Leanne Kemp

Keynote Title:

Beyond the Cloud: Engineering Trust Where the Digital Meets the Dirt

Time:

Tuesday - 9:00 AM (Grand Ballroom)

Abstract:

The fintech industry has spent decades perfecting digital isolation, assuming that secure transaction protocols operate independent of the physical world. That assumption is broken. Geopolitical fracturing, G7 sanctions, and global supply chain complexity have made it impossible for payment rails to run blind. When a diamond crosses borders, when lithium feeds EV batteries, when critical minerals fuel AI infrastructure, every transaction is entangled with physical reality. Yet today’s fintech systems validate money flows without validating the objects those flows represent.

This session pulls back the curtain on what happens when code leaves the cloud and encounters operational reality. Drawing from direct experience scaling invoicing and payment integrations across Europe while anchoring digital ledgers to physical atoms, we’ll explore the engineering foundations of verifying objects cryptographically, converting physical artifacts into immutable hashes that enforce trust at the intersection of digital transactions and supply chain compliance.

You’ll learn how the next generation of payment architectures must merge object-level cryptographic truth with transaction velocity, and why traditional “Zero Trust” thinking is incomplete without grounding in physical verification.

This is architecture-first engineering: what it takes to build infrastructure strong enough to support both the digital economy and the physical world.

Bio:

Leanne is Founder and CEO of Everledger. In her role as CEO, she inspires and steers the team of Everlegends to increase transparency and trust with technology, in close collaboration with our industry partners.

She is a prominent figure in the technology sector. Leanne co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Future of Manufacturing and takes part in the Global Future Council on Blockchain. She also leads workstreams at the Global Blockchain Business Council, co-chairs the World Trade Board’s Sustainable Trade Action Group, and is on the IBM Blockchain Platform Board of Advisors.

Leanne’s awards include the AIM Global Allan Gilligan Award 2019, Advance Global Australian Awards 2018 for Technology Innovation, and Innovator of the Year 2016 and 2018 at the Women in IT Awards (London). In 2018, her entrepreneurial success saw her appointed as the Queensland Chief Entrepreneur in Australia, to develop the state’s startup ecosystem, attract investment and support job creation. She was the first female entrepreneur to hold this position.

Her tenure ended in December 2020. More recently, Leanne has been appointed to the Global Blockchain Business Council as a Regional Ambassador of Australia, an Adjunct Professor in the Institute for Future Environment at the Queensland University of Technology and Blockchain Advisory Board Member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).