Kristy Duncan

A sought-after advisor, investor, and speaker, Kristy has dedicated her career to empowering the professional and personal development of women in the payments and fintech industry. She founded Women in Payments in 2012, a global organization that connects, educates, and champions women in the payments industry. Prior to that, Kristy was a leading global payments consultant. She advised C-suite leaders at global financial institutions, payments networks, fintechs, regulators, and more. Prior to that, she held leadership positions at a tier one Canadian bank in the areas of corporate treasury, transaction banking, finance, and operations. Today, Kristy works closely with fintech founders to help them build pivotal relationships, secure funding, and take their businesses to the next level.

Kristy Duncan

A sought-after advisor, investor, and speaker, Kristy has dedicated her career to empowering the professional and personal development of women in the payments and fintech industry. She founded Women in Payments in 2012, a global organization that connects, educates, and champions women in the payments industry. Prior to that, Kristy was a leading global payments consultant. She advised C-suite leaders at global financial institutions, payments networks, fintechs, regulators, and more. Prior to that, she held leadership positions at a tier one Canadian bank in the areas of corporate treasury, transaction banking, finance, and operations. Today, Kristy works closely with fintech founders to help them build pivotal relationships, secure funding, and take their businesses to the next level.

Shamsa Al-Falasi

Shamsa Al-Falasi was appointed as Citi Country Officer and Banking Head for the UAE in February 2025 and has led as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Citibank N.A., UAE since April 2023. Shamsa is a seasoned corporate banker with over 20 years of successful experience at Citi in many locations including UAE, Brazil, UK and Ireland. Prior to her current role, Shamsa also served as Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) for the UAE, overseeing all Citi entities operating both onshore & offshore in the country. Shamsa was also Head of Citi’s Global Subsidiaries Group (GSG) for GCC & Iraq from 2018 to 2023, managing the largest multinational corporates business cluster in MEA. She also managed the same department for the UAE and Iraq.

Anith Daniel

Anith is a Corporate and Institutional Banking professional with an exceptional 20-year track record of building Business Models by establishing strategy, creating teams, and developing creative client value propositions. In his current role, Anith is leading Emirates NBD’s digitisation programme with a focus on enhancing the Bank’s channel capabilities for Corporates. As the lead for all of C&IB’s digitisation initiatives, Anith oversees the design, integration and implementation of Transaction banking Products, channels and solutions, from the core IT function to business and product management. During his career, Anith has gained unparalleled cross functional experience in both Client coverage and Product management along with an in-depth knowledge of business in the MENA region. Prior to his role as Head of Transaction Banking Services at Emirates NBD, Anith served as Head of Client Coverage (C&IB) – Private Sector overseeing the bank's client portfolio across diversified industry groups including large private conglomerates in Dubai, commodity financing, Gold and Diamond Financing and MNCs. Anith is passionate about change management, turnarounds, and strategy. He has earned his Post Graduate degree in Business Management from XLRI Jamshedpur, India.

Meabh Maguire

Meabh Maguire brings over two decades of experience in the payments and digital banking sectors, spanning Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe. As the Global Commercial Head of CR2 and a key member of the CR2 Leadership team, Meabh is responsible for driving new customer acquisition and fostering strong customer relationships. Meabh’s experience spans various leadership roles across marketing and sales enabling her to navigate the complexities of diverse markets effectively.

Sorab Khan

Sorab is a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan and heads the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region for Financial Institutions Payments business. Covering 30+ countries, his team provides innovative payment solutions to Banks, Non-Bank Financial Institutions, Central Banks and Sovereign Wealth Funds. In addition to Financial Institutions business, Sorab is the Co-Head of J.P. Morgan Payments business in MEA where he is responsible to ensure provision of market leading payments solutions across client segments in MEA. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Sorab was the Head of Client Engagement for MEA within Deutsche Bank AG’s Transaction Banking business. He spent over 15 years in various leadership roles and was responsible for navigating the business through complex regulatory and governance environments. Sorab is a recognized industry leader and also member of the Europe, Middle East and Africa Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council. He is a sponsor of Women in Payments program for the MEA region, and passionate about mentoring and developing talent. Outside of professional pursuits, Sorab enjoys playing Golf and spending quality time with his family.

Ahmed Bozai

Ahmed was appointed as Head of Global Network Banking for Middle East & Pakistan in 2025. Prior to this, he was CEO for Citi Pakistan between 2021-2025 Ahmed has also had a prior stint in UAE when he was Chief Operating Officer for Middle East and Africa between 2011-2021. As a Citi veteran, Ahmed has also worked in Greece and UK across a number of areas including Corporate Banking, Treasury and Trade Solutions and Operations & Technology. Ahmed holds an MBA and an MA in International Relations and Diplomacy. Ahmed is based in UAE and his interests are listening to music and collecting art

Finali Fernando

Finali Fernando is a HSBC life banker and is on her 30th year with HSBC with over 23 years’ experience specialising in payments in the UAE and MENA region. Having joined the bank straight after college, she started her career at HSBC Sri Lanka and moved to UAE in 2002 and has been based there ever since. Finali’s Global Payments Solutions (GPS) experience spans across several teams including leading the Regional Teams in Operations, Client Services, Client Implementation and currently managing multiple responsibilities of leading Product, Risk, Business Management and the MENAT GPS People agenda. Finali is the Co-chair of the UAE Bankers Federation Transaction Banking Committee and actively participates in the Women in Payments and Treasury Middle East initiatives. She is also a Charter member of the HSBC Toastmasters Club and has founded and mentoring the first ever HSBC Gavel club for HSBC staff’s children. Finali has an MBA from University of Leicester and is CTP (Certificate of Treasury Professionals) and AIB (Associated Institute of Bankers) qualified. Finali is a certified Springboard Women’s Development Programme. Her interests include cooking, baking, teaching kids and travelling to different parts of the world.

Sandrine Chaker-Bechet

Sandrine transi+oned from a high-level finance career managing hundreds of millions in banking to founding Blissful Beginnings in 2023 in Dubai. Her own experience with postpartum anxiety and feeling unprepared inspired a transforma+ve vision: a safe, healing environment that equally supports mothers and babies. Under her leadership, Blissful Beginnings offers bespoke, evidence-based postpartum retreats at Mandarin Oriental Jumeira and Park HyaL Dubai Creek, combining holis+c therapies, emo+onal counselling, lacta+on support, nutri+on, rest, and baby-bonding care. Services are delivered by a mul+lingual team of cer+fied experts from top global wellness and healthcare fields.

Malbora Shehu

Malbora Shehu is the Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships at Global Payments, where she oversees global enterprise relationships and drives international growth. She is focused on building dynamic partnerships and developing scalable solutions that make payments faster, safer, and simpler.

Sofia Zubiria

Sofia Zubiria is a Senior Strategy Consultant specializing in payments and financial services and infrastructure. She brings over five years of experience spanning product development, market strategy, and advisory across global and regional markets. Sofia began her career at Mastercard Mexico, where she worked within the Products team across prepaid, debit, and credit portfolios. She later joined Mastercard Advisors, supporting clients across Central America, the Caribbean, the United States, Mexico, and Spain on growth strategy, product design, market expansion and fraud management systems. After completing her MBA at London Business School in 2024, Sofia relocated to Dubai to join Edgar, Dunn & Company, where she advises clients across the financial services and payments sectors on strategy, innovation, and market development initiatives across the Gulf region.

Urla Le Henriques

Urla-Lé Henriques is Chief Information Officer for Southern Africa at Network International, the largest and fastest growing fintech company in the Middle East and Africa, responsible for managing robust Delivery capability to execute the company’s strategic roadmap, ensuring alignment with key objectives and driving operational excellence. Urla-Lé has over 20 years of experience and expertise in people leadership, digital transformation and enterprise program management across leading financial institutions and consulting firms in South Africa, the Middle East and beyond. She has a proven track record of leading geographically distributed teams to deliver complex, multi-million-dollar programs, fostering strong relationships with executive stakeholders, and implementing governance frameworks that enhance delivery assurance, risk mitigation, and stakeholder engagement.

Prakriti Singh

Prakriti Singh is the Executive Vice President for Core Payments at Mastercard for Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) region.  Prakriti has been in the payments industry for 10+ years. She headed Mastercard Labs including Labs for Financial inclusion where she launched & scaled Mastercard Credit Program for Small businesses, Farmers Network for agri-businesses and IoT payment solutions which collectively reached more than a million users. She also headed Mastercard’s partnership with EXPO 2020, and launched the company’s priceless planet coalition in the region. Prakriti was also part of the consulting and services sales team as well as with Mastercard Advisors. She started her career as a software engineer with Tata Consultancy Services and prior to joining Mastercard, Prakriti worked with Oliver Wyman, a global top tier strategy consulting firm. She was part of their Retail and Business Banking Practice as an advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and PlaNet Finance. Prakriti graduated from the Indian School of Business and holds an MBA in finance & strategy. 

Kristy Duncan

A sought-after advisor, investor, and speaker, Kristy has dedicated her career to empowering the professional and personal development of women in the payments and fintech industry. She founded Women in Payments in 2012, a global organization that connects, educates, and champions women in the payments industry. Prior to that, Kristy was a leading global payments consultant. She advised C-suite leaders at global financial institutions, payments networks, fintechs, regulators, and more. Prior to that, she held leadership positions at a tier one Canadian bank in the areas of corporate treasury, transaction banking, finance, and operations. Today, Kristy works closely with fintech founders to help them build pivotal relationships, secure funding, and take their businesses to the next level.

Julia Streets

Julia Streets is a champion of fintech and entrepreneurship, innovation, diversity and inclusion.   In 2007, she founded Streets Consulting, the business development, marketing and communications consultancy. She and her team advise a wide range of international firms in the field of fintech, capital markets, investment management and payments innovation, as well as specialist offerings including NFTs, digital assets, tokenisation, blockchain, artificial intelligence and more.  Prior to becoming a founder & CEO, Julia was global head of communications at NYSE Technologies, serving on the Executive Committee and European head of marketing and sales development at Instinet Europe.  She was head of eCommerce for a City PR agency throughout the dotcom boom and over the past 30+ years she has advised hundreds of startups, scaleups and global banks and financial institutions.   A certified transformational leadership coach, she works with senior executives to help them build and lead high performing teams, develop proud and solid growth-minded cultures and outperform as enlightened leaders. Julia is the host of ‘DiverCity Podcast’ talking about diversity, equity and inclusion in financial services.  Now in its 15th series, DiverCity Podcast has listeners in >50 countries and is ranked one of the world’s top DE&I podcasts.  She is also the host of CityAM’s ESG show "Impact AM Live", Shell’s Energy Podcast and host of ‘Metaverse: What matters?”, recorded in the metaverse, available on You Tube to educate the world about the opportunities and risks as we navigate this multi-trillion dollar industry. She is an advisor, mentor and investor and is called upon to chair many of the world’s leading conferences drawing not only on her industry experience, but also on her skills as a speaker, host and sell-out stand up comedian. Julia had received many awards and accolades including being listed as one of Brummell Magazine’s 30 Women on Boards, 39 Female Entrepreneurs, and 30 Women of Influence.  She is one of the Global Diversity List’s 20 global champions and is regularly called out as a trailblazer and changemaker.  Julia is a founding member of the Power Women Network, a fellow of the British American Project and proud to serve as a board trustee of Street Child, a global education charity that believes that all children should be safe, in school and learning.

Kelly Lundberg

Kelly Lundberg is a bestselling author and multi-award-winning entrepreneur. The former celebrity stylist currently hosts of her own, popular top-rated podcast delivering on her mission to inspire at least 5 people a day to take action. A TEDx speaker, Personal Brand Strategist and Business Mentor, Kelly originally from Scotland is now based in Dubai. She works globally with CEOs, entrepreneurs and some of the biggest retail and luxury brands worldwide, helping them to elevate their personal brand to maximise income and impact. A keynote speaker, Kelly hosts events and delivers motivational sessions across the world on entrepreneurship and personal branding. A self-appointed member of the ‘5AM Club’, you’ll often find Kelly working out before the sunrises. She has a loyal social media following, sharing her style, sundowners and authentic business and branding tips.

Kalika Tripathi

Kalika Tripathi is Principal, HRBP at Amazon and leads various culture and capabilities programs for the emerging markets team. Prior to this role she was Head of Marketing at Amazon Payment Services for the Middle East & North Africa (MENA). In this business critical role, Kalika led the team during an ambitious period of expansion for APS in the MENA region by driving brand preference, establishing a content strategy, and taking new payment product launches to scale. Kalika has over 20 years of experience spanning 3 different industries from market research to banking and in the past 9 years she has focused on payments. Prior to Amazon, Kalika was head of marketing for the MENA region at Visa ME and has held marketing strategy and research leadership roles at HSBC, Nielsen and Lowe as well. Her experience is deeply rooted in data-driven marketing and has proven ability in impacting brands and businesses based on customer insights. Fittingly, Kalika has her masters in sociology which is the parent science of customer insight methodologies. In her free time, she enjoys travelling, learning languages and playing the piano.

Louise Wylie

Louise Wylie is Senior Vice President at BNY, based in Dubai, where she leads the firm’s Markets business across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). She is responsible for driving regional strategy, deepening client engagement, and expanding BNY’s footprint across trading, financing, collateral, and liquidity solutions. Louise joined BNY’s Securities Finance business in 2016, initially focused on unlocking new sources of liquidity for clients. In 2018, she transitioned to the Cross Asset Sales team, broadening her remit to include trading, financing, collateral, and liquidity sales. She has played a pivotal role in supporting clients with Non-Cleared Margin Regime compliance, liquidity optimization, and bespoke financing structures. Louise holds a First-Class Honours degree in Business Administration from the University of Bath.

Noor Adhami

Noor Adhami is the Head of Global Network Banking (GNB) at HSBC, a role she was appointed to in February 2025. As a global banking leader, HSBC delivers seamless, best-in-class experience across its international network. The Global Networking Banking team draws on HSBC’s diverse global capabilities to deliver tailored solutions and expert advice to support the international growth ambitions of clients, while ensuring effective management both financial and non-financial risks across a network of more than 45 markets that GNB operates in. With more than 25 years of diverse banking experience, Noor has a proven track record in driving strategic initiatives, business growth and operational excellence in both local and international banking environments. She has spent 20 years at HSBC, holding various leadership roles including, most recently, Global Head of International Subsidiary Banking. She was previously also Head of Securities Services for ASEAN, Regional Head of Global Payments Solutions for the Middle East & Türkiye and Head of Commercial Banking for Jordan. Prior to joining HSBC, Noor worked with the Arab Banking Corporation and the Capital Bank of Jordan. Based in the UAE, Noor holds an MBA from the University of Jordan and is a trained accountant.

Nishu Mittal

With over 14+ years of experience in Banking & Financial Services and IT Services industry, at UAE, South Africa, and India, she is currently working as Head of Technology Regulation and Business Management, within Emirates NBD Group, Technology. Her areas of expertise include Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) practices, supplier assurance, audit management, maturity improvements, security culture, data protection strategies and policies/standards governance. She is instrumental in managing regulatory and business demands, including technology, cyber, outsourcing, resiliency, and privacy regulations. As the Head of TRBM and the only Woman Security Leader within the Emirates NBD Group, her journey is distinguished by key milestones and industry accolades that reflect her strong commitment to cybersecurity regulatory compliance and her drive to promote a culture of innovation and excellence.

Rauda Al Dhaheri

Rauda Al Dhaheri is the Head of Research & Development at ADGM Academy & Research Centre, where she drives initiatives at the intersection of academia, emerging technologies, innovation, and the financial sector. Her work focuses on advancing AI, FinTech, digital transformation, data analytics, and cybersecurity, while strengthening industry-academia collaboration. She also led the Academy’s National Development Programs, championing Emiratisation through strategic upskilling and national employability initiatives. A master’s graduate from Abu Dhabi University, Rauda is committed to empowering local talent and shaping the UAE’s role as a global leader in innovation and knowledge-driven growth.

Tejal Kaur

Tejal is a subject matter expert for Fraud and Identity. She is committed to supporting banks worldwide to stay ahead of evolving fraud tactics using the end-to-end capabilities offered by Feedzai.  Before joining Feedzai, Tejal served as the Global Senior Manager for Fraud and Analytics Optimisation at HSBC. Prior to that, she was in various fraud analytics roles at Barclays. In these roles, Tejal was involved in huge fraud transformation work in addition to leading the day to day fraud capability on a global scale. She has years of experience identifying, investigating and mitigating fraud across multiple markets.