2017 Innovators to Watch: 12 to 18

12. Michal Panowicz, Chief Product and Information Officer, Kreditech

It seems like anything Michal Panowicz touches, turns into fintech gold.

Panowicz was key to mBank’s success, rebuilding it (almost) from the ground up. Then, he was off to Nordea — now one of the largest banks in northern Europe — heading the company’s digital banking efforts. As chief product and information officer, Panowicz now leads product management and engineering efforts at alternative lending startup Kreditech. The German startup — backed by Peter Thiel, Rakuten and the IFC — raised $120 million in a funding round last month, bringing its total funding to approximately $270 million.

13. Joseph Lubin, CEO and Founder, ConsenSys

Building the future with blockchain technology is going to be a long, hard slog; which is why it’s probably a good thing that companies like Joseph Lubin’s ConsenSys are on the job. Lubin founded the company after co-founding the Ethereum blockchain network, which is fast-becoming the network of choice for enterprises seeking to innovate in the space.

Alongside its singular blockchain efforts, Lubin’s company is one of the founding members of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, a consortium dedicated to experimentation on Ethereum currently seeing an explosive amount of growth (it gained 80 new members last month alone).

14. Vanessa Colella, Chief Innovation Officer, Citigroup

Being the head of innovation for a bank like Citi means having a lot of threads to pull, but Vanessa Colella seems to be managing admirably. Working in innovation areas like artificial intelligence, mobile, and blockchain, Colella has stepped into the role after more than seven years at Citi. Under her thumb, Citi has moved into multiple projects of note, including a May 2017 payments partnership on the blockchain with NASDAQ, and blockchain startup Chain. “It turns out it’s very easy to say the words, ‘experimenting with blockchain,’ but to actually do it — it’s something we’ve been focused on for the past several years,”  Colella said at the time.

Colella appears to be taking the innovation role at a run. Good for fintech.

15. Kiki Del Valle SVP, Digital Payments and Labs, Mastercard

Internet of Things is so yesterday; now, it’s all about the Internet of Payments, according to Kiki Del Valle, SVP of digital payments and labs at Mastercard. Under Del Valle’s leadership, Mastercard’s Commerce for Every Device program aims to — as the name suggests — bring payment technology to every device imaginable: from fridges, to cars, mugs, or wearables. “At the end, the IoT can become the internet of payments,” she told Bank Innovation previously. “We want to provide that secure commerce experience that consumers can benefit from: shop wherever they want to shop, pay in whichever form they want to pay.” To make this happen, the company sealed a number of key partnership, including one with IBM and GM, enabling drivers and passengers to order ahead or make payments for goods and services via the car’s dashboard.

16. Stefan Thomas, CTO, Ripple

Ripple has taken cross-border blockchain transactions at a run, and much of that is due to executives like company Chief Technology Officer Stefan Thomas. Joining the company back in 2012 (when it had the much-less marketable name of OpenCoin Inc), Thomas was responsible for developing key components of Ripple’s network, including its smart contract functions. As with his previous roles in technology, Thomas is dedicated to developing the next wave of the Internet, one that will attach value to information.

17. Sadia Halim, Head of Innovation for BNP Paribas

Sadia Halim has always been intrigued by the opportunities of change, and as the head of innovation for French bank BNP Paribas, Halim has plenty of areas ripe for those opportunities. Halim comes from both a scientific and a banking background, and her unique perspective on innovation is moving BNP forward in fintech. The bank is partnering, investing, and experimenting with startups.

“We really want to work with startups that can increase our efficiency or better our relationships—we’re not looking at it from a speculative frame of mind,” she told Bank Innovation previously. “It may be easier to first work with more established fintechs with a bit of history as we get more comfortable with these partnerships.”

With Halim at the fore, the bank is keeping its focus on innovation that will drive real-world change out into the open (rather than change that follows Silicon Valley’s “break things first” attitude).

18. David Sosna, CEO & Co-founder, Personetics

Building the perfect bank chatbot is all well and good, but it has to be backed up with something–and that something is data analytics and a whole lot of work.

Take it from David Sosna, co-founder and CEO of bot developer Personetics: the company aims to create a chatbot that can allow banks and FIs to better know and serve their customers. That means backing up the front-facing bot with predictive analytics tools, which can aggregate and package customer data in the best way possible. Of course, companies still have to like the bots enough to use them, which means the front-end has to present a unique experience as well–and riding that line is what Sosna and Personetics do best.

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