Organising Committee
The Organising Committee is comprised of academics and industry professionals from the University of Edinburgh.
Raffaella Calabrese (Co-Chair)
The University of Edinburgh
Raffaella is a Personal Chair of Data Science at the University of Edinburgh Business School and Director of the Fintech PhD programme. She is an academic fellow at the Scottish Parliament to support designing policies for financing small businesses.
Her research and collaborations with industry are focused on developing new analytical techniques for credit risk and the Fintech sector. The former includes scoring models, modelling of loss given default, stress testing, interpretability and affordability.
Raffaella has applied a variety of methods to measure default risk for SMEs and for retail credit in the context of Basel II and III. She is also working on interpretability for machine learning techniques and the use of alternative data (such as social media or mobile data) in the credit risk framework.
She is recently analysing the impact of climate change on credit risk. For Fintech, she has proposed novel solutions to assess risk using Open Banking data such as affordability test and credit scoring.
Gbenga Ibikunle (Co-Chair)
The University of Edinburgh
Gbenga is a Professor and Chair of Finance at the University of Edinburgh. As the Director for Industry, Economy, and Society at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, he leads strategic FinTech and Financial Services initiatives at The University of Edinburgh. He is also the Deputy Scientific Director at the Fondazione European Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre in Pescara, Italy, and a Fellow at the Rozetta Institute (formerly Capital Markets CRC) in Sydney, Australia.
He is an expert on the Carbon Finance Unit of the World Bank's Partnership for Market Readiness Roster of Experts. He has been a Visiting Professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Porto, and China University of Petroleum, Beijing.
Gbenga holds a MBA (with distinction) and a PhD (in Market Microstructure) from the University of East Anglia. He also held teaching and research positions with the Norwich Business School and the Environmental & Energy Finance Group respectively. He is a graduate of Nigeria's first institution of higher learning, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice from The University of Edinburgh.
Miguel de Carvalho
The University of Edinburgh
Miguel de Carvalho is a Reader in Statistics at the School of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh.
He is the former Director of the University of Edinburgh Centre for Statistics and current Co-Director of the Edinburgh Centre of Financial Innovation.
Miguel's research and trajectory have been recognized with a variety of awards, including the Lindley Prize from the International Society of Bayesian Analysis (ISBA) and Young Scientist Prize from the The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). His research interests are diverse, spanning applied statistics, biostatistics, econometrics, risk analysis, and statistics of extremes. He is an Elected Fellow of the International Statistical Institute and has served as an Associate Editor for several leading statistical journals, including Journal of the American Statistical Association, The Annals of Applied Statistics, and The American Statistician.
With a wealth of collaborative experience, Miguel has forged strong relationships with banks, central banks, and financial regulators alike.
Tiejun Ma
The University of Edinburgh
Dr Tiejun Ma is a Reader in Business Informatics, theme leader for the Business Informatics, Artificial Intelligence and its Application Institute, University of Edinburgh, and a Faculty Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute.
Dr Ma's research focuses on risk analysis and decision-making using quantitative modelling and real-time Big Data analysis techniques applied to fintech and cyber-risk. He employs applied data science and mathematical modelling methodologies in the analysis/forecasts of risks using an interdisciplinary research strategy, via state-of-the-art computing, data, and behavioural analysis.
Khaladdin Rzayev
The University of Edinburgh
Khaladdin holds the position of Senior Lecturer in Finance at the University of Edinburgh. His research primarily centres on market microstructure and Financial Technology. He earned an MBA (with distinction) from Baku Engineering School, an MSc in Financial Economics (with distinction) from the University of Leicester, and a PhD in Finance from the University of Edinburgh.
Previously, Khaladdin served as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the London School of Economics. Additionally, he is recognized as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice at The University of Edinburgh.
Nadine Salkeld
Centre Manager, The University of Edinburgh
Nadine has 33 years of finance experience and manages the multiple activities of The Credit Research Centre and The Edinburgh Centre for Financial Innovations.
Tobi Schneider
The University of Edinburgh
Tobi Schneider is the Sector Engagement Lead for Financial Services & FinTech at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and the Co-director for External Engagement and Partnerships at the Edinburgh Centre for Financial Innovations.
He is responsible for leading the strategy and engagement with organisations involved in enabling and delivering financial services, ranging from small start-up companies to large corporations, from policymakers to trade associations, and from industry practitioners to academics.
Scientific committee
The Scientific committee is made up of academics from across the world.
- Raffaella Calabrese, (Co-Chair), The University of Edinburgh, UK
- Gbenga Ibikunle, (Co-Chair), The University of Edinburgh, UK
- Miguel de Carvalho, The University of Edinburgh, UK
- Tiejun Ma, The University of Edinburgh, UK
- Khaladdin Rzayev, The University of Edinburgh, UK
- Taylor Spears, The University of Edinburgh, UK
- Matteo Aquilina, Financial Conduct Authority, UK, and Financial Stability Board, Switzerland
- Emilios Avgouleas, The University of Edinburgh, UK
- Sean Foley, University of Sydney, Australia
- Guy Liu, Peking University, China
- Frank McGroarty, University of Southampton, UK
- Talis Putnins, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
- Boris Vallée, Harvard Business School, USA
- Pierangelo Rosati, University of Galway, Ireland
- Tong Wang, The University of Edinburgh, UK