Asian Banking & Finance Summit 2022

Tushar Agarwal is a Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and core member of the Financial Institutions practice. He is a Leader for the TURN practice within Banking. BCG TURN helps turn companies’ upside potential into radical performance gains. Tushar has advised clients on a broad range of topics, including digital builds, front-to-back digitization, capital markets products as part of large-scale transformations within Financial Institutions.

Gino has been the Chief Marketing Officer of the Company since November 1, 2020, and was Head of Regional Market Management of Allianz Asia Pacific from 2018 to 2020. His previous posts are: Vice President for Sales and Marketing, Allianz Global Assistance; Vice President for Sales and Marketing and Director, Marketing and Communications, Co-operators Group; Director, Affiliated Distribution Network Marketing, ING Canada.  

Gino has a Master’s in Business Administration degree from Richard Ivey School of Business and participated in various Management Learning and Development courses from the Allianz Group, the Co-operators, and ING. He also received a Direct Marketing Diploma from the Institute of Direct Marketing UK, a Bachelor of Science in Management Engineering degree from the Ateneo de Manila University, and Double Major, Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the Ateneo de Manila University. 

Jacqueline believes in building collaborative relationships and leveraging technology to positively transform people and businesses and has a range of experience implementing content and social media strategies, marketing automation plans, and conversion optimization tactics. An in-demand speaker at DX events around the world, she is a fan of social engagement and employee advocacy driven by high-quality, relevant content.

Full Name: Benjamin Tan Wee Chuan
Nationality: Singaporean

Benjamin started his banking career in the real estate development and project financing in OCBC, and subsequently moved to MayBank, covering cross-border trade financing and project financing. He later joined Citibusiness to gain new exposures into the SME segment, where he headed up a team covering liabilities and double hatted as an investment consultant. His next banking stint in Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) took him to Dubai, where he started up and headed the SME Banking Asian desk after which he was seconded back to Singapore, to head a Medium Enterprise & Cash Management team, which was a core pillar in driving SCB Singapore's SME strategy. Known for his skills to pioneer developments within the bank, he was seconded to Taiwan in 2009, as part of the pioneer team to integrate the merger between SCB and HsinChu Bank. Theybecame the largest foreign bank in Taiwan in a short span of time, and was the first foreign bank to partner with the Taiwan Credit Bureau and Government Loan Insurance Scheme, to offer the market's first 5 days service pledge for small business loans.

After 11 years in banking, he ventured into property development in Malaysia, where he successfully completed a commercial project in Selangor and was awarded the Best Boutique Developer and Innovative Developer in the 2018 ASEAN Property Awards. With his personal ventures successful and running on its own, he decided to join CIMB Bank Berhad, Singapore branch in 2019, covering as the ASEAN Head of Sales & Strategy, and subsequently took over as Head of CIMB Commercial Banking Singapore in 2020. Under the leadership of Benjamin, CIMB Commercial Banking Singapore started the F23+ vision to be the leading ASEAN focused bank, by concisely segregating the portfolio based on a company's profile and business needs, so as to ensure that solutions and services are developed and provided from a
customer centric perspective.

There are 3 segments in Commercial Banking Singapore, starting with the newly launched SME Segment in March 2020, with the mandate to offer fast and simple solutions for homogeneous companies through a program approach. Despite being a relatively new entrant in this segment, it won the Global Business Outlook's Best SME Financing Bank and Most Customer Centric COVID Relief Schemes award; whilst EVA, the Bank’s first Chatbot, was nominated as the Top 40 MAS Fintech Solutions for 2020.The Medium Enterprise Segment offers one-stop solutions to service companies with needs for a more comprehensive range of financial services with the objective of relationship deepening. The Middle Corporations Segment is focused on anchoring main bank relationships via offering customized solutions to cover complex and customized sophisticated needs of larger local companies. To ensure a frictionless customer centric facilitation and understanding on the financial needs of their customers, a Client Value Enhancement team has been set up to engage all 3 segments' customers 

Based in Singapore, Wolfram is a consulting partner at Ernst & Young Advisory Pte. Ltd. and leads the EY Asean financial services business consulting practice. For over 25 years, Wolfram has worked across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific supporting multi-national financial services clients in banking strategy, risk and finance advisory. He was previously a partner in financial services, finance & risk practice in an American consulting firm; and executive director in a research center focused on long-term trends affecting businesses, including sustainability and climate change.

As co-leader of EY Asia-Pacific financial services sustainability field of play, Wolfram also works closely with the leaders to build internal understanding and market demand for EY distinctive sustainability solutions and offerings. He is passionate about embedding a sustainability angle into everything we do at EY. Wolfram holds graduate degrees in Business Administration and Finance from Beisheim Graduate School of Management (WHU Koblenz) and ESC Lyon. He is also a frequent public speaker and author on a wide range of risk management issues.

Daniel is the Vice President for Data, Insight and Technology within Collinson’s Asia Pacific team, a global leader in loyalty and benefits, and traveller experiences.

Holding over 15 years of experience in consulting, product development, system integration, automation and gamification, Daniel is passionate about delivering customer-centric solutions and services that help Collinson clients build meaningful, enduring and increasingly valuable relationships with their customers.  

Daniel has worked extensively with marketing, automation, integration, business intelligence and advanced analytics for global enterprise organisations across sectors including technology, aviation, hospitality, luxury and retail.

Elisha Harrington is an Evangelist on the Innovation team at ServiceNow. In her role, Elisha is laser-focused on the future of work, digital transformation, and the power of intelligent systems. 

As a thought leader in operational improvement and innovation, she is responsible for all efforts to evangelize the transformative world of work for enterprise customers in the Asian-Pacific region. Elisha is helping customers reimagine the possible and solve important problems to create stunning change.  

As a thought leader in operational improvement and innovation, she is responsible for all efforts to evangelize the transformative world of work for enterprise customers in the Asian-Pacific region. Elisha is helping customers reimagine the possible and solve important problems to create stunning change.  

Prior to ServiceNow, Elisha worked for a number of top-tier professional services firms, consulting with the largest global and Australian local enterprises across banking, telecommunications and more. From running large Digital transformations (both technical and business). Elisha worked for PwC across technology solutions which included fraud detection, risk sentiment, automation, and advanced analytics as well as blockchain and other leading technology cloud SaaS solutions.

Working within C-suite agendas and large impactful programs impacting employee and customer experience, Elisha aims to supercharge productivity scaling across the organisation whilst cultivating a culture of innovation at its core. 

Frederic Tardy brings significant experience in consumer lending, digital transformation, marketing, and branding; he has a long and successful track record in marketing, e-commerce, partnership and digital transformation across many geographies and leading financial institutions. He started his career in BNP Paribas/Cetelem, where he held multiple roles. As the Global Head of E-Business, he set up the e-commerce platform of Cetelem, and also served as the CEO of the company's Innovation Lab in San Francisco.

From BNP Paribas, Frederic moved on to AXA as Group Chief Marketing and Distribution Officer and later as Member of the Asia Executive Committee where he spearheaded the digital transformation of AXA, focusing on digital sales, developing partnerships and repositioning the AXA brand. Frederic has received global recognition for his marketing activities and was awarded Chief Digital Officer of the Year in France twice, in 2015 and 2016.

In his role in Home Credit, his portfolio includes country strategy, marketing, product, sales, branding, and digitisation.

Ashmita is the Retail Banking Head for Citibank Singapore, where she is responsible for the wealth management, and mortgage business growth in Singapore, and is leading the charge for Singapore “Win in Wealth” aspirations. She manages a team of ~800 people across sales (bankers, specialists, and acquisition teams), service (branch staff, service personnel), and product and wealth advisory management.

Ashmita has been with Citi for almost 20 years. She has lived and worked in 3 continents and loves the globality and interconnectedness of Citi as an organization. Her roles in Citi have covered Wealth Management Sales, Citi at Work, Client Experience, Marketing, Consumer Strategy, and Client Segments. Prior to joining Citi, Ashmita worked with ICICI Bank, a top tier Indian Bank, where she began her career as a Management Associate. She has a B.Sc. degree from P

Currently based in Singapore, Andrew Gilder is the EY Asia-Pacific Banking and Capital Markets Leader. As an Assurance Partner with over 20 years of experience in the field of auditing, he has had extensive experience dealing with complex accounting issues, conduct related matters, control investigations and transactions, including IPOs, for banks and other financial services organisations.

He has worked with major financial services clients globally, in markets such as Sydney, New York, London and Tokyo, as well as the wider Asia-Pacific region.  Over the years, Andrew has been seconded to clients on a number of occasions, including leading the internal audit function of an investment bank and providing accounting advice to a derivatives sales team. Previously, he has also performed regulatory audits and control investigations in corporate, commercial and investment banks.  

Andrew has earned a BCom in Accounting from Westerns Sydney University and an Masters in Applied Finance from Macquarie University. He holds a membership with the Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Singapore.

Follow his updates on LinkedIn and latest thinking on ey.com.

Brian Hui is MD, Head of Customer Propositions and Marketing, Wealth and Personal Banking (WPB), The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited.

In his current role, Brian manages the entire HSBC customer portfolio, international business, digital banking, customer experience and marketing to deliver the world class financial solutions and services to our customers.

Brian has over 20 years of experience in users growth, marketing, digital, customer experience and commercial roles across financial services, e-commerce and startups. Previously, Brian has held global management roles in Faraday Future, LeEco and Amazon based in the US and China, where he took the helm of a wide range of functions including sales and marketing, customer growth, product development and customer experience.

Earlier in his career, Brian worked for Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank across Hong Kong, China and the UK in the areas of e-business, sales and marketing and channel management.

Dick Ho is an experienced leader in the Personal Banking and Wealth Management Department, overseeing five key Divisions including Customer Experience, Customer Intelligence, Marketing, Sales Management and Segment Management. He spearheaded the “Live Next Level” Wealth Management rebranding campaign that offers a brand new experience to young and affluent Millennials. He has also pushed forward a number of key strategic projects in Digital Banking and vigorously promoted the mobile-first strategy for digital transformation, project management and the Agile methodology in developing the bank's personal financial business. He is one of the key change agents and contributors to the bank’s digital transformation journey.

Anders Jensen-Waud is an Associate Partner in Bain’s global Financial Services and Enterprise Tech practice, based out of Singapore. Anders has deep expertise in digitizing and transforming Asian banks through technology. He has worked extensively in Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Australia. Anders holds an MSc in Business Administration and Computer Science from Copenhagen Business School.”

Merlyn currently is the Head of Consumer Banking and Digital in CIMB Singapore. She joined CIMB Singapore in July 2020 as Head of Digital to lead the digital transformation across bank-wise. From December 2020, Merlyn took on the additional role as Head of Consumer Banking and Digital to accelerate the digitisation of consumer banking and to rollout new digital solutions.

Prior to joining CIMB, she was with Fullerton Financial Holdings as Senior Vice President of SME and Commercial Banking Business and was responsible for the development of new business streams in financial and digital industries looking after 7 businesses in China and portfolio entities in Cambodia. She spent 6 months to lead a portfolio entity to transform from traditional lending business into digital, and spent 9 months to lead a village bank to launch digitalized loan solutions. In addition, she started up a fintech company in China in 2018 that offered digital lending business such as consumer loans and supply chain financing. The fintech company, in addition to a new business stream created, had been positioned as a hub to replicate digital solutions to other markets.

She also worked with Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) in Taiwan, China, Greater China Region, and Singapore. Her final role in Standard Chartered Bank was as Head of Segment Effectiveness & Delivery in addition to her role as Head of Priority & International Banking in China. In her stint with SCB, she was responsible for the setup of its first digital branch in Taiwan in 2010. She also drove to pilot an AI-based credit decision model in Taiwan Ta Chong Bank in 2006. She was primarily responsible for many successful transformation projects. Earlier in her career, she was with Ta Chong Bank, AIG Credit Card, ABN AMRO Bank, and Bank of America covering consumer banking, SME, and digital related business. Merlyn started her career from being a management trainee of Bank of America in Taiwan.  

Jessica is the Group Chief Strategy Officer at WeLab, a leading pan-Asian fintech platform and one of the most important digital native brands in financial services in Asia with more than 50 million individual users and over 700 enterprise customers in Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Indonesia. The financial holding company operates one of the largest digital consumer finance businesses in Asia, a pan-Asia digital bank and a leading B2B fintech enterprise solutions business. Jessica drives the group’s overall strategy which includes spearheading the rollout of the WeLab Bank.

Prior to joining WeLab, Jessica spent over 12 years at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong, Singapore and London specialising in Investment Banking as well as Private Wealth Management. Jessica is a Board Member of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong (FTAHK), an independent association of members who are representing Hong Kong’s fintech community globally.

Silvio Struebi heads Simon-Kucher’s banking practice in APAC. He has over 15 years of consulting experience in providing growth, pricing, and sales strategy advice to various national and international Wealth and Asset Managers, Retail and Corporate Banks, and leading FinTechs, Neobanks and Payments companies. Silvio advises clients on a broad range of commercial strategies and product management as well as assisting in market-specific implementation of growth and sales strategies. Recently, he has been focusing on the implementation of pricing software to increase revenues and to respond to regulatory developments in key markets in Asia.

Steven WONG Weng Leong is currently the Chief Digital & Global Banking Strategist at China Construction Bank (CCB) Malaysia. Just prior to this, he was the Chief Operating & Financial Strategist (COO, CIO/CTO, CFO & Chief Strategy & Business Development Officer roles combined) and before that, the Chief Business Development Strategist. At CCB Malaysia, Mr Wong spearheads bank-wide business growth and provides strategic leadership for Global Banking & Markets and Wholesale & Retail Digital Banking (Cash Management, Retail Banking), which includes catalyzing FinTech initiatives in delivering product, technology and digital innovations for the Malaysian and ASEAN markets.

He is well regarded in the financial services industry as an all-rounder and go-to-individual, having held several senior executive leadership positions across various leading financial institutions over the last 28 years. He has held strategic leadership roles in the Front Office (FO), Middle Office (MO) and Back Office (BO) at Western Union, Alliance Financial Group, Maybank, Mayban Life Assurance, MIDF Amanah Investment Bank and Citi.

Dustin sets up the Financial Services (FS) Strategy team for EY-Parthenon in Greater China and now also serves as the Insurance Strategy Leader for Asia. He focuses primarily on helping multinational FS clients achieve their strategic objectives through both organic and inorganic means. Prior to joining EY-Parthenon, Dustin held a number of senior positions with multinational insurance companies, including the Head of Strategy and M&A in Asia. His industry experience also includes distribution and general management roles, including CEO of a joint venture in Vietnam. Originally from the US, Dustin has been living in Asia for 17 years. He holds an MBA from New York University.

Vinay Dixit is a senior business leader with over 25 years of experience across Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa who is passionate about achieving business success as well as creating a sustainable positive impact in the community. In his current role, Vinay is leading Return to Work Solutions for Abbott Laboratories in Asia Pacific which aims at providing support to companies enhance their operations during COVID time through high quality rapid diagnostic solutions.

Vinay counts people leadership and community engagement as his key passions, ensuring that superior business results are end products of highly inspired and collaborative teams.

A regular speaker at various industry forums like IHT Sustainable Luxury Conference, Adobe Digital Symposium, Economist Roundtable, British Walpole Luxury Summit etc. Vinay has co-authored several publications on Purpose Driven Leadership including “Redesign Tools To Translate Purpose Into Action”, “Businesses must reframe their purpose, priorities” and “The Post Pandemic Company”. His other articles on Asian market & consumers include “Understanding China’s Growing Love for Luxury”, “One country, many markets: Targeting the Chinese consumer with McKinsey Cluster Map”, and “Digital Nation on the Rise: Profiting from China’s Internet Revolution”.

Robin leads IBSi’s editorial business where he plays an important role in the iconic monthly IBSi
FinTech Journal publication and drives the firm’s coverage strategy on global Financial Technology
news, analysis, and insights. He also leads the firm’s initiatives around events, alliances, webinars,
roundtables, podcasts, and a lot more.

Robin comes with more than 30 years of experience as a financial and business journalist and has
worked across all media forms, including print, online, broadcast, radio, and TV, as a thought-leader,
presenter, producer and guest. This experience is global with a significant portion of it across
European and Middle East markets. He has deep experience in a variety of editorial roles, most
recently with International Accounting Bulletin, Banker Middle East and Islamic Business & Finance.
Some of Robin’s key achievements include being the Managing Editor of a UK personal finance
website, authoring a national newspaper column on the online finance sector for a number of years,
creating award-winning TV programs about business and finance for Sky News, and being the
Financial Editor of Independent Radio News in the UK.

He is also an experienced host of conferences, seminars and round-tables and has created successful
events in several different countries in a variety of formats. Robin also writes and contributes to a
number of books and pamphlets, including a guide to world financial markets, a study of corporate
pensions, four books on various aspects of Islamic finance, guides to investment and financial
regulation, and several macro/microeconomics studies.
He has a BA in International Politics from the University of Lancaster and is also qualified as a
Financial Adviser, holding the Certificate in Financial Planning.

Young Yang is the General Manager for the Southeast Asia market of ZA Tech Global Limited (‘ZA Tech’). He has led the development of SEA business since 2018 and formed different partnerships with some of the biggest ecosystems and insurers in the region.

Established in May 2018 in Hong Kong and headquartered in Singapore, ZA Tech is a Singaporean technology venture founded by ZA International and backed by Softbank’s Vision Fund 1. It aims to redefine the insurance value chain and the internet ecosystem through technology and fulfil the diversified demands of the customers by offering them comprehensive and innovative digitised solutions.

Obtaining both Master of MIT, and Bachelor of University of Science and Technology of China, Yang started his career as an engineer in PayPal and has over a decade experience in online payment, bank, and insurance industry.

Andy Parker is a Partner at Innosight, where he leads the Asia-Pacific practice. Andy has advised senior leaders at companies such as McDonald’s, CJ Cheiljedang, Coca-Cola Amatil, Bose and Ford. Andy has over fifteen years of strategy consulting experience working, and being based for significant periods of time, in both developed and emerging markets across six continents.  

At Innosight Andy’s work focuses on helping clients develop long-term growth strategies, manage transformation, design new disruptive growth businesses and build enduring innovation capabilities and culture. Andy has led numerous projects for multinational and regional companies across several Asian markets.  

Andy is a speaker and author on topics of innovation, disruption and long-term growth. He is a co-author of the 2020 Harvard Business Publishing book, Eat, Sleep, Innovate: How to Make Creativity an Everyday Habit Inside Your Organization.   

Prior to joining Innosight, Andy was a member Accenture's Global Strategy Group in London and Singapore where he worked on numerous transformational and strategic projects for consumer goods and services clients.  

Andy received a BSc. Honors degree in Business Administration from the School of Management at The University of Bath, in the United Kingdom. He lives in Singapore with his wife and three children.   

Sachin N. Shah was appointed General Manager, Emerging Markets, Asia in August 2020. He is a member of Manulife’s Asia Executive Committee and Global Leadership Team. 
 

Sachin is responsible for driving the development of the Company’s operations in Southeast and South Asia – namely Cambodia, India,  Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines and Vietnam. The General  Managers of these markets report to him. He is based in Singapore.

Sachin has vast industry experience, principally in Asia and the United States. He joined Manulife from AIG, where he was CEO, Asia Pacific General Insurance. He previously held a variety of senior leadership roles across a 20-year tenure at MetLife, most recently as Chairman, President and CEO MetLife Japan. Sachin also served as President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. Sachin is married with three children. He believes in the power of teamwork, is passionate about diversity, fostering creativity and nurturing talent.

Sebastian is a management consultant with more than 15 years of experience in the Financial Services sector in areas including ESG, sustainable finance, risk management, compliance, regulatory requirements and related IT implementations. He is the Director of the Singapore Office and APAC Sustainability Lead at Aurexia, a FS-focused management consulting firm headquartered in Paris with offices in France, UK, Luxembourg and a fast-growing presence in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Before joining Aurexia, Sebastian worked with a Big-4 consulting firm where he delivered projects in Europe, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Southeast Asia region.

Chetan is a Director at Simon-Kucher & Partners’ Singapore office and has over 12 
years of experience in data analytics and strategy consulting across financial 
institutions, utilities, and logistics. 

Chetan has been based in Simon-Kucher’s office in Singapore since March 2017. 
During his tenure at Simon-Kucher, Chetan has led projects for digital transformation, 
sales excellence, product development, organizational re-structuring, and marketing 
strategy. He is a member of Simon-Kucher’s global insurance practice, helping execute 
projects and build new capabilities in Asia

Prior to joining Simon-Kucher & Partners, Chetan gained professional experience in 
consulting for clients in India, USA, and UK. His experience includes leading 
multicultural teams across different countries through large-scale transformation 
projects, insurance pricing, product development, process optimization and 
performance management.

Chetan completed his MBA with a specialization in strategy & organization from the 
National University of Singapore and has a technical education background through his 
graduation in Electronics & Communication Engineering from Thapar University in 
India. 
 

Aditya Vardhan Tibrewala leads the Retail Business and oversees operational and technical functions from underwriting, reinsurance to claims in SOMPO across Asia. His key focus is to drive long-term profitable growth and improve customer experience through data-driven
cultural transformation.

Aditya is a fellow of Institute & Faculty of Actuaries, UK and started his career with Mazars LLP in London, followed by RSA Insurance Group. He has held various leadership and board level roles. A passionate intrapreneur with over 19 years of experience in the global non-life insurance industry, Aditya has worked in multiple geographical locations. He firmly believes that People are the most valuable assets for any industry, and an organizational culture underpinned by mutual trust is needed to harness this value.

Frederic is the founder of BLACAZ. the dedicated Business Insurance for SMEs and Startups in Singapore and Hong Kong. BLACAZ. is a consumer-driven, fast-growing insurance company founded in 2016 and headquartered in Singapore.

Frederic has been based in Asia for over 20 years. He is a recognized authority in the Insurance industry and has been offering addresses at various types of conferences and conventions in the region.

Previously, Frederic was a Regional Business Development Manager at GlobalHealth Asia, where he managed the strategic focus of business development and marketing activities of Health Insurance products. GlobalHealth’s principals include AIG, Zurich Life, Liberty
International and Pioneer Life.

Prior to GlobalHealth Asia, Frederic was a Regional Business Manager at Allianz Global Assistance for the Asia Pacific region. Allianz Global Assistance is owned by Allianz SE, the world’s largest diversified insurance company.

Smita is currently heading digital first solutions at Singlife with Aviva. Leveraging her experience in fintech, Smita is responsible for Singlife’s digital businesses across payments, wealth and insurance. Previously Smita was Director at Grab’s fintech arm in Indonesia, OVO. In this role she worked closely with regional and country management to drive Grab’s payments strategy in Indonesia. Prior to this, Smita has nearly a decade of experience in consulting and investment banking. She holds a masters from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and is presently based in Singapore.