Russell is the Global Head of Alternatives at abrdn Investments responsible for the strategy, vision, and innovation across the Alternatives Division. He has worked with the Alternatives team for over 20 years and is Chairman of both the Alternatives Governance & Investment Committee and the Pan Alternatives Investment Committee. In addition, Russell is a Non-Executive Director of Archax, the UK’s first regulated digital securities exchange broker and custodian, following abrdn’s investment in August 2022. In February 2023 he was appointed interim Global Head of Multi Asset Investment Solutions at abrdn, and reports to the company’s CIO, Peter Branner. Russell joined the business in 2010 via the acquisition of various asset management businesses from Royal Bank of Scotland where he was a strategy head within the hedge fund team. He originally joined the hedge fund investment desk at Coutts & Co in 2000 having worked there from 1998.

Yvonne Deane Harte acts as UK Finance’s Director for Secondary Markets and Post Trade processes and leads UK Finance securities tokenisation work. Yvonne joined UK Finance in 2020, working in industry and private practice as a senior counsel solicitor specialising in investment management and financial regulation, advising on DvP trades, MiFID II, accessing new markets, market infrastructure, CASS and Brexit. Yvonne is passionate about advancing industry priorities to ensure the continued success of UK financial services.

Kevin joined UK Finance in 2022 and is responsible for public policy matters impacting and related to UK secondary markets and post-trade policy. Previously Kevin worked at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as part of the senior management team in the Wholesale Banking and Investment Management Supervision department where he advised wholesale bank supervisors and other stakeholders on various regulatory issues, and worked closely with other supervisory and policy teams across the FCA and the Bank of England. Before joining the FCA in 2015, Kevin spent his career in investment banking and held a number of senior roles across the credit trading and debt capital markets businesses at ABN Amro, JP Morgan and National Australia Bank in London. Kevin is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment.

Peter T. Golder serves as Head of Group Digital Assets at LSEG with a mandate to shape the future of Digital Assets and Digital Market Infrastructure across the Group through the definition and execution of innovative and commercially viable business models. Peter is a passionate financial services entrepreneur, executive and investor. He joined LSEG in June 2022 with over 25 years of capital markets and investment banking experience. Previously, Peter was the Chief Commercial Officer at SIX Digital Exchange [SDX] and a Board member of the Global Blockchain Business Council [GBBC] and the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance [EEA]. Prior to SDX, Peter was the founder and CEO of Euroclear Information Solutions. Earlier in his career, Peter was the CEO of Dar Al Istithmar, Deutsche Bank’s award-winning Islamic structuring boutique and the Global Head of Strategy for Deutsche Bank’s Global Markets Equities division. Peter was also the co-founder and CEO of 776 Capital, a systematic quantitative investment manager and a Managing Director of Prosdocimi, a corporate finance and merchant banking boutique. In addition, Peter spent multiple years as a capital markets’ Principal at Booz & Co advising investment banks and financial market infrastructure providers. Peter regularly publishes on industry matters and is a frequent speaker at Digital Assets, DLT and Crypto industry events. Peter also serves as an adviser to several FinTech firms. Peter holds a PhD in Strategy from Bayes Business School; a MSC [Insigni Cum Laude] in European Law and Politics plus a MA and BA in Economics and Finance from the University of Basel.

Andrew Griffith is the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and City Minister. He is a former senior business executive and investor who now sits in the UK Parliament.

He served on Sky’s Board of Directors from 2008 until 2019, being the youngest FTSE100 Chief Financial Officer on his appointment. Between 2014-2019, Andrew was a Non-Executive Director of FoodTech start up, Just Eat plc and served for a year as its Chairman.

In July 2019, Andrew was appointed as the PM’s Chief Business Adviser and from February-July 2022 he was the Minister for Policy and Head of the 10 Downing Street Policy Unit.

Richard is UK Head of Fintech at Linklaters, with a background in capital markets and derivatives. He has acted on a number of cryptocurrency, token, smart contract and blockchain projects, including in relation to the development of the Utility Settlement Coin (USC) by a consortium of banks and Clearmatics Technologies. Richard is a member of the Financial Markets Law Committee (FMLC) Working Group on DLT Governing Law and Jurisdiction. He has considerable experience in advising clearing and settlement systems, broker-dealers and investment banks on cutting-edge platforms and structures relating to market infrastructures, trading, clearing, payments and settlement finality and margining. Richard also acts regularly in relation to securitised, exchange-traded and OTC derivative transactions, including advising on the enforceability of netting and set-off arrangements. He is a CFA charterholder.

Mathew is global head of Digital Assets. He serves as a member of the Goldman Sachs International Asset and Liability Committee and the Goldman Sachs International Bank Management Committee. Previously, Mathew was global head of Cross Asset Financing. He joined the firm as a vice president in 2005 in the European Special Situations Group in London and was named managing director in 2010. Prior to joining the firm, Mathew worked at Morgan Stanley in the Securitized Products Group, focusing on structuring, financing and risk management. Mathew is a board member of the International Securities Lending Association. Mathew earned a BA (Hons) in Accounting and Finance at Nottingham. He has been a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants since 1999.

John has more than 20 years of experience in financial services. He is Managing Director, Global Head of Digital Assets Strategy at HSBC, responsible for the approach to CBDCs, stablecoins, cryptocurrencies and asset tokenisation. In this role, John is responsible for HSBC Orion, the propriety digital assets platform that financial institutions and corporations are able to use to issue digital bonds on blockchain. Prior to joining HBSC, John held various roles at ICE Futures Europe (previously the London International Financial Futures Exchange – LIFFE).

David has worked in financial services for over 40 years. At Barclays he worked for three Group chairmen, helped set up Large Corporate Banking, had wide experience in SME and consumer banking and ran the Group’s IT and operations function. David subsequently led Commercial Banking for Lloyds Bank, then was chief executive of Cattles PLC (a consumer finance and invoice finance business) before joining Moneycorp (an independent FX provider) as CEO. Before joining UK Finance David spent eight years at Bibby Financial Services as the chief executive.

Ben is a partner with Oliver Wyman, based in London. He is a thought leader in our European Finance and Risk Practice, leading our work on risks in capital markets and digital assets, working with global banks, financial market infrastructures (FMIs) and digital asset service providers. His recent client work in digital assets has seen him help multiple leading banks and FMIs with projects that include supporting native digital asset firms in developing sound approaches to risk management, adapting to the new risks of digital assets across a wide range of new business launches, and setting several exciting new propositions for launch, including stablecoin, trading, and custody offerings.

Nicole is the Head of Digital Policy at Barclays. She drives the policy engagement on digital regulation and initiatives including AI and DLT use cases, and regularly engages with policymakers globally. Further, she represents Barclays in various regulatory and policy forums and industry groups. For example, Nicole is on the European Commission’s Expert Group on Regulatory Obstacles to Financial Innovation, co-chairs the UK Finance AI Policy Committee and is on the on the UK Finance Digital, Technology and Cyber Product and Services Board. In addition, she presented on AI at the EC FinTech Lab and represented Barclays at both the Crypto-asset and Blockchain roundtable and Digital Identity roundtable at the European Parliament.

Nicole regularly speaks on panels, presents at conferences and universities, and has articles published.  She was named in the Financial News ‘Top 20 Most Influential Women in Digital Assets 2023’, FinTech Magazine ‘Top 100 Women in FinTech 2022’, the City Am Crypto Am ‘Industry Personality of the Year 2022’, Re.Work ‘Top 30 Women in Fintech’ 2021, the ‘Influencer of the Year’ at the NY Finovate Awards 2019 and the ‘Most Influential Women in FinTech Regulation – UK’ at the Wealth and Finance Awards 2019.

Breige has over 20 years in the debt capital markets and financial services industry with global coverage in Legal, Financial Technology, Blockchain and Regulatory Technology sectors. Breige has worked across global corporates and ambitious start-ups as founder and director. She was Chief Strategy Officer for Tutum Capital and has held senior roles as Head of Europe for Securitize, Senior Vice President EMEA, Head of Business Development, Sales, Marketing & Strategy for US Bank and BNY Mellon. Breige brings expertise in fundraising, building high performance teams, implementing product and business scale into new markets, executing sales strategy, successful positioning for route to market and revenue growth. Breige is also a Solicitor of England and Wales, with an LL.M. in International and Commercial Law starting her early career with Cleary Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton.