Mark Austin advises clients on a full range of public and private securities offerings as well as M&A and general corporate matters across multiple sectors.

Mr. Austin leverages extensive experience to guide market-leading companies and investment banks on: Initial public offerings (IPOs), Rights issues and open offers, Placings, Mergers and acquisitions, General corporate work.

A recognized industry leader, Mr. Austin is a member and former Chair of the Listing Authority Advisory Panel, the practitioner panel that advises the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on primary markets policy and regulation issues. He also serves on the FCA’s Markets Practitioner Panel and The London Stock Exchange’s Primary Markets Group.

Mathew is global head of Digital Assets. He serves as a member of the Goldman Sachs International Asset and Liability Committee and the Goldman Sachs International Bank Management Committee. Previously, Mathew was global head of Cross Asset Financing. He joined the firm as a vice president in 2005 in the European Special Situations Group in London and was named managing director in 2010.

Duncan Moir is a Senior Investment Manager at abrdn, responsible for the firm’s digital asset strategy. Previously Duncan built abrdn’s passive hedge funds range, ran multi-asset alternatives portfolios and allocated actively to quantitative and systematic hedge funds. Duncan graduated with a BA (Hons) in Economics from the University of Strathclyde and is a CFA and CAIA Charterholder.

Sir Douglas’ extensive experience of board leadership in global financial services helps to focus Board discussion and challenge on the design and delivery of our strategy. His wide-ranging expertise in international, financial and governance matters is an important asset to abrdn, while his collaborative approach helps to facilitate open and constructive boardroom discussion.

Bill Winters is the Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered PLC since Jun 2015. Standard Chartered is a UK headquartered, emerging markets focussed bank, with a presence in 59 markets across Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Ami is one of the pioneers of the digital securities tokenization market and Co-Founder and CEO of Ownera. Ownera delivers a distribution and liquidity network for tokenized assets, where all nodes are regulated financial institutions. The network is based on the the FinP2P open-source interoperability protocol, which Ami was instrumental in designing. Prior to Ownera Ami was a co-founder and managing partner of SPiCE VC, where he co-founded Securitize and invested in multiple companies in the security token and Blockchain space. Ami arrived in the blockchain world after co-founding and leading several startups and investing as a VC in the tech industry.

As director of the General Directorate of Financial Stability, Regulation and Resolution of the Banco de España, Ángel Estrada is responsible for i) the compilation, validation and publication of information from credit institutions; ii) the analysis of the Spanish financial system and the definition the orientation of the macroprudential policy; iii) the supervision of the preventive resolution of the entities; and iv) the drafting and implementation of the regulation of the banking entities. He also represents the Banco de España in different domestic and international institutions (European System of Central Banks, European Systemic Risk Board, Single Resolution Board, European Banking Authority, etc.)

Baroness Penn was appointed Treasury Lords Minister in the UK Government on 30 October 2022, having been Baroness in Waiting (Government whip) between 19 March 2020 and 20 September 2022.

She previously served as Deputy Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Theresa May from 2016 to 2019 and became the youngest member of the House of Lords when she joined the House on 21 October 2019. From 29 October 2019 to 21 April 2020, she was a member of the Lord's Science and Technology Committee.

Bradley Rice is a Partner in the financial regulatory practice. He specialises in all aspects of financial services regulation and advises some of the world's leading financial institutions and technology companies.

Brad has played an integral role in developing Ashurst’s Fintech and Digital Finance practices over the last five years. He is now one of the co-leads of the firm's Bank Industry Digital Finance group, and a member of the Financial Markets Law Committee's (FMLC) Fintech Committee.

Feargal has more than 25 years experience in Capital Markets, specialising in technology strategy, market solutions and technology enabled transformation. He has worked in industry within Front Office Pricing and Risk technology. As a consultant he has delivered many large scale programmes for Investment Banking clients across Front Office, Operations, Risk and Treasury functions. He has specialist expertise in technology operations, vendor platforms, and large scale programme delivery.

Commissioner Johnson was sworn in as a CFTC Commissioner on March 30, 2022, after being nominated by President Joseph Biden in September 2021, and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate. Commissioner Johnson is a nationally recognized expert on financial markets risk management law and policy with specialization in the regulation of complex financial products including the origination, distribution, and secondary market trading, clearing, and settlement of securities and derivatives. She is an internationally recognized expert on financial markets regulation and corporate governance, compliance, and risk management.

Appointed Chief Executive in 2006, Michael’s leadership has seen ICAEW embrace a vision of building a world of strong and sustainable economies, transforming itself into a professional accountancy body with a truly global identity and reach.

Michael regularly meets ministers, policy-makers and regulators from around the world, and is a frequent media commentator on economic and business issues. He has recently led the institute’s response to the Covid-19 crisis, providing ICAEW members with insight and guidance to support their businesses and themselves in practice. He also passionately believes that the wider emerging forces which are already changing the very nature of work – such as technological disruption - present ICAEW Chartered Accountants with many more opportunities than threats, and is committed to helping the profession meet these challenges.

Wayne Sharpe is a highly renowned entrepreneur and innovator who has had a significant impact on the global exchange technology industry. He is the CEO and founder of Carbon Trade eXchange (CTX), the world's first global carbon exchange, and the first of any type of exchange based on Cloud technology (Microsoft Azure) in 2010. In this sector his ‘firsts’ are numerous, including Banking, Registry, and data interfaces, so what was once the first and only is now a leader in an entire industry sector.

Commissioner Goldsmith Romero was sworn in as a CFTC Commissioner on March 30, 2022, after being nominated by President Joseph Biden in September 2021, and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Prior to becoming a CFTC Commissioner, Commissioner Goldsmith Romero served for a decade as the Special Inspector General for TARP (SIGTARP), a role for which she was nominated by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the Senate on March 29, 2012. In that role, she led a nationwide federal law enforcement agency and watchdog over TARP, a program where the U.S. Government became a shareholder in banks, the automotive industry and insurance industry; owned, exchanged, and traded in corporate securities and derivatives; and administered foreclosure relief for consumers.

Marcus is a Partner within the UK Financial Services practice. Marcus leads the KPMG Non Financial Regulatory Reporting proposition (inc. CFTC, MiFID, EMIR, SFTR) supporting clients on implementation, program reviews, remediation, impact assessments and vendor selection. Prior to KPMG Marcus led global markets regulatory programmes at a number of banks.