Great things are on the horizon

Over 30 years global experience in banking and the financial software sector. With a proven track record of driving growth Richard was CEO of Cashfac Technologies, EVP SmartStream Technologies and held senior positions at SunGard Capital Markets and Reuters.

Mark, a seasoned finance professional, began his career at Bank of Scotland before progressing to a senior role at SEB, a major Swedish bank, where he managed significant transactions. As a partner at Nordic Capital, he spearheaded the Capital Markets team, managed all financings, and led successful Investor Relations initiatives, including the raising of a EUR 4.3bn fund. Now, Mark leverages his expertise in various advisory and non-executive roles, helping businesses to establish and grow. He holds a degree in Accountancy, Finance, and Economics from the University of Essex.

For over 25 years Dr Tamara Makarenko has been engaged in intelligence, initially as an advisor to government agencies on transnational crime and terrorism. She turned to private sector work in 2004, developing intelligence capabilities for private military companies prior to founding an intelligence and investigations firm in 2006, that she sold in 2018. Since then she has been engaged as a special situations intelligence advisor, and an independent director with a remit on (non-legal) governance, reputational risk, and business integrity.

Ludovic’s is leading the formulation and execution of Xceptor’s business strategy. Prior to Xceptor Ludovic worked for smartTrade where he developed and executed the company’s growth strategy which included establishing and running the product function. Prior to smartTrade, Ludovic was at HG Capital advising on fintech acquisitions and also spent seven years at Finastra (formally Misys). Between Singapore and London, he ran corporate development and global product strategy and was instrumental in the merger between Misys and D+H in 2017. Ludovic lives in London with his wife. He holds a MSc in Computer science and a Kedge Mac in Business Administration.

He has a portfolio of interests, from Non Executive roles with a few Companies (all in the ‘for good’ space), mentors several people, both young hopefuls and more mature Executives, holds a portfolio of ‘for good’ investments, is a founder member of The Conduit Club and is also a Philanthropy Broker. Philanthropy broking means he helps people who have already decided to share their wealth for the benefit of the world to find amazing projects that they can build in their name, with a bias toward the natural world. For example, for philanthropists, he has arranged and built an Elephant Underpass in Kenya, an Orangutan Sanctuary in Borneo, a food store for saved Bears in Romania and a girls only Classroom in Chad. He was in the Army with Rupert Bull and since then has worked in Insurance and then Financial Advice, building a successful IFA, which he sold in 2016 to TPO The Private Office, a Company he still partially owns (and 25% of the value of TPO was gifted to a charity restoreourplanet.org).

Ian is a business founder, non-executive director, mentor and lecturer as well as an executive coach. In 2020, he co-founded Impact Central, an accelerator for early-stage businesses committed to positively impacting our society or environment alongside achieving commercial success. He is a non-executive on four boards in professional services, financial consultancy, corporate resilience and sustainability, and business support in the creative sector. He lectures in enterprise at the London College of Fashion.

Prior to 2020, Ian was a partner in Grant Thornton for more than 20 years. In that period, Ian was managing partner of the London office and a member of the firm’s National Leadership Board for seven years; previously, he led Grant Thornton Corporate Finance for six years. Ian amassed considerable experience in corporate finance and advisory activities.

Piers is a leading strategy advisor to UHNW Families and fast growing businesses as well as being a successful private investor. He brings over 30 years’ experience of helping many businesses to achieve growth and successful exits.

Clare brings nearly 40 years experience of the financial technology/fintech industry. Clare is a marketing and business development specialist and co-founder of Metia and Finextra, both ground breaking businesses within the fintech arena. Based on her extensive knowledge of the financial services sector and the challenges in creating sustainable businesses, Clare has a bit of reputation for being a challenger herself, always questioning the validity of long held opinions and strategies.

Over 30 years global experience in banking and the financial software sector. With a proven track record of driving growth Richard was CEO of Cashfac Technologies, EVP SmartStream Technologies and held senior positions at SunGard Capital Markets and Reuters.

Nick has worked education and IT and Database Management within Local Government. Over the past 15 years he has been directly involved with reporting of county and regional youth employment figures for Norfolk, managing IT networks and managing database development and customer success.

Tom’s career in front office trading systems ranges over twenty years in diverse business lines within banks such as Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank.

Tom has also held CTO and COO positions in firms such as, CTO at a market surveillance technology firm, CTO at a FinTech for broking firm, CTO and director of technology for a virtual trading floors/simulations and CTO at a private group of acquisition-based companies. This gives Tom both the technical and business expertise to allow the firm to grow and succeed in the fast-paced world of technology.

Dr Usha Back has over 10 years of experience in the financial sector and has worked internationally at the Capital Group Companies. Her role as an Investment Analyst involved analysing and investing in listed companies on behalf of institutional clients. She subsequently founded a strategic consulting company focused on the fintech and biotech sectors. Usha holds a PhD in Pharmacy from the UCL School of Pharmacy where she is also currently a guest lecturer.

Marcus has worked in investment banking for 25 years serving fund managers across geographies and asset classes in Asia and Europe. After 5 years leading Barclays Asia research content platform in HK, he transferred back to London to head up global thematic research product and spent the last 3 years working on pan sector sustainability and ESG-linked research. He joined TDH to develop the ESG Pathway, partnering with high growth seed and startup businesses to develop early ESG strategies where proportionality based on scale and maturity provides the optimal platform for workable ESG strategies benefitting companies and consumers over the long term.

Rupert has over 25 years of FinTech experience within both large organisations (Reuters and Instinet) and start-ups. He co-founded, built, and sold Expand Research, the leading Capital Markets benchmarking and research business to The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 2011, before leaving to found The Disruption House in early 2015.