Ashley Alder

Chair of the Board, IOSCO

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Ashley is the Chief Executive Officer of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong. He was first appointed in October 2011. In May 2016, Ashley was elected as Chair of the Board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), and was re-elected for a further two-year term in June 2020.

Ashley was previously Chair of the IOSCO Asia-Pacific Regional Committee and Vice Chair of the IOSCO Board. Ashley has represented IOSCO as a member of the Financial Stability Board Steering Committee and Plenary since his election as IOSCO Board Chair.

Ashley started his career as a lawyer in London in 1984. He moved to Hong Kong in 1989 with the international law firm Herbert Smith, practicing corporate and business law. He was Executive Director of Corporate Finance at the SFC from 2001 to 2004, before returning to Herbert Smith, where he became head of the firm’s Asia Region.

John Berrigan

Director General in DG FISMA (Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union) of the European Commission

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John Berrigan is the Director General in DG FISMA (Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union) of the European Commission.

DG FISMA is responsible for EU-level policy making and legislative initiatives with respect to the financial sector, including Banking Union, Capital Markets Union, sustainable finance, digital finance, anti-money laundering and sanctions. In this context, John represents the European Commission on the Economic and Financial Committee and the Financial Services Committee, which report to EU Finance Ministers. He also represents the Commission on the Financial Stability Board, which reports to G20 Finance Ministers. He attends the European Systemic Risk Board and is a permanent observer on the Single Resolution Board.

John has been a Commission official since the mid-1980s and has spent most of that time working on financial-sector issues - first in DG ECFIN (where he contributed to macro-financial analysis in general and more specifically to financial-sector aspects of the assistance programmes for Member States) and now in DG FISMA. He worked on preparations for the introduction of the euro in 1999 and was secretary of the so-called Giovannini Group, which produced reports, inter alia, on issues related to euro-denominated debt issues and post-trading in EU securities markets in the early 2000s. In the mid-1990s, he worked for several years with the International Monetary Fund.

John has a masters degree in economics from University College Dublin. He is married with two children.

Dr. Melinda Crane

Journalist & Moderator

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Dr. Melinda Crane has given speeches and moderated events and discussions for a wide range of international organizations and firms. She is a frequent guest and commentator on German television and radio and regularly analyzes US policy for the news broadcaster n-tv. An experienced TV anchor, she is chief political correspondent at DW TV and also hosts the DW talk show “To the Point”. In 2014 she was awarded the Steuben-Schurz Media Award for her service to transatlantic understanding.

Dr. Crane studied history and political science at Brown University and law at Harvard. She wrote her dissertation on the political economy of development assistance at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

As International Affairs Consultant to the discussion show “Sabine Christiansen” she produced interviews with Kofi Annan, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and George Bush, among others.

Her journalistic experience includes work for the “New York Times Magazine,” ”The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine,” “The Boston Globe,” the “Christian Science Monitor” and German newspapers and magazines.

Areas of expertise include: transatlantic politics; energy, climate and environment; transport and communication; development, globalization, finance and trade; science and medicine (including pharma); migration, integration and urbanization; women, youth and education; new media, internet and artificial intelligence.

Languages: Melinda Crane moderates in English and German and also speaks French fluently.

Peter Derendinger

SFC Chairman & Chairman of the Board of Directors, Credit Suisse (Schweiz) AG

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Peter Derendinger is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Credit Suisse (Schweiz) AG since March 2019. In 2004 he founded Alpha Associates Ltd., a Zurich-based independent private equity, private debt and infrastructure management and advisory firm, of which he is the CEO. He is an Attorney-at-law and has a Master´s Degree and PhD in Law from the University of Fribourg as well as a Master of Laws LL.M. from Northwestern University School of Law of Chicago. Dr. Peter Derendinger started his career as Head of Legal and Tax Continental Europe at Credit Suisse First Boston and he became General Counsel of the Credit Suisse Group in 1994. In 2000 he became Member of the Executive Board of Credit Suisse Private Banking, CFO and Head Corporate Center. He holds mandates as a professional board member with various companies and foundations in Switzerland. Peter Derendinger is a Swiss citizen.

Andrea Enria

Chair of the Supervisory Board of the European Central Bank (ECB)

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Andrea Enria took office as Chair of the Supervisory Board of the European Central Bank in January 2019. Before that he was, from March 2011, the first Chairperson of the European Banking Authority. He previously served as Head of the Supervisory Regulations and Policies Department at the Banca d’Italia and as Secretary General of the Committee of European Banking Supervisors. He also held the position of Head of the Financial Supervision Division at the European Central Bank. Before joining the ECB he worked for several years in the Directorate General Research and the Directorate General Banking and Financial Supervision of the Banca d’Italia.

Mr Enria has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Bocconi University and a MPhil in Economics from Cambridge University

Lukas Gähwiler

Chairman of the Board of Directors, UBS Switzerland AG

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Lukas Gähwiler was appointed in 2017 as Chairman of the Board of Directors, UBS Switzerland AG. Prior to that, he was a member of the Group Executive Board of UBS Group AG and served as President UBS Switzerland for more than six years. In this role, he was responsible for all businesses – Personal Banking, Wealth Management, Corporate and Institutional Clients, Investment Banking and Asset Management – in UBS's home market. Prior to this, he worked in various senior front office positions at Credit Suisse in Switzerland and North America for twenty years, seven of which as Chief Risk Officer for Corporate and Private Banking. Mr. Gähwiler earned a Bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Applied Sciences in St. Gallen. Furthermore, he completed an MBA program in Corporate Finance at the International Bankers School in New York as well as the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Pablo Hernández de Cos

Governor, Bank of Spain

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Pablo Hernández de Cos is Governor of the Banco de España and member of the Governing and General Council of the ECB. He is Chair of the BCBS and of the Advisory Technical Committee of the ESRB. He is member of various European and International Committees including the ESRB, the FSB, the BIS Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision, the Advisory Board of the FSI and the CEMLA. He is also Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Spanish Macroprudential Authority Financial Stability Board (AMCESFI).

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Prior to his current position he was Director General for Economics, Statistics and Research of the Banco de España, headed its Economic Policy Analysis Division, worked as an adviser to the ECB’s Executive Board and as an Economist of the Banco de España.

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He holds a PhD in Economics (Complutense University, Madrid), a degree in Economics and Business Studies (CUNEF) and a degree in Law (UNED).

Eva Kaili

Member of the European Parliament

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Eva Kaili has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2014.

 

In January 2022, she was elected Vice-President of the European Parliament for the second half of the 9th legislature. Her responsibilities include the Parliament’s ICT Innovation Strategy, Informatics & Telecommunications, CSR, and replacing the President for multilateral bodies.

 

She chairs the Panel for the Future of Science and Technology and the Centre for Artificial Intelligence. She is a Member of the Committees on Industry, Research and Energy; Economic and Monetary Affairs; and Artificial Intelligence in a Digital Age.

 

Eva has worked on promoting innovation as a driving force of the European Digital Single Market. She has been the draftsperson of legislation on blockchain, big data, fintech, AI, and cybersecurity, as well as EFSI2 and InvestEU.

 

Prior to being elected as MEP, Eva was a Member of the Greek Parliament. Before that, she worked as a journalist. She has a BA in Architecture and Civil Engineering, and a Postgraduate degree in European Politics.

Peter Kerstens

Advisor, DG FISMA, European Commission

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Peter advises on Technological Innovation, Digital Transformation and Cybersecurity at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union. He has led work on the European Commission’s Fintech Action Plan and Co-chairs the European Commission’s Fintech Taskforce. He has extensive experience and expertise in EU policy and regulation covering financial services, digitalisation, security and consumer protection. Earlier in his career, Peter was Finance Counsellor at the EU Embassy in Washington DC. He has also been a member of the private offices of the commissioner for the internal market and services and the commissioner for health and consumer protection. Before joining the European Commission, Peter advised major financial services companies on EU regulatory affairs. He is a Dutch national and holds master degrees in European affairs and political science from the College of Europe in Bruges and the University of Leuven, Belgium.

Axel Lehmann

Chairman of the Board of Directors, Credit Suisse Group

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Axel P. Lehmann is the Chairman of Credit Suisse Group AG since January 2022. Additionally, he
chairs the Governance and Nominations Committee and the Credit Suisse Foundation.

Axel P. Lehmann has more than three decades of professional experience, spanning the financial
services industry and an academic career. During the last 25 years, he has worked in both the
international insurance and global banking sectors.

Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Axel P. Lehmann was a member of the Group Executive Board of UBS
Group, initially as Group Chief Operating Officer and then as President Personal & Corporate Banking
and President UBS Switzerland. Between 2009 and 2015, he served as a non-executive director
and a member of the Risk Committee of UBS Group and was a member of the Governance and
Nominating Committee from 2011 to 2013.

Earlier in his career, he spent almost 20 years at Zurich Insurance Group, of which 14 years were as a member of the Group Executive Committee. His various roles at Zurich Insurance Group included responsibility for the insurer’s European and North America business, group IT and as Chief Risk Officer.

Axel P. Lehmann currently holds mandates at several academic and non-profit institutions, including serving as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. He holds a PhD in Business Administration from the University of St. Gallen and is a graduate of the Advanced
Management Program of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

Ueli Maurer

Swiss Federal Councillor and Head of the Federal Department of Finance

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Ulrich "Ueli" Maurer is a Swiss politician who served as President of the Swiss Confederation in 2013 and 2019 and as Vice President of the Swiss Confederation in 2012 and 2018.

Chair of the Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC) from 1996 to 2008, he has been a Member of the Swiss Federal Council since 2009.

Mr Maurer has served as Head of the Federal Department of Finance since 2016. He was previously the Head of the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sports (2009–2015).

Cecilia Skingsley

First Deputy Governor, Sveriges Riksbank

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Cecilia Skingsley took up the post of Deputy Governor in 2013. In November 2019, she was appointed First Deputy Governor.

Cecilia Skingsley has previously held the post of Chief Economist at Swedbank and has also worked at Dagens industri, ABN Amro Bank and the Ministry of Finance. She holds a BA in Economics and Political Science and a financial analyst diploma.

Cecilia represents the Riksbank on the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and on the Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB). She is also the Governor of the Riksbank’s alternate on the General Council of the ECB and is a member of the Advisory Technical Committee (ATC) of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB).

In addition, Cecilia chairs the retail payments council, the cash management advisory board and is a member of the Financial Stability Council.

Daniela Stoffel

State Secretary for International Finance, Federal Department of Finance
(SIF)

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Daniela Stoffel (born in 1968) took up her role as State Secretary for International Finance at the Federal Department of Finance (FDF) on 1 March 2019.

In 1998, Daniela Stoffel entered the diplomatic service of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). In 2005, she took over as Head of Public Relations and Culture at the Swiss Embassy in Washington D.C. and in August 2009 she moved to the Swiss Embassy in Berlin as Head of Economic and Financial Affairs. There she was appointed Deputy Head of Mission in 2012. In 2015, Daniela Stoffel assumed a staff function in the General Secretariat of the OECD in Paris.

From 2015, Daniela Stoffel was on detachment to SIF with the title of Ambassador, latterly as Head of Political Staff. From 2016, she was also the Diplomatic Advisor to the Head of the Federal Department of Finance (FDF). In these functions, Daniela Stoffel was involved in safeguarding and dealing with current financial policy issues and challenges and in the corresponding international negotiations and contacts.

Daniela Stoffel graduated from the University of Zurich in 1992 with a degree in Philosophy, Economics and German Linguistics. Accompanying her work as a University Assistant at the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Zurich, she wrote her thesis in 1996. She is a citizen of Winterthur, in the canton of Zurich, and is the mother of an adult daughter.

Rupert Thorne

Deputy Secretary General, Financial Stability Board

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Rupert Thorne is the Deputy Secretary General of the Financial Stability Board, where he helps in the FSB’s work to coordinate international policy initiatives to strengthen the financial system and promote consistent implementation across sectors and across countries. His work has included focuses on derivatives market reforms and correspondent banking issues. He has been in his position at the FSB since 2009, and from 2005 to 2008 was in the Secretariat of the FSB’s predecessor, the Financial Stability Forum. Before then, he had worked in the IMF for 11 years, in areas such as multilateral surveillance of mature financial markets and debt management policy advice. Previously, he spent over a decade at the Bank of England, mostly in operational areas such as money market operations, government debt issuance and foreign exchange reserves management.

Axel A. Weber

Chairman of the Board of Directors, UBS Group

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Axel A. Weber has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of UBS since 2012. He is Chairman of the Institute of International Finance, Chairman of the Trilateral Commission Europe, Vice Chairman of the Swiss Bankers Association, and a member of the Group of Thirty, among others.

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Mr. Weber was president of the German Bundesbank between 2004 and 2011, during which time he also served as a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, a member of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, German governor of the International Monetary Fund and as a member of the G7 and G20 Ministers and Governors.

He was a member of the steering committees of the European Systemic Risk Board in 2011 and the Financial Stability Board from 2010 to 2011.

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Mr. Weber's academic career includes professorships at the Universities of Cologne, Frankfurt / Main, Bonn and Chicago. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Siegen, where he also received his habilitation. He graduated with a master’s degree in economics at the University of Konstanz and holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Duisburg-Essen and Konstanz.

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Esther Widmer

Managing Director, Swiss Finance Council

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Esther Widmer has been Managing Director of the Swiss Finance Council since 1 January 2021. She was previously the Financial Services Attachée at the Mission of Switzerland to the European Union since 2016. In this capacity, she has been responsible for monitoring and analysing the developments of EU financial market policy and regulation with regard to the possible impact on Switzerland and related advocacy work. Before joining the Mission she was Deputy Head of Regulation at FINMA, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority. In this role, she was working on various national financial market regulation projects and also Head of FINMA’s EU desk. During her time at FINMA she was seconded to the European Commission as a National Expert for five months in 2015 where she was able to work on EU financial services regulation on the side of the EU Institutions. Esther Widmer had joined FINMA after several years of experience as an Attorney specialised in Banking and Finance. She is admitted to the bar in Switzerland and holds a PhD in law.

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David Wright

Chairman, EUROFI

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After graduating from Worcester College, Oxford in 1974 in politics, economics and philosophy (PPE) David has worked for nearly 34 years in the European Commission from 1977- 2011. He held a variety of posts including at the beginning of his career responsibility for oil and gas data in the Statistical Office, Luxembourg (1977-1981) during the second oil crisis; energy policy coordination and modelling in the Directorate General for Energy, Brussels (1982-1987); and then industrial trade policy negotiations during the Uruguay multilateral trade round (1987-1989). From 1989-1992 he was a member of President Delors' ""Think Tank"" called the ""Cellule de Prospectives"" where he worked on industrial policy and wrote the first Commission document on sustainable development. In this period he co-authored a book with Professor Alexis Jacquemin on the post-1992 EU political and economic agenda called ""Shaping factors, shaping actors"".

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From 1993-1994 he was a member of Sir Leon Brittans' Cabinet and worked on various aspects of trade and industrial policy, including completion of the Uruguay Round in 1994. In 1995 he became an Adviser to President Jacques Santer in his Cabinet – covering competitiveness, industrial and telecom policies, political relations with the UK and Ireland, financial services, risk capital and various other trade and foreign policy briefs. From March 2000 – October 2010 he was first Director, then Deputy Director-General for securities and financial markets, then for all financial services policy in DG Internal Market and Services. He helped design and drive forward the Financial Services Action Plans to integrate the EU's capital and financial services markets. He was the rapporteur for both the Lamfalussy (2000/1) and De LaRosière Committees (2008/9), chaired the Securities and Banking Committees and represented the Commission in the Financial Services Committee and in various FSB/G20 fora. He also played a leading role in the EU-US financial markets dialogue in this period. He was the EU Visiting Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford until July 2011 and was a Member of the European Commission's Task force on Greece until the end of January 2012. David Wright’s appointment as Secretary General of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) commenced on 15 March 2012. David Wright left IOSCO in March 2016 and is now the Chairman of EUROFI, Paris, a partner of Flint-Global, London and a public interest Director of the Bombay Stock Exchange, India.

David Wright was vice-chair of the Commissions’ High Level Forum on CMU which reported in April 2020.