eXponential Finance

Kim Schumacher is a Lecturer in Sustainable Finance and ESG at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. His research focuses on ESG data and impact metrics, sustainable finance frameworks, green bonds, natural capital valuation, ecosystem services, renewable energy project development, and climate-related risk disclosure. Kim is the creator and course director for Japan's very first graduate-level cours...

Graham Rodford is Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at Archax, an institutional-grade exchange for trading asset-backed tokens (digital securities, security tokens, etc.) based in London. Founded by experts from the financial markets and backed by an accomplished advisory board, Archax offers a credible bridge between the blockchain world and the traditional investment space. The Archax tea...

Aaron Friedland & Ran Sommer, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Operations, respectively, are the Co-Founders of Simbi Foundation, a research-led startup designed to provide support for underserved and refugee communities who face challenges accessing quality education. Identifying lack of electricity, resources, and technology as principal barriers, Simbi Foundation was founded in 2015...

Christopher Scheidel is a Co-Founder & the Chief Information Officer at Transaction Insights, where he is looking to provide financial services and insurance firms with a unique and powerful way to identify and navigate market changes. In a world where rapid technological change makes building lasting strategies difficult, “Starting with Why” can be a powerful tool for anchoring an IT strategy...

Nicholas Smith, Japan Strategist at CLSA in Tokyo, shares his perspectives on the Japanese markets, how foreigners have left just as profit growth was accelerating, why the Bank of Japan ETF buying spree has had little effect, and warns against underestimating Suga-san as Prime Minister.  Note: Any comments referencing the markets are made as of the recording on Tuesday, November 10, around 2...

Darren Goff is the Head of Investments - Japan at the Department for International Trade in Tokyo, leading a team in a pivotal position, helping UK companies entering the Japanese market, and securing UK foreign direct investment.  We discuss the difficulties for UK and other foreign companies breaking into the Japanese market, why there is increasing cause for optimism and how the new Free T...

Michael Wodzicki is a Partner at Deloitte Consulting, based in Poland, and the lead for this year's "Digital Banking Maturity" report. Over the last 2+ years, Michael has extensively worked across Asia. In addition to covering the report, we learn a little about the financial services industry in Poland and also ask Michael about his views on China, which has not been included in the report. &nbsp...

Pawel Kuskowski is one of the Co-Founders and the Chief Executive Officer of Confirm, a well-recognized global leader in blockchain and cryptocurrency analytics. Their mission is to provide technology for regulatory compliance, bringing new levels of transparency and trust to the world of digital assets. Coinfirm aims to serve as a foundation for the safe adoption of blockchain by all actors in th...

Michael Schiltz is Associate Professor for the Modern Japanese Studies Program at the University of Hokkaido. In his 2012 monograph “The Money Doctors from Japan”, Michael explores how money and finance have been among the most potent tools of colonial power. His study investigates the Japanese experiment with financial imperialism—or “yen diplomacy”—at several key moments between the acquisition...

Anton Golub is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of flovtec, an award-winning leader in the field of liquidity provision for digital assets. As a key player in the Blockchain ecosystem, flovtec fosters price stability and reduces transaction costs, for the benefit of all market participants. The firm is built on three pillars: a highly experienced and visionary team, tested investment stra...

Kamil Shafiq is one of the co-founders of POKET, a startup creating a crowdsourced, consensus-driven registry of undocumented places in the emerging world. Using technology suited to the lower specification mobile phones and data constraints witnessed in frontier markets, POKET drives new, previously undiscoverable insights into unmapped and undocumented areas. By incentivizing users to propose an...

Rohit Taneja is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Decentro, an Indian Open Banking platform and a Y-Combinator 2020 alumni.  Decentro was born both from a personal pain point that Rohit faced while running his previous venture, as well as addressing a major impediment that can be seen across the FinTech industry.  When his first company tried to integrate banking APIs for sim...

Harumi Urata-Thompson is the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer for Celsius Network. Having started her career as the first woman on the Fixed Income desk at Morgan Stanley in Tokyo, Harumi has had a long and successful career in traditional finance, both in capital markets/investment banking and with financial industry information providers (e.g., Thomson Reuters).  Celsius...

>> This is the German edition on the topic of Japanese management, you can find a related English language podcast in Season 1, Episode 34 of this programme (Anchor link follows): https://anchor.fm/exponentialfinance/episodes/Episode-34---Parissa-Haghirian--Sophia-University-ee4kpt Japanische Unternehmen und japanische Arbeitsmoral scheinen auf den ersten Blick den deutschen sehr ähnlich. De...

As the Head of Trade and Supply Chain at R3, Alisa DiCaprio is responsible for trade strategy, standards and governance design, with a current focus on mobility, logistics, and finance. Alisa's previous role at ADB involved leading institutional initiatives on trade finance, digital economy, regional integration, and innovation. She has experience in both public and private sectors on trade, expor...

We hosted a presentation & discussion with three of the editors and contributors of the "Transforming Japanese Business - Rising to the Digital Challenge" book that was published in early 2020 by Springer, with the authors sharing their individual perspective as follows: - Will Baber: The State of Digital Transformation in Japan - Kieran Gane: The Digital Organization - Raja Karim: Transformat...

John Ho is the Head of Legal - Financial Markets at Standard Chartered Bank. We often talk about all things FinTech across Asia, and beyond. As part of a webinar held in September, we extensively discussed Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs): - What categories of CBDCs are there? - What is the current regulatory view on CBDCs? - What type of proof-of-concepts or pilot implementations do we see...

Rolands is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nordigen, an open banking data analytics platform in Riga, Latvia, that help banks, lenders and FinTechs to use open banking data to build more powerful applications in lending, personal finance and other verticals. Nordigen has obtained an Account Information Service Provider (AISP) license and is ISO27001 certified. We talk about the origi...

Max Kordek is the Co-Founder and CEO of Lisk, a blockchain platform for decentralized applications established in 2016 together with his Co-Founder Oliver Beddows, who is the CTO. Lisk was one of the earliest pioneers of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithms, specifically Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS), as well as drawing out the vision of blockchain inter-operability through sidechains. Lisk...

Sophie Meralli joined the Japan Ventures team at Eight Roads at the beginning of 2020, focusing on Enterprise Tech and FinTech investments. Previously, she has worked at Innospark Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm in Boston. Originally trained and qualified as a CPA, Sophie was used to financial analysis, before taking her MBA at MIT's Sloan School of Business. Joining the AI-focused I...

As the CEO of LumenLab, MetLife Asia’s innovation centre, Zia has spent the last six years steering the company’s innovation agenda across the region and around the world, with a passion for finding new ways to help the under-served. Globally, LumenLab delivered over 70 projects and won many awards addressing the health, aging, and wealth needs of Asia-based consumers. Zia was also the Chairperson...

Mirko Ross is the Chief Executive Officer of asvin, an early German startup developing solutions for a trusted and secure Internet of Things (IoT). A recognized cybersecurity expert, Mirko is a Member of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) IoT Security Expert Group, and a Co-Chair of the Alliance Internet of Things Innovation (AIOTI) Distributed Ledger Working Group. Our shared bel...

Matthew Chan is the Head of Public Policy, Regulatory Affairs & Sustainable Finance (APAC) at the Asia Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA), an independent, regional trade association with over 130 member firms comprising a diverse range of leading financial institutions from both the buy and sell side. ASIFMA, jointly with Oliver Wyman, recently published a well-re...

Henry Chong is the Chief Executive Officer of the Fusang Group. At Fusang, Henry is responsible for the group’s overall strategic direction & mission. He works closely with global institutional investors and financial regulators to bring professionalism and structure to the industry, and is a regular keynote speaker on the subject of digital assets. He is also a member of the University o...

Mattia Fiorentini is the Head of Machine Learning and Quantum Algorithms at Cambridge Quantum Computing, a world leading independent quantum computing software company, with operations in US, Europe & Japan, and more than 60 scientists including 35+ PHD’s, in Quantum Computing (“QC”), Chemistry, Molecular Electronics, Physics, Maths, Computer Science, and Nanoscience.  CQC builds tools fo...