Speakers

Speakers

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James Alexander

COO

Invast Global

James Alexander is the Chief Commercial Officer at Invast Global and has 15 years’ experience in the OTC sector. He joined Invast Global in 2013 focusing on expanding the company’s global presence in the institutional sector, engaging actively with Hedge Funds and Asset managers. James also oversees the FX liquidity optimization function within Invast Global, ensuring client needs are matched with optimal execution channels.

Prior to joining Invast Global, James spent several years with Cantor Fitzgerald in Singapore and Australia as well as MF Global before that where he was responsible for wholesale distribution of OTC derivative products.

He holds a bachelor’s degree from Macquarie University.

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Kate Birchall

Head of Asia Pacific

LCH

Kate Birchall is Head of Asia Pacific for LCH Ltd. In her role, she is responsible for LCH’s business in the region, including the CCP’s existing OTC derivatives clearing operations in Sydney and Tokyo. 

Prior to joining LCH in October 2018, Kate was Head of Portfolio Optimisation and Collateral at National Australia Bank. She has also held senior roles in Structuring, Portfolio Management and Credit Research in Australia and London. 

Kate holds an EMBA from the London Business School and a BA in Mathematics from the University of Queensland.

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Charu Chanana

Deputy Head of Asia Research

Continuum Economics

Charu Chanana is the Deputy Head of Asia Research at Continuum Economics, where her purview includes macroeconomic analysis for the emerging Asian countries, as well as analysing and monitoring the impact of domestic and external macroeconomic shocks to the region.

Charu has been highly ranked in Bloomberg’s forecasting polls for her coverage, and is regularly consulted by the media for views on markets and economies. She is widely quoted in press articles and has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, Channel News Asia as well as the Nikkei.

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Lam Kok Chong

SVP, 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 successful and innovative listed FX and Rates products, driving product adoption globally, diversifying SGX’s customer base and expanding SGX’s platform as an integrated OTC FX and Futures offering

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.

In SGX, Mr.Lam is the Board Observer for Cobalt DLT and a Board of Director for FXPA (Founders’ Council Member) since Feb 2014.

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.

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Sumaiya Choudhury

ED, Head of In-Business Risk

Standard Chartered Bank

Sumaiya Choudhury is the head of In-Business Risk for the Prime Brokerage business at SCB. She has 17 years of global banking experience, specializing in market and credit risk in Fixed Income and Commodities markets. At SCB, she led Market & Traded Credit Risk function for the global commodities and house clearing business. Prior to SCB, she ran market risk for Credit Suisse’s commodities trading desk in London and the FICC market risk team in Bear Stearns in New York. She has extensive experience in portfolio, market and credit risk management, having managed own desk and client portfolios during the Global Financial Crisis. Sumaiya is based in Singapore.

Shawn Creighton

Director OTC Products

CME Group

Shawn Creighton serves as Director for the OTC Products and Services Team at CME Group. He is responsible for growing the company’s global OTC product lines across interest rates and foreign exchange. Prior to his current role, Creighton spent 5 years in CME Group Clearing on development of OTC interest rate swap products and margin services. He has held positions with increasing levels of responsibility in Chicago, Singapore, and Sydney.

Prior to joining CME Group in 2010, Creighton worked for Northern Trust with the Fund Valuation Group.

Creighton holds a BA in Business Administration from Saint Xavier University.

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Jason Daw

Head of Emerging Markets Strategy

Société Générale

Jason has 20 years of experience providing investment and economic research and advisory at investment banking and asset management firms. He also has broad, multi-asset class experience across foreign exchange, equities and fixed income. Before joining SG, Jason was research manager at Mercer after working at Exelion Capital Management as Chief Economist in Singapore. Prior to moving to Singapore, Jason was chief investment officer - asset management & FX advisory at Royal Oak Capital Management. He previously worked at Merrill Lynch as a senior FX strategist and at Goldman Sachs as an FX strategist and economist. Jason started his career as an economic research analyst at The Central Bank of Canada

Divya Devesh

Asia FX Strategist

Standard Chartered

Divya covers Asia FX strategy, based in Singapore. He provides views on the latest developments in FX markets, and recommends trade ideas and hedging strategies for institutional and corporate clients. He is quoted regularly in the media on financial-market developments. Divya has often been ranked among the most accurate forecasters for EM Asia FX by Bloomberg. Prior to his current role, he was a G10 FX strategist for the Bank. He joined Standard Chartered Bank in 2010. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in computer science from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He is a CFA charterholder.

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Christopher Emslie

Asia Regional Treasurer

General Mills

Chris has held various financial positions in South Africa since 1997 after having completed his articles at a small Audit and Accounting firm in Johannesburg. He has been involved in various companies in the financial sphere including Transport & Freight, Security and IT. He joined ABB in 2008 first as a SAP consultant for their ERP implementation, then as their Country Credit Manager and then finally as their first Country Treasurer looking after South Africa as well as Southern Africa with all their treasury concerns and establishing the first ABB treasury operation in Southern Africa and spent 3 years in Singapore as their Country Treasurer. He is currently the new Asia Regional Treasurer for General Mills, responsible for all Treasury operations in Asia. He holds a B Compt Honors degree in Accounting Science from the University of South Africa.

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Phillip Gillespie

CEO of B2C2 Japan

B2C2

Phil is CEO of B2C2 Japan. Previously, he worked at Goldman Sachs where he oversaw the FX G10 business for EMEA as part of the systematic market making team. Prior to that, he was FX voice and systematic trader at Barclays and JP Morgan.

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Colin Graham

Former CIO

Eastspring Investments

Colin joined Eastspring Investments, the Asian asset management business of Prudential plc, as Chief Investment Officer, in January 2018.

Colin was responsible for the Multi Asset Solutions (MAS) team and had the overall responsibility for the investment process, philosophy, portfolio strategy and team management of MAS products for third party clients.

Prior to joining Eastspring Investments, Colin served as Chief Investment Officer, Multi-Asset Solutions at BNP Paribas Investment Partners in London.  Previously, he was Managing Director, Co-Head of Global Multi Asset Strategies, Multi Asset Client Solutions at BlackRock and a portfolio manager at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (formerly Mercury Asset Management). In all, Colin has over 24 years of investment experience.

Colin holds a BSc (hons) degree from Brunel University, London, UK. He is a CFA Charterholder and CAIA Charterholder.

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Alexandre Kech

CEO

Onchain Custodian

Alexandre Kech has 20+ years of experience in the capital market industry. From global custody and asset servicing at the Bank of New York Mellon to data standardisation and Head of Securities & FX APAC at SWIFT, Alex has developed a strong post-trade industry leadership experience, extended in recent years to digital assets and blockchain.

Alexandre transitioned to a new challenge in November 2018 when he joined Onchain Custodian as the CEO of the company in charge of building and launching, with Da Hongfei (Chair of the Board), Raymond Cheong (CSO) and El Lee (COO), an institutional digital custody service in Singapore. The solution is live since April 2019.

Onchain Custodian believes in solving non-competitive industry issues through collaboration. Alexandre is the co-chair of the Global Digital Finance (GDF) Custody working group and is the convenor of the ISO TC68 / SC8 / WG3 building an international standard for Digital Token Identification.

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Mitul Kotecha

Head of FX and emerging market macro strategy Asia

Barclays

Based out of Singapore, Mitul Kotecha was a TD Securities Senior Emerging Markets Strategist with a wealth of experience. His career as a strategist and economist extends over 25 years and across offices in London, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Prior to joining TD Securities, Mitul held the position of Head of FX and Rates Strategy for Asia-Pacific at Barclays, and prior to that, served as Head of Global FX Strategy and Head of Asia Research at Credit Agricole CIB.

Mitul has developed strong client relationships across the region focusing on Asian macro strategy and global emerging markets. His coverage of financial products spans bonds, interest rates, equities, and foreign exchange. Mitul has been highly ranked in various FX research and forecasting polls including FX Week, Bloomberg, Reuters, and Asiamoney.

He is a frequent speaker at various economic and financial global conferences, is regularly consulted by the media for views on markets and economies, has given a TEDX talk, and authored the book “Chronology Of A Crisis.” Mitul has appeared on business channels such as CNBC and Bloomberg TV and is regularly quoted in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Associated Press, and Dow Jones.

Mitul holds a Masters of Science Degree in Economics and Finance from the University of Warwick and an Honours Degree in Economics.

 

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Rick Lakhiani

Director of Regulatory Reform Implementation

CITI

Rick Lakhiani manages the implementation of the major regulatory reform initiatives in Asia Pacific region for Citi's Markets and Securities Services business. This includes the regional implementation of Dodd-Frank, EMIR, MiFID2 and derivative regulatory reforms being implemented in individual Asian jurisdictions. Mr. Lakhiani has spent nearly 15 years at Citigroup and has over 20 years capital markets experience. He has worked in variety of roles in functions across the bank that has included Sales, Business Management, Financial Control & Compliance. Mr. Lakhiani holds a MA in Law from Oxford and was admitted to NY Bar in 2005.

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Margaret Law

Head of Client Management - APAC

CLS

Margaret joined CLS as Head of Client Management for the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region in 2018 and is responsible for developing CLS’s business across settlement members, third-party participants and other key market participants in the APAC region.

Before CLS, she spent 7 years at Northern Trust where she was Senior Vice President and Head of Client Service responsible for the institutional custody business across Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan as well as for developing and implementing Northern Trust’s business strategy for these markets. 

Prior to this, she held a number of relationship, sales and product roles, including APAC Client Relationship Management in brokerage operations at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Head of Sales at HSBC’s funds business in Hong Kong as well as Account and Product Management at Citi.

Margaret holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of British Columbia.

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Zhanying Li

Director

FTSE Russell

Zhanying is a director in FTSE fixed income indexes and the Yield Book business of the Information Services Division of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).  (The fixed income indexes and the Yield Book business was previously a part of Citigroup’s Global Markets division which was acquired by LSEG in August of 2017). Zhanying has the responsibility for developing the business of fixed income indexes and the analytics platform for Asia Pacific region.

Zhanying joined Citigroup Hong Kong in 2003 and was responsible for business development in the region.   For more than 15 years in the past, she has been instrumental in producing new indexes that are relevant to Asian investors.  She works with different types of investors including central banks, pensions, asset managers, and ETF providers to design suitable benchmark solutions.  She also works closely with clients on providing fixed income portfolio performance and risk management solutions.

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Wilson Luk

Director, APAC FX Strategist Sales

BNY Mellon

Wilson is a Director for BNY Mellon Markets where he is a FX Strategist Sales, Asia Pacific, joined BNY Mellon in mid-2017. Based in HK, he has hybrid responsibilities between FX strategist and FX sales roles in the APAC FX Sales & Trading team. His FX strategist role covers global macro events, views and ideas, with primary focus on G10 and Asian markets. His FX sales role focuses on institutional client sector, spanning across hedge funds, real-money asset managers, and sovereign entities.

With over 20 years international banking and financial markets experience, Wilson has held various dealing and sales positions including senior macro sales of World Markets at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce building its institutional FX & Rates business in Hong Kong. Wilson also served as FX & Rates sales of FICC at Morgan Stanley Hong Kong covering institutional and prime brokerage clients sectors. Prior to that, Wilson had also worked as MM and STIRT dealer at the Treasury Desk in Morgan Stanley Hong Kong. He started his finance career as an institutional banking Management Trainee at Citibank Hong Kong.

Wilson holds an Honors Bachelor of Mathematics degree from University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

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Rob Ma

Executive director - FICC execution solutions

Goldman Sachs

Rob is an executive director and head of FX Algo Products of Asia Pacific at Goldman Sachs. 

He has led various technology teams at Goldman Sachs since 2010 and has been involved in different initiatives in FICC Systematic Market Making. 

He has been most recently involved with FX Algos and with a strong focus on Asian currencies including Asian NDFs.

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Jean-Philippe Malé

Chief Executive Officer

BidFX

Jean-Philippe Malé is Chief Executive Officer of BidFX, a TS subsidiary, and previously was regional manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Prior to this role, JP was TS’ global head of OTC, and developed its first FX execution management system, and built a global distribution team.

JP has been with TS for over 12 years working directly with senior management to implement the industry’s first multi-asset class execution management system. He worked directly with upper-level management to implement the first multi-asset class execution management system.

JP received a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Computer Engineering from Institut d’Informatique d’Entreprise and a Master’s in Project Management from Université du Québec in 2003.

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Ken Medanić

Founder

Neurotrader

Ken Medanić was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He started trading whilst enrolled at Southern Cross University, where he specialised in security analysis and portfolio management. During this time, he also started a trading partnership, focusing on trading commodity futures contracts.

In 2005 Ken began development on a new trading platform which integrated qualitative behavioural models. In 2009, he began exploring the relationship between biology, neurology, psychology, and trading results through privately-funded, empirically-based research. He defined this relationship as the “psychophysiology of trading”. 3 years later, he had clear evidence: biological responses precede trading results. NeuroTrader was born.

Ken moved to Silicon Valley, California in 2012 to obtain a better understanding of biodata collection techniques, QEEG, HRV, and artificial intelligence models. In 2015, he moved to Montreal, Canada. There, he developed relationships with equipment manufacturers, completed a four-month Olympic training programme and established a North American base. Montreal provided access to the hedge fund and banking communities of New York, Chicago, Montreal, and Toronto. In May 2018, he initiated the commercialisation phase of NeuroTrader and has since been met with eager anticipation and interest from banks and hedge funds in North America. He is currently establishing an online hedge fund with 86 traders.  

Ken presented the topic of Artificial Intelligence and its impact on fund management at the International China Hedge Fund Summit in 2017. In 2018, he spoke on the same topic at the International Investor Symposium in London, England. He has been a guest lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology on the topic of machine learning and its impact on the financial markets.

Ken and his wife, Michelle, have two children, 4-year-old Marie-Christine, and 2-year-old Stjepan Anthony. Currently, Ken is pursuing a Masters in Finance and Finance Law degree at the International Programme of the University of London.  

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Roland Mieth

Portfolio Manager, Emerging Markets

Pimco

Mr Mieth is a senior vice president and emerging markets portfolio manager in the Singapore office. He is responsible for managing and co-managing emerging markets (EM) fixed income and foreign exchange dedicated portfolios. Mr Mieth has leading management responsibilities over the EM Asia fixed income and foreign exchange trading desk. He is also a permanent member of the Asia-Pacific Portfolio Committee. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2008, he was responsible for issuance of emerging market structured notes at JPMorgan in New York. He was previously a product specialist and quantitative analyst at Citigroup's LATAM Private Bank, working on OTC derivatives and structured products across asset classes. He has 16 years of investment experience and holds master's degrees in financial engineering from Columbia University and in management science and engineering from Stanford University. He also earned a master's in operations research and statistics and a bachelor's degree from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia.

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Quentin Miller

Head of Institutional FX, Asia Pacific

LMAX Exchange

With over 10 years of electronic trading experience, Quentin is contributing to LMAX’s growth in APAC with a focus on institutional sales, product enhancements and liquidity management. Prior to joining LMAX in 2017, Quentin was head of e-trading in Asia for Standard Chartered. He also held senior positions at RBS and Commerzbank and was the founder and executive director of a proprietary trading firm in London. Quentin holds an MSc in spacecraft technologies from University College London and an MSc in electronic engineering from Supelec, Paris.

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Sim Moh Siong

Currency Strategist

Bank of Singapore

SIM MOH SIONG is an FX Strategist for Bank of Singapore, where he is responsible for analysing and forecasting currency trends, as well as being a key member of the investment committee. Moh Siong brings with him more than two decades of experience in macro and financial research on Asia. Previously a regional economist and financial market strategist with Citibank. Moh Siong holds a Master and BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

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Saktiandi Supaat

Head of FX Research & Strategy

Maybank

Saktiandi is Head, FX Research & Strategy, in Global Markets, Maybank Singapore, covering G3 and regional currencies. Prior to joining Maybank, he was Senior Treasury Economist in United Overseas Bank (UOB) Group, covering global markets, specializing in the G3 (United States, Japan and Eurozone) economies.

From 1999 to 2009, he was a Lead Economist in the Economic Policy Department of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), where his portfolios comprised coverage of Singapore’s financial stability, macroeconometric modelling, foreign exchange markets and Singapore dollar exchange rate policy.

He was a board director of SPRING (Singapore), a statutory board responsible for helping Singapore enterprises grow as well as a member of the CPF Advisory panel.  He was also a member of the steering committee on the Future Economy chaired by the Minister for Finance, to review Singapore's future economic strategies.

He currently sits in the following three government parliamentary committees - finance & trade industry, culture, community & youth as well as national development. 

He holds postgraduate and undergraduate degrees in Economics and Finance from the University of Cambridge, National University of Singapore and University of Melbourne, Australia respectively. 

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Keeve Tan

Head, Futures & Leveraged FX

OCBC Securities

Keeve is the Head of Futures and FX for OCBC Securities. He looks after more than 30 staff over the two departments, where he oversees the growth and development of the cleared Futures and OTC FX businesses.

Prior to joining OCBC, he was most recently the Director of Sales at UOB Bullion and Futures, looking after the Business Development of listed derivatives and OTC clearing for UOB Global Markets. Keeve was before that, a trader in proprietary trading firms, heading market making desks and algorithmic trading desks. His buy-side experience coupled with his current role in the sell-side, gives him a wholesome view of the industry and its developments.

Keeve is married and has a daughter. He holds a BSc with honours from the Nanyang Technological University and graduated with an MBA on the Dean's List from the Singapore Management University.

Leo Tay

Head of FX and rates trading

ING Bank

Leo Tay is Managing Director and Head of FX, Rates, and Derivatives Trading in ING Bank NV, based in Singapore. He manages a diverse and inclusive trading team across Asia, and is also responsible for eTrading and digital asset initiatives. In a broader capacity he is the Lead of Sustainability FM Products, championing the integration of ESG principles into financial market offerings. Leo holds an MSc In Financial Mathematics from the Technische Universitat Kaiserslautern, Germany and BS/BA from the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.

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Magdalene Tay

APAC Custody Product Manager

BNY Mellon

Magdalene Tay is the APAC Custody Product Manager for Asset Servicing based in Singapore. In her current role, Magdalene is responsible for core custody related product development and key market initiatives in the region. Magdalene is a specialist on the China market and is currently developing a China access roadmap for BNY Mellon clients.

Magdalene has over 18 years of experience in the Asset Servicing and Transaction Banking space. Prior to joining BNY Mellon, she was with the Bank of America Merrill Lynch for 6 years and was responsible for procuring banking services for Global Market and Treasury Services. She also worked in Deutsche Bank as the Head for Network Management for Asia Pacific Region.

Magdalene has extensive custody and cash knowledge and has worked closely with Global Custodians, Broker/Dealers and Private Banks. She also has a good rapport with the network of sub-custodians and cash providers, across the globe.

Magdalene is a frequent speaker at industry and client events. As a thought leader in the custody space, she has been actively involved in regional industry discussions and contributed to research papers and consultation papers initiated by regulatory bodies.

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Rory Winston

Director, e-FX

Commerzbank

Rory Winston is a Director at Commerzbank AG working on eFX liquidity management, automated trading algorithms, analytics and TCA. He has experience in financial markets, telecommunications, and technology start-ups spanning Europe, Australia and Asia. He has a Masters in Finance from London Business School and a Masters in Applied Computing and Physics from the National University of Ireland, Galway.

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Hao Zhou

Director, Senior Emerging Markets Economist

Commerzbank

Hao Zhou currently serves as Senior Emerging Markets Economist at Commerzbank Singapore, covering economics research and FX strategy for the North Asia region. Hao was awarded Economist of the Year (2017) by China Business News. He was also top yuan forecaster (2019) and top China forecaster (2016-2018) according to Bloomberg survey. 

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Dr Zhou Hongming

CEO

HomiEx

Dr Zhou Hongming, received the B.Eng. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, and the Ph.D. degree in Artificial Intelligence from Nanyang Technological University, in 2009 and 2013, respectively.

Dr Zhou is currently the founder and CEO of HomiEx, a leading global digital asset exchange. Dr Zhou is an early investor in cryptocurrency, and he has rich knowledge on various trading opportunities in cryptocurrency. Dr Zhou is also an expert in AI, he has more than 5000 citations in the AI and Machine Learning fields, and one of his paper is ranked as the most cited paper in the past 5 years among all IEEE transaction papers.