Host
George Athanasopoulos
George Athanasopoulos joined UBS in July 2010 as Global Head of FX and Precious Metals Distribution, based in London. He moved to Zurich in March 2011 and subsequently assumed the roles of Co-Head of Global Foreign Exchange (2011), Co-Head of FX, Rates and Credit (2013) and became Global Head of FX, Rates and Credit in July 2016. Since October 2019 he is Co-Head of Global Markets in the Investment Bank and in April 2022, George took on the additional role of Head of Global Family and Institutional Wealth.
George is a member of the UBS Investment Bank Management Team since November 2012 and a member of the GWM Management Team since April 2022.
Before joining UBS, George spent a year in Greece as General Manager at Eurobank EFG, managing the Group's Global Trading and Distribution businesses. Prior to that he spent 5 years at Barclays Capital, most recently responsible for Global Foreign Exchange and Global Emerging Markets Distribution.
George's career in Financial Markets started in 1992 and includes 6 years in Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo) where he worked for NatWest Markets and Merrill Lynch in FX Derivatives Trading and Structuring.
George holds a Dipl. Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens and a MSc from Bayes Business School (formerly known as Cass Business School), where he also taught as a visiting Lecturer for more than 10 years.
Speakers
Chief Strategist, UBS Investment Bank
Bhanu Baweja is Chief Strategist for UBS Investment Bank. His team have been rated #1 through the last 5 years in II and Extel surveys in the EM Equity Strategy and EM Economics and Macro Strategy. Individually, Bhanu hit 3 #1s for Economics, Sovereign Debt and Equity Strategy. Bhanu began his working life as a tutor with the Economics department at the London School of Economics. Educated in India and the UK, Bhanu holds an MSc in Finance and Economics from the London School of Economics, a Master's in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, and a BA (honours) in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi. Bhanu is a CFA charter holder.
CEP and CIO of Jain Global Asia
Jain Global is a globally diversified investment management firm founded and led by Bobby Jain. Bobby was previously the co-CIO of Millennium Management, a $50bn+ investment firm. Prior to Millennium, Bobby spent 20 years at Credit Suisse where he led one of the largest cross-asset class proprietary trading desks on Wall Street. He also oversaw Credit Suisse Asset Management, which had over $400bn in assets under management. Bobby began his career as an options trader at O’Connor & Associates in 1992. Jain Global will employ a multi-strategy, multi-manager model and will seek to invest across asset classes globally. Its objective is to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns in all market environments. We will pursue investment opportunities that we expect to generate returns uncorrelated to traditional asset classes, risk factors, and other hedge fund strategies. Jain Global will be built using the lessons learned and best practices implemented by our senior leadership team over their long careers in investment management. We believe we have the advantage of designing a true cross-asset platform from scratch and the ability to build the business for scale by leveraging the technological capabilities available, unhindered by accumulated technical debt and structural constraints.
Sam Kellie-Smith is the CEO and CIO of Jain Global Asia. Like Bobby he also started his career as an options trader at O’Connor in 1995. Prior to joining Jain Global he spent 20+ years at Morgan Stanley, where he was the Global Head of Equity Trading, the Global Head of Fixed Income and Commodities and the Chairman of Global Markets. He sat on Morgan Stanley’s Operating, Management, and the Firm Risk Committee.
CEO of Capstone
Paul Britton is Capstone’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Paul began his career with Saratoga Limited, trading options on the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE), and co-founded Mako Global Derivatives in 1999. In 2001, Paul moved to New York to establish and manage Mako’s U.S. operations, the buyout of which he led to form Capstone in 2004. Paul is immensely proud of the progress made by the team at Capstone over the years, and by the strong relationships we have been fortunate to build with our investors.
Paul currently serves on the Boards of the US Soccer Foundation, The Tate America’s Foundation and Friends Seminary School in New York City. Paul received a B.A. degree in European Business Finance from London Metropolitan University.
Founder and CIO of Gladstone
George is the Founder and CIO of Gladstone (2005) and launched the Lasker Fund in 2006.
As CIO, George has overseen the Lasker Fund since inception.
Before founding Gladstone, George was an investment team member at Lansdowne Partners (Developed Markets Fund, 2003-2005).
Prior to Lansdowne Partners, George was a Principal in the Private Equity business of Capital Z Partners (London, 1999-2003). Capital Z managed the largest private equity fund dedicated to financial services and also provided seed capital to private equity and hedge funds. Whilst at Capital Z, he held various board positions at a number of the portfolio companies in the software, credit information and insurance sectors.
George was at Credit Suisse Group in the Investment Banking Division – M&A, London (1997-1999).
He qualified as an Actuary in 1996 (Institute of Actuaries, London) after graduating top of his class with 1st Class Honours (BBusSci, Actuarial Science, 1995) from the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
Whilst in his youth George competed in both South African and International chess events and was awarded the FIDE International Chess Master title in 1995.
He was 3rd in the World Championship Under 20 in 1992 and was South African chess champion and South African Number One at the World Chess Olympiad (1996, 2004).
Co-Founder at be radical
Pascal Finette is the co-founder of be radical, EY’s wavespace Advisory Board Chair, and Jury Chair for Science and Innovation Management at Falling Walls Foundation. Previously he held leadership positions at Google.org, Mozilla, and eBay, built technology startups, and launched a Venture Capital firm. He is the posse leader at TheHeretic.org, and the cofounder of the Women’s Impact Alliance. Over nearly three decades in technology, Pascal Finette has accrued all the experience you’d want in a high-level strategic advisor. Pascal started on the net before there was a web browser. He learned his way through founding a series of technology startups, launching a consulting firm to support entrepreneurs in scaling their own, and building a portfolio investing in early-stage tech companies. He was the faculty chair for entrepreneurship and open innovation at Singularity University. He’s worn many hats and knows what needs to go on in the brain under each of them to lead effectively. What makes Pascal truly one-of-a-kind, however, is his ability to translate all of this experience into teachable insights, principles, and practices. This enables him to help corporate leaders and entrepreneurs do what they all say they want to do: transform their organizations, build what matters, tackle truly meaningful challenges & create lasting, positive change in the world. Pascal brings refreshing honesty and a zero tolerance for bullshit to the buzzy intersection of technology, global impact, and culture, where he’s established himself as a sought-after speaker and a uniquely perceptive communicator of hard truths and creative provocations. As the founder of the boutique advisory firm be radical and the posse leader at TheHeretic.org — where he’s behind an opinionated newsletter and podcast with tens of thousands of subscribers — Pascal inspires, educates, and empowers leaders to make sense of accelerating change, envision the future of exponential technology, identify new opportunities, and develop successful, future-robust business strategies. Relentlessly focused on amplifying positive change and the impact of other changemakers, Pascal is the author of the bestselling book “Disrupt Disrupt – How to Decode the Future, Disrupt Your Industry, and Transform Your Business.” He is also the founder of the nonprofit organization Mentor for Good and The Women’s Impact Alliance and trained as a Co-Active executive coach working with clients to unlock their full leadership potential.
Global Markets - Solutions – Structurer, UBS Investment Bank
Dr. iur. Anna-Naomi Bandi-Lang serves as a Digital Asset Structurer and Executive Director at UBS Investmentbank. With over a decade within the financial industry she initially contributed six years to different Legal departments setting the stage for her transition to a global Securities Trading team at UBS Investment Bank. In this role, Anna-Naomi has expanded her expertise to cover pivotal areas like Digital Assets, Tokenization, digital and traditional Capital Markets. As a capital markets lawyer and structurer, she has actively integrated blockchain setups in capital market solutions. Her vast experience with digital assets such as the tokenization of Structured Products or Bonds underscores her proficiency in the sector. Her knowledge in legal and regulatory matters coupled with deep insights into capital markets, supports UBS's strides in the digital finance arena.
Head of Tokenization & Crypto Infrastructure of Crypto Finance
Kasper is the Head of Tokenization and Crypto Infrastructure at Crypto Finance, based in Zurich, part of Deutsche Borse group. In his role, Kasper is responsible for storage infrastructure storing billions of crypto assets for institutional clients and Crypto Finance's own custodian.
Before joining Crypto Finance, Kasper was an executive director and one the digital asset pioneers at UBS, responsible for innovation and delivering the banks' first successful tokenization projects.
CoE Lead Digital Assets APACand UBS Tokenize, UBS Group
Laurens Schepens is part of the UBS Center of Excellence for Digital Assets, where he is leading the service development of UBS Tokenize and is the Digital Asset Lead for Group Operations and Technology APAC. During his career, he has gained extensive experience combining financial services, emerging technology, and business strategy in start-ups and banks. Laurens holds a Master in Management from Vlerick Business School and a Bachelors in Business Law.
Co-Founder of Colendi
Bulent is a Serial Entrepreneur. His prior Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency Licensed e-money company ininal.com has reached more than 3 Million accounts, and 1 Million active digital wallet users monthly, and still growing fast after Cheque-Dejeuner Group acquired a majority stake at ininal in May 2016, signed for one of the biggest deals in the Turkish Startup ecosystem. He has been working for years to transform the banking industry, micro credits, and credibility world into digital and has started Colendi as the right solution for this vision. Started with the credit scoring algorithm, Colendi now offers embedded fintech services invest/insure/credit, and much more to global markets. Bulent’s vision of creating a fintech ecosystem has led to the acquisition of SETL by Colendi in 2022. After a brief period of the acquisition, SETL has become the tech partner of NY Fed.
After fully completing the licensing processes for the products, Colendi offers various financial products with its sub-brands such as Colendi Securities, SETL, and Colendi Insurance. Colendi also obtained the establishment license for Türkiye's first digital deposit bank in 2023. With 17M+ users, Colendi provides process settlement, micro-credits, BNPL, investment products, and many more as embedded into other platforms within a full-stack financial service-based business model. Bulent is also an active investor and invests in early-stage FinTech start-ups through NextVentures. Bulent has been elected as the “Internet Entrepreneur of the Year” in Türkiye and EY Entrepreneur Of The Year - Accelerating Entrepreneurs program in Monte Carlo. He won several awards: including “Best FinTech Start-up”. The Wired UK magazine elected in 2013 and 2014 ininal as the hottest 100 companies in Europe. Prior to ininal, Bulent spent more than 15 years in Financial Technology Consultancy and Software development. Bulent holds a B.S. Industrial Engineering degree and joined Harvard Business School later.
Chief Investment Officer GFIW, UBS Global Wealth Management
Maximilian Kunkel is Chief Investment Officer for the Global Family Office Group within UBS Global Wealth Management.
In this capacity, he is responsible for bringing together market and investment insights to optimize impact for UBS Global Family Office clients. He is also Regional Chief Investment Officer for Germany and Austria. Maximilian is a Managing Director and joined UBS as a graduate in 2006.
Maximilian holds a Master's of Science in Management with distinction from the London School of Economics, a CEMS Master in International Management (London School of Economics and ESADE), and a first class honours Bachelor of Science in Business Management from King's College London.
Head Global Wealth Management Middle East, UBS
Niels Zilkens is Lead Market Head of Wealth Management Arabian Gulf & Non-Resident Indian (NRI) and Head Wealth Management of the Dubai branch, based in Dubai. He has been responsible since 2015 for UBS Group cross-jurisdiction activities, and leads teams in Dubai and Bahrain that offer customized and innovative investment solutions delivering UBS's vast global investment expertise to clients.
Niels Zilkens joined UBS in 2012 as Market Head NRI. Previously he was with Clariden Leu, where he was Business Area Head NRI and Indian Subcontinent. He has in-depth wealth management experience with NRI and Middle Eastern clients gained at Clariden Leu and before that at Credit Suisse in Dubai and Switzerland. Having started his career as an economist at the Swiss National Bank, he gained further expertise as a senior economist in the research department of Credit Suisse in Zurich.
Niels Zilkens holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Zurich.
Partner at Roland Berger
Pierre from Roland Berger, where he leads the Digital Assets practice, advising clients on implementable investment strategies to capitalise on these new disruptive technologies. Pierre himself is based in Abu Dhabi and so is well placed to talk to us today about the nuances specific to the region. Before joining Roland Berger he was leading the Venture Investment business of a multinational energy company, and held several board positions in AI, energy and crypto startups in the Europe.