Middle East and Africa Awards | The Asian Banker Awards

INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL

The Awards Programme is managed by a highly professional team of research analysts in Asian Banker Research, with an outstanding expertise of the retail banking industry in Asia. Their work will be supervised and verified by our distinguished Panel of International Referees, consisting of prominent and highly respected individuals in the financial services industry.

		Mr Philippe Paillart(Chairman) Mr Philippe Paillart was formerly vice chairman and CEO of DBS Bank and a pioneer in the retail banking industry in the Asia Pacific region, having served at senior management levels at Standard Chartered Bank and Citibank. Prior to his appointment with DBS, Paillart was Chairman, President and CEO of Ford Motor Credit Company, and President of Ford Financial Services Group.

		Mr Suvo Sarkar Mr. Suvo Sarkar is a distinguished banker with 36 years of multi-functional experience with five leading financial institutions and in multiple geographies across Middle East and Asia. In his last role as Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head of Retail Banking and Wealth Management at Emirates NBD, the biggest bank in Dubai. Suvo has won multiple awards during his career, including the Asian Banker Retail Banker of the Year and MIT Sloan Digital Leader of the Middle East. He currently runs his own advisory firm in Dubai.

		Mr Richard Hartung Mr. Richard Hartung has over 20 years of experience in the payments & consumer financial services industry. He has held senior roles for financial institutions including Citibank, Mastercard International, and OCBC Cards. Mr Hartung holds position as consultant in the areas of retail banking, cards and payment products to financial institutions, service providers, and software companies throughout the Asia Pacific region.

		Mr David Gyori Mr. David Gyori is a globally renowned fintech consultant, trainer, author and keynote speaker. He is the chief exefcutive officer of Banking Reports based in London and is a founding member of the World FinTech Association. Gyori is a faculty member of the Retail Banking Academy, one of the most prestigious banker-training facilities.

International Advisory Council

The Technology Innovation Awards Programme is supervised and verified by a distinguished panel of international referees, consisting of prominent and highly respective individuals in the financial industry.

		Anne Weatherston Anne Weatherston has over 28 years of experience in banking and technology. She was group CIO of ANZ Bank for four years, during which she was responsible for a major transformation of the bank's technology strategy. In this role, she helped to turn around the infrastructure, design and execution of a new technology roadmap to support the bank's super-regional agenda in Asia. Prior to ANZ, Weatherston was group CIO at Bank of Ireland. She has also taken on technology leadership roles at Santander, National Australia Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland.

		Kumardev Chatterjee Kumardev Chatterjee is an expert on Metaverse Web3 and AI. He has over 25 years of strategy, deep tech and executive leadership experience at start-ups and Fortune 500s across Europe, USA and Asia. He is an Expert of the World Economic Forum, Research and Innovation Independent Expert at the European Commission, Official Member of the INTERPOL Expert Group on the Metaverse, and Official Advisory Board Member to the Government of Finland for their National Metaverse Strategy. He advises and works closely with governments, institutions, wealth funds, Fortune 100 companies and startups, on metaverse, web3, AI, smart cities, innovation and Investments. He is the co-author of Digital Minds for a New Europe.

		Raymond Leung Chun-Kow Raymond Leung has over three decades of diverse experience across banking and technology. He was previously group COO of Alliance Bank, Malaysia where he was overseeing the operations, technology and various support functions of the bank, and was instrumental in developing key strategies that encompass all aspects of the bank’s business to drive growth. Prior to joining Alliance Bank, he gained a wealth of experience in Citigroup, with assignments in Hong Kong, Toronto, New York and Singapore. He has held key positions in both country and regional capacities for operations, technology, internal audit and product management..

		David Gyori David Gyori, CEO of Banking Reports London is currently a globally renowned fintech consultant, trainer, author and keynote speaker. He is a founding member of the World FinTech Association and faculty member of the Retail Banking Academy (London), one of the most prestigious banker-training facilities globally. He serves on the advisory of multiple fintech companies in the United Kingdom. Also, he is co-author of ‘The FINTECH Book’ and ‘WealthTech Book’.

RISK MANAGEMENT ADVISORY COUNCIL

Mr. Peter Deans

Mr. Peter Deans was the former Group Chief Risk Officer of the Bank of Queensland (BOQ) in Australia and comes with a finance career of over 32 years. He has been awarded multiple times by the Australian Banking & Finance magazine for his achievements. Currently he is a Non-Executive Director of Trade for Good Pty Ltd and The Regtech Association and an advisory board member of several startups ventures. Mr. Deans is also the Creator & Founder of the 52 Risks management framework.

Mr. Varun Sabhlok

Mr. Varun Sabhlok is an expert in relationship management, financial management and risk management in the financial services industries. Sabhlok’s experience has been honed over 11 years as South Asia Regional Audit Director with Citibank in its Global Consumer Banking division in Asia, Country Credit Director in Thailand and as Chief Financial Officer of the Singapore business.

TRANSACTION FINANCE ADVISORY COUNCIL

		Bill Chua Bill Chua was former Managing Director and Head of Global Financial Institution of UOB. Possessing rich experience in the financial services industry, he has held various director level, independent positions at various organisations, and currently serves as an Independent Director at Sunseap Group, Singapore’s largest clean energy provider. In his 34 years of experience in the financial services industry, he has covered institutional wholesale and consumer banking in the front, middle and back offices. Prior to joining UOB in 2000, Chua was with Citibank for 20 years. He serves as a director for several UOB-owned companies and/or joint ventures, and is also an active member of the financial and education communities in Singapore.

		James Cullen James Cullen is a career banker with over 30 years of regional and international experience in the financial services industry. His banking career began and concluded with Wells Fargo, and in between included two decades of holding executive positions with Bank of America and US Bancorporation’s international banking division 1995-1999. James is the co-founder for JD Cullen & Co, a corporate advisory consulting company and also chairs audit committee of CD Stimson, a REIT company.

		Mathew Welch Mathew Welch has over 25 years of senior executive experience in financial markets in Asia, with strong track record in building and leading various financial services businesses throughout the region. He is currently a Board Member at XacBank, a community development bank in Mangolia. Prior to starting his own firm, Mathew was Managing Director & Head of Banks, Asia (ex-Japan) at Daiwa Securities Capital Markets, Managing Director and Head Financial Institutions, Asia at ING Investment Banking, Managing Director, Investments at Temasek Holdings and Global Head of Banks at Standard Chartered. He holds a MBA degree from Harvard Business School.

		Richard Hartung Richard Hartung has over 20 years of experience in the payments & consumer financial services industry. He has held senior roles for financial institutions including Citibank, Mastercard International, and OCBC Cards. Mr Hartung holds position as consultant in the areas of retail banking, cards and payment products to financial institutions, service providers, and software companies throughout the Asia Pacific region.