DIGITALISATION - CATALYST FOR MODERNISATION OF THE FIN SECTOR

Nina Stoyanova

Deputy Governor Banking Department, Bulgarian National Bank

Nina Stoyanova is Deputy Governor in charge of the Banking Department and the Fiscal Services Department and member of the Governing Council of the Bulgarian National Bank elected by the 43rd National Assembly on 29 July 2015 for a six-year term of office. Between 2007 – 2015 Ms. Stoyanova was Chief Legal, Director of the Legal Directorate of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB), Member of the Legal Committee of the European System of Central Banks. Prior to this Nina Stoyanova had worked as Legal Advisor at the European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main, Legal Services Directorate General under a secondment programme of the European System of Central Banks, and as Senior Legal Advisor, BNB Legal Directorate. Nina Stoyanova has a Master’s degree in law from Sofia University ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’.

Ralf JACOB

Head of Unit –Retail financial services and payments, DG FISMA, European Commission

Ralf Jacob joined the European Commission in 1989 after having studied economics and politics in Hamburg, Paris and London. Since January 2017, he leads the unit dealing with retail financial services and payments in the Commission's Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union. His unit is in charge of legislation on payments (payment services and e-money directives, SEPA regulation) and consumer finance (mortgage credit and payment accounts directive) and coordinates the implementation of the Commission's action plan on consumer financial services.

Etienne Goosse

Director General, European Payments Council

Etienne Goosse has extensive professional experience across different sectors in the payments industry. He started his career with the Belgian central bank. He held executive positions at Eurocheque International, Europay International and MasterCard Europe. In his previous assignments, Mr Goosse’s responsibilities included franchise management, legal and regulatory affairs, stakeholder management as well as finance and administration. He also has an extensive track record in managing governance as well as European and public affairs.

Judit Baracs

Senior Account Director CEE, SWIFT

Since 1998 Judit has been part of the EMEA account management team engaged in CEE to provide the latest information to SWIFT clients. Judit is specialised in payments market infrastructures projects and is currently responsible as country manager for 9 countries in CEE. She has been assisting the Bulgarian National Bank over the years and since mid-2017 she has become the country manager for Bulgaria. In this new role, she will be taking care of all SWIFT topics that Bulgarian banks might be interested in, between others compliance.

Marianna Janssen

SWIFT GPI, EMEA

Since January 2015 Marianna has been part of SWIFT Markets & Initiatives EMEA team engaged on divers projects. Marianna joined SWIFT to reinforce the Business Intelligence team to develop solutions in the area of regulatory reporting for intraday liquidity. Today she is driving SWIFT global payments innovation offering in countries of Central and Eastern Europe combining her business knowledge and understanding new technologies in the payments area. Marianna has several years of experience in Transactional Banking and Cash Management. She worked as a corporate adviser for Cash Management solutions at BNP Paribas, contributing to optimisation of corporate treasuries for internationally active firms. In addition, she holds an Executive MBA from Antwerp University Management School (Belgium) and post-graduate in Big Data Analytics in Business from the university of Leuven (Belgium).

Yuriy Genov

Executive Officer and Member of the Management Board at DSK Bank; Chairman of the Board of CIO Club

Yuriy Genov is Executive Officer at DSK Bank. He is part of DSK Bank’s team since 1999 – first, as head of "Long-term planning and general bank projects" department, and since 2004 as Head of Directorate "Development and Implementation of IT Systems". Prior to joining DSK Bank he worked for Biochim commercial bank – first, as expert, and later as head of Payment systems department. Member of the CIO Club Bulgaria and Chairman of the Board of CIO Club. He was awarded the prestigious prize of the CIO Club Bulgaria "CIO of the Year" for 2009.

Alexander Kostov

Head of Team, Methodology and Financial Markets Directorate, Bulgarian National Bank

Alexander Kostov has almost seven years experience in the Bulgarian National Bank, where his work has been related to the national component system of the trans-European payment system TARGET2, and now his work is associated with methodology in the field of payments and payment infrastructure. He has worked three years as a methodologist in a commercial bank with main focus on international programs and counterparties.

Krasimir Krastev

Chief Expert, Payment Supervision Directorate, Bulgarian National Bank

Krasimir Krastev has worked at Bulgarian National Bank since 2007. He is involved in the the National Bank’s supervision on payment systems, payment service providers and other entities subject to payment supervision in order to establish the compliance of their activities with regulatory requirements and established international principles, standards and recommendations in the area of payments. He participates in working groups in the field of payment services and payment supervision at the European Central Bank, the European Commission, the European Banking Authority and the Council of the European Union.

Irina Kazandjieva

Head of Division "Banking policy and analysis", Association of Banks in Bulgaria (ABB)

Irina Kazandjieva is Head of Division "Banking policy and analyses" at The Association of Banks in Bulgaria (ABB). Before that she was Head of Division "International exchange and programs". She has a PhD in economics. Mrs. Kazandjieva is the coordinator of the Payment Systems Committee at the Executive Board of the ABB.

Nikos Sampanis

Regional Director for South East Europe, Forrester Research

Nikos Sampanis started his career in UK in 1989 as a Research Associate in the Computation Department of UMIST and subsequently served as a Senior Software Engineer in Lloyd's Register, at Croydon. In 1994 he joined Vodafone (Panafon) in Greece and served from various positions in its IT (Business Systems) department. In 2000 Nikos Sampanis joined Sun Microsystems as Regional Presales Manager for its Mediterranean region. In 2001 he was appointed Country Manager for Greece & Cyprus for Sun Microsystems, then in 2003 he assumed the position of Regional Sales Manager for Southern and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. Since 2005 Nikos Sampanis has been the Regional Manager for South East Europe of Forrester Research - one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world. Nikos Sampanis holds an Electrical Engineering Degree from National Technical University of Athens, a Master’s Degree in System Design from the University of Manchester, and a Ph. D. from UMIST.

Emil Djinovski

Regional CIO – CEE & META, GfK

Emil Djinovski has graduated "Information technologies" at John Brice College - Tel Aviv, Israel. His career includes positions at several companies, DATECS, Sofia Mel, Rompetrol BG and NIS Petrol EOOD. His professional experience includes several grand projects, such as management and development of E-Learning system, new networks building at Sofia Mel and Rompetrol BG, management and implementation of BPM and CRM projects. He is member of the Bulgarian CIO Club since 2007. To the present Mr. Djinovski is regional CIO – CEE & META at GfK

Svetla Nestorova

Chairperson of the Managing Board of the Association of Bulgarian Insurers (ABI), Chief Executive Officer of Bulstrad Life Vienna Insurance Group

Ramona Chervenkova, CGEIT, CRISC

ISACA-Sofia Chapter

Ms. Chervenkova specializes in the restructuring of business processes, organizational restructuring, change management, IT risk and control, as well as in defining IT strategies and improving the management and operations of IT. She also has more than 30 years of experience in IT development and implementation of IT systems and in IT Audit. Ms. Chervenkova has managed complex projects in organizational change, operational improvement, development of IT strategies and projects for the implementation of IT systems for clients. She has extensive experience in project management, organizational planning, planning and management of IT activities, development and implementation of IT systems and the management and control of IT risks. She has completed numerous successful ERP system implementation projects in Bulgaria, Germany, UK, Belgium, The Netherlands, and on the Balkans by having significant experience of complex IT solutions in a number of industries including Public and Banking sector, Manufacturing and Utilities.

Nikola Nyagolov

Principal Consultant, ITNL Bulgaria

Mr. Nyagolov is Principal Consultant, ITNL Bulgaria. He is certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified in Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT) and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA). He has extensive hands-on and leadership experience in the areas of IT strategy, system integration, databases and application systems development, implementation, compliance and audit. He has led technology and operations projects in international and local organizations in the telecommunication, energy and utilities, industrial and financial sector. His assignments cover the areas of economics of IT, technology integration and advisory, business and technology architecture, IT organization and structuring, systems’ reviews and cybersecurity.

Kiril Kirilov

CIO and Vice-president, Allianz Bulgaria Holding

Kiril Kirilov is CIO and vice-president of Allianz Bulgaria Holding. He is responsible for the development, management and support of all Allianz services - life, non-life, motor insurance, pension fund and banking. This includes building, management and support of all WAN, LAN, ATM and Server infrastructure. Allianz Bulgaria Holding has more than 150 offices all over the country. Mr. Kirilov is also involved in projects for the design and installation of equipment in data rooms, disaster recovery center, new offices and business buildings. He has had a leadership role in a lot of successful projects, such as Cisco IP telephony, IBM Tivoli Backup, ATM migration to IP, international WAN, 3 data centers, security projects, etc. The projects most important for the business are consolidation of the company network - business gains come from expenses reduction by selling 4 different services at one desk (insurance, bank, leasing, pension), WAN migration to MPLS, and migration of the core banking system to I-Flex, which took 9 months. Before joining Allianz Bulgaria Holding in 2001, Kiril Kirilov worked for Enemona Holding, Almina AG, etc.

Daniela Ulyamova

Head of 'Information Transformation' Department, DSK Bank - Central Management

Nely Yolovska

Manager 'Corporate Sales', BORICA

Radoslav Dimitrov

Director of "Cards and Terminals" Directorate, BORICA

RADOSLAV DIMITROV is director of the "Cards and Terminals" Directorate at BORICA. He started work at the company in 2002 as a system operator. In the period 2005 – 2009 he was an administrator of "Real time and financial servicing system", where he was responsible for the administration of the BORICA card system. In 2009 he headed the "Card Payments System Administration" department, and in 2016 he was the Head of the "Card Products and Services Development" department. Currently, he manages one of the key directorates in BORICA – "Cards and terminals". The efforts of his team are focused on the development and implementation of innovative payment solutions. He has a master's degree in "Telecommunication Management" from the New Bulgarian University, as well as a number of specializations in the field of card payments.

Ivan Velkov

Director of "Product Development and Services" Directorate, BORICA

IVAN VELKOV is Director "Product and service development" in 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 "Implementation and operation at post offices" at Bulgarian Post Bank, IT Manager of Aroma EOOD, Director "IT Development" at HVB Bank Biochim, Head of "Development and implementation of IT systems" at DSK Bank. He graduated from the University of Sofia – Master’s degree in Mathematics and Informatics and from the University of National and World Economy, Master’s degree in Marketing and Management.

Ricardo Fontes

Regional Director, South East Europe & Middle East, Dynatrace

Ricardo Fontes is the Regional Director at Dynatrace, responsible for the South-Eastern Europe and Middle East Region who works with senior executive in organizations to help them focus on delivering fast time-to-value services and ensuring an exceptional customer experience. After spending more than 15 years, working with organizations in their Digital initiatives and highly disruptive technologies, he understands how it is increasingly difficult to manage service performance and how these evolving dynamics are creating new challenges on all enterprises. For these challenges advocates a redefine approach, based on full automation with full visibility and powered by Artificial Intelligence, enabling organization full end customer visibility and full control.

Goran Angelov

General Manager, IBS Bulgaria

Kaloyan Georgiev

Engineer Industrial Automation and Energy Management, Schneider Electric

Kaloyan Georgiev has a bachelor degree in "Automation, Informational and Control Systems and Robotics" and master degree in "Control Systems" from Technical University of Sofia. He has passed several trainings in the field of Industrial Networks and Communications, SCADA and BMS software, automation and energy management system architectures. He is main speaker on the topics "Programming and implementation of CodeSys based PLC", "Programming and implementation of Industrial HMI", "Systems for energy monitoring" and "Systems for Data Center monitoring" both internally for Schneider Electric and externally for customers. The professional development of Kaloyan Georgiev includes IT, automation, robotics, programming, machine learning and work on different projects in the field of 3D scanning, home automation and Cloud based services. In the last years Kaloyan Georgiev is focused on the innovative concept "Internet Of Things". His main field of work is the application of IoT in the Industrial automation and collaborative machines.

Vladimir Kavalov

President, ISACA Sofia Chapter

Vladimir Kavalov has more than 25 years of experience in the IT field – almost half of which in the financial sector. During the years he has been working as a system administrator, information security expert, head of IT department and IT auditor. Vladimir is strongly interested in IT, especially in development, deployment, auditing and consulting. He has led important projects regarding realization of migration and implementation of ERP systems, MS Active Directory deployment. He has also implemented solutions related to management and monitoring of IT systems, processes and information security. He has been a member of the ISACA Sofia Chapter since 2008, elected as a member of the Board in 2015 and has served as President since October 2016.

Pavel Kaminsky – CISSP, CISA, CEH

Head of Operations at Seven Security Group

Svilen Stanchev

Sales Director, IBS Bulgaria

Pascal Tallarida

CEO and Cofounder, Jarvis Edge Ltd.

Aleksandar Milosevic

Chief Software Architect, Asseco SEE

As a Chief Software Architect in Asseco SEE Aleksandar focuses on architecture of Asseco’s banking software and standardization efforts within the industry. As a representative of Asseco at Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN), Aleksandar serves as member of Architecture committee and a member of Channels and API working groups. Leading Asseco virtual team for PSD2, Aleksandar is familiar with details of PSD2 Directive, EBA RTS, OAuth2 & OpenID Connect protocols, Berlin Group NextGenPSD2, UK Open Banking, STET PSD2 and Polish API specifications. During the market comments phase, Aleksandar contributed to Berlin Group NextGenPSD2 API specification. Currently writing an e-Book that attempts to demystify PSD2 in technical terms. Active in banking software industry since 1999, Aleksandar has designed hundreds of open banking APIs, award winning e-banking, e-payment, PKI systems and participated in 70+ projects with more than 40 different banks.

Radko Zhelev

Chief Product and Architecture Officer, Paynetics JSC

Radko Zhelev join Paynetics team year and half ago. He is responsible for company solution architecture and product development. He has expert and management experience in the field of Finance, IT and Telecom industries. With him on board Paynetics successes to implement all company goals, projects and solutions for 2017. Inside the company, Radko manage development of different eWallet projects with focus on customer and his needs.

Piotr Skowronski

Territory Manager for EE including Bulgaria, Informatica

Lior Zamir

Technical Account Manager, Radware

Lior Zamir has more than 17 years of experience in the Israeli Hi-Tech industry. He has vast knowledge of the Security landscape, recognizing the needs and trends of current cyber threats for Enterprises and Telcos around the world. Lior helps Radware’s customers to define and identify the proper security solution for their network utilizing Radware’s solutions against DDoS and Application Level Attacks.

Martin Kulov

Dynatrace Country Manager, Provice Informatika Kft

Martin Kulov has 20 years professional experience in the software industry. He has held various position like software developer, analyst, CTO and consultant. Martin helps in building high quality software systems and teams. He loves to make software work better and faster, and to solve critical problems in production environments. He is long time speaker at events related to Microsoft technology in Bulgaria and abroad. He has been awarded as Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for 12+ years. Martin grows awareness in Bulgaria for Dynatrace, the leading digital performance management platform, as Dynatrace Country Manager at Provice Informatika Kft. Last but not least - Martin is president of Association of Software Engineers, non-profit organization that aims to support software engineers in their lifelong learning activities and professional development.

Vladislav Dimitrov

Managing Director, Dais Software

Vladislav Dimitrov has more than 20 years of experience in financial sector. Since 2004 he has been a Managing Director and a Main Shareholder of Dais Software – company specialized in solutions for Digital Channels chosen by leading banks in Bulgaria. He has started as a Software Engineer and developed his career to Project Manager with responsibilities of the overall management process and business development of the company in the field of online financial services.

Valeria Boyadzhieva

Head of Sales and Pre-sales Department, Intracom Bulgaria

Valeria Boyadzhieva joins Intracom Bulgaria in 2009 as Business Development Manager in the Telecom sector , and by the end of 2013 takes the position of Head of Sales and Presales Department . Her daily work involves studying the problems and challenges of the company's customers, investigating and proposing complex high-tech and innovative solutions to support achieving the objectives of the business partners. Previously, Ms. Boyadzhieva worked in BTC for 10 years and has held various positions starting from a Support Engineer of different computer systems and reaching a Head of Team responsible for all Microsoft based systems. Part of her rich experience is the implementation of Active Directory and Exchange Mail System for 10,000 employees in 11 major regions as well as Certification Authority Solution for data encrypt ion and digital signing of different types of documents. Also, she has been involved in the construction and implementation of the Main and Disaster Recovery Centers and the related corporate systems. She graduated from Technical University - Sofia with two Master degrees - in Electronics and Marketing Management.

Stefaan Seys

Security Architect, VASCO Data Security

Stefaan holds an M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering, and a PhD degree in cryptography and network security, both from KU Leuven (Belgium). He has worked for several years as a PhD and Post-doc researcher at COSIC (part of KU Leuven), whose alumni have developed the algorithms that are now known as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and Secure Hash Algorithm 3 (SHA-3). As such Stefaan has significant knowledge of security technologies, such as cryptography and mobile application security. In his past roles as security consultant he evaluated the security aspects of the online and mobile banking applications of several of VASCO’s top customers. At VASCO he is currently designing and evaluating the security of VASCO’s product line.

Milena Mileva

Business Architect, Sirma BC

Milena Mileva has 20 years of experience in business analysis and over 3 years in Business Architecture. Co-founder of the Bulgarian Chapter of IIBA and current Vice-President Education of the Chapter. Fellow member of the British Computer Society (BCS). Possesses Masters Certificate in Business Analysis according George Washington University program and BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis. Business Analysis, Project Management, Electronic Government and Process Digitalization Consultant for more than 10 years with established consultancy practice. For 9 years he has been the head of the software department of CNsys PLC. A key participant of a large number of projects in the state administration, telecommunications and banking sector, jointly realized with Sirma Group Holding.

Radoy Stoyanov

BULPROS Industry Digitalization Offering Leader

Radoy Stoyanov is an experienced executive with a unique mixture of business acumen and technology fluency. He has more than 19 years of professional experience in management, program/project management, software engineering and consulting with specialization in financial services and the IT field. Radoy Stoyanov is business-oriented innovator, focused on customer needs and quality of service, with a successful track record in optimizing of processes and costs. BULPROS is currently positioning on the market its new offerings: Industry Digitalization, Cyber Security, Collaboration, Application Modernization, Infrastructure Transformation, Technology Services and Sales & Customer Services. Radoy Stoyanov is responsible for the Industry Digitalization Offering which includes complete industry specific vertical solutions which facilitate the Digital Transformation of the business with focus on Financial Services and Insurance, Telecommunications, Manufacturing, Professional Services, Retail, Healthcare & Pharma.

Lukasz Libuda

Principal Business Solutions Manager, Pre-Sales Risk Practice South EMEA SAS Institute

Łukasz Libuda works as Principal Business Solutions Manager at SAS Institute in Pre-Sales Risk Practice South EMEA. He is responsible for business development in terms of risk management with special focus on assets and liabilities management (ALM), financial liquidity management, IFRS9, credit and market risk identification (according to Basel2 and Basel3 requirements) and operational point of view from internal and supervisory point of view. Łukasz is also responsible for creating business concept for integrated risk management solution to help companies to manage risk on enterprise holistic level including conducting stress tests and assuring risk management compliance with latest BCBS239 regulations. Łukasz has graduated from Warsaw School of Economics and was awarded two Master Degrees: 1) Finance and Banking, 2) Quantitative Methods and Information Systems. Additionally, he has been awarded with "Master Degree in International Management" by Community of European Management Schools (CEMS).