
Steering Committee
Open51 has a continually growing membership of senior women working across the open finance sector. The Group is governed by a Steering Committee, whose members are:
Amy Kroviak
Amy is a global corporate communications and brand strategist, advising businesses on the delivery of effective communications and engagement strategies that support growth and deliver brand value. She was Head of Stakeholder Engagement at the UK’s Open Banking Implementation Entity for two years, managing the development of an evolving ecosystem committed to delivering open banking enabled products for SMEs and consumers. Amy helps clients navigate and take advantage of opportunities arising from new, open data technologies transforming the financial services sector. She works with fintechs and financial services companies as well as regulators, government and other stakeholders to help ensure this transformation is inclusive, sustainable and robust.
Emma Steeley
Emma has spent the last fifteen years of her career working in senior executive positions within the ever-changing consumer finance sector. During her various tenures, she has demonstrated enormous success, always leading with a clear vision and an instinctive, savvy intellect.
Joining AccountScore at its very inception in 2016 as Commercial Director, Emma has catapulted the company from strength to strength. She was responsible for a number of highly successful initiatives, including AccountScore’s partnership with Equifax; its implementation for HSBC, bringing new innovative products to market and its geographical expansion into the USA.
It is with extensive experience of the finance and technology sectors and an innate passion for the benefits of Open Banking as a Service (OBaaS®) offerings, that she took on the role of CEO at AccountScore, as the company continues to consolidate its market leading position under her seasoned leadership.
Felicia Meyerwitz-Singh
Felicia is CEO and Co-founder of Akoni, a multi-currency cash and deposit management platform, providing specialist SME solutions and B2B2x cash marketplace solutions to banks and other enterprise clients for their end-customers. Akoni uses multiple data sources including open banking/open data, to personalise financial products, providing nudges and prompts, removing the lack of transparency and creating hassle-free movement of funds. The company is an award-winning and FCA regulated, partnering with various banks, wealth platforms and financial institutions in addition to channel partners – providing a marketplace within marketplace solution for our white label API or portal solution for B2B2x.
Lana Abdullayeva
Lana is a global, strategic advisor on digital strategy and innovation. A scientist by education, strategist by experience and visionary by heart, over the past decades Lana has held several senior roles in the financial services sector, successfully driving transformational changes across the industry. With her inspirational leadership and disruptive thinking, Lana has built high-performance teams and led several businesses through critical change programmes - helping them achieve key business objectives.
Lana is passionate about driving innovation and expanding the traditional boundaries of the financial services footprint in the growing world of open data and the digital revolution. She works collaboratively with industry pioneers, regulators and market leaders advising and shaping future services that contribute to the success of the financial services industry in the UK and globally.
Neeta Mundra
Neeta is a senior executive with a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a commitment to driving business outcomes. She has over 19 years of global banking and insurance experience and a deep understanding of technology and financial services. She recently won the "Exceptional Women of Excellence" award at the Women Economic Forum.
In addition to her full-time role at Salesforce, Neeta is non-executive director and on the board of Young Women’s Trust (UK), on the committee of Women in Banking and Finance (Head Women on Board programme), and a mentor with the Cherie Blair Foundation. She is very passionate about technology disruption, transparency in financial services, open banking/finance and regularly appears in various panel discussions. She is an angel investor in fintech startups and is particularly interested in women-led fintech startups.
Sam Seaton
Sam is CEO of Moneyhub, the Open Finance platform for customer-centric organisations and a leading player in the field of financial data aggregation and intelligence. Before joining Moneyhub, she worked for global advisory firms and innovative financial forecasting businesses. She is also one of the ten industry representatives in the steering group on the Money & Pensions Service's Pensions Dashboards Programme. Sam is passionate about the power of technology to help consumers achieve better financial outcomes.
Ylva Oertengren
Ylva has extensive experience of building and managing operations in the financial services sector. After working in global and UK financial institutions, Ylva co-founded Simply in 2017, the aim of which is to create the perfect customer journey that allows SMEs to access funds to realise their potential. Since launch, Simply has established itself among the top 50 UK asset finance companies.
Ylva is also focused on promoting young talent, diversity and innovation. She leads the Leasing Foundation’s Innovation Initiative and runs seminars on innovation through design, technology and culture. In 2019, Ylva founded The Network to bring together women across the alternative lending sector. She was awarded "Innovator of the Year" at the 2018 Women in Credit Awards, and "Leading Woman of Auto and Equipment Finance" at the 2019 IAFN Awards.