Speakers

Keynote Speaker


Wilfred Yiu
Managing Director and Head of Markets
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd

Wilfred is Managing Director and Head of Markets for Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited. Previously, he was Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer for Beijing Gao Hua Securities Company Limited, and Chairman of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Qian Kun Futures Co., Ltd. Prior to that, he was Head of Credit Structured Products for Asia at Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C.

Wilfred served as a governor for the Board of Dalian Commodity Exchange in China from 2015 to 2017, and is currently an advisor for the Strategic Advisory Committee of Dalian Commodity Exchange. He is an adjunct professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Wilfred earned a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford University and an MBA in Finance from the Stern School of Business at New York University.


Speakers


Speakers are listed in alphabetical order of their last name.

Avaneesh Acquilla
Chief Investment Officer, Digital Assets
VSFG

Avaneesh has 19 years experience in capital markets and asset management. He was most recently responsible for managing the investment team at Kenetic Capital, a blockchain investment firm with portfolios including early-stage and publicly traded digital assets. Prior to joining Kenetic, he was an Equity Analyst at Och-Ziff Capital Management Asia, a position which he held for nine years. Prior to Och-Ziff he was an Equity Research analyst at Goldman Sachs and UBS in London.

Mark Adams
Senior Executive Leader, Strategic Intelligence and Co-Ordinator, Innovation Hub
ASIC

Mark leads the team responsible for driving ASIC’s economic and risk analysis unit, as well as leading ASIC's Innovation Hub and regtech initiatives. Mark has held a range of senior executive positions at ASIC including lead of ASIC's competition in equity markets project and the Exchange Market Operators, Regulatory Policy and International teams.

Between 2012 to 2014, Mark held secondments as Principal Adviser, Financial System Inquiry Secretariat and Director, Strategy, Research and Risk, Ontario Securities Commission. Prior to joining ASIC, Mark worked in the corporate and superannuation areas of a national law firm.

Murat Atamer
Non-Japan Asia Head of Execution Services
Morgan Stanley

Murat Atamer joined Morgan Stanley in 2019 and runs the Morgan Stanley Execution Services Group for Non-Japan Asia. Prior to his role at Morgan Stanley, Murat was running Execution services at Bank of America for APAC during which he held numerous board memberships. He started his career as a Quant Strategist and as Head of Electronic Trading Product for Credit Suisse in APAC. Prior to his career in the industry, Murat was a PhD student in Finance, focusing on market microstructure and asset pricing at UNC Chapel Hill; he currently holds an MBA from University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business.

Tristan Baldwin
Head of APAC Equities
Liquidnet

Tristan leads Liquidnet’s business across 13 Asia Pacific markets in his role as Head of APAC Equities. During his seven years at Liquidnet he has held several roles including Head of APAC Sales, managing teams in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. Originally from Sydney, he also spent four years in Liquidnet’s Sydney office as the Head of Australia. Tristan has over 20 years’ experience in equity markets and has held a variety of roles at Instinet, UBS and Deutsche.

Damian Bierman
Co-Chair, Asia Pacific Education and Marketing Subcommittee, FIX Trading Community, and
Head of Trading Solutions APAC, FactSet Research Systems

Damian Bierman is Head of Trading Solutions in Asia-Pacific for FactSet. He is responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations and managing buyside & sellside relationships across the region. Damian joined FactSet through its acquisition of Portware in 2015. Damian joined Portware in 2007, opening the firm's office in Hong Kong and establishing its presence in the region.

Damian is an active member of the FIX Trading Community, currently serving as Co-Chair of the Asia Pacific Education and Marketing Subcommittee. He has been a mainstay of the organization's Asia-Pacific presence for the past 16 years, playing an active role in promoting the adoption of FIX across the region.

Prior to Portware, Damian ran FIX Services in APAC for NYFIX, setting up its Hong Kong office in 2004. Damian joined Javelin Technologies in New York in 2000, implementing its Appia FIX engine technology at numerous buy- and sell-side institutions globally.

Previously, Damian held a research position at Carnegie Mellon Research Institute in Pittsburgh, PA, working on the DOT-funded Driver Drowsiness Detection & Countermeasures study, as well as a study of expert landmine detection skill for the US Army.

Damian received his B.S. in Cognitive Science from Carnegie Mellon University in May 1997.

Winter Chan
Co-Chair, Asia Pacific Technical Subcommittee, FIX Trading Community, and
Trading Tech APAC Lead, J.P. Morgan Asset Management

Winter is currently the Head of Trading Technology APAC and has been working in JP Morgan Asset management since 2006 in a variety roles across the equities technology organization. In his current role he faces off to the head of Asia trading and other senior equities stakeholders driving both regional and global technology initiatives within the trading space.

Most recently Winter has been leading efforts on delivery of technology solutions in support of the transformation of the regional trading function and designing a solution to support on-shore Trading in China.

Winter participates in industry forums and events actively that contributes to the IOIs standardization. He is also a Co-Chair of the FIX technical subcommittee in Asia. In such capacity, he is currently working on an update to the guide to cover the Master SPSA initiative.

Winter holds a BSc in Computer Science and Information Systems and a MPhil in Computer Information Systems from the University of Hong Kong.

Jame DiBiasio
Founder & Editor
DigFin Group

Jame DiBiasio is founder and editor of DigFin, a media brand and content agency dedicated to digital finance, fintech, and digital assets (www.digfingroup.com). An author, financial reporter, editor and media director, he has been based in Hong Kong since 1997.

Ofir Gefen
Head of Sales and Revenue, EMEA and APAC
Itiviti

Ofir Gefen is the Head of Sales and Revenue, EMEA and APAC at Itiviti. In this role he oversees Itiviti operations across the Asia Pacific geography and responsible for all commercial, operational & marketing activities in the region. Ofir joined Itiviti as head of the region in 2017, prior to that he filled various management positions at ITG, finally serving as the Co-Head of Execution responsible for electronic & algorithmic trading in the last 3 years. Ofir has over 20 years’ experience in technology for capital markets across multiple geographies including Europe and the US. He holds a B.Sc. in Information Systems Engineering and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Travis Griffith
Head Trader Equity - Asia Pacific
Fidelity International

Travis Griffith heads the Equity Trading Team for Fidelity International in Hong Kong. He has 14 years of trading experience with the firm, having traded all listed equity markets within the region at various points over his tenure. Travis began his career in Asia twenty years ago dealing FX derivative products after having graduated from Georgetown University with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.

Janice Kan
Managing Director, Head of Markets, Equities
SGX

Ms. Janice Kan is Managing Director and Head of Markets, Equities at SGX. She oversees SGX’s securities trading and post-trade services, as well as cash and derivative equities products. Prior to assuming this role in July 2019, she was responsible for SGX’s derivatives business in futures, swaps and options contracts across asset classes in equities, fixed income, currencies and commodities. She also oversaw market development and strategy for the Greater China region.

Janice began her career with the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX) in 1992. SIMEX subsequently merged with the then-Stock Exchange of Singapore in 1999 to form Singapore Exchange (SGX). Prior to her current appointment, she held portfolios in market surveillance and audit in SIMEX, and risk management, product development, product management as well as strategy planning in the Exchange. In her career, Janice has pioneered the development of SGX’s ETF platform, China access products, currency futures and RMB clearing capabilities.

Janice holds a Master of Applied Finance from Macquarie University, Australia. She is also a Certified Financial Risk Manager by Global Association of Risk Professionals.

Winnie Khattar
Head of Market Structure, Equities
Bank of America Securities

Winnie joined BofA Securities in 2017 and has since launched their Market Structure Product, elevating the BofA Securities Execution Consulting offering for Asia Pacific Equities.

Execution Consulting provides advisory services to clients throughout the trade life-cycle; providing solutions to minimize the execution footprint by combining quantitative analytics, market microstructure, BofA Securities flow trends and impact of new and existing regulatory market structure developments. Winnie is an industry-leading subject matter expert on various aspects of market microstructure, and regulatory and structural developments of Asia markets. Winnie also publishes thematic consulting pieces focused on providing clients with effective data and insight for their execution strategies in the current active trading environment.

Winnie has extensive experience working in equity markets in three locations (India, UK and Hong Kong) over a span of 12 years.

Winnie is a Physics graduate with a passion for the ocean and outdoors.

Thomas Kwan
Chief Investment Officer
Harvest Global Investments

Thomas leads the investment management and research platform in Harvest Global Investment (HGI), including Fixed Income, Greater China Equity, Asian Equity, Global Real Estates, ETFs and asset allocation. He is also responsible for the group’s strategic initiative on responsible investing at Harvest Fund Management (HFM) and leads an ESG research team for ESG integration and proprietary ESG analysis on both China A and overseas markets for the group.

Thomas joined HGI in 2012. He has over 20 years’ investment management experience. Prior to HGI, he worked at Baring Asset Management in Hong Kong as Head of Asian Debt, Credit Suisse Asset Management in Singapore and Beijing as Director of Asian Fixed Income and Currency, Prudential Asset Management in Singapore as Investment Director and First State Investments in Hong Kong as Portfolio Manager.

Thomas has an M.A. in Economics and B.Comm in Finance from the University of Toronto and is a CFA charter holder.

Kok Chong Lam
Head of FX and Rates
SGX

Mr. KC Lam joined SGX in October 2013. He has overall responsibility for the FX and Interest rates derivatives business in SGX. He is responsible for rolling out new innovative FX and Rates products, driving product adoption globally, diversifying SGX’s customer base and promoting OTC FX Clearing solutions.

Mr. Lam joined SGX from CME Group, where he was Executive Director heading the FX / OTC Business Line Management in Asia. Prior to CME Group, Mr. Lam was Head of Sales for EBS Asia (ICAP E-Broking, now known as NEX group), where he led the firm’s new and existing product sales efforts throughout the Asia Pacific.

Mr. Lam also previously held regional leadership positions with Siebel Systems and Commerce One, as well as consulting roles with Oracle Corporation and Booz-Allen & Hamilton.

Mr. Lam holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the National University of Singapore and an MBA degree.

Ian Lauder
Senior Vice President, Global Client Development, Markets Division
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd

Ian Lauder joined HKEX in April 2020 following 9 years at London Stock Exchange Group where he was involved in both secondary markets development for LSE and more latterly as Head of Europe then Head of Asian Business Development for Turquoise.

Christopher Lee
Co-Chair, Asia Pacific Education and Marketing Subcommittee, FIX Trading Community, and
Managing Director, Markets Division, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd

As part of the Markets Division, Chris has responsibilities for growing tighter strategic relationships with industry partners, market makers, liquidity providers, technology vendors and associations across all asset classes, and across the life cycle of a trade; from execution to settlement. From 2000 to 2014, Chris built and ran the Global Execution Services business for ABN AMRO Clearing NV as Global Head; providing infrastructure and trading services across equities, derivatives, commodities and FX. Chris has previous sales trading roles with Barclays Capital and NatWest Markets in London, and has also been Managing Director for a large independent electronic trading software vendor in the UK.

Chris was a founding trustee of a charitable London foundation; Futures For Kids, aimed at helping less fortunate kids around the world.

Irene Lee
Co-Chair, Regtech Committee, Fintech Association of Hong Kong, and
Director, Compliance & Operational Risk Control, UBS AG

Irene is the Compliance Director in UBS AG who brings a wealth of expertise and leads in various areas such as regulatory technology (Regtech), wealth management product compliance, regulatory change governance. She is a talented and seasoned executive with over 10 years of extensive compliance experiences in financial sectors including private bank, commercial bank and insurance company. Ms. Lee has spearheaded compliance efforts in the bank's digitalization and Regtech initiatives. Ms. Lee's primary interests lie in the application of Regtech solutions in the Greater Bay Area to aid compliance monitoring and data analytics.

Matthew Lempriere
Co-Chair, Emerging Technology and Innovation Working Group, FIX Trading Community, and
Head of Asia Pacific & Middle East, BSO

Matthew Lempriere is the Head of BSO Asia Pacific & Middle East, the award-winning Global network, cloud and hosting provider for financial institutions and high-frequency trading firms that require superior infrastructure and connectivity to the world’s most dynamic marketplaces.

Prior to joining BSO, Lempriere was Global Head of the Financial Services vertical at Telstra and the Head of BT Radianz Asia Pacific.

James S Levy
Head of Dealing
HSBC Global Asset Management

Based in Hong Kong, James is responsible for the management and oversight of the Asian trading function working closely with the portfolio managers and traders to maximise the effectiveness of trade implementation across all asset classes. His previous roles include Designated Trading Representative with ABN AMRO Securities and as a Senior Sales Trader at ITG in Sydney, Australia. Prior to that, James was Head of Dealing, Asia-Pacific at AMP Capital Investors. He holds a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from La Trobe University (Australia) and has attended Columbia University (USA), Columbia Business School (Executive Education, Value Investing).

Joanne Li
Director, Intermediaries Supervision, Intermediaries
Securities and Futures Commission

Joanne Li is the Director of Intermediaries Supervision of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). With close to three decades of working experience in the financial market, Joanne currently oversees the Global Institutional Group within the Intermediaries Supervision Division supervising the major financial institutions including the largest and most systematically important global investment banks, securities and futures dealers, and asset managers licensed in Hong Kong.

Prior to joining the SFC, Joanne had spent years working as a market participant as well as a seasoned regulator in both the US and Asia markets. Her prior working experiences include Executive Director of Goldman Sachs managing the Asia Regulatory Operations; Director of Member Supervision Office of Regulatory Oversight and Financial Operations (ROOR) at FINRA; Bank of New York Mellon as Senior Vice President responsible for the Global Compliance Group; and New York Stock Exchange Regulation as Principal Examiner leading the large broker-dealers examination team.

Joanne is an alumni of the Harvard Business School (AMP 197).

Sabina Liu
Head of APAC Business Development, Cash Secondary Markets, and UK Account Coverage
London Stock Exchange Group

Sabina heads up APAC business development, leading on strategy and sales to grow membership in Asia and to connect trading participants to the UK and European markets. Sabina is one of the key members of the Shanghai-London Stock Connect project.

Sabina also leads on relationship management of a number of global investment bank accounts for cash secondary markets of London Stock Exchange and Turquoise, a Pan European multi-lateral trading facility with 4,500 securities from 19 European countries.

With the project team, Sabina received the London Stock Exchange Group 2019 CEO Award for her work in Shanghai-London Stock Connect. She was nominated by the Group for the Asian Women of Achievement Awards 2015, and is currently Co-Chair of the Group’s Women Inspired Network (WIN) in the UK.

Prior to joining the London Stock Exchange Group in 2010, Sabina was a Project Manager for the University of Oxford managing and delivering two key projects - Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women and Oxford China Business Forum.

Sabina started her career as a news anchor and foreign correspondent for Phoenix TV in London. She covered UK and European news for Chinese audience globally.

Sabina holds an MBA from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and a Master's degree in Journalism from the University of Westminster. Between 2008 and 2015, she ran the Oxford Business Alumni London Chapter with 2,000 members.

Stephane Loiseau
Managing Director, Head of Prime Sales & Execution - Asia Pacific, Equities, Derivatives & Prime Services
Societe Generale - Global Markets

Stephane is a Managing Director within Societe Generale’s Global Markets division, and sits within the Equities, Derivatives & Prime Services APAC group, with a dual regional mandate of Head of Prime Sales, covering the prime services platform, and of Head of Global Execution Services, which comprises cross asset execution on Equities, Listed Derivatives & Commodity Derivatives across all execution channels, from “high touch” Sales & Trading to Electronic Solutions.

With over 20 years of experience in Institutional trading spanning the US, Europe and Asia, Stephane is responsible for all the Agency Sales & Trading activities for Societe Generale in the region covering Equities and Listed Derivatives, bringing together advisory and trading expertise across multiple asset classes. His areas of interest extend to market micro-structure & regulation, digital solutions, and research & advisory services.

Edward Mangles
Regional Director, Asia Pacific
FIX Trading Community

Edward Mangles has helped support The FIX Trading Community’s Asia Pacific committee for the past 19 years, playing a key role in promoting institutional trading standards and FIX adoption across the region, and facilitating cross-industry collaboration. In March 2009, Edward was appointed Asia Pacific Regional Director for the FIX Trading Community, and works closely with the buyside, sellside, regulator, exchange and technology provider members of the institutional trading community to support efficient trading.

Raj Mathur
Co-Head, Advanced Execution Services (AES), APAC
Credit Suisse

Raj Mathur is Co-Head of Credit Suisse’s Advanced Execution Services (AES) in APAC.

Raj has 20 years of experience in Electronic Trading. Based in Hong Kong for the last 12 years, Raj is responsible for managing sales, client coverage, and product development for the electronic trading platform across Asia Pacific.

Patrick Mohr
Executive Director, Head of Execution Consulting
Instinet

Mr. Mohr spent the first two decades of his career in Tokyo working as a quantitative analyst and equity market strategist for Merrill Lynch Japan, Mizuho and Citigroup Japan. In 2011 he moved to Hong Kong and shifted his research focus to trading. At Instinet, Mr. Mohr has spearheaded big data and machine learning efforts to transform Instinet’s TCA offering from a “trade reporting” function to a “strategic consulting” process. Mr. Mohr’s primary interests lie in the application of data science principles to help clients discern signal from noise in their trading decisions. He regularly publishes reports concerning APAC microstructure topics and trading conditions in global markets. In addition to Execution Consulting role, Mohr also heads the index research team for Instinet in APAC.

Jessica Morrison
Co-Chair, Asia Pacific Exchanges and Regulatory Subcommittee, FIX Trading Community, and
CEO and Head of Execution Services APAC, Virtu Financial

In June 2020, Jessica joined global financial technology firm, Virtu Financial APAC, currently under transition following the 2019 acquisition of ITG. Virtu uses advanced technology and transparency to deliver liquidity to the global capital markets and help clients pursue best execution in a scalable, efficient and data-driven manner.

Jessica offers an extensive background in APAC market structure, having moved to Hong Kong in 2011. She is an active participant in several industry initiatives around the development of the A Share Market Structure in China through Hong Kong Stock Connect, IOI and FIX protocols, and Electronic Trading guidelines. While running Virtu’s APAC Execution Services team on a day-to-day basis, Jessica continues to track developments and publish market structure content with regards to both macro market structure such as regulation, technology and explicit costs, and their impact on the micro structure liquidity indicators such as volume, volatility and implicit costs in the region.

Prior to Virtu, Jessica held the position of Head of Execution Services Sales for Asia at the Institutional Equities Division of Morgan Stanley from 2017-2020, having originally worked in their London Compliance team from 2006-2009. Between those dates, Jessica worked for Deutsche Bank initially in an Equities Compliance role before transitioning to and establishing the APAC Market Structure and Commission Management team in Hong Kong in 2011.

Jessica holds a MA in Law from the University of Cambridge.

Avril Rae
Fintech Advisor

Fintech advisor with over 20 years IT experience covering, Design, Implementation, Service, Business Development, Strategy, Building teams, Partnerships and Ecosystems. She enjoys learning and sharing insights on emerging technology, digitalisation and key trends changing the way we do business and interact globally. From Digital identity and the use of blockchain to APIs, Data and Open Banking.

Starting her career as a Hardware Engineer, she has navigated client facing roles from Service Management, Solution Sales to Strategy and Consultancy, supporting the Financial Services Industry. A founding member of the Fintech Association in Hong Kong, Avril currently represents the British Chamber of Commerce as Vice chair for the Innovation and Technology Committee.

Brad Scheepers
Associate Director - Data & Analytics
KPMG China

Brad is a Data & Analytics architect and delivery lead in KPMG’s Hong Kong IT Advisory practice. He has 18 years experience in financial services in both industry and consulting, concentrating on designing and implementing data-centric solutions in Asia, London and across southern Africa. His experience also includes strategy and program delivery, working with various business units and clients at all levels of the enterprise across investment and retail banking, wealth and asset management and insurance.

Brad holds a cum laude honours degree in Computer Science and Information Systems as well as various technology and Enterprise Architecture certifications.

Manu Sharma
Trading Solutions Head of APAC Sales
FactSet Research Systems

Manu Sharma is the Trading Solutions Head of APAC Sales at FactSet. He is responsible for growing the Electronic Trading franchise for FactSet throughout the region. Manu comes to the role with 12 years industry experience promoting best practices of multi-asset electronic trading for Bloomberg. During his tenure, Manu successfully advanced the electronification of complex trading workflows across numerous markets in the region, capturing market share for their multi-asset class trading solutions. Outside work, he has a keen interest in machine learning and its applications to mainstream finance. Manu holds a Master of Science degree in Global Finance from New York University.

Daniel Shek
Co-Chair, Asia Pacific Technical Subcommittee, FIX Trading Community, and
Director, Feeds Business Development, ICE Data Services

Daniel has over 20 years working in the financial services industry. He is passionate about applying technologies to ease the operation of the financial markets. He has worked in different areas in the financial industry, from equity trading to general banking. He is also a Co-Chair of the FIX Asia Pacific Technical Subcommittee in Asia. In such capacity, he has made contribution to the China Connect Best Practise guide and is currently working on an update to the guide to cover the Master SPSA initiative. Outside of FIX, he has helped develop products and create business strategies in the Asia for companies like FlexTrade, Bloomberg and Fidessa.

Francis So
Co-Chair, Asia Pacific Steering Committee, FIX Trading Community, and
Head of Trading Asia Pacific, BNP Paribas Asset Management

Francis So is the Head of Trading Asia Pacific for BNP Paribas Asset Management which is the multi asset centralized dealing desk. He is responsible for the overall dealing process covering the Pan Asian markets across several asset classes (equity, CBs, fixed income and listed derivatives). He has more than 20 years’ experience in trading and his previous job experience included working for Fidelity International (HK) as a senior trader and Head of Dealing with Baring Asset Management (HK).

Wayne Trench
Chief Executive Officer
OSL

Wayne oversees all of OSL’s activities, including trading and brokerage operations, product development and governance.

He has more than 15 years of experience in digital assets, investment banking, trading and finance.

Prior to joining OSL, Wayne held senior roles in major financial institutions, including as CEO of Octagon Strategy and Asia head of electronic trading coverage for Morgan Stanley.

Wayne is also an entrepreneur, co-founding Aspir, a diversified mineral processing technology and equipment supplier in Australia, which was acquired by the Weir Group in 2013.

He holds an MBA from the University of Southern Queensland, a Bachelor’s in Business Management from the University of Queensland and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Evan Walters
Vice President - Equity Trading
BlackRock

Evan Walters is a member of the Hong Kong Equity Trading Team within BlackRock's Trading, Liquidity and Lending Group. He is primarily responsible for managing the execution of equity and equity derivatives for Institutional Index, iShares strategies, and Australian-listed orders for the Fundamental Active Equities team. Mr. Walters' service with the firm began in 2015. Prior to his appointment, he worked on the sell-side for 10 years in Program Trading, Single Stock Sales Trading & Dealing, and also advised clients on Futures & Commodities Markets.

Benny Yip
Co-Chair, Asia Pacific Exchanges and Regulatory Subcommittee, FIX Trading Community, and
Vice President, Global Client Development, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd

Benny serves on the Institutional Relationship Management team in the Global Client Development department at HKEX. His main responsibility is to be the Relationship Manager between HKEX and its top Exchanges Participants, i.e., bulge bracket and tier-1 global banks and brokers (Sellside).

Benny joined HKEX in September 2015. Prior to HKEX, Benny held a similar role at CME Group in Hong Kong for 2 years. He has over 23 years of industry experience, with a majority of them being a cash equity trader across the U.S., European, and Asia markets. His trading experience includes buyside trading, sellside trading, sales trading, proprietary trading, program/algo trading, and the head of 5 different sales trading and trading desks.

Benny holds a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from New York University Stern School of Business. He grew up in New York and relocated to Hong Kong in October 2010.


More speakers to be announced soon.