Ian Benson
Director (Financial Services)
Maclay Murray & Spens LLP (LexMundi member firm for Scotland)

Ian Benson is a solicitor and the Director of Financial Services at Maclay Murray Spens and has extensive and wide ranging experience of acting for financial product providers and intermediaries especially in the banking, payment services and e money sectors.

Ian authors the Authorisation and Permissions chapter in the Thomson Reuters UK Compliance Handbook as well as a number of practice notes for the Financial Services module of LexisNexis’s online legal practical guidance service. He is a regular speaker and author of published articles on financial services issues as well as being ranked as a leading individual in Chambers Legal Directory.

Prior to returning to private practice in 2006 Ian was for many years in house counsel with Aviva Investors and has held roles in industry most recently being appointed last year to the executive committee of the leading industry group The Association of Foreign Exchange and Payment Companies.

He provides expert and practical legal advice and assistance on interpretation and application of law and regulation in relation to client business models and client’s product design/ product cycle for a range of businesses and products including customer documentation and distribution and JV agreements especially for Fintech clients such as notably The Currency Cloud, Santander Bank, PayItSimple and The  World First Group, FSCOM.

Click here for personal bio: https://www.mms.co.uk/find-lawyers/results/Benson-Ian 

 
Gerhard Grueter
Managing Partner
Lawson Conner
Gerhard is co-founder and Managing Director of Lawson Conner where he is responsible for all market and client related activities and shares overall responsibility for the firm’s strategy. He helps clients launch new funds and assists with the navigation through the complex structural and ever evolving regulatory landscape in Europe. He has the external responsibility for engaging with the regulatory markets and for delivering complex client solutions.

Gerhard has a strong background in the alternative investment funds space, both as an advisor and as a principal investor in liquid and illiquid asset classes. His focus is on fund structuring, risk management and capital introductions, in particular through seed investors and family offices in Europe. He is a strong advocate of ‘Fund Launch 2.0’, a concept developed within Lawson Conner and, most recently, implemented through Lawson Conner’s ‘Discovery’ Investment Manager platform. 

Gerhard is a former partner of Ironshield Capital, a distressed debt fund, and a former senior credit analyst at MKM Longboat, a multi strategy hedge fund ($3bn). Prior to Lawson Conner, he was a Vice President in investment banking at Merrill Lynch in London.

Gerhard is a member of the CFA Institute and a CFA Charterholder. He also holds a BA degree in Business Administration and an MBA from Cornell University.

 
Todd Latham
Chief Marketing Officer & Head of Product
Currency Cloud

A bit of a nerd at heart, Todd is genuinely fascinated with how technology is transforming people’s lives for the better. Todd loves nothing more than analyzing data and using the insights to deliver a first rate customer experience, because happy customers are at the heart of what makes a company grow.

Todd has extensive experience in the technology and financial services sectors, where he has delivered marketing, product and customer experience strategies internationally for some of the world’s largest brands like American Express and Microsoft.

 
Adrian Mulryan
Partner
Arthur Cox (LexMundi member firm for Ireland & Northern Ireland)

Adrian Mulryan is a London based funds partner with Irish law firm Arthur Cox. He has extensive experience and understanding of cross-border issues related to the structuring, marketing and distribution of investment products in Europe, particularly ETFs. Adrian has worked in the City since 2003, first in structured finance at Allen & Overy LLP before joining ABN AMRO Bank/RBS as a Director and Head of Retail Issuance (Legal).

Prior to joining Arthur Cox he was General Counsel for Source ETFs where he was responsible for all legal work related to product launches, European distribution, product maintenance and general compliance matters.

Click here for personal bio:  http://www.arthurcox.com/adrian-mulryan/ 

 

 
Guy Norfolk
Partner & Head of Department (Financial Services)
Maclay Murray & Spens LLP (LexMundi member firm for Scotland)

Guy is head of Maclay Murray & Spens’ financial services practice. He began life as a corporate lawyer many years ago, and gradually his practice focussed on asset managers and their products, from which has emerged an emphasis on corporate and commercial work for regulated firms across the spectrum. Guy is at home advising clients large and small on corporate structures and partnerships, commercial contracts and joint ventures, M&A and capital raising, and financial services law. Alongside Ian Benson, he heads Maclay Murray & Spens' FinTech offering. 

 
Richard Wazacz
Head of Labs
Octopus Labs

Richard and the team launched Octopus Choice on the arm of Octopus Labs which he co-founded in 2015. Octopus Choice brings together the existing strengths of Octopus Investments in both distribution and loan origination, and couples it together with a newly developed Fintech capability. Richard has extensive experience from a series of senior strategic and operational management roles across the retail financial services sector – including at Prudential and Lloyds Banking Group. Richard holds a Masters in Engineering from the University of Cambridge and a MBA from Columbia Business School.  He is also a Fulbright Scholar and a Sainsbury Management Fellow.

 
Krzysztof Wojdyło
Partner
Wardynski & Partners (LexMundi member firm for Poland)

Krzysztof Wojdyło is an adwokat and the partner in charge of the New Technologies Practice. He is also a member of the Regulatory and Payment Services practices. He handles matters involving electronic payment instruments, crowdfunding, commercialisation of new technologies, telecommunications, robotics, trading in receivables, and anti-money-laundering. He takes part in major projects relating to new technologies law and regularly advises start-ups as well as large companies from the new technologies sector.

Krzysztof Wojdyło is the author or co-author of publications on crowdfunding, robotics, virtual currencies, and new technologies in the financial services sector, and writes for the banking law journal Monitor Prawa Bankowego. He has often spoken at conferences and seminars, including events organised by the International Bar Association. He runs training sessions for leaders of start-ups and is the coordinator of the regulatory working group of the Coalition for Polish Innovation.

He graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration at Warsaw University in 2005 and is a member of the Warsaw Bar.

Click here for personal bio: http://www.wardynski.com.pl/en/lawyers/art,83,krzysztof-wojdylo.html