Speakers

Rebecca Christie

Senior Fellow, Bruegel
Rebecca Christie is a senior fellow at Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic policy think tank. She writes and speaks publicly about EU politics, financial regulation, tax and climate finance issues. Previously, she was the lead author on “Safeguarding the Euro in Times of Crisis”, the official history of the European Stability Mechanism, and worked for more than 20 years as an economics and politics correspondent for Bloomberg News, Dow Jones/The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

Presiyan Petkov

Policy Officer, Policy Definition and Coordination, DG FISMA, European Commission
Presiyan Petkov is a Policy Officer at DG FISMA and has been working on securitisation in DG FISMA since 2017. As such, he has been involved in the implementation of the Securitisation Regulation, including the development of many of the technical standards and guidelines. He has also worked on the first amendment of the securitisation framework, in 2021, as well as the first review of the Securitisation Regulation in 2022. Previously, Presiyan Petkov worked on macroeconomic forecast and policy advice in DG ECFIN of the European Commission. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and European Studies from the ‘American University in Bulgaria’ and an MA in International Political Economy from the University of Birmingham (UK).

Claudia Gonzalez Cabanillas

Head of EMEA Regulatory Affairs, J.P. Morgan
Claudia Gonzalez Cabanillas is Head of EMEA Regulatory Affairs at JPMorgan. Claudia joined the firm in 2013 and she currently overseas the regulatory policy work and advocacy strategy for all Financial Policy Initiatives in the EU and UK. Claudia’s team is responsible for analyzing and determining the firm’s views on regulatory policy proposals and identifying the appropriate mechanism for advocacy for the firm. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Claudia worked at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, where she acted as EU Policy liaison for their Markets Monitoring Department. Claudia also worked at the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt and at the European Commission in Brussels. Claudia holds a Bachelors degree in Economics from the ‘Université Libre de Bruxelles’ (ULB), a MSc in Economics from the University College London (UCL) and a MSc in Development Economics from the ‘University Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve’ in Belgium.

Rob Hailey

Managing Director, Head of EMEA Government Affairs, MFA
Rob Hailey serves as Managing Director, Head of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Government Affairs at MFA. Based in the UK, Rob leads MFA’s London office and oversees the work of colleagues in Brussels, representing MFA’s global presence. Working in conjunction with US-based colleagues, he engages with policymakers in the region to advance MFA members’ advocacy goals. Rob joined MFA in May 2024 from Bank of America, where he led the bank’s government affairs activities in the UK and Ireland, building the brand with policymakers and advocating on post-Brexit capital markets reform. Previously he spent a decade at the UK’s largest high street bank, Lloyds Banking Group plc, leading a team focused on a wide range of public policy issues, policy research, EU affairs, and regulatory affairs during a critical period for the bank as it successfully emerged from partial public ownership. Rob has nearly twenty years’ experience in the financial services sector, having held government affairs roles at the Spanish bank, Banco Santander, in London and Madrid and at the British bank, HBOS plc. He combines this experience – working on retail, commercial and investment banking as well as insurance and pensions policy – with a deep understanding of the UK and EU policymaking processes. His career started with a period working in the European Parliament in Brussels, in a Westminster-based think tank and in consultancy. Rob has a degree in Economics and Politics from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Christian M. Stiefmüller

Senior Adviser, Policy Research & Analysis, Finance Watch
He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with an MBA in Finance and from the University of Innsbruck with degrees in Law and Applied Languages. In the two decades of his career as a senior investment banker he worked at major international banks, including Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and UniCredit, advising large corporate clients and financial investors. More recently, he has returned to the field of International and European Union Law, concentrating on financial regulation. Christian is the Finance Watch representative at the Banking Stakeholder Group of the European Banking Authority (EBA) and at the Securities and Markets Stakeholders Group of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).