Founder & CEO

Ajay is a technology entrepreneur with strong experience in building and leading successful technology companies. In 2006, he founded PayMate India Pvt. Ltd. with an aim to introduce mobile payments in the country. Over the years, he transformed PayMate into a leading B2B digital payments provider in India. Prior to PayMate, Ajay founded and grew Coruscant Tec, an early leader in mobile content, that offered VAS services to leading Indian Telecom companies for a number of years. The company was sold to Mukta Arts a listed media firm in 2008. As a serial entrepreneur, Ajay’s first venture was Webresource, which was a web applications and design company. Ajay holds the patent for mobile payments in India and invests in tech startups, serving as a trusted mentor and advisor to a number of technology entrepreneurs in India.

Senior Director, SME for CEMEA Region

CEO

Amer Qavi is Founder & CEO of Swipezoom, a fintech company that develops and markets SaaS-based solutions for the B2C and B2B sectors. Amer’s experience as a problem solving entrepreneur spans 27 years across several industries such as healthcare, hospitality, telecommunications and IT and include notable exits from businesses he founded along the way. Prior to that, he has held numerous positions within the healthcare industry. As a certified clinical specialist, he has trained Ophthalmic, ENT and Neuro surgeons on the use of minimally invasive surgery and laser based procedures; has been involved in setting up master distribution networks for ICU Medical, 3M, Alcon and Johnson & Johnson and helped architect numerous government-backed healthcare initiatives, most notably in the area of laser surgery and infection control. He is a regular speaker at entrepreneurship, e-commerce and technology industry events; is an e-exporting advisor to the UK Department for International Trade (DIT), has held steering positions in entrepreneurship organizations, such as the EO and MBRE, and is a mentor to several technology startups. Amer studied Bioengineering at Texas A&M University.

Managing Partner & Regional Director EMEA

Andre has almost three decades’ experience in banking of which 18 years’ in payments working across a wide variety of disciplines and business areas – from acceptance, consumer payments, loyalty products and commercial payment solutions across both corporates and SMEs. He has held senior positions in Absa Bank First National bank and Visa where he led Consumer products for SSA later Commercial solutions for Visa CEMEA and before moving to PayTech he Managed the Visa Consulting practise for SSA. Andre's key focus is on strategy development, product development, business planning, product and process feasibility studies and program implementation.

• Day 1, Workshop| Workshop leader

Corporate & Commercial Cards Payment Solutions Senior Manager

Arda is leading Commercial Credit and Debit Card Payments Solutions (Business, T&E and P-Cards) and UAEPGS at ADCB. With over 15 years of experience in the card payment systems and financial industry, he has also held key roles in product management & development, partnership management, strategy and marketing. Prior to joining ADCB he was based in Istanbul where covered an affluent Miles Program at Akbank, implemented a B2B commercial card product at Finansbank and launched and leaded the sales of Amex Corporate Card in Garanti Bank. He holds a BA in Political Science and MSc in European Ecomonics. He is married with a 5-year-old daughter.

Head of Large & Middle Market, Business Solutions, CEMEA Region

Clyde Rosanowski is the Head of Large and Middle Market Business Solutions across the CEMEA region. Prior to joining Visa Clyde has spent the majority of his career in Cash Management/Transaction Banking Sales Leadership roles across Australia and New Zealand. Clyde’s immediately previous role before joining Visa was the Head of Transaction Banking for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s New Zealand subsidiary ,ASB where he had full responsibility for Sales, Transition/Integration and Relationship Banking of their Corporate and Institutional clients.

Chief Commercial Officer

Director, Corporate Cards Solutions & Retail Cards Acquisitions

Feroz is currently heading Corporate Cards Business & Retail Cards Acquisitions for Majid Al Futtaim Finance in the United Arab Emirates and successfully leading the Digital Transformation of customer on-boarding process. He oversees the Corporate Cards Business covering T&E, Purchase Card & Central Travel Account solutions along with responsibility for new customer acquisition for retail cards. He has spent over 18 years in payment business and has held senior leadership roles covering product, portfolio, partnerships and sales management areas. Before joining Majid Al Futtaim, he worked with several prestigious global and regional financial institutions including Citibank, Barclays, Mashreq & Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank.

VP, Commercial Cards Head, MENAPT

GD is the VP and Commercial Cards Head in MENAPT cluster, based in Dubai, UAE. His professional experience spans 25+ years, encompassing key roles in Global Program Leadership, Strategic Client Partnerships, Business Development, E-commerce Product Development and Project Management – within the Financial Services (Commercial Payments & Cards), Business Travel and Airline sectors. He joined Citi in 2016 – after having relocated to Dubai in 2013 as the Commercial Payments Solutions (CPS) business leader for MasterCard Middle East & Africa – responsible for Strategy, Product Management, Issuer Enablement and B2B / SME Partnerships. Prior to his Middle East move, GD had an extensive tenure with American Express, based in Sydney, Australia – covering regional and global Client Relationships, E-commerce Product Management and Business Transformation projects – in the Asia-Pacific region. GD holds a Computer Science degree, with progressive Management Studies and Project Management qualifications.

• Day 1| 2:15pm Panel discussion: Driving acceptance - the key to commercial card success

Associate Director - Commercial Payment Solutions

Inna Jovic holds over 15 years of Corporate Banking and Fintech experience between Australia and Middle East. Prior to Mastercard Inna was a Sector Head, Global Liquidity Solutions team at HSBC bank managing a portfolio of top tier Multinationals. Inna was born in Kiev, Ukraine. At the age of 14 her family moved to Australia where she obtained her degree in Finance and began her career as a Business Banking Relationship manager at Westpac bank in Australia.

Financial Controller

• Day 2| 9:15am The corporate perspective: How cards provide client value

Regional Director

Jens has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in payments in the Nordics, from Sales & Marketing Director Norsik (now Idemia), SVP Head of Issuing Services at Nets, SVP Head of Acquiring at Nets before joining Visa Europe as Country Manager for Norway. Jens joined the EedenBull team in February 2019 as Regional Director and Head of Business Development.

Director, Global Business Development

• Day 2| 2:30pm Fintech Showcase

Commercial Payments Solutions, UAE

As specialist sales manager, Kripa Hadani helps companies optimize their payment processes through solutions that improve cashflow, ease reconciliation and support digitization. Since joining Mastercard in 2017, she has served as specialist sales manager to large corporates for B2B payments. More recently, she is working with organizations in the travel sector to support their unique needs. Before joining Mastercard, Kripa was an entrepreneur running an adventure travel company. Prior to that, she worked at Standard Chartered and National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE.

Chief Commercial Officer, Vice President Global Commercial Card

Mark Turner is Chief Commercial Officer and Vice President of the Commercial Card Group at American Express Saudi Arabia. In this role Mark is responsible for the Commercial Card business. He is also responsible for bank partnerships and the associated product development. He champions corporate payment innovation and advises senior executives on their digital/enterprise payments across all industries, in many cases designing new and complex solutions from a suite of Islamic based products. Mark leads the digital corporate product development to ensure the company provides relevant next generation solutions for his clients. Prior to this Mark was the Chief Strategy Officer for Saudi Arabia leading the Strategic Partnership Group in Saudi Arabia. Mark spent 8 years in Singapore as Vice President Asia Pacific leading various regional businesses. During Mark’s tenure in Asia, he was responsible for significantly expanding American Express’ footprint across the JAPA region, re-designing and successfully growing various business lines, in addition, he was also responsible for leading the Joint Venture & Acquisitions group. This included successfully leading and concluding market entry with the first equity based joint venture for The American Express Company (AXP) to the People’s Republic of China. Mark joined American Express in 1990, and has held various senior executive roles across 4 Continents managing and growing both card issuing and acquiring businesses around the globe. Mark was educated in the UK and holds an MBA in Business Studies from Hull University UK and holds an Honorary Professorship by Guangzhou University, PR China. Mark is married, enjoys travelling and the occasional round of golf.

SVP and Head of Commercial Payments International

Melissa Sefic is SVP, Head of Commercial Payments International, an organization that produces educational networking events for professionals in the commercial card and payments industry. With over 15 years’ experience in the conference and events business, Melissa comes from American Banker where she oversaw sales and business development initiatives acting as a consultant to many organizations looking to expand their brand and thought leadership presence in the U.S. She is based in New York City.

Customer Relationship Manager

Commercial Manager

As Commercial Manager, Nick is responsible for the strategic development of Conferma’s banking partnerships and initiatives. Having joined Conferma in 2011 and since accumulated experience in a number of roles, he works closely with the company’s global commercial payments network to deliver innovative ways for corporations to make business payments with virtual cards. In collaboration with Conferma’s travel management and technology partners, one of Nick’s areas of focus is streamlining virtual payments for commercial card issuers and their clients in the corporate travel sector.

• Day 2| 10:45am Virtual cards for T&E

Group Head

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.

Head Of Acceptance Development, UAE & Oman

Omar has over 20 years of experience in the financial services and payments industry with exposure to banking (Islamic & Conventional), BPO, call centers, financial brokerage, consumer finance and payments. Omar is leading the development of Acceptance Strategic Vision for UAE & Oman – encompassing both traditional and emerging acceptance and responsible to Construct the annual acceptance plans to achieve business performance, quality and operational efficiency. Before this role Omar was leading the Enterprise Business Solutions and was responsible for developing strategies & Create Solutions that will enable new growth opportunities for all market levels & stakeholders such as financial institutions, consumers, government and other partners through the use of innovative payment solutions, ECO systems and enhanced consumer experiences & journeys. He started his career in 1998 at branch operations with National Bank of Abu Dhabi & Commercial Bank of Dubai then moved onto a contact center project at Emirates Bank in 2001; after which, he joined the conversion team of Emirates Islamic Bank leading the Channels Conversion Project in 2004. In 2005, Omar was part of Emaar financial services setup, heading the projects and business support leading the operations, technology and projects. In 2008 he joined Dubai First International “Dubai Group” in various roles close to 6 years, working on joint ventures in Russia, Turkey and Malaysia then in Dubai as SVP Head Projects & Business Support. In 2013 he joined Barclays as Transformation Lead working on the retail banking exit and run down leading the migration work stream then moved to Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank heading the Transformation and the change management after ADIB portfolio acquisition. Omar holds a B.Sc., in Finance & Banking, Certified International Project Manager (CIPMTM), Certified International Change Manager (CICMTM) by IAPM and Design Thinking Methodology (DTM) by Design Thinkers Academy.

• Day 1| 2:15pm Panel discussion: Driving acceptance - the key to commercial card success

VP, Head of Business Solutions for CEMEA

Rakesh Khanna is the Vice President, Business solutions head for CEMEA at Visa Inc. focused on commercializing and executing key solutions for Small, middle & large market and the public sector. He is responsible for the strategy and delivery of Visa’s business solutions for the region. He joined Visa in 2014 as head for CEMEA and also managed the European region for Large Market from Oct 2016-May 2018. Rakesh has 20 years of experience across financial services and banking. He joined Visa in Nov 2014 from Standard Chartered Bank where he spent 10 years in London and Singapore heading strategic products and solutions for the bank globally that included lending and Asset backed finance. His last position was the Global Head product for Receivables Services & Invoice financing. Prior to this, he was with GE in a variety of roles in India, US & London spanning sales, relationship management, change and transformation roles including Six Sigma and Lean initiatives.

Acceptance Products Manager