Head of Business Development, Digital Assets
Laurence Willows is Head of Business Development, Digital Assets at IG Group and tastytrade, based in London, a position he has held since May 2023. He holds the same title across both entities concurrently, covering both the UK and US operations. His areas of expertise include blockchain, cryptocurrency, decentralized finance, and real-world asset tokenization.
Willows joined IG Group as an Internal Audit Intern in 2017, returning full-time in September 2019 as an Internal Audit Associate. He progressed to Internal Audit Senior Associate before moving into a Business Manager, Digital Assets role in November 2022, which preceded his current appointment. Alongside his time at IG Group, he co-founded Propbloq, a London-based real estate company, between January 2021 and November 2022. Prior to his professional career, he competed as a ski cross athlete for Team GB on the Europa Cup circuit between April 2019 and November 2020. He holds a BSc in Economics, Finance and Banking from the University of Portsmouth and a Decentralized Finance Infrastructure certification from Duke University.
MD UK
Michael Healy is Managing Director, UK & Ireland at IG Group, a position he has held since January 2025. In this role he has been a named spokesperson on two significant product initiatives: the launch of 24/5 trading on 110 US stocks, giving UK investors round-the-clock weekday access to names including Apple, Tesla and NVIDIA, and IG's receipt of an FCA cryptoasset licence in September 2025, which made IG the first UK-listed broker to join the FCA's cryptoasset register. On the crypto licence, Healy stated publicly that it enables IG to provide a wider range of crypto services, expand the range of crypto assets available, and deliver more accurate pricing for clients.
Prior to joining IG, Healy served as Commercial Director at Ryanair from June 2020 to December 2024, and before that as General Manager at Deliveroo in Ireland from January 2019 to January 2020. Earlier in his career he was Chief Marketing Officer at The Restaurant Group from January 2017 to January 2019. His stated background spans business turnarounds, digital-led growth, and P&L management across multiple consumer verticals, with total career experience of approximately 15 years. No educational background is stated in the available source content.
Meet other people
EMEA Head of Fintech Coverage, HSBC
Jenni Himberg-Wild is a Managing Director at HSBC covering the fintech sector across EMEA. With around two decades of experience in corporate and transaction banking, she previously served as Managing Director, Head of Financial Institutions & Fintech Europe at Barclays. She is a regular speaker at industry events such as Money20/20 Europe and PAY360.
Head of Digital Assets and Currencies, Global Macro, HSBC
Bugra Celik leads HSBC's digital assets and currencies work within Global Macro in Hong Kong, after previously serving as Director of Digital Assets in Global Private Banking & Wealth. A digital product professional with 16+ years across telecoms, e-commerce and financial services (Turkcell, Mox Bank, Liv. by Emirates NBD, OSL), he works on tokenization, stablecoin and CBDC initiatives, including HSBC's tokenized gold products in Hong Kong.
Global Head of Digital Money, HSBC
Lewis Sun is HSBC's Global Head of Digital Money and Global Head of Domestic & Emerging Payments within Global Payments Solutions, based in Hong Kong. He joined HSBC in 2002 as a Product Manager in mainland China and has held senior payments roles including Head of GPS for HSBC China and Regional Head of Product Management for Asia Pacific. He is a frequent speaker on digital money, CBDCs and tokenized deposits at Sibos and the Singapore FinTech Festival.
Subscribe to The Drop
%201.png)
%201.png)
%201.png)
%201.png)
%201.png)
