An exclusive invitation

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 travelling!

Sandeep Malhotra is Executive Vice President of Products & Innovation, Asia Pacific for Mastercard. In this role, he is responsible for product development and management, including commercialization of payment solutions that create a sustainable competitive advantage for Mastercard and its customers across Asia Pacific. This includes consumer and commercial products across Debit, Credit, Prepaid, Commercial, Payments Gateway, Processing, Acceptance, New Payment Flows and Digital Platforms & Labs. Prior to his current role, Sandeep was instrumental in defining and executing Mastercard’s real-time account-based payments strategy. From being business lead for the acquisition Vocalink (UK-based ACH infrastructure provider), through to the creation of Pay-by-Account and Bill Pay products, he has championed new payment flows which aim to introduce choice for stakeholders. Sandeep has been with Mastercard for the past 22 years, and has held a wide variety of roles with increasing responsibility. He has a proven talent for bringing innovative technologies to market, which require persistence and persuasion, by applying broad set of knowledge and expertise gained from working in various areas including digital payments, mobile payments joint venture (with Smart Hub in Philippines), network products and software development & solutions engineering arms of O&T. As an avid inventor, he has contributed to many enhancements to Mastercard's core systems and network. Sandeep earned a Bachelor of Science from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Master of Science from University of Missouri-Rolla, Masters of Science from University of Missouri-St. Louis and a Master of Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis.

Jukka is a cards and payments professional with extensive experience in product management, development and distribution to a variety of customer segments. His experience over 30 years includes card schemes, issuing and acquiring operations, credit, debit and prepaid products, and a range of technologies from card and payment processing platforms to expense management systems. Jukka currently leads NAB’s Commercial Cards product team and is passionate about NAB’s customers and their capabilities to address wider range of B2B payments using Commercial Cards than what has been the market best practise previously. Prior to joining NAB in his current role, Jukka led NAB’s product development work to design and deliver NAB’s market leading ePayables capabilities. Prior to his move to Australia in 2007 he spent 2 decades at Diners Club in Finland with most recent responsibility of Commercial Card issuing and Merchant Acquiring operations, and at MasterCard as the Country Manager for Finland.

Clara Wang is a managing director and head of Corporate Payables, Cross Currency and Commercial Cards Product, Global Transaction Services (GTS) Asia Pacific at Bank of America, based in Singapore. She has been with Bank of America for 11 years, with different roles including country treasury product management for China, and regional treasury product management focusing on Payment and Corporate Cards. Prior to joining the firm, she has had experience in cash management services, client solution delivery and implementation, product development and management in Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC China. Clara is also an active contributor to women development programs such as the LEAD (Leadership, Education, Advocacy & Development for Women) network within the firm and external mentoring programs. She is a Cherie Blair Foundation Mentor alumni, and had completed the Women in Business Mentoring Program as a mentor. She holds a Master of Business Administration (Executive MBA) degree from The University of Hong Kong, and a bachelor’s degree in International Finance from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

Nicole Ashong is the senior sales leader for Commercial Cards Asia Pacific, driving opportunities with both multi-national and Asia-headquartered clients and leading strategic initiatives across the region. She is part of the Asia Commercial Cards Leadership Team and has 10 years of experience at Citi. Her diverse experience includes sales and product management roles within Commercial Cards and across Citi’s broader cash management business. Before joining the Asia Pacific team, she was part of the Commercial Cards Sales Team in North America. In that capacity, she covered the Consumer & Healthcare portfolio and managed US-headquartered clients through all aspects of the sales process, from proactive origination and proposals, to product solutioning and implementation. Prior to joining Citi, Nicole earned her Master’s degree at Georgetown University.

Carol is currently the Head of Large Middle-Market Segment in Visa Business Solutions for Asia Pacific. Prior to Visa, Carol had worked in Bank of America Merrill Lynch where she led sales teams covering financial institutions and non-banking financial institutions in global payments and trade finance. She has also held various positions from credit, corporate to transaction banking in JPMorgan Chase Bank in Asia as well as in the US. The early years of her career was spent in the finance and treasury space. As a senior woman leader in payments, she supports and executes programs in mentoring young talent in the industry. Carol graduated from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and is a Certified Chartered Accountant.

Joel is a multiple-time entrepreneur with 7 years of leadership experience in financial services, crowdfunding, payments, and e-commerce. Proven track record of leading digital businesses and executing to achieve profitability at scale with a high integrity team. As Co-Founder & Country Head of Aspire Singapore, he is passionate about the financial inclusion of SMEs and is on a mission to reinvent banking for modern-day business owners.

Erik Ingvoldstad is an entrepreneur, creative leader, a strategist, and an innovator. He has background from creative leadership, as a writer and creative director at a global level. After over 20 years in advertising, mostly in the digital sector, he left to build his own consultancy in Digital Transformation, Customer Experience and Innovation. He has since co-founded EedenBull, where he is the Chief Innovation Officer as well as responsible for UX and UI for the company’s products. Erik lives and works in Singapore, and has previously worked in Norway, Australia and China, as well as overseeing work across the globe.

Jakub Zakrzewski is a Managing Director at Kraken in Singapore, leading the company's strategic development in APAC. Previously, he was responsible for launching Revolut's operations in Singapore in 2019 and leading its growth in the region. Before Revolut, Jakub was Head of Growth at Easyship, a 500 Startups VC portfolio company that won Hong Kong’s Technology Company of the Year Award in 2017, joining as one of its early employees in 2015. Prior to joining Easyship, Jakub worked at Lazada (Rocket Internet’s most successful venture up to date, acquired by Alibaba for $1bn+ in 2016) as a first employee in Singapore, where he established business intelligence and online marketing departments at the company. He holds a Master of Science in Finance degree, awarded from ESADE Business School in Barcelona where he wrote his master thesis on "Cases of Angel Investing in Europe".

Vikram is responsible for partnerships with B2B focused fintech and technology firms in Asia Pacific. These partnerships help Visa and Visa’s clients deliver innovative B2B payment solutions in our markets. Successful implementations include solutions for bridging the gap in B2B Acceptance and to drive higher usage of virtual card solutions in the region. Vikram joined Visa in its Asia Pacific regional office in Singapore in 2008. Before joining Visa, he worked with ABN AMRO Bank in Hong Kong and India.