Team Europe | On 15 June 2017

CFTE is building the education platform to equip finance professionals with a comprehensive understanding of the digital shift that is dramatically transforming finance.

Technology is transforming Finance and is having a huge impact on jobs. This impact is both threatening traditional jobs and creating new opportunities. CFTE wants to foster the latter.

What is CFTE?

CFTE utilises m-learning and adaptive learning technologies to deliver courses aimed at up-skilling finance professionals in a rapidly changing industry being transformed by emerging technologies. The curriculum is being designed with inputs from an exceptional advisory and academic board and through consultations with banking institutions, start-ups, Fintech experts, and technology leaders.

“Artificial Intelligence and automation are rapidly transforming finance, and have a huge impact on jobs. For finance professionals, this could be seen as a threat to their jobs, but we think that there are great opportunities for those who acquire the right skills.” according to Huy Nguyen Trieu, Co-founder of CFTE and CEO of The Disruptive Group

The first modules will go live in September and will incorporate online modules and in-class learning delivered by world-class experts. You can register HERE.

Who is behind CFTE?

CFTE is building a global network of academics and industry experts to design the curriculum and deliver exceptional content. The company was founded by Fintech expert and ex-bankers Huy Nguyen Trieu and Tram Anh Nguyen. Fintech experts Claire Calmejane and Janos Barberis joined as early board members of CFTE.

It also recently announced the nomination of five new board members, all with outstanding credentials who are world-renowned experts in their fields. Gillian Cribbs and Sylvain Kalache join the advisory board, while Prof Andrei Kirilenko, Prof Douglas Arner and Prof Karim Lakhani join the academic board. As a collective, the board will enhance CFTE’s capabilities to deliver on its mission to provide professionals with a lifelong education in finance.

Huy Nguyen Trieu, said:

“We are building a global platform to help finance professionals adapt to Finance 2.0. This has never been done before, and having the views of world-class experts from Hong Kong to London to Boston to the Silicon Valley will be extremely valuable to CFTE.”

• Biography
• Mission

• Executive coach at the London Business School and former Management Editor of the Financial Times, Gillian Cribbs has an in-depth understanding of organizational dynamics and the central role people play in contributing to business success.

  She runs her own firm, Credo Consulting, and is an experienced coach of Clevel leaders across a broad range of sectors and industries in Europe, the US, Asia, Middle East and Africa. She combines an outstanding ability to communicate complex messages about leadership and organisational development with a deep understanding of the challenges facing companies navigating technological disruption. In addition to LBS, she is an associate of Said Business School, Oxford, and IMD, Lausanne. Gillian is also an organisational psychologist and contributor to Harvard Online.




• Her involvement will ensure people remain the focus of CFTE’s mission to educate the next generation of finance professionals by emphasizing employability and lifelong learning.

• Biography
• Mission

• Kerry Holding Professor in Law at the University of Hong Kong, Prof Douglas Arner has a unique knowledge of regulation and law in finance, both in Asia and at a global level. Andrei and Douglas will help CFTE with standards of academic excellence and provide insights into the impact of technology and regulation in finance.

  Douglas Arner is an internationally recognised expert on financial regulation. He has worked with regulators in countries across Europe, Africa and Asia Pacific on issues relating to developing appropriate policy and regulatory environments for financial innovation, financial stability and economic growth. He has worked with the World Bank, Asian Development and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on financial sector reform. At HKU, he co-founded the Asian Institute of International sFinancial Law as well as masters programmes on financial law and regulation.




• In looking to the future of finance, perhaps the greatest challenges will arise in respect of human capital. This is the core focus of CFTE, and I am very pleased to be part of this initiative

• Biography

• Director of the Centre for Global Finance and Technology at Imperial College London, Prof Andrei Kirilenko has developed an unparalleled understanding of how technology is impacting finance from his extensive experience as a scholar and regulator.

• Biography
• Mission

• Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Prof Karim Lakhani is at the forefront of crowd-sourced innovation and is a board member of Mozilla. He is also the Principal Investigator of the Crowd Innovation Lab and NASA Tournament Lab at the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science and the Faculty co-founder of the Harvard Business School Digital Initiative.

  In addition to academic acclaim, Lakhani has worked in sales, marketing and product development roles, giving him a well-rounded perspective of the practical applications of cuttingedge research to real world settings. Lakhani received his Ph.D. in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his research has been published in leading academic and mainstream publications.




• Digital innovation and transformation is impacting all sectors of the economy and finance is at the forefront of this generational change. This transformation is impacting value creation, value capture and operating models of incumbent organisations and arming entrepreneurs with new opportunities. CFTE will be at the forefront of understanding the new skills needed to survive and thrive in this changing economic landscape.

• Biography
• Mission

• Co-founder of Holberton School, Sylvain Kalache is a school builder pioneering new models of education in Silicon Valley that aims to train and grow thousands of programmers. Together, Karim and Sylvain will be instrumental in building the CFTE platform and leveraging its technology and ecosystem to deliver new and innovative methods of teaching at scale.

  Sylvain has extensive experience working in the software industry. Prior to Holberton School, he worked as a Software Engineer in Silicon Valley for a decade. In his first role, as a Site Reliability Engineer at the start-up SlideShare, he supported the infrastructure that served 3 billion slides every month, leading the company to be acquired by LinkedIn. He took over a Senior Software Engineer position at LinkedIn where he notably co-created the automation framework, Skynet. Sylvain’s experience provides him with a 360 view of the needs of the technology and business community.




• The next generation of successful companies will all be driven by Software innovation, the Finance industry is obviously part of this. In that context, it is critical to train the next generation of Finance professionals on Software skills, and most importantly to guide them into a lifelong learning experience. CFTE is aiming to this, and I am delighted to be part of it!

“CFTE is a bold initiative to bring the right finance and business skills to emerging global leaders at the right moment in their careers. I have no doubt that it will act as a powerful catalyst for many individuals, organisations and businesses and am delighted to be joining the centre as it launches its first programmes”, said Gillian.