Global Expert Council
AsiaPaymentsConnect is fortunate to be supported by seasoned professionals in our Global Expert Council. These professionals, with a diverse background and expertise in Payments and relevant related areas, will be working on various programs and support us as our ambassadors. They also support our programs (webinars and educational projects) as moderator or expert participant in briefings.
Our Council:

Liz Oakes
Liz Oakes is Executive Vice President, Strategy & Operations Excellence for Product & Innovation at Mastercard. In this role Liz is responsible for developing Mastercard’s long-term strategy for Products & Innovation to deliver the best, secure end-user and customer experience around the world through co-innovation with clients, partnerships and M&A. Liz also oversees Mastercard’s efforts to deliver integrated services and curated product solutions, enterprise risk management, product management excellence, integrated data analytics and cross-border program execution.
Liz has more than 20 years’ experience in designing central clearing and settlement systems and bank payments systems, globally. This includes the governance and functional design of SEPA, Faster Payments and Bacs systems in the UK, and real-time payments systems strategy and design for national payments infrastructure operators in Australia, India, Singapore, Sweden and the USA. Liz has also supported the design and roll out of new payment systems within bank environments and is focused on the customer experience impact of real-time/instant payments, Open Banking and PSD2.
Liz joined Mastercard in 2018 from McKinsey & Company, where she was an expert associate partner in its global payments practice. During her tenure, she served financial institutions, payments businesses and investors on strategy, design and implementation of payment systems, regulation including PSD2 and Open Banking, and supported mergers and acquisitions activity.
In 2016, Liz joined McKinsey from KPMG, where she provided strategic, operational and functional payments advisory services to clients. She was heavily involved in the development of enhanced data and capabilities for real time payments and the implementation of the ISO 20022 XML messaging standard. Earlier in her career, Liz worked at Vocalink, now part of Mastercard, most recently driving product management, strategy and customer engagement.
Liz holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Studies & German from the University of Hertfordshire. She lives in London with her husband and two children.

Harish Natarajan
Harish leads a global team working on payments and market infrastructures topics in the Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice at the World Bank. His work spans Payments and market infrastructures, Financial Inclusion, Digital ID, Digital Economy and FinTech. Harish represents the World Bank in several international working groups on these topics. Harish was a lead contributor to the preparation of the IMF-World Bank Bali Fintech Agenda and is a co-chair of a CPMI-World Bank taskforce on Payment Aspects of Financial Inclusion. Harish is on the editorial board of the Journal of Digital Banking and is a guest editor at the Journal of Payments Strategy and Systems.
Prior to joining the World Bank, Harish worked in senior level positions at Visa in business development, operations, and risk management. Harish holds an under-graduate degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology -Madras, India and a Post Graduate Diploma, from Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta, India specializing in IT systems and Finance.

Michael Salmony
Dr Michael Salmony is Executive Adviser to the Board at equens World line SE, Europe’s leader in financial processing and transactional services, which processes over 17 trillion Euro per year. He is an internationally recognized leader on strategy of business innovations in digital and financial services.He is board-level adviser to major European banks, industry associations and European finance bodies.He regularly helps shape future directions in European decision making bodies e.g. European Commission, EPC, ERPB, and further national and international boards. His views are much in demand as keynote speaker at international events and he appears on TV/Radio/all electronic media on advances in finance and is quoted extensively (e.g. Financial Times, Harvard Business Manager, New Scientist, The Economist and by business schools and governments from Ghana to Malaysia). He has published much own original work which has been translated into many languages including German, Italian, Dutch, Finnish, Polish, Danish, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. Previous positions include Director Business Development of leading national central bank (Bank of the Year, Best Innovator Award). Before entering the world of finance,he was instrumental in setting up IBM’s European Network Centre for the convergence of IT, telecommunications and media and helped transform companies and business models in many industries (publishing, TV/radio, utilities, national rail, etc.) as IBM’s Director of Market Development Media and Communications Technologies. He studied at the University of Cambridge and is married with two millennial children

Paul Brisk
Paul Brisk has over twenty-eight years’ experience working in consumer and retail payments. During this time, he has developed expertise on almost every aspect and component, both business and technical, of the end-to-end payment eco-system, from point of acceptance and the retailer, to acquirer, through to the issuer and consumer, and the role of the payment scheme. Paul’s focus has always been the impact and implementation of emerging technologies to the commerce ecosystem to create stakeholder benefit. For the last 12 months, Paul has been dedicated to building a start-up business in Indonesia that offers services and products to enable organisations to undergo digital transformation through the application of Open Data. Paul is currently Managing Director of the Jakarta based Pembayaran Digital Indonesia. The company is committed to delivering expert knowledge-based services to payment ecosystem stakeholders to aid in the transformation to digital commerce. Prior to Digital Payments Asia-Pacific, Paul established Cotignac Consultancy Services Limited in 2002 – an independent payment technology consulting and services company registered in New Zealand. Cotignac was successful in winning a large national contract with the Association of Banks in Malaysia to manage the market level migration from signature to PIN at POS. This resulted in Paul’s relocation from New Zealand to Kuala Lumpur from August 2014 to August 2017. He has remained based in South East Asia. Paul’s payments career started in 1992 with a decade at Visa International in both Asia Pacific and Europe. This included the opportunity to lead several large cutting-edge projects involving the implementation of chip based electronic purse, EMV chip-based credit and debit cards, multi-application chip cards and both issuer and acquirer infrastructure for secure Internet payments. Now based in Jakarta, Indonesia, Paul concentrates on applying his experience and knowledge to add value and assist the rapid and exciting transformation to digital commerce currently underway in South East Asian markets. His particular focus and passion are delivering services and products to enable the transformation of traditional business models to digital commerce through the application of Open Data. Paul is an Australian citizen and achieved a BSc (1984) and BE (1987) from the University of Sydney. During his career he has lived and worked in numerous markets including Australia, Japan, the UK, New Zealand, Thailand, Malaysia, and most recently, Indonesia. He has authored several articles on the evolution and digitization of payments via LinkedIn and is regularly invited Paul Brisk Professional Profile June 2020 2 | P a g e to present at conferences in New Zealand, Australia and Asia. Recent speaking engagements include the Executive Annual Gathering of Indonesian Payment System Associations in Bali (2015), Asia Pacific Smart Card Association Retail Payment Summit in Manila (2016), Asian Payment Card Forum in Hanoi (2016), the Global Payment Summit in Singapore (2017), the Bank Negara Malaysia Payment System Forum in Kuala Lumpur (2017), the Verifone Annual Conference in Ho Chi Minh City (2018), the Payments New Zealand Conference in Auckland (2018), the Global Payment Summit in Kuala Lumpur (2018), and the APSCA Digital Commerce Asia Pacific Conference in Kuala Lumpur (2019).

Wendy Sun
Wendy Sun is the Senior Director of Tencent Financial Technology Group. She leads the strategic partnership development, key account management in overseas payment markets. She and her team are devoting to bringing Tencent’s financial technology experience and solution to partners worldwide. Wendy also look after the international expansion and in-depth partnership opportunities for Tencent. Prior to joining Tencent, Wendy served as the Managing Director and Head of Business Development for Grab Financial Group. She oversaw business strategic planning and generated Go-To-Market plans for various markets across Southeast Asia. She also built up and led the merchant develop team for SG, MY, ID markets, and secured the KA merchants across the region. Prior to Grab Financial Group, Wendy served as Head of Business Development for Alipay International Business in the Southeast Asia region, with a focus on Southeast Asia Business Development. In this role, Wendy was responsible for building up the merchant acceptance network and developing innovative and localized payment products and services catering to consumers in the APAC region by working with strategic partners. Prior to Alipay, Wendy served as Business Development Director for UnionPay International in the Southeast Asia region. Wendy holds a master’s degree in economics from Fudan University. She also serves as honorary advisor (strategic partnerships) for AI Singapore.

Victoria Richardson
Victoria Richardson has been working with payment and identity technologies for over 20 years. She has advised a range of organizations, from start-ups to major banks, on the business implications of emerging payment and identity technologies. Her role at AusPayNet includes leading the initiatives undertaken by the Australian Payments Council.

Paula Buchel

Harry Smorenberg
Harry is Founder & CEO of SCC and is an international positioning strategist. He previously worked at Banque Paribas and ABNAMRO and was a director at two leading international strategic consultants. He is a leading contributor to innovation in both the retail and corporate payments and transaction space. He has a solid background in Cash- & Treasury Management. With that he is actively involved with repositioning the finance functions and the role of (new) technology. He is also expert in retirement management (pension scheme development and ageing issues). Harry is Founder and Chairman of AgingFinance.com.Next to that he is working actively on improving financial literacy and financial inclusion (a.o. solutions in areas like communication & education /budgeting/ personal financial planning solutions / pension planning). He also is very much involved withthe‘next generation developments of the way we will work and contribute to society’ (rebalancing work & income / working longer) and thus ‘social innovation’. Harry is Founder of WorldPensionSummit and the GlobalPaymentSummits (EMEA, ASIA, Oceania). Harry’s latest initiative as founder and chair is the Transaction Innovation Forum in Japan. He is also a columnist and guest speaker, sits on several advisory boards (such as GFLEC- Washington / NIBUD – Netherlands / CAFF50.net – Beijing / P&I – New York) and regularly publishes in leading international media. Contact: harry@smorenberg.nl

Toshio Taki

Piet Mallekoote
Piet has a degree in economics at the University of Amsterdam. After his study Piet joined the Dutch Central Bank, in which he held several senior management positions in economic research, economic and monetary policy and payments, lastly as a member of the Payments and Settlement Committee of the Eurosystem.
In 2004 Piet joined Currence, the then newly established Dutch entity for ownership of the Dutch collective payment schemes, including iDEAL. He became its CEO in 2006.
In 2011 Piet became CEO of the newly founded Dutch Payments Association whose members are payment banks and payments institutions in the Netherlands, combining the two CEO positions.
Piet chairs several steering and stakeholder groups on innovative payments in the Netherlands. For example the, recently finished, Instant Payments programme, iDEAL innovations (the largest online banking epayments system in Europe) and the national digital banking identification and authentication service (iDIN).
In his capacity as CEO he is also involved in other innovations in Dutch Payments landscape and participates in a lot of national and international meetings on payments

Steve Wiggins
As Chief Executive of Payments NZ and the Payments NZ API Centre™, Steve is responsible for ensuring the New Zealand payments industry remains innovative, progressive, interoperable and self-governing. He came to the role with extensive experience in senior executive roles through a career spanning more than three decades in industries as diverse as finance, energy, and consultancy services.
Prior to joining Payments NZ in January 2014, Steve served as General Manager Marketing, Sales and Customer Services with funds management company Gareth Morgan Investments. From GM and other leadership roles to founding and running a number of businesses, Steve is experienced in all aspects of business management, marketing and sales, and technology development and transfer. He has also had direct senior management experience in a leading payments business responsible for the processing of $3b worth of value per year. Steve holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration (BCA) from Victoria University of Wellington.

Zennon Kapron
Zennon is the Founder and Director of Kapronasia, one of Asia’s leading providers of consulting services focusing on the fintech industry. Zennon has been involved in financial technology for over 20 years and covers all topics fintech and blockchain. Before Kapronasia, Zennon was the Global Banking Industry Manager for Intel based out of Shanghai, China and, prior to Intel, was the CIO for Citigroup Portugal. Zennon has testified in front of the U.S. Congress on issues of China fintech and is the author of ‘Chomping at the Bitcoin: The History and Future of Bitcoin in China’ published by Penguin. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Syracuse University and an MBA from INSEAD.
Prior to joining Payments NZ in January 2014, Steve served as General Manager Marketing, Sales and Customer Services with funds management company Gareth Morgan Investments. From GM and other leadership roles to founding and running a number of businesses, Steve is experienced in all aspects of business management, marketing and sales, and technology development and transfer. He has also had direct senior management experience in a leading payments business responsible for the processing of $3b worth of value per year. Steve holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration (BCA) from Victoria University of Wellington.

Dr. Dimitrios Salampasis
Prior to joining Payments NZ in January 2014, Steve served as General Manager Marketing, Sales and Customer Services with funds management company Gareth Morgan Investments. From GM and other leadership roles to founding and running a number of businesses, Steve is experienced in all aspects of business management, marketing and sales, and technology development and transfer. He has also had direct senior management experience in a leading payments business responsible for the processing of $3b worth of value per year. Steve holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration (BCA) from Victoria University of Wellington.


Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer
Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer is an expert in the field of banking and one of the foremost authorities on transaction banking regulatory and innovation in financial technology matters. After a distinguished career of over a decade with Citi, Ruth is now an i-NED on the boards of the London Stock Exchange Group, Permanent TSB and Pendo Systems Inc. She is also a Partner at Gauss Ventures, Senior Adviser at KPMG’s UK Banking Practice and Adviser at Coinfirm.
She continues to focus on her passion of bringing the financial industry and the emerging financial digital ecosystem together.
Ruth was named as one of 2010s ‘Rising Stars’ by Financial News; named in Management Today’s 2011 ‘35 Women under 35’ list of women to watch and identified as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Finance 2012 by the Treasury Risk Magazine. She received the ‘Women in Banking and Finance Award for Achievement’ in 2015 and in 2016, 2017 and 2018 she was named on the global ‘Women in Fintech Powerlist’ of Innovate Finance. In 2018 she became one of the Top 10 Global Fintech Influencers (Fintech Power 50).
She speaks five languages, has completed studies in Financial Economics (MA, UK), International Politics (MA, FR), an LLM in International Economic Law (UK) and a PhD in Finance (UK/NL). She published two books: “EU Payments Integration” (2010) and “Transaction Banking and the Impact of Regulatory Change” (2014), is an Honorary Professor at the London Institute of Banking and Finance and also lectures at Queen Mary London School of Law.
Prior to joining Payments NZ in January 2014, Steve served as General Manager Marketing, Sales and Customer Services with funds management company Gareth Morgan Investments. From GM and other leadership roles to founding and running a number of businesses, Steve is experienced in all aspects of business management, marketing and sales, and technology development and transfer. He has also had direct senior management experience in a leading payments business responsible for the processing of $3b worth of value per year. Steve holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration (BCA) from Victoria University of Wellington.

Nicholas Soo
Nick has been a transaction banker for the past 16 years, in roles ranging from sales, strategy, product & country management.
In his current HK-based role as Asia Head of Payments for HSBC’s cash management franchise, he is fortunate to have significant exposure to clients, regulators, industry bodies, technology firms and most importantly, great people!
He is very passionate about all things payments, and this complements his natural curiosity. He views it as a privilege to be in this exciting intersection of ideas, technology and innovation, whilst leading a fabulous group of product managers & advisors.
Nick is driven by solving client and industry problems, typically by pairing in-depth use cases with the orchestration of suitable technologies. Industry awards for solutions crafted by his team, are testament to this approach.
He holds a Bachelor of Information Systems from the University of Melbourne, and a Certificate in International Cash Management from the Association of Corporate Treasurers UK.