|
BIOGRAPHIES
Frances Edwards
Chief Operating Officer, FinTech Growth (Ex Valour & Blackrock)
A goal orientated, commercial Chief Operating Officer Frances sets the pace and ‘makes things happen’. She focuses on delivering sustainable stakeholder value by scaling companies efficiently minimising frictions. A pragmatic C-Suite leader with over 20 years experience across founder led start ups and corporates, she brings focus as the key route to great execution as well as a dogged aptitude for creatively solving problems. When building businesses her mantra is to 'either find a way or make one’. Frances brings significant experience leading businesses in the new product/ new market/ new asset class domains latterly focused on the intersection of TradFi and DeFi. Prior to acceding to the role of start up COO, Frances was a product structurer across ETFs, ETCs, mutual funds, structured products and OTC derivatives within asset management (BlackRock) and Wealth Management (Barclays & Lloyds). Frances is an active mentor and outside of work a passionate club runner, representing her county over 10km, as well as an enthusiastic U8 hockey coach.
Suzanne Hubble
Chief Operating Officer, Komainu
Suzanne is the Chief Operations Officer at Komainu. An engineer by training, Suzanne is a market infrastructure junkie who loves finding clarity in complex processes. She has extensive experience in post-trade infrastructure from her roles at JPMorgan, Citi, Standard Chartered and ICE where she helped deliver their CDS clearing house. She joined Komainu in 2021 as COO with a focus on driving operational excellence and enabling the delivery of secure and compliant access to the growing digital ecosystem.
Ijeoma Okoli
Director, The Digital Economy Initiative
Ijeoma is a multi-award-winning senior finance, regulatory and fintech lawyer with extensive experience advising financial services firms and corporate clients globally on capital raisings, legal issues and regulatory matters. Ijeoma also focuses on Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) risks, legal and governance issues and is also an expert on existing digital assets regulation and public policy in the US and UK and the gaps that exist in the legal frameworks. She speaks on digital assets and AI issues at conferences and institutions in the US and Europe and has also written a number of papers on the existing US and UK digital assets public policy and proposals for comprehensive legal and regulatory frameworks for the digital assets sector. She was a subject matter expert invited by the UK Financial Conduct Authority to its first ever Crypto Sprint in 2022 where it brought experts to advise the regulator on what its approach to digital assets should look like in the future and has provided input to UK and US authorities on legal and regulatory proposals relating to digital assets. Ijeoma is a strategic advisory consultant on digital assets and AI risks and governance; a co-Founder and co-Director of the Digital Economy Initiative, an independent think tank focused on US and UK digital assets public policy; Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee and member of the Board of the Museum of London; and a founding member and limited partner of Impact X Capital Partners, an ESG specialist venture capital fund that invests in underrepresented founders of technology, lifestyle and entertainment startups. She previously was an Executive Director and Digital Currency Risk Management Lead at JPMorgan where she co-designed the financial services group’s first global digital currency risk management and governance framework and opined on and vetted digital assets-related business proposals. She was also a member of the Board of Directors of Aldermanbury Investments Limited, a JPMorgan subsidiary. She was listed in the 2020 FTSE Board Report’s 100 Women to Watch list, named Investment Woman of the Year at the 2020 Woman in Investment Awards, won the Outstanding Contribution of the Year Award at the 2021 Women in Finance Awards, was listed as one of Brummell Magazine’s 2022 Inspirational Women in the City, PitchBook’s 2022 Female Founders and Investors to Know and Innovate Finance’s Women in FinTech Powerlist 2022. She was featured in the June 2023 edition of The Banker magazine and The Block’s July 2023 list of 9 Power Players Shaping the UK's Growing Crypto Agenda. Ijeoma holds a B.A. and M.P.A. from New York University and a J.D. from Cornell University.
Monica Summerville
Head of Capital Markets Technology Research, Celent, Oliver Wyman
Monica is a seasoned financial services industry executive and recognized thought leader with more than 20 years’ experience in capital markets both on the buy and sell side as well as with service providers. With a deep understanding of market structure and technology underpinned by years of delivering cutting edge technology solutions for capital markets participants, Monica has a proven track record assisting clients in leveraging the emerging technology and industry trends driving change. In addition to leading the capital markets team at Celent, Monica’s research focuses on the use and adoption of cloud, blockchain, and data-related technologies across capital markets. Monica is frequently quoted in mainstream and industry press including Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, American Banker, CBNC, Financial News, Forbes, and industry trade publications including WatersTechnology, Global Trading, Traders Magazine, etc. Prior to joining Celent Monica was Director, Head of Fintech Research at TABB Group. She has held technology, operations and management positions with ABN Amro, Price Waterhouse, RiskWaters, Jordan & Jordan, J&W Seligman Investment Management and TS-Associates. She also worked as U.S. retail broker, holding Series 7 & 63 registrations.
| 
