Expert Insights – Finance

Scotty Perkins is ACI’s Head of Product Management and oversees the company’s banking solutions. In this role, he is responsible for guiding ACI’s banking product modernization strategy and providing leadership vision and direction across the company’s market-facing, product management, and product engineering functions.

Mr. Perkins has more than 30 years of payments, technology, and compliance leadership experience with deep expertise in payments, retail, and consumer financial services. Prior to joining ACI, He served as Senior Vice President of Product Innovation for Quisitive, where he previously led research and development efforts across for Quisitive’s cloud solutions practice and served as Chief Compliance Officer for Quisitive’s Global Payments Solutions business.

Prior to joining Quisitive, Mr. Perkins served as Senior Vice President of Retail Operations and Chief Compliance Officer at PayNearMe. Earlier in his career, he held director-level program management and technology positions at Motorola, Good Technology, and FedEx.

Mr. Perkins holds a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from Cornell University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Southern Methodist University. He also serves as Medical Officer for Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue.

David is the Vice President for Africa Sales sub-region within MEASA reporting to Santhosh Rao, Senior Vice President for the MEASA region.

David has a wealth of experience in the payments industry having worked in payments for close to 36 years. David joined ACI in 1994 as a technical consultant and developer spending extended periods of time working on-site with customers, supporting the deployment of ACI solutions.

In recent years David moved across various parts of the organization, from development and project / program management, into sales leadership roles supporting customers across the Middle East, before taking up his current role at the start of 2023 focusing specifically on Africa.

Prior to joining ACI, David worked at National Westminster Bank (NatWest) based in London as a software developer working with ACI’s BASE24 solution, providing payments capabilities to NatWest’s customers as well as supporting the expansion of the bank’s domestic and international acquiring capabilities.

David is a graduate of King’s College, London University.

Omer Ahmed Khan is a global leader in digital transformation, banking innovation, and intelligent enterprise platforms. As CEO of Avanza Solutions, he has architected the company's evolution into one of the most recognized technology providers across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

With over two decades of leadership experience, Omer drives Avanza’s mission to shape the future of digital ecosystems through AI-powered platforms, inclusive financial technology, and enterprise grade innovation. His vision has positioned Avanza as a preferred partner for banks, governments, and enterprises navigating next-gen transformation across emerging markets.

A powerful voice on the global tech stage, Omer regularly engages with policymakers, technologists, and financial leaders to influence the direction of digital banking, open finance, and platform innovation.

Jalil Ahmed Farooqui is a globally respected fintech leader driving Avanza’s strategic growth across emerging markets. With over two decades in digital transformation, enterprise sales, and ecosystem innovation, he has been instrumental in expanding Avanza’s presence across Africa and the Asia Pacific As Chief Business Officer, he spearheads high-impact partnerships, connecting banks, governments, and telcos through next-gen open finance and integrated platform solutions. He regularly represents Avanza on international stages such as the Africa Bank 4.0 Summit, delivering insights on fusion banking, innovation strategy, and inclusive growth Jalil’s leadership drives the region-wide rollout of Avanza’s platforms—merging tech with marketlocalization to build sustainable digital economies in emerging nations.

A visionary leader at the crossroads of AI, CX, and UX, Hammad spearheads Avanza’s mission to deliver impactful digital transformation across financial services. As CMO, he oversees the end-to end strategy—from brand positioning to product storytelling, anchoring everything in measurable business outcomes His proven track record includes leading Unison Ace to a Gold Award in the consumer banking category at APICTA 2022.

Hammad is a frequent keynote speaker on Agentic AI, sharing how autonomous, AI-powered agents are changing workflows and customer engagement. He recently addressed AI’s role in fintech at events like the 14th Africa Bank 4.0 Summit With a focus on blending human-centric design and advanced technology, Hammad is building Avanza’s growth engine, proliferating AI-Augmented CRM and digital banking platforms across Africa and beyond

Dhruv has 25 years of experience in Global Information Technology companies which have democratized banking and financial services with their innovative Banking (Retail & Corporate), Lending, Data Privacy, Cash Management, Cards, Wealth, Self-Driving Finance, Data Aggregation, Payments, Insurance, Remittances, and Advanced Data Analytics Algorithms leveraging Cloud Computing, Business Intelligence and Machine Learning.

He spent close to 15 years at Yodlee, and was responsible for Revenue growth for their Data Aggregation, Analytics and Developer API platform business across APAC & ME for Banks, Fintechs and Start-ups.