Prior to her appointment at A-Team, Virginie was group editor of Investor Services Journal and Alternatives magazine and before that, she was editor of STP Magazine and online service stpzone.com. Virginie has covered a wide range of subjects over the years and written across a number of titles in a freelance capacity, including FT Mandate, Global Custodian and Professional Wealth Management. She has specialised in financial services and written about topics such as securities services, asset management, wholesale banking and global financial IT.

Prior to her appointment at STP, Virginie was editor of several international newsletters in the banking space for Informa, including International Payments and Back Office Focus. Prior to that, she was editor of Pensions International and Financial Regulation International. Virginie began her career as a journalist writing for Informa’s insurance division on titles including World Insurance Report and Liability Risk and Insurance.

Virginie has a Masters degree in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh.

Axelle Wurmser is the BNP Paribas Securities Services Head of SWIFT Coordination since 2006 and is a specialist in coordinating transversal operational projects internationally. She is also very involved in international mandates as a member of the SMPG (Securities Market Practices Group). The SMPG has established a presence in more than 30 countries through National Market Practice Groups (NMPG) and is focused on enhancing the current securities industry practices.

Axelle is also a member of the ISO 20022 RMG (Registration Market Group). The RMG is an international body which focuses on the development and maintenance of the new standard 20022 internationally. The RMG works with the support of several SEG (Standard Evaluation Groups) including the Securities SEG. Every SEG is comprised of international experts within the banking industry. At SIBOS 2007 in Vienna, Axelle Wurmser took part in the discussion 'Customers first in standards' under the lead of Lazzaro Campos the CEO of SWIFT.

Axelle Wurmser has more than 25 years of banking industry experience.

Paul is responsible for the EMEA Operations of the Assets servicing division of the Bank. The division offers a large variety of services in global custody, fund administration and transfer agency. He is also a member of the EMEA Executive Committee of the Bank which supervise the developments of the Bank in the EMEA region. He joined The Bank of New York in 1996 as a Senior Vice President and was promoted Executive Vice President in 2003. In 2007, The Bank of New York merged with Mellon Bank N.A. and formed The Bank of New York Mellon. Paul is also a Board chairman or a director of several subsidiaries of the group.

Prior to joining BNY, Paul was a Vice President at Morgan Guaranty Trust Company in Brussels. He joined Morgan in 1987 at the Euroclear Operations Center in Brussels where he held a variety of positions. He then moved to New York where he was responsible for the U.S. Custody and Corporate Trust Operations of Morgan. He returned to Brussels in early 1995 and was the Global Technology and Operations Manager and served as a member of the Brussels Management Committee.

Michael Kempe joined Capita Registrars as Deputy Operations Director in January 2007 after having spent 11 years with the Euroclear Group. Michael joined the Capita Registrars' Board in July 2007 as Operations Director responsible for industry issues as well as all operations relating to registration, corporate actions, investor relations and corporate reconciliations. Michael's current role as Chief Development Officer incorporates responsibility for all product development, projects and industry issues as well as operational responsibility for corporate actions and corporate reconciliations.

At Euroclear, Michael was responsible for defining a harmonised corporate actions platform for the Euroclear group. In addition to meeting this challenge in the Belgian, Dutch, French, Irish and UK markets, Michael was Chairman of the European Central Securities Depositories Association's Working Group 5 and was also co-Chairman of the ISO 15022 Global Market Practices Group defining global market practice in relation to ISO 15022 and corporate actions.
Michael was previously head of Issuer and Investor Services at CRESTCo, the settlement system for UK and Irish securities, which became part of Euroclear in 2002. He was responsible for the development of CRESTCo products and services relating to corporate actions and custody, including dematerialised rights issues, takeover acceptances and electronic proxy voting.

Irene Mermigidis has worked in the Product Management division of Clearstream Banking for ten years. She is responsible for Clearstream’s Connectivity product offering, managing the strategic planning of information provision and connectivity products, developing the connectivity products roadmap, pricing model and product innovation process. Prior to this role, she has worked in the Product Development area as Senior Project Manager for developing and implementing the world-wide rollout of Clearstream’s new generation of connectivity solutions (CreationOnline - web-browser, CreationDirect – file transfer, and Creation via SWIFT). Irene participates in a number of internal and external forums covering topics such as market standards and infrastructures, business reengineering and pricing. Irene is Board Member of the ALMUS, Luxembourg’s Community of SWIFT Users.

Prior to her time at Clearstream Irene worked in the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Schlumberger Limited.  There she performed a number of roles both in Finance and lending operations. 

She has a University degree in Economic and Political Science from the Catholic University of Mons (FUCAM), Belgium, a Masters in Project Management from George Washington University, DC and an MBA from Solvay Business School, Belgium. She is a Greek national, married and has one daughter.

Russell Callaway heads the Project Management Office for the International Securities Market Advisory Group (ISMAG). He moved to his current position in 2007, having previously been Head of International Market Corporate Actions for 5 years. He joined the company in June 2000 after twelve years in Custody Operations, having spent two years at Morgan Stanley Bank Luxembourg as Head of EAME Corporate Events and ten years at Chase Manhattan Bank N.A. in Bournemouth.

Naz Sarkar’s experience in the UK share registration and retail investor services markets has made him a trusted and respected figure within the industry. Recently, he has been heavily involved in the implementation of the Companies Act 2006 and has shared his expertise by speaking at many conferences and events, for which he has received great feedback.  He heads up the Computershare registry and employee share plan businesses, where he ensures clients are up to date on shareholder services, market developments and best practice.

Naz joined Computershare in August 2005 as Director of Investor Services, the team responsible for Computershare’s UK share registry business. His mission is to continually advance and improve the structure of Computershare’s extensive range of products and services, with an emphasis on delivering excellent customer service. Naz’s role has expanded to include Employee Share Plans, public sector and Government business.

Previously, Naz spent 16 years at Lloyds TSB Registrars; leading teams delivering registry, employee share plans and support services to the business. His remit included the management and development of all customer-facing relationships, including responsibility for 700 corporate clients. He also has career experience in marketing, hands-on registry and planning and development, including knowledge gained on secondment to the London Stock Exchange.

Naz is also a qualified Chartered Company Secretary and a member of the ICSA Registrars Group.

Luke Jeffs has been the trading and technology editor at Dow Jones Financial News since May 2006, having previously worked for publisher Global Business Information on a range of financial technology titles. Luke covers trading, clearing and settlement issues in a range of asset classes with a particular focus on equities.

Organizations et al:     

• ISITC US Board of Directors (April 2008 to date)
• ACSDA Corporate Action Working Group Co-Chair (2006 to date)
• ISITC US Corporate Action Market Practice Group Co-Chair (1999-2002)
• ISITC US Custodian Forum Co-Chair (1998-2000)
• International Corporate Action Lecturer – Securities Operation Forum (1999-2000)

David Hands has worked within the Financial Services Industry since 1986 primarily with Morgan Stanley (Broker/Dealer) London (1986-1990) and Morgan Stanley Global Custody (New York 1992-1998) where he specialized in Corporate Action Processing, Product and System Development. In 1998 David left MSGC and spent 2 years at Deutsche Bank, as a Vice President, managing the Private Bank Operations before returning to Morgan Stanley as a Vice President managing the New York Broker/Dealer Corporate Action Project Team.

In 2003 David joined the DTCC's new Global Corporate Action Validation Service as the Operations Manager. Since 2003 GCA VS Operations has grown to about 60 personnel located in New York, London and Shanghai. Currently David's focus at DTCC is on Corporate Action Data Sourcing and Standards.

David graduated from the City of London Polytechnic UK with a Honors Degree, majoring in Geography.

Frank Slagmolen is responsible for the delivery of a harmonised asset-servicing platform for the Euroclear group’s Single Platform. Furthermore, Mr. Slagmolen is a member of the external corporate actions working group charged with bringing corporate-action market-practice harmonisation to the Belgian, Dutch, French, Irish and UK markets.  

Prior to assuming his current role, Mr. Slagmolen was Head of Securities Settlement Services and New Issues Services for fixed income and equities at Euroclear Bank. 

Mr. Slagmolen joined Euroclear in 1994 and has held various senior positions in operational departments dealing with corporate actions, withholding taxes, settlement and issuance-related services.

He holds an Honours Degree in Germanic Languages from the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and holds a management certificate from INSEAD (France).  

Francis is currently Head of the External Statistics Division (ETS) within the Directorate General Statistics of the European Central Bank (ECB). ETS is responsible for the external statistics of the euro area (balance of payments, international investment position, foreign direct investment, etc.) and coordinates their harmonisation across the EU. It is also responsible for the Centralised Securities Database (CSDB), which contains reference and price data for individual securities relevant to euro area statistics. Since 1 January the Division also has the responsibility for the provision of all market data services for the ECB.

Before joining the ECB in 2001, Francis worked for 15 years in the automotive industry. He joined Mercedes-Benz in 1986, and later moved to Mannesmann-VDO. His roles ranged from materials research to globalisation, with a focus on Asia. He subsequently worked at Rieter AG, focussing on post-merger integration and process development. Francis joined the ECB as Head of the Organisational Planning Division; he moved to his current position in 2006.

An engineering graduate of Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Paris, Francis also holds an MBA from Henley Management College, UK.

Adam Stern is the Managing Director of Ibacas Consultancy Limited, the leading independent Asset Services specific counsultancy firm.

Adam has been involved in Asset Services since 1988, working for Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and ABN Amro in processing, line management and change management roles, as well as representing these firms on numerous industry committees, including the UK Market Practice Group and ISITC WG11.. Since setting up Ibacas, Adam has specialised in following market initiatives and the Asset Services software vendor market and he has conducted numerous vendor selection processes for some of the leading firms on the market. His most recent engagement has involved defining the Operational architectecture for a cross business unit Asset Services Utility, including the Utility based processing of Proxy Voting event types using both ISO 15022 and 20022 messages.

PJ Di Giammarino is the founder and CEO of JWG and was formerly COO IT at Barclays Capital.

Prior to setting up the independent think-tank, he co-chaired the IT Subject Group of the MiFID Joint Working Group.  In this capacity he collaborated with banks, the European Commission, CESR, FSA, HM Treasury and their counterparts across Europe.  He spent 14 years providing IT strategy and implementation services with McKinsey, Booz Allen & Hamilton and AT Kearney.  He is a frequent author and public speaker on topics including EU regulation and financial services infrastructure.  He serves as a Wholesale Banking Technology Innovation Award judge for the Financial Times’ The Banker magazine and the Financial News Awards for IT excellence.

Dr. Markus Kaum, LL M (Cantab) is “Head of Department” for “Capital Markets and Finance Law, Corporate Law, Share register and Retail Investor Relations” at Munich Re, with more than 15 years experience in these areas.

He has in-depth knowledge of all aspects of the relations between companies and their shareholders, the custody systems, intermediated securities systems and market procedures of capital markets in Europe.

He has been a member of both the Joint Working Group on General Meetings and the Corporate Action Joint Working Group and has also been an active participant in other legal and market infrastructure projects. He is the speaker of the German working group of registered share issuers. Prior to his work for Munich Re he has worked for large German industrial companies and a leading German law firm.  

Les Turner has spent the last 5 years running Operations for Riskmetrics Global Proxy Distribution business unit. Prior to this he has run Corporate Actions teams at Mellon Bank and Deutsche Bank.

Christine is a product manager at SEB, based in Stockholm, Sweden. She is responsible for SEB’s Sub-Custody Asset Servicing offer, as well as SEB’s custody-related SWIFT messaging. Christine is a member of the Corporate Actions Joint Working Group and the T2S Corporate Actions Sub-Group, and is the national coordinator of the Swedish Market Implementation group for Giovannini Barrier 3.

She is also the convenor of the Swedish National Market Practice Group, co-chair of the Securities Market Practice Group’s (SMPG) Corporate Actions Working Group and an SMPG EMEA Regional Director.

Paul Philips joined SmartStream Technologies in August 2002 as Business Analyst focusing on SmartStream’s Corporate Actions business.

Paul began his career in financial services in 1994 with Chemical Bank and was Corporate Actions Manager at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney and most recently at ABN Amro. During his career Paul has been instrumental in reorganising and streamlining Corporate Actions departments as well as improving operational procedures to ensure organisations were less susceptible to losses.

Nick is primarily responsible for European securities services clients at Standard Chartered Bank and is based in London.  Nick joined Standard Chartered in August 2008 from BNY Mellon, where he was Implementation Manager for the consolidation of the two legacy agent bank networks.  Prior to this, Nick was Vice President and Global Relationship Manager within Mellon Bank’s Network Management team.  Before joining Mellon in 2001, Nick held various operational positions at Deutsche Bank and the Bank of England.

Sophie Bertin Hadjiveltcheva heads the Asset Servicing as well as the Custodians group within SWIFT. Her role includes developing and executing SWIFT’s global Asset Servicing strategy and defining Custodians’ value proposition, in accordance with clients’ needs and with latest market developments.

Prior to working for SWIFT, Sophie worked for The Bank of New York, where she held different management roles. Among others, she was in charge of EMEA Securities Processing and of large integration projects.

Before The Bank of New York, she worked for 6 years at McKinsey, where she specialised in the Financial Institutions Group and the Corporate Finance & Strategy Practice.

Sophie holds an MBA from INSEAD and graduated from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris, with a major in Corporate Finance.

Karin De Ridder is a senior manager responsible for SWIFT’s portfolio of securities asset servicing solutions and products. Her primary role is to ensure that solutions for the full chain of Corporate Actions support the needs of custodians and securities market infrastructures as well as broker/dealers, investment managers, exchanges and issuer agents.

Previously she headed up the Securities Standards team in SWIFT where she managed all aspects of standards development in the areas of securities clearing, settlement, collateral and asset servicing, as well as investment funds. Karin has over 17 years of experience in the securities industry and has been involved in various industry groups such as the Securities Market Practice Group (SMPG), ISITC and various ISO working groups. She joined SWIFT in 1997. Previously she held different positions at Euroclear.

Karin holds a Master of Business Economics degree from the Solvay Business School, as well as a Master in Marketing Management from the Vlerick Management School.

Max Mansur is a senior manager developing SWIFT business opportunities in asset servicing solutions and products. His primary focus is to ensure that solutions for the full chain of Corporate Actions support the needs of custodians and securities market infrastructures as well as broker/dealers, investment managers, exchanges and issuer agents. He has been the driving force behind the Simulation Testing and Qualification Service (STaQS) for Corporate Actions and the XBRL initiative for corporate event disclosure. Together with DTCC and XBRL US, he led SWIFT’s representation on the ground-breaking Issuers to Investors: Corporate Actions project.  During his time at SWIFT, he has also delivered pre-trade/trade solutions and served as chair of the certification working group for FIX Protocol Ltd.

Including his more than 10 years at SWIFT, Mr. Mansur has over 30 years of information technology experience with emphasis on programme management, applications, and logistics.  He has participated in a number of trade articles and industry events on topics related to asset servicing, data quality, the FIX protocol, standards, and quality assurance. Mr. Mansur holds a computer science degree from Troy University, with honours. 

Mark Bolgiano joined XBRL US as President and CEO in December of 2006. Previously, he led the technology and online communications teams at the Council on Foundations as Vice President and Chief Information Officer.

Mr. Bolgiano has provided strategic, operational, and program leadership for membership organizations for over a twenty-year career distinguished by success in defining and achieving goals using a collaborative, data-driven and member-focused approach. That career, based on undergraduate and graduate studies in statistics and analysis, and ten years at the Washington Board of Trade focused on applications development, operations, accounting, finance and strategic planning, has focused his attention on transformational technologies as an executive, writer, and public speaker.

Harry Rana is Senior Business Analyst at XSP responsible for supporting the EMEA sales programme for the XSP™ v5 Corporate Actions software solution in a pre-sales and business analysis capacity. His prior first-hand experience and knowledge of our flagship solution provides invaluable benefits and insights to our current and future clients.

Before joining XSP, Harry was Business Analyst at Citi Global Transaction Services responsible for Project Implementation within the areas of Corporate Actions and trade processing. Excelling in implementation project management, Harry has been responsible for analysing process and requirements, change management and UAT test script execution. Working closely with clients, operations, technology and product groups, he has constantly delivered comprehensive business requirement documentation whilst working with budget control and roadmap directives. He frequently presents to a Senior Management level audience for internal and external clients globally and has developed skills enabling him to influence and build effective relationships.

Harry has a proven track record as a seasoned Project Manager and Business Analyst having worked at firms such as Merrill Lynch, State Street, HSBC and FTSE. These roles involved dealing with many aspects of the financial services industry, heavily focussing on Corporate Actions, whilst also covering indices calculation, trade processing, middle office, settlements and risk management.