Entry & Judging

• LinkedIn

Louise Brett, Chair 

(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.

Andrew Probert | Judge & Co-Chair

Co founder Admiral insurance and Confused.com

A qualified chartered accountant, having trained with KPMG. Held significant posts with a number of insurance and financial services companies until becoming a founder director of the Admiral Group plc on it’s start up in 1992. 

Retired  from the Admiral Group in September 2006  but retains membership of a number of subsidiary group boards. Until 2016 was  chairman of the largest insurance company within the group based in Gibraltar, and now primarily involved in the group’s European and US expansion on a part time basis. 

His career has entailed significant time spent appraising new business ideas and investments and involvement in start-ups. 

He manages his own portfolio of private investments and acts as a business angel on a small number of mostly South Wales based SMEs, as well as being a backer, along with Welsh Government and others of the Alacrity Foundation based in Newport, which takes post graduate  students into focused groups, to educate them and help launch start-up businesses and fund their ideas.

• LinkedIn

Mark Evans

Chief Information Officer, SMS PLC

Mark has over 25 years’ experience in architecture, IT operations, software engineering and enterprise transformation, including large scale Digital Transformation, through to contemporary cloud-based and open-sourced architectures and software engineering practices. Experience has been gained across a number of sectors, including Financial Services, Public Sector, Sales & Distribution.

Recently Mark spent 5 years as CTO defining and then delivering the digital strategy at Hodge Bank and has recently joined SMS-Plc as CIO, where is focus is on leveraging technology to help SMS in decarbonising the UK economy.

• LinkedIn

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.

• LinkedIn

Steve Dukes

CEO, Confused.com

As CEO I’m focused on growing and evolving both Confused.com and the group we have been a part of since our acquisition in 2021, RVU.

My passion is in synchronising marketing, product, data and technology to deliver growth and change.

• LinkedIn

Thomas Easterby

Head of FinTech – Venture & Growth Banking, HSBC

Tom is Head of FinTech at HSBC Innovation Banking. As the partner to the innovation economy, HSBC Innovation Banking offer more than commercial banking services. They have the expertise, agility and connections that high-growth FinTech businesses need to accelerate growth. Tom leads a team of experienced bankers providing banking and funding to VC backed companies across the FinTech sector from Seed through to pre-IPO, with deep sector expertise across the full scope of FinTech.

Prior to HSBC, Tom was part of the Banking team at Silicon Valley Bank UK supporting high growth businesses with venture debt funding and banking. Earlier in his career Tom spent a number of years at Barclays, enjoying a variety of debt finance related roles including establishing the growth of the Barclays high growth lending proposition in partnership with the European Investment Fund.