Advisory Board - Australia

Bianca joined J.P Morgan in 2013 and has recently moved back to Sydney after being based in Hong Kong for five years.

In January 2021, Bianca assumed the role of Head of Wholesale Payments, Australia and New Zealand. The Wholesale Payments business encompasses payments, receivables, liquidity, FX, account services, channels, escrow, trade and merchant acquiring.

As Head of Wholesale Payments for Australia & New Zealand, Bianca is responsible for driving business strategy and growth. In the rapidly evolving payments landscape, she oversees new product development and innovation, business P&L, client acquisition and retention, client experience, market positioning and overall business governance. She manages a team across Sales, Product, Client Service and Implementations and key partners including Operations and Technology.

Prior to her current role, Bianca was APAC Head of Business Transformation for Wholesale Payments. Delivering regional strategic initiatives including digitalization and client experience, the integration of Treasury Services, Trade and Merchant Acquiring into Wholesale Payments, billing and pricing transformation and overseeing the culture and people agenda for the APAC Wholesale Payments business. Bianca has also held roles running the APAC escrow business and in-business controls teams.

Bianca and has over 20 years of corporate and investment banking experience and holds a Bachelor of Economics from Macquarie University, Bachelor of Law from the University of New South Wales. She is married with 2 daughters. 

Vanessa is an experienced Non-Executive Director and ‘C suite’ executive with 25 years’ experience in government, large corporations and the not for profit sector, with specific expertise in finance, strategy and transformational change. Excelling in roles spanning general management, change management, innovation, strategy and organisational development, Vanessa has outstanding leadership and business turnaround abilities and builds high level strategic and stakeholder relationships.

Vanessa is currently the Chief Operating Officer of the Australian Banking Association responsible for the development of the strategic direction of the association and optimising the business operations including governance, finance, HR, risk and technology. Vanessa joined the ABA following 3 years leading the YWCA NSW, one of Australia’s oldest charities. Vanessa led a team of 300, through a merger of 10 small entities, from a federated structure to become a national organisation.

Prior to the YWCA, Vanessa spent 16 years with the Commonwealth Bank in several executive roles spanning Strategy, Property, HR, Finance and IT. Responsible for developing a number of business strategies and leading complex change and cultural transformations including the Branch Refurbishment Strategy (2003), the Sydney Metro Corporate Accommodation Strategy (2005), the relocation of 4500 employees to Sydney Olympic Park (2006/8), the relocation and adoption of activity based working by 6200 employees(2010/11), the development of an innovation strategy including new capabilities (Design Thinking, Experimentation, Agile, Data Analytics and Lean Productivity) and creating the Wired for Wonder conference, Unleashing Innovation Fund and Innovation Lab (2012/14).

Vanessa’s last role with CommBank was General Manager, Organisational Development - responsible for developing and implementing culture, diversity, talent, leadership and capability strategies, aligned to the people strategies of the Technology, Finance and Bankwest lines of business, ~14,000 employees.

Vanessa is currently a Non Executive Director of Variety the Childrens Charity and Driveabout World (an Edutech start up) and serves as a Judge of the Eureka Prize.

Carolyn is an experienced leader with more than 20 years in the technology sector, including extensive international experience within the fintech, and payments sector.

For more than 20 years, she has been actively supporting brands to amplify their presence in relevant markets, within GoCardless, Braintree, PayPal, eBay, Vodafone, and Telstra has seen her sharpen her knowledge in technology, payments, fintech and digital transformation.

Carolyn’s effervescent personality has naturally enabled her to become a sought-after keynote speaker locally and internationally. She is passionate about creating opportunities for businesses in the region, within areas such as the future of payments and automation. She’s an advocate for workplace diversity and is focused on creating an inclusive working environment. Her primary goal is to empower organisations to drive inclusion and equality through technology and choice.

Her astute leadership and professionalism have resulted in Carolyn being awarded one of CEO Magazine’s IT and Telecommunications Executives of the Year in 2018 and again in 2020 as finalist for Service Professional of the Year. Carolyn is recognised as one of Business Insider's top 20 Women in Fintech and receiving the prestigious 'Advocate for Woman' award at the 2019 Women in Payments symposium.

Nish Dharmaratne is the Global Head of Product for Global Transaction Banking business at Westpac Institutional Bank based in Australia. In her current role she covers Core Payments, New Payment Solutions, Cross Currency Payments, Domestic & International receivables, Corporate Commercial Cards, Merchant Acquiring , Liquidity solutions and Balance Sheet Management.

Prior to Westpac, Nish has over 23 years of experience in banking across Australia and Asia. She led GTS business in Singapore for Citibank in her most recent role. She has held various roles with Citi leading regional businesses in Liquidity, Payments, Investments, Client Solutions and Relationship Management.

She has a Bachelor of Banking & Finance from Monash University, Australia, Postgraduate from Chartered Institute of Marketing , UK & Master of Business Administration from University of SriJay, Colombo.

She has also completed the High Potential Leadership program at Harvard University & Women In Leadership program at UCLA, USA.

Jackie is the Head of Payments Industry within Institutional Digital Banking at ANZ. Commencing her career in consulting, Jackie spent 4 years with TP3 (formerly Tactics) consulting to ANZ for a range of projects, including ANZ’s Institutional cash management platform transformation from 2007-2010. Jackie joined ANZ in 2010, and has worked in several roles across Product, Innovation and Industry. Within these roles, Jackie has managed payment product portfolios, and supported the development and management of ANZ’s strategy, standards, and thought leadership in the Industry. Jackie’s strengths include a depth of payments knowledge and experience, combined with a collaborative, and strong customer centric approach.

Monique offers 30 years’ experience in Banking and Finance in Australia. She commenced her career with Citibank, before moving into search in 1992.

To further broaden her experience, Monique spent 12 months in-house with a Big 4 trading bank driving growth within a key business division.

Monique joined Amrop Carmichael Fisher in 2003, as a Founding Partner and is Head of Practice for Banking, Payments and FinTech in Australia. She has been instrumental with the company’s growth and presence in Financial Services and has successfully completed over 350 Executive and Senior Management mandates with a comprehensive network of contacts.

Deeply entrenched in Banking, Payments and FinTech, Monique offers deep market insights in a period of scale and transformation within the Australasian Payments landscape.

Enthusiastic about helping her clients achieve their strategic goals, her focus is creating and building teams to lead, transform and evolve.

Felicity Blake is the Country Manager for FIS New Zealand. Felicity brings more than 20 years’ experience in the payments industry to the role, where she is based in Auckland, New Zealand. Her key focus is developing relationships to build strategic partnerships in the complex environment of payments technology. Felicity is well connected with the payments industry, both in New Zealand and internationally. Felicity is a leader in driving thought leadership, and as an active member of Payments New Zealand, she brings her global knowledge and expertise to the local conversation on payments innovation in the region.

Felicity is a passionate advocate of diversity & inclusion and regularly contributes to programs in this area