FINTEX SUMMIT 2022 - FINANCE AND TECHNOLOGIES EXPO

After graduating from the secondary school he was admitted to the department of “Accounting” at Azerbaijan State Economic University and completed the full course on the speciality of “Economist” in 1981. Zakir Nuriyev started his labour activity as Leading Accountant at the “Control and Inspection” department of the Ministry of Communications, Azerbaijan Republic in 1981.

 Zakir Nuriyev did his military service during 1981-1983. He worked in the capacity of Accountant – Inspector, Chief Inspector and Deputy Chief Accountant at the “Control and Inspection” department of the Ministry of Communications, Azerbaijan Republic from July, 1983 until January, 1989 after having served in the military.

 He was appointed to the post of Manager of the “Control and Accounting” division at “Regional Communication” Production Association of the Ministry of Communications, Azerbaijan Republic in 1989. Zakir Nuriyev worked in the capacity of Chairman of the Management Board at “Rabitabank” Joint-Stock Commercial Bank during 1993-1998 and has been acting as Chairman of the Supervisory Board at “Rabitabank” Open Joint-Stock Company since 1998 up to date. He was elected President of the Azerbaijan Banks Association in 1996 and worked in that capacity until 2006. He has been member of the Presidium at Azerbaijan Banks Association from 2006 till 2015. He was re-elected President of Azerbaijan Banks Association in 2015.

Was born on October 16, 1967 . In 1991, he graduated from Moscow State University, Faculty of Philosophy, majoring in political science. In 1991-1992, he worked for the State Committee for Economy and Planning of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In 1992-1993 he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In 1994, he graduated from the Azerbaijan State University of Economics with a degree in foreign economic relations. In 1994-2003 he worked in the Department of Foreign Economic Relations of SOCAR, in 2003-2007 in the Department of Marketing and Economic Operations of SOCAR. In 2000, he graduated from the All-Russian Academy of Foreign Trade with a degree in World Economy. In the 2007-2010, he served as SOCAR's vice president for ecology. From 2010 to 2018, he was in Supervisory Board of SOCAR subsidiary Azerkimya Production Association. In 2010 and 2015, he was elected as a member of the Milli Majlis of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Since April 23, 2018, he is the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

On November 7, 2017, he was awarded the “Shohrat Order” by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and on September 19, 2012, he was awarded the “Taraqqi Medal”

Mr. Osmanov has about 20 years of experience in information technologies, implementing a number of digital transformation initiatives in banking sector. During his professional career, Mr. Osmanov focused on both adoption of information and payment systems, covering ever-changing business needs and business process optimization to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of business process management. Nowadays, his main strategic focus is to establish cashless economy and accelerate the creation of a digital ecosystem in Azerbaijan.

Mr. Osmanov holds MSc on information systems and management; and certified as ITSM expert, practitioner in project management and ISO/IEC 27001 information security standard implementer.

Farid Ahmadov is a Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport.

Prior to joining the Ministry Farid Ahmadov worked as a Deputy Director General of Port of Baku, acted as a Rector of the “Azerbaijan” University, and held various academic positions in Azerbaijan and abroad.

He holds a PhD in Law from Oxford University.

Born on April 7, 1975, in Imishli region of Azerbaijan Republic.

Education:

In 1992 he was admitted to the Azerbaijan State Economic University with the largest score and graduated from high school in 1997 and received his second higher education in the Journalism profession of the Georgian Institute of Public Relations in 2004. In 2009, he defended his PhD in economics and in 2017 he defended his doctorate in economics.

Prof. Dr. Vusal Gasimli was awarded a certificate of completion for the "Leading Economic Growth" Program, [February-May/2021], John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Executive Education.

In 2022-2023 Vusal Gasimli completed the University of Oxford's Postgraduate Diploma (PGDip) in Strategy and Innovation.

In 2013 Vusal Gasimli was given the title of associate professor.

V.Gasimli was engaged in pedagogical activity in the UNEC Special Talented Group and MBA program in 2010-2014.

V.Gasimli read public lectures at Washington University, California University, Cairo University, Warsaw University, Seoul Hanyany and Hankuk University, and Rio de Janeiro University.

Vusal Gasimli got the award of Astana Economic Forum for outstanding research achievements in 2012.

Worked as a guest scientist at Korea International Economic Policy Institute in 2013.

He has 10 books and about 500 scientific and publicist articles in Azerbaijani, Russian, Korean and English.

Vusal Gasimli is professor at the Azerbaijan Public Administration Academy under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan since 2021.

Labor Activity:

During the 12.05.2000-06.12.2003, the economic consultant in Express newspaper edition,

15.02.2005-19.11.2005, Economic Reviewer at ANS-PRESS Publishing House LLC,

19.11.2005-30.04.2007, President of ANS-PRESS Publishing House LLC,

09.02.2009-11.05.2011, Deputy of head of the Department at Azerbaijan-Public-Political University,

In 2007-2011, he worked on projects implemented by the European Union, the World Bank, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and several international organizations.

In 2011-2016, he worked as Head of the Department for Economic Analysis and Globalization of the Center for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

In 2015, he represented Azerbaijan at the T20 platform of brain centers of the G20.

From 10.05.2016 to present he is the executive director of theCenter for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communication of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

He was awarded the Progress Medal in 2018.

Vusal Gasimli was appointed Focal Point of UNESCAP in 2021.

Married, has three children.

Cristina Doros, Visa Vice President, Regional Manager for Azerbaijan and Central Asia

Cristina Doros is Visa Vice President, Regional Manager for Azerbaijan and Central Asia. Cristina oversees growth of the electronic payments business in Azerbaijan and Central Asia. Since 2016, Cristina joined Visa to lead the regional Core Products team, and has been representing acting Vice-President, Head of Solutions, Visa CISSEE since 2019.

Leveraging her 20+ years of experience in retail banking, information technology, cards and mobile payments, Cristina joined Visa in 2016 to lead the regional Core Products team. Prior to her current role with Visa, she was Deputy CEO and Board Member of a leading Moldovan bank.

Cristina is one of the CISSEE representatives in CEMEA Women’s Leadership Network and key lead of regional diversity initiatives. Cristina holds Master’s Degree in Economics from IEDC-Bled School of Business, Slovenia.

He graduated from the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan with Bachelor's degree (Public Administration) with honors (1998-2002) and received a Master's degree (Public Administration) with honors (2002-2004).

He received Ph.D. in Economics (oil/chemical industry economics, 2005 – 2009) from the Institute of Economics of the Azerbaijan National Academy of the Sciences, and got an MBA degree (2010 – 2011) from Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK.

From 2002 to 2021, he held senior positions in various public and private institutions in the banking and financial sectors. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of the Azerbaijan Fintech Association.

He is married and has two children.

Namig Aliyev was born in 1977 in Baku. He is a graduate of Baku State University. During his student years, he worked on a number of periodical publications. In 1999-2000 he worked in the Republican Scientific and Technical Library and in 2001-2003 in the Main Department of Cultural Education of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan as a leading specialist. As of 2004, he worked as a correspondent, leading correspondent, assistant editor, editor at the Free Azerbaijan Broadcasting Company "Azad Azərbaycan".

He started working in the Communication Department of the Central Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan in May 2010. Since July 2011, he has been the Head of the Public Relations Division of aforementioned department. He is the presenter of "Economic News" program  at Azerbaijan Television and Radio Broadcasting Closed Joint-Stock Company (AZTV).

Zarina Odinaeva is the Program Lead for Europe and Central Asia Digital and Credit Infrastructure programs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The program supports the development of digital financial services, facilitates financial sector innovations and credit reporting systems development, improving the registration system for pledges, including raising the financial awareness of the population and SMEs in the mentioned areas.

Before joining the International Finance Corporation/WBG, Zarina worked as an accountant and tax specialist at a consulting company, and in the beginning of her career she headed foreign exchange operations and strategic departments at a commercial bank.

Zarina graduated from the National University of Tajikistan as an economist and did her MBA in 2016.

Mr. Masimov is currently the Head of the Registry division of the Central Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Mr. Masimov has more than 6 years of experience in creating credit infrastructure and expanding access to finance, and has implemented a number of digital transformation initiatives in the banking sector. During his professional career, Mr. Masimov focused on expanding access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses and increasing access to credit. Together with entrepreneurs and credit organizations, Mr. Masimov actively involved in a series of awareness-raising events in the regions. He closely cooperates with international organizations to develop movable asset based lending in our country and accelerate the creation of a digital ecosystem in this area.

Mr. Masimov graduated from the Azerbaijan State University of Economics and received a master's degree in finance from the ADA and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).

Yevgen Lisnyak is currently the Head of Strategic Partnerships, Fintech & Ventures in CIS & South-East Europe (17 markets). His main areas of responsibilities: identifying, support and development high potential partners for Visa in new robustly growing fintech business environment supporting cashless economy.

Yevgen joined Visa in 2017 as a Director of Digital Solutions team. In this role at Visa Yevgen successfully managed and launched implementation of transit and smart city solutions in Ukrainian and CIS cities from the scratch. Nowadays Yevgen focuses on mobile finance services of mobile operators, digital products of traditional banks, supporting development of neo banks and all types of disruptive fintech companies and fintech ecosystem development in multiple markets.

Thanks to deep knowledge and experience of Yevgen in the sphere of banking and payment technologies, as well as fintech, Visa Ukraine developed strategic partnerships with so many fintech companies in countries such as, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and so on.

Yevgen Lisnyak have been working for 15 years in IT and consulting sphere with leading international companies. He holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Physics and Mathematics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT).

Yevgen Lisnyak was chosen as “Fintech Expert of the Year” by “Payspace Magazine” journal in 2020.

Benjamin Benjamin is Global Head of Lending in Simon-Kucher's Banking Practice. With more than ten years consulting experience, he is specialized in product and pricing optimization and agile digital transformation for financial service companies. He has supported leading firms in Europe and North America with numerous consulting projects to develop granular pricing systems and differentiated products.

Prior to joining Simon-Kucher, Benjamin was employed as strategy consultant for leading international management consultancies, including McKinsey & Co. He completed his studies and PhD in business administration at Mannheim University. As the author of various publications in international journals and books, he received an award by the Academy of Management for outstanding practical research.

Sergey Evtushenko, Deputy head of professional services, DIS Group with over 15 years of experience in IT project management. His expertise includes MDM, ETL and ERP solutions, of the corporate digital infrastructure. Sergey has headed Data Management and Digital Transformation projects at major CIS companies, including those in the fuel and energy complex, metallurgy and mining industries.

Industry Leader for Finance, graduated from Cankaya University Computer Engineering following  post graduation at University of California Berkeley Business Administration and Marketing.

 13+ years of experience on Business Process Management, Fraud and Analytics in Finance and Telecom industry. Took Business Development roles in major global companies in banking industry.

Murat works to support reforms of secured transactions and promote asset based financing. He previously worked as a Program Manager for the IFC Advisory Services in MENA and ECA where he supervised a number of programs including secured transactions & collateral registries, credit reporting and leasing. He has extensive experience in managing and implementing regulatory reforms and capacity building programs globally. His experience includes drafting and supporting the enactment of various legislative acts related to leasing, secured transactions and credit reporting in more than 40 jurisdictions across all regions. Murat represented IFC at the Advisory Board and Drafting Committee at UNIDROIT to develop Model Law on Leasing. He also represented the World Bank Group in the UNCITRAL Working Group VI to develop UNCITRAL Model Law on Secured Transactions and related texts. Murat holds an LL.M degree from the University of Southampton, UK.

Guliev Farid Fuad was born in Baku in 1986. He is an economist. He started his professional career in 2007 in the finance industry and from 2012 he held a position in board of directors of different financial organizations.

Since February 2018 he is appointed to the post of Head director of “Azəricard” LLC.

Mikheil has a broad cross-industry experience including government, banking and IoT. His professional career started in 1997.

From 2020 up to now, Mikheil leads the team who develops Georgian open banking standards and helps Georgian banks and other actors achieving necessary level of compliance to them.

Before joining the Banking Association, in early 2012 Mikheil joined Public Service Development Agency of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia. He was in charge of developing electronic ID documents and became one of the key contributors to Georgian e-Government. He is a co-author of the law of Georgia “On Electronic Document and Electronic Trust Services”. From 2017 until the late 2019 Mikheil was promoted to deputy chairman and director of the IT Development department of the said agency, sometimes assuming chairman’s duties and becoming in charge of broader topics: population register, citizenship, migration and so on.

From 2006 to 2012 Mikheil was working in the Bank of Georgia and was involved in high-priority projects like utility payments, migration to IBAN, PCI DSS, RTGS.

Mikheil also works as an architect of complex, mission-critical systems and additionally as a mentor. He still maintains strong skills in the information technology, including software development and cloud computing.

A seasoned public speaker, who has more than a dozen global publications, has also participated in Security and Availability projects in Strategic Accounts in several countries.

A graduate Engineer and MBA with over a decade’s experience in the Information security industry. This has included a Financial Services Key Account Executive role with OneSpan, Symantec, and Strategic Account Management for Enterprise Financial and Banking customers with Hewlett Packard Enterprise Security.

Vjaceslavs has more than twelve years of experience in the IT & Finance area, with most of his experience gained while performing a business analyst's role in large-scale projects across the world. Experience includes performing a leading analyst's role in the projects of different nature - implementation of new software solutions, merge exciting ones, carve out projects, etc..

Though the subject of the most activities Vjaceslavs was involved into touches payment cards in one way or another, Vjaceslavs also has experience in Payments & Treasury area. That, in combination with the overall experience gained during the years, helps a lot when it comes to understanding and "translating" the Open Banking phenomenon.

Nowadays Vjaceslavs is a part of the Tietoevry's team and helps his colleagues in pre-sales and sales activities around the world, performing as an analyst and functional consultant.

Starting his career in 2010 Vjaceslavs, prior to joining Tietoevry, worked as Senior Business Analyst in Luminor Bank

Philip Collerton is Chief Commercial Officer of Uptime Institute, where he is responsible for all commercial and service delivery activities globally. Collerton has extensive experience in data center operations, data center training and staffing, data centers consolidation and establishing data center footprints in new markets and geographies.

Seymur Rasulov was born on May 27, 1984. He is a graduate of University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign with a 3.8 GPA in Information Science. Right now Seymur is the CEO at Whelp Inc and SmilePay LLC . Whelp was founded in the US in 2019 and has successfully completed 500 Startups and TechStars. Overall we raised $1M from the VS funds. Right now we have more than 1,200 customers in 32 countries.

SmilePay was founded in 2021 and already got $100K investment from the leading corporate bank of Azerbaijan. At the same time with the huge support from the MasterCard we have already launched our product in the grocery stores.

Rashad Gasimov is a leading member of the team responsible for the development of payment systems in Azerbaijan. He has played a key role in the implementation of numerous projects aimed at expanding cashless payments in the country. He has extensive experience in analyzing digital payments, developing of payment strategies and modernizing of the regulatory framework for implementation of innovative payment solutions.

Rashad holds a bachelor's degree in World Economy and a master's degree in International Economic Relations from Baku State University.

Muhammed Dirgam Şemso  is seasoned project manager with 5+ years of print project management experience and knowledge of web production obtained from positions in educational publishing and consumer packaging. Creative problem solver who has consistently completed projects on time and within budget. Employed a customer-focused approach that increased repeat business over the prior cycle. He has bachelor, master and doctorate degree and graduated from top-notch universities such as “University of Leeds”, “Rice Business - Jones Graduate School of Business”, “Atılım Üniversitesi”, “Çankaya Üniversitesi” and “Apsley Business School”. He started his professional career at ” TOPSUN GOLF GENERAL TRADING” as Import Export Executive and currently working as General Manager at “PGPARA ÖDEME HİZMETLERİ A.Ş”.

Born in Trabzon, Turkey on 1981, graduate of Istanbul University Business Management Faculty and has a 17 years experience on Financial Institutions. After working more than 11 years in Finansbank, Murat K. has shifted his career path towards fin-techs. Currently, Murat K. is acting as Head of International Partnerships and Executive Vice President of Turkey’s first licensed money transfer company – UPT Ödeme Hizmetleri ve Elektronik Para A.Ş. Murat K. is managing partnerships with more than 142 companies globally and running Operations in 12 network countries where UPT brand is actively conducting business directly.

For more than five years Mikhail Kozis has been specializing in UX research on the fintech market in Russia, the CIS, Europe and Asia. In Markswebb, he has launched and now leads a department of foreign research. Under the leadership of Mikhail Kosis, more than 30 research and consulting projects for the largest banks in Russia and the CIS were conducted.

Mikhail Kozis has extensive experience in marketing research and project management. Since 2016, he has been working at Markswebb, an agency specializing in the creation and development of digital financial services, such as mobile and online banking, websites and others.

Oleksandr Stelmakh is the Senior Director and Head of Digital Solutions team responsible for driving the innovations agenda for the 17 markets of CIS&SEE. His main areas of focus are Mobile Contactless & E-commerce Payments (based on Visa Token Service), Tap to phone and Digital Card Issuing. During 3 years at Visa Oleksandr launched numerous digital projects including Pay’s implementation on 9 new markets and first in CEMEA Tap to phone project.

Oleksandr joined Visa in 2018 bringing to the team 15 years of experience in retail banking, payment cards and mobile network operations. Immediately before joining Visa, he was Deputy Head of Retail Department at Pivdennyi bank (Ukraine) responsible for acquiring, retail products, payment cards and digital channels development. Before joining Pivdennyi bank Mr. Stelmakh worked for MobileTeleSystems MNO (now Vodafone) where he was managing the IT part of contact center operations.

Oleksandr holds a master’s degree in Information Technologies from National Academy of Telecommunications (Ukraine).

Alexey is responsible for developing and implementing a comprehensive strategy to drive business growth for the Compass Plus in CIS and MEA. His role includes the coordination of initial sales, sales to existing customers, project delivery, and business development. Apart from this, Alexey supervises regional technical and sales teams.

Alexey has over two decades of payments industry experience. He joined Compass Plus in 2002 as a Marketing Manager, following this he moved though the positions of Account Administrator,Regional Sales Manager, and Deputy Commercial Director. Such vast experience enabled him to study the payment industry and its features in depth. In 2014 he was promoted to Managing Director of MEA where he led the global strategy and sales in the region. After this, Alexey was appointed EVP and Managing Director of MEA and CIS due to his strong leadership skills. 

During Alexey’s tenure, Compass Plus has developed TranzAxis, described as ‘visionary’ platform by payments experts, along with other ground-breaking solutions that established the company to be market leader and innovator in the payments technology space.

Alexey will speak on the topic of “Evolvement of payment infrastructure based on Compass Plus solutions”.

Emir Turkmen was born in 1976 in Istanbul. He completed his bachelor education at Istanbul Technical University, Department of Mathematical Engineering, and his master's degree in Marketing Analytics at Istanbul Bilgi University. Türkmen, who has been explaining the benefits of analytical projects in more than 40 countries and implementing hundreds of analytical projects in global companies such as Pepsico, HSBC, Oracle and IBM for 25 years, has been working as the Industry Leader in charge of Analytics at KoçDigital for the last 2.5 years.

Pavel Janecek has over 20 years of experience in partnership and other senior positions in global consulting and IT firms. He has worked in more than 30 countries in multiple industries and lines of business. Pavel managed large teams focused and restructuring, cost savings and CX management programs with a strong track record.

Mert Terzioglu is a Head of Turkey & MENA region and Global Board Member at Simon-Kucher. He is also Managing Partner of the Istanbul office. He has been with Simon-Kucher since 2010, first with the Boston office before joining the team in Istanbul. Prior to Simon-Kucher, he worked as an internal consultant at Bausch & Lomb with a focus on strategy, pricing, sales and marketing topics.

Mert holds a degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from Bilkent University and a Masterʼs degree in Business Administration with a concentration on marketing from the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester.

Mert is an expert in growth strategies, incentive systems, product positioning, list prices, discount optimization, and forecasting. He has advised clients in a variety of industries, both B2B and B2C, with product offerings ranging from commodity to highly differentiated offerings.

For the period of 2006 – 2013 he has been working as Senior IT Auditor and Head IT Audit division at Central Bank of Azerbaijan Republic. From 2013 to 2017 he worked for Group of Companies as Head of Management Assurance and Director of Information Security divisions. From 2017 to 2021 Ilgar held CIO position for Port of Baku. Now he is founder and CEO of BISA LLC (Business Information Security Assurance). Currently he is Deputy Chair of ABA IT and Information Security Committee. He supervised and implemented number of audits and consulting projects for Central and Commercial Banks, telecommunication, energy, and manufacturing companies. Ilgar has wide experience on Digital transformation, information security design and implementation, internal control system and cyber-security improvement, operational risk management and assessment. He is member of International ISACA association since 2007. Member of PECB as international certified trainer since 2018.

Anar Guliyev is IT Director at the Central Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Mr. Guliyev has over 15 years of experience working in Information Technology and Information Security. He defines the technological road-map of the company and manages its IT portfolio.

Competencies: Strategic Thinking, Influencing and Collaboration, Security and Privacy Management, Program Management, Technical Competencies.

German Pozankov, Managing Director Trend Micro in CIS & Mongolia region, has been leading the company's Trend Micro team for over a year now. Prior to that, he held the position of Global Accounts Director at the cybersecurity solutions vendor for five years. He is credited with growing Trend Micro business and working with Fortune Global 500 customers such as Gazprom and Lukoil as well as with a number of other major Russian businesses and organizations. Before coming to Trend Micro, German was the CEO of Mobilet, a company he co-founded that developed an SaaS CRM offering for SMB companies, as well as a one-of-a-kind digital signage solution. Prior to that, he worked as a sales manager for digital media solutions at IBM, headed web technology department at Rosbank, lead project management at PROTEK, and implemented an automated accounted system as a Deputy CEO at Aurora LLC.

Tural Mammadov works as a CISO at Special Communication and Information Security State Service. He is also Secretary of the Coordination Commission for Information Security of Azerbaijan Republic and member of Board of Directors of OIC-CERT since 2016.

He has more than 10 years’ experience in Cybersecurity and CERT services. He is Editor in Chief of Information Security Journal since 2015. Tural Mammadov holds master's degrees in Strategic Management and doing his PHD on the topic "The Information Security in Critical Infrastructure".

Charles Lobo is Senior Vice President, Regional Risk Officer for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) at Visa. He currently specializes in Credit Settlement Risk, Enterprise Risk Management and Payment System Risk, which includes Data Security, Brand Protection and Cyber Investigations.

Charles brings over 20 years of global payments industry experience spanning the areas of portfolio & project management, operations, customer service and fraud management for both the issuing and acquiring business. Prior to joining Visa in January 2020, Charles was on the leadership team at Emirates NBD Retail Bank – helping the bank build strong first line of defense in Risk and Compliance. He has also served as Group Chief Operating Officer for Network International – a leading payments service provider in the middle east and Africa.

Charles received his M.S. from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has an MBA from the International Management Institute and a B.A. in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

Umut Önceler – BKM Security Solutions Director, Graduated from Hacettepe University, Department of Statistics in 1999. Umut Önceler started his career at Ziraat Kart Operations A.Ş.. He worked as a manager in the Decision Support Systems department between 2010 and 2014 and in the Credit Risk Management department between 2014 and 2017 at Intertech A.Ş., where he started working in 2005. He has been working as the BKM Security Solutions Director since April 2017. He is the Deputy Chairman of the Security Committee, which consists of 14 BKM members.

Halis Köseoğlu is the Director of Yapı Kredi Bank's Fraud Prevention Department, which has brought together payment systems, channel and application fraud prevention teams for holistic fraud management since 2016. He started his career as a software developer in Information Technologies at Pamukbank, where he developed accounting systems in 1997. Between 2000-2004, he worked as the software manager of the accounting system and customer information systems at Disbank. He worked as Akbank Fraud Prevention and Merchant Operations Manager between 2004-2016. In the same period, payment systems and distribution channel fraud teams were brought together for effective fraud management. He holds a BA in mathematics from Middle East Technical University and an MBA from Sabancı University.

Uğur Cem Yiğit is an Associate Partner in McKinsey & Company’s Azerbaijan Office.

Since joining McKinsey in 2014, he has been involved in engagements in financial institutions (Banking, Insurance and Leasing) and serving them in various topics such as strategy, risk and operations

Uğur Cem holds a B.A in Economics and Statistics from University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Laws from Queen Mary, University of London.

Daniel Bouzas is the Regional Coordinator for Europe of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), a partnership between UNEP and the global financial sector.

He leads on the European actions, working on all relevant initiatives of UNEP FI in the region, engaging membership to harness industry involvement, as well as leading on key initiatives, such as the EU Taxonomy workstream and key regulatory engagement.

Before joining UNEP FI Daniel was Policy Adviser on Sustainable Finance at the European Banking Federation (EBF) and has prior experience on EU policy-making, financial services, sustainability and international affairs.

Atakan is a Partner at McKinsey & Company’s Istanbul Office, and Head of Financial Institutions in McKinsey’s Turkey and Azerbaijan Hub Since joining McKinsey in 2012 he has worked extensively on banking and insurance projects focusing on strategyand risk.

Prior to joining McKinsey, Atakan had 4 years of industry (Nestle) and 2 years of consulting experience (Monitor Group) both in mature (UK and Germany), as well as in the emerging markets (Turkey and Russia) Atakan holds an MBA degree from Harvard Business School and a BA degree in Management and Business Administration from Bogazici University with high honors. Beside English, he is also fluent in German.

Fidan Sadikhli is a manager leading Climate Change and Sustainability Services (CCaSS) practice at EY Azerbaijan and has 7 years of related experience working with multiple companies from diverse industries, such as energy/O&G, mining, cement, telecommunications, manufacturing, banking/finance institutions, agriculture waste management, transportation, and shipping in Azerbaijan and CIS countries.

For the past 7 years Fidan has been engaged in the ESG reporting, assurance, and advisory services, including drafting CSR policies and strategies, EHS due diligence, development of sustainability strategies and policies, and sustainable finance. Fidan also contributed to the development of EY’s guidelines on integration of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals into businesses covering major economic sectors in Azerbaijan, including energy/O&G, agriculture, finance, tourism, transportation.

Fidan holds MSc degree in Management for Business Excellence from University of Warwick, UK and Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Azerbaijan State University of Oil and Industry.

Fidan authored a research paper on “HSE Management and Management of Change in Oil and Gas Sector of Azerbaijan” and published expert views and perspectives on business sustainability in the finance/banking sector in Azerbaijan’s leading business articles.

Gerhard’s career in climate finance spanned both the public and private sector, having worked in consulting in Washington DC, environmental markets on Wall Street, and for the Dutch government (Netherlands Enterprise Agency), Dutch banks (ABN AMRO and Rabobank) and a leading non-profit (IUCN) in the Netherlands. He co-founded Climate Risk Services to advise public and private sector organisations on climate risk after he completed his MBA at Oxford in 2018. He studied environmental economics and international affairs at Columbia University in New York, and Public Policy at the University of Amsterdam.

Zaur Zeynalov is an adviser to the  Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Azerbaijan Republic.

Before joining the Ministry Zaur Zeynalov worked in different managerial positions for local and international companies and has prior experience in legal and governmental affairs, environmental projects, and renewable energy.

As a Fulbright alumna, he holds a Masters's in Public Affairs with environmental policy and natural resource management concentration from Indiana University Bloomington.

Edgar Abdullayev’s professional life started since 2006.  His first employer was Azercell Telecom for more than 8 years and 7 years of it was in a managing position.  Then for more than 2 years he was the CEO of DOST TAXI LLC, for about 3 years he was the Director of Organizational Development and Quality Assurance Department of PASHA Bank OJSC, and 2,5 years he was the Director of the Customer and Digital Care Division of Azerconnect.  Since May 2021, he is the Managing Director of United Payment LLC, which is the subsidiary of a Turkish company, Birlesik Odeme Elektronik Para A.Ş.  At the same time, since March 2021, he is the head of the Chairman of the Working Group on Business Transformation  of the Management Commission under the Confederation of Entrepreneurs of Azerbaijan.

 Edgar Abdullayev has a bachelor degree on History. Later on career path, he is graduated at the level of Six Sigma Master Black Belt during 2009 - 2014, in the field of business process management and improvement.  During 2021 - 2022, he successfully completed the Executive MBA program of Yeditepe University of Turkey and received a Master's degree diploma from Yeditepe University.

During his years in school, he founded an events management company in 2014 to energize the lifestyle of the city. Following a successful year, he moved on to the finance industry. Shafiq Amiri began trading commodities and currencies in 2015, and within 2 years founded a private investment fund, Keystone Capital. Today, Keystone Capital  continues in the vision of the founder, whilst also investing in tech start ups.

In 2016, he started his research in blockchain projects and initiated an investment strategy into cryptocurrencies. He is avid on integrating blockchain technology in the real world. Shafiq Amiri is an investor, entrepreneur, trader and leads FARI Solutions' public sector Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) projects, with a focus on central bank digital currency (CBDC), digital identity and supply chain management.

Mr. A. Abbasov was appointed Deputy Director of the Retail Banking Department at the International Bank of Azerbaijan in 2019.
More than 10 years of experience in Payment systems.

Graduated from the Baku Engineering University with a bachelor degree in Finance and Credit and Azerbaijan State Economic University with a master degree in Finance and Credit.

Mr. Abbasov was born in 1989.

Nurlan Hajiyev is the Business Development Director of Azerbaijan responsible for driving business in the market. During 8 years at Visa Nurlan launched numerous of projects in different areas of digital payments in Azerbaijan including contactless payments, VBV 1.0 and 2.0, first B2B Connect projects in CEMEA, first multi-applicational chip issuing in CISSEE, first VTS project in the country, first Tap to phone project, first fully digital issued cards, in Azerbaijan, ApplePay project, Transit project etc.

Nurlan joined Visa in 2013 bringing to the team 9 years of experience in banking sector, Marketing and Business Development and Payment Cards. Immediately before joining Visa, he was Head of Payment cards at DemirBank (Azerbaijan) responsible for acquiring, payment products, payment cards payment cards risk and digital channels development. Before joining DemirBank Mr. Hajiyev worked at UniBank where he was managing Marketing and Business Development.

Nurlan holds a master’s degree in Azerbaijan State Economic University.

Kerimzadeh Zeynal was born in 1986 in Baku.

He received his secondary education at school No. 138 in Baku.

In 2004-2008 he studied Management at the “Engineering Economics and Management” faculty of Azerbaijan Technical University..

He started his career in 2006 as a specialist in the IT department of Kochbank Azerbaijan CJSC.

In 2007-2008, he worked as a sales manager at BestComp Group.

In 2008-2010, he worked as a specialist, leading specialist, chief specialist in the Bank Cards Department of Bank Respublika OJSC.

In 2010-2013, he worked as an acquiring expert at PASHA Bank OJSC.

In 2013-2016, he worked as the head of Shuvalan Business Center at PASHA Bank OJSC.

In 2016-2018, he was the Head of the Service Quality Assurance and Service Channel Management Departments at PASHA Bank OJSC.

In 2018-2020, he worked as the Head of the Bank Cards Department at PASHA Bank OJSC.

Since 2021, he has been the head of Global Innovations LLC and DataPay CJSC.

Internationally certified Chief Auditor of Quality Management System (IRCA, SGS).

Viktor Chumakov is the Executive Director of the Digital Ecosystem Development Department. For more than 20 years, he has been engaged in technology consulting and development at companies such as IBM and PwC.
Over the past 4 years, Victor's work has focused on innovative projects in the field of blockchain distributed registry technology, its integration with artificial intelligence capabilities and the launch of Ecosystems into productive operation.

Mr. Namazov received his bachelor's degree in Finance from the Azerbaijan State University of Economics (UNEC) in 2005 and a master's degree in International economic relations from the same university in 2007. In 2021, he studied at the Kellog Business School's Organizational Leadership Program. Mr. Namazov holds Professional Project Manager (PMP) certificate from the Project Management Institute (PMI).

Starting from 2021, Vugar Namazov joined Unicapital Investment Company OJSC, one of the leading investment company in Azerbaijan, as an Advisor to the General Manager.

He has huge expertise in finance and financial institutions, IT, trading infrastructure, project management, international relations and public administration. Mr. Namazov has held various senior positions at the Baku Stock Exchange for more than 13 years, including the Chairman of the Executive Board. Before joining the Unicapital team, he worked as an advisor to the Chairman of the Board at Agrarian Procurement and Supply OJSC under the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In parallel, Vugar Namazov holds a position of researcher at the UNEC Islamic Financial Center.

Mr. Namazov is the author of various articles and studies related with capital markets, digitalization, trading systems and infrastructure, alternative financing solutions, and more.

Simon has spent his career within innovative technologies, including working with blockchain and financial technologies in Australia, the US, UK, Asia, and Europe. Most recently leading the Digital Assets Programme at the University of Cambridge, and as Co-Founder of middle office startup MOOPS Tech. He holds an MBA from AGSM.