Welcome to the Asia FinTech Awards

Abby has over 11 years of financial services experience in various capacities, including venture capital, investment banking and leveraged finance. Abby has led the fund’s early stage investments in fintech and insurtech across Southeast Asia and India. She is also an advocate for equitable investments and is an advisor to angel networks which focus on impactful startups led by women in her private capacity.

In her role, she builds the fund’s pipeline of startups that fit the firm’s focus on financial empowerment and establishes stakeholder partnerships and VC connections for future portfolio fundraising.

Abby began her career in Investment Banking, Cross Border and Leverage Finance across multiple ASEAN banks. During this time, she advised 20+ large to mid-sized conglomerates and $800 million in M&A and capital raising transactions across Southeast Asia, with a speciality in due diligence for debt financing, private equity buyouts, syndicated and structured dual-currency loans.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce with a major in finance from the University of Melbourne, Australia.

Anu served in the largest monopoly in India at Life Insurance Corporation of India from 1994-1999, then moved on as a founder member of Birla Sunlife Insurance and AMP Sanmar Life and Reliance Nippon Life.

As the head of operations at Indiafirst Life, Anu anchored projects like driving 97% policy issuance on tab in 2013 and underwriting through iris recognition in 2014.

She transitioned to BD and Distribution in 2017, acquired the first Small Finance Bank for Edelweiss Tokio in 2018, and set up Star Union Daichi’s first Banca Commercial Support unit that focussed on activating inactive bank branches, where she now serves as a part of the marketing and digital team at Star Union Daiichi Life Insurance.

Anu is an Angel Investor with Yatra Angel Network and has invested in several fintech startups in her personal capacity. She also volunteers for Sahamati Account Aggregator to support AA adoption amongst Insurers.

Chia Hock Lai is the co-founder of the Global Fintech Institute, venture partner of Tembusu Partners and partnership lead at Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS). He has two decades of experience in the financial and technology industries, having worked in Singapore’s GovTech and NTUC Income.

An alumnus of NUS and NTU, he is the co-chairman of the Blockchain Association Singapore, and former and founding president of Singapore Fintech Association.

He is a council member of and strategic advisor to numerous tech start-ups and organizations such as Bondevalue, RootAnt Global, RegTank, Morpheus Labs and IEEE Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Standard Committee.

In addition, he is also an Institute of Banking and Finance fellow for digital transformation, fintech fellow at the SUSS and fellow at SkillsFuture Singapore.

Chonladet Khemarattana is the Thailand chief executive officer of Webull Securities, a leading online brokerage platform, where he oversees strategy, operations, and market growth. With two decades of capital markets expertise, he focuses on investment innovations such as robo-advisors, algorithmic trading, and digital assets.

As president of the Thai Fintech Association, Chonladet leads initiatives to advance fintech development in Thailand. He works closely with regulators, startups, and industry leaders to build a robust fintech ecosystem, driving Bangkok’s emergence as a global Fintech Hub.

Dr. Rex Yeap is a partner at Invention Capital, where he directs efforts towards the creation and commercialisation of novel inventions, investing in, and mentoring early-stage companies. Additionally, he serves as a Director of the Business Angel Network (BANSEA) and is the co-founder of an angel investment fund, BANSEA Fund One, where he also served as Chair of the Investment Committee Board. Dr. Yeap was an investor-mentor in SiTF for its iJAM and ACE Grant programs. He is also an Advisor to Morpheus Lab, a generative AI blockchain platform business.

Over the past decades, his angel investment portfolio has predominantly included early-stage technology companies with an increasing focus on the Fintech space. Dr. Yeap holds a Master of Science with Distinction from the University of Leeds, and his doctoral research involved the invention of several patented hedge fund systems.

Dr. Yeap possesses three decades of experience across the Information Technology value chain, spanning industry, government, and academia. He is the co-inventor of the patented IP Blockchain system and holds several dozen technology-related patents, along with thousands of inventions.

Jason Hsu is senior research fellow at The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation Harvard Kennedy School. 

From 2016 to 2020 Hsu served as legislator-at-large in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (national parliament) overseeing technology policy, entrepreneurship and innovation. Among the crucial legislations that he initiated and sponsored include FinTech Regulatory Sandbox Act, Amendment on Anti-Money Laundering Law, and Digital Economy Principle Act.  

After leaving government, Jason worked in several high-profile roles of international organisations including senior adviser of head of legislative research of Blockchain Climate Institute, council member of International Digital Asset Exchange Association, and advisory board member of Global Fintech Institute.  

Jason is a proponent for cryptocurrency and blockchain. Jason is credited for setting up Asia Blockchain Alliance, Taiwan Parliamentary Coalition for Blockchain, and Self-Regulatory Organisation. 

Jason is also an advocator for socially progressive legislation. He co-led the effort to pass Same Sex Marriage Act and championed for End-of-Life Dignity Act.  

Mark S. Gorriceta is board trustee, corporate secretary and chief legal officer of Fintech Philippines Association. He is a trustee and founding member of the Blockchain Council of the Philippines. And also the chairman of the ICT Committee of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines and a member of the Fintech Alliance.

Mark is the managing partner and head of the corporate, banking and finance, and technology media and telecommunications groups of Gorriceta Africa Cauton & Saavedra – a multi-awarded and fast-rising full-service Philippine law firm established in 2015.

Mark is the Philippines’ top lawyer in the tech/fintech sector with his pioneering legal expertise on fintech, blockchain, digital assets, web3 technology, e-commerce, data privacy, and artificial intelligence. He represents domestic conglomerates in their digitisation efforts as well as the Philippines’ top technology companies – both local and global entities.

He is currently a faculty member of the Ateneo de Manila University’s Graduate School and teaches Mergers & Acquisitions for the Advanced Module Diploma Course in Corporate Finance.

Nicole is among the most active evangelists for emerging technologies in Vietnam and Southeast Asia and the mastermind behind serial initiatives such as 2,000+ delegate Vietnam Blockchain Week, Vietnam Fintech Summit initiative and APAC DAO web3 community. She has been a speaker at over 20+ international conferences and interviewed by the Forbes, the Business Times Singapore and South China Morning Post as an industry thought leader.

With over 15 years of experience in the corporate sector, technology startup, and emerging technology advocacy, Nicole has been trusted to support hundreds of startups and companies in their APAC expansion endeavour with profound market insights, regulatory strategies and business structuring. At her current role as ASEAN vice-chair of Global Impact Fintech Forum (GIFT) thinktank with 20+ international chapters and 200+ professional members from Central Banks, Fintech associations and institutions across the globe, Nicole chairs numerous initiatives including the most notable Vietnam Fintech Summit – an official side event to Vietnam’s largest tech conference Techfest Vietnam under the auspices of the Ministry of Science and Technology  She also runs a community powerhouse in web3 and blockchain technology – APAC DAO with over 3,000+ members from 1000+ projects across Asia, powered by partnership with 50+ prominent web3 players around the world including Ripple, Story Protocol, Arbitrum and Worldcoin.

Nicole is no stranger to innovation key stakeholders in the region as she was the architect of various innovation programs such as the 3-time Hack4Growth innovation contest under the auspices of Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as Asia Blockchain Review – a pioneering technology research and media focusing on Asia-Pacific. She’s also a passionate evangelist for women empowerment as an honorary advisor to BRICS Chamber of Commerce & Industry – Women Entrepreneurship vertical.

Rajkumar Kanagasingam is the founding president of FinTech Association of Sri Lanka. He has participated at a number of international forums—in India, Dubai and Singapore—as a speaker, moderator or a judge. 

Kanagasingam is the founder and chief executive officer of Asian FinTech Academy, which organises Asia Digital Finance Forum and Awards and annually conducts executive programs on fintech, blockchain enabled digital assets and artificial intelligence in finance. 

He is also the founder and chief executive officer of Ambuli International, a consultancy firm which focuses on the application of blockchain, AI and big data in the financial services industry.   

Takeshi is a serial fintech entrepreneur, and co-founder and chief executive officer of GFTN Japan, actively spearheading ecosystem building and international collaborations. 

Additionally, he sits on the committee for the Government of Japan’s Regulatory Sandbox and is a member of the experts group, jointly organised by the Digital Agency and the Ministry of Economy, trade, and Industry focusing on international data governance. 

Before starting his startup in the fintech industry, Takeshi worked as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, gaining expertise in capital markets. Before joining Merrill Lynch, he worked at Boston Consulting Group. He formerly served as vice-chair at the Fintech Association of Japan, where he played a pivotal role in navigating international collaborations for 6 years. 

Yerbol Orynbayev is an independent financial services consultant and former Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan. He advises leading financial services and technology companies and has held a number of senior positions in private financial, research and technology companies.

Prior to his consultancy career, Orynbayev served as the Deputy Prime Minister from 2007-2013 and Aide to the President on economic policy from 2013-2015. He also worked as the Governor of the World Bank on behalf of Kazakhstan, and helped to steer the nation out of the Financial Crisis in 2008.

He was Chairman of First Heartland Securities and held a number of board-level roles at the National Bank of Kazakhstan and Agency for Regulations of Financial Markets.