Credit Risk Management Conference

Richard Hunter is the global head of Fitch’s corporate rating practice, which covers industrials, utilities and real estate companies. Fitch's corporate group rates over $14 trillion in bond and bank debt, built on the opinions of 400 dedicated corporate analysts, based in 28 cities around the world.

Fitch’s corporate group covers all aspects of the rating and surveillance of upwards of 2,000 non-financial corporations across the globe, as well as publishing timely commentary on different sector trends, scenario analyses for industries and individual companies, issuer forecasts, commodity price decks, and loan and bond performance across regions.

Previously, Richard served at Fitch as the Regional Credit Officer responsible for Europe and Asia, after heading the agency’s global power practice in New York. Most recently, Richard ran Fitch’s international corporate and utility rating practice for Europe and Asia.
both to and from its systems.

Markus is the Chief Economist of Dun & Bradstreet and is based in the company’s London office. He holds a Diploma in Economics with a specialisation in labour markets, monetary policy and European economics.In 2009, he obtained a Robert Schuman Scholarship in the European Parliament where he worked for the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs, as well as assisting in the Monetary Dialogue between the Parliament and the European Central Bank.After a stint as academic research assistant at the University of Würzburg, he joined Dun & Bradstreet’s Country Insight Services in the UK as a Country Risk Analyst in 2010. In this role, he is covering the UK, France and his home country Germany, combining the company’s vast micro-economic data with his macroeconomic and political expertise. Since 2016 he has been one of Dun & Bradstreet’s media spokespersons. In this role, he has featured in newspapers and magazines many times and has also participated in interviews on national television. In addition, he regularly speaks in front of domestic and international audiences.

Michael Samonas is the Group CFO of SIDMA S.A., the leading steel service center in Greece with subsidiaries in Romania and Bulgaria.
Along with his practical experience, he teaches specialized courses in Financial modelling & Equity Valuation at the American College of Greece – Deree and Mastering Credit Risk at University of Piraeus & ICAP Risk Training Institute.
He is a Fellow member of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA) and a board member of the Hellenic Association of Risk Managers, a member of FERMA, the Federation of European Risk Management Associations.
Michael holds an M.Sc. and a PhD degree from the Electronic Engineering department of the University of Surrey as well as an MBA from the University of La Verne California. He also holds a BSc degree in Applied Accounting from University of Oxford Brooks (with honors) and a Postgraduate diploma from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). He finally holds a BSc in Physics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and is the author of Financial Forecasting, Analysis and Modelling: A Framework for Long-Term Forecasting, Wiley Finance Series, Feb. 2015.

His interests lie in the field of Credit Risk, Financial Modelling & Valuation.

Myrto Kyriakidou is Executive Director of the Credit Risk Services at ICAP and responsible for the function of ICAP as a Credit Rating Agency.
Prior to ICAP, she was Director of the Portfolio Analytics Department of Qualco, leading a team of experts who evaluated and designed credit & collections strategies, based on data mining findings and risk modelling. She has held a Risk Analytics consultancy position at National Bank of Greece (NPL Division), contributing to the improvement of Credit and Collections processes. As Head of Statistical Decisions Hellas, she analyzed and evaluated credit portfolios for leading Retail Banks. Her first position was actuary at Interamerican Property & Casualty Insurance Company S.A.

Paschalis Antoniou has a BSc in Computer Science from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, an MSc in Information Systems from the Athens University of Economics and Bussiness, and an MSc in Machine Learning (with Distinction) from University College London. For his thesis while at UCL, he worked on Reinforcement Learning techniques at Google Deepmind under the supervision of David Silver (creator of AlphaGo). Parts of his work have been published in the Operation Research Perspectives journal and presented in the Credit Scoring and Credit Control Conference. He has extensive (10-year) experience on Risk Analytics, Model Development, Model Validation and Software Engineering, and has worked at the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation S.A., Singular Logic S.A. and the National Bank of Greece S.A.

Pantelis Xanthoulis is the head of Data and AI Software Solutions for IBM Greece and Cyprus. He has been working in IBM since 2007, starting his career in the area of Collaboration Solutions. Since then he has been involved in designing Campaign Management and Customer Experience Analytics solutions in major projects in Financial and Telecommunications organizations.
He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and a Master's degree in Information Systems from the Athens University of Economics and Business.

Gikas A. Hardouvelis is Professor of Finance and Economics in the University of Piraeus, the Senior Independent Director of the National Bank of Greece, and the First Vice President of the Foundation for Economic & Industrial Research. He has served as Minister of Finance of the Hellenic Republic from June 2014 to January 2015.

In the past, he served as Research Adviser to the (central) Bank of Greece and to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He was also the Chief Economist of NBG and, later, of Eurobank as well as the President of the Scientific Council of the Hellenic Bank Association. He was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Athens Derivatives Exchange and helped its creation. He also served twice as the Director of the Prime Minister’s Economic Office of the Hellenic Republic under two different prime ministers.

Professor Hardouvelis has a Ph.D. in Economics from U. C. Berkeley, and M. Sc. & B. A. degrees in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. His academic work is in the areas of Macroeconomics, Monetary Policy and Finance and has been published in the AER, QJE, J. Finance, RFS, JME, REStat, and other prestigious top-ranking academic journals.

Stamatina Pantelaiou is the Director of Economic Research & Sectorial Research Department in which are designed and conducted Sector studies for various industries of the Greek Economy. Sector Studies provide an in-depth analysis of the structure, competition, challenges and prospects of each sector. They assess the size of the market - consumption, domestic production, imports and exports and estimate the shares of the major “players”.
She is also responsible for designing and conducting special surveys and studies (on Employment, Women's Entrepreneurship, Corporate Social Responsibility, etc.) that have been included in annual publications issued by ICAP Group (Leading Sectors, Leading Employers, Leading Women, etc), for publishing of “Krisimi Enimerosi” for Industry Watches, etc.

A graduate of the Warsaw School of Economics in the field of: International Economic Relations, Banking and Finance, as well as postgraduate Financial Liquidity Management.
He has been associated with the Bisnode D&B company over last 17 years. In the last 13 years, he co-created the strategy and supervised the development of products supporting automatic business decisions and the first commercial predictive models based on Bisnode and D&B data. In 2011, he became the member of the Management Board of Bisnode in Poland, and from 2012 - the President of the Management Board, responsible for the development of all business lines in Poland, in particular in the fastest growing area of Risk & Compliance.
In 2016-2018 he coordinated the introduction of the latest Dun & Bradstreet solutions to the Polish market regarding the automation of the KYC process for the financial sector and supervised the first implementations in the banking sector. Those projects led to build internal knowledge about optimization of processes in banking sector and built ground for the latest regulation of AML UE Directive.
From 2018 he coordinates the project of building a private credit office Bisnode mBIG S.A. in order to expand the availability of consumer data for the strongly developing e-commerce market in Poland. In 2020 he finalized the process of negotiations the strategic agreement with Euler Hermes regarding the purchase of part of the company's assets and the takeover of the client portfolio, which significantly impacted the market share of Bisnode D&B in Poland.

Ο Δημήτριος Λακασάς γεννήθηκε στις 14.04.1973 στον Κολινδρό Πιερίας. Ο κ. Λακασάς είναι Πρόεδρος της Olympia Electronics A.E, η οποία ιδρύθηκε το 1979 και απασχολεί 200 εργαζόμενους. H εταιρεία δίνει ιδιαίτερη έμφαση στην τεχνολογία αιχμής, τη καινοτομία, την ποιότητα και την υψηλή αξία σε σχέση με την τιμή των προϊόντων που παράγει. Αποτελεί τη μεγαλύτερη αμιγώς ελληνική παραγωγική μονάδα ηλεκτρονικών συστημάτων ασφαλείας στην Ελλάδα και μία από τις δέκα μεγαλύτερες στην Ευρώπη. Η κύρια δραστηριότητα της είναι η ανάπτυξη ηλεκτρονικών συστημάτων ασφαλείας με δυναμική παρουσία σε περισσότερες από 72 χώρες του εξωτερικού. Παράλληλα με την επιχειρηματική του δραστηριότητα, ο κ. Λακασάς έχει διατελέσει: • Πρόεδρος Σ.Ε.Β.Ε. – Σύνδεσμος Εξαγωγέων Βορείου Ελλάδος (Σ.Ε.Β.Ε.) • Αντιπρόεδρος του Πανελληνίου Συνδέσμου Βιομηχάνων Βιοτεχνών Παραγωγής Ηλεκτρολογικού Υλικού (Π.Σ.Β.Β.Π.Η.Υ.) • Μέλος Δ.Σ. Συνδέσμου Βιομηχανιών Βορείου Ελλάδος (Σ.Β.Β.Ε.) • Μέλος Γ.Σ. του Συνδέσμου Επιχειρήσεων & Βιομηχανιών (Σ.Ε.Β.) • Μέλος Δ.Σ, ΕΔΑΠ / ΤΠΘ ΑΕ • Αντιπρόεδρος του Ινστιτούτου Στρατηγικής Ανάπτυξης Πιερίας (Ι.Σ.Α.Π.) Είναι κάτοχος Μεταπτυχιακού Μ.Β.Α. στη Διοίκηση επιχειρήσεων (UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD) με προπτυχιακές σπουδές (Bachelor) στον τομέα των Οικονομικών και του Marketing (CITY COLLEGE – UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD). Ο κ. Δ. Λακασάς έχει στο ενεργητικό του συμμετοχή σε διεθνή συνέδρια και δημοσιεύσεις σε οικονομικό και κλαδικό τύπο.

Mr. Adam has an extensive experience of more than 30 years in the banking area.
He joined Eurobank Ergasias S.A. in 1990 and has been a General Manager, Group Chief Risk Officer since November 2013.
He is actively participating to the highest bodies of the Bank (Strategic Planning Committee, Executive Board, Group Asset & Liabilities Committee and Management Risk Committee), with main mandate to best contribute to the Strategic / Risk decisions and financial results of the Bank.
Mr. Adam has a Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor USA and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Economic School of the University of Athens.

Christian Berger is Practice Leader for Trade Credit in Marsh’s Central and South Eastern European region, encompassing activities in 17 diverse markets from the Baltics to Israel. Christian is based in Vienna and manages, among other things, the links of the regional trade credit teams with the wider Continental European and Global Marsh Trade Credit Practice. Before joining Marsh in 2016, Christian spent 17 years as a manager at Coface, where he was responsible for the establishment of the trade credit network in Central Europe. During his career at Coface he held numerous CEE regional as well as national management positions, including the country manager of Austria and the Czech Republic.

After graduating and following 6 months’ experience within the Finance Area of an important Italian retailer, I joined Accenture in 2000 in the Business Consulting Area and Financial Services market. I spent 14 years in Management Consulting, where I became a manager in 2006 and senior manager in 2010 and was involved in the launch and development of the “Finance & Risk” and “Credit Services” practices and Service lines. During my experience at Accenture, I focused on the following areas of specialization: Credit Risk Management, Basel Validation Advisory and Support, Banking Accounting, Credit Process Operational Excellence, Organization Strategy Evolution and Business Planning.
In 2014, I studied for my first Executive Master’s in Strategy and Enterprise Management and in January 2015, I joined CRIF, as Director of the entire Management Consulting area for Italian and international direct markets. In January 2017, I became Executive Director of the Management Consulting and Solutions area for EMEA with the task of coordinating consulting on a global level.
In 2018, I took on responsibility for Transformation Services, to support the transformation of the company as a FINTECH. In June 2019, I gained an Executive MBA with distinction from the Catholic University in Milan, with my final thesis on the evolution of information providers as FINTECHs, Market Makers and Digital Solutions Providers.
Additional information
Reference person for relationship, professional speeches with the Italian Banking Association (ABI), member of the Italian Risk Managers’ Association, and member of the Italian Banking Planning Association. University Faculty and Subject Matter Expert.

Georgios Karagiannopoulos is the CEO of Eurobank Factors since 2010, having served as General Manager of the same company since 2007 as well as factoring network coordinator for Eurobank in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. Previously, he held the positions of Regional Director of Corporate Banking and Senior Manager of the Division of Eurobank for Large Corporate, coming from the corresponding Division of Societe Generale and Bank of Cyprus. He is currently Vice Chairman of the Hellenic Factors Association after 4 years serving as Chairman (2012-2016).
He has been the author of many articles appearing in the specialized Press in Greece and abroad. He is also the writer of the book “Factoring: From theory to practice” , a frequent conference speaker and Academic lecturer.
Finally, he is a graduate of Cass (former City) Business School London (MBA Finance) as well as of the University Denis Diderot of Paris (Maitrise, Math appliquees aux Sciences Fondamentales).

Alexandros Kontopoulos has a factoring experience of over twenty years. He is founding C.E.O of NBG Factors S.A, a 100% subsidiary of National Bank of Greece, the oldest banking institution in Greece with over 170 years of history. He has served as Head of Factoring Division in Bank of Cyprus (Greece 2002-2008) and Account Manager in ABC Factors (Greece 1997-2002). He is chairing for second term the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Factors Association which he has served as member since 2009. He is also member of the Economics and Statistics Committee of EUF and a Board Member of NBG Insurance Brokers S.A. He has lectured a number of conferences and authored various articles on Factoring. He holds a Master’s Degree on Accounting and Finance from the University of Manchester, UK and a Bachelor’s degree in Financial and Banking Management from the University of Piraeus, Greece.

Myrto Kyriakidou is Executive Director of the Credit Risk Services at ICAP and responsible for the function of ICAP as a Credit Rating Agency.
Prior to ICAP, she was Director of the Portfolio Analytics Department of Qualco, leading a team of experts who evaluated and designed credit & collections strategies, based on data mining findings and risk modelling. She has held a Risk Analytics consultancy position at National Bank of Greece (NPL Division), contributing to the improvement of Credit and Collections processes. As Head of Statistical Decisions Hellas, she analyzed and evaluated credit portfolios for leading Retail Banks. Her first position was actuary at Interamerican Property & Casualty Insurance Company S.A.

Ο Ευθύμιος Γ. Λατσούδης (Ντέμης) είναι Εταίρος στη Δικηγορική Εταιρεία L+A, η οποία λειτουργεί από το έτος 1926.
Είναι τρίτης γενιάς δικηγόρος και διαθέτει εικοσαετή εμπειρία στο Εμπορικό και το Εταιρικό Δίκαιο.
Διατελεί ως νομικός σύμβουλος σε μερικούς από τους μεγαλύτερους επιχειρηματικούς Ομίλους στην Ελλάδα.
Ο Ντέμης είναι ειδικευμένος στο να παρέχει δημιουργικές λύσεις σε σύγχρονους επιχειρηματικούς Ομίλους & επιχειρήσεις, ενώ διαθέτει ιδιαίτερη εξειδίκευση στη Νομική Στρατηγική, τη Διαχείριση Νομικού Κινδύνου και στο Legal Software, προσεγγίζοντας τις λύσεις πάντοτε από μια πολύπλευρη και διεπιστημονική σκοπιά.
Η σχεδόν 100ετής τεχνογνωσία της L+A στο Εμπορικό & Εταιρικό Δίκαιο, καθώς και στο Ελληνικό επιχειρείν έχει ενσωματωθεί και επεκταθεί στην Gnosis, την Compliance & Legal πλατφόρμα της L+A.
Τέλος, ο Ντέμης είναι διευθυντής του GCS Group στη ΝοτιοΑνατολική Ευρώπη και μέλος του Δικηγορικού Συλλόγου Πειραιά. Έχει Μεταπτυχιακές Σπουδές στο Ευρωπαϊκό Δίκαιο και στο Διεθνές Δίκαιο των Επιχειρήσεων.

Emre has B.A. degree from Bosphorus University in the field of Business Administration. He started his career at Directorate of Banking and Exchange at the Undersecretariat of Treasury of the Republic of Turkey, responsible of supervision of banks, financial institutions and capital markets.
Emre moved to Doğuş Group in 1997 and worked until 2007 in different companies of the Group. He worked in Azerbaijan for 3 years and established the first leasing company together with IFC of World Bank. From 2000 to 2004 he worked at Garanti Leasing responsible for structured finance, asset & liability management and financial institutions. Between 2004 and 2006 he worked at Doğus Holding Strategic Planning and Business Development Department dealing with privatization and M&A transactions including sale of Garanti Bank shares to GE Capital. Before joining Coface, he was the Head of Treasury and Asset & Liability Management at Garanti Factoring.
He started his career at Coface as country CFO in 2007 then appointed as COO starting from 2010. He was also the board member of Coface Emirates and Coface Egypt. In May 2015, he is appointed as CEO and Board Member of Coface Turkey.
Since May 2019 Emre continues his career at Coface as CFO of Mediterranean & Africa region based in Milan.

George Sotiropoulos is the Chief Executive Officer of Cycle Credit, the leader in Receivables and Debt Collection, with presence in Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia; Cycle Credit is a member of ICAP group and today accounts more than 20 years of experience, with over 200 employees and € 1 billion of assets under management.
Before joining Cycle Credit, George was the Head of Strategy, Policies & Programs in PQH, the Single Special Liquidator assigned by Bank of Greece to manage all financial institutions under special liquidation. George has been the Risk Mitigation Head and Head of Credit Cards in Citibank for 10 years and the Consumer Liabilities Head in Bank of Cyprus. George combines a solid commercial and academic profile, given that he initiated his career as Marketing Manager in L’Oréal Cosmetics, and since 1995 he is visiting lecturer of Strategy and Marketing in the Hellenic American University.
He has been awarded in 1991, by the European Union (ECUBA) for his propositions regarding the ECU being introduced as the single European currency. He holds a BSc in Economics, Athens University and an MBA degree, Cardiff University, UK.

She was born in Athens. She has graduated from the Economics Department of the Law School at the Aristotelion University of Thessaloniki and holds a postgraduate degree Msc in Money Banking and Finance from University of Birmingham, UK.
From 1990 until 1995 she worked in BARCLAYS BANK PLC, London, initially as an Officer in Private Banking, then the area of medium-sized enterprises and finally for three years as Senior Account Officer in the Large Multinational Enterprises Sector in the Head Office of the Bank, while she acquired professional expertise during her Chartered Institute of Bankers’ training programme.
Since 1995 she is working at ABC FACTORS (ALPHA BANK GROUP). Starting as a Senior Account Officer in the Customer Relations Department, and after successfully completing Internal Projects, in 2000 she was promoted to the position of Director of this Department. In November 2005 she was appointed General Manager and since 2002 she has also held the position of Chief Executive Officer. From 2009 to 2011 she served as President of the Hellenic Factoring Association and has held the position of Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Union since then.

Dr George Christodoulakis is a member of the ICAP Board of Directors and ICAP Ratings Supervisory Board, academic at Alliance Manchester Business School, financial advisor and entrepreneur. He has served as the State Secretary for Asset Privatizations of Greece, Advisor to the Governor of the Bank of Greece, member of the Hellenic Corporate Governance Council, and academic at Cass Business School. A quant financial economist with studies in London and Athens, his expertise concentrates on strategic, credit and market risk, asset pricing, forecasting and regulation. His research appears in top research journals and books and has published the volumes Managing Risks in the European Periphery Debt Crisis, Palgrave Macmillan 2015, The Analytics of Risk Model Validation, Elsevier 2008, as well as the Journal of Risk Model Validation, Risk Journals since 2006.

Pantelis Xanthoulis is the head of Data and AI Software Solutions for IBM Greece and Cyprus. He has been working in IBM since 2007, starting his career in the area of Collaboration Solutions. Since then he has been involved in designing Campaign Management and Customer Experience Analytics solutions in major projects in Financial and Telecommunications organizations.
He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and a Master's degree in Information Systems from the Athens University of Economics and Business

Colin Ellis is Moody’s Chief Credit Officer in EMEA, and a Managing Director in the Credit Strategy team. He is responsible for identifying and analyzing the broad macro and credit trends, and leading and coordinating Moody’s ratings approach, across franchises in the region. He is also a member of Moody’s Macroeconomic Board, which sets the global forecasts that underpin Moody’s universe of ratings. Colin is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, a fellow of the RSA, and has published on a variety of topics including price setting, investment, monetary policy, stress testing and credit risks.

Mauro Macchi is Financial Services ICEG lead; in this role he leads the Accenture Business practices in the Banking, Insurance and Capital Markets areas in Italy, Central Europe and Greece.
Mr. Macchi has more than 28 years of experience working for Accenture. Prior to his current role, he was leading Banking Global Industry Strategy, he also served as Accenture Strategy lead in Europe, Africa, Middle East and Latin America and client Strategy director for Intesa Sanpaolo Group. Mr. Macchi was also managing director of Accenture Management Consulting for Italy, Eastern Europe and Emerging Markets.
At the beginning of his career, Mr. Macchi contributed to establishing the strategy group in Italy. He led several projects involving mergers and acquisitions (M&A), corporate strategy and sales and distribution, primarily for the banking industry.
Mr. Macchi has a Bachelor of Science in economics and a Master of Business Administration from the Graduate School of Management at the University of California. He is based in Milan, Italy.

Michael Massourakis is the Chief Economist of SEV Hellenic Federation of Enterprises. Prior to his SEV appointment in April 2015, he had been the Chief Economist at Alpha Bank (since 1996). After studying economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (PhD, 1983), he worked as an Economist at the International Monetary Fund (1983-1986), and as a Senior Economist at the Council of Economic Advisors (1987-1996) in the Ministry of Finance of Greece. He served as an Alternate Member for Greece at the E.U. Monetary Committee (1988-1996), and as a Member of the Board of the Capital Market Commission (2000-2004). He is currently a member of the Scientific Committee of the Hellenic Federation of Banks and Member of the Board of the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research.

Anthony Scriffignano in an internationally recognized data scientist with experience spanning over 35 years, in multiple industries and enterprise domains. Dr. Scriffignano has extensive background in linguistics and advanced algorithms, leveraging that background as primary inventor on multiple patents worldwide. He provides thought leadership globally.
Recently, he briefed the US National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee and contributed to reports to the President on Big Data Analytics, Emerging Technologies Strategic Vision, and Internet and Communications Resilience. Additionally, Scriffignano provided expert advice on private sector data officers to a group of state Chief Data Officers and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He also served as a forum panelist and keynote speaker at the World Internet Conference in China hosted by President Xi Jinping and the China Development Forum. Scriffignano was recently recognized as the U.S. Chief Data Officer of the Year 2018 by the CDO Club, the world's largest community of C-suite digital and data leaders.
He was recently published or quoted in various publications including CIO.com, Forbes Insights, Huffington Post, Business Insider, InformationWeek, China Daily, PCWeek Russia, Taiwan News, Bangkok Post, Mint (India), and others.
Scriffignano regularly presents at business, government and academic venues globally regarding emerging trends in data and information stewardship, the “Big Data” explosion, artificial intelligence, multilingual challenges in business identity and malfeasance in commercial settings.

Katharina Utermoehl is Senior Economist for Western Europe at Allianz SE. Prior to joining Allianz in 2014 Katharina worked as an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit and Roubini Global Economics in London and New York. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Economics and Management from Bocconi University and a master’s degree in International Affairs and Finance from Columbia University.