Day 3 – Session B3: Harnessing Regional Financial Cooperation for Financial Innovation
Tamara Singh, Managing Director, The Nature Conservancy Singapore
Tamara Singh is Managing Director for The Nature Conservancy Singapore and Senior Advisor, Regional Programs in Asia Pacific. She earned her stripes at Centrica Plc, BP Oil International, Deutsche Bank and Macquarie Bank, before returning home to Singapore, having led teams across energy and financial services, governing trading floors in London, New York and Asia Pacific.
On home ground, Ms. Singh served Westpac Banking Corporation and then her country. Whilst supporting GIC’s mandate for the nation, she contributed to digital transformation, innovation and sustainability initiatives, building relationships across the financial ecosystem worldwide. This ignited her to structure a career centred on enabling sustainable organizations to scale, while championing impactful change.
Robert Wardrop, Co-founder and Executive Chairman, RegGenome
Bob is the Founder and Chairman of RegGenome, a Cambridge University spin-out company. He is also a member of the finance faculty at the Cambridge Judge Business School where is a recipient of the School’s Excellence in Teaching Prize and its Research Impact Award. Bob’s research explores innovation at the intersection of technological change and the global financial system, and his project applying AI to regulatory information in the field of computational regulation led to the creation of RegGenome in 2021. In 2015, Bob co-founded the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance and was its Founding Director until 2020. He has held several advisory board roles with regulatory authorities and board directorships with commercial companies over the course of his professional career. Bob holds an MBA from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
Katariina Nilsson Hakkala, Senior Economist, ERCI and APEC APFIF Focal
Katariina Nilsson Hakkala is a Senior Economist in ADB's Economic Research and Development Impact Department. She possesses over 25 years of expertise in economic research and analysis, specialising in international trade, investment, and policy at leading research institutes in Finland and Sweden. Additionally, she has taught economics at both graduate and undergraduate levels and provided advisory services to various governmental and international organisations. Her research appears in books and peer-reviewed journals such as the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Economic Journal, the European Economic Review, Economica, the Canadian Journal of Economics, the Review of World Economics, and Industrial and Corporate Change. She earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics.
Eugene Wong (ACMF/ASEAN/SFIA)
Eugene Wong is the Chief Executive Officer of SFIA, an independent institute established to catalyse ideas on Sustainable Finance at the policy level in ASEAN, as well as propel action in support of those policy ideas. SFIA is currently the Host of the ASEAN Taxonomy Board.
Eugene was previously the Managing Director, Corporate Finance & Investments of the Securities Commission Malaysia (“SC”). He also served as a member of the Audit Oversight Board in Malaysia and was an Adviser to the Malaysian Accounting Standards Board. He oversaw the SC’s ASEAN related initiatives and was a Chair of the Deputies of ASEAN Capital Markets Forum and a Co-Chair of the ASEAN Working Committee on Capital Market Development.
Eugene is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, Fellow of CPA Australia and a Chartered Accountant of the Malaysian Institute of Accountants.
H.E Dr. Vin Pheakdey, Deputy Director General of the Securities and Exchange Regulator of Cambodia (SERC)
H.E Dr. Vin Pheakdey, Deputy Director General of the Securities and Exchange Regulator of Cambodia (SERC), has more than 18 years of experiences in securities sector, and he is also one of the founding members of the Cambodia securities market. In addition, in his leading role, Dr. Vin also chairs the SERC's FinTech Working Group and is a member of various impactful Working Groups responsible for preparing the Cambodia Digital Economy and Society Policy Framework, the Cambodia Financial Technology Development, the Financial Technology Development Strategy in Non-Bank Financial Sector, the Financial Sector Development Strategy, the Securities Sector Development Master Plan, Strategy for the Development of E-Services for Business. During this journey, he has contributed a lot to the development of Cambodia capital market including designing strategies, policies and market infrastructure, preparing regulations for licensing and supervising securities firms, collective investment scheme businesses, derivatives businesses, digital securities sandbox, digital assets businesses and peer-to-peer financing operations, developing new financial products and fintech, and licensing and supervising all securities intermediaries under the jurisdiction of SERC. Dr. Vin was a Chair of the Deputies of the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum 2022. He obtained a PhD’s degree in Economics from University of Lumiere Lyon 2, France.
Azleena Idris, Head of Strategy, PayNet
Azleena Idris is Senior Director and Head of the Strategy & ESG Office at Payments Network Malaysia (PayNet). She joined PayNet in August 2019 to lead the Corporate Services Division as its Director and assumed her current role in January 2023. She led PayNet’s Strategy 2020-2022 and 2023-2027, the Open Finance project in Malaysia, cross-border payments strategies under Project Next 50 and as part of PayNet’s goal to ensure digital payments inclusion, the PayNet Cambah Social Impact Program. Prior to PayNet, Azleena held progressively senior roles both as a regulator and industry practitioner, having served the IMF, World Bank, Central Bank of Malaysia, a Malaysian and an international financial conglomerate. A qualified lawyer from England on government scholarship, Azleena has a Post Graduate Certificate in Business & Climate Change from Cambridge University, a Global MBA jointly awarded by the London School of Economics and Political Science, New York University, & HEC Paris and is also a Fellow of the Chartered Islamic Finance Professional.