Annual Fintech Summit 2020

Vladislav Goranov

Minister of Finance of Republica Bulgaria

He finished Geo Milev High School of Mathematics in Pleven. In the period 1994 - 1999 he studied at D. A. Tsenov Academy of Economics in Svishtov in the specialty of economics and has a Master's degree in accounting and control.
From 1998 to 2001 he was a Specialist at Extra-budgetary Accounts and Funds Division; an Expert and Director of Financial Policy Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Agrarian Reform. In 2001 he took the position of Chief expert at Financing of State Bodies, Programs and Insurance Funds Directorate of the Ministry of Finance. From 2001 to 2009 he was Head of Social Expenditures Division of the Ministry of Finance, Public Finance Management.  From August 2009 to April 2013 he took the position of Deputy Minister of Finance. He was a member of the 42nd National Assembly which he left at his own will in February 2014. After that Mr. Goranov was appointed as Executive Director and Member of the Management Board of Municipal Bank Plc. November 2014 - January 2017 - Minister of Finance of the Republic of Bulgaria. After a short break, resumes holding the position of Minister of Finance in May 2017.

Kalin Hristov

Deputy Governor, Bulgarian National Bank

Kalin Hristov is Deputy Governor in charge of the Issue Department and member of the Governing Council of the Bulgarian National Bank from 23 October 2009. He is elected by the 43rd National Assembly on 29 July 2015 for a second six-year term of office, starting from 24 October 2015.

Miroslav Vichev

Chief Executive Officer, BORICA

Miroslav Vichev is a Chief Executive Officer of the payment and card operator BORICA. He has over 25 years of experience in the field of information technology for the banking sector. Before joining the company, he held a number of leadership positions - Head of "Applied Systems" at the Bulgarian Postbank, Director "Management Consulting and IT" at Deloitte & Touche, Head of "Consulting Department" at Microsoft Bulgaria and a consultant to the BNB in relation to the RINGS system, IT Director at HVB Bank Biochim, CEO of DSK Bank. He was also a member of the Supervisory Board of the "DSK Rodina" pension company, member of the Board of Directors of the "Cash Service Company AD" and a member of the Board of Directors of OTP Bank (Russia), Deputy of the CEO of OTP Bank (Hungary) and Chief Information Manager of the banking group. Mr. Vichev is a former graduate of the Technical University of Sofia.

Goran Angelov

Founder and CEO, IBS Bulgaria

Goran Angelov is a founder and CEO of IBS Bulgaria (IBS) one of the leading IT companies in the country with a focus on finance industry, analytics solutions and systems integration. Nowadays IBS is involved in key project for leading banks related to digital transformation, PSD2 regulation, infrastructure modernisation and information assets management.
Goran Angelov has an engineer degree in process automation. He has more than 20 years of experience in the field of information and communication technologies and has participated in a number of successfully implemented large-scale IT projects for the business and the public sector.

Kevin Goldsmith

CTO, Onfido

Kevin Goldsmith has been a developer, software architect, technology manager, and senior technology executive for over 27 years. He is currently the Chief Technology Officer at Onfido in London, a machine learning and computer vision company helping users own their identities on the internet. Formerly, Kevin was the Chief Technology Officer at Avvo; the Vice President of Engineering, Consumer at Spotify; a Director of Engineering at Adobe Systems; and, development lead at Microsoft.

Balazs Barna

Head of European expansion, TransferWise

Balazs Barna is the Head of European expansion at TransferWise. TransferWise is a global technology company that’s building the best way to move money around the world. Whether you’re sending money to another country, spending money abroad, or making and receiving international business payments, TransferWise is on a mission to make your life easier and save you money. TransferWise processes £4bn every month on behalf of its six million customers, saving themselves £1bn a year in bank fees. It’s attracted $689m from investors such as world’s largest VC firm Andreessen Horowitz and Sir Richard Branson. Prior to starting TransferWise, Balazs joined MSCI to rebuild it's Corporate Events platform. He started his career as a software engineer at Morgan Stanley, after graduating from Corvinus University of Budapest in Business Information Systems (BSc), and Computer Engineering (MSc) from Pannon University.
 

Filip Genov

CEO, F27

25+ years in banking, innovations and technology
Founder & MD of Sophia Lab, the leading digital transformation and acceleration think tank in Southeast Europe
Founder & MD of the first banking & FinTech VC operation in the Southeast Europe
Founder and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the FinTech and InsureTech Summit, the biggest industrial forum in the Southeast Europe
Member of the Vienna Initiative, CEE’s lead expert on financial instruments for innovative and fast growing companies
Co-Founder of the Strategic Center for Artificial Intelligence for Southeast Europe, based in Sofia
Served on the Executive Committee of the Factors Chain International and Strategy and R&D aide to the Executive Committee of CEDEC
Created and managed three 500+ million euro financial businesses
MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, the London School of Economics and Political Science and HEC Paris

Krassimir Georchev

Director "Sales", BORICA

Krassimir Georchev is a Sales Director at BORICA AD. He has nearly 22 years of commercial and management experience in international IT companies. From 1995 to 2000 he was part of the team of the technological giant IBM, where he built and maintained contacts with the key clients from the banking and public sector in our country. Between 2000 and 2009, again at IBM, he held the position "Technology Services Manager". From 2009 to 2015, he was a "System Integration" Manager initially at Siemens IT Solutions Bulgaria, and after the merger of the two companies, he became part of the team of Atos IT Solutions and Services. He has a Master’s degree in "Information Technologies" from the Sofia University "Kliment Ohridski".

Vanya Manova

Country Manager Bulgaria and Macedonia, Mastercard, FinTech Summit Advisory Board Member

Vanya Manova is accountable for the development and implementation of Mastercard’s local business strategy. In her role, Vanya drives innovation in both markets, related to Mastercard new tech solutions’ expansion and electronic payments’ growth, and further strengthen the collaboration and partnership with key customers, governmental bodies and the public sector. After 20 years’ experience in banking sector Vanya Manova joined the Bulgarian team of Mastercard in 2008 as an Account Manager. Over the past few years, she has driven the local business operations and has helped to position Mastercard as a strategic partner for both end customers and non-traditional partners including local government institutions and regulatory bodies. She led the launch and growth of contactless payments in Bulgaria & Macedonia making Mastercard the ultimate leader in contactless field within these markets.

Elitsa Ivanova

Partner, Head of Finance, CMS Sofia

Elitsa Ivanova is a Partner and Head of Finance of CMS Sofia. She is a key expert in the CMS Banking and Finance practice in the CEE region with over 15 years of professional experience in the sector. She is a dual qualified Bulgarian and English lawyer who has advised leading financial institutions active in the CEE and CIS regions on a number of cross-border and multijurisdictional transactions. Elitsa has a wealth of experience in acquisition and leveraged finance, corporate finance, structured commodities trade finance and project finance across a spectrum of industry sectors. Elitsa knows the local market well and advises on all kinds of transactions and finance regulatory matters in Bulgaria (financings, restructuring and insolvency, banking regulatory). In addition to her local expertise, Elitsa brings in-house experience having been seconded in leading financial institutions in London and Amsterdam. In 2012/2013, she completed a secondment at UniCredit Bank AG, London Branch as part of their CEE Loans Syndication Team and more recently another secondment at Deutsche Bank AG, Amsterdam Branch, working on structured commodities and trade finance transactions as part of their Loan Documentation team. Elitsa is highly ranked in the world’s most renowned legal directories Chambers & Partners and Legal 500.

Tsvetomir Doskov

CEO, Sirma BC

Tsvetomir Doskov has over 20 years of professional experience in financial services, banks and IT companies. He is currently the CEO of Sirma Business Consulting (SirmaBC) and is a member of the Board of Directors of Sirma Group Holding. He has made a significant contribution to making SirmaBC a well-recognized provider of software solutions for the banking industry, as well as consultancy and expertise provider on the Bulgarian market. Over the past few years, he has focused on designing, developing and deploying digital solutions for business users and end-users. He holds two Master Degrees as well as numerous professional licenses and certificates in the field of project management and business analysis.

Vladimir Mahnev

Chief Digital Officer, Raiffeisenbank Bulgaria

Vladimir brings 20+ years of experience in driving growth by using digitally enabled products and services in various industries.  He has been contributing to the success of some of the leading technology and consultancy companies in the CEE region.  Vladimir has been in charge for designing complex digital transformation programs to drive digital business outcomes using AI, Cloud, Mobile, IoT and related modern technologies. His experience includes leading number of complex enterprise-wide global business transformation engagements and large scale international digital solutions initiatives. 
As of 2019 he is Chief Digital Officer of Raiffeisenbank (Bulgaria) with the primary task to drive the Digital Transformation initiatives across the whole organization, following its mission to transform continuous innovation into superior customer experience.

Giacomo Volpi

Head of Retail Banking, UniCredit Bulbank

Giacomo Volpi joined UniCredit in 2013 after a successful career in consulting business in The Boston Consulting Group. He started in the "Strategy, planning and control" department of Central Eastern European Division of the Group. In 2008 he became director of the "Strategy, planning and control" department of UniCredit Bank in Ukraine. In 2010 he was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Ukrotsbank, part of the UniCredit Group in Ukraine. In this position he coordinated the activities of accounting, tax, strategy, planning, control, capital management and management of assets and liabilities. From 2016 and until 2018 he was CEO and Chairman of the Board of UniCredit Consumer Finance in Bulgaria. From January 2018 Giacomo Volpi is Head of Retail Banking of UniCredit Bulbank.

Kosta Cholakov

Chairman of the Board and CEO, DZI

Kosta Cholakov is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of DZI since 2013. He obtained his Bachelor's Degree in 1996 from the Law Department of the Faculty of Economics and Law at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and in 1997 - a Master's Degree in Law from Queen Mary & Westfield College, University of London. Kosta Cholakov started his career in insurance at Interamerican Greece, in 1999 became Manager of Claims Management at Interamerican Bulgaria, and from 2001 to 2013 was Executive Director of Interamerican Bulgaria - Insurance Company and Interamerican Bulgaria - Life Insurance

Iravan Hira

Managing Director, Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium

Iravan Hira is Managing Director of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Bulgaria and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Global Delivery Bulgaria Center since 2009. Under the leadership of Iravan Hira Hewlett Packard Bulgaria has been positioned among the top leaders in the IT sector in the country and achieves significant business results which took the Bulgarian branch of the company to the leading position in Central and Eastern Europe. Hewlett Packard Global Delivery Bulgaria Center is among the largest employers in the ICT industry in the country with more than 6000 highly qualified employees and export of services worth of BGN 260 million in 2014. Iravan has worked in Hewlett Packard Bulgaria since the establishment of the company in the country in 1998 and has held various sales and management positions. For high professional successes was honored twice with membership in the "Achievers Club" of global Hewlett Packard Company. Among the priorities of Iravan Hira are strengthening the hi-tech industry in Bulgaria, the introduction of innovations for sustainable economic growth, development and promotion of corporate social responsibility as an important public function of companies and encouragement of entrepreneurship in IT in the country. Because of its active work in these areas Iravan Hira was elected as Chairman of the Bulgarian Business Leaders Forum in 2013. He is also member of the Board of Directors of American Chamber of Commerce in Bulgaria (AmCham), Junior Achievement Bulgaria, the Consultative Business Committee of University of Finance, Business and Entrepreneurship (VUZF) and the Expert Committee of Sofia University etc. Iravan Hira holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the Technical University in Sofia. He has special expertise in the field of new business development, sales management and corporate transformation. Married, with two children.

Kalin Zhelev

Managing director of UniCredit Insurance Broker in Bulgaria

Kalin Zhelev is managing director of UniCredit Insurance Broker in Bulgaria since 2009. He has over 25 years of experience in the insurance business.  During this time period he held various expert and managerial positions in a number of insurers and insurance brokers -  ZPAD Bulgaria. DZI-General insurance, Municipal Insurance Company  AD, Marsh and Uniqa. Kalin has profound interest in all the aspects of the insurance process, the innovations, the customer experience and the future developments of the sector. Kalin Zhelev has a Master’s financial degree from University of national and world economy (UNWE).
 

Petr Baron

CEO, TBIF Financial Services (TBI Bank), FinTech Summit Advisory Board Member

A dynamic and result-oriented executive, Petr Baron has extensive experience in retail banking with focus on digital transformation and business evolution. An expert in developing strategic lending initiatives, maintaining a reputation built on quality, service, and uncompromising ethics. Petr Baron started from leading advisory and investment roles and for over 16 years of his professional career held multiple board roles in multinational and local companies in the UK, Russia, Macedonia and later in Ukraine, where he held positions of CEO of VAB Bank and VAB Group, member of TBIF Financial Services B.V. (TBIF), having managed to transform corporate identity and create the first Ukrainian financial supermarket in retail financial services. From 2012 he held the post of Vice President Strategy for TBIF, being an advisor to the Managing Director on the group’s banking and non-bank operations across CEE, moving on to assisting 4finance Group S.A. in developing its banking strategy and acquisition targets. From 2016 Peter Baron is the Managing Director TBIF, while recently he was appointed as a Member of the Executive Committee of 4finance Group S.A. Petr has a BSc in Investment and Financial Risk Management from the Cass Business School, UK.

Julian Maslyankov

CEO of TBI Info - Business Informatics

Julian Maslyankov is the CEO of TBI Info - Business Informatics. The company has over 17 years of experience in technology in the insurance and financial industries, as well as in business management solutions. Currently, TBI Info is implementing projects for Bulgarian and international companies focusing on IT consulting and implementation of business and end-user solutions. A longtime partner of Vienna Insurance Group and Oracle. Julian Maslyankov holds a Master of Science in Communications and Security Systems with a proven track record in business development, business process planning and management, and operational management. Since 2016, he has co-founded the startup company Skyglyph.
 

Ivan Hadjov

Business Development Manager at Mastercard

Todor Breshkov

co-founder and managing partner at LAUNCHub Ventures

Investor, entrepreneur, interested in blockchain and innovation. Former Investment Banker and angel investor, now a VC. Todor is a co-founder and managing partner at LAUNCHub seed fund, focused on investing in bright entrepreneurs from South Eastern Europe in the ICT sector. Todor has a substantial banking experience and his professional expertise varies within the areas of Finance, Business Development, VC and entrepreneurship. Interested in fintech and crypto economy and the fascinating new future

Ivo Vasilev

Founder/CEO of Reloyalty

Ivo is the Founder/CEO of Reloyalty, a new generation of loyalty technology making every bank card in Europe a personal loyalty card across all our everyday purchases. Previously Ivo gained 10 years of experience building technology companies and products, as a founder of tech startups, operator in companies like Groupon, part of the team of 2 seed venture funds and investor and advisor. In 2013 Ivo moved back to Bulgaria after spending time in London, Sydney, Barcelona and Buenos Aires and in 2014 was selected as 30under30 by Forbes Bulgaria.

Radoy Stoyanov

Business Development Manager Digital Solutions, BULPROS

Radoy spent more than 10 years in banking as a C-level executive in charge of IT, Operations, Marketing and Innovations, and another 10 years as a software engineer and consultant. He is currently part of and advising FinTech and InsurTech companies, as well as supporting banks in their digital transformation projects. He specializes in digital business models, digital customer journeys, AI-driven customer experience personalization and mobile wallets.

Valeri Valtchev

Chairman of the Bulgarian Fintech Association

Valeri Valtchev is a seasoned entrepreneur and investor with success stories across multiple industries. Since 2015 he focuses entirely on the fintech sector. Among others, Valeri Valtchev co-founded the three businesses Paynetics, an end to end payments provider licensed across the European Union, Phos, an innovative point of sale solution empowering contactless payments on any Android device, as well as Phyre, the leading e-wallet provider in Bulgaria. His passion to leverage technology to make financial solutions smarter and at the same time more inclusive also led him to initiate the Bulgarian FinTech Association, which he currently serves as Chairman of the Management Board.

Johan Gabriels

Ebury’s country manager for Romania and Bulgaria

Johan has been Ebury’s country manager for Romania and Bulgaria since February 2018. He has over 30 years of experience in management positions for widely-known companies such as Mars, PepsiCo-Tropicana, Capital One, MasterCard, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Moneycorp. Johan is dedicated to ensuring that Ebury differentiates itself from local banks and other local providers of internal payments and FX management through top client services, tailored to the specific needs of each client. He now manages teams in both Bucharest and Sofia. 

Cosmin Cosma

Co-Founder and CEO, Finqware

Cosmin is Co-Founder and CEO Finqware, a Romanian fintech start-up that develops technologies, digital products and services to provide European consumers and businesses with better ways of managing their finances.The company builds an Open Banking data aggregation infrastructure to allow banks, fintechs and companies to leverage the availability of connecting with banks through APIs and create value on top.Under its mission "Open Banking at work", Finqware was already recognised for its potential to become a CEE regional leader in the fintech industry and awarded with several recognitions: Local Hero at Elevator Lab Challenge, Transylvania Start-up Award and the big prize at Citi CEE PSD2 Challenge (Poland). Before founding Finqware, Cosmin had management positions in banking institutions such as ING Bank, GE Capital, Garantibank and Volksbank, in commercial and risk management roles. As serial entrepreneur he has started several companies, including a banking franchisee branch for ING Bank and a re-insurance broker, both of them still active companies, although Cosmin exited several years ago after setting them up for success. Cosmin has an Executive MBA diploma and is often invited as speaker in business events, where he uses the opportunity to promote entrepreneurship and the fintech opportunities, being passionate on these matters. He is also founding and Board member of the Romanian Fintech Association

Daniel Tomov

Founding Partner, Eleven Ventures

Daniel is the founding partner at Eleven Ventures where he has been investing in some of the most promising and exciting tech startups in SEE since 2012 - 100+ to date. Upon the early success of their first fund Eleven launched an entirely private early-stage VC in 2018 supported by some of the most successful tech entrepreneurs and executives from Bulgaria and the region. Being passionate about building companies, Daniel has been involved in startups since 2000 as an investor and a founder in diverse domains ranging from software to cleantech.

Sergey Panteleev

General Manager, Varengold Bank Sofia Branch

Sergey Panteleev is the general manager of Varengold Bank Sofia Branch. His professional path includes the largest Bulgarian bank by assets, where he was Business development manager and head of the Financial Institutions Group Department in the Corporate, Investment and Private Banking Division. Sergey Panteleev has more than 12 years in the banking sector, specializing in corporate and investment banking and structured finance. He holds a Master’s degree in Corporate and Investment Banking from Bocconi University in Milano and in International Economics Relations from the University for National and World Economy in Sofia.

Dr. Adesola Kazeem Adeduntan (FCA)

Chief Executive Officer, First Bank of Nigeria Limited

Rostislav Gyonkov

Business Consultant Central and Eastern Europe Team, Experian

Rostislav had over 9 years of experience in the financial industry. He joined Experian Bulgaria in 2010 in the Decision Analytics Department. There he was responsible for developing risk management solutions for a large variety of clients in the EMEA region. In 2013 he moved to Experian Denmark and was consulting clients in the Nordics. Since 2016 Rostislav joined Experian Bulgaria as a business consultant for the Central and Eastern European region. He is consulting clients in areas related to risk management, KYC and customer management in general, product developments and optimizations. Before Experian, Rostislav worked in 2008 and 2009 as an investment banker on the New York Stock Exchange.

Eduard Tsvetanov

Country representative of Revolut and a member of SophiaLab

Eduard Tsvetanov is the country representative of the British fintech company Revolut, and is also a member of SophiaLab, where he is leading the "Mobile Banking" Chapter. Revolut managed to attract over 120 000 retail users locally in less than a year, thus making Bulgaria one of the fastest-growing markets in Europe. Eduard has over 8 years' experience managing international projects and campaigns, and to date has worked in the UK, Belgium, Brazil and Bulgaria.

Anton Gerunov

Chief Operating Officer at LogSentinel

Anton Gerunov is an expert in data analytics and AI, personal data protection, risk management and business modeling. He has over 10 years of experience in the private and public sector. Anton has worked as an international business consultant and project manager for global multinationals. He has served as an advisor in the Council of Ministers and was heading project planning and implementation of the national e-Government initiatives. Additionally, he has been involved in the preparation of new legislation such as the Electronic Governance Act, the Electronic Identification Act and the Access to Public Information Act. Anton has also served as head of the National Open Data Initiative for the period 2014-2017. He holds a Ph.D. degree and is currently an Associate Professor of Risk Management at Sofia University. Anton Gerunov is the author of over 30 articles in international and national peer-reviewed journals, three monographs, and has presented at number of conferences on the topics modeling, privacy, and analytics. At the moment he is the Chief Operating Officer at LogSentinel, a blockchain-based innovative IT company and the Chairman of the Institute for Data Ethics and Analytics.

Jose Saloio

CEO of BNP Paribas PF

Jose Saloio is CEO of BNP Paribas Personal Finance S.A., Bulgaria Branch. He has over 18 years of experience in consumer lending, having spent his entire career with Europe's leading consumer lending company BNP Paribas Personal Finance, part of the BNP Paribas Group. Prior to taking up his position in Bulgaria, Mr. Saloio was Chief Operating Officer of BNP Paribas Personal Finance for Central and Eastern Europe for 4 years. In this position, he was responsible for the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Austria. Among his responsibilities are optimization of operational processes in granting consumer loans, after-sales service, collection, management of outsourced services and more. He coordinated key projects for the development of the company in the region in the field of information technology, customer service, etc. In the period 2010-2014, Jose Saloio was Regional Risk Management Director for Poland, Ukraine, China, Turkey, Serbia, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. In this position, he was responsible for consumer lending risk policies, development of market development models and assets provisioning. Prior to taking the regional position, Jose Saloio was responsible for risk management in Romania for three years. BNP Paribas Personal Finance, Bulgaria’ CEO has graduated from the prestigious Pierre and Marie Curie University of Paris and he is an Information Systems Engineer. Jose Saloio is fluent in French, Portuguese and English.

Kalin Radev

CEO and founder of Software Group

Marc Ferguson

Head of Business Development, FintechOS

Marc Ferguson is Head of Business Development at FintechOS based out of their Canary Wharf office in London. Marc originally worked with the financial services sector dealing with investments and insurance for an international wealth management and insurance brokerage. Marc later transitioned into the technology sector working with various companies from Regtech, Wealthtech & Fintech. Marc has a passion for all things technology and how it can make lives simpler by providing seamless access to financial services.