Cyber Finance Summit 2025

Chief Executive Officer, MFSA

Kenneth Farrugia

Kenneth Farrugia, CEO of the MFSA, holds a Bachelor of Accountancy (Hons), an MA in Business Ethics, and is a Certified Public Accountant and a fellow member of the Malta Institute of Accountants (MIA). Throughout his career, Mr Farrugia held audit positions both within private audit firms and the public sector. Prior to joining the MFSA, Mr Farrugia was the Director of the FIAU, Malta’s financial intelligence and single AML/CFT Supervisor and Enforcement Unit in Malta, for six years until April 2023. During his tenure he implemented major policy, system and procedural reforms within the various sections of the FIAU, including intelligence analysis, AML/CFT supervisory and enforcement initiatives, and legal and international relation areas. Additionally, Mr Farrugia spearheaded the setting up of new teams within the Unit such as the cash limitation supervisory team, the central bank account registry and data analytics team, as well as the strategy, policy and quality assurance teams to cater for new responsibilities assigned to the FIAU by law, and also to enhance the overall governance structure of the Unit. He represented the FIAU in international fora, including the EBA AMLC, FIU Platform and EGMONT, amongst others, and participated in various AML/CFT high-level committees. For nine years up to 2017, he was engaged within the Government of Malta’s Internal Audit and Investigations Department (IAID) where he held various roles, including that of Director General. Mr Farrugia provided support to the Internal Audit & Investigations Board (IAIB) in drafting policies and procedures, implementing and managing the necessary change programmes and served as Secretary to that Board. He also participated in various meetings, seminars and conferences organised by the European Commission in the fields of auditing and financial investigations. Mr Farrugia is currently also the Chairman of the FIAU.

Chief Officer Supervision, MFSA

Christopher Buttigieg

Dr Christopher P. Buttigieg was appointed as Chief Officer Supervision in March 2020 following his appointment as Chief Officer Strategy, Policy and Innovation in 2019. During his tenure as Head of Securities and Markets Supervision before 2019, which stretched over four years, Dr Buttigieg was responsible for work in the field of policy, regulation and supervision of securities, markets and FinTech. He joined the Authority in 2000 as Manager in the Investment Services Unit and has gained professional experience in various areas of financial regulation, supervision, the investigation of market misconduct and the enforcement of sanctions. Dr Buttigieg was responsible for implementing various pieces of EU legislation in the field of securities and markets and has led different regulatory and supervisory teams within the Authority. He sits on the Authority’s Supervisory Council and represents the MFSA at various European Fora on financial regulation and supervision. He is the MFSA’s alternate member on the ESMA Board of Supervisors and is the Chair of the ESMA Data Standing Committee. Dr Buttigieg is a lecturer in the Banking and Finance Department of the University of Malta and has published various papers on financial regulation and supervision in academic and professional journals. For a period of two years, up to April 2015, Dr Buttigieg was a director on the board of the Malta Resources Authority, Malta’s energy regulator. In 2015, the President of Malta appointed Dr Buttigieg as a member on the board of the Fund for Voluntary Organisations. Dr Buttigieg is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Academy of European Law (Trier).

Chief Operations Officer

Ivan Zammit

Ing. Ivan Zammit serves as the Chief Operations Officer at the Malta Financial Services Authority, where he oversees and strategically leads operational, technical and corporate services functions. Having depth of experience in technology development, technical and commercial operations, and business management, he combines his passion for innovation, employee and customer experience to spearhead MFSA’s ongoing strategic initiatives related to digital transformation. Ivan also contributes to strategy and policy development on several other areas at the MFSA such as Fintech, ICT risk and operational resilience within the financial services sector. He has held several senior leadership roles across the technical, commercial and business development domains throughout a 25-year career in the private sector prior to joining the Authority in 2020. Ing. Zammit holds an Honours Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University of Malta and a Master’s in Business Administration from Henley Business School, UK.

Head, Financial Stability, MFSA

Mirko Mallia

Mirko has more that 20 years of experience in national regulatory institutions, including the Central Bank of Malta and MFSA. He is an economist specializing in financial stability research and data analysis. He actively participates in ESFS working groups and represents the Malta Financial Services Authority in meetings with international stakeholders like the IMF and credit rating agencies.

Head, Supervisory ICT Risk & Cybersecurity, MFSA

Alan Decelis

Alan brings over twenty years of experience in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), mainly with the Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) including ten years in information security. He is a member of the National Cybersecurity Strategy Steering Committee and sits in various groups within the European System of Financial Supervision and the EU Agency for Cybersecurity. He has direct industry experience in ICT operations and service management, quality and security management systems, public key infrastructures, identity and machine-readable travel documents, and electronic signatures. He is also experienced in cyber incident management, forensic investigations, security testing, threat intelligence, and security operations centres. Alan pursued undergraduate studies in Electronics Engineering, Economics, Information Systems and Management and postgraduate studies in Information Security specialising in Security Testing and Digital Forensics. He is also GIAC, CISA, CIPP/E, CIPM, ITIL, and ISO/IEC 27001 certified.

Deputy Head, Supervisory ICT Risk & Cybersecurity, MFSA

Christopher Aquilina

Christopher Aquilina has accumulated twenty years of work experience in the Information Technology sector. He had the opportunity to work in several departments within this field that range from assembly and support to overseeing some of the biggest digitisation projects that the Government of Malta undertook in its modernisation efforts. Most of Aquilina’s work experience is in Information Security, having contributed to policy work at European level, Chairing the Horizontal Working Party of Cyber Issues during the Maltese Presidency, and occupying several managerial and consultative roles. He is currently the Deputy Head at the Malta Financial Services Authority’s Supervisory ICT Risk and Cybersecurity Function where his mandate includes overseeing ongoing supervision across the Maltese financial services sector.

Assistant Manager - Supervisory ICT Risk and Cybersecurity, MFSA

Matthew Ben Hamed

Matthew Ben Hamed is an Assistant Manager within the Supervisory ICT Risk and Cybersecurity function at the Malta Financial Services Authority, where he has been working for nearly three years. His primary focus is on the workstream handling Threat-Led Penetration Testing initiatives under the DORA Regulation. Matthew holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business and IT and currently pursuing a Master of Science in Cybersecurity, both from the University of Malta. Additionally, Matthew holds the CompTIA Security+ ce Certification. With a strong academic background and professional qualifications, he actively contribute to strengthening the financial sector's resilience to cyber threats and ensuring compliance with evolving regulations.

Assistant Technical Expert, Financial Stability, MFSA

Giacomo Anesi

Giacomo Anesi joined the MFSA in 2021 and currently holds the position of Assistant Technical Expert within the Financial Stability Function. In this role, he focuses on identifying and evaluating emerging risks within the Maltese financial sector, with a particular emphasis on the Real Estate market. Prior to his tenure at the MFSA, Giacomo gained valuable experience at the European Central Bank (ECB), where he contributed to the systemic risk surveillance of the euro area.

Insurance Commissioner, Florida Office of Insurance Regulation

Michael Yaworsky

Michael Yaworsky has served as Florida’s Insurance Commissioner since March 2023. Commissioner Yaworsky oversees one of the largest and most complex insurance industries in the world - over $209 billion in regulatory oversight. Commissioner Yaworsky focuses strongly on enforcement and has taken action to increase market regulation compliance, including securing millions in restitution and fines. The Commissioner also strives every day to attract more business to Florida and has welcomed over a dozen new property and casualty insurers into the state’s recovering market.

Senior Expert on Supervisory Oversight

Andrea Vetrone

Andrea is a senior expert in EIOPA’s oversight department. He led the team in charge of EIOPA’s DORA implementation project and was secretary of the Joint Committee sub-Committee on Digital Operational Resilience tasked to implement DORA at European level. Finally, he is Chair of the Operational Resilience Working Group at the IAIS (International Association Insurance Supervisors). Andrea joined the EIOPA Oversight Department in 2018 working with EIOPA’s members on prudential supervisory issues, after experiences in Big4 and a large multinational insurance group dealing with projects relating to the operations (and the operational risks) of complex and large financial entities.

Head of IT, Operational Risk & Resilience, ECB

Francisco Garcia-Martin

Francisco Garcia Martin joined the European Central Bank in 2014 for the preparatory works of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). During the last 11 year, he has been serving in different positions in ECB banking supervision, and started as Head of IT, Operational risk & resilience in 2021. His job includes the development of policies, supervisory methodologies, and tools around the supervision of IT Risk and Operational Resilience for the ECB. He is also the Chair of the SSM Network on IT Risk Supervision.

Senior Cybersecurity Policy Expert, ENISA

Jurgita Skritaite

Jurgita Skritaite, Senior Cybersecurity Policy Expert at the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), drives the Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2) implementation efforts in key critical sectors. In the finance sector, she leads collaboration with the European Supervisory Authorities to align NIS2 and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). With 20 years of European Union regulatory experience, she builds sector resilience and champions cybersecurity maturity across Europe.

Founder & CEO, Merqury Cybersecurity Limited / Professor of Quantum Physics, University of Malta

André Xuereb

André Xuereb is founder of Merqury Cybersecurity, an innovative company that operates in between quantum technologies and cybersecurity; a full professor and researcher of quantum physics at the University of Malta; and Malta’s Ambassador for Digital Affairs. He holds degrees from the University of Malta and the University of Southampton.

Senior Policy Specialist, BoE

Orlando Fernandez Ruiz

Orlando Fernández is a Senior Technical Specialist at the Recovery, Resolution and Resilience team in the Prudential Policy Directorate of the Bank of England (BoE). He has been with the BoE working on a range of policy areas for 13 years. In his current role, Orlando focuses on cyber, operational resilience and third-party risk management. In that capacity, Orlando was one of the key architects of the new regime for critical third parties to the UK financial sector, which was developed jointly by the BoE/Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA); and PRA Supervisory Statement on ‘Outsourcing and third-party risk management’ (SS2/21), On the international front, Orlando has represented the BoE at the Financial Stability Board (FSB) where he was a major contributor to the third party risk management toolkit for financial authorities and financial institutions published in 2023, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, where he was part of the expert group that developed the draft Principles for the sound management of third-party risk published earlier this year and the European Banking Authority (EBA) expert group that produced the 2019 Guidelines on Outsourcing.

Head of the BIS Cyber Resilience Coordination Centre

Randy Miskanic

Randy Miskanic leads the BIS Cyber Resilience Coordination Centre, bolstering central bank cyber resilience globally. He previously held senior cybersecurity roles at BNP Paribas, National Australia Bank and UBS after a 20-year law enforcement career. Additionally, he taught graduate-level cybersecurity as a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University.

Senior Advisor, Cyber Risk and Operational Resilience, BoE

Tryfonas Theophilou

Tryfonas Theophilou possesses extensive experience in the financial services sector, currently serving as a senior cyber and operational resilience advisor at the Bank of England since 2020. Previously, Tryfonas held strategic roles in consulting, banking, and fintech, overseeing the management of cyber risk and operational resilience.

Senior Policy Manager, DFSA

Aksel Movsisyan

Aksel represents the regulatory world. He has spent 15 years working for regulatory authorities in three countries and another 5 years in doing risk management consulting for banks in the UK and EU. He specialises in prudential regulation, fintech and currently leads the operational resilience agenda, as a senior policy manager at Dubai Financial Services Authority.

Manager (AI Supervision and Market Surveillance), MDIA

Neil Micallef

Neil Micallef leads AI supervision at the Malta Digital Innovation Authority, with a focus on implementation of regulatory frameworks on trustworthy, human-centric AI. He contributed to AI Research at CERN in Geneva and in local critical infrastructure projects, holds a Master’s in AI with distinction, and is a researcher in computer vision and biomedicine.

Senior Policy Officer, Digital Finance Unit in the European Commission’s, DG FISMA

Boris Petru Augustinov

General Manager, Reserve Bank of India

Sailaja Rani Jampala

By qualification Sailaja Rani Jampala is a double post graduate in Statistics (M.Sc) and Information Technology with specialization in Banking technology (M.Tech) and with 22 years of rich experience in the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the areas of Banking Operations, Banking Regulation, Banking Supervision, Financial Inclusion and Coordination with International Organisations like FSB, BIS, WB and IMF.

DORA Joint Oversight Director, ESAs

Marc Andries

Marc Andries is the DORA Joint oversight Director for the European Supervisory Authorities leading the new mandate for the oversight of critical ICT providers to the European financial sector. He previously worked for the French supervisory authority and has extensive experience in ICT risk and payment security in international settings.

Commander of the Investor Protection Group, Currency Police Special Unit, Guardia di Finanza

Leonardo Ricci

Colonel Leonardo Ricci is the Commander of the Investor Protection Group within the Guardia di Finanza’s Currency Police Special Unit. Serving as Guardia di Finanza officer for over 30 years, Colonel Ricci has been in charge of field and airport Units, tax and financial crimes Special Units in northern, central and southern Italy, staff roles within the General Headquarter in Rome, training of the Inspectors in the Guardia di Finanza’s School and the Terrorism Financing Investigation Group within the current Special Unit. Colonel Ricci has is graduated in Law, Economics and Political Sciences and speaks fluently English, Spanish and German.

Sr. Security Specialist, Microsoft

Dimitrios Patsos

Dimitrios Patsos is a distinguished cybersecurity leader with over two decades of multifaceted experience across industry, academia, and global professional communities. In his role as Enterprise Security Executive at Microsoft for Europe South, he advises governments and large enterprises on secure digital transformation and responsible AI adoption at scale.

Chief Officer Financial Stability & Statistics Division, CBM

Alan Cassar

Alan Cassar has over 20 years of experience in regulation across different industries. He currently holds the post of Chief Officer for Financial Stability & Statistics at the Central Bank of Malta, overseeing financial stability, risk management, crisis response, and macro-prudential policy. He is also responsible for the Bank’s statistical operations and platforms. Alan sits on several high-level committees on both local and European levels.

AI Professor at OPIT and Georgetown University & Principal AI Strategist at Amazon

Zorina Alliata

A strategist and professor with over a decade of experience in AI, Zorina Alliata specializes in designing enterprise-scale AI solutions for the financial sector. Currently pursuing her PhD in AI in Finance, her work focuses on developing robust AI frameworks that bridge cutting-edge technology with practical and responsible financial applications.