Team
Samarth Shekhar is the Founder & MD of TechFluence and co-founder of FinTech Forum, the first and largest community for FinTech in Continental Europe.
Samarth was named to the Wall Street Journal/ Financial News FinTech 40 “40 Innovators Shaping the Future of Finance“ in 2014. TF Lab partners with financial institutions, investors and established tech firms to help scale and fund leading Enterprise FinTech firms addressing "real and present" challenges and opportunities in European financial services- especially in capital markets and regulatory compliance in Europe. The 270+ startups that have presented at over 17 FinTech Forum / On Tour events so far have gone on to raise €320M+ in funding, and resulted in exits worth €300M+ so far. Samarth was nominated a judge of the BBVA OpenTalent (2014) and SWIFT’s Innotribe Startup Challenge in 2014 and 2016, and is regularly invited to speak at leading industry events, including: - SIBOS / Innotribe (2014, Boston; 2016, Geneva) - Money20/20 Europe (2016 and 2017, Copenhagen) - Financial News / WSJ.D "Bank of the Future" (2014, London); "Asset Manager of the Future" (2015, London) - Fund Forum International (2016, Berlin) - Innovate Finance Global Summit (2016, London) - DVFA FinTech Forum (2015 and 2016, Frankfurt ) - FinTechStage (2015, Milan) - NextBank Europe (2014, Barcelona) Prior to founding TechFluence, Samarth worked in sales and business development at Capgemini Deutschland, HCL Tech / Deutsche Software (a Deutsche Bank JV), OrbiTech (a Citigroup tech spin-off) and PwC India (E-Business & DW/BI advisory). Samarth holds degrees in BE (Computer Science, BIT Mesra) and MBA (Strategy & Marketing, IIM Calcutta) and is fluent in English and German. Connect on LinkedIn | Twitter |
Michael Mellinghoff is the Managing Director at TechFluence UK Ltd. and a Senior Advisor and Mentor at FinTech Forum.
Michael is a seasoned investment professional with over 15 years of experience, spanning both the traditional banking and fintech world. Michael’s career covers a 10+ years span in traditional banking, where he held a variety of managerial positions in asset management and investment banking in Germany and abroad, including management board and supervisory board appointments in Commerzbank Asset Management and DZ Bank Group. Since 2010, Michael has been working in the Fintech area, including a 3+ years experience as Managing Director with German Fintech pioneer sharewise.com, a stock centric community for investors, Michael’s experience gives him unique insights into the financial markets scene and ability to scout new trends in the financial sector. At TechFluence Michael heads the firms activities in the UK as well as spearheading the initiatives in digital investment management globally. He acts as a mentor to several startups as well as FinTech accelerators (Startupbootcamp Fintech and Level39). He launched the FTF On Tour | InvestTech event (London, Sep. 2015) and the FTF On Tour | Robo Advice (Berlin, June 2016) as well as co-initiated the DVFA FinTech Forum series of the German Association of Investment Professionals. His focus areas are startups in InvestTech & digital assets. Michael has a degree in business administration at University of Bayreuth. @Mellinghoff is author of various articles on #Fintech related topics, speaker and contributes regularly to conferences, awards and publications. Michael is an author of @TheFINTECHBook and member of the editorial board of The Journal of Digital Banking. Connect on LinkedIn | Twitter |