Fit for Artificial Intelligence in Finance

Andrea Barbon works as Assistant Professor in Financial Technology at the Center for Financial Services Innovation at the University of St.Gallen (FSI-HSG), where he teaches “Mathematics for Finance” to Ph.D. students and “Financial Technology” to Master students. He was born in Venice and holds a Bachelor’s degree in pure and applied mathematics from the University of Padua, a Master’s degree in pure mathematics from the University of Amsterdam and a PhD in finance from the University of Lugano. His research interests revolve around financial technology with a focus on decentralized finance (DeFi), NFT markets, asset prices, market microstructure, and monetary policy. He has published in the Journal of Finance and the Review of Asset Pricing Studies.

Markus Schmid is Full Professor of Corporate Finance at the University of St.Gallen, Academic Director of the FSI-HSG, member of the School of Finance and Managing Director of the Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance (SBF-HSG). He is also a Faculty Member of the Swiss Finance Institute (SFI) and Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) in Brussels. He studied economics, specialising in corporate finance, financial market theory and international economic relations at the University of Basel, where he also completed his doctorate in 2004 with a dissertation on executive compensation and corporate governance.

Michel has dedicated his professional career to leveraging AI to generate business insights and deliver tangible impact. Since joining UBS in 2017, his commitment to innovation and fostering a culture of data-driven decision-making has been a key aspect of his contributions to the bank.

Lukas Gonon has been Assistant Professor in Artificial Intelligence in Finance at the Center for Financial Services Innovation (FSI-HSG) and the School of Computer Science (SCS-HSG) at the University of St.Gallen (HSG) since 1 November 2024. His research focuses on deep learning and quantitative finance. His work centres on questions related to the development and analysis of machine learning algorithms, in particular for time series and derivatives pricing and hedging. Lukas has previously worked as a research associate at ETH Zurich, as a postdoc at the University of St.Gallen, as an assistant professor at LMU Munich and as a senior lecturer at Imperial College London. He is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London and has worked for Sony and J.P. Morgan, among others.

Thomas is a professor at the campus in St. Gallen. His research focuses on applications of machine learning in finance. He is an associate member of the «Interdisciplinary Centre for Artificial Intelligence (ICAI)» and holds a doctoral degree from ETH Zürich in mathematics. His collaboration with Josef Teichmann was honoured with the «Swiss Risk Award» in 2020. Previously, he worked for about ten years as a quant specialist in the financial industry. In this role, he was mainly engaged in the valuation and hedging of financial derivatives for major investment banks in the UK, France and Switzerland. Current research interests include asset-liability-management (ALM), derivative pricing and hedging, goal-based investing, automated market making, modelling the dynamics of volatility surfaces, and machine learning.

Martin is an AI Developer Technology Senior Manager (Devtech) at NVIDIA. He obtained a master’s degree in computer science from TU Munich in 2002 and a PhD in discrete mathematics from ETH Zurich in 2006. After his graduation, Martin worked in the high frequency trading industry for almost 15 years. Before he joined NVIDIA, he held various roles in quantitative research and development of low latency trading strategies. In his current position, Martin is responsible for optimizing training and inference of deep neural networks with NVIDIA GPUs for financial services.

Daniel is a Partner in EY’s AI and Data Team in Zurich, driving transformative technology projects and promoting innovation in data engineering and analytics. As a former partner at an IT Services company, he led Product Strategy, increasing market share and pioneering innovative data-driven software solutions. His diverse background also includes roles as an Actuary, Underwriter, and Structurer at a Global Reinsurance company, contributing to his diverse expertise. Daniel holds a PhD in Chemistry from ETH Zurich and a MSc in Physics as well as a BSc in Molecular Sciences from USP São Paulo.

Damian Borth is Full Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland. Formerly, he was Director of the Deep Learning Competence Center at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Kaiserslautern, the Principle Investigator of the NVIDIA AI Lab at the DFKI. Damian‘s research focuses on large-scale multimedia opinion mining applying machine learning and in particular deep learning to mine insights from online media streams. Damian currently serves as a member of the steering group at the VolkswagenStiftung, the review committee at the Baden-Wurttemberg Stiftung, the assessment committee for the Investment Innovation Benchmark (IIB) and several other steering- and program committees of international conferences and workshops. Damian did his postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley and the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) in Berkeley. He received his PhD from the University of Kaiserslautern and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). During that time, Damian stayed as a visiting researcher at the Digital Video and Multimedia Lab at Columbia University.

Claire Corish, based in Zürich, Switzerland, is currently Managing Director – Head of Data Analytics and AI at UBS. She brings a wealth of experience from senior roles at Credit Suisse, Bank of Ireland, EY, and PwC Ireland. In 2023, Claire completed a program at Harvard Business School Online, further enhancing her leadership and strategic expertise.

With a robust skill set spanning management consulting, business strategy, project management, business process improvement, and enterprise architecture, Claire is a recognized leader in driving data and AI innovation in the financial services industry.

Daniel Seiler is the co-founder and CEO of Eqitron AG, an innovative start-up asset manager. Before founding Eqitron, Daniel led Vescore, a boutique at Vontobel Asset Management, where he oversaw systematic and hybrid multi-asset investment solutions, managing close to USD 50 billion at its peak.

In 2009, Daniel became Chief Investment Officer at Vescore, where he played a key role in steering the company’s portfolio and investment management division. Prior to that, he led the hedge fund platform at Swiss Capital Investment AG, managing investment activities across various funds of hedge funds. Daniel began his career as an analyst specializing in sustainable investments in the mid nineties.

Daniel holds a PhD (Dr. oec. HSG) and a Master’s degree in Financial and Capital Markets Theory (lic. oec. HSG) from the University of St. Gallen, where his doctoral research focused on asset pricing and asset allocation. He also earned a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences (dipl. natw. ETH) from ETH Zurich.

In addition to his professional endeavors, Daniel teaches asset management at the University of St. Gallen and the University of Konstanz. He recently published a book titled “Investing for Better” with McGraw-Hill, which explores the key drivers shaping the asset management industry.»

Lukasz Opoka is a Managing Director at UBS Switzerland, where he leads AI, Analytics and Sales Platforms across Private & Corporate Banking and Global Wealth Management. He is accountable for a CHF 140m portfolio and the delivery of large scale Data, Analytics and GenAI initiatives across international markets.

At UBS, Lukasz built and scaled a cross divisional AI delivery organization, launched enterprise GenAI products including the RED AI Assistant, and led the modernization of legacy data platforms into a hybrid cloud and data mesh architecture. Earlier at UBS, he was part of the first P&C Data & Analytics Strategy and co led the first AI Centre of Excellence.

Before joining UBS, Lukasz held senior leadership roles at Commerzbank in Germany and mBank in Poland, where he led major digital banking, CRM and direct channel transformation programms. He has worked in banking and digitalization for over 20 years.