BankTech Conference 2019

Alex Exarchos

Alex Exarchos was born and raised in Athens, Greece. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and an MSc in Human Resource Management. After working for three years in the private sector, he joined the Bank of Greece in 2007 and, later on, in 2012, the European Central Bank. During his 12-year tenure with the Eurosystem, he has worked on a wide array of fields, such as: finance, budgeting, cost accounting, human resource management, strategic planning and, lately, market infrastructures and payments. Notable achievements to which he has been a key contributor include: the establishment of a strategic and operational planning process in the European Central Bank and the Central Bank of Cyprus, the introduction of a Eurosystem-wide financial controlling methodology, and, more recently, the successful migration of the first non-Euro currency (Danish Krona) to TARGET2 Securities, the formation of a TARGET2 Securities financial framework among the Eurosystem and the Central Securities Depositories and the go-live of TARGET Instant Payments (TIPS).

Vasilis Panagiotidis

Vasilis Panagiotidis is a graduate of International and European Studies Department of Panteion University where he completed his postgraduate studies in international economic, financial and banking law. He joined the Hellenic Bank Association (HBA) on October 2000. He is head of the payment systems, financial crime combating and physical security department. He is also head of the Hellenic Banking Institute (HBI), the training body of the Hellenic Bank Association. He represents the HBAs member-banks in committees and working groups of the European Banking Federation (EBF) and the European Payments Council (EPC). He is a member of the Board of Directors of DIAS SA, Hellenic Deposit and Investment Guarantee Fund and Hellenic Development Company and represents the ΗΒΑ in various legislative drafting committees.

Richard Parlour

Richard Parlour is an experienced international financial markets lawyer. He also chairs the EU Task Force on Cybersecurity Policy for the Financial Sector. Richard assists banks, payment institutions and other financial institutions in developing new products and systems, and protecting them from financial crime. This includes payment, trading and settlement systems, new financial products, cyber investigations and enhanced due diligence in over 140 countries worldwide. Richard has also acted as an expert witness and helps banks with their training programmes in this area. Richard has worked in Brussels with the European institutions and is former in house general counsel at LIFFE in London. His firm is called Financial Markets Law International (www.fmli.co.uk). Feel free to connect on LinkedIn!

Alberto Guidotti

Alberto Guidotti. 20 years of managerial experience in process consulting (Accenture), in strategic consulting (Bain & Company) and as Head of Innovation of the leading Italian bank (Intesa Sanpaolo). For 7 years, Alberto has been an entrepreneur in digital transformation, founder of Euronovate Group, leader of a group of 6 companies in 6 countries around the world (Switzerland, Italy, Romania, Spain, USA, China) and over 200 bank customers all over the world. Businessman, innovator and dreamer about an easier world for everybody.

Rémy Belloir

Rémy Belloir is Vice-President Digital Payment at Gemalto, where Rémy helps transformation of banks with cloud-based services. Rémy joined Gemalto in 1999, where he was heading software and R&D development centers. Devoted to customers’ successes in payment wallets, Rémy has built a solid expertise on tokenization and payment experience across all channels, on all devices. Rémy lives in the nice city of Aix en Provence in France and travel around Europe.

Eda Ernez

Eda Ernez is Channel Sales Manager at Thales Company (Client Protection and Licensing BU) for more than 3 years. She is responsible for all sales activities and enablement of the partners working for Thales in Greece and Turkey . She graduated from Yıldız Technical University with bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering in 2001. After graduation she worked for companies like system integrators, distributors and IT vendors. She has sales and product management experince at IT market.

Denhard Jongman

Carl Magnus Sjögren Johre

Born in Sweden but live since some years in Oslo Norway with my Norwegian wife. Long Digital operational & Managerial experience within Bank & Telecom. Entrepreneur within Digital Video Technology for communication & platforms. He is Founder & CEO of Viddget | Founder of Intaktus and Founder of LiveShop.

Richard Robinson

Richard has spent over 20 years assisting companies in the building of brands and the development and implementation of innovative go-to-market strategies. He has led many strategic marketing initiatives across various business and technology areas. Currently, Richard is Chief Commercial Officer at DPL where he helps brands turn big data into big action, through combining data science, behavioural science, and digital marketing to transform the way brands engage with customers. Richard has held leadership roles within the data, adtech, digital and media sectors, including as VP at CA Commercial, MD EMEA at Turn and Director at Google. Richard sits on the advisory boards of a number of companies and associations and is a regular speaker at industry events and conferences.

Luis Rodriguez

Luis is responsible for Strands product vision, product strategy and Innovation with special focus in the use of Machine Learning and AI in financial services. Luis possesses extensive experience in digital transformation projects at major international banks like Standard Life, Egg, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Hello Bank, UBI Banca, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, BMO, Leumi, Commercial Bank of Africa, Israel Discount Bank amongst others.

Dr. Andras Rung

A veteran of UX by having almost 20 years of experience. Strong focus on business goals and innovation (blockchain, No.1. expert in Google searches for voice banking UX). Andras is an author of the first Hungarian UX book (2006) and the first Hungarian UX blog (2009), founder of the Hungarian UX meetup (2009). His publications can be found in reputed journals (Smashing Magazine, Plos One etc.). He founded Ergomania Product Design and he obtained his PhD in linguistics backed with AI in 2012.

Damianos Charalampidis

Born in Athens with more than two decades solid track record in Commercial and Operations, out of which 10 years at a C-level position in all 3 mobile operators in Greece. He also has four years of experience as group COO in National Bank of Greece. Currently holds the position of Executive General Manager Chief Digital Officer and Retail Banking Products in Alpha Bank, undertaking the task of the Digital Transformation of the Bank. He has been a BoD member in various companies such as: OTENET (ISP Provider), TELLAS S.A. (Fixed Line Operator), ZELITRON (IoT Internet of Things), Ethnodata (IT service provider), CosmoONE (B2B e-Auction service provider). For several years he has served as a chairman the Greek IET (Institute of Electrical and Technical Engineers). He holds a BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, as well as an MSc in Digital Electronics from the University of Manchester.

Iakovos Giannaklis

Mr. I. Giannaklis was born in Athens in 1971. He started his career in 1988 at the Branch Network of the National Bank of Greece. In 1994 he joined Eurobank, initially as an Officer in the Branch network while later on he assumed various managerial positions within the Branch Network Division. He has been, Head of Customer Service and Development Division for the period 2004-2009. Since 2009 he has held the positions of Sector Head and Commercial Director for the Retail Branch Network while in 2014 he was appointed Head of the Branch Network General Division. In 2016 he assumed the position of General Manager Retail Banking. He is a member of the Executive Board, the Group Asset & Liability Committee (G-ALCO), the People Advisory Committee, the Regulatory Committee and the Loans & Products Committee of the Bank and member of the BoD, Eurobank FPS Loans and Credits Claim Management SA. He holds a BA in Business Administration from City University of Seattle and an MBA from the University of Indianapolis.

George Kostopoulos

George Kostopoulos, is specialized in the implementation of innovative solutions as member of the Customer Innovation department of Digital Business in Piraeus Bank. He is the project owner of e-branch, digital onboarding, branch redesign, digital zone, e-corner and new innovative services for disable customers. He holds 17 years of experience in developing strategic solutions and special projects focusing on Innovation & Research. Prior to Piraeus Bank, he worked at Bank of Cyprus initially in the Marketing Department and later in the Retail Banking as “Business Innovation Manager” and he has been the founder of the bank's "New Ideas Team".

Dimitris Kyparissis

Dimitris Kyparissis has over 25 years of experience in the banking sector. He started his career in Xiosbank in 1993, where he built the car financing department before assuming responsibility for all the retail credit. He participated in the founding team of the greenfield Novabank in 2000 setting up the credit departments of the bank. In 2002 he moved to Turkey were he launched Novabank’s greenfield subsidiary, BankEuropa. Upon his return in 2004 he assumed various positions in Millennium bank becoming a board member responsible for credit and operations. In 2010 he became General Manager of Hellenic Postbank responsible for the retail business of the bank. Between 2016 and 2018 he was the head of retail branch network of Eurobank. Since January 2019 he has been involved in the acquisition of Investment Bank of Greece where he is now Chief Executive Officer with a mandate to transform it to a commercial bank. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and an MBA in Financial Services Management from the University of Sheffield.

Pantelis Maraveas

In February 2019 Pantelis Maraveas was assigned the position of Assistant General Manager, Retail Segments, at National Bank of Greece Mr. Maraveas has significant working experience, with a 20-year track record in the banking sector, the majority of which has been in Retail Banking. Other positions held include: Retail Banking Director - National Bank of Greece in Serbia; Consumer, Mortgage and Business Lending Head (Vice President) - Citibank Greece; Head of Individual Banking, Director of Cards, Loans & Loyalty Programs, Director of CRM Ηοusehold Lending – Εurobank. Mr. Maraveas holds a BSc in Business Administration from Athens University of Economics & Business and an MSc in Management from London School of Economics. Furthermore, he has completed part of his studies in Goteborg University and has also completed the Executive Education Leadership Development Program from ALBA Graduate Business School.

George Marinos

George Marinos is the Head of Digital Transformation Division at National Bank of Greece responsible for areas like the new technology adoption, process simplification and optimization, customer journeys review, digital channels operation, etc. He is with the bank for the last 20 years working at the IT and technology field in various technical and managerial positions. Before NBG, he worked as a software developer and IT consultant for private companies, banks, and research labs in Greece. He has studied at School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens.

Agamemnon Papastergiou

Agamemnon Papastergiou joined Alpha Bank in February 2017 as a Senior Director. He is heading Digital Banking and Innovation, being responsible for the further development of the digital channels of the Bank, the digital transformation of key customer journeys, as well as the development of the Bank’s innovation ecosystem. He has more than 20 years of experience in Financial Services and particularly in the areas of large-scale project management and transformation programs. Prior to joining Alpha Bank, he worked for 10 years for National Bank of Greece, serving, amongst others, as Director of Group PMO and Operations. Before that, he was an Associate Principal at McKinsey, where he 7 years, having worked on numerous banking engagements, in Greece, Cyprus, Eastern Europe and Turkey. He holds a BEng in Computer Engineering and Informatics, from the University of Patras in Greece, and an MBA from Cass Business School, City University of London UK.

Anestis Petridis

Anestis is Eurobank’s Group CIO overseeing IT activities across the 6 countries that the group operates. He has 20 years’ experience in Financial Services & Consulting, working both on a strategic and operational level. He joined Eurobank in 2001 and has held various management positions in the areas of IT Applications, Strategy & Enterprise Architecture. He also served for two years as Head of Business Planning & Management office for the Group COO & International Activities, before been appointed as Group CIO. Prior to joining Eurobank, he was worked in IT consulting for Deloitte & Touche in Athens and Logica plc in London. He holds a degree in Applied Informatics from Athens University of Business and Economics and an MSc in Computer Science from Queen Mary and Westfield College.

Dimitris Plagiannis

Dimitris Plagiannis is Chief Digital & Retail Officer at Attica Bank, responsible for the Group Digital Transformation, Branch Network Management and a member of the Executive Board of Attica Bank. Possessing 35 years of experience in large- scale, high- complexity strategic transformation and IT projects at large Financial and Telecommunication Organizations, whereby he has held for over 16 years senior management positions at IT Organizations & Financial Institutions (Μellon Group of Companies, Ethnodata S.A., Intracom IT Services, Intrasoft S.A), member of BoD at DIAS S.A. and Attica Bank representative at “Visa Greece Client Council” since 2018. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Economics from University of Piraeus and MBA with major on Management Information Systems (MIS) from University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada.

Nektarios Psycharis (PhD)

Nektarios Psycharis (PhD) current role is IT&T Team Leader Business Analysis and Project Management at Athens International Airport. He has significant experience in Business Analysis, Project Management as well as Airport Data. He has also delivered consulting services to a number of European Airports including Schiphol / Amsterdam Airport.

Karim Sanjakdar

Karim Sanjakdar, IT and SWIFT expert, the Managing Director at Allied Engineering Group, a company that provides critical transaction services to 800 banks, central banks and financial institutions in more than 42 countries, Karim also spearheaded and developed Next-Gen software specialized in AI and ML for BFSI and conglomerates in the petroleum industry. He has a unique combination of IT and business skills to drive growth of new tech.

Takis Lefkaritis

Takis Lefkaritis, entrepreneur, Director at Petrolina Group, a Cyprus based conglomerate that owns over 100 petrol stations, specializing in the petroleum field and the peripheral businesses surrounding the main operation (Fuel land & marine transport, LPG distribution, Aviation fuel supply, alternative energy sources). Takis is also the founder and CEO of Dataware Group which offers big data intelligence and Cyber security solutions for key industries in Cyprus, Greece, the UK, Luxembourg, Lebanon and the Middle East.

Dr. Dimitris Vlitas

Dr. Vlitas is a leading expert in bringing advanced Machine Learning into practical applications for business. He graduated on full scholarship from the University of Toronto Math specialist programme and gained the Marie Curie fellowship that saw him to complete his PhD in Mathematics and Foundations of Computer Science at Paris Diderot University (Paris 7). Dr. Vlitas is widely published and has help research positions at Cornell University, University of Toronto and Fields Institute. The Fields Medal is often referred to as the “Nobel Prize” for Mathematics and the University of Toronto is credited with the the emergence of the Artificial Intelligence revolution that we are experiencing today. Recently Dr. Vlitas has been working in the banking sector helping organisations like the National Bank of Greece internalise Machine Learning in its structure and decision making. He is the head of AI in the Fintech company Strands creating products that use AI to engage clients with their bank. Dr. Vlitas he is also the principal AI in Data Practitioners ltd in London. This start-up brings together AI with behavioural sciences to help companies to create very efficient targeted campaigns.

Stefanos Kiposis

Stefanos Kiposis is currently working at LG Electronics Hellas as B2B Digital Signage Sales Supervisor. With diversified experience in Sales & Marketing, he has focused over the last years on retail digital signage solutions following digital transformation trends. Stefanos has lead and managed several innovative digital signage projects of different channels.