Committed to connecting the world

Biographies

Julio Faura
CEO, Adhara.io

Julio’s career has been running for more than 20 years along the worlds of Technology and Financial Services, and he now focuses on digital assets, blockchain and distributed ledgers, particularly on their applications for financial institutions, public institutions and enterprises in general. He started out as chip designer, then worked for 6 years at McKinsey & Co serving top financial institutions globally, and then worked for 11 years for Santander, playing many corporate leadership roles in Investment Banking, Consumer Finance, IT & Operations, and global M&A. He has been leading Santander's activities around crypto-currencies, blockchain and distributed ledgers for years, and has led the creation of many relevant industry consortia. He was the founding chairman of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, the founding chairman of Spain's Alastria network, a member of the board of the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance, and an advisor to startups, corporates and regulatory / government bodies regarding blockchain technology and their implications In July 2018 Julio became a full time entrepreneur and CEO of Adhara, a company that seeks to help financial institutions and corporates leverage smart contracts and blockchain to improve the execution of international payments and optimize liquidity management, in partnership with ConsenSys. An engineer at heart, Julio holds a Telecommunication Engineering degree from UPM-Spain, a PhD in Computer Science / Electrical Engineering from UAM-Spain, and a MsC in Management of Technology from MIT-Sloan

Jake Hartley
Business Development Director, Fnality International

Jake Hartley is a Business Development Director and CBDC SME at Fnality International, a consortium of 15 major financial institutions who are creating a network of regulated payment systems supported by a central bank money-backed digital cash asset of the highest order. Through their solution – Fnality Global Payments - Fnality seek to increase operational resilience, make risk management more transparent, and make processes more efficient. For over two years, Jake has been collaborating closely with Fnality’s shareholder base to drive the growth and commercialisation of the Fnality proposition, and to inform key stakeholders across financial markets of the benefits their Fnality Global Payments solution will bring. Prior to that he was driving the commercial side of the blockchain proposition for PwC UK.

Bilel Jamoussi

Chief of Study Groups TSB, ITU

Tunisian born, Dr. Bilel Jamoussi is Chief of the Study Groups Department of ITU Standardization Bureau in Geneva Switzerland. Since 2010, he has been leading the bureau’s standards making activities into a new era characterized by rapid convergence and the need for increased collaboration with vertical sectors and partnership between developed and developing countries. Prior to 2010, Jamoussi worked for a Telecommunication equipment and solutions provider for 15 years in Canada and then in the United States where he held several leadership positions and was granted 22 US patents in diverse areas including packet, optical, wireless, and quality of service. He holds a BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Computer Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is fluent in Arabic, French, and English and speaks some Spanish and German.