TEAM

Bio:

Simone is the Co-Founder and Co-Head of the Cambridge SupTech Lab. He is a frontier digital economy and financial market leader with 15+ years of high-impact engagement in the fields of banking, payments, telecoms, and technology. His passion is evidence-based, data-informed policymaking, as well as the use of technology and innovative processes to pursue economic efficiency and social equality. He has extensive experience in public sector policy development, private sector partnership, advocacy, and academia.

Simone's specialization is the creation of new processes and solutions to address complex problems, strategizing synergies of multiple stakeholders to enhance their individual and collective impacts. Always with an emphasis on reducing digital and economic divides to pursue inclusiveness and social justice.

Among the ground-breaking initiatives that Simone has conceived and led in the past are the RegTech for Regulators Accelerator (R2A), the GSMA Code of Conduct for Mobile Money Providers, and the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) Consumer Empowerment and Market Conduct working group. Simone has previously held roles at the GSMA, the World Bank, the United Nations, AFI, the International Development Law Organization, and the consulting firm BFA Global. He has led engagements with clients such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Omidyar Network, USAID, the Better Than Cash Alliance, Facebook, the World Bank, the Bank for International Settlements, the New York Department of Financial Services, and countless fintech startups, banks, central banks, and finance ministries. For two years he taught a course on "Digital Citizenship & Approaches to Development" at the Fletcher School, Tufts University.

He holds a PhD in Law & Economics.

Bio:

Matt is the Co-Founder and Co-Head of the Cambridge SupTech Lab. He is a seasoned leader in expanding the frontier of the digital technology space, with over 15 years of broad-ranging, global experience to draw from. His driving passion throughout has been maximizing impact through effectively applied technologies, with an emphasis on meeting the needs of otherwise excluded or vulnerable people. This pursuit has led him into roles as a pioneering fintech entrepreneur, startup acceleration fund lead, hackathon & techsprint organizer, innovation gallery curator, academic lecturer, and strategic advisor for myriad financial innovation and digital transformation initiatives.

Matt’s specialization is in the collaborative design, deployment, and integration of digital technologies. Within the bounds of financial services and supervision, he often serves as a translator in cutting through the intimidating jargon and hype that can plague cutting-edge tech, and instead guides an earnest exploration of the real value of these tools through practical demonstration cases.

The programmes that Matt has collaboratively led in the past include the RegTech for Regulators Accelerator (R2A), the Catalyst Fund Startup Accelerator, the GSMA’s Mobile Money Profitability 2.0 model, and the Target Product Profile framework for development of inclusive payments products. He previously founded Bytemark, a mobile payments and transit ticketing platform; LDLN, a decentralized communication platform for underserved communities; What Is Up Labs, a creative cooperative focused on rapid prototyping. Prior to the Lab, he most recently served a Principal Consultant at BFA Global.

Matt holds a degree in Aerospace Engineering, and formal certifications in Data Science, Social Entrepreneurship, Machine Learning, and Humanitarian Innovation.

He holds a PhD in Law & Economics.

Bio:

Juliet is the Senior SupTech Specialist at the Cambridge SupTech Lab. She has over 15 years of experience working with government entities and financial institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia in developing, deploying and positioning innovative, large-scale regional and retail digital payment systems from ideation to execution. Her areas of expertise include policy design, DFS strategy development, product innovation and design using Human-Centred Design approaches, data analytics, and responsible finance.

Juliet has previously held roles at MicroSave Consulting and Musoni Microfinance where she undertook various roles, from identifying strategies, business opportunities and new technologies in order to develop new capabilities and architectures; to converting data into insights that inform innovative, commercially viable solutions and streamlining business processes with a strong customer focus. She has also served for more than 10 years in the Central Bank of Kenya in the modernization of payment systems and drafting payment systems policies and regulations for among others the CBK RTGS system, East African Payments System (EAPSS) and the COMESA Regional Payment and Settlement System (REPSS).

She holds a PhD from the University of Manchester.

Bio:

Jose Miguel is a Senior Suptech Specialist of the Cambridge SupTech Lab. He is a subject matter expert on financial consumer protection, market conduct supervision, digital financial services, and financial inclusion.

Before joining the Lab, he worked for 9 years as market conduct supervisor at the Superintendence of Banking, Insurance, and Private Pension Funds of Peru. Among his main contributions to the Superintendence are the improvements in the regulatory framework to enable digitization, the development of the risk-based market conduct supervision framework, and the formulation of market conduct rules to protect consumers affected by the pandemic. In addition, he represented the Superintendence in international forums organized by the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, the Bank for International Settlements, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors, and the World Bank, sharing the Peruvian experience in market conduct supervision.

Jose Miguel’s main motivation is to help financial authorities around the world leverage the potential of technological developments to escalate the impact of their policies, regulations, and supervisory actions. He is strongly committed to protecting consumers, improving market efficiency, and boosting financial inclusion.

He holds a MPA in Economic Policy Management from Columbia University.

Bio:

Adebola is the Suptech Specialist/ Knowledge Manager at the Cambridge SupTech Lab. He has responsibility for knowledge management and knowledge products production on suptech- research, use cases, applications, and their impacts. He leverages his over 15 years of experience in Finance (retail banking), graduate training in public policy, and research interest in digital financial services (DFS) regulation to encourage a culture of knowledge-sharing and collaborative knowledge-flow on suptech within the Lab and SupTech ecosystem.

Adebola joined the Cambridge SupTech Lab from a role as a Ph.D. Research Intern, Regulator Knowledge Exchange at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF). He managed the RKE platform and knowledge-sharing processes. Also, he set up and coordinated the Sub-Saharan Africa Working Group meetings. In the past, he was a Research Intern, Financial Inclusion at the Institute of International Finance (IIF), Washington D.C., where he provided research support to the Special Advisor, Financial Inclusion. While there, he strengthened his skills in public policy analysis and research, communication, and stakeholder management. In Nigeria, he worked after college with the now-defunct African International Bank, later he moved on to the Oceanic Bank International, and his last banking job was with Ecobank Nigeria. He has subject matter expertise in digital financial inclusion and regulatory policy assessment.

Adebola graduated from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria with Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and from Lagos State University, Nigeria with a Master’s in finance. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from Salisbury University, Maryland, United States. He is near completion of a Ph.D. in Public Policy (Evaluation and Analytical Methods) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, assessing national strategies, policies, and regulations on digital financial inclusion in a developing country using causal inference and regulatory impact assessment (RIA) methodology.

Bio:

Louise has expertise in educational technology and visual communication and is adept with technology and the creation of content for virtual learning environments. Louise has over six years of experience working in the education sector, and studied her PGCE at UCLs Institute of Education, which gave her a strong grounding for pedagogical approaches and interactive learning. Louise is familiar with decoding and rewriting resources and delivery models to provide differentiated learning journeys and give students the best experience possible. Her project briefs and curriculum design have been held up as an exemplar at the University of Arts London's (UAL) national standardisation event for structure, support, and communication. Louise has designed and managed the curriculum for three two-year courses over a period of six years, in addition to lecturing on UAL Art Foundation for moving image. Louise is an experienced film maker with a demonstrated history of working in factual programming film production, digital content creation and photography. Skilled in script writing, cinematography, direction, and editing. Louise is currently undertaking her practice-based PhD focused in: Animated Documentary, Short Film and Interactive Film Production at Kingston School of Art, funded by TECHNE and Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Bio:

Anton leads on the CCAF’s digital tools development, in particular, the Global Alternative Finance Benchmark Dashboard. Anton’s research interests include the cryptoassets market and its behavioural aspects. Anton is the co-author of the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, the real-time estimate of the total electricity load and consumption of the Bitcoin network. Before joining the CCAF, Anton was doing PhD research on the cryptocurrency market agents’ behaviour modelling, teaching Data Science at the Karazin Kharkiv National University and the University of Barcelona. He also worked at, and then managed, an analytics company where he mastered the software development cycle and came across Bitcoin while working on its price modelling.

Prior to his work with cryptoassets, Anton specialised in renewable energy and worked as a Research Fellow at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology where he conducted nuclear safety tests. Anton holds an MSc in Applied Physics and an MSc in Applied Economics from the Karazin Kharkiv National University.

He holds a PhD in Law & Economics.

Bio:

Diego is the Senior Operation Manager of the Cambridge SupTech Lab. He is an accomplished and dynamic executive with expertise in leading the design and execution of commercial development plans and the successful management of business operations and projects, leading the growth of the organizations he works with.

He has a strong background and holistic profile, with an MBA from the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, with specialization in Finance, and a Master in Laws, with a mention in Business and Corporate Law, from Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, and an undergraduate law degree from the same university. He has also obtained a diploma in Impact Measurement from the University of Oxford, Saïd Business School, and a Six Sigma Black Belt certification.

He brings +10 years of business acumen experience, working recently as UK Country Manager for Floward, the largest e-commerce on flowers and gifting in the Middle East, and senior positions in Koodoo, equity crowdfunding for impact investing, and LATAM Airlines, the largest airline in Latin America. He has also worked as an advisor and member for different NGOs and pro-bono projects in Chile.

Bio:

Marta is the Digital Marketing Manager of the Cambridge SupTech Lab. She is a PhD candidate (viva) in Communication at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) with an international mention (Sorbonne Nouvelle III and the University of Cambridge). She has over four years of experience as a lecturer in the undergraduate programs of Advertising and PPRR, Journalism, and M.A. in Documentary and Creation. Marta takes pride in her ability to bridge the worlds of academia and industry, translating research into actionable insights and strategies. She has worked in international, cross-cultural environments, leading and managing interdisciplinary teams and several research projects. Marta’s research interests are media sustainability, TV series, and educational media, published in top-tier peer-reviewed journals. More recently, she was the media and communication advisor for an immersive EdTech for Net Zero homes start-up.

She holds an M.A. in Social Communication Research from UPF and a B.A. in Audiovisual Communication with a minor in Marketing and Management from the University of Barcelona.