From “Disrupt” to “Scale”: FinTech as the Path to Wealth

Carmelle Cadet – A passionate advocate for financial inclusion and economic development in emerging markets, Carmelle is the Founder and CEO of EMTECH, a NY-based Fintech helping Central Banks around the world adopt modern technologies to provide financial inclusion by design and develop resilient financial market infrastructures.

The Award-Winning company introduced innovative central bank solutions such as Modern Central Bank Sandbox to streamline regulatory reviews, accelerate fintech time to market and manage innovation risks effectively with near real time data.

Further, Carmelle and her team launched “A Digital Cash Infrastructure For All” concept to address the underbanked problem by leveraging Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

With former regulators, technology experts on the team and as advisors, Carmelle is building a portfolio of modern central bank software that delivers a more inclusive and resilient financial infrastructure, especially for emerging markets.

She is a thought leader and innovator in financial services, central banking technology and blockchain with the mission of providing everyone access to a digital cash infrastructure. After a 10 year career at IBM in Corporate Finance/Treasury and Software Business Development Executive, Carmelle is now a sought after public speaker, mentor to women entrepreneurs and considered a pioneer in her field.

Vladimir Lounegov is a FinTech inventor and CEO of Mbanq, a Silicon Valley-based a banking and Credit Union technology provider. Together with his co-founders, Vladimir evolved Mbanq from humble startup into one of the fastest growing and most successful FinTechs in the world.

Mbanq developed and launched its technology and became profitable extremely quickly by offering cutting-edge Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS). Today its technology stack, payments and compliance ecosystem serves as the foundation for dozens of banks and Credit Unions across the globe.

As well as being a hands-on inventor who develops game-changing financial technology, Vladimir is also FinTech visionary. Most recently he took the initiative to rethink the USA’s Credit Union operating model by launching the world’s first Credit Union-as-a-Service (CuaaS).

Vladimir’s key skills are technology innovation and the ability to assemble and inspire top FinTech teams, as well as to build ecosystems of investors, partners and developers.

Previously, Vladimir held a senior role at PwC’s FinTech practice, where he led a research and analysis team that evaluated over 1,600 FinTech startups worldwide. Throughout his career, Vladimir collaborated closely with the most influential financial institutions in the world such as Citigroup and Barclays, as well as FinTech leaders like LendingClub and cutting-edge innovators including Google.

Vladimir is a graduate of the London School of Economics and holds a BSc in International Relations. In his spare time he enjoys travel, skiing, good food, spending time with his family and the occasional trip to the gym.

Thomas Meredith – Mr. Meredith, the inventor of the “Smart Token” and the patent-pending “Atomic Swap” digital wallet, created UberFi to provide financial inclusion to the 2 billion global underbanked. UberFi provides a turnkey retail Point of Sale (POS) eco-system for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC). The CBDC are backed by prepaid phone minute token, BitMinutes, usable by 4 billion consumers globally. UberFi enables free money transfer and Guaranteed Loans to build credit for consumers worldwide using Mr. Meredith’s proprietary “Smart Token” and “Atomic Swap” technologies.

Even before Bitcoin launched, Tom has been fascinated by digital currencies evidenced by his Smart Token patent application in 2004. He productized his Smart Tokens as the foundational technology driving BitMinutes’ products and services; bridging the gap between traditional settlement networks such as MasterCard, SWIFT and the growing Blockchain networks such as Ripple and Ethereum. The solution reduces consumer fees on global bank transfer eliminating middlemen, such as Western Union. His Smart Tokens were the first to incorporate a robust smart contract to track and validate cash transactions.

Tom received his Mechanical Engineering Degree from Stanford University and went on to graduate with an MBA in Entrepreneurial Studies from Harvard Business School. After Stanford, Tom began his computer career with Digital Equipment Corporation and spent another three years on Wall Street handling institutional equity research sales for large clients. He joined the ranks of entrepreneurs by founding VoxLink, an innovator of voice mail and e-mail integration for several Fortune 500 corporations.

Tom is a native of Williamsport, PA, the home of Little League Baseball. He now resides near Atlanta, GA with his wife Jane

Gautier Mary-Dauphin – Mr. Mary-Dauphin leads revenue operations at Ripple, driving a significant share of the $2 trillion crypto market. He has significant influence over Ripple’s revenue streams across all verticals including XRP. Ripple uses XRP as a vehicle to finance its core business of seamless cross-border transactions for financial institutions. Currently Ripple and its real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange and remittance network are paving the way for the US regulation of cryptocurrencies.

Prior to joining Ripple, Mr. Mary-Dauphin held finance roles with IT and Private Equity companies in Silicon Valley.

Mr. Mary-Dauphin holds Masters in Economics and Finance from the University of Delaware and Bachelors in Finance from University of Lyon, France.

Mr. Mary-Dauphin currently resides in London with his wife and 2 young children.

Christina Qi is the CEO of Databento, an on-demand market data platform. She formerly founded Domeyard LP, a hedge fund focused on high frequency trading (HFT) that traded up to $7.1 billion USD per day.

Failing to earn a job offer after a Wall Street internship, Christina started Domeyard from her dorm room with $1000 in savings, about 9 years ago. Her fund was a tiny minnow amongst the tigers of the hedge fund world, but after Michael Lewis’s Flash Boys came out in 2014 and HFT firms hid from the spotlight, Domeyard accidentally found itself in the center of the ring. Over the next decade, her company’s story was featured on the front page of Forbes and Nikkei, and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNN, NBC, and the Financial Times as a result of the controversy and fascination with HFT. By a series of accidents, Christina became a voice in her industry, contributing to the World Economic Forum’s research on AI in finance, guest lecturing at dozens of universities, and teaching Domeyard’s case study at Harvard Business School. She is grateful to be able to open up about her mistakes, and to help people turn failures into opportunities.

No amount of therapy has quashed Christina’s impostor syndrome, but she will always be proud of her non-profit volunteer work.

Christina was elected as a Member of the MIT Corporation, MIT’s Board of Trustees. She is Co-Chair of the Board of Invest in Girls, bringing financial literacy education to underserved populations across the US. Christina also sits on the Board of Directors of The Financial Executives Alliance (FEA) Hedge Fund Group, drives entrepreneurship efforts at the MIT Sloan Boston Alumni Association (MIT SBAA), and served on the U.S. Non-Profit Boards Committee of 100 Women in Finance. Although “X Under X” lists are a gimmick, she’ll admit that Forbes 30 Under 30 made a positive impact on her life by giving her a community – friends who dragged her out of bed during the lowest days of her life. Christina holds a Bachelor of Science in Management Science from MIT and is a CAIA Charterholder.

Christina Björnström is a serial tech entrepreneur, journalist, advisor, and speaker. Christina Björnström has previously cofounded 3 startups, held executive roles at tech companies, and served as President and Executive Director of the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce New England (2015-2018), where she helped establish Boston as a point of national/strategic interest for the Swedish government.

Christina has launched several seminal STEM initiatives in Boston including hackathons for elementary school children and innovation bootcamps. Currently the Cofounder and CEO of a stealth artificial intelligence/security platform, Christina is also the Founder of Ström Consulting, an MBA admissions consultancy, and regularly advises autonomous driving, AI, and cryptocurrency startups on fundraising, business development, and commercializing R&D.

A frequent contributor to panel discussions and podcasts on entrepreneurship, deep tech, and women in tech, Christina serves as an Instructor for FutureHack, Community Leader for Fishbowl’s Women in Tech, Judge for the Hult Prize Finals, and mentor for the Entrepreneur Futures Network.

Christina holds a BA(Hons) Politics and Human Rights from the University of Essex and an MA in Sustainable Development and Environmental Management from Harvard University.

Ziad K. Abdelnour is Founder, President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc. a private “family office” in the business of originating, structuring & acting as equity investor in strategic corporate investments and co-Founder of Aeros-Blackhawk Partners; a trading platform focusing on the financing of real estate and project finance properties throughout the US.

Founder & Chairman of the Board of the Financial Policy Council ; a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization designed to give its select group of supporters the opportunity to have direct face-to-face dialogue with the nation’s quintessential power brokers and policymakers

A member of TIGER 21, a peer-to-peer learning group for super high net worth individuals and of Young Presidents Organization (YPO) – a private group of global chief executives whose companies employ 16 million people and generate 6-trillion USD in annual revenues

Author of the bestselling book “Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics” and ”Startup Saboteurs: How Incompetence, Ego, and Small Thinking Prevent True Wealth Creation” to be published in Summer 2019.

Mr. Abdelnour has over 30 year experience on Wall Street backing over 125 companies & serial entrepreneurs worth in aggregate over 20 billion dollars in the private equity, high yield bond and distressed debt markets.

He holds a MBA in Finance Summa Cum Laude from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania & BS in Economics, Summa Cum Laude, from the American University of Beirut

Today, Mr. Abdelnour continues to be featured in hundreds of media channels and publications every year and is widely seen as one of the top business leaders by millions around the world.

He was just recently been featured as one of the 500 Most Influential CEOs in the World.