Kamyar Naficy is the Founder and Principal of KNECTCOMMS, a marketing and communications consultancy to the finance, technology and fintech sectors. He previously worked in senior marketing and communications roles at JP Morgan, London Stock Exchange Group and UniCredit. He holds a BA from the London School of Economics and an MPhil (Masters) in Management Studies from Cambridge University.
Asia
Alexandre Lazarow, Global Venture Investor Cathay Innovation
Alexandre Lazarow is a global venture capitalist and the author of Out-Innovate: How Global Entrepreneurs – from Delhi to Detroit – Are Rewriting the Rules of Silicon Valley (Harvard Business Review Press). He has invested in startups including Chime, Kin, Neon, Sidecar Health, Facily, FinAccel, ZenBusiness, Kueski, Guiabolso, Zola, Rensource, Terminal, among others. He is a Partner with Cathay Innovation, a Paris-based firm that invests across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Alex is also an adjunct professor specializing in social impact investment and entrepreneurship at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
John Lunn, Founder/CEO Gr4vy
John Lunn is the Founder and CEO of cloud payment orchestration platform Gr4vy. He is a technology and fintech entrepreneur with 21 years of experience working and investing in financial services, commerce enablement, e-payments, data, security and infrastructure. Lunn worked as the Director of Technology for six years at CyberSource, the world’s first payment service provider, which was sold to Visa for $2Bn in 2010. He then helped found Passmark Security which was sold to RSA Security in 2006. In 2006, Lunn joined PayPal as the fourth employee in the UK (now 2,000+), where as Global Director of Developer and Startup Relations, he built and grew PayPal’s first Developer Relations team. In 2015, he was instrumental to the purchase of Braintree by PayPal and joined the team. In 2016, Lunn was part of the team that launched PayPal Ventures, the venture capital arm of PayPal, a $350m fund with backing from the Board. Lunn was a Board Observer for Dosh, Arkose, Raise, Acorns, Toss and many others
