Asia-Pacific

The Asia Pacific board was established in late 2015. The mission of this group is to represent this diverse region and focus on topics and issues that affect the Asia Pacific markets. The Asia Pacific advisory board has representatives covering the region from Australia to India and will continue to play a key role in developing the program for the regional summit.

 


 

James Alba-Duignan

Regional VP, Head of Commercial Payment Solutions – Asia-Pacific, Diners Club

James (Jim) has over spent over 18 years working in the Asia Pacific region with 14 years experience in many areas of the payment solutions and corporate travel industry. In his role at Diners Club International, Jim is responsible for Commercial Payment Solutions region-wide, including Commercial Cards, SME payment products as well as pre paid and travel cards. Jim joined Diners Club International from the global travel management company HRG where he held the position of APAC Sales Director. Prior to that, he ran his own consulting business specialising in training, coaching and business advice as well as senior regional posts at American Express and Regus Business Centres. He is an active member of ACTE and a member of the Advisory Board for GBTA in Hong Kong and China He is married with one daughter and in his spare time is passionate about music and the arts within his home territory of Hong Kong. Most significantly, being a Director of Witness Productions and the driving forces behind ‘Picnic in the Park’ an annual music and dance festival attended by thousands? and held for the benefit of two local children’s charities.

 


 

Simon Barker
Co-founder & CEO, Conferma

Simon Barker is co-founder and CEO of Conferma. He is responsible for developing and executing the company’s strategic vision to optimise B2B payment processes through innovative virtual card technology. Simon was recognised as one of the 25 Most Influential Executives in the travel industry by Business Travel News, whilst Conferma is considered Most Admired Payment System by The Beat Readers’ Choice Awards 2017and Best Travel Technology Product by Business Travel Awards 2018. Prior to establishing Conferma in 2004, Simon accumulated vast experience of the business travel industry during 18 years as Managing Director of NIS Travel Management Solutions.

 


 

Nicki Bisgaard
Group Head, PayTech Group

Nicki has enjoyed more than 35 years in the cards and payments industry internationally. Most recently as Group Head for PayTech – a specialist advisory services company supporting payment schemes, banks, processors and corporate clients on leveraging the opportunities provided in this highly specialized space worldwide. PayTech has under his leadership delivered more than 700 projects in 32 countries in the past 10 years alone and provided consulting services to 65% of the world’s 20 largest banks and a long list of smaller ones. Today, PayTech is recognized as a leader in their field of specialist payments expertise. Prior to founding PayTech, Nicki had a distinguished career from leadership positions as CEO at EnterCard, Head of Corporate Products at Visa Europe, Senior Vice President and head of products at DNB and Marketing Director at Sparebankort in Norway.

He was instrumental setting up the new and very successful FinTech company EedenBull in 2018 in response to customer demand from banks looking for practical support for new and innovative payment solutions in a time where new technologies, new regulations and new players are changing the way consumers and businesses think about payments. He was consequently appointed Chief Executive Officer at EedenBull in May 2018.

 


 

Philip Glickman
Head of Commercial Products, Asia Pacific, Mastercard

Philip Glickman, based in Singapore, is the Head of Commercial Products for Mastercard in Asia Pacific. He oversees the product management of T&E, Purchase Card, SME, B2B solutions and partnerships as they relate to Commercial Products. His career has spanned the development of payments within both the Consumer and Commercial field in addition to acquiring and government procurement. Before joining Mastercard, he worked with Citibank in their transaction banking business in Hong Kong and New York and in the Supply Chain Management field for the Eni Group and MSC, a leading shipping line, also in New York Philip received a BA from Hofstra University, an MBA from American University and is fluent in Italian.

 


 

Chris Holmes
SVP, KAE

Chris is a Senior Vice President at KAE, the strategic marketing consultancy. Chris joined KAE in 2007 and during this time, he has managed multiple high profile global projects across the payments space (focusing on various issuing and acquiring topics across both the commercial and consumer payments sectors), banking, FinTech, AltFi and telco industries. His specialist skills are geared to NPD, market sizing and opportunity assessments, benchmarking, and best practice identification. He also heads KAE’s FinTech practice as well as KAE’s wider marketing and business development activity.

 


 

Chavi Jafa
Head of Commercial Cards and B2B Payments, India & South Asia, Visa

Chavi Jafa is currently the head of Commercial Cards and B2B Payments for India and South Asia at Visa. 

A career Banker and Payments expert, Chavi has worked across geographies including New York and Singapore.  Her experience includes managing various Cash Management and Commercial Cards products for Citibank globally as well as leading key relationships across Corporates and Public Sector organizations. Prior to joining Visa, Chavi was part of the founding team that set up IDFC Bank. She led the bank’s innovation businesses including mobile payments and big data lending as well as strategic Fintech partnerships. 

Chavi has a Master’s degree from Columbia University, majoring in Economics and an MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, India. She spends her free time teaching graduate students at various MBA institutions, sketching and traveling!

 


 

Philip Lim 
UOB