Warwick Finance Network: The Impact of Blockchain

The Warwick Finance Network is delighted to announce that in response to popular demand from Finance Network members, we are hosting a Blockchain Panel Event at our London base at The Shard on Thursday, 25th October, from 6pm.

The event will cover an overview of blockchain and what it is, how it relates to crypto, and how blockchain is impacting across all sectors. The panel will also discuss some tangible use cases within the financial sector and tell you about how you can start working in the blockchain space and making an impact.

The Panel

Kelly LeValley Hunt, Global VP of Sales, BlockApps

Kelly has worked in the technology industry while living in the US, Europe, Africa, South East Asia, and China. Kelly worked with Emerson Network Power, now Vertiv, as EMEA Director of Strategic Accounts leading a team of Mechanical, Electrical, and Software Engineers in the Data Centre industry advising on strategic builds in telecommunication, collocation and managed service sectors.

Kelly’s experience in the technology industry in 2014 heavily influenced her interest in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space as an early investor. In 2017 Kelly invested in and joined BlockApps as Global Vice President of Sales. BlockApps is a leading Blockchain organization based in New York, the first company incubated out of ConsenSys in 2015 with Joe Lubin as a founder and Kieren James-Lubin as Founder and CEO.

In early 2018 Kelly was recognized in Forbes Magazine as a ‘Pioneer’ in Blockchain and Microsoft recognized Kelly with their award for Hypergrowth Innovation Leadership. Kelly is the Vice Chair of the Real Estate Committee within the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. In 2018 Kelly completed a Masters of Business from Warwick Business School specializing in Entrepreneur Finance.

Lory Kehoe, Managing Director, ConsenSys

Lory leads ConsenSys’ Ireland hub. He is passionate about Ethereum enabling a decentralised world.

Prior to ConsenSys, Lory was a Director with Deloitte where he founded, set up and led Deloitte’s Europe Middle East and Africa blockchain Lab. Prior to Deloitte, Lory worked as a management consultant with Accenture. He has over 11 years of consulting experience. Lory has led blockchain corporate and governmental strategy projects, including production / live, pilot and POC projects.

With the IDA in Ireland (Industrial Development Authority), Lory was the founding member of the Ireland national blockchain initiative ‘Ireland Blockchain Expert Group’ (IBEG) and its digital window ‘Blockchain Ireland’. This group includes 50 entities made up of global enterprises, universities, government entities and start-ups.

Lory is a Qualified Financial Advisor, registered stockbroker and is currently (and has been for the past 12+ years) an adjunct assistant professor in Strategic Management and Information Systems Strategy with the Department of Computer Science & Statistics in Trinity College Dublin.

Lior Abehassera, Co-founder & Head of Investor Relations, Leaseum Partners
Lior is a Fintech entrepreneur focused on blockchain technology applied to capital markets & real assets. He co-founded in 2017 Leaseum Partners, the first tokenized Real Estate fund investing in NYC commercial properties, paying dividends in fiat or in cryptos. Former investment banker with a 12-year trading floor experience in London & Paris on equity derivatives & structured products, dealing with a broad range of institutional investors in Europe & Emerging Markets.

Sachin Raoul, Investment Manager at WanLabs (part of WanChain)

After building a technology company in South Africa, Sachin entered the cryptocurrency sphere in early 2017 after being asked to research building a crypto-exchange business. He now co-leads the analysis of projects that enter the Wanchain ecosystem for both investment and partnerships. This means professionally chewing up and spitting out whitepaper's and finding flaws in projects.

Michele D'Aliessi, Investor

The panel will be hosted by Michele D'Aliessi. Michele started his first business at age 17. After graduating in Management Engineering at Politecnico di Milano and studying Technology Entrepreneurship at ETH Zürich he embarked on a self-designed Startups Ecosystems Master working with founders and investors in Silicon Valley. He later designed a new model to evaluate early stage startups' growth potential.

In 2013, Michele started Ympact - a non-profit organization - to educate first time founders on how to navigate the global startup industry. Among other activities, he produced several free startup documentaries available on YouTube covering 6 major European cities and Silicon Valley.

Since 2014 Michele works for tech entrepreneurs, supporting them in getting from zero to one and helping them to scale their business internationally. One of the latest startups Michele has been supporting directly is the bartender-robot Makr Shakr presented at Google I/O, San Francisco. He launched the robot's mobile version at Expo Milano 2015, managed clients relationships, negotiated and closed the first sales contracts while structuring the internal operations and sales to achieve scalability.

Michele now spends most of his time at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, studying the intersection of cutting-edge technology trends (i.e. Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence) and market trends to identify high-potential fast-growing tech startups. He is an angel investor and guest lecturer at several universities and business schools.

Agenda

18:00 Arrival, registration and welcome drinks

18:30 Presentation and Q&A

19:45 Networking over drinks and light snacks

20:30 Event close

Your invitation to participate in a start-up trial
Prior to and during this event, we will be inviting you to trial an exciting new event registration and connectivity platform called Natworks. This start-up is being championed by a fellow alumnus. You will receive an email with registration instructions closer to the event.

There is no charge to attend this event but spaces are limited. Demand is expected to be high and tickets will be offered on a first come, first served, basis, so don't delay in booking your place.

Alumni are welcome to bring a guest, but both your details and your guest's name and details must be registered in advance to guarantee entry. A member of the Warwick Business School Corporate Relations team will welcome you at The Shard on the evening. Please be prepared to show photo ID and allow time on arrival to go through airport style screening.

Please note that this event will be filmed.

If you have any questions about this event, please email business@wbs.ac.uk

KL