Previous Speakers

Etienne Yuan is a digital, innovation, and product development expert. He currently applies capital and experience; gained as a data scientist, marketer, manager of app stores, and creator of Open API-based business models; to the realm of Open Banking, as a partner of investment and innovation advisory firm.

Christian Hegeler is Head of Sales and Business Development, overseeing the Sales, Business Development and Key Account Management teams responsible for the DACH region at finleap connect. Hegeler joined finleap connect in early 2020 from PwC, having spent almost ten years at the consulting firm specialising in financial services consulting, digital strategy & transformation and customer experience. Additionally, Hegeler was previously a Portfolio Manager for HNWIs and small companies at Commerzbank.

As the CCO of finleap connect, Andreas Reuss leads finleap connect’s Commercial team, where he leads the Sales, Business Development, Go-to-Market and Marketing departments. He joined finleap connect in Spring 2020 as Co-General Manager Corporate Solutions & White Label Products, was appointed Chief Commercial Officer in October 2020, and has been part of the finleap connect management team as Managing Director since January 2021. Over the course of his many years as a Manager at KPMG, Reuß also developed expertise in the implementation of PSD2 regulation and primarily advised financial institutions and insurance companies in this area. In his positions, he was also responsible for the distribution and sale of expertise and services. This included advising banks, insurance companies and financial services companies on setting up sales models and use cases.

Mikael is a leader within financial services for PA Consulting Sweden, advising European and Nordic clients on embedded finance and ecosystem collaboration.

He has significant experience in working with financial services clients to innovate and grow by leveraging new technologies and data. Prior to his consulting career.

He has spent 7 years as an economist at Sveriges Riksbank and the European Central Bank focusing on financial markets infrastructures and in particular payments.

David’s role at the OBIE is to lead the growth and development of the open banking ecosystem. His key objective is to facilitate and encourage end user adoption of products and services powered by open banking. This includes all marketing and events, bringing new participants into the directory, and developing effective propositions which allow consumers and businesses to derive maximum benefit from sharing their transactional data.

His 25 years in data-driven insight and marketing have seen him work with many leading brands in multiple sectors and countries. In addition to working for some of the largest players in the data world such as Experian, Callcredit and Telefonica, David also ran his own boutique data insight business, Thinkdata, for 5 years before its acquisition by Bertelsmann.

Prior to joining OBIE, David spent 31⁄2 years as the Commercial Director at The Open Data Institute where he also led their work on open banking, helping governments and regulators in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada. David regularly speaks on open banking at conferences in the UK and internationally, has co-authored a number of reports on Open Banking, and was interviewed on BBC TV on the day it officially launched in the UK.

Originally a classically trained musician, David has a Master’s from Cambridge University and an MBA in Marketing. He sits on the board of Open Data Australia, and also as a non-executive director for Boundless, a theatre company for young people. Ever the optimist, he continues to hold a season ticket at Nottingham Forest Football Club.

Sarah Häger is heading the Open Banking Community team who’s responsibility is to give the developers a good experience while realizing their ambitions on the Open banking platform. She is also Product Manager for an Agile release train and has the responsibility for the Community. She has worked in several countries (Europe-wide) and along the value chain, with the main mission to provide value for the corporate customers. She is passioned about innovation, technology and to create commercial opportunities out of regulation.

Liisa Kanniainen is a digital banking strategist and experienced public speaker with over 20 years of frontline experience. Her leadership roles cover digital development, strategic sales, innovation, industry-level business development, strategy & vision work, and pioneering product development & product management at Nordea, Mobey Forum and Nokia. She has in-depth knowledge on digital corporate banking, access management, Open Banking, PSD2, API-based business models, cash management, e/m-commerce and mobile payments.

Currently she leads strategic API- and authorization related projects in Nordea’s Business Banking COO unit, such as formulating next generation API-based service framework for corporate customers. Co-creation with customers and understanding the needs of even the most complex customers has always been a key value for her. She holds an MSc degree in Economics

Since 2020 Commerzbank AG – Cluster Lead API
2018-2020 Commerzbank AG – Chapter Lead API
2013-2018 smarthouse (adesso AG) – Project manager and later Head of Product and Requirements Management
2010-2013 Interactive Data (Factset) – IT Project Manager

The 36-year-old division manager aims to function internally as an enabler for API technology and, together with other divisions, to provide central services as APIs. This is intended to increase efficiency internally and create new business models externally.

Gavin Littlejohn serves as Chair of the Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA), which is a trade association for firms who use Open Finance in their business models. FDATA currently operates in North America, South America, Europe, Australasia and parts of Asia, but will continue to develop a presence in new markets. In this role Gavin is a leader of the Open Finance movement and has campaigned for balanced financial and privacy regulation, customer data rights, robust technical and identity standards, and the properly governed and funded delivery of open market architecture where participants rights are protected.

As well as advising central banks, regulators and governments in many markets, Gavin serves on the UK Open Banking Steering Group, the pan-European Berlin Group’s Open Finance Steering Group and the TISA, Open Investments Savings and Pensions Steering Group.

FDATA has also been instrumental, along with the University of Edinburgh, in setting up the new Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence, where Gavin has been the visionary and is serving as the Interim Chief Innovation and Research Officer. This role is accountable for the delivery of the five market facing propositions, namely the Global Economic Observatory, the Global Open Finance Technical Standard Working Group, the Innovation Environment, the Customer Data Protection Research Unit and the Economic Crime Research Unit.

Gavin has been a fintech entrepreneur (business to business and business to consumer) his whole career, pioneering technologies such as software as a service, distributed computing and open finance. Gavin is the founder of Money Dashboard and served as CEO until 2015. He also advises several venture capital firms on their portfolio, advises both start-ups and corporate financial service firms on strategy and occasionally teaches innovation techniques.

Jenny works with digital sales and marketing in Swedbank. She works in a data-driven and customer-centric environment to promote and increase Swedbank’s sales and service in their digital channels, i.e swedbank.se – internet banking and the app. She believes that customer feedback, quantitative and qualitative data are keys to insights that lead to concrete actions to improve Swedbank’s digital service and customer offering. SEO, landing pages, conversion and frictionless customer journeys are common words at work. Her area of responsibility is Daily Banking – i.e everyday banking services that customers use every day. Her goal is to simplify and facilitate a customer’s life as much as possible.

She has a professional background in biomedicine and public health. She is also a passionate athlete in crosscountry skiing and ultratrailrunning.

Mario is the Head of Open Banking / APIs and Digital Product Solutions for Wholesale Payments in EMEA, at J.P. Morgan.

Mario partners with Sales to offer differentiated, innovative digital product solutions for our clients and drive new business growth. In addition, Mario works closely with the global Open Banking team to build out the API product catalogue, drive client adoption in the region and focus on co- creation with our clients. Mario is also responsible for establishing and driving partnerships with TMS, ERP Vendors and FinTech’s to enhance our value proposition.

Mario has extensive experience across Wholesale Payments products, APIs, Open Banking and Digital Channel Solutions and deep understanding of our clients.

Mario completed the Fintech Programme at Said Business School, University of Oxford and has a B. Eng (Hons) in Computer Systems and Electronics from King’s College, University of London.

As Head of Digital Payments and Services, Gian Battista is currently responsible for developing and positioning strategies for innovative payment and Open Banking solutions both for retail and business customers of Intesa Sanpaolo, the largest bank in Italy. This role exposes Gian Battista to several challenges every day in leading his team, dealing with a highly competitive market and negotiating with third party players such as Payment networks, fintechs and non-financial service providers, in addition to fostering the digital culture within a territory anchored giant. Moreover, in his tenure at Intesa Sanpaolo he has been working on the ideation, creation and launch of some of the most innovative digital products of the bank such as the mobile wallet of the bank, called XME Wallet, that help customers managing their expenses and gain access to the most innovative payment solution in the market such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. As well, he is responsible for the creation of new solutions in the Open Banking field, such as XME banks, the new financial aggregator (AISP & PISP) provided by Intesa Sanpaolo. Gian Battista has over 10 years of experience in the banking industry and he has been previously working within the Marketing dept