About us
Meet the team
Leadership
Walt holds non-executive board roles at the UK regulated arms of Catalina Re-insurance and Wiserfunding Ltd. He holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and a Doctorate (Finance) from Cranfield University. He also holds certificates from Carnegie Mellon University (Cyber Risk Board Oversight) and Stanford University (Board Directors College).
Walt is a Visiting Fellow/Lecturer for Sustainable Finance/Financial Markets at Cranfield University and a Professor (Honorary) for fintech at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
Before joining Channel in 2006, Deborah worked at Rabobank as Global Business Manager for all its capital markets activities, overseeing budgeting, planning, and other administrative functions. She previously worked at Westpac as Divisional Controller and EBRD as Principal Manager of its initial financial control policies. Deborah holds a BSc from the London School of Economics and is a chartered accountant.
During his 9 years with Bibby Financial Services, he spent 6 years based in Australia & Singapore as CEO for Asia Pacific followed by 3 years in Atlanta as CEO of BFS North America.
His earlier career experience includes executive positions with General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) in the UK and prior to that International Factors, a subsidiary of Lloyds Bank.
Daouii is a member of the World Economic Forum, Royal Society of Arts, and is a Senior Advisor at the International Economic Forum of the Americas. She holds a Honours BA in Political Economy from the University of Toronto and is fluent in English, Arabic, French, and a Nilo-Saharan Language. Conversational in Spanish.
Prior to this he was managing director and global head of structured credit markets at Credit Agricole. Before this he was head of credit correlation trading at Citibank for Europe. He began his career trading credit products at Morgan Stanley where he spent 7 years and was an Executive Director.
He holds an MPhys in Mathematical Physics and an MSc in Financial Mathematics from the University of Edinburgh. Paul sits on the firm’s executive committee, risk committee and managing partners committee.
Hilmar leads the team for rated, un-rated, insured and un-insured working capital financings for our issuing clients globally. Prior to joining Channel in 2007, Hilmar was a Quantitative Analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort.
Hilmar holds a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Nottingham. He is a member of the risk committee.
Kristian Wilson is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Channel. In this role, he is responsible for driving the company’s technology and embedded finance vision.
Kristian joined Channel from Auto Integrate, the market leading maintenance authorization platform in North America, where he successfully migrated the platform to the cloud. Prior to that, he has delivered scalable technology platforms in businesses ranging in size from start-up to SME, across a variety of industries, including protecting millions of children online with Future Digital, providing the underbanked with access to competitive finance and high quality rental property with Richmond Group, and helping corporations understand their VOIP telephony with Tiger Communications.
Kristian holds an MCOMP in Computer Science from Loughborough University (1st Class).
From launching his financial career at Deutsche Bank, Ion spent a number of years consulting in the equity capital markets space and leading sales growth for FTSE500 company Fiserv and unicorn core banking provider Thought Machine. He also recently led the commercial initiatives of Yobota, a London based Banking as a Service company offering capital and core banking technology. He holds a BA Hons in Marketing Management from Coventry University.
Board
Governance
Walt holds non-executive board roles at the UK regulated arms of Catalina Re-insurance and Wiserfunding Ltd. He holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and a Doctorate (Finance) from Cranfield University. He also holds certificates from Carnegie Mellon University (Cyber Risk Board Oversight) and Stanford University (Board Directors College).
Walt is a Visiting Fellow/Lecturer for Sustainable Finance/Financial Markets at Cranfield University and a Professor (Honorary) for fintech at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
Varda joined De Beers in 1984 and became CEO of the De Beers Diamond Trading Company (DTC) from 2006 until 2014. In 2013. She successfully completed one of the largest transfers of economic activity from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere – the multibillion dollar relocation of the DTC business from the UK to Botswana – after which Varda stepped down as CEO to pursue a portfolio career. Working across borders, she has continually developed pioneering approaches to collaborating with government partners from Southern Africa to Canada. She has overseen the creation of an international network of public/private joint-venture operations in multi-cultural environments, dealing with complex supply chain issues while delivering on the expectations of major international stakeholder relations.
Varda has completed business and management courses at Templeton College, Oxford, Cranfield and INSEAD. She is a board member or advisor at Petra Diamonds, Vulcan Cyber, and the Mineral Development Company of Botswana (Pty) Co. Varda is also a C-suite executive mentor to leading executives in global markets.
Prior to that he worked in capital markets and derivatives at CIBC and Deutsche Bank. He presently is a non-executive director at TCX where he also serves as chairman of the risk oversight committee, and was until recently a director of the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm). Marcus holds a PhD from the Freie Universitaet Berlin and graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and Cambridge University.
Jack previously served as senior banker in the capital markets business at Citibank in Asia and the US where he played a key role as one of the founders of the derivatives markets. He founded CapMAC and served as CEO and Chairman, including its listing on the NYSE.
He was named in March 2010 as non-executive Chairman of the Asset Protection Agency, an executive agency in the United Kingdom and subsidiary of HM Treasury, to help create a rescue for the banking crisis in the UK. Jack holds an MBA from UC Berkeley and a BS from California State University, Long Beach. He is the co-author of Managing Credit Risk, published by Wiley & Sons in 2008 and 2014 with Dr Edward Altman and Paul Narayanan.
Previously, he served as managing director of the Flexo Manufacturing Corporation, Tigerpack Ltd in China, and SGS International Inc. Richard received his BS in economics concentrating in economics and decision sciences from Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Before joining Channel in 2006, Deborah worked at Rabobank as Global Business Manager for all its capital markets activities, overseeing budgeting, planning, and other administrative functions. She previously worked at Westpac as Divisional Controller and EBRD as Principal Manager of its initial financial control policies. Deborah holds a BSc from the London School of Economics and is a chartered accountant.
During his 9 years with Bibby Financial Services, he spent 6 years based in Australia & Singapore as CEO for Asia Pacific followed by 3 years in Atlanta as CEO of BFS North America.
His earlier career experience includes executive positions with General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) in the UK and prior to that International Factors, a subsidiary of Lloyds Bank.
Technology Advisory Panel
Advisors
Dr Sabato is a co-founder (with Dr Edward Altman) of Wiserfunding Ltd, a London FinTech that provides the Wiserfunding Z-score for global SMEs which is based on Dr Altman’s work of the past 50-years. Dr Sabato has spent over 20-years before starting Wiserfunding in senior risk management roles across Europe for major banks and government agencies, as well as Experian. At RBS, he played a key role in driving new risk governance processes for the C-suite and the board of directors in the post financial crisis period.
Gabriele holds a PhD in Finance from University of Rome and was a visiting scholar at NYU Stern School of business. He has published numerous studies on risk governance and risk management, including the most downloaded paper of the Journal of Banking & Finance.
She helps to advise Channel on its use of FinTech tools to scale our AUM and improve customer experience as well as assessing our clients use of FinTech in their own operations.
Her experience draws on 15 years in finance, having held senior positions at Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Morgan Stanley and Accenture. Susanne is the CEO of FINTECH Circle, Europe’s 1st Angel Network focused on fintech opportunities. She is also the founder of the FINTECH Circle Institute, the leading fintech learning platform offering classroom innovation workshops and online courses to C-level executives. Susanne holds an MBA from Vienna University of Economics and Business.
A bestselling author, Susanne co-edited “The FINTECH Book” series, which has been translated into 10 languages and sold across 107 countries. Her wealth of experience led her to being recognised in the European Digital Financial Services “Power 50” 2015, an independent ranking of the most influential people in digital financial services in Europe. In addition, she was selected as a “City Innovator – Inspirational Woman” in 2016. She has been a guest lecturer on financial technology at the University of Cambridge and has also appeared as a fintech commentator on CNBC
Simon is an Executive Working Group Member of Accelerating Digital Transformation initiative at the World Economic Forum and is a board member or advisor to a number of other global firms operating in the digital economy. Simon holds a MA, History from Cambridge University. At Channel, Simon is advising the Board and C-suite team on its digital transformation currently underway.
Duncan previously served as senior director in Finance IT at Royal Bank of Canada. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce, Accounting, from the University of Toronto. Duncan is advising the firm on the use of machine learning for its lending business.
He is also non-executive and chair of the sustainability committee and member of the digital & IT committee of IKANO Bank, owned by IKEA’s founding family. He previously was the Director of Consumer Markets in the boards of ING and KPN Mobile.
Diederick is a visiting professor at Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (JADS) and at Cambridge Judge Business School in AI driven decision sciences. His academic papers specialize in human centered AI in banking. His broader research interests lie at the intersection of behavioral and digital sciences. He is a best-selling author with his books “Riding the waves, the future of financial industries” and “Cool! customer experience! with which he won the Marketing Literature Price 2008. Diederick is advising our board of directors and leadership team on digital business development, digitalization and automated, machine learning based, credit decisioning.
Team
Dan oversees ongoing management of working capital products and is heavily involved in transaction execution and implementation across all business lines. Transaction management is a key role within Channel, requiring each financing facility to be managed conservatively and in accordance with the applicable facility documentation, utilising FinTech platforms as appropriate, as well as assisting in retaining clients through best in class service and response.
He has over 16 years’ experience in managing working capital and trade financing facilities. Dan joined Channel in 2014 from Trafigura where he supported the company’s working capital financing programmes in several roles for 9 years, including managing the growth of the trade receivables financing programme from $325 million to over $2 billion.
While at Channel, Dan has executed and managed numerous facilities of varying complexity and format including rated trade receivables and inventory securitisations, supply chain finance programmes, multi-seller SME facilities, and sharia compliant trade finance products.
Daouii is a member of the World Economic Forum, Royal Society of Arts, and is a Senior Advisor at the International Economic Forum of the Americas. She holds a Honours BA in Political Economy from the University of Toronto and is fluent in English, Arabic, French, and a Nilo-Saharan Language. Conversational in Spanish.
Before joining Channel in 2006, Deborah worked at Rabobank as Global Business Manager for all its capital markets activities, overseeing budgeting, planning, and other administrative functions. She previously worked at Westpac as Divisional Controller and EBRD as Principal Manager of its initial financial control policies. Deborah holds a BSc from the London School of Economics and is a chartered accountant.
Prior to joining Channel, Georgios spent almost 4 years as a Structurer at Demica, where he led trade receivables securitisation deals and also held positions at Moody’s, PwC and Bloomberg.
George joined Channel having spent several years working in Corporate Development in the NBFI space. He also worked for several years as an Investment Portfolio Analyst in the Wealth Management industry. George holds a BSc in Mathematics and is a CFA Charterholder.
Hilmar leads the team for rated, un-rated, insured and un-insured working capital financings for our issuing clients globally. Prior to joining Channel in 2007, Hilmar was a Quantitative Analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort.
Hilmar holds a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Nottingham. He is a member of the risk committee.
During his 9 years with Bibby Financial Services, he spent 6 years based in Australia & Singapore as CEO for Asia Pacific followed by 3 years in Atlanta as CEO of BFS North America.
His earlier career experience includes executive positions with General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) in the UK and prior to that International Factors, a subsidiary of Lloyds Bank.
Iliyan recently joined Channel as a Software Engineer from beSaathi, a fintech platform which allows users create better financial habits, where he helped from the initial build to the delivery to the end user. Prior to that, he worked on a variety of web and mobile projects as a full stack engineer, including a free mental health app.
In his free time Iliyan likes to work on his personal projects and spend time with his family. Iliyan is a graduate of the software engineering bootcamp Makers Academy in London, and holds a Bachelor degree in Cinema Production from the University of Bologna, Italy.
From launching his financial career at Deutsche Bank, Ion spent a number of years consulting in the equity capital markets space and leading sales growth for FTSE500 company Fiserv and unicorn core banking provider Thought Machine. He also recently led the commercial initiatives of Yobota, a London based Banking as a Service company offering capital and core banking technology. He holds a BA Hons in Marketing Management from Coventry University.
Kristian Wilson is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Channel. In this role, he is responsible for driving the company’s technology and embedded finance vision.
Kristian joined Channel from Auto Integrate, the market leading maintenance authorization platform in North America, where he successfully migrated the platform to the cloud. Prior to that, he has delivered scalable technology platforms in businesses ranging in size from start-up to SME, across a variety of industries, including protecting millions of children online with Future Digital, providing the underbanked with access to competitive finance and high quality rental property with Richmond Group, and helping corporations understand their VOIP telephony with Tiger Communications.
Kristian holds an MCOMP in Computer Science from Loughborough University (1st Class).
As Digital Product Lead, Kasia is responsible for the ‘why’ of the product, overseeing all product-related activities at Channel Digital. The primary goal of her role is to lead and facilitate the creation of products that deliver value to both customers and the business.
Kasia studied International Business & Finance in Maastricht (Netherlands) and Richmond (United States), and wrote her master thesis on the globalization of factoring. Since then, she’s held various positions within the European factoring market in business areas such as risk, audit, product development, innovation, and operations.
Mitchel’s commercial talent came to the fore and he contributed to rapid business growth during his six years with the company, progressing through several roles before joining Channel.
He said: ‘I’m eager to offer our funding solutions to SMEs in the Netherlands. There is clearly a great opportunity for lenders to join the market and provide SMEs with the support they deserve, and that we are perfectly positioned to provide.’
Nick is a Data Scientist at Channel; he is responsible for the development of our risk assessment models. Nick began his career with Experian where he worked within the consultancy practice for various clients across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Following this, he moved to Lloyds Bank to help the development of models for credit risk assessment in the retail space. For the last five years, Nick had been a consultant with 4most, working on various data science engagements across the UK.
