Entry Requirements
We welcome nominations from anyone, in any relevant sector. Company must be in London. Nominate yourself or nominate others, the choice is yours. Simply complete the online nomination form and we’ll be in touch if you’re shortlisted.
Key Dates
- Awards Launch – 6th December, 2023
- Closing Date (extended) For Applications – 10pm on the 15th March, 2024
- Shortlist Announcement – Week commencing 25th April, 2024
- Shortlist Interviews – 30th April – 1st May, 2024
- Tickets to Awards On Sale – Now! 6th December, 2023
- Fintech Awards London – Event & Ceremony – Wednesday, 12th June, 2024
Judging Panel
Co-Chair
Chris Woolard CBE
Partner, EY
Christopher Woolard CBE chairs the EY Global Regulatory Network. He leads EY EMEIA and UK financial services regulation, and UK Fintech.
Chris had a 25 year career in UK public service before joining EY including serving on the board of Financial Conduct Authority and as its interim chief executive. He was also a member of the Bank
of England’s Prudential Regulation Committee and the Financial Policy Committee, and founded the FCA’s Project Innovate and the regulatory Sandbox, which have been emulated in more than 50 countries worldwide. Internationally, he has served on the IOSCO Board and a member of the Financial Stability Board’s strategic risk
committee.
Chris was awarded a CBE by HM the Queen in 2021 for services to financial regulation and fintech. He is also a freeman of the City of London.
Janine Hirt
CEO, Innovate Finance
Janine Hirt is the CEO of Innovate Finance (IF), the industry body representing the world-leading UK FinTech sector. Having joined the founding IF leadership team in 2015 first as Head of Membership then Ecosystem Director, she moved into the COO role in 2017 before stepping up to lead the organisation in 2021.
Janine is passionate about driving transformation to create a more democratic, transparent and inclusive financial services sector for all. Her professional career has been marked by roles that sit at the intersection of policy, international relations, and industry, including senior positions at Chatham House, (the Royal Institution of International Affairs) and the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce.
Janine received her BA Magna Cum Laude from Boston College, JYA at Oxford University, and her MSc from the London School of Economics. Janine is an American, British, Swiss and German national who calls London and NYC home.
Louise Brett
(Ex) Deloitte Vice Chair. UK & Europe FinTech & Financial Services Innovation Lead Partner
Louise was until 2023, Vice Chair at Deloitte and Head of FinTech and Financial Services Innovation for Deloitte Europe, working across the ecosystem with Financial Services clients, government bodies, regulators, advisors, VCs and the broader FinTech community.
A natural innovator and practical strategist, Louise previously led Deloitte’s Strategy practice and has been at the forefront of shaping Deloitte’s response to FinTech for the benefit of our clients, the FinTechs, and the wider ecosystem. She is relentless about the power of Fintech collaboration to drive financial inclusion and financial literacy and collaborated with Innovate Finance on the Fintech for Schools initiative. Sponsoring recent research
into Female Financial Equality, Louise is convening cross-industry engagement and action to accelerating female focused communications and solutions.
She co-led the National Connectivity chapter of the HMT FinTech Strategic Review, ‘Kalifa Review’ and works with clients to partner and scale FinTechs in answer to business challenges. Louise chairs TheCityUK Technology and Innovation Group, represents Deloitte on the UK’s FinTech Strategy Group, is an active Board member of The ScaleUp Institute and is proud to champion Women in VC Europe as a founding sponsor.
Louise was delighted to be recognised again this year on the IF Women in FinTech Powerlist, is active in seeking out best practice from across the globe and applying disruptive innovation principles to client challenges and consumer and SME outcomes. Formerly a banker, she sponsors Deloitte’s focus on Women in Leadership and is passionate
about innovation and the potency of inclusive leadership and diversity of thought to drive superior long term commercial success. She holds an MBA from Warwick Business School, ACIB, and DipFS.
Judges
Susanne Chishti
Founder & Chair of FINTECH Circle
Susanne Chishti is the Founder & Chair of FINTECH Circle, Europe’s 1st Investor Network focused on fintech investments and a leading fintech innovation, learning and communications platform reaching more than 260,000 financial services & technology professionals. She is a Non-Executive Director at FTSE listed companies Crown Agents Bank (CAB Payments PLC) and CMC Markets PLC. Susanne has been the Co-Editor of the Bestseller “The FINTECH Book” which has been translated into 10 languages and is sold across 107 countries (published by WILEY). She has also been a fintech TV Commentator on CNBC and a guest lecturer on financial technology at the University of Cambridge and Warwick Business School.
After completing her MBA she started her career working for a fintech company (before the term “fintech” was being invented) in the Silicon Valley 25 years ago. She then worked more than 15 years’ across Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Morgan Stanley and Accenture in London and Hong Kong. In 2024, she has been selected among the Top 100 Women in Fintech globally.
Mark Walker
Editorial Director, The Fintech Times
Mark is an experienced technologist, his early corporate successes led him to form his own enterprise software company, producing and selling to Universities and institutions. A hands-on role, he executed this idea from concept to maturity, while also leading the international development for an advanced engineering company before its M&A.
A former Senior Adviser at UK trade & investment, where he used his time to build contacts in technology, IoT and Smart cities sectors, as well as the investment and accelerator environment. Managing a team of seven, his role facilitated a good understanding of the London technology environment. He then continued his passion for supporting Start-up and Scale-up organisations by joining London & Partners as Head of Financial Services & Business Technology. He also led the Mayor’s international business programme for the technology & urban sector.
Having stepped back into the private sector, He has continued supporting ideas, Start-ups and Scale-ups with several of his own investments and ventures, including working with an amazing co-founder on an exclusive Fintech accelerator programme, The Fintech Power50, and running the Operations & Editorial functions at The Fintech Times, a global multimedia news outlet centred around the world’s first leading Fintech newspaper.
Neil Shah
Director, Tech Sector Specialist,
London Stock Exchange
Neil joined London Stock Exchange Group in July 2020 to lead business development for the tech and tech-enabled sectors. Neil is part of a 20-person primary markets team at the LSE spread across the globe and tasked with helping founders and boards to stay objective. They provide entrepreneurs with a sounding board throughout the IPO process and connect them with advisors to help them transition from private to public markets. They are also work with investors, policy makers, regulators and the wider ecosystem to make it even easier to match capital with the best ideas.
Previously, Neil worked as an investment banker for 15+ years. He started his career in the tech team at Dresdner Kleinwort in 2004 and joined Thomas Weisel Partners in 2009 where he co-founded their European technology investment banking franchise. TWP was acquired by Stifel in 2010 and Neil stayed on to help build Stifel’s global tech business for the next decade helping founders and venture & PE-backed businesses execute cross-border M&A and raise capital through IPOs and FOs across multiple markets.
Joe Parkin
Co-Founder and Managing Partner, FG Partners
Joe is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at The Fintech Growth Fund, an investment firm focused on Fintech companies enabling the evolution of the global financial services industry.
Prior to founding The Fintech Growth Fund, Joe spent his career in a number of roles at Goldman Sachs and BlackRock. Joe has a passion for FinTech and the crucial role it can play in enabling financial inclusion and wellbeing, helping to create financially healthier populations.
Joe has seen first-hand throughout his career the importance of bringing together FinTech and strategic capital in driving innovation and evolution in financial services.
Joanne Dewar
Project Nemo Lead
Joanne Dewar was Vice Chair of Global Processing Services (GPS), the UK based payments issuer processor that is powering the fintech revolution. In her 4 years as CEO, Joanne led the transition to global scale up and secured $400m investment from consortium including Advent International, Viking Global, Temasek Holdings, Mission OG, Visa and Mastercard.
Recent recognition includes UK Fintech Leader of the Year, Technology Leader of the Year, Great British Businesswoman Tech Leader of the Year, Payments Power 10 and Most Inspirational Woman in Fintech
Gillian M. Lamela
Executive Director, Public Cloud Programme Manager/Domain Architect, JP Morgan
Gillian M. Lamela joined JP Morgan in November 2021 as the Product Owner in Markets Cloud Technology where she was responsible to drive acceleration across public cloud adoption, enabling Markets business to provide a simpler, faster access to storage and compute, reduce our data centre footprint and enable cost optimization.She is currently the Programme Manager / Domain Architect for Public Cloud Enablement & Adoption team and part of London Technology Center leadership team working with local schools, charities, sustainability efforts and supporting the FinTech UK ecosystem.
Previously, Gillian was an Engineering Delivery Lead at Barclays Investment Bank responsible for accelerated cloud migration tools, Developer Productivity Strategy and during the pandemic led the banks first-ever virtual innovation challenge. She joined Barclays in 2008 where she held roles ranging from web development, systems design and analysis, testing automation and lead end-to-end delivery programme execution for CCAR and Lehman/Barclays systems integration of ~200 global systems resulting in over £1B cost savings to date. She started her career as an Engineer/UI Designer at Lehman Brothers.
Gillian has received various accolades for her lifetime contributions in STEM including Computer Weekly’s “Most Influential Women in UK Tech”, TechWomen100 Award and Forward Ladies Transformation Leader of the Year. She is featured at industry events and can be seen in several publications including New Scientist, London Tech Week, Business & Industry, and “125 People to follow on LinkedIn”.
