Having knowledge of a bigger picture allows us to adapt to disruptive events or forces in business. In the last few decades, few events have been as globally and locally disruptive as the COVID-19 pandemic. Mark is presenting key highlights from the Forrester’s research which are sure to get you thinking about how your business can adapt to the current disruption.

Mark joined Experian in February 2015. Prior to that, he spent 20 years in the Information Technology sector running high-performing sales teams.

Mark holds a BCom (Hons) degree from the University of Witwatersrand, and MBA from the University of Cape Town, and postgraduate executive qualifications from Columbia University in New York and Harvard Business School.

Mark was awarded the EMEA Sales Director of the Year Aware 2016 and the EMEA People Leader of the Year Award in 2018.

His current role at Experian involves leading the customer-facing integrated sales teams that engage with clients across all industries in South Africa as well as being a member of the Experian Africa leadership team as Chief Customer Officer.

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed our way of living. It also changed our financial circumstances; many South Africans are worse off financially and struggle to make ends meet. This directly impacts the ability of consumers to repay their credit commitments. Therefore, I want to highlight how to determine whether consumers are willing to repay but not able to due to financial distress caused by the pandemic.

Nerietha started her career after graduating, obtaining a Master's degree in Quantitative Risk Management. She joined WesBank, where she later joined FNB and worked there the majority of her career as a quantitative analyst. Nerietha moved to the analytics team in Experian as a Scoring Specialist in April 2020. She specialises in credit analytics and has had opportunities to work across the credit life cycle, getting to understand how all the different components fit in like a puzzle. She enjoy analytics just as much as reading, music, art and a good movie!

As the world has radically changed recently and will continue to do, we feel that it is crucial to be able to understand consumers and SMEs' differently in order to stimulate economic growth. The way to do this is to build an alternative view of people or companies that looks at behaviours, preferences and choices. By working collaboratively with partners, we are looking at using consented and secured data to build these scores to enhance all risk recommendations and enhance our insights offerings.

Corporate journeyman with a passion for entrepreneurship, innovation and bringing relevant products and services to the market. Paul has worked in FCMG, Financial Services and the Entrepreneurial world for 25 years across all over Africa, Asia and China. Currently, Paul is running the innovation platform for Experian Africa in order to bring opportunity to life.

Open Banking, Regulatory Changes, A.I., Blockchain and RPA have all enabled limited disruption to the traditional banking sector over the last couple of years. During this period, many financial institutions have been looking at Digital Transformation with a renewed focus on Customer Experience to balance some of this disruption. In addition, many of the larger banks have established massive funds to identify up-and-coming disruptive products to either invest or purchase these disruptive products outright. Up till now, the disruption has been limited, but the convergence of technologies and regulations, together with the accelerating digital transformation effect of a global pandemic, sets the scene for massive disruption in the customer experience space. A new generation of wallets and related products are waiting to take advantage of this convergence, and this will cause a fundamental rethink in how people bank and how banks provide services.

Martin is the CEO of Global Kinetic, a software development company based in Cape Town established in 2005, with a subsidiary in Palo Alto, USA. He leads an executive team with approximately 100 engineers, to deliver near-zero defect code to clients; mostly in the financial and banking space. Global Kinetic has won many awards for their Fintech clients, including Gold at the American Business Awards in 2018. Martin has extensive experience in software engineering and all aspects of technology, people, process, business management and innovation. He holds a B. Comm (Honours) in Information Systems (UCT).

Open banking is the future globally - the drive for established Banks and Financial Services to open their API's (Application Programming Interfaces) and share more data is a scary prospect for most. Nick highlights how this does not have to be the case and shows some examples of where this has been embraced and how sharing of data can actually benefit all stakeholders involved. Nick will show how Open Banking can lead to beneficial partnerships to support Financial Inclusion in Africa and make the customers bespoke needs central to all future decisions.

Nick Tuttelberg is a Senior Global Consultant working within Experian Decision Analytics' Global Consulting Practice (EMEA).

Prior to joining Experian, Nick was Business Development Director at TransUnion for eight years.

His work included Consulting and Partnering with various Listed Groups to offer value-based Analytical, Software and Technology solutions – Specialising in Financial Services, Insurance, Telco (MNO) and Motor. Nick has over 20 years' experience in optimising value across the customer's value chain using predictive analytical tools, I.T. solutions and various sources of alternative data.

Nick was initially responsible for setting up the SME Commercial Analytics Consulting Division within TransUnion in 2009, and today this division has a sizeable market footprint. Nick was the top-performing Director in the TransUnion Africa region for three consecutive years.

Prior to TransUnion, Nick worked for R.C. &C Finance (part of JSE listed Reunert Ltd) in the role of Credit and Operations Executive Director for the Group, where he was responsible for Credit Policies and Key projects within the Group. He managed a debtor's book of over R1,6 billion and was responsible for implementing one of the first Automated Decisioning Systems (FINSIGHT) into the SME Asset Based Finance market with a fully integrated Rules Based Scorecard.

Nick also held Senior Credit Positions at Standard Bank and Nedbank Ltd.

There are two ways in which business can adapt; either incrementally by making small changes over time, or radically, by adapting to a sudden disruption. Bringing 3 decades of experience in business, Howard will discuss how COVID-19 has forced our hand, how we are at the start of an evolutionary adaption to the new ways in which we do business and interact with customers, and how we can use that to improve the customer experience.

Howard Blake has served as Chairman, Executive Director and CEO of companies across the BPO (business process outsourcing), data, software and technology industries. A respected entrepreneur, he has successfully started 16 companies across 4 continents, being true to his vision of data-driven business combined with using technology to disrupt.

Howard was a finalist in the Ernst and Young, World Entrepreneur Awards, he has appeared on CNBC Africa, in Entrepreneur Magazine and the African Business Journal.

Over 3 decades, he has pioneered and developed the South African BPO industry, the country's largest converged consumer database and platforms for consumer digital engagement. Along the way, his vision has helped over 30,000 people launch their careers.

More recently, Howard has broadened his focus to sharing his knowledge in a changing world through advising companies on sound strategies in adopting effective transformative digital processes.

In a very different world, we have “new” customers and clients who view the world and brands very differently. Trust is now centre stage, and loyalty re-defined. Sarina discusses how these changes have impacted our client relationships and expectations and explains how marketers can respond with purpose.

Sarina de Beer has two Master's degrees in Psychology and Research Psychology. She started her career as a lecturer at the University of Pretoria, where a driving ambition was born to become a respected researcher. This drive flourished at Ask Afrika where she managed to create a synergy between business consulting and research. Sarina has successfully blurred the lines between research and the consultation of business-driven clients to ensure that they derive commercial value from research. And – as businesses face much larger, more complex challenges, impacting their ability to drive excellence – Sarina is focused on helping to enable businesses to become and remain relevant. Her focus is on better navigating client pain points, understanding how this affects them and directing her clients with understanding and context.

Together with her team, Sarina is focused on understanding the "why" around research strategy, instead of the "what" by taking a futuristic outlook when it comes to research strategy. Businesses are facing dynamic challenges in achieving excellence and, therefore, Sarina believes it is critical to help them remain relevant in an increasingly complex market, through guiding them with real understanding and context. This approach has ensured the differentiation of Ask Afrika by delivering research projects that enable decision-making.

Market segmentation is the next step to understanding your customers' life stage as well as their financial wellbeing. Experian's Consumer Insights lets you keep in contact with your customer dynamically as their needs evolve, both from a credit and non-credit product point of view. Get ready to walk the journey in your customer's shoes.

Thivern started his journey in the retail credit space in banking, where he focused on pricing and profitability. Since joining the consulting world, he focused on creating value for his clients throughout the credit and non-credit life cycles. He now heads up the Consumer Insights division for Experian S.A. and is constantly looking for new ways to expand the business to offer consumer insights to non-credit and credit clients alike.

Today's benefit is tomorrows expectation – today's astute consumer is not only aware of what is out there but also how to leverage loyalty in a seamless and efficient way. Corporates need to, therefore, pivot to accommodate the evolving and demanding consumer.

As a payments and loyalty executive, Nivan has not only had the opportunity to work across notable multinationals across several geographies, but has also started a payments and loyalty business that has successfully attracted big brand clients like MasterCard, Diners Club, and Shell.

It was once said that “There are decades when nothing happens… and then weeks when decades happen”, and so it came to pass with 2020. Now, as we begin to reach out, post-COVID, how should we communicate and lead our businesses into a new landscape? Where should we best focus, engage, align, and adapt our practices? ?In this engaging presentation, Michael Jackson will provide plenty of food for thought and a sense of the right direction. Jackson is a sought-after global speaker who engages his audiences and enables them to understand better how to deal with the complexities delivered by the modern world

As a keynote speaker Michael Jackson has already applied his communication and marketing expertise to audiences at over 2 700 conferences and events across 46 countries.

An informative and inspiring speaker on innovative human and business change, he has addressed world leaders, and global CEOs yet is equally as comfortable with sleeves rolled up speaking at factory floor level.

Passionate about what he does, Jackson creates and delivers outstanding, memorable and company personalised speeches, and is also is available to attend your entire event as an expert, experienced on-stage conference facilitator or interviewer.

Combining immediate, up to date stories of market-relevant business information with the historic, current and future dynamics of business change, Jackson ensures his audiences become completely engaged, think differently and are better able to react to the complexities brought by massive, constant change.

Michael Jackson delivers a powerful set of messages, expertly weaving your story into his materials and creates maximum impact with any audience.

There is no "going to back to normal". There is only NOW & NEXT. Survival through innovation has been forced on us because adoption of and adaptation to technology is faster than we ever thought it could be.

Over 10 years in 14 countries at 700 conferences Ryan Hogarth has effectively illustrated a world where technology and humans meet and work to create a world dramatically different to what came before.

Traditional affordability assessments for consumer credit applications are typically long, confusing and require significant documentation. The modern consumer wants quick and easy applications with near-instant approval. How can this be achieved without sacrificing decision accuracy and incurring additional bad debts? This session will provide an overview of obtaining and interpreting digital affordability data, with a focus on identifying employment income in transactional data.

Nick Burnett is an Analytics Manager for Experian Scoresharp and has ten years of experience in credit risk and predictive modelling. This includes designing machine learning models, credit policies and data processes for fully digital application systems. He has a degree in Electrical Engineering from Wits, a Postgrad Diploma in Enterprise Management from UCT, and certificates in machine learning and A.I. from Columbia and MIT.

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Eric Haller is the Executive Vice President and Global Head of Experian DataLabs. Experian DataLabs is responsible for developing innovative products generated from break-through experimentation leveraging artificial intelligence and data assets from a variety of sources. He led the creation of labs in the US, UK, Brazil and Singapore that support research & development initiatives across the Experian enterprise. New products developed in the labs cover mobile, payments, consumer & commercial credit, fraud, targeted marketing & healthcare. Prior to Experian, Eric was responsible for new products with Sequoia Capital backed Green Dot where he created and brought to market the first credit card a consumer could purchase off of a j-hook in a retailer. Eric also co-founded identity fraud detection business iDawg which was later renamed ID Analytics. ID Analytics was acquired by LifeLock which is now part of Symantec. Other roles held by Eric includes Chief Marketing Officer of the first publicly traded machine learning company, HNC Software (acquired by FICO) and executive roles with Visa & MasterCard. Eric has a B.S. in Finance from San Diego State University and an M.S. in Technology Management from Columbia University in the City of New York; he is also a member of the University's School of Professional Studies Board of Overseers.