During a period of notable change in the financial world, you’re very likely to fall behind if you do not closely follow the trends and stay up to date with the latest developments. The best way to avoid that is by attentively following professionals and experts, who are credible and knowledgeable about the financial industry. We have composed the list of 10 European fintech voices who not only head up some of the most compelling companies, but are also in the position to shape the future of finance.
1.Robin Kiera – Hamburg, Germany
Dr. Robin Kiera is the Founder and CEO of Digital Scouting, a consulting and marketing agency based in Germany. Kiera is an author, renowned speaker, entrepreneur, top-ranked insurance and finance influencer.
Before being recognized as the “Attention Hacker” in the insurance and finance industry, he was labelled as the “Rebel of Industry” for discussing enormous and controversial topics with his speech, videos and blogs. Being genuine with his contributions, he was recognized in top industry rankings, supported by more than 140.000 followers generating 16 millions of reach every month.
2. Efi Pylarinou – Fribourg, Switzerland
Efi Pylarinou is the founder of of Efi Pylarinou Advisory, a recognized thought leader in Finance and the 4IR technologies, a prolific writer, content creator on the topic of technological innovation, an international speaker on fintech and blockchain business trends, co-founder and author of Daily Fintech, co-author of the 2018 WealthTech Wiley crowdsourced book, and the 2019 4IR, and Reinventing a Nation.
She is a seasoned Wall Street professional with a Ph.D. with over 185,000+ followers on Linkedin and over 200,000 on platforms Efiglobal. Pylarinou was ranked No.1 female finance influencer by Refinitiv Global Social Media 2019 & 2020, included in the top 100 fintech influencers in 2020, top 100 wealth management influencers in 2019, top 100 influencers on finservice and environmental sustainability in 2019, ranked by Onalytic, and has been in many more honorable rankings and rewards.
3. Spiros Margaris – St Gallen, Switzerland
Spiros Margaris is the founder and owner of Margaris Ventures. He is the first international influencer to achieve “The Triple Crown” by Onalytica as global No. 1 Fintech, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain influencer. Margaris is also senior advisor and/or board member of many big companies such as SparkLabs, Better Plant Sciences, Wefox, and so on.
He is a keynote speaker at international fintech and InsurTech conferences. He also gave a TEDxAcademy Talk, published an AI white paper, “Machine learning in financial services: Changing the rules of the game,” and became the first non-IBM keynote speaker at the biggest IBM event in Europe “2019 IBM Systems Technical University”.
4. Florian Graillot – Paris, France
Florian Graillot is co-founder and Partner at astorya.vc, an European early-stage insurance fund launched in 2018.
Before Astorya.vc, he worked as investment manager at Affine, a property company, investor at Newfund, a tech VC based in Paris and investor at AXA Strategic Ventures, a VC fund investing in European insurance startups. Besides his main business, Graillot regularly writes and tweets about InsurTech, AI and startups.
5. Nasir Zubairi – Luxembourg
Nasir Zubairi is CEO of The LHoFT (The Luxembourg House of Financial Technology), a public/private sector initiative to drive fintech innovation in Luxembourg.
Zubairi has worked in Financial Services for nearly 20 years. He spent 13 years working within Capital Markets at RBS, ICAP, HSBC and EBS. He has been immersed in the Fintech and startup sector for the past six years.
He has advised the boards of leading financial institutions, central banks and governments. Nasir is included in the “Top 40 innovators shaping the future of financial services -2014” by The Wall Street Journal/Financial News.
6. Anne Boden – United Kingdom
Anne Elizabeth Boden is the founder and CEO of Starling Bank, a UK mobile-only bank. She is a banker and technologist with more than 30 years of experience building and running global banking and payments businesses.
Before Starling, she was the Chief Operating Officer of Allied Irish Banks Plc, with responsibility for returning the bank profitability. Prior to this, she headed Europe, Middle East & Africa across 34 countries for Global Transaction Banking at RBS & ABN Amro.
Anne was awarded an MBE in June 2018 for services to Financial Technology and in July 218 an honorary Doctorate from Middlesex University.
7. Conny Dorrestijn – Amsterdam, Netherlands
Conny Dorrestijn is Founding Partner at BankiFi. She has worked in the international financial technology industry in a wide range of marketing and business development roles, most recently at Clear2Pay.
She is an Advisory Board Member to Holland FinTech and AdviceRobo, Non-Executive Board Member at Arches Capital and Blanco Services, an Associate of the Digital Insurance Agenda (DIA) and the Blockchain Innovation Conference (BIC2019). Furthermore, she is Global Innovation Awards Judge at BAI (US) and Jury Chair of the Dutch NRC FinTech Live Awards.
8. Matteo Rizzi – Lisbon, Portugal
Matteo Rizzi is an unconventional entrepreneur and a book author with more than 20 years of experience in financial services. For three years in a row (2014-2016), Financial News has nominated Matteo as one of the “40 most influential FinTech executives in Europe”.
He is the author of The FinTech Revolution and of Talent & Rebels. In 2008 he co-founded Innotribe, the innovation arm of SWIFT, where Rizzi worked for 13 years. He also launched the Innotribe Startup Challenge, the first global deal flow of its kind. He left SWIFT in 2013.
Recently, Matteo took the position of Executive Producer of Breaking Banks Europe.
9. Martina Weimert – Germany
Martina Weimert holds a Master degree in International Administration (DESS) from Sorbonne University. She also has background in Political Science as a graduate from the University of Bonn (Germany)
Weimert has been working as CEO of the EPI Interim Company since 2020. With 17 years in international consulting, she has in-depth experience in payments, fintech, blockchain and retail banking in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East.
She works with all players in the financial sector: banks, retailers, merchant service providers, e-merchants, fintechs, infrastructure providers, PSP and regulators, and she speaks at international conferences about payments, fintech and blockchain.
10. Leda Glyptis – United Kingdom
Leda Glyptis holds an MA from King’s College, Cambridge and an MSc and PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
She is a recovering banker, with a long career in operations and IT across major banks, products and geographies. She is a renowned speaker, writer and academic in banking and fintech, and an expert in digital disruption, strategy and execution in financial technology.
Currently, She is Chief Client Officer at 10x Future Technologies. Prior to that, Leda was Chief Innovation Officer at Qatar National Bank, the largest bank in the Middle East and North Africa, with responsibilities for employee-driven and market-led innovation strategy and execution.
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