From October 29 to November 02, 2018, Hong Kong will be hosting its third annual Hong Kong Fintech Week. This year’s event will be the world’s first cross-border fintech event, spotlighting not just Hong Kong, but the whole Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
More than 200 fintech founders, in addition to regulators, investors and academics, are expected to attend this year’s event, and since five days is surely not enough to connect with everyone there, we’ve made a list of some of the biggest names in the industry so you can maximize your time:
Eric Jing, CEO at Ant Financial
Eric Jing is Ant Financial’s CEO and its executive chairman. He also serves on the boards of Alibaba Group and Paytm, the leading payments platform in India, in addition to serving as chairman of the board of MYbank.
As part of Ant Financial’s financial inclusion mission, Eric serves as a senior consultant for the World Bank’s Identification for Development, as well as a senior consultant for the World Economic Forum.
Prior to assuming the role of CEO, Eric held various management positions at Ant Financial, including president and COO. He also served as CFO of Alipay and in other leadership positions at Alibaba Group.
Jessica Tan, Executive VP, COO and CIO at Ping An Group
Jessica Tan joined Ping An in January 2013, and currently acts as the executive vice president of Ping An Group and the chief operations officer (COO) and the chief information officer (CIO) of the Internet business of the company.
Before joining Ping An, Tan was a partner at with McKinsey & Company.
She graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science and two bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and economics.
Jim Lai, Vice President, Head of Fintech at Tencent
Jim Lai is currently vice president of Tencent and head of Tencent Financial Technology (FiT). Tencent FiT provides mobile payments as well as financial and wealth management services.
At the same time, Lai is a member of the chief executive’s council of advisers on Innovation and strategic development of Hong Kong and the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
Lai joined Tencent in 2009, making great contribution in building up Tencent payment infrastructure and Tencent financial open ecosystem. Prior to joining Tencent, LAI assumed investment manager positions with Apax Partners PE in the UK and Lehman Brother’s Investment Bank in the US, and served as associate vice president at Credit Suisse First Boston Investment Bank.
Zhaoli Meng, Dean of JD Fintech Research Institute at JD Finance
Dr. Zhaoli Meng is the dean of JD Fintech Research Institute at JD Finance. She is a graduate of the National University of Singapore and has over ten years of research experience in e-commerce, telecommunication, corporate management, and information systems.
Meng has numerous research reports published in China Daily, the Harvard Business Review, Peking University Business Review, and other notable publications. Her book Management Economics has been used as teaching material by many of the top MBA programs.
Before working at JD Fintech Institute, Meng was chief economist and vice dean of Tencent Research Institute, the director of Deloitte TMT Center of Excellence, research leader of Accenture Institute of High Performance, chief researcher of Samsung Economics Research Institute, and assistant professor at the Renmin University of China.
Aldi Haryopratomo, CEO at Go-Pay
Aldi Haryopratomo joined GO-JEK with a vision to accelerate the adoption of financial services for the unbanked and underbanked, particularly in rural areas where financial services are yet widely available. He is the founder of MAPAN, an Indonesian lending network recently acquired by GO-JEK Group along with two other local fintech startups.
Haryopratomo has dedicated his entire career to supporting lower income communities to improve their lives. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a B.A. in Engineering from Purdue University. He was elected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2012 and Endeavor Entrepreneur of The Year in 2016.
Wayne Xu, President at ZhongAn International
Wayne Xu is responsible for overseeing products and international business at ZhongAn International. He joined ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance as chief operating officer in January of 2014, and took office as president of ZhongAn Technologies International Group in December 2017 after its establishment.
Xu has more than 10 years of experience in internet product development and management. Prior to joining ZhongAn, Mr. Xu worked as founding member of Google China product management team.
Reuben Lai, Managing Director at Grab Financial
Reuben Lai is the senior managing director, co-head of Grab Financial Group, where he oversees Grab’s payments and financial services businesses in Southeast Asia, outside of Indonesia, to drive financial inclusion for the middle economy. He leads Grab Financial’s open ecosystem strategy, product roadmap development and expansion across the region. Additionally, as the head of new business at Grab, Lai is constantly scouting out for new and exciting growth opportunities for the company.
Prior to Grab, Lai was at The Walt Disney Company, driving corporate strategy and new business development. He was also previously a management consultant at Bain & Co advising global corporations on strategy and M&A.
Carl Wegner, Managing Director and Head of Asia at R3
Carl Wegner has been running the sales and operations in the APAC region for R3 since 2016. Wegner has over 30 years of experience in Asia in cash management, institutional banking, financial supply chain and more recently distributed ledger technology. He specializes in financial supply chain and fintech, has held posts as treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei and board member of the Taipei American School.
Wegner’s prior experience includes holding the roles of managing director and head of global transaction banking, greater China of Deutsche Bank, and managing director of transaction banking for Standard Chartered Bank in Taiwan. He was also formerly the chief representative of a technology firm, TradeCard, now GTNexus, in China and set up their sales and operations teams in Asia starting in 2000.
Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director at Hyperledger Project
Brian Behlendorf is the executive director of Hyperledger Project. Behlendorf was a primary developer of the Apache Web server, the most popular web server software on the Internet, and a founding member of the Apache Software Foundation. He has also served on the board of the Mozilla Foundation since 2003 and the Electronic Frontier Foundation since 2013.
He was the founding CTO of CollabNet and CTO of the World Economic Forum. Most recently, Behlendorf was a managing director at Mithril Capital Management LLC, a global technology investment firm.
Henry Ma, CIO at WeBank
Henry Ma is the vice president and chief information officer of WeBank. He oversees the strategic planning and development of the fintech business at WeBank.
Prior to WeBank, Ma served as general manager at Ping An Technology Co., Ltd. and as vice president at SF Express. Prior to that, he lived and worked in Silicon Valley for more than 10 years. Ma received his Bachelor of Science degree with Highest Honors from UC Berkeley and a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. With years of professional studies and working experience, Henry had successfully completed the IT integration and constructed the management system for many well-known enterprises.
Greg Gibb, CEO at Lufax
Gregory D. Gibb has been the chairman and CEO of Shanghai Lujiazui International Financial Asset Exchange Co. Ltd. (Lufax) since December 2011. Before joining Ping An, Gibb served as the global senior director of McKinsey & Company, and subsequently the operating director of Taiwan Taishin Financial Holding Co., Ltd. He has more than 20 years’ work experience in both multinational and domestic companies of the financial and investment industry.
Gibb was introduced to the “National 1000-Foreign-Expert Plan” of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee in 2012, awarded the “Shanghai Top 10 Financial Innovation Figures of 2012”, and honored the “China Top 10 Leaders of Internet Finance of 2013”, etc. for his unique and widely-recognized insight about innovative financial services.
Alexander Graubner-Muller, Founder and CEO at Kreditech
Alexander Graubner-Mueller is the founder and CEO of Kreditech. Graubner-Mueller led the tech-side as CTO for three years before taking over the CEO position in November 2015.
Founded in 2012 in Hamburg, Germany, Kreditech uses machine-learning technologies to provide access to better credit for the underbanked. Up until now, the company has processed more than four million loan applications. Kreditech is backed by Paypal founder Peter Thiel, PayU (Naspers), J.C. Flowers, and the World Bank’s IFC with overall US$497M investments.
He has a Master’s Degree of Quantitative Finance and Economics of University St. Gallen. Prior to founding Kreditech, Graubner-Mueller co-founded and sold the prediction-market engine PredictX. Before this, he managed engineering and product development at Rocket Internet in Asia.
Simon Loong, Founder and CEO at WeLab
Simon Loong is the founder and CEO of WeLab. Founded in 2013 in Hong Kong, WeLab operates Wolaidai, one of China’s largest mobile lending platforms, and WeLend, Hong Kong’s leading online lending platform. WeLab’s investors include CK Hutchison, Khazanah Nasional, IFC, Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, China Construction Bank, Sequoia Capital and ING Bank with overall USD 425M investment. Recently WeLab announced plans to apply for the virtual banking license in Hong Kong.
Prior to founding WeLab, Loong spent 15 years in retail banking divisions of leading international banks. Simon has a Master of Science degree in Management from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Alex Kong, Founder and Chairman at TNG Fintech Group
Alex Kong is the founder and chairman of TNG Fintech Group, one of the largest fintech groups in Asia. Kong is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in technology and business solutions. He has a long and successful track record of enterprise software development for some of the world’s largest conglomerates and insurance companies through his software company, SINO Dynamic Solutions Limited, now one of Hong Kong’s largest enterprise software developers.
Prior to running business in Hong Kong, Kong was the founder of AFOOFA Solutions, a leading business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) travel technology solutions provider to the global travel industry in 1990s, and AsiaTravelMart, one of Asia’s leading travel sites with leading-edge technology.
With a vision to provide financial inclusion to the unbanked populations around the world, Kong also launched “Global E-Wallet Alliance”, which currently covers Hong Kong and 12 Asian countries, including China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.
Sam Allen, CEO at CompareAsiaGroup
Sam Allen is the CEO of CompareAsiaGroup, a leading personal finance platform in Asia dedicated to empowering users to build healthier financial lives. CompareAsiaGroup operates across 7 countries in Asia, driving financial education and helping our users build and manage their portfolios of banking and insurance products.
Prior to CompareAsiaGroup, Allen spent 9 years at KKR where he was a director in KKR’s portfolio operations team and a member of the Asia Leadership Team. Prior to KKR, he worked at McKinsey & Company and at AT&T Wireless. Allen holds an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford, and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.
Henri Arslanian, Fintech and Crypto Leader, Asia at PwC
Henri Arslanian is PwC’s fintech and crypto leader for Asia, the chairman of the Fintech Association of Hong Kong and an adjunct associate professor at the University of Hong Kong where he teaches the first fintech university course in Asia.
Arslanian has been awarded many industry and academic awards over the years from being regularly named one of the most influential individuals in fintech in Asia, to being awarded the Governor General of Canada Gold Medal for Academic Excellence. He was also recognized as one of the Global 2017 LinkedIn Top Voices in Economy & Finance and is regularly featured in global media including Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.
Arslanian is also a TEDx speaker, a published author, and currently sits on several finance, academic, government, civil society, and fintech related boards and advisory boards globally.
James Lloyd, APAC Fintech Leader and Partner at EY
A partner in EY’s corporate finance strategy (CFS) practice, James Lloyd leads the firm’s financial technology capability across Asia-Pacific, focusing on supporting early-stage, growth-stage, and non-traditional financial service providers. Lloyd also serves as APAC leader of EY’s global payments practice.
Prior to EY, Lloyd helped build and scale a venture-backed alternative-finance platform enabling banks to profitably offer short-term unsecured loans to underserved small businesses. Before that, he worked with a bootstrapped e-commerce payment gateway combining direct-to-market customer acquisition with white-labelled full-service delivery for partner banks.
Based in Hong Kong, Lloyd sits on a variety of governmental and non-governmental advisory panels, including the new business committee of the Financial Services Development Council (FSDC). He’s also a regular speaker at industry-leading events and investor conferences.
Charles d’Haussy, Head of Fintech at InvestHK
Charles d’Haussy is head of fintech at Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK), the department of the Hong Kong SAR Government responsible for foreign direct investment.
The fintech team has dedicated correspondents in Hong Kong, London and Silicon Valley. They provide practical support and assistance on setting up offices, facilitating visa and banks accounts, regulators introductions, networking opportunities, guidance in government grants and funding.
D’Haussy has 13 years’ experience in Hong Kong private sector, having set up his company and holding a number of management roles. Before joining InvestHK, d’Haussy was the head of sales and business development with a leading Hong Kong online broker and robo-adviser.
He is certified on blockchain business strategy from Be9 London, CPT Star bronze 2016 award with the HKSI and pursue training on machine learning and artificial intelligence. In 2018, d’Haussy was elected Top 50 & 200 Fintech Influencer in Hong Kong and Asia.
Arvind Sankaran, Venture Partner at Jungle Ventures
As a venture partner at Jungle, Sankaran helps the firm source, evaluate and manage portfolio companies in the fintech space focused on the ASEAN/India geographies. He leverages deep subject-matter expertise in global financial services gained over over two decades at Citi, Barclays and HSBC to serve founders, investors and institutions.
Sankaran also serves as a senior advisor to McKinsey & Company, working with their financial services clients on digital transformation agenda. He is actively involved in the Singapore government’s SkillsFutureinitiative and helps shape future careers in data science for high school students.
Melissa Guzy, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Arbor Ventures
Melissa Guzy is the founder and managing partner of Arbor Ventures and has more than 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley and as a venture investor in Asia and Silicon Valley.
Previously from 2001-2012, Guzy was a managing director and member of the investment committee at VantagePoint Capital Partners. Prior investments include Finisar, Pure Digital (acquired by Cisco), Oxford Semiconductor (acquired by PLX), iWatt (acquired by Dialogics).
Guzy’s current boards include DeMyst.data and Paidy. She is the author of the paper “Venture Capital Returns and Public Market Performance”. She has been a guest lecturer on the venture capital industry at the University of Florida, Hong Kong University, Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Featured image credit: edited from Unsplash
