Alicia Pertusa

Alfonso Pidal Ligués is Strategy & Innovation: Blockchain and Digital Assets at BBVA, a position he has held since March 2020. In this role, his mandate is focused on strategy and innovation within the blockchain and digital assets domain at the bank.

Prior to his current position, Pidal Ligués served as Growth Manager for New Digital Businesses at BBVA from November 2017 to March 2020, within the marketing function. Alongside his work at BBVA, he holds two concurrent academic positions: Associate Professor at Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, where he has taught on the Computer Science Bachelor programme and served as a thesis mentor since July 2018, and Associate Professor at Universidad Pontificia Comillas since August 2024, contributing to the Master's programme in Financial Technologies covering payments and digital banking. His total professional experience spans over 18 years.

Andrés Fondevila Marón is Head of Digital Assets, AM Global Wealth at BBVA, a position he has held since June 2022, where he leads the blockchain and digital asset strategy for BBVA's Asset Management and Private Banking unit. Since November 2024, he has also served as Board Member of BBVA Switzerland, based in Zurich.

He founded blochub, a blockchain-focused higher education institution based in Spain, also in June 2022. Prior to his current role, Fondevila Marón served as Manager of Global Control and Compliance at BBVA Asset Management from June 2018 to June 2022, with transversal responsibility across all geographies where the unit operated. Before that, he held an income analysis and management control role from April 2016 to June 2018, covering net interest margin analysis and reporting for BBVA's European, Turkish, Mexican, US, and Latin American operations, including operational risk RWA calculations. He joined BBVA's Global GRO Asset Management division in September 2014. His total experience in financial services spans over 17 years.

Diego Del Olmo is Head of Digital Commerce & Marketplaces at BBVA México, with a focus on GMV growth, customer experience, operations excellence, P&L, strategy, and product innovation. He has served as a judge and evaluator of startups at BBVA Open Talent and as a mentor to FinTech startups at Orion Startups Business Accelerator.

Del Olmo holds more than 13 years of professional experience in efficiency and continuous improvement projects within the financial sector, leading projects in process transformation, business model redesign, and the implementation of emerging technologies. His areas of knowledge include digital transformation, digital strategies, the FinTech and blockchain space, investment banking, and fiduciary business. He holds certifications as a Certified Bitcoin Professional (CBP), Certified KPI Professional, Black Belt Six Sigma (ITESM), and ScrumMaster (Scrum Alliance). He completed programmes at MIT and Columbia Business School covering FinTech and digital business strategy. His academic background includes an Industrial Engineering degree with a specialisation in Production and a Master's in Innovation for Business Development (MID) from ITESM, awarded with Honorable Mention of Excellence.

Francisco Maroto is Head of Blockchain and Digital Assets at BBVA, a position he has held since October 2018. In this role, he leads the blockchain discipline across the BBVA Group, drives the company's blockchain and crypto strategy, and acts as Product Owner and Portfolio Manager for blockchain and distributed ledger technology projects within the group. He also represents BBVA externally in the blockchain space and is responsible for spreading blockchain expertise internally.

Prior to his current role, Maroto served as Head of the Swift Global Centre within BBVA's global engineering and operations function, where he led payments and Swift-related projects including SEPA migration, Bizum, and Swift GPI. Earlier in his career, he held roles at OPPLUS as Centralised Foreign Operations Coordinator and worked in financial management at Grupo Dragados. Beyond BBVA, he serves as Treasurer and Board Member at Alastria Blockchain Ecosystem and as an Advisory Board Member at INETCO Systems Limited. Since September 2024, he has taught Digital Assets on the Financial Technologies Master programme at Universidad Pontificia Comillas. He has spoken publicly on digital asset regulation, arguing at the European Blockchain Convention that strong global regulatory frameworks such as the EU's MiCA regulation will provide stability for the digital asset sector and reduce the severity of market downturns. He holds a degree in Business Management and Administration from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a master's degree in International Relations and Foreign Commerce from Aliter in partnership with U.C. Berkeley.

Philippe Meyer is Head of Digital and Blockchain Solutions at BBVA Switzerland, a position he has held since June 2023. In this role, he leads the bank's digital assets activity, which includes crypto services such as bitcoin and ether trading as well as asset tokenisation. He has spoken publicly on BBVA Switzerland's positioning in digital assets, describing the current phase as operational rather than exploratory: the question, in his view, is no longer whether institutions should engage with blockchain-based products but how to execute that engagement. He identifies two distinct market segments — cryptocurrencies (bitcoin, ether and related assets) and digital assets built around token infrastructure — and regards the approval of spot bitcoin and ether ETFs by the SEC as a structural shift in institutional legitimacy for the asset class. He has also highlighted blockchain's utility in payments and transaction settlement as an area of practical application for banks.

Before joining BBVA, Meyer spent four years at Avaloq, where he served successively as Managing Director, Head of Innovation, and Head of Blockchain Solutions between 2016 and 2023. Earlier career experience includes roles at UniCredit and Crédit Agricole CIB. He has operated in parallel as an independent blockchain consultant since 2015. He holds an MSc and an MBA, and is based in Zurich. He is a recurring speaker at industry forums, including the NextGen Payments & RegTech Forum in Zurich.