London Training Series

I am deputy head of Finance & Strategy and heading the Strategic planning, organization and Innovation management units within the National Bank of Belgium. Prior joinging the National Bank of Belgium in 2018, I worked 8 years at EY managing major transformation within the Financial Sector. Prior to that I worked for the United Nations in Mozambique (2010-2011) Accenture Consulting (4 years). I used to start in the Belgium army as Officer. My education: Master in International Relations, specialized in Ethnic Conflict resolution (University of Brussels & University of London) and Master in Business (Solvay Business School in Brussels).

María J. Nieto is Senior Advisor in the Directorate of Financial Stability, Regulation and Resolution, at Bank of Spain where she has developed her career since December 2000. She is author of several articles on banking, financial stability and regulatory issues that have been published by prestigious peered reviewed journals and she is member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Banking Regulation and the Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance. She has cooperated as consultant with the IMF and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and has worked at the ECB, Council of Economic Advisors to the Spanish President and the IMF. Ms Nieto earned a PhD cum laude from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and MBA (finance) from the University of California Los Angeles.

John Fell is Deputy Director General for Macroprudential Policy & Financial Stability in the ECB. He is also the chair or co-chair of several international working groups - including the Eurosystem’s Macroprudential Policy Group (MPPG), the European Systemic Risk Board’s (ESRB) Instrument Working Group (IWG), and the ESRB’s task force on stress-testing. He is a member of the ECB’s Financial Stability Committee (FSC), the ESRB’s Advisory Technical Committee (ATC), and the Financial Stability Board’s Standing Committee on Assessing Vulnerabilities (SCAV). He led the stress-testing work for the ECB’s “comprehensive assessment” in 2014 as well as EU-wide banking sector stress-tests coordinated by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) (2009, 2010) and the European Banking Authority (EBA) (2011, 2014). His crisis management experience is extensive, including negotiating EU/IMF financial assistance programs in several euro area countries (e.g. in Ireland, Portugal and Spain). Between 2003 and 2010, he was Head of the ECB’s Financial Stability Division, spearheading the inaugural issue of the ECB’s Financial Stability Review in 2004 and directing it thereafter. Before moving to the financial stability area in 2003, he was an Adviser in the ECB’s Monetary Policy Directorate. Prior to joining the ECB in 1998, as a principal economist, he held various positions at the European Monetary Institute (EMI) and the Central Bank of Ireland. John holds postgraduate degrees in Economics (1987) and in Finance (1993) from University College Dublin and Dublin City University respectively, and is a PhD candidate at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. He has published his research in several academic and policy journals.

Kenneth Sullivan's central banking career is built around periods as a senior financial sector expert with the International Monetary Fund and seven years at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand as chief manager of both accounting and corporate services. During his tenure the RBNZ developed new reporting frameworks that won accounting prizes for their transparency and completed a fundamental reorganisation of the bank. Prior to that he provided a financial management information system consultancy, held senior accounting roles in insurance and wholesaling, and worked in education. He has written on issues of central bank financial reporting, capital adequacy, organisation and accountability. 2014 saw publication of the book Financial Independence and Accountability for Central Banks that he edited with Martina Horakova of Central Bank Publications. Whilst at the IMF he represented the IMF on the International Financial Reporting Standards Advisory Council for 7 years and provided advice to over 90 central banks along with a secondment to a London bank working on structured finance.

Anjeza Beja is an experienced financial sector expert currently working as an independent international consultant on central bank issues. She has provided technical assistance to more than 20 countries for the International Monetary Fund related to IFRS implementation and capital adequacy for central banks. She has also worked with the World Bank and Alliance for Financial Inclusion on projects related to payment systems and payment services. Currently, she is working as a Digital Financial Services Lead in Albania for International Finance Corporation.

Previously she spent 12 years with the Bank of Albania, 5 of which as Director of Payments, Accounting and Finance where, among other things, she was in charge of IFRS and IFRS 9 implementation. Before that she worked in the Supervision Department in several managerial positions.

She holds a PhD in Economics from University of Tirana and has a bachelor in Finance, Banking and a bachelor in Law. She has also completed a Leadership Program in Financial Inclusion from Fletcher School at Tufts University.