Yaniv Gidron

Simone Cortese is Chief Product Officer at Fnality International, the firm building a regulated distributed-ledger-based wholesale payment system that settles in a digital representation of central bank money. He leads the product roadmap for the banks and market participants that use Fnality's infrastructure.

Cortese has more than a decade of experience across fintech, capital markets and academic research. He joined the company to explore the use of blockchain in regulated environments and was closely involved in the formation of Fnality, drawing on both technical and business expertise to shape products for traditional and digital capital markets. He is a frequent commentator on regulated digital market infrastructure, stablecoins and tokenised deposits.

Sveinn Valfells is Co-founder and Chair of Monerium, the Icelandic company that issues regulated euro e-money on blockchain (EURe) and was the first to obtain a license to issue on-chain e-money across the EEA. He previously served as the company's Chief Executive Officer.

As CEO, Valfells led the team that issued the first on-chain euros, dollars, sterling and Icelandic króna, and delivered the first integration of a major payment system (SEPA) with web3, enabling direct transfers of euros between bank accounts and on-chain wallets. He holds a PhD in Physics from Boston University, an MS in Economic Systems from Stanford University, and a BS in Applied Physics from Columbia University.

Floris Lugt is Chief Financial Officer at Qivalis, the Amsterdam-based joint venture formed by ING and a consortium of European banks to launch a euro-denominated stablecoin. He took up the CFO role at the start of 2026.

Before joining Qivalis, Lugt was Lead Digital Assets, Wholesale Banking at ING, and earlier held roles in treasury and financial risk at ING and ING France. He focuses on distributed ledger technology and its applications in wholesale banking, and advocates for industry-wide standards for digital payments and financial market infrastructure across Europe.