nepal, Brunei), Head of Performance Management Analytics Wholesale Banking, and Global Head Asset & Liability Management (ALM) Product Control.

Prior to SCB, Gaurav was Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company focusing on advisory for Banking & Insurance clients. Here he counseled Senior Executives/ Boards of local and multinational banks as they developed their growth strategies, acquired and divested businesses, entered new markets, revamped their organizations, and transformed entire businesses.

Gaurav started his career with Dell Computers and has an MBA in Finance from the University of Texas and undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Iowa State University.

Manoj Bohra is executive vice president and chief data and AI officer at State Street, leading the firm's global strategy for enterprise data, artificial intelligence (AI), and advanced analytics. In this role, he is responsible for building the data and AI platforms that power innovation, strengthen risk and operational intelligence, and enable scalable AI adoption across the organization and its client solutions.

Manoj is recognized for building enterprise-scale data and AI platforms that enable global financial institutions to operationalize AI in complex, highly regulated environments.

He brings more than two decades of experience leading enterprise technology, data, and AI transformation initiatives across global financial services organizations. His work has focused on modernizing large-scale data platforms, operationalizing machine learning through enterprise machine learning operations (MLOps) frameworks and enabling organizations to translate advanced analytics into measurable business outcomes.

Prior to joining State Street, Manoj served as managing director at Google Cloud, where he advised C-suite leaders across major financial institutions on large-scale data modernization and AI transformation initiatives. His work included helping organizations design cloud-native data platforms, operationalize machine learning and generative AI capabilities, and deploy large language models (LLMs) and emerging agentic AI architectures to support use cases across risk management, regulatory compliance, client intelligence, and operational automation. He also worked with institutions to establish governance frameworks for responsible AI adoption.

Earlier, Manoj spent over two decades at Bank of America in several senior leadership roles including senior vice president and managing director. In these roles he led global teams responsible for enterprise data platforms, AI/ML infrastructure, and cloud transformation initiatives supporting hundreds of thousands of users across the bank’s global operations. During his tenure he helped architect and scale one of the largest AI and data science platforms and built foundational enterprise data infrastructure enabling advanced analytics at scale.

Manoj holds several U.S. patents related to data security, distributed data architectures, and scalable data processing.

He frequently speaks on enterprise AI strategy, generative AI adoption, responsible AI governance, and modern data platforms within the financial services industry.

Manoj holds a Master of Science in technology management from Columbia University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from the University of Mumbai, and a Bachelor of Science from Jodhpur University.

Mr. Lin oversees Tencent’s overall fintech business, including payment, wealth management, securities and other fintech services. Previously he was the Managing Partner at Tencent Investment, where he was responsible for Tencent’s equity investment in various areas, such as e-commerce, Internet Finance, Online to Offline and digital contents etc. Notable deals including JD.com, China Literature, Tencent Music, Meituan, PDD, Bilibili etc. Prior to joining Tencent, Mr. Lin held various senior positions in finance, strategy, and operating management at Microsoft and Nokia.

Forest Lin holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Bachelor of Engineering from Zhejiang University.

Mr. Gan Tian has been serving as the Chief Executive Officer of China Asset Management (Hong Kong) since September 2020, with 20 years of investment management experience. Joining ChinaAMC (HK) since its establishment in 2008, he had previously served as the Managing Director and the portfolio manager, overseeing the firm's longest-running equity absolute return strategy.

Established in 2008, China Asset Management (Hong Kong) Limited ("ChinaAMC (HK)") is a leading Chinese asset manager in Hong Kong, with expertise in a variety of asset classes, covering equities, fixed income, ETF, L&I products, digital assets, as well as mandates and investment advisory services. ChinaAMC (HK) adopts a global outlook to build a versatile platform catering to institutional and retail investors in the region and worldwide. Committed to innovation and growth in the financial sector, ChinaAMC (HK) is actively leading developments in the Web3 space, strategically positioning itself in decentralized finance to explore frontier investment opportunities.

Zhu graduated from Xi’an Jiaotong University and worked for Lenovo Group for 10 years before joining Baidu in December 2008.

At Baidu, Zhu successively served as Senior Director of Public Relations, Vice President and Senior Vice President, responsible for government affairs, Baidu News and other initiatives.

Zhu led Baidu’s Financial Service Group (FSG) established in December 2015. His team swiftly established a business structure covering multiple areas including consumer credit, wealth management, payments, and internet insurance. The FSG reduced financing costs for customers, particularly owners of small and micro enterprises. On April 28, 2018, Baidu announced an agreement on the divestiture of the FSG with investors led by TPG and The Carlyle Group, which involved $1.9 billion in financing and resulted in the new brand “Du Xiaoman Financial” with Zhu as CEO.

Under his leadership, the fintech company driven by AI innovation covers six segments: consumer credit, wealth management, payment, insurance, fintech for personal finance, and fintech for supply chain finance. His team has adhered to the principle of "partners win first, long-term win-win", empowering traditional financial institutions with intelligent solutions while building a strong fintech partner ecosystem.

Du Xiaoman Technology, committed to inclusive finance, has continuously improved its AI prowess, enabling financial institutions to expand access to reliable services for more people. The company has also open-sourced Xuanyuan, the first Large Chinese Financial Chat Model with hundreds of billions of parameters, to offer customers more personalized and higher-quality services.

Additionally, Zhu was elected as Deputy Director of the China Internet Finance Association at the third session of the association’s first council held on March 17, 2018.

Ms. Bian Zhuoqun is a global digital economy leader and President of Blockchain Business at Ant Digital Technologies. A former EY (Ernst & Young) partner with deep global financial markets expertise, she is a visionary "Finance + Technology" strategist. Since joining Ant Group, she has architected the global expansion and industrial transformation of its digital technology division, seamlessly transitioning from top finance expert to strategic executive while continuously driving the industry toward Agentic Economy.

Mr Carstens served as General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) from 2017 to 2025. Prior to that, he was Governor of the Bank of Mexico from 2010 to 2017. During his time as Governor, he was a Member of the BIS Board from 2011 to 2017 and chaired the Global Economy Meeting and the Economic Consultative Committee from 2013 to 2017. He also chaired the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), the policy advisory committee of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), from 2015 to 2017.

Earlier in his career, he served as Mexico's Finance Minister from 2006 to 2009, and as Deputy Managing Director at the IMF from 2003 to 2006. From 2000 to 2003, he was Mexico's Deputy Finance Minister, and from 1999 to 2000, he held the position of Executive Director at the IMF.

Mr Carstens began his career in 1980 at the Bank of Mexico. He is a member of the Group of Thirty (G30).

Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli became Head of the BIS Innovation Hub on 1 March 2026. As Head of the Innovation Hub, he is a member of the Bank's Executive Committee. Prior to joining the BIS, Mr Mancini-Griffoli was an Assistant Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In this role he was responsible for payments, currencies and financial market infrastructures including digital money and finance. In former roles, he led work on monetary policy and central banking operations. Prior to joining the IMF, Mr Mancini-Griffoli was a senior economist in the Research and Monetary Policy Division of the Swiss National Bank, where he advised the Board on quarterly monetary policy decisions. Earlier in his career, he worked in the private sector at Goldman Sachs, the Boston Consulting Group and technology startups in Silicon Valley. Mr Mancini-Griffoli holds a PhD from the Graduate Institute in Geneva, as well as degrees from the London School of Economics and Stanford University.

Chavalit Frederick Tsao is the fourth-generation steward of TPC (Tsao Pao Chee), a family enterprise with roots dating back more than 120 years to the late 1800s during the Qing Dynasty. Born in Hong Kong and educated at the University of Michigan, he joined the family business at age 20 and became Chairman at 37. He also served as Chairman of Intercargo, fostering global collaboration in the maritime sector.

In 1995, he founded the East-West Cultural Development Centre — today‘s OCTAVE Institute — to bridge Eastern philosophy and Western science. This lifelong inquiry laid the foundation for what he later articulated as Quantum Leadership — a model rooted in oneness, well-being, and holistic systems thinking – a relational model for well-being inspired by the Confucius teaching of The Great Learning (大学).

Chavalit champions the belief that business must be purpose-led — a force beyond profit. This conviction is the heartbeat of his transformation of TPC, anchored in a bold new mission: "To serve the well-being of life and create wealth at the same time." He has brought this vision to life by pioneering OCTAVE — a living ecosystem that supports an integrated life journey toward personal, organisational, and societal well-being. OCTAVE reflects his belief that inner development must go hand-in-hand with systems change.

Chavalit is the author of four books — Quantum Leadership, Dawn of an Era of Well-being, One Choice One World, and Impact Investing for Life Flourishing— and founder of AT ONE IMPACT WEEK, a global convening platform held across Singapore, Suzhou, and Davos. His life's work calls for a shift in human consciousness and invites business to lead the transition toward an economy that serves life.

Annabelle Yu Long is an experienced venture capitalist and board member with a strong background in digital innovation, and business operations in Asia/Pacific. She currently serves as Founding and Managing Partner of BAI Capital, a venture capital firm focused on businesses operating in Asia and beyond with investments across AI, fintech, consumer retail, media and content innovation. Additionally, Ms. Long is a member of the Group Management Committee of Bertelsmann, where she contributes to global corporate strategy and development, and where she has led Bertelsmann’s China growth strategy and its transformation into a well-regarded global investment powerhouse.

Ms. Long serves as an independent director on the boards of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL), Tapestry, Inc. (NYSE: TPR, whose portfolio includes Coach and Kate Spade), and NIO Inc. (NYSE: NIO; HKEX: 9866; SGX: NIO). In addition, she serves as an independent nonexecutive director on the board of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited.

Ms. Long holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and, as a distinguished alumna, served on the School’s Advisory Council as its first Chinese member. She was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2011 and has been actively involved in WEF activities. She has been featured in the Forbes Midas List and Forbes Asia's Power Businesswomen list, among others.

Wei Zhou is the Founder of Cyber Creation Ventures (CCV) and former Founding Member and Managing Partner of KPCB China, where he led the firm’s China technology investment practice.

With over 30 years of entrepreneurial and venture investment experience, Wei is recognized as an early pioneer in China’s fintech sector and a long-term investor in transformative technology trends, including artificial intelligence, robotics, deep technology, and next-generation digital infrastructure.

His investments include JD.com (NASDAQ: JD), VenusTech (SZSE: 002439), CreditEase (NYSE: YRD), Rong360 (NYSE: JT), ChineseAll (SZSE: 300364), Arrail Dental (HKSE: 06639), Perfect Corp. (NYSE: PERF), Mininglamp Technology (HKSE: 2718), Beijing SYS Science & Technology (SZSE: 301372), Ximalaya FM (acquired by Tencent Music Entertainment), as well as leading private technology companies such as Linkerbot, Shukun Technology, Coowa, Quicktron, and PPIO.

Wei has been recognized by Forbes, Fortune, and Caijing Magazine as one of the leading venture capital investors among global Chinese. He also serves as Governor and Treasurer of the China Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA).

Wei received his M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and is a long-term entrepreneurship mentor at Wharton, Tsinghua PBC School of Finance, and the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Dr. Tony Han is the Founder and CEO of WeRide (NASDAQ: WRD;HKEX: 0800), a global leader in autonomous driving technology. Since founding WeRide in 2017, he has led the company’s expansion across 13 countries and more than 60 cities worldwide. Under his leadership, WeRide became the first publicly listed Robotaxi company on Nasdaq in 2024 and the first Robotaxi company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2025.

Prior to founding WeRide, Dr. Han served as Chief Scientist of Baidu’s Autonomous Driving Division. He was also a tenured professor and doctoral advisor at the University of Missouri, where he directed the Computer Vision and Machine Learning Lab. Dr. Han holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Eason Wang leads WeBank’s bank-wide AI development and adoption. His work spans AI infrastructure and engineering capabilities, key AI applications, and the exploration of emerging technologies and innovative use cases. He focuses on translating AI technologies into scalable solutions across banking businesses and internal operations.

Ben Zhou is the Co-founder and CEO of Bybit, the world’s second largest crypto exchange by trading volume with 80+ million users that has grown significantly since its founding in 2018. With a background in traditional financial markets, Zhou's expertise in navigating the global crypto landscape sets him apart as a leader in the exponential crypto space.

He successfully built Bybit through proactive engagement with regulators and a commitment to compliance, transparency, and customer protection, leading to licenses in multiple countries. Zhou offers valuable insights into the challenges of building a crypto exchange and has a deep knowledge of the global crypto context, as well as key market drivers from liquidity, institutional capital, and trends like Web3 gaming.

Lily Liu is an operator and investor focused on the blockchain industry. Lily is the President of the Solana Foundation.

Lily has a background as a CFO and operating executive in the US, Europe, and Asia. She is a Co-Founder of Anagram. Previously, Lily co-founded Earn.com which was acquired by Coinbase in 2018. She was also the CFO of the Chinaco Healthcare Corporation, where she built a 500-bed private hospital in China. Lily also worked at KKR in New York as well as McKinsey in New York and Beijing.

Lily received a BA in Economics and International Relations from Stanford, and studied East Asian Studies at Harvard.

Richard Teng is an experienced executive with over three decades of financial services and regulatory experience. As the Co-CEO of Binance, he works closely with various stakeholders including regulators, policymakers, industry players and users to further the growth of Binance in a compliant and sustainable manner. Prior to this role, Richard held various senior leadership positions within the company since joining in August 2021.

Before joining Binance, Richard was CEO of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority at Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), where he showcased his capabilities as one of the world’s foremost innovative regulators. Richard’s vast experience also includes being the Chief Regulatory Officer of the Singapore Exchange (SGX) and the Director of Corporate Finance in the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Richard received his Masters in Applied Finance from the University of Western Australia.

"Daré Okoudjou is the Founder and CEO of Onafriq. Africa's largest payments network, connecting over 200 cross-border payment partners across 44 African countries and beyond. Our network links over one billion mobile wallets around the world enabling seamless real-time digital payments at an unprecedented scale.

Onafriq enables domestic and cross-border disbursements and collections across our network of networks and work closely with all our partners across the globe to make borders matter less. The company’s network of networks also includes 400 000 strong agent network in Nigeria. Onafriq is also a leading prepaid card processor, partnering with over 80 banks and multiple programmes in over 30 African countries. Onafriq was named by the international business magazine, Fast Company as one of Africa’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies.

Prior to founding Onafriq, Daré worked at MTN Group, where he developed its mobile payment strategy and led its implementation across 21 countries throughout Africa and the Middle East. He began his career as a management consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Paris. Daré was recently named as one of the Endeavor Entrepreneurs of the Endeavor Network, a leading supporter of high-impact entrepreneurs around the world. He was also selected as one of 13 African founders into the inaugural Foundry Fellowship at MIT. As a Fellow he will use his experience and skills to catalyse the next generation of innovation-driven entrepreneurship across the continent. He has an MSc in Telecom Engineering from ENST-Paris and an MBA from INSEAD.

Daré is originally from Benin and now based in Johannesburg, South Africa."

As Deloitte Asia Pacific Financial Services Industry Leader, Stuart is responsible for executing the regional strategy, driving profitable growth, and leading a cohesive team spanning geographies and functions. In this role, he oversees market activation, client leadership for priority accounts, and the development of critical capabilities, partnerships, and alliances with key market players. Stuart also serves on the Global Financial Service Executive, contributing to global decision-making and strategy.

In addition to his AP FSI leadership, Stuart is also responsible for Market Activation across the Asia Pacific region.  He focuses on elevating Deloitte’s reputation and regional brand presence, while cultivating strategic relationships with the firm’s most important clients through CxO engagement programmes and targeted initiatives.

Earlier, as Deloitte’s Global Clients Leader, Stuart managed a portfolio of more than 300 of the firm’s largest clients, representing approximately $15 billion in global revenues. He chaired the Global Client Council, driving innovation and continuous improvement in client experience, sales excellence, and account-based marketing, enabling major clients to achieve industry-leading outcomes.

Stuart began his Deloitte career through the acquisition of DotCom start-up Eclipse in 2001, which became the foundation for Deloitte Digital. With two decades of expertise in digital and emerging technologies, he is passionate about helping clients design customer experiences, business strategies, and operating models that enable them to thrive amid digital disruption.

This breadth of experience underpins Stuart’s ability to connect strategy with execution, foster cross-border collaboration, and guide clients through complex transformation.

Mr. Alger Fung is Chief Executive Officer for AIA Hong Kong & Macau since 2021. Alger is passionate about driving leading customer experience and has led AIA Hong Kong to be recognised as the No.1 insurer of choice in Hong Kong**, and has achieved the highest number of No.1 market positions in the 2025 Provisional Statistics on Hong Kong Long Term Business¹, whilst AIA Hong Kong & Macau delivered exceptional business performance with growth on multiple fronts, making it the largest contributor to AIA Group’s Value of New Business (VONB) in 2025².

Prior to this role, Alger was Chief Executive Officer of AIA Thailand. He led the AIA Thailand team to significantly expand its protection propositions and strengthen its unit-linked business, while continuing to raise the productivity of the agency force. The partnership with Bangkok Bank was also strengthened with sustained new business growth and increased productivity of the banca sales force.

Before leading the AIA Thailand business, Alger was the General Manager of Guangdong Branch, AIA China, where he transformed the agency business into a full-time, professional agency model that delivered significant VONB growth, contributing towards AIA China’s overall outstanding track record of success.

Alger brings with him a wealth of experience with over 30 years in the life insurance industry. Throughout his career, he has served in a wide range of leadership roles with an exceptional track record of success. He is a Governing Committee Member of The Hong Kong Federation of Insurers from 2022.

¹ Provisional statistics of the Insurance Authority on Hong Kong long-term insurance business from January to December 2025. The policies refer to Direct New Business and Direct Inforce Business of Individual Life, Annuity and Linked Individual (Classes A & C) and Other Individual Business (Classes B, D, E&F). "Agency channel" refers to "Agents" as classified by the Hong Kong Insurance Authority under Distribution Channel. “Brokerage channel” refers to “Brokers” as classified by the Hong Kong Insurance Authority under Distribution Channel.

² Source: AIA Group Limited 2025 Annual Results’ “Results highlights” and “Announcement”.

Lawrence Lam is the Chief Executive Officer of Prudential Hong Kong Limited. He leads the Hong Kong executive management team to drive growth and development and oversee operations of Prudential’s life and general insurance business in Hong Kong and Macau, covering a full suite of protection, health, wealth and investment insurance solutions as well as a comprehensive collection of general-purpose insurance products.

Prior to joining Prudential, Lawrence was the Chief Executive of Citi’s consumer bank in Hong Kong. He brings with him a wealth of experience in managing multi-channel distribution and servicing network, developing customer-centric digital ecosystem, and creating client value through segmentation and product innovation. Lawrence has held senior leadership positions at Citi, including Head of Retail Banking, Head of Sales and Distribution, and Director of Consumer Lending, and has played a critical role in building the bank’s insurance business through bancassurance partnership.  

Lawrence currently supports several industry and professional organisations.  He serves as Deputy Chairman of the Life Insurance Council (LIC) of the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers, and a Member of its Governing Committee. He is also a member of the Hong Kong Academy of Finance, and a Council Member of The Hong Kong Management Association, where he chairs its Programme Advisory Committee for Marketing Management. He is an Advisor to Our Hong Kong Foundation, contributing to Hong Kong’s long-term economic and social development.

In recognition of his forward-looking leadership at Prudential Hong Kong, he was named Corporate Executive of the Year at SCMP Live’s Business Awards 2025.

Lawrence holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (Honours) degree from the Ivey Business School. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a Financial Risk Manager (FRM).

Sally is the Chief Executive Officer of AXA Greater China and is responsible for the management and operations of AXA Hong Kong & Macau and AXA Tian Ping. She is also the Chief Executive Officer of AXA Global Private, a comprehensive, unified platform serving high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth customers. She also has oversight of the ICBC-AXA business and AXA Asian Markets Services which specialises in information technology services in Asia.

Sally has extensive management and business development experience in insurance companies covering Asia Pacific Region. She has held a number of senior positions in major insurance companies in Asia, including Hong Kong and Japan.

Prior to joining AXA Hong Kong and Macau in 2018, Sally was with AIA Group for more than 11 years in various senior positions including Regional Director in Financial Planning and Management and Regional Business Development Director. She spent 7 years in Tokyo with Allianz Fire and Marine Japan Ltd as Chief Financial Officer and other senior positions.  She started her career in KPMG Hong Kong in 1996.  

Sally is a Fellow with CPA Australia and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from The University of New South Wales, Australia.

Mandates held outside AXA:
•        The Hong Kong Federation of Insurers (HKFI):
o        Chairman of Governing Committee (GC)
o        Councillors of the General Insurance Council (GIC) and the Life Insurance Council (LIC)
o        Deputy Convenor of Special Working Group on IA’s Proposed Enhanced Measures for Participating Products
o        Chairman of the Legal Working Group of GIC
o        Chairman of the FemPower Insurance Network of the GC

•        The Insurance Authority (IA):
o        Member of the Industry Advisory Committee on General Business

•        Member of the Market Development Committee for the Financial Services Development Council
•        Industry Member of General Committee of the Insurance Complaints Bureau
•        Council Member of the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Hong Kong
•        President of the 31st East Asian Insurance Congress
•        Member of the HKMA Insurance Management Committee
•        Member of the HKTDC Financial Services Advisory Committee
•        Member of the Advisory Committee on Tax Policy
•        Member of HKGCC Economic Policy Committee

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Wilton Kee is Chief Executive Officer of Manulife (International) Limited, overseeing the company’s business in Hong Kong and Macau. He is also a member of Manulife’s Asia Division Executive Committee and Global Leadership Team.

Mr. Kee joined Manulife in 2013 and has held senior leadership roles across pricing, product, health and finance in Hong Kong and Macau. He served as Chief Product Officer and Head of Health before being appointed Chief Financial Officer in 2022 and taking on the additional role of Deputy Chief Executive Officer in March 2026. As Chief Financial Officer, he led the Finance function and oversaw distribution compensation and business intelligence, championing performance management and accountability.

He brings extensive experience in actuarial pricing, financial reporting and risk management in Hong Kong and Japan, including earlier experience in the Asia regional office of a leading international insurance group.

Mr. Kee holds a Bachelor of Science in Actuarial Science from the University of Hong Kong. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA) in the United States and holds the Financial Risk Manager (FRM) designation and Certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF).

Clement is a seasoned executive with over 18 years of experience in the insurance industry across North America and Asia. He joined Sun Life in Canada in 2007 and relocated to Hong Kong in 2009.

Throughout his tenure, Clement has held key positions at Sun Life’s regional office in Asia. He has led product actuary and product innovation, and was instrumental in developing the Telco-Assurance business. Additionally, he was a core member of the leadership team overseeing Sun Life’s operations in mainland China.

In January 2017, Clement was appointed General Manager, Life and Health, at Sun Life Hong Kong. Under his leadership, the Life and Health businesses experienced significant growth in product development, business performance, and distribution to high-net-worth individuals.

Clement has been supervising the Company’s strategic investment in Bowtie Life Insurance Company Limited, the first virtual insurer approved under the Fast Track pilot scheme of the Insurance Authority in Hong Kong and was appointed Chairman of the Board at Bowtie from May 2020 to June 2023, maintaining a close relationship with Bowtie and actively participating in the Health Innovative Committee.

Clement’s influence extends beyond Sun Life. He serves as a Governing Committee Member and Councillor of the Life Insurance Council of the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers. He is also a member of the Product Advisory Committee of The Securities and Futures Commission and a Member of the Governors’ Council of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

Clement holds a Bachelor of Mathematics in Honors Mathematics (Distinction) from the University of Waterloo. He is also a Fellow Member of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (Canada) and Society of Actuaries (FSA).

Pre-seed/seed investor backing founders leveraging AI to reshape our world.

I look for obsessive problem-solvers tackling overlooked challenges.

Been fortunate to have worked at some of the largest global enterprises - HSBC and Deloitte. I now help founders navigate complexity, design for scale and execute with confidence.

Abby is the Chief Compliance Officer of Elebank, a forward-thinking digital bank driving customer-centric innovation through the extensive use of AI in risk models, systems, and user journeys.

With over 30 years of regulatory and banking experience, Abby spent more than a decade at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) before holding senior compliance leadership roles across major commercial and retail banking groups. Her expertise spans Financial Crime Compliance (FCC), wealth compliance, and general regulatory frameworks.

Actively engaged in industry development, Abby has contributed to various Hong Kong Association of Banks (HKAB) committees, including AML and the Code of Banking Practice, and was among the pioneering first batch of public-private partnerships uniting banks with the Hong Kong Police Force’s Anti-Deception Coordination Centre (ADCC) to combat fraud.

With over 15 years of experience in legal and investigative fields, Afia has honed her skills in criminal investigations, stakeholder engagement, and writing, positioning herself as a trusted authority in the industry.

She has worked on extremely high-profile and landmark cases in the criminal defense domain, showcasing her ability to navigate complex challenges. Afia proudly holds multiple certifications from esteemed institutions and is currently pursuing her PhD in Counter-terrorism and Deradicalization, reflecting complete commitment to ongoing education and professional growth.

Agnes K Y Tai, PhD, CCB.D, SCR®, FRM, CFA Sustainable Investing, Responsible AI, CAIA, MBA, FHKIoD

Prof Tai is a board director at Great Glory Investment Corporation, a globally recognized expert in sustainable and responsible investing, governance, risk, and strategy with 46 years of experience in financial markets and 15 years of board training worldwide.

She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Climate and Nature Governance, a Trustee of Chapter Zero Alliance (overseeing 35 chapters in 70+ countries), a Supervisory Board member of Global Reporting Initiative, a Council member and Training Committee Vice Chair of the Hong Kong Institute of Directors, an Adjunct Professor of the University of Hong Kong, a Global Association of Risk Professionals Hong Kong Committee member, a VTLP Impact Circle Advisory Board member, and a frequent speaker, author and judge.

She has a PhD from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with dissertation titled “Do carbon risks matter for Hong Kong equity prices?”, an MBA from the University of Chicago – Booth School of Business, a BSc (Honors) from Roosevelt University in USA and is a graduate of the Stanford University Senior Executive Leadership Program and the 2011 Stanford Directors’ College.

Ajay Mathur is Managing Director and Head of Consumer Banking Group and Wealth Management of DBS Hong Kong.

He joined the bank in December 2017. Ajay is responsible for leading DBS HK’s consumer banking and wealth management business. He has more than 25 years of extensive retail and wealth exposure in Indonesia, Singapore and India.

Ajay holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and earned his Master of Business Administration from the University of Mumbai in India.

Alan is a consulting partner based in HK with a focus on advanced analytics, digital transformation and emerging technology (Blockchain/DLT, Data and AI) in financial services industry. Alan has over 16 years of experience supporting Banks and Insurance Companies on emerging technology assessment, digital transformation, system architecture design, and has led over 10 full SDLC of large scale Enterprise Application, Analytics and Blockchain Solution implementation.

Alan Lau works at the intersection of technology, finance, and culture. His deep experience spans the two technologies reshaping our world: AI and tokenisation.

He builds and scales technology businesses. As Executive Chairman of Growhill Wealth, he leads an AI-native wealth platform that uses agentic AI to empower independent financial advisers serving high-net-worth investors across Asia. Earlier, as founder-CEO of Tencent WeSure, he built one of the world's first AI-native regulated insurance carriers serving 100 million customers, with machine learning designed into underwriting, distribution, claims, and service. More recently, at Animoca Brands, he led the build-out of tokenisation infrastructure that brings real-world and virtual assets on-chain.

Before Animoca, he spent nearly two decades at McKinsey. He led McKinsey Digital across Asia-Pacific, running large-scale transformation programmes in big data, e-commerce, and digital user experience design for the region's biggest companies.

He is an independent director of Tapestry (NYSE: TPR), the $30bn S&P500 owner of Coach and Kate Spade. Earlier, he served on the Digital Advisory Board at Burberry (LSE: BRBY). These roles, alongside his operating work, have given him an unusually close understanding of Gen Z consumers, the cohort that will define the next decade of consumption and customer experience across multiple sectors.

Albert Liu, Kneron’s founder and CEO. After graduating from the Taiwan National Cheng Kung University, he got the scholarships from Raytheon and the University of California to join the UC Berkeley/UCLA/UCSD research programs, and then got his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Before establishing Kneron in San Diego in 2015, He has worked in R&D and management positions in Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics R&D centre, MStar and Wireless Information.

Albert has been invited to give lectures of computer vision technology and artificial intelligence at the University of California, as well as to be a technical reviewer for many internationally renowned academic journals. In addition, Albert owned more than 30 international patents in the areas of artificial intelligence, computer vision and image processing. He has published more than 70 papers in major international journals. In 2020, published Deep Learning – Hardware design. In 2021, published Introduction to Artificial Intelligence 4th Industrial Revolution.

Moreover, Albert has received numerous awards such as 2021 IEEE TCAS Darlington award, 2022 Pan Wen-Yuan Foundation IoT Innovation Award, 2022 IEEE CTSoc Awards Corporate Innovation Leadership Award.

Albert is a Managing Director at Eurazeo within the Venture team, based in Singapore. He is leading a growth stage fund looking at insurtech and fintech opportunities across Asia. He has experience both operating and investing into tech companies in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, over 16 years, including the past 12 years as a VC. He also previously spent 5 years in management consulting.

He completed his MBA at the University of California, Berkeley and did his undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Aldous Ng is a visionary technology entrepreneur, executive, and deep-tech commercialization pioneer with over three decades of leadership experience across the Asia-Pacific information technology ecosystem. He is currently the Co-founder and CEO of Hong Kong Data Ltd. (formerly CU Datahub), where he leads the development of a world-class, trusted cross-border data space (TCDS). Under his stewardship, the company facilitates secure, regulatory-compliant, and high-efficiency global data flows, building groundbreaking platforms for cross-border medical insurance claims and pharmaceutical research data sharing.

Before founding Hong Kong Data Ltd., Mr. Ng spent years bridging the gap between academic brilliance and commercial market realities. In 2019, he partnered with leading researchers from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to establish CU Coding Limited, serving as its CEO to turn cutting-edge "Network Coding" theories into scalable, real-world solutions for 5G, smart cities, and enterprise data security. His career also spans critical regional leadership positions, including serving as the Greater China Region (GCR) President for the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP) from 2019 to 2024, Vice President of the Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization (ASOCIO), and Chairman of the Hong Kong Information and Software Industry Association (ISIA).

An alumnus of CUHK’s Information Engineering department, Mr. Ng’s contributions to tech entrepreneurship have earned him widespread recognition, including being named a Distinguished Alumni by both the CUHK Faculty of Engineering and Shaw College. Driven by the philosophy, "If you can dream it, you can do it," he continues to advocate for human-centric innovation that transforms data into secure, impactful global assets.

Alexander Payne is the founder of Signal Eight, a Hong Kong enterprise AI company providing practical advice, training and hands-on development. He helps organisations understand where AI can improve their work, give their teams the skills to use it effectively, and turn promising ideas into working solutions.

Alongside his consultancy work, Alexander builds AI products. These include an AI-enabled CRM for customer relationships and sales workflows, as well as applications for real-time interpretation and voice-based learning. His work spans product strategy, design, software development and testing, keeping business needs closely connected to what the technology can deliver.

Before founding Signal Eight, Alexander spent 15 years at Bloomberg, working with banks, asset managers and insurers across Asia-Pacific and Europe. His roles covered enterprise data, pricing, risk and investment analytics. This experience informs how he approaches AI adoption: understanding the work, navigating organisational constraints and helping decision-makers assess the value of a proposed solution.

In September 2026, his Sidekick prototype won first place globally in the OpenAI-supported Agents Everywhere Hackathon. The prototype researches questions and creates documents during live meetings, demonstrating his practical work with AI agents.

Alexander is also an Alibaba Cloud AI Ambassador and co-organiser of AI Tinkerers Hong Kong, where he helps organise builder events and technical demonstrations. He speaks about AI product development and practical adoption, drawing on both his enterprise background and ongoing experience building with AI.

Dr. Tak Ho Alex Li holds a PhD in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from the University of Hong Kong. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Hong Kong Baptist University, Vice Chairman of the Hong Kong Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology (HKAAST). He is a core founder of 3token.org — the GBA AI Safety & Development Standing Committee.

Dr. Li founded BizCONLINE, the world's first cloud disaster-recovery outsourcing platform, whose "Daily Drill" resilience standard has served organisations including the Hong Kong Hospital Authority. His current focus is AI safety governance: turning governance from compliance paperwork into computable, auditable and enforceable mathematics, delivered through the "Three Lines of Defence" suite — SA-RI (privacy-risk measurement), HoloGovernor (agent governance) and HoloAegis (guardrails). These works have produced ten academic papers, three invention patents accepted by CNIPA, and a series of open-source tools.

His projects were selected for the ITU "AI for Good" global report — a first for Hong Kong — and his views on AI governance have been featured in the People's Daily (Overseas Edition). He is the author of Beyond the Chip War: The Awakening of Data.

Alex is the Head of Technology at Mirae Asset Securities (HK) Limited, leading technology transformation under Mirae Asset 3.0 and driving the launch of MAPS - Mirae Asset Portfolio Service, the firm’s mobile trading platform. With over 20 years in financial technology, he turns complex technology into powerful, intuitive trading experiences.

Previously, Alex held senior technology leadership roles across investment banking and hedge funds, bringing deep expertise in equities and FICC trading systems, algorithmic trading infrastructure and quantitative trading strategies.

Alfian is a senior technology and operations professional with experience in implementing large group-wide programs and projects and for defining technology and operations road maps and strategies for financial organisations.  

Experienced in building high performing teams of technologists and operations professionals who operate well in high pressure situations delivering the operational backbone of the bank. 

Experienced in leading large operations and technology teams to deliver end to end, highly scalable technology and operations digital platforms in the area of financial services.  

Alfian is also actively involved in charity activities and regularly participates in activities with charity organisations helping various initiatives around Asia. 

Alfian is currently based in Hong Kong since 2019. Prior to Hong Kong, Alfian spent 3 years in Mumbai and 16 years in Singapore with DBS.

Alfred Cheung is currently the Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Sales Officer in BOC Group Life Assurance Company Limited (BOC Life), where he oversees overall business development. He leads all distribution channels including bancassurance, tied agency and brokerage as well as business partnerships. Prior to this, Alfred was the Appointed Actuary of BOC Life, responsible for product pricing and valuation, asset-liability management, and actuarial and financial risk management.

Alfred serves as Chairman of the Life Insurance Council (LIC) and a Governing Committee (GC) Member of HKFI. He also serves as Convenor of Sub-Committee on API and E-KYC under the InsurTech Task Force, a member of the Professional Standards Working Group and the Special Working Group on IA’s Proposed Enhances Measures for Participating Policies of LIC. Additionally, he is a member of the Task Force on Greater China Affairs of GC.

Alfred is a mentor for the Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) MBA program. He holds a degree in Actuarial Science from the University of Hong Kong and an EMBA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Alison is the Chief Business Officer of Finoverse, a global network that connects tech professionals and investors to cultivate transformative partnerships.

She keep exploring how innovative collaborations can disrupt traditional systems and enhance lives. With 10 years experience in Business Development and Corporate Strategy, she has engaged with over 3,000 companies worldwide across the banking, technology, and fintech sectors. Alison has played an instrumental role in elevating Hong Kong FinTech Week into a premier global industry event and actively seeks out visionary leaders who are shaping the future.

Aliya Grig is a founder and keynote speaker working across financial infrastructure, advanced technology, and industrial systems. Her work focuses on how modern economies operate across finance, manufacturing, and emerging technologies.

She leads RA88 Finance, a platform focused on modernizing trade finance and cross-border settlement for the real economy. The platform addresses a structural gap in global commerce: while trade has become increasingly digital and multipolar, the financial infrastructure supporting it remains fragmented, slow, and operationally inefficient.

RA88 Finance integrates trade finance, cross-border payments, stablecoin settlement, compliance infrastructure, and tokenized financial workflows into a programmable platform designed for exporters, manufacturers, and commodity traders operating across jurisdictions. The platform combines embedded finance infrastructure, AI-powered compliance systems, and blockchain-based settlement tools to support faster, more transparent, and scalable global trade operations.

Aliya is also the founder of Kosmos City, a global platform focused on human and industrial development, and the Kosmos Foundation, which focuses on empathetic AI, sustainable technologies, and human-centered innovation.

She has spoken at international conferences including FT Future of AI, Web Summit, GITEX Global, TNW Conference, CES Unveiled, AIM Congress, and Hong Kong FinTech Week. She has been recognized by ESA, Forbes 30 Under 30, and Leta Capital’s Top 100 Women in AI.

Alkie is Executive Director and Head of Cash Management Product, of DBS Bank (Hong Kong) Limited. She owns the strategy, P&L and full product lifecycle for the bank’s cash management and liquidity franchise. She drives product innovation and revenue growth across payments, collections and account services, including the bank’s digital currency strategy – to deliver client-centric transaction banking capabilities.

Alkie brings 19 years of experience to this position. Prior to joining DBS, she was Regional Treasury Product Lead within HSBC Markets & Securities Services, where she managed the cash and FX needs of custodian clients. Prior to that, she spent majority of her career at HSBC’s cash management franchise, where she built a strong track record in liquidity and liability management and product commercialization – having started her career there as a Management Trainee.  

Alkie holds a Bachelor of Science in Actuarial Science from the University of Hong Kong.

Professor Allen Huang is Head of the Department of Accounting at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He is also a Faculty Associate of the Center for Quantum Technologies at the HKUST Institute for Advanced Study.

Professor Huang leads HKUST Business School’s collaboration with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) to develop a Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) Toolkit for the banking sector. The toolkit offers banks a practical reference framework for migrating to quantum-safe cryptography. He is a member of the HKMA CBDC Expert Group and the wCBDC Architecture Community, and serves on Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Review Tribunal. He also developed the Distributed Ledger Technology module for the HKMA’s Enhanced Competence Framework for Fintech Professionals.

His research focuses on AI and large language models in capital markets, textual analysis of corporate disclosures, and blockchain. His work appears in leading academic journals and has been featured by CNBC, The Economist, the Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, and The Washington Post. He is an Editor of the Journal of Business Finance & Accounting and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. He teaches Big Data and AI in Business and Cryptocurrency and Blockchain across HKUST’s executive, MBA, and undergraduate programs.

Before academia, Professor Huang worked in quantitative equity strategy at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital. He trained in electronics and information science at Peking University and studied communications and networking at George Mason University. He holds a PhD from Duke University.

Serial entrepreneur, product manager, and inventor

Personally recruited by Elon Musk to lead Tesla’s China Design & Research Center

Led the China design and engineering teams in contributing to and partially leading the development and mass production of Tesla Optimus, Robovan, Tesla Diner, and MY/M3/NVXX programs

Led the establishment of Tesla China Design & Research Center, including government negotiations, site selection, construction, and operational launch

Recipient of Red Dot (Germany), GOOD DESIGN (Japan), and CES Innovation Awards (USA)

Bachelor of Science, University of New South Wales

Mr. Alvin Feng, the President of International Financial BU in Huawei Digital Finance, is responsible for global financial industry marketing and solution and product sales. Mr. Alvin Feng joined Huawei in 2007 and acted as the deputy general manager (solution) of the Bulgaria Rep, director of the Telenor Solution Marketing Dept, and director of the Global Marketing Solution Sales Dept of Huawei Software.

Alvin Kim is Regional Director, APAC at Higgsfield AI, where he leads go-to-market and strategic partnerships across Korea, Japan and the wider Asia Pacific region. Higgsfield is one of the fastest-growing AI video platforms, with over 40 million users and more than 6 million AI-generated videos produced every day.

Alvin works with brand marketers, e-commerce and D2C companies, media and entertainment studios, and advertising agencies to turn AI video into a scalable production engine. He helps teams cut content production costs, run always-on video campaigns and create product visuals without a film crew.

Before Higgsfield, Alvin spent more than 15 years at the intersection of ad-tech, SaaS and performance marketing, with roles at Singular, AdColony, Adriel and TUNE. He served as APAC Managing Director at Singular, building go-to-market strategies and commercial partnerships across Asia Pacific. That path, from measuring marketing performance to now generating the creative itself, gives him a practical view of how AI is reshaping content production and marketing economics.

Alvin is based in Seoul and works across Korean, English, Japanese and SEA markets.

Alvin Kwock is the co-founder & CEO of AIFT. AIFT operates in 3 key verticals globally, with local operations in UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea:

- AI/ cybersecurity - Vulcan: GenAI protection with comprehensive risk assessment, red teaming and real time detection solution. Solution provider for Sovereign AI models and leading enterprises in Asia and Middle East;
- Blockchain - OneInfinity: The first insurer in Asia and Middle East, and second in the world, to insure digital assets and AI risks;
- Pet & B2C - OneDegree: Leading virtual insurer with dominant market share in pet insurance, with award winning AI system.

Amanda cassatt is the founder and ceo of serotonin. amanda previously served as chief marketing officer of consensys from 2016 through 2019. joining one year after the launch of ethereum, amanda played a crucial role in defining, creating, and growing the narrative for consensys, ethereum, and blockchain overall.

amanda stewarded the consensys brand through its global expansion across enterprises, governments, developers, and consumers. she created and scaled the marketing team to over 50 people, serving both the consensys brand and 50+ portfolio companies such as metamask, infura, truffle, and gitcoin; managing teams in product marketing, growth, design, content, community, events, email, analytics and seo. amanda’s contributions to some of the most successful product launches, token sales and fundraises landed her on forbes 30 under 30 in 2016. amanda is the author of the world's first web3 marketing book, web3 marketing: a handbook for the next internet revolution and the host of serotonin’s flagship podcast: endgame.

Amber Henderson-Smart is Global Head of Client Connectivity at HSBC, responsible for the bank’s global client connectivity strategy across transaction banking. She leads channel innovation, platforms, standards, connected banking partnerships and onboarding to enable secure client access to HSBC’s payments, liquidity, FX, trade, and security services worldwide.

Her remit spans APIs, host-to-host channels, interactive channels, embedded finance, fraud prevention controls, ISO20022 and open banking enablement, with a focus on interoperability, resilience, and digitisation of client experience. She works closely with multinational clients, fintechs and market infrastructures to simplify onboarding and integration, strengthen risk controls and modernise treasury workflows.

Multi-jurisdiction lawyer, author and founder with more than 10 years of legal practice and professional services experience across digital assets, FinTech, AI, healthcare, insurance, data, regulatory compliance and dispute resolution. Founder of law firm. Her work focuses on the legal and governance architecture required to scale innovation across highly regulated sectors and markets.

Professional engagement with UNIDROIT in Rome on digital assets and private law adds a comparative private-law dimension to his cross-border regulatory practice as first private sector secondee under Hong Kong Department of Justice Secondment Programme at international organization UNIDROIT, Rome in 2022. Founder of Harvard Alumni Entrepeneurs (HK Chapter).

Amélie is the CEO & Co-founder of Alea, one of Hong Kong’s leading health insurance brokers and Employee Health Benefits experts.

Amélie believes that good health starts with good information. Her mission is to empower people with trusted health insurance information so they can make the best decisions for themselves and their families.

Drawing on her extensive experience in Hong Kong’s health sector and her expertise as a lawyer specializing in medical law and bioethics, Amélie brings a deep understanding of the challenges consumers face in accessing appropriate medical care and adequate health coverage throughout their lives.

Amelie is the past Chair of The Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, one of the largest and most influential international chambers outside of Canada.

She has received various prizes including: the 2022 Liv Media Women of Wellness Award (Entrepreneur Category); the 2021 JCI APAC Female Entrepreneur Award; the 2016 Entrepreneurial Achievers Under 35 Award by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce; and 2016 the Catherine Nance Common President of the Year Award by McGill University.

Prior to entrepreneurship, Amelie worked in Montreal (Canada) as a lawyer within Heenan Blaikie LLP's Health Law practice. She remains a registered lawyer with the Quebec Bar. She holds a Master’s Degree in Medical Law and Medical Ethics from King’s College, London, and holds two bachelors of laws from McGill University (Common Law & Civil Law).

Amos Chan currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer of BOC Group Life Assurance Company Limited (BOC LIFE). Amos has over 30 years' experience in life insurance and commercial banking. His expertise covers a wide spectrum of businesses and functions, including life insurance, wealth management, IT, corporate banking and risk management. His career is defined by a consistent focus on driving operational excellence, customer centricity and digital transformation.

Amos has a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He enjoys running, hiking and history studies (in particular chronicles of war and strategy) in his leisure time.

Andrea Baronchelli is the Co-founder and CEO of Aspire, the finance stack for global founders.

Before launching Aspire, Andrea was part of Lazada’s founding team (exit to Alibaba Group), where he led growth and operations across multiple markets, including roles as CMO, EVP, and CEO. That experience shaped his conviction that modern founders deserve a financial platform as global as their ambitions.

Under his leadership, Aspire has grown into a global company serving 50,000+ businesses across 30+ markets, backed by Sequoia, Lightspeed, Y Combinator, and PayPal, and recognised by CB Insights and CNBC as one of the world’s Top Fintechs two years running.

Andrea is a Y Combinator and Rocket Internet alumnus, and continues to champion the next generation of founders building across borders.

Mr. Andre Blumberg leads the digital function for CLP in Hong Kong, spanning data, AI, cybersecurity, and technology delivery and operations. Beyond the day-to-day, he drives CLP's digital transformation agenda, including the rollout of its ERP programme. At Group level, he sets the related policies, standards, and assurance framework, aligning technology with business strategy and supporting CLP's energy transition.

Mr. Blumberg joined CLP in 2001 and has since held a series of senior leadership roles across the Group's technology function. He holds bachelor’s degrees in Business Administration and in Information Systems from the University of Cologne and completed Executive Development Programmes at IMD and Ivey Business School. Prior to joining CLP, he was based in Singapore as a Management Consultant with PwC, serving Fortune 100 clients across the Asia-Pacific region.

Mr. Blumberg chairs the CIO Board of the Hong Kong Computer Society and serves on several industry advisory committees.

Outside work, he is the founder and organiser of the Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge, a 298km annual ultra-endurance trail running event.

Andy, Du Hao, Co-Founder & CEO of Ginpact Health (HK) Company Limited, Founder of Tao Seng Group (HK) Company Limited, Executive Committee Member of Modernised Chinese Medicine International Association Limited (MCMIA). He holds a Bachelor degree from Zhejiang University and a Master degree from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and is a HK CPA. Previously, he served as Managing Director at CATL (HK) and Country Garden Venture Capital. He led nearly RMB 10 billion in equity investments, including CXMT and LandSpace. Since 2021, he has studied classic Chinese medicine theories and acupuncture under famous TCM masters. In 2024, he co-founded Ginpact together with world-class scientists, utilising fermentation technology to transform cultivated ginseng into wild ginseng essences. Leveraging cutting-edge technology and investment insights, he is committed to the modernisation and globalisation of rare herbal medicines, striving to bring the wisdom of traditional Chinese medicine to broader audiences.

Mr. Wang is the head of FinTech and Retail Business at Huatai Financial Holdings （Hong Kong）Limited, focusing on building and expanding Huatai’s retail business in Hong Kong and overseas. Before he took this position, he was the head of Strategy and Corporate Development in Huatai (Hong Kong).

Mr. Wang has almost 20 years of experience in the capital market, predominantly financial service industry. Prior to Huatai (Hong Kong), he was with one of the largest Chinese Insurance Groups, responsible for the company's insurance fund management. He led the financing and investment business in the overseas market with a total portfolio size of over USD 1billion across multiple areas, including Australia, Mainland and Hong Kong SAR, China. He was previously an investment banker from HSBC, specialized in IPO, financing, and M&A for financial institutions and FinTech companies, where total transaction value exceeded USD 5 billion.

Angela Ang is APAC Managing Director and Singapore President at BitGo, a global leader in digital asset infrastructure. She is responsible for BitGo’s business growth, market development, and operating infrastructure across the region.

Before joining BitGo, she was Head of APAC Public Policy and Strategic Partnerships at blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs, where she was instrumental in the firm’s regional expansion as part of its founding APAC team. Prior to TRM, she spent over a decade at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, where she led the team that built and operationalised Singapore’s payments and crypto licensing regime.

Having spent her career operating at the intersection of emerging tech, institutional infrastructure, and public policy, Angela brings a rare combination of policy expertise and commercial perspective. She holds an MBA from INSEAD.

Angelina Kwan is a Hong Kong–based financial services executive, former regulator, and Chief Executive Officer of Stratford Finance, a boutique consultancy advising financial institutions and digital asset businesses on regulation, operations, licensing, technology, governance, and resilient operating models. She brings extensive experience across traditional finance, capital markets, market infrastructure, and the evolving Web3 ecosystem.

Her senior leadership experience includes roles at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong, Cantor Fitzgerald, and IMC Asia Pacific. Across these organisations, she has worked at the intersection of regulation, risk, operations, technology, and business development. She has also held executive and advisory positions with digital asset organisations including HashKey Group and BitMEX, contributing to the development of responsible and sustainable practices in a rapidly changing sector.

Alongside her executive career, Angelina is a committed advocate for diversity, inclusion, and women’s advancement. She chairs The Women’s Foundation and serves on Hong Kong government, education, non-profit, Web3, corporate, and insurance boards and committees, including the Financial Services Development Council’s New Business Committee. Her board portfolio reflects a longstanding interest in strong governance, innovation, talent development, and the future competitiveness of Hong Kong’s financial services industry.

A Certified Public Accountant in the United States, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand, she holds qualifications in finance, accounting, business, and law. In July 2026, Manchester Metropolitan University awarded her an honorary Doctor of Business Administration in recognition of her distinguished global financial services career and commitment to advancing women in fintech and finance.

Angie Lau is a global financial journalist, founder, and strategist at the intersection of capital markets, digital assets, and emerging financial infrastructure.

As co-founder of OnChain Benchmark, she is building the independent measurement standard for tokenized real-world assets — the first rigorous, institution-grade scoring system tracking tokenized capital across blockchain networks, bringing transparency and comparability to an asset class that has long lacked both.

Her career in media spans 25 years. As a Bloomberg Television anchor and correspondent, she covered every major market event across Asia-Pacific — from monetary policy shifts to the emergence of digital assets — interviewing central bank governors, finance ministers, and heads of state. In 2018, she founded Forkast.News, one of the region's leading digital asset media platforms, which she built and led until its acquisition by a leading digital asset data firm.

Angie is a professional moderator and keynote speaker who brings rare fluency across journalism, financial markets, and blockchain infrastructure. She splits her time between the United States and Hong Kong, and works across Asia-Pacific and North America.

Anita is an experienced veteran in the tech industry, currently serving as the Director of Ecosystem Development at Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park Limited. Prior to this role, she was the Head of Ecosystem Development at Cyberport. With over 25 years of experience in management and business development, Anita has worked with notable companies such as HK Telecom, IBM, Equant, and Wharf T&T.

Anita's expertise lies in driving strategic partnerships through business models that incorporate technology into business ecosystems. She has demonstrated professionalism in strategic leadership, cross-functional resource management, and the delivery of high-quality tech solutions.

In addition to her professional endeavours, Anita proactively engages in public services. She has served as a member of the Industry Training Advisory Committee for the Information and Communications Technology sector, a member of the Innovation and Information Technology Committee of the Occupational Safety and Health Council, and a member of the Education Bureau’s Industry Training Advisory Committee for the Information and Communications Technology sector (ITAC) in Hong Kong.

Anita fully supports the development of the life and health technology ecosystem and currently serves as an Honorary Board Member of of the Hong Kong Medical and Healthcare Device Industries Association, while also acting as a member of the Advisory Board of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering (ECE) at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, as well as an avid mentor for startups. She also serves as the Co-Chair of Innovation & Technology Executive Committee of the Hong Kong Women Professionals & Entrepreneurs Association. As an active member of the Rotary Club of Hong Kong South. Anita is committed to developing the younger generation and promoting the development of the I&T value chain, making Hong Kong a better place to live.

Anita has over 20 years’ experience in the Asian Insurance market, managing risk, ensuring compliance, enabling business growth and transformation. Anita has performed leadership roles in both First and Second line and successfully led complex strategic projects from ideation to execution.

Anita has a long history with HSBC Life, performing a diverse range of roles – Programme Lead, Compliance Head, Chief Control Officer and Head of Operations. In each of these roles she has transformed the teams she led, to drive positive change and safe growth for the organization. Prior to HSBC, Anita was a Lead Consultant at Cap Gemini where she supported major Life Insurance clients in Asia.

Ankur Prakash is Head of Digital and Strategic Initiatives for Global Banking at Standard Chartered, where he leads the bank's strategy at the convergence of capital markets, digital assets, and emerging financial infrastructure. He is responsible for shaping the bank's approach to digitally native fixed-income products, blockchain-enabled market infrastructure, and next-generation settlement models, including the application of regulated stablecoins in institutional capital markets.

With over two decades of experience across global investment banking, Ankur has held a range of leadership roles spanning capital markets, strategic transformation, and innovation.

Based in Singapore, Ankur is a frequent speaker at global industry forums and contributes actively to discussions on the future of fixed-income markets, digital assets, and the transformation of financial market infrastructure.

Annabelle Huang is the Co-Founder and CEO of Altius Labs, a company backed by Founders Fund and Pantera, building customized chain infrastructure for fast, scalable blockchain applications.

She was previously the Managing Partner at Amber Group (Nasdaq:AMBR), a leading digital assets platform where she led global development of the company’s institutional offerings as well as crypto liquidity solutions. Before Amber, Annabelle served as Head of Asia at AirSwap (acquired by ConsenSys), one of the first decentralized trading platforms, and began her career on Wall Street as an FX Structurer at Deutsche Bank and Nomura in New York, advising hedge funds, corporates, and private equity funds on structured solutions and risk management.

Anna Liu is the Chief Executive Officer of HashKey RWA. She is a pioneer and strategic leader in Asia’s institutional asset tokenisation sector. Since 2023, Anna has led HashKey RWA and the Group’s tokenisation business, guiding it from its early stages into one of Asia’s leading institutional RWA platforms. Under her leadership, HashKey RWA has evolved into an end-to-end tokenisation platform spanning product design, technology architecture and institutional distribution, serving as a key bridge between global traditional capital and on-chain asset markets.

Anna works closely with global institutions to explore and develop tokenised asset offerings and use cases, drawing on HashKey’s integrated capabilities across product design, technology and distribution. Combining deep capital-markets expertise, legal rigour and a forward-looking perspective on digital assets, she has played a central role in advancing the integration of traditional finance and blockchain ecosystems across Asia.

Anna joined HashKey Group in 2018 and previously led the Group’s legal function as Head of Legal. She oversaw the Group’s regulatory strategy and licensing initiatives across Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and multiple other jurisdictions, spanning exchanges, custody, brokerage, asset management, venture capital and Web3 infrastructure. This experience enabled her to participate actively in, and help advance, the evolution of Asia’s digital-asset regulatory landscape.

Before joining HashKey, Anna served as Senior Legal Counsel at Tencent and worked at Skadden, a leading international law firm. She brings more than a decade of experience across private equity and investment funds, cross-border M&A, and Hong Kong and international capital markets.

Anna holds an LL.M. from the University of San Francisco.

Anthony Sar is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Finoverse, the appointed organiser of Hong Kong FinTech Week x StartmeupHK. Since 2016, the government-backed Hong Kong FinTech Week x StartmeupHK has grown from 2,500 attendees to over 45,000 participants, becoming one of the world's largest financial technology conferences. Over a decade, the Finoverse ecosystem has produced 80+ events in Asia, the Middle East and North America, connecting 202,000+ professionals across 130+ countries.

In 2025, Anthony led the development and deployment of Samantha, a personal AI networking agent that conducts live voice conversations with event attendees to understand their goals and match them with the right people. Samantha was deployed at Hong Kong FinTech Week x StartmeupHK and Finoverse's own Genesis Festival, generating thousands of structured conversations and over 1,000 curated introductions. He is currently building AI-powered infrastructure to transform the events industry.

Archana Kotecha is a UK-qualified barrister, CEDR-accredited mediator, and a leading voice in business and human rights, with expertise in forced labour, human trafficking, and responsible business conduct. With over 18 years of experience advising UN agencies, governments, businesses, and civil society across Asia, she develops solutions that centre the rights-holder perspective and ensure human rights are embedded in business operations.

Archana founded The Remedy Project in 2019 with a mission to influence human rights due diligence and to advise large corporations on grievance mechanisms and remedy frameworks. In September 2026, she was appointed Interim Group CEO of Diginex, where she brings together technology, data and specialist expertise to help businesses see how compliance and business value go hand in hand, and how Diginex's methodologies turn insight into practical action and measurable outcomes.

Archana’s leadership has been recognised by the Financial Times, the Emilie Ashurst Anti-Slavery Award, and Industry Era Women Leaders, among others. She contributes to global standards-setting through advisory roles with the Asian Seafood Improvement Collaborative, the Forest Stewardship Council, the UN OHCHR, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the Global Business Initiative on Human Rights, and as a member of the European Commission DG GROW Informal Expert Group on Forced Labour. She is also a Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Arda Akartuna is the Crypto Threat Intelligence Lead – APAC at Elliptic and an Assistant Professor of Crime Science at City University of Hong Kong. His research examines crimes enabled by cryptoassets and emerging technologies, with a particular focus on fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing, and illicit activity on the dark web. More recently, his work has turned to AI-enabled crime and the Southeast Asian scam ecosystem, including the industrialised deception operations, laundering infrastructure, and the illicit online marketplaces that sustain them. His research on Southeast Asian scams has won two awards, including one from the Asian Criminological Society.

At Elliptic, Arda leads crypto threat intelligence for the Asia-Pacific region, turning blockchain analytics and open-source research into practical insight on how illicit actors move value and adapt to enforcement. He has trained and briefed transnational and national law enforcement agencies and regulators across multiple jurisdictions, including Indonesia, Dubai, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, the United States, and the United Kingdom, on emerging crime trends and prevention measures.

Arda has also advised numerous international organisations and public and private sector entities on how criminals exploit new technologies and what can be done to disrupt them. His work sits at the intersection of academic criminology and operational intelligence, connecting rigorous research with the realities of investigation, compliance, and policy.

Ariel Lin is VP, Head of the AI Innovation Lab at Beyondsoft, driving enterprise AI implementation, technology transfer, and commercial robotics initiatives. After co-founding a tech startup acquired by Beyondsoft, she now focuses on bridging cutting-edge technology with commercial execution. Ariel is an NUS alumna, a certified Project Management Professional (PMP®), and a Practicing Management Consultant (PMC).

Join Ariel as she shares how Beyondsoft—a leading AI partner for tier-one financial institutions in China—is driving the next era of enterprise technology. Grounded in high-stakes financial deployment case studies, she will share practical frameworks for building Scalable AI Infrastructure, establishing Robust Algorithmic Governance, and fostering Cross-Border Innovation Ecosystems. Discover how leading organizations leverage proven enterprise AI models to transform complex operations into agile, resilient business drivers.

Arne Koch is the Head of Financial Partnerships at Reap, a global financial technology company that enables financial connectivity and access for businesses worldwide through stablecoin-enabled infrastructure. In this role, he leads Reap’s partnerships with fintechs, payment service providers and Web3 platforms that want to scale their card programmes and payouts.

Arne joined Reap in 2025 after more than seven years at Adyen in Singapore. There he held a series of regional partnership and acquiring roles, most recently as Head of APAC Payment Partnerships. Before Adyen, he spent more than a decade as an entrepreneur and operator in Asia. He has previoulsy co-founded companies in Thailand and Japan and led regional e-commerce and payments businesses across Southeast Asia.

Arne holds a Diplom-Kaufmann (Master’s in Economics and Business Administration) from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management and was a DAAD scholar in Japan. Based in Singapore, he speaks on stablecoins, agentic payments and the future of financial infrastructure.

Mr Arnold Chow oversees wealth management and retail products in Hong Kong across UHNWIs, affluent, mass retail and business banking clients. His current capacity includes the regional oversight of product management across 9 Southeast Asia countries.

Arnold currently serves as Directors of Livi Bank Limited, BOCI Prudential Trustee Limited, JETCO Limited, EPS Company Limited and BOCHK Nominee Company Limited. He is a Member of Academy of Finance under HKMA, as well as Investor and Financial Education Council under SFC. In the past, he had served in Wealth Management Committee of HKAB and Fintech Committee of Private Wealth Management Association (PWMA).

Prior to joining BOCHK, he had held senior leadership positions in Retail Distribution, Private Banking, Product Management and Strategy Planning in Hong Kong and Mainland China of HSBC Group. He started his career in Morgan Stanley (Asia) with focus in Hong Kong and Mainland capital markets.

Arthur Calipo is the Asia Pacific Leader for our Insurance practice. He has 30 years of experience working in the Banking, Insurance and Wealth Management industries leading Strategy, Operations and Transformation efforts. His consulting career includes leading projects across Australia and Southeast Asia, Latin America, United States, and Europe. In addition to his Consulting experience, Arthur brings five years of experience in the Industry working in Banking and Insurance with global organisations where he had senior roles in Operations and Products. He also served on the Board of Directors of a Life Insurance company in Portugal.

He has extensive experience in retail, business and corporate banking, general and life insurance, and wealth management. His areas of focus include strategy development and implementation, operational effectiveness & improvement, customer experience enhancement and target operating model definition.

Arthur Shek is the Managing Partner of McKinsey’s Hong Kong office. Arthur has led many significant transformation efforts with multinational companies, conglomerates, and family-owned businesses in Hong Kong and Mainland China. He advises leading companies on topics including strategy, operations, organization, and particularly in recent years, on technology, innovation, and AI.

Arthur is passionate about driving change in Hong Kong. He is a Council Member of the Better Hong Kong Foundation, a Board Member of Junior Achievement Hong Kong, a Board Member of Teach for Hong Kong, a Steering Committee Member of the Hong Kong Management Association AI Empowerment Centre, as well as a member of the Financial Services Development Council and the Vision 2047 Foundation. Arthur is also a Co-Founder of the Melo Foundation, a not-for-profit platform dedicated to empowering youth in Hong Kong.

Arthur holds an BA in Economics from the University of Cambridge, and he is a Past President of the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Hong Kong.

Dr Axel Baur is a healthcare transformation leader whose global expertise spans health system design, care delivery models, biotech innovation, pharmaceutical research and operations. With more than 30 years across the healthcare ecosystem—including payors, providers and life sciences companies such as pharmaceutical, medical product and biotech organisations—he brings a system-wide perspective to helping governments and healthcare organisations improve performance, affordability and sustainability.

At Amplify Health, Axel leads a pan-Asian health technology, analytics and services company that helps healthcare payors, providers and policymakers make better decisions, address inefficiencies and build more sustainable health systems. Through its technology, data analytics and healthcare expertise, Amplify Health aims to improve health outcomes across Asia by accelerating the region’s shift towards more sustainable, value-driven care.
Prior to joining Amplify Health in March 2022, Axel spent 26 years at McKinsey & Company, where he served as a Senior Partner in the Hong Kong office and was a leader of the firm’s Asia Healthcare Practice. His work with organisations and governments across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and APAC covered healthcare system design, public and private health insurance, provider strategy, hospital operations, health sciences companies and healthtech innovation. In APAC, he supported growth, transformation and innovation agendas across the value chain, including global operating models, regional growth strategies, large-scale transformations, and thinking on innovative care delivery models and practical payor-provider transformation.

Before joining McKinsey, Axel completed a PhD in Molecular Biology at Technische Universität Darmstadt and co-founded a research-based biotech company. This scientific and entrepreneurial foundation underpins his long-standing interest in healthcare innovation, technology-enabled transformation and system-wide impact. He also holds an MBA from INSEAD.

Axel is passionate about value-driven care, sustainable health financing, innovative care delivery models, payment integrity, chronic disease management, AI-enabled health intelligence and the role of data and analytics in making healthcare more accessible, affordable and effective.