Speakers

Nick Leeson

The collapse of Barings – personal bank to HM The Queen – in 1995 and Nick Leeson's role in it, remains one of the most spectacular debacles in modern financial history. How could one trader, only 25 years old, bring down the banking empire that had funded the Napoleonic Wars? Nick Leeson, the young gambler who found himself sucked into a terrifying spiral of loss was a working-class boy who lived out of his depth, high in an upper-class world, until his unchecked gambling caused the downfall of Barings Bank and caused chaos in the Singaporean money market.

Despite more audacious and larger scale incidents of rogue trading since the collapse of Barings in 1995, Nick Leeson remains the most infamous rogue trader and one of the world's most sought-after speakers within the financial sector. Curiosity, intrigue and sympathy have been the various reactions to this man's incredible life story. Following Barings' collapse, Nick Leeson was sentenced to six and half years in a gang-ridden Singaporean jail, in conditions that defy belief, while at the same time, his wife left him and he was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Against all odds, Nick Leeson survived and now fully recovered from cancer, lives happily in Ireland with second wife Leona and three children. Nick Leeson continues to be in-demand around the world for conference and after-dinner speaking. He speaks regularly to financial institutions, insurance companies, security and IT firms, universities and businesses around the world from every corporate sector. Following the worst global recession on record and in the aftermath of the AIB trading scandal in New York, together with the collapse of Enron and Worldcom, Nick Leeson provides a fascinating insight into the continuing failures of senior and middle management at large corporations who still fail to protect shareholders and customers.

Nick is also expertly placed to provide consultancy on risk management, corporate responsibility and compliance areas. More recent cases such as Allied Irish Bank, Societe Generale and UBS in 2011 simply highlight that loopholes haven't been closed. In a recent exclusive interview for the BBC, Nick commented "I think rogue trading is probably a daily occurrence amongst the financial markets. Not enough focus goes on those risk management areas, those compliance areas, those settlement areas, that can ultimately save them money."
 

Mike Finlay

Mike has over 25 years experience in banking and finance, having started out pricing equity derivatives on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The majority of his career has focussed on risk, specifically in the middle- and back-office environment. He has been responsible for establishing new business departments in the derivatives area, restructuring international payments businesses, developing regulatory banking law and implementing risk management frameworks in both international banking firms and in large corporate’s. He developed the initial risk management framework for the Bond Market Exchange of South Africa and led the integration of all trading and financial risk management activities across a leading mining and industrial conglomerate, while on the insurance side, Mike worked with insurance companies in developing an operational risk methodology to support the requirements of Solvency II.

More recently, Mike worked on the development of the KRI Framework underlying the KRIeX.org KRI Library, the development of the KRI Library itself and on the development of loss data consortium requirements for several national and regional banking associations and consortia, as well as leading a large multi-million Euro project in the area of risk and control self assessment. Mike has also led scenario-based ICAAP assessments, assisted firms in achieving AMA accreditation and recently assisted a leadingWestern European regulator conduct their 2010 AMA accreditation review programme.Part of the focus on risk has included technology, risk assessment and training. Mike is a frequent lecturer on operational risk for banking supervisors at the Bank for International Settlements, as well as at industry conferences and seminars. Mike is a regular guest lecturer on risk management at Judge Business School, Cambridge University, as well as at the University of South Africa (UNISA). He has worked with the World Bank/IFC in the Russian Federation and across Eastern Europe, as well as with the Financial Services Volunteer Corps and the BIS’ Financial Stability Institute in ongoing risk management education and knowledge transfer in Europe and Africa.

Mike obtained a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and read for a MBA from Henley Management School/Brunel University through the Graduate Institute of Management and Technology in South Africa. He is a Fellow of the South African Institute of Bankers, a Director and Fellow of the Institute of Operational Risk, a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and a Charter Member of Risk Who’s Who. Mike was recognised in January 2009 by OpRisk & Compliance magazine as one of the “Top 50 Faces of Operational Risk” and was responsible for RiskBusiness being awarded one of ten “Ten Years of
Operational Risk Achievement Awards”.
 
 

Dr Vuyo Mahlati

Dr Vuyo Mahlati is the Principal Consultant at African Financial Group (AFG) responsible for Pan African and Emerging Markets Innovative Financial Solutions. AFG has a jointventure with Bridge Capital. Dr. Vuyo is the current President of the International Women’s Forum South Africa. In May 2010 she was appointed by the President to serve as one of the inaugural members of South Africa’s National Planning Commission for five years.She formed part of the team that released South Africa’s National Development Plan, adopted as the national strategic framework by Cabinet and Parliament in 2012. Her financial services training and experience has been mainly in development finance, building on practical experience in revolving local savings (stokvels) fund management and investment. In 1997 she founded a savings and credit scheme for the poor and financially excluded (Fukama), licensed (through exemption) by the South African Reserve Bank for Peri-Urban and Village Banking.  Worked with the Fukama Scheme establishing strategic alliances and innovations with the FirstRand Group and then Assupol on a Burial Scheme for Stokvels

She obtained her M Sc with a dissertation on credit schemes for the poor in developing countries from the UK London School of Economics. Dr. Vuyo progressed to mainstream financial services as a transaction advisor, policy maker and Board member. Her directorships include being the non-executive director of Lion of Africa Insurance Company, a subsidiary of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange Listed Brimstone Investment Company. She has served two terms as the Chairperson of the South African Post Office Board of Directors, which includes the Post Bank. There she led asset growth from R4billion in 2006 to R10 billion in 2011/12 with corporatization of the 100 years old Postbank from a savings bank to preparedness for full banking license. She previously served for two terms as member of the Financial Markets Advisory Board as well as member of the Financial Services Board Licensing Committee. Previous private initiatives include being a director of fund manager Umbono Capital (now One Stone). Her continuous training includes certificates from he Gordon Institute of Business Sciences (GIBS, University of Pretoria) in Banking Board Leadership Programmecovering Basel II Refresher and Operational Risk, Risk Governance and Management Structures.

Vuyo holds a PhD from the University of Stellenbosch. Her thesis focused on the role of value chains in mainstreaming rural entrepreneurs into global markets, and was the only one selected by the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences to be presented at the University’s inaugural New Voices in Science Colloquium. Vuyo is the independent member of the Industrial Development Cooperation (IDC) Agro-processing Competitive Fund. In the late 1990s she led the launch of the Community Public Private Partnership Programme at the Development Bank of South Africa and has held advisory positions to private and public sector institutions. She serves as member of the Global Advisory Council of Corporate Women Directors International based in Washington DC, USA and is also on the Global Advisory Council of the Global Entrepreneurial Hub Network in Vienna. As a budding scholar Dr. Vuyo continues to engage in research with recent work including her research collaboration with renowned professors in agricultural and inclusive finance resulting in the 2011 publication: The Status of Agricultural and Rural Finance in Southern Africa by Machethe C, Moyo T, Mahlati V, Vink N and Coetzee G.

She is the recipient of the 2008 Black Management Forum Presidential Award for Transformational Leadership, as well as the Black Business Executive/ABSA Kaelo (Guidance and wisdom) Award. In 2012 she was the finalist for the 11th Van Ryn’s BBQ Public Visionary Award.