Quant CEO to address global CBDC implementation at FT’s Digital Assets Summit next month

Gilbert Verdian to speak alongside the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada.

21 March 2022

Our CEO Gilbert Verdian will be speaking on a panel at the Financial Times’ Crypto and Digital Assets Summit in London on 26 April 2022. The session - entitled CBDC Leaders: How much global coordination are we seeing? - will also feature Timothy Lane, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada; Charlotte Hogg, CEO, Europe at VISA; and Thomas Hardjono, CTO of Connection Science and Technical Director at MIT. The FT’s Gillian Tett, Chair of the Editorial Board and Editor at Large, will moderate the discussion.

This landmark summit will be taking part over two days - both online and in person. It will feature central bank leaders, banks, asset managers, institutional investors, fintech leaders and the crypto community. Quant is proud to be part of this critical conversation with the world’s global financial and corporate elite, as they carve out the path ahead for bridging traditional finance and the fintech leaders of tomorrow. Keynote speakers include François Villeroy de Galhau, the governor of Banque de France; Ravi Menon, Managing Director at the Monetary Authority of Singapore; and Christine Moy, former Global Head of Liink, Crypto & Metaverse at J.P. Morgan.

The debate around how CBDCs will work in practice has raged for months with many questioning how central banks will adopt a scalable, secure and operationally robust distributed ledger. There are wider questions about the long term prospects for coexistence with the currently unfettered world of cryptocurrency and stablecoins. How do the central banks envision that this will work in practice? Can central banks simultaneously create a decentralised network whilst achieving macro policy objectives?

Gilbert’s perspectives are informed not just by his vision for Quant and the importance of interoperability but also by his more than 20 years of cybersecurity experience and C-level accountability as a CISO, CIO and CTO. He has worked in government - for Downing Street, HM Treasury, the Cabinet Office, Ministry of Justice and NSW Health – and has also served in the private sector, at Mastercard, Vocalink, CSC, EY, PwC, BP and HSBC. With a keen interest in disruptive technology, Gilbert established the Blockchain ISO Standard TC307 initiative in 2015 and is the Convenor of the the Interoperability working group WG7 for ISO.

To find out more and register for the event, visit the FT Live site