Global Jersey Webinar: Innovation and Technology – Connectivity, Collaboration and Capital

Jason Laity has spent his business career in Jersey. He was Senior Partner and Chairman of KPMG in the Channel Islands until 30 September 2019. He is a Chartered Accountant, a Chartered Tax Adviser, and an Accounting Technician. He has extensive experience of the financial services industry in Jersey, significant leadership and board level experience, and has participated in or led a wide variety of engagements in his career. Jason has been Chairman of the local branch of the Institute of Directors, and a Governor of Victoria College. Jason has had a keen interest in technology before it was acceptable to talk about it, and is particularly excited by the prospect of collaboration between financial services and technology businesses improving efficiency, reducing risk and enhancing the user experience for businesses and customers alike.

Genevieve led AgriLedger’s collaboration with Haiti’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry to deliver a Distributed Ledger Technology pilot sponsored by the World Bank. The project went live in May 2020 allowing Haitian fruit farmers, customers and families to reap the benefits of fairer prices and improved food security. She is also leading a COVID Rapid Response project supporting the effective and safe delivery of testing kits by assuring the Value Chain. Genevieve was nominated by the Financial Times to the top 100 BAME in UK technology in 2019 and was a named a winner of the ComputerWeekly 2020 Women in Software and one of the top five finalist for Quesnay’s Female Founders in FinTech 2019. She is vice-chair of techUK’s Distributed Ledger Technologies Working Group, which provides strategic direction for all UK activities related to DLT, and is an inaugural member of the Advisory Group for the Estonian Government’s eResidency initiative.

I lead the Data and Technology practice at Sionic, a global consulting firm dedicated to the Financial Services industry. As an experienced global CIO, I have built and led high performing technology, operations, and compliance functions for institutional banking and capital markets businesses across a broad set of asset classes. I know how to navigate change, negotiate stakeholder needs and deliver results. I now implement a wide range of projects supporting front, middle, back office functions for fixed income, equity trading, structured finance, commercial lending and asset management. My specialisms also include IT strategy, application delivery, infrastructure, business process engineering, provider management, regulatory compliance, business continuity planning, risk mitigation and management, capital markets products and structured credit.

Alistair, one of Jerseys leading fund partners, specialises in advising on the restructuring and the financing of investment structures, equity raises, investor EGMs and investor relations generally. Alistair has been responsible for establishing and launching a significant number of widely held and privately held investment funds and investment structures (open and closed ended) and heads up the firm's crypto currency fund offering. Alistair's key clients include Activum, Alcentra, Blackstone Group, Deutsche Bank AG London, IG4, Invescorp, Queensgate Investments, Lyxor, Orbis, UBS AG, Vitol, Zouk, Nuveen Real Estate. Alistair is a key member of the Jersey Funds Association Marketing Sub-Committee, assisting with the association's funds marketing campaign along with other technical items.

Zachariah (Zach) George is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Startupbootcamp Africa – the leading multi-corporate backed venture accelerator program in Africa. In 2013, he founded Cactus Advisors – a specialist corporate finance advisory firm and micro VC fund that has advised and invested in 40+ of Africa’s top tech ventures including Flutterwave, Kudabank, MPost, HouseME, RecoMed and several others. Zach currently serves as a Principal at Nedbank Venture Capital & Alternative Investments. He was co-featured on the cover of Fast Company Africa in May 2018, Destiny Man Magazine in November 2019, and in December 2019 was recognized as one of the Top 10 Most Influential People in Technology in Africa. In January 2020, he was listed as one of the Top Four Movers and Shapers of Technology in Africa by the prestigious French business daily - Les Echos.

As Deputy Country Head of Corporate Banking in Jersey, for HSBC, Heidi leads a team of relationship directors across several banking sectors, and has undertaken various roles and project management leads over the years of her banking career, in South Africa, the UK and Jersey. More recently she has also taken on the role of subject matter expert for emerging technologies such as distributed ledger technology and cryptoassets, and completed a Masters degree with these technologies as her focus. Throughout her banking career, she has always had an interest in, and indeed been part of, working groups and formal projects looking at various fintech and client solutions. Heidi has been involved in several projects with Digital Jersey, and participated in the Digital Assets Working Group, with Jersey Finance. She believes very strongly that for Jersey to remain a top-ranked IFC, a focus on fintech and encouraging innovation, is an imperative.