Charlotte Crosswell is the CEO of Innovate Finance. She has spent most of her financial services career in market infrastructure roles. Prior to joining Innovate Finance, Charlotte was CEO at Nasdaq NLX (“NLX”), a London-based startup derivatives market, and sat on the board of LCH Ltd. She has held a number of management positions at Nasdaq and London Stock Exchange across international capital markets, equities, fixed income, OTC derivatives trading and clearing.

In addition to her work with Innovate Finance, Charlotte advises and sits on the boards of technology and FinTech startups. Charlotte holds a BA (Hons.) in French from the Southampton University. She has been included in the list of top 100 Women in Finance over many years.

Robert Friend is the global head of Bloomberg’s Sellside & Research product group, and is based in London. He’s responsible for the firm’s global fixed income, FX and Foundational product strategy as well as the TOMS Order Management System, the Sales Applications team and the Research product. This role includes developing strategic partnerships, market alliances and working closely with regulators and industry bodies.

Prior to joining Bloomberg in 2007, Friend spent 12 years working in the financial industry for Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan. Friend has worked in a number of risk and middle office roles covering interest rates, credit and equities across both cash and derivative products.

Friend holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from York University and a postgraduate degree in operational research from Lancaster University.

“I’m looking forward to a lively debate on how advocates and allies can move the Diversity & Inclusion agenda forward.”

Paola Marinone is the Co-Founder and CEO of BuzzMyVideos, a next-generation, creator-first media company that powers the production and sharing of video content through technology and services. Paola is an entrepreneur with an international career in Technology and an expert in the online video industry. She has previous experience working for Google, both as an Account Strategist and then EMEA Business Development Manager at YouTube.

Nieke Martens is Head of the Digital Hub at Rabobank’s Digital Transformation Office. During the past 20 years, she has been active in the USA, Denmark, UK and the Netherlands in investment banking and private banking.

Heading the Digital Hub for Rabobank, Nieke is now responsible for the digitalization of customer journeys for all the business lines within Rabobank. She has a degree in Business Economics at Tilburg University and a MBA from INSEAD.