4th Data Management Forum

CEO, Block.co, Cyprus

Alexis Nicolaou is a professional with over 25 years’ experience in C-suite positions in Accountancy, Finance, Electronic Banking, Electronic Banking Software, Media, and Electronic Content Production industries. He currently also serves on the board of Directors of Grant Thornton Cyprus’ Distributed Ledger Technologies business unit. Alexis is a Fellow Member of the ICAEW, has a MSc from University of Nicosia in Digital Currencies and Blockchain Technology and a BA (Hons) degree from the University of Nottingham in Industrial Economics and Accountancy.

Business Analysis Professional Speaker and Trainer, Champagne Collaborations, USA

Jamie Champagne is a certified business data analytics professional, holding a master’s of science in information systems from Hawaii Pacific University where she continues to teach information systems courses. An accomplished speaker, author, and trainer, she has published on business analysis and change management. Her courses are published on Pluralsight and LinkedIn Learning and she’s an active member in the Speakers Association of Hawaii, PMI, and IIBA. And when she’s not consulting on exciting change work, you can find her with her family on the Hawaiian waters on a surfboard.

Manager, Data & Analytics, KPMG in Cyprus

Vanja Radivojevic is a Manager in the Data & Analytics team of KPMG Cyprus. She holds a BBA (Finance) from Baruch College, CUNY and MSc (BI and Data Analytics) from CIIM. Vanja is involved with Data Analytics projects in finance, insurance, FMCG industries among others. She is responsible for delivering advanced analytics and BI solutions to companies in Cyprus, CIS region and Africa. Vanja has extensive prior experience in the field of finance having worked in Private Wealth Management with Goldman Sachs in New York; structuring/originating debt instruments in the emerging markets, and trading financial products in Europe, NYC & Asia.

Manager, Digital Transformation Advisory, KPMG in Cyprus

Zaher Reda has over a decade of experience specializing in digital transformation, business process automation, agile transformation, and customer experience design with applied advisory experience at global organizations in EMEA and APAC. His focus is on transforming business operations and creating new digital business models by leveraging insights, methodologies, and relevant digital technologies to drive growth, competitive advantage, customer value/success, and resiliency.

Christina Kokkalou is the founder and Managing Director of IMR/University of Nicosia™, one of the leading Data Analysis and Strategic Consultancy organizations in Cyprus. With over 25 years of industry expertise, Christina has partnered with top-tier organizations, including major banking institutions, to deliver impactful, data-driven strategies that align with the complex demands of the financial sector. Under her leadership, IMR has been at the forefront of digital transformation, establishing a Market Business Intelligence unit. This unit offers innovative, customized solutions through advanced real-time and predictive analytics, enhancing customer experience, strengthening the bank’s public image, refining market positioning, and enabling precise customer profiling and segmentation. It also supports the development of new products and services, ensuring that financial institutions remain agile and responsive to market demands.

Managing Director, Mobile Loyalty Technologies Ltd, UK

Nick Chambers is an expert in digital customer engagement. He has over a decade of experience in consumer & enterprise internet technologies working closely with leading merchant, service & point-of-sale providers. Previously, Nick has held senior positions with Avios, AIMIA & Shell. He is entrepreneurial with extensive experience in start-up & early life businesses. Experienced in providing services & technology in all aspects of consumer loyalty & payments from strategy & planning through technical implementation, he helps clients build stronger consumer relationships using emotional engagement & data insights. Nick is the Managing Partner of Customer Strategy Network, the leading global network for loyalty marketing practitioners.

CEO, Status Match, Malaysia

Mark Ross- Smith is the CEO of StatusMatch and known as one of the worlds top loyalty commercialization experts. Mark has run airline loyalty programs, consulted and advised across airline, hotel & telco industries. Mark is a publisher, author and intl speaker on loyalty commercialization, and runs the industry thought-leadership community traveldatadaily.com.

Chief Product & Data Officer, OutThink, UK

Dr Shorful Islam has a PhD in Psychology and is the Chief Product & Data Officer at OutThink, the world’s first predictive human risk management solution. He also runs his own analytics consultancy (Subatomic Analytics) and serves as Chief Data Scientist for Tribal Worldwide. He has worked at, and advised, some of the world’s largest organisations on data analytics/ science. Prior roles have included, Managing Director and Cofounder at Stream Intelligence (Data Science Consultancy) Managing Partner at Wunderman, Head of Data at adam&eve/DDB and Head of BI and Customer Data Strategy at ITV.

Chief Technology Officer, SmartStream Reference Data Utility, USA Roque Martinez is the CTO for SmartStreams Reference Data Utility. He is and he has been a member of leadership teams in financial technology and telecommunications. His focus is leading digital change through technology and creating opportunities for new products and services. When not creating new products and services for RDU, I am an Associate in Columbia’s Technology Management Program. I am currently developing services to provide digital disruption for financial services firms, which need to reduce the effort and time necessary from trade to settlement. I am a proud alum of Columbia and Fordham University.  

Senior Engineering Director & Head of Data Science at Meltwater, Lecturer at Oxford University, UK

Tim Furche is the Senior Director for Engineering at Meltwater, the leading global media intelligence company. In his role he manages teams on four continents that are collaboratively responsible for ingesting and enriching over 1 billion documents per day, from Tweets over reviews to news articles from all over the world. Before Meltwater, he co-founded Wrapidity, a data extraction startup that built a patented AI crawler used to extract billions of rich records from hundreds of thousands of sources which has been acquired and integrated into Meltwater. He is also a Lecturer on big data and data management at the University of Oxford.

IMR/University of Nicosia™ is an industry leader in the fields of market research, social impact research and strategic consultancy. It manages one of the largest market portfolios across Cyprus, which includes collaboration with Financial Institutions, ICT Companies, Commercial Enterprises, Government Services and Semi-Government Organizations. The Organization offers its clients an innovating 360o business intelligence solution, which allows for real time data reporting and management. The Organisation’s team of experts begin by comprehensively assessing each client’s unique needs, vulnerabilities, and objectives. ΙMR/University of Nicosia™ excels in providing clients with actionable insights backed by data-driven analysis. By harnessing the power of advanced analytics and industry-specific expertise, the Organization delivers precise recommendations that enable clients to make informed strategic decisions. This data-centric approach not only enhances their competitive edge but also empowers them to adapt swiftly to market dynamics, ensuring sustained growth and success.

Kaniklides is a distinguished company in the provision of Document and Records Management Services. Kaniklides is constantly evolving and expanding by investing in both technical and human resources, monitoring developments in the field and evaluating the constantly increasing needs of its customers for their digital transformation. Kaniklides is renowned for the successful implementation of projects of major complexity that require ad-hoc Project Management. The company's very successful course in the Cyprus market in recent years is attributed to its flexibility and ability to adapt quickly to the operational needs of its customers, to assign timely the necessary resources for the implementation of the projects it undertakes and to continually invest in the development of human resources and its expertise. Our vision is to help Organizations realize the value of managing their physical or digital sources of information. We aspire to serve our clients in defining and implementing their digital transformation strategy. We are committed to providing solutions that deliver the value our partners, employees and society expect.

KPMG has been operating in Cyprus since 1948 and currently employs more than 800 professionals working from 6 offices across the island. It is a member of KPMG International Limited, a global organisation of independent professional services firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. KPMG operates in 143 countries and territories and has approximately 273,000 people working in member firms around the world. Clients look to KPMG for a consistent standard of service based on high-order professional capabilities, industry insight, local knowledge and expertise.

GOLD was first published in 2011 as the first monthly English-language business magazine in Cyprus. Today, it not only consistently promotes good business practices, focusing on the promotion of Cyprus as an international business centre, but has a unique readership, comprising High Net Worth Individ­uals, executives of international companies, and English-speaking Cypriot and non-Cypriot busi­nessmen and women.

As the flagship publication within IMH’s media brands, IN Business magazine, has a 16-year history, during which thousands of examples of good business practices by businesses and businesspeople, brands, commercial practices and developments have been showcased. The aim of IN Business was – and continues to be – the promotion of good Cypriot business. www.inbusinessnews.com

REPORTER has made a splash in Cyprus’ digital media thanks to its combination of news and reporting the latest developments through its own exclusive brand of people-centered and social reporting. Following its launch, within a very short period of time Its team of journalists had made it the third most viewed news Portal in Cyprus.