FinTech North Speakers to Tackle Issues of Skills and Customers
Dan Rajkumar / 24th March 2017
Two further speakers have been announced for the FinTech North conference, taking place in Leeds on 26th April as part of Leeds Digital Festival.
Estonian digital skills entrepreneur, the founder and CEO of Jobbatical Karoli Hindriks and Harrogate big data innovator Stephen Kennedy join the line-up for the sell-out event at aql’s Salem Chapel next month.
A well-known keynote speaker around the world, Karoli Hindriks will talk to delegates about how the FinTech Economy needs to be able to solve skills and resources-based issues. Jobbatical is a digital platform connecting globally minded companies with a community of ready-to-relocate business, technology and creative professionals. The business is based on the concept that talent is increasingly mobile and the best people to build global businesses are only a flight away. These exceptional people are ready to make a difference for companies that inspire them.
Stephen Kennedy is Chief Executive of Harrogate-based Magpie Technologies, a mobile-first provider of apps, digital services and smart tech to banks, insurance companies, telcos, mobile and travel retailers, and travel money providers. Magpie uses big data to operate like an app store for businesses and aims to provide best of breed digital solutions that enable more personalised relationships with consumers. Stephen has experience creating new start-up businesses in UK and internationally, and will focus his talk at FinTech North around the topic of ‘Reimagining the Customer Journey from A to D’ (analogue to digital).
Karoli and Stephen join a high-profile speaker line-up that includes representatives from the FCA, Nesta, Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, the CBI, the Open Data Institute and the Treasury’s FinTech Envoy for the North, as well as Toronto-based IMC.
Organisations to have pledged their support to the FinTech North conference include: aql, Computershare, BJSS, FiNexus, Munroe K, Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership, West Yorkshire Combined Authority, Manchester Metropolitan Univerrsity, Vocalink and Nostrum Group. Nesta’s Open Up Challenge has also been confirmed as a strategic partner.
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Karoli Hindriks founded her first company at the age of sixteen (officially becoming the youngest inventor in Estonia). Karoli also successfully lead the launch of seven television channels in Northern Europe (including National Geographic Channels, MTV, and Fox entertainment). In 2017 “Wired” magazine listed her as one of the Inspiring Fifty women in technology in Europe.
She was named one of the 20 most promising young entrepreneurs under 25 in Europe by the prestigious international business magazine BusinessWeek and one of 50 Most Influential Women in Tech of Europe in 2016 by EU-Startups. She is also an alumnus of Singularity University. She is passionate about the unbounded potential of the Millennial generation and confident that we are on the brink of an unprecedented revolution in the world of work.
Stephen Kennedy is a highly capable and versatile Board Level General Manager/Managing Director with unique experience of delivering success for business start-ups, turnarounds and transformations. He has extensive expertise in managing complex international businesses and organisations across a number of sectors with a diversity of cultures. Magpie is a mobile-first business that bridges the gap between innovators and large established businesses with an ecosystem that holds the consumer at the centre.
