Replay

Petr Koblic began his career in investment banking in 1993. He served at middle management level and later top management level in number of domestic and international investment banks.

Peter was elected Chairman and CEO of Prague Stock Exchange in September 2004. He is also Chairman of the Central Securities Depository Prague and Power Exchange Central Europe. At group level he is Member of the Board of Vienna Stock Exchange. In 2018, Peter was elected President of FESE, and in 2019, was selected as a member of the High Level Forum on the Capital Markets Union.

During his career, Petr has also been a member of the Board of the Czech Broker Dealer Association, President of Ljubljana Stock Exchange, Member of the Board of Budapest Stock Exchange, and Chairman of the Czech Investor Compensation Fund.

Jella Benner-Heinacher is the Chief Managing Director (deputy) of Deutsche Schutzvereinigung für Wertpapierbesitz (DSW), the leading shareholder association in Germany. As part of this role, she is responsible for corporate governance issues as well as for DSW’s participation in the legislation proceaa at both national and international level.

Alongside being President of BETTER FINANCE, for whose international activities she is responsible, Benner-Heinacher is also chairwoman of the European Corporate Governance Services (ECGS) in London, and a member of the Stock Exchange Board in Düsseldorf.

A German attorney, she studied in France, Switzerland and the U.S.

Niels Brab is Head of Group Regulatory Strategy and the Chief Regulatory Officer of Deutsche Börse Group. His area houses teams including Government Relations and Political Affairs, Regulatory Analytics, Regulatory Operations as well as ESG Regulation.

As part of his mandate, Niels covers key regulatory and political issues across the value chain of Deutsche Börse Group, including on market data and indices, trading, as well as clearing and settlement. Representing DBG in a variety of key fora and associations, such as the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE), the Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE), or the European Association of CCP Clearing Houses (EACH), Niels’ expertise includes a variety of important financial regulatory dossiers, including MiFID, EMIR, FTT, CMU, CSDR, CRR/ CRD, IFR, SFTR, MAD, PRIIPs, and BMR.

Before his appointment as Head of Group Regulatory Strategy and Chief Regulatory Officer, Niels was the Head of Government Relations as well as Head of Representative Office Brussels at Deutsche Börse Group, positions he still holds in parallel. Prior to joining Deutsche Börse Group, Niels worked at a number of consultancies, including FTI Consulting and Fleishman-Hillard, and founded his own consultancy EURObjective.
Niels holds an LLM in European Law and an MSc in Public Policy and Human Development from the University of Maastricht.

Danuta Hübner has been the first Polish EU Commissioner, first for Trade and subsequently for Regional Policy. She is a Professor of Economics, and has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2009. Currently, she works in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs – for which she was recently appointed as the Rapporteur on the review of the regulatory framework for investment firms and market operators (MiFID II and MiFIR) - as well as in the Committee for International Trade and in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.

She also participates in a number of Delegations, namely: the Delegation to the EU-Mexico Joint Parliamentary Committee, the Delegation for Relations with the US, the Delegation to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly and the Delegation to the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly.

Before joining the European Parliament, she was the chief negotiator for Poland's membership of the OECD, and Executive Secretary of the European Economic Commission with the rank of Deputy Secretary General at the United Nations. In Poland she lead the Office of the Committee for European Integration and held the role of Minister of European Affairs, overseeing the process of Poland's accession to the European Union.

Phil Mackintosh is Chief Economist and a Senior Vice President of Nasdaq, Inc. His team is responsible for a variety of projects and initiatives in the U.S. and Europe to improve market structure, encourage capital formation, and enhance trading efficiency.

Phil has 28 years of experience in the Finance industry. Prior to joining Nasdaq he was the Head of Trading Strategy & Analysis at KCG/Virtu Financial. He has also served as the Global Head of Trading Strategy at Credit Suisse, and the Head of Index Portfolios at County Investment Management. He started his career at KPMG and is also a Chartered Accountant.

This gives Phil has a unique blend of operational risk, buy-side and sell-side experience. Over the past 15 years he has published research on indexes, ETFs, market structure, trading and retail investors.

Alžběta Pazderková is Head of the Capital Market Unit at the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic and chair of the MiFIR review as well as CSDR review under the Czech Presidency of the Council.

During her time in the Ministry, Alžběta has negotiated numerous files for the Czech Republic in the areas of market infrastructure, cyber security or banking, such as EMIR, DORA, Shareholders right directive, NPL directive, Pilot regime for DLT and others. She also oversees their transposition or adaptation into national legislation.

Alžběta has degrees in law and economics and studied in the Czech Republic, Belgium and the U.S.

Rainer Riess is Director General of the Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE) and an independent advisor to exchanges and financial services companies with more than 30 years of experience in the global exchange industry. He is also Vice Chair of the Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group (SMSG) which provides ESMA with opinions and advice on its policy work.

For many years, he served as Vice Chairman of the Board of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and was responsible for the cash market business of Deutsche Börse AG. During his career at Deutsche Börse, he created and managed markets, drove changes in European corporate governance and accounting practice, financial market regulation and supervision of market player. Major initiatives include running the cash market in a competitive MiFiD environment and financial market crises, the creation of DTB Deutsche Terminbörse / Eurex, developing European primary markets (Neuer Markt, indices, corporate governance and regulation), the launch of the Xetra electronic trading system and the CCP as well as the creation of the European ETF and structured products markets.

He is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the English Theatre Frankfurt and several charitable organisations. He holds a Master in Economics from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and an MBA from the University of Miami (Fulbright Scholar).

Before joining SEG, Mirosław was employed at the Polish Securities and Exchange Commission, where his main duties were focused on the coordination of international cooperation, analyses, as well as information and education policies. Earlier as an advisor to the Minister of Privatization, he was responsible for the negotiations of Poland’s membership in the OECD in the field of foreign direct investment.

A former employee of the Warsaw School of Economics (International Finance Department), and a graduate of the Foreign Trade Faculty of this school, he has authored many economic publications relating mostly to functioning of capital markets, liberalization of capital movements, transborder financial services, and the integration of EU financial markets.

A Board Member of EuropeanIssuers, Mirosław previously fulfilled several functions at the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).

Aurélien Narminio is Head of Equity Listing at Euronext. Prior to joining Euronext in 2019, initially as Chief of Staff to the Group CEO, Aurélien worked in foreign exchange sales within the Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities division of Goldman Sachs in London, and then as a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Paris.

Aurélien holds a Master in Business Administration from INSEAD, and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Rainer Riess is Director General of the Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE) and an independent advisor to exchanges and financial services companies with more than 30 years of experience in the global exchange industry. He is also Vice Chair of the Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group (SMSG) which provides ESMA with opinions and advice on its policy work.

For many years, he served as Vice Chairman of the Board of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and was responsible for the cash market business of Deutsche Börse AG. During his career at Deutsche Börse, he created and managed markets, drove changes in European corporate governance and accounting practice, financial market regulation and supervision of market player. Major initiatives include running the cash market in a competitive MiFiD environment and financial market crises, the creation of DTB Deutsche Terminbörse / Eurex, developing European primary markets (Neuer Markt, indices, corporate governance and regulation), the launch of the Xetra electronic trading system and the CCP as well as the creation of the European ETF and structured products markets.

He is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the English Theatre Frankfurt and several charitable organisations. He holds a Master in Economics from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and an MBA from the University of Miami (Fulbright Scholar).

Álvaro Castro is currently the Head of Equity Primary Markets at BME in its new structure after the acquisition by the Swiss group SIX.
He has developed practically his entire professional career in the BME group. He began working in 1999 at the Spanish Central Securities Depository (Iberclear) from where he moved to the Valencia Stock Exchange in 2001, before the creation of BME group. He has held various positions there, currently being its Market Director and member of the Board of Directors.
He also dedicates part of his time to markets for growth companies as he is a member of the board and Head of Surveillance of BME Growth.

Álvaro Castro has a degree in Economics and Business Sciences (General Economics) from the Complutense University of Madrid and an MBA from the Instituto de Empresa and regularly collaborates in postgraduate courses and masters in various educational institutions.

Adam Kostyál has been with Nasdaq for the more than 10 years. He currently manages the Listing franchise for Nasdaq in Europe including the Nasdaq Stockholm, Nasdaq Copenhagen, and Nasdaq Helsinki listing offering. In addition, he also manages the European listing offering for companies wanting to list or dual list in the US. There are more than 300 companies from the EMEA region listed or dual listed on Nasdaq in the US.

Prior to his current role, Adam held various positions within Nasdaq and before this with Cell Network and Bloomberg. He holds a B.A in Economics and Marketing from Vrije Universiteit, Bruxelles, and speaks four languages: English, Swedish, Italian and French.

Ondřej Kovařík is a Czech Member of the European Parliament sitting in the Renew Europe Political Group. He is a member of the ECON Committee, and in that capacity is the Chairman of the Working Group for Access to Finance for SMEs. He also sits on two further committees - the TRAN committee and the LIBE committee. His portfolio extends from transport and tourism, to border management, research and the practical use of new technologies, for example those based on artificial intelligence, and broader access and use of digital finance for businesses and consumers.

Ondřej is the Renew Europe spokesperson and the Group’s lead negotiator in the ECON Committee on the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation. He was also a Rapporteur on Digital Markets Act in the LIBE committee. He is currently working on several files across his committees on energy taxation as well as the Social Climate Fund.

In terms of legislation, his current principal area of focus is the digital world, particularly the increasing digitalisation of the economy, as it recovers from the Covid pandemic. In 2020 he was Rapporteur on the Parliament’s legislative initiative report giving Recommendations to the Commission on ‘Digital Finance: emerging risks in crypto-assets - regulatory and supervisory challenges in the area of financial services, institutions and markets’.

He has also been negotiated a number of pieces of legislation as part of building up Europe’s Capital Markets and moving towards a Capital Markets Union. Finally, he led the Parliament's work on a number of tax-related files, including elements of the new EU VAT regime, such as modernising e-Commerce rules that are part of a package of new VAT measures now coming into force across the EU.

Tatyana Panova is the Head of the Capital Markets Union Unit in DG FISMA. Prior to this, Tatyana headed another unit in DG FISMA and served in the private office of Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis where she was responsible for Capital Markets Union, securities markets, asset management, insurance, free movement of capital and competition. Before joining the Cabinet, Tatyana was a Deputy Head of the Securities Unit in DG FISMA.

In her previous jobs, Tatyana coordinated the preparation of ECOFIN, COREPER II and Economic and Financial Committee in DG MARKT and managed aviation anti-trust cases in DG COMP.

Tatyana is a trained economist with specialisation in financial services.

Jan Sýkora is a partner of Wood & Company, a Central European Financial group that has been providing comprehensive investment banking services for more than 30 years. Jan is responsible for management and strategic decisions within the entire group. He is also a member of the board of directors of a number of companies and organizations, including the Prague Stock Exchange, the International School of Prague and the Young President’s Organization.

Rosa Armesto is Deputy Director General of the Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE). She is responsible for coordinating all regulatory policy campaigns and strengthening FESE’s positioning on the key issues and priorities for the exchanges’ sector in Europe.

Rosa has more than 15 years of professional experience in EU affairs for financial services. Her expertise includes a variety of important financial regulatory dossiers, including MiFID/MiFIR, Capital Markets Union, Sustainable Finance, Benchmarks, and the Digital Package. She is also familiar with Solvency II, PRIIPs, IDD and other insurance related files.

Before her appointment as Deputy Director general of FESE, she spent 4 years as a member of the Management Team and Head of Public Affairs and Communications of Insurance Europe, the trade association of the European insurance sector. In her earlier career, she was Head of Public and Regulatory Affairs at FESE and held different responsibilities prior to re-joining FESE. She has worked in Brussels since 2007, coming from Eurostat (the Statistical office of the European Commission) in Luxembourg.

In parallel, Rosa teaches the course of financial market infrastructures in the Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management.

Luc Vansteenkiste is the Chairman of EuropeanIssuers. He holds a Master in Chemical Engineering from the University of Louvain. He established his career with Recticel, where he became CEO in 1991 and later Vice President in 2010.

In addition to serving as Chairman of the Employer’s Federation of Belgium (FEB) from 2002 to 2005, he . Luc Vansteenkiste also has been the Chairman of Lannoo, Sioen, Smartphoto, Telindus and was member of the board of Delhaize, BNPP-F, Ter Beke, Bois Sauvage, CBR and BATC. He is currently member of the Board of SVK and member of the Sustainability Board of EFRAG.

Active in the economic reconversion Marshall Plan of the Walloon Region, his main focus is the promotion of entrepreneurship and job creation, which is why he endorses a stable and balanced regulatory framework.