As the president and chief executive officer for The Western Union Company, Christina Gold is responsible for the financial and overall operational performance of the $4.9 billion company - a worldwide leader in money transfer, bill payment and prepaid services. Based at Western Union's global headquarters in Englewood, Colorado, Gold has executive management oversight of a network of over 335,000 Agent locations in more than 200 countries and territories. In addition, she oversees an employee base of 6,000 people located in 44 countries.

Prior to joining Western Union in May 2002, Gold was president and chief executive officer of telecommunications and e-commerce services provider Excel Communications. She also had a distinguished career with Avon, where she served as president, Avon North America, and was credited with a significant turnaround of the cosmetic brand's U.S. business. Gold was recognized in 2003 and 2006 by Fortune magazine as one of America's 50 Most Powerful Women in Business. Gold was recognized in 2007 by Forbes magazine as #56 on its annual "100 Most Powerful Women" list. BusinessWeek also named her as one of the top 25 U.S. managers in 1996.

Gold serves on the board of directors of ITT Corporation and New York Life, and is a member of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy and Global 50.

Gold is a graduate of Carleton University in Ottawa. She received the Award of Distinction - Faculty of Commerce & Administration from Concordia University in Montreal. She also received the "Batisseur," an honorary degree from the Professional Business School of Montreal, in recognition of her distinguished service to the business community.

Azad is working as Dy. Director and Head, FInancial Services in Grameenphone. The Financial Services unit is responsible for strategic initiatives in remittance, payments and other opportunity in the domain. Prior to this, Azad was the Genaral Manager and Head of New Initiatives and was responsible for Data, VAS, Content, Payments & mCommerce, Information & Consultation Services and Strategic Initiatives. He also worked Head of IS/IT Architecture, Business Processes and Governance for Grameenphone. He has academic background in Business Administration and Engineering. He served in diversified industries like FMCG, Manufacturing and Telecom industries in senior management and strategic roles for more than 17 years.

Andy works in the international mobile payments team at Vodafone Group, a new department set-up to build on the success of the M-PESA service in Kenya. He is responsible for driving forward various strategic developments for Vodafone in the emerging m-financial services market, including international remittances. Andy joined Vodafone in 2006 and previously worked as a strategy consultant at Fathom Partners and Spectrum Strategy Consultants. Andy has an MA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University.

David Porteous is the founder and director of Bankable Frontier Associates (www.bankablefrontier.com), a niche consulting firm based in Boston, Massachusetts USA. The firm specializes in three practice areas in the financial sector: the application of technology to financial services, housing finance and performance measurement for financial institutions. Clients include telco and private banking groups, financial regulators, bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors and private foundations. He also sits on the Strategy Committee of the CGAP Technology Program and the Vodafone-Nokia Social Impact of Mobiles (SIM) Panel.

In 2007, he directed a project involving collaboration between DFID, CGAP and GSM Association which diagnosed the regulatory and policy environment for mobile and branchless banking across a range of developing and transition countries and led to the publication of a CGAP-DFID Focus Note on "Regulating Branchless Banking."

In previous capacities, David has been employed in an executive capacity in public, private and public-private financial entities. All these roles have involved developing or supporting innovative approaches to the extension of financial services, including several m-banking initiatives.

David has a B.Comm (UCT), M.Phil (Cambridge) and Ph.D (economics) (Yale).

He is married to Rebecca and has two sons.

Dominic read Geography at the University of Oxford and pursued postgraduate studies in demography in Mexico between 1973 and 1976.

From 1976 to 1996, Dominic worked in the Corporate Finance Division of Kleinwort Benson Limited, the UK Merchant Bank. His merchant banking career embraced the full range of corporate finance activities: mergers and acquisitions, IPOs and secondary offerings (equity and debt), capital reconstructions, project financings and privatisation advisory work in the UK, mainland Europe, South East Asia and Latin America. In 1997 Dominic moved to the UK National Audit Office where he worked as a consultant on the forensic audit of the privatisation of Railtrack PLC. In 1998 he moved into financial supervision first with the Building Societies Commission and then, from 1999 to 2000, he worked for the Financial Services Authority as a supervisor of retail financial institutions.

Since 2000 he has worked as a Policy Advisor in the Wholesale and Prudential Policy Division of the FSA. Dominic's policy responsibilities include Operational Risk, professional indemnity insurance and outsourcing but his major area of expertise covers electronic money, e-banking, mobile banking, and electronic and cross-border payment services. He was responsible for implementing into UK Law the European Union Directives on the regulation of electronic money. He also advised the European Commission on the application of e-money regulation to payments by mobile phone. He has also worked on the prudential and technical side of the Payment Services Directive.

Gavin Krugel is a Director at the GSM Association and leads the Mobile industry's Global Mobile Money Transfer Initiative, the initiative includes 40 Mobile operators representing more than 100 markets and 1 Billion consumers. Gavin is also the Managing Partner and majority shareholders in TroyTyla - a specialist Mobile Financial Services advisory firm.

Gavin is one of the forefathers of Mobile Banking and is seen to be one of the few leading experts in the Mobile Financial Services in the world. Gavin has been behind some of the best known mobile banking implementations in the world. Gavin has 12 years of extensive experience in Global Payment Systems banking products field. He has helped develop, implement and manage several successful payment products and solutions. Gavin's career includes banks such as Standard Bank, Absa Bank and Investec Private Bank in South Africa as well as Global companies such as MasterCard World Wide and EDS.

Gavin advises organisations worldwide on payments strategies, systems and products. He is seen as an industry expert on global payment systems and the products that drive them. He has specialised in extending the payment franchise to mobile for the past 6 years.

Gavin is currently completing his Masters Degree at the Management College of Southern Africa.

Dr Hans Wijayasuriya is currently the Director/Group Chief Executive of Dialog Telekom Plc. Dialog Telekom, the largest market capitalized company on the Colombo Stock Exchange, operates Sri Lanka's leading mobile phone network - Dialog GSM, and is also a leading provider of Fixed Line, Broadband, Digital Television and International Telecommunication Services. Dr Wijayasuriya graduated from the University of Cambridge UK in 1989. He subsequently obtained his PhD in Digital Mobile Communications from the University of Bristol UK in 1994. A Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institute of Engineering Technology UK, Dr Wijayasuriya also holds an MBA from the University of Warwick UK.

Dr Wijayasuriya has published widely on the subject of digital mobile communications, including research papers in publications of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) USA, Royal Society and the Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEE) UK. He has also presented papers at several International conferences on digital mobile communications.

Dr Wijayasuriya is a past Chairman of GSM Asia Pacific - the regional interest group of the GSM Association representing 22 Asia Pacific member countries. He was also the recipient of the CIMA-Janashakthi Business Leader of the Year Award for 2003.

Ignacio Mas is an Adviser in the Technology Program at CGAP. Prior to joining CGAP in September 2007, he had been VP of Marketing and Account Management at interTouch (an NTT-DoCoMo Group Company), Director of Global Business Strategy at Vodafone Group, and Senior Manager responsible for telecoms investments in Europe at Intel Capital (Intel Corp's venture capital arm). Ignacio has been a Visiting Professor of International Business at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. He holds undergraduate degrees in mathematics and economics from MIT and a PhD in economics from Harvard University.

Marina has 10 years of experience in dealing with regulatory issues on behalf of the telecoms industry. She worked on a European Commission project providing the regulatory analysis for accession negotiations of Eastern European countries in the field of telecoms. On behalf of the European mobile industry, she undertook successful lobbying tasks towards European institutions on m-commerce related issues such as mobile payments, data protections, copyright, etc. Biggest achievement was to work on the exemption from the E-money directive for the European mobile industry and to promote the interests of the European mobile industry in the discussion of the Payment Services Directive in the EU. She has completed the Sloan Fellowship Programme at London Business School. She currently provides regulatory consulting to GSM Association on mobile money transfers.

Mark Pickens works with the CGAP Technology Program. He contributes to CGAP's initiative on regulation of branchless banking and works with the Technology Program's MFI, bank, and mobile operators partners. Before joining CGAP, Pickens consulted to MFIs and banks with microfinance programs in Bosnia, Cambodia, and Madagascar. Pickens has a master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University.

Mr. Cirasino, joined the World Bank in July 1998 and is Head of the Payment Systems Development Group of the Financial and Private Sector Development Vice Presidency (FPD). Mr. Cirasino has participated in many of the group's significant country and regional interventions and has been involved in payment system reforms in 45+ countries. Mr. Cirasino has been representing the World Bank on the BIS CPSS Task Force that developed the Core Principles for Systemically Important Payments Systems (SIPS); the CPSS-IOSCO Task Force that developed the assessment methodology for the Securities Settlement System Recommendations; the CPSS-IOSCO Task Force that developed recommendations for Central Counterparties, and the CPSS Working Group that developed guidelines for national payment system development. Mr. Cirasino is also the Co-Chairman of the World Bank-CPSS Task Force which issued the General Principles for International Remittance Services. Mr. Cirasino worked at Banca d'Italia in the Payment System Department from 1993 to 1996, and, later on, in the Representative Office in New York.

Mohsen Khalil is a joint Director at the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the Global Information and Communication Technologies Department, one of the first Global Product Groups formed out of the integration of the World Bank and IFC. In this capacity, Mr. Khalil is in charge of all the World Bank Group's activities in the area of telecommunications and information technologies worldwide. This would involve advisory work to governments on sector reforms, regulatory frameworks and institutional capacity building, in addition to supporting private investments in developing countries.

Prior to this appointment, he was Director of IFC's Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa Department. He also served IFC as Chief Investment Officer in the Telecommunications, Transport, and Utilities Department.

From 1989-1992, Mr. Khalil completed project financing for a wide variety of industries in Hungary, Poland, and the former Czechoslovakia as part of IFC's Europe Investment Department. From 1986-1989, he was a Task Manager in the World Bank's Telecommunications Division of the Industry Department, and in this capacity advised governments on sector reforms, privatization, and network expansion financing in the Middle East and Africa.

Before joining the World Bank Group, while also a Professor of Business at the American University of Beirut, Mr. Khalil served as Chief Advisor to the Lebanese Minister of Post and Telecommunications, Board Director of Lebanon's Autonomous fund for Housing, and advisor to various governments and major corporations in the Gulf. He also worked with McKinsey & Co. Management Consultants, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and MITRE Corporation.

Mr. Khalil holds a M.Sc. from MIT Sloan School of Management, a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, a M.Sc. in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a B.Sc. in physics from the American University of Beirut.

Within France Telecom - Orange since 2005, MK Woo is charge of developing mobile payment and mobile contactless services to be deployed throughout the countries where the Group operates.

He is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications. He started his career in the UK working on very large defence communication projects. He then joined a consultancy as a practice director. His last position was director at a French interbank organisation specialised in new electronic payment systems.

Dr. Nav Bains is the GSMA Project Director for the NFC and the "Pay-Buy Mobile" (M-Payment) initiatives. Nav has over 17 years experience in the telecommunications industry and has successfully managed a number of large communications projects. Prior to GSMA, Nav has worked for LogicaCMG and ICO Global communications.

Peer Stein heads IFC's group for Financial Infrastructure and Institution Building. As Business Line Leader for Access to Finance (A2F), he is overseeing and supporting IFC's technical assistance and advisory services in financial markets world-wide, including SME banking, housing finance, microfinance, leasing, securities markets and energy efficiency finance. As of June 2007, IFC had a total of 180 active A2F advisory services projects in over 90 countries. Further, he is leading IFC's and the World Bank's advisory work in financial infrastructure, specifically supporting the development of credit bureaus to support greater access to finance in developing and emerging markets as well as managing the World Bank's Payment Systems Development Group. While having global responsibilities, his recent work included Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Eastern Europe, Vietnam, China, Afghanistan, Central America, Colombia, and Brazil.

Peer Stein joined IFC in 1996 to establish the Corporation's Extended Reach Office in Mongolia. Subsequently, he moved to the Financial Markets Sub-Saharan Africa Department as an Investment Officer, focusing on financing urban and rural microfinance institutions, risk management facilities and credit lines for banks, as well as capital markets development. He then moved to Global Financial Markets, where he started IFC's Global Credit Bureau Program and acted in his last position as a Principal Investment Officer and Financial Specialist for retail banking. In this position, he has worked among others with financial institutions and state-of-the-art technology providers to adapt financial, information and communication technologies to the business needs of banks and non-banks in emerging markets and transition countries.

Prior to joining IFC, Peer Stein worked in Germany as a management consultant in enterprise restructuring, and as a partner in a strategic market research firm covering Eastern Europe. He holds a Masters degree in Economics and Business Administration from Witten/Herdecke University, Germany's first private university.

Dr. Victor Dostov, 44, is managing partner and Board member of Paycash group, which for 10 years deals with technological development, investments, operating and consulting for hi-tech payment systems in exUSSR and worldwide. PayCash group operates and provide licenses for Yandex.Money, Mobile.Wallet, iDealer (Russia), Cyphermint Inc (US) and other companies in Europe and Africa. Main areas of PayCash business are internet and mobile retail payments as well as automatic payment kiosks.

Victor also is a member of Russian National Electronic Trade Association, Electronic Payment Taskforces in Central Bank and Infocommunication Union. He is co-author in two books on electronic payment regulation and author of numerous articles. Being involved in retail e-payment development in Russia from very beginning, Victor is one of leading analysts in local regulation and technology issues.