PAT FinTech

Associate Faculty

Adrian Whelan
Senior Vice President, Brown Brothers Harriman

As Global Head of Market Intelligence, Adrian Whelan is passionate about helping clients identify and interpret regulatory, distribution and product change in the asset management space. He is focused on articulating the impacts to clients and their businesses and highlighting the opportunities they can create.

Through active industry engagement, Adrian acts as an advocate for our clients’ interests. He is the lead contributor to BBH’s On The Regs blog, and regularly shares insights on global regulatory topics there and across social media.  Adrian is also a regular conference speaker and contributor to trade media on all aspects of asset management. 

Prior to joining BBH in 2011, Adrian worked in a number of global custody banks as well as running a regulatory consulting firm. Adrian is active with many asset management industry advocacy groups including the Investment Company Institute, Irish Funds and the Investment Association. He is a member of BBH’s Executive Sustainability Council, as well as several industry groups focused on ESG. Adrian is also a very active and vocal contributor to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including BBH BANC Networks and several external campaigns. Adrian holds a degree in Business Studies from Dublin City University
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Alan Barry
Founder & CEO, Fund Elements

Alan Barry founded Fund Elements in 2015. Fund Elements is focused on enabling the next generation of Apps for Investment Funds by breaking through the current operating silo’s. Fund Element’s App provides a transparent view of requirements by documenting the end to end Investment Fund Operating Model in the cloud where is it accessible to all. Fund Elements is about collaboration between solution providers, enabling the Investment Fund Knowledge and Digital Skills required to build future Apps

Prior to founding Fund Elements, Alan held a global role with CITCO where he worked since 2002. Alan was initially responsible for the setup of CITCO European Middle Office business. He has gained more than 30 years’ experience in the Investment Fund and Banking industry and has worked in Dublin, London and New York with leading businesses including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse First Boston, UBS and Irish Life.
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Michelle McGuire
Head of Risk & Compliance, valid8Me

Michelle is an experienced risk and compliance professional with more than 15 years' experience in senior positions in various financial services industries including banking and fund administration. During her time in industry, Michelle was a member of Industry working groups in AML, Data Protection and Regulation. Michelle holds the relevant compliance, risk and legal qualifications and professional body memberships, complementing strong business commercial knowledge. Most recently, Michelle has worked in the ever-growing Fintech industry in senior leadership roles.

As Head of Risk and Compliance for valid8Me, Michelle's remit covers all aspects of Risk and Compliance for the business, and given her experience in the financial services industry, is able to fully appreciate valid8Me's clients pain points and frustrations in relation to client onboarding.
Michelle has an active role in the start-up and Fintech communities, both as an advisory council member of the Fintech and Payments Association and an advisory board member for the Fintech Corridor.

Having worked in the Funds industry and understanding the intricacies of the work involved, Michelle is able to fully appreciate the pain points and frustrations of GECKO Governance’s clients and how the software can alleviate these pain points and streamline clients’ work flows and business processes.  Active in the start-up and Fintech communities, Michelle is a member of the Fintech and Payments Association, and a brand ambassador for The Fintech Corridor.
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Ciara O'Grady
Partner - Risk Advisory, Deloitte

Ciara is an experienced Director in the Risk & Regulatory Practice of Deloitte, specialising in FinTech & Markets Risk and Regulation. 

Ciara has experience working with growing and scaled FinTechs in Ireland and overseas including E-money Institutions, Payment firms, Insurtechs and Investment Platforms on designing, embedding and analysing the effectiveness of their Risk and Regulatory Management Frameworks. Ciara also has 13 years’ experience supporting traditional Banks, Insurance companies and Investment Firms in meeting their regulatory compliance obligations and designing and executing Regulatory & Risk strategies. 

Most recently Ciara held the roles of Head of Compliance & MLRO and Chief Risk Officer of Revolut’s securities business in Ireland where she built the Risk and Regulatory functions for the Irish business and supported the groups Risk and Regulatory global functions. Ciara has also led large Brexit contingency engagements for firms seeking to redomicile their EU HQs to Ireland, supporting on applications to the Central Bank of Ireland for authorisation in Ireland.
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Dr. Monika Sosa Smatralova
Director - Portfolio Manager, Internal Audit at Barclay's Europe

PhD Financial (Risk) Management and Services (FMUK, Bratislava)

MSc Treasury, Investment and Banking (DCU)

Dr Monika Smatralova is a senior practitioner covering a financial services area. Her current role is an Internal Audit Director at Barclays Europe. Her academic background is in 'Financial (Risk) Management’ and ‘Banking, Treasury and Investments’. She has been working in risk functions of major high street and captive banks over 13 years focusing mainly on Credit and Operational Risk Management and Measurement; Capital, Liquidity and Funding Risk and Enterprise Risk Management.

Monika is actively involved in the senior leadership at the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association (PRMIA), successfully leading the Irish Chapter since 2013. In 2014 she was elected as the EMEA Regional Directors Committee Co Chair and in 2020 as a member of PRMIA Global Council. She is lecturing at various universities in Ireland and abroad and published articles in technical magazines and journals. Monika is also an active international speaker covering Risk Management topics.
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Pete Townsend
Managing Director Techstars Web3

Pete Townsend is an early-stage startup advisor and investor, non-executive director, and podcaster.  He is the founding partner of Norio Ventures based in Dublin, and he is currently investing in and accelerating web3 startups as a Managing Director with Techstars.

Pete has nearly 30 years of global experience at the startup and enterprise level with companies such as Coinbase,  BNP Paribas, Fidelity Investments and 30+ startups around the world.  

Pete is also the co-host of MoneyNeverSleeps, an Ireland top 20 weekly podcast that looks inside the minds of entrepreneurs and at the crossover of startups, enterprise, technology, finance and life as we know it.

Prior to his life in the wild, Pete was the chief operating officer and global head of product development for a division of BNP Paribas and a director on the board of its Irish franchise for ten years. Prior to BNP Paribas, Pete worked in leadership roles in client service, operations and technology with Fidelity Investments in Boston and in the Bermuda hedge fund servicing sector. Originally from Massachusetts, Pete graduated cum laude from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a BSc in Finance & Operations Management and went on to earn an MBA from Boston University.
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Rachel Power
CIPP/E, CIPM, Privacy Advisor, DPO, Director, Data Protection Enthusiast, AML Compliane, Finance Manager

Rachel co-founded O’Dwyer Power Accountants in 2018 and since then, in her role as a Consultant, she advises organisations regarding their compliance with current data protection and anti-money laundering legislation. Her client list incorporates a wide range of clients from a cross sector of industries but with particular emphasis on the Credit Union sector. Prior to that, Rachel held roles in financial management for over 10 years, including working in the education sector and in industry.

Rachel’s experience has allowed her to develop a unique perspective, bringing together industry expertise, understanding of technology solutions and ability to translate legislative requirements into conditionally driven rules.Rachel is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals having achieved both the CIPP/E and CIPM certifications and would describe herself as a privacy enthusiast. As a data privacy consultant, Rachel carries out training for a large variety of organisations regarding their obligations under the GDPR. Having completed her Diploma in Anti-Money Laundering, Rachel was awarded the honorary gold medal for her final submission and her knowledge of, and interest in this topic is evident in her training sessions. Due to her experience in the Credit Union sector she works closely with relevant IT providers in ensuring that Fintech solutions incorporate both privacy by design and default as well as assisting organisations with their AML compliance obligations. Rachel is a graduate of University College Cork, The Honorable Society of King's Inns, City Colleges and Waterford Institute of Technology.
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Rachel Woolley
Head of Financial Crime Regulation at Palantir Technologies

Rachel Woolley is the Head of Financial Crime Regulation for Palantir Technologies. Rachel focuses on evolving legislation, financial crime typologies, and anti-financial crime deployments. Working for some of the world’s largest institutions across various divisions and product lines, Rachel began her career as a compliance officer focusing on anti-money laundering and broader risk management. Prior to Palantir, Rachel was the Global Director of Financial Crime at a regulatory technology vendor where she researched financial crime trends, legislation, and identified product enhancements and technology-driven solutions. Rachel is CAMS, LCOI, CFCPP, and CDPO certified.

Prior to joining Fenergo, Rachel held several AML/Compliance roles throughout her career and has developed a strong perspective on aspects of financial crime – from transaction monitoring, client onboarding, compliance monitoring, and as a Central Bank of Ireland approved head of compliance in a regulated entity.
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Eoin Fitzgerald
Senior Innovation Engagement Specialist at the Central Bank of Ireland

Eoin Fitzgerald is currently working with the Central Bank of Ireland as a Senior Innovation Engagement Specialist. Eoin has 15 years experience in Financial Services, working across a number of domestic and international banks such as AIB, Barclays, Deutsche Bank as well as working with scaling startup, Future Finance. Eoin was a Senior Development Adviser in Fintech for Enterprise Ireland. Enterprise Ireland is the largest seed stage investor in Europe. Eoin invests in early stage fintech startups and works with them to scale internationally. 

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Russell Burke
Independent Payments Consultant at Juristic Ltd.

Russell Burke is an independent payments consultant with a unique combination of extensive regulatory and strategic payments experience Russell advises payments and electronic money firms seeking authorisation and is one of Ireland’s leading payments specialists with over forty years’ experience with the Central Bank of Ireland, the Irish Payments Services Organisation (IPSO) and Bank of Ireland.  Russell is also a non executive board member and head of the audit committee for myPOS Limited.

 

Russell has been a speaker at a number of major domestic and international events and, more recently, has spoken on behalf of the Central Bank of Ireland at several industry events on the application and authorisation processes for payments and electronic money institutions in Ireland. Russell has an MBA from the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, is a qualified financial adviser and a licentiate of the Institute of Banking in Ireland.
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Dermot Kennedy
Chief Operations Officer at The Compliance Institute

Dermot is an experienced Director, having gained significant experience in Compliance, Risk and Fraud, Operations, Engineering and Customer Services management primarily in the Information Technology and Fintech areas. 

Dermot was most recently CS Director Ireland at Remitly, who are a global cross-border digital remittance provider and led the launch of Remitly’s European operation in Cork, growing the site to 270 team members in just 2 years while ensuring that the activities of REL’s align with regulatory requirements, compliance, local laws, and business requirements.

Prior to joining Remitly, Dermot gained 20 years of senior leadership experience at multinational companies including Amazon, Dell, and Sanmina. While at Amazon Dermot led the Global outsourcing network supporting the UK and Ireland. Dermot is passionate about the development of highly scalable standards, policies, procedures, repeatable processes, and methodologies to enable best practices to be standardized across organizations.  Qualifications: Masters in Business Administration  Bachelor of Science  Diploma in Fintech, Risk and Compliance  Six Sigma Black (American Society of Quality)
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Hesus Inoma
Head of Strategy & Innovation i13 Ventures

Hesus is a seasoned Financial Services, FinTech & Tech Strategist, combining expertise in value creation, value preservation, growth optimisation and ecosystem strategy in advising Financial Services firms, Startups and Scaleups and Governments. Hesus has deep expertise, gained across multiple organisations, in identifying and working closing with High-Potential Tech companies, supporting Founders, CEOs and Boards in building strategies to realise their growth opportunities, operationalising scaling their businesses and raising captial. Hesus has held numerous Senior roles in the top Management Consulting Brands in Ireland with a focus on Digital and Tech Strategies.

At Grant Thornton, Hesus led the establishment of the Open Finance Hub whose goal is to enable clients to research, innovate, test, implement and optimise tech solutions to address business problems in a safe and secure environment. At EY Parthenon, Hesus built the Technology and FinTech strategy arm in Ireland. EY Parthenon is one of the Top 5 Management Consulting Strategy Firms in the world.  Hesus is a proven Entrepreneur and a well-recognised Leader within the Irish and European FinTech ecosystem. He is also a recognised Speaker and Thought-Leader across Europe and US having spoken and published on numerous FinTech and Tech topics. Hesus is passionate about the digitalisation of Financial Services and the collaboration between the financial services and technology sectors with an excellent understanding of financial products and smart technologies underpinning emerging FinTech and Web3 solutions. Qualifications: Chartered Banker, Chartered Insurer (ACII), Qualified Financial Adviser (QFA), Certified Agile Coach, Certified Agile Facilitator, Post Grad in Financial Services from University College Dublin, BA Honours Degree in International Insurance & European Studies from University of Limerick
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Paul O'Loughlin
CEO at Soldo
Paul O'Loughlin is an experienced Regulatory Compliance, AML and Risk professional with significant experience influencing and developing strategies and solutions to address complex operational and regulatory challenges. Paul has performed various AML, Compliance and Regulatory roles across both the public and private sector representing the Irish Stock Exchange, the Central Bank of Ireland, State Street (IFS), AIB Merchant Services, Head of Financial Services Compliance and MLRO at An Post and is currently the CEO at Soldo
 
 

Paul holds a Degree and Masters in Law from Trinity College, Dublin; a Professional Diploma in Governance, Risk and Compliance from Manchester University Business School, and is a Licentiate of the Compliance Institute and a fellow of the ICA.
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Lorraine Lyons
Enterprise Technology Senior Sales Executive
Lorraine Lyons is an enterprise technology senior sales executive with a demonstrated history working with Fund Administrators, Investments Managers, Global Fund Services providers and Hedge funds globally to provide regulatory technology platform solutions. Lorraine is responsible for new business sales in Ireland and North America and works with large clients who will use AQMetrics regulatory risk and reporting platform to help their customers to scale. Prior to her position at AQMetrics, she worked at IBM’s European Digital Sales Centre as part of the Operations team in the Inside Sales software group.  
 
 

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Clare Stephenson
Senior Compliance Officer at AXA Partners

Clare is an experienced compliance professional with 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry with her focus being in Insurance. Clare holds the relevant compliance, risk and professional body memberships, supporting her strong business & commercial knowledge. Clare’s current remit covers all aspects of Compliance , including analysis of regulation across varying jurisdictions , impact assessment of that new regulation, building the culture of compliance in the business, provide training on core policies and procedures while formulating  & executing the compliance and conduct reviews of branches, processes or business functions to test for regulatory control weakness.

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Graham Day
Cloud Compliance Program Manager at Genesys

Over 20 years UK Public Sector delivering holistic Security and Counter Intelligence support in high-threat high-risk environments. Subsequently a CESG Listed Advisor providing Security Information Risk Advisor to both Public and Private Sector organisations. Specialist in Data Centre (DC) security & compliance, formerly responsible for multiple territories and developed UK Government guidance for DC Security. Roles have also included vCISO whilst concurrently serving as information & cyber maturation program manager for global organisation. Currently Cloud Compliance & bespoke speciality Program Manager for global SAAS entity. Additionally have simultaneously founded own company to provide market-disrupting personal threat awareness and security education web-app, empowering everyone and anyone to be safer online.

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Dáire Lawlor
Founder and Managing Director of Interwoven Ltd

Dáire Lawlor has over 30 years’ experience and a strong background in IT, Operations and the Business in the IT and Financial Services sectors where he has built up significant depth of knowledge in assimilating and exploiting emerging technologies to transform businesses, create new products, introduce efficiencies, manage risk, and deliver benefits.

Dáire’s experience has been gained through a long and varied career in senior management roles successfully servicing blue chip clients; most recently as the head of State Street Ireland’s Consulting Services Group, where he was responsible for product development, transformation, innovation, onboarding and professional services servicing some of the world’s biggest asset managers while also liaising with emerging technology and fintech firms.

Interwoven Ltd. his advisory and professional services company, offering a variety of professional services, operational scaling, go to market, and research services to firms and funds looking to exploit emerging technologies, was founded in 2020 where he has built up a client base in Ireland, across the EU, Switzerland and the UK. Dáire held the chair on the Irish Funds Industry Fintech Working Group (2018-2019) and went on to sit on the Irish Funds Sustainability, Skills and Technology Steering Group. He co-chaired the Events and Comms WG and sat on the Steering Committee of Blockchain Ireland from 2020-2023. He currently is active on the Vigitrust Advisory Board and Irish Fund Directors Association (IFDA) Innovation Working Group.
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Tracy Tookey
Experienced GRC Consultant

Tracy has over 25 years global regulatory, compliance, governance and risk management experience, having worked as a senior practitioner, primarily within financial services and regulatory sectors since 1998. Areas of expertise include Data Protection, Digital Services Regulation, IAF, AML, Enterprise Risk Management, Internal Audit, Regulatory Policy, Management, Leadership, ESG and Corporate Governance. Regulatory approvals and registrations to date include CBI (Ireland) - PCFs 12, 13, 14 and 15 and equivalent registrations in the UK, Bermuda and Cayman Islands as Head of Risk and Compliance, AMLCO and MLRO. Tracy currently provides governance, advisory, training and consultancy services to businesses and organisations across a number of sectors.