Mr. Houston Ross, Group Chief Information and Digital Transformation Officer, Republic Bank Limited is a vision-driven strategist, leader and change agent with an internationally well-earned reputation for driving fundamental business transformation and realizing growth objectives through technology innovation. A repeat award-winner for contributions to leveraging technology to create business value, he was named among the Top 100 IT executives globally and most recently in 2022 recognized by Money Conference 2.0 for his contributions to technology and innovation within the banking and insurance industries. Prior to joining the Republic Financial Holdings Team, Houston was an Executive Committee member of Paidy, Inc.(a PayPal company), Tokyo, Japan, which was one of only six “unicorn” fintechs in Japan’s history. He successfully led several innovations such as redesigned payments platform in the cloud, with over eight (8) million customers, integration of a post-payment service within Amazon, delivered innovative digital products in Japan, and the largest exit in Japan’s history of a foreign owned start-up. Houston has corporate executive leadership and board level roles such as COO, CIO and CTO in global organizations such as NN Group, ING and AXA. Currently an executive member of the Mastercard Latin American and Caribbean Technology Conference, and Executive Council for Leading Change (ECLC). Houston has a Master of Business Administration from the University of Liverpool, UK and a Bachelor of Science, Management Information Systems from Barrington University, Mobile, Alabama, USA.