Walter Gontarek

Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer, Channel

^{Walt previously founded and served as global head of credit products at the Royal Bank of Canada and has worked in the City and on Wall Street in various senior capital markets roles. He also served as president of a retail banking platform in the US. Walter holds a doctorate in finance from Cranfield University and an MBA (Finance) from NYU Stern, and has published in leading academic journals on risk governance issues. Walt is a visiting fellow of Cranfield University where he lectures on risk governance and regulation, as well FinTech developments. He serves on financial services companies’ boards and was a named a financial market expert by PRIME finance at its inaugural meeting at the Peace Palace, The Hague in 2012.}