Michael Hoodfar

Michael Hoodfar is a seasoned product leader with more than 20 years of experience driving innovation, scaling teams, and delivering transformative growth within financial services and technology. In June 2025, he was appointed Chief Operating Officer at Qore Group, a leading fintech infrastructure and Banking-as-a-Platform provider, driving commercial strategy and operational excellence to accelerate Qore’s expansion and establish it as a premier banking technology provider across Africa and beyond. Previously at Thought Machine, one of the UK's top fintech unicorns, Michael was instrumental in building the product function from inception. As Head of Product, he was pivotal in shaping and executing the product strategy that enabled Thought Machine to increase its customer base tenfold and secure multiple international Tier-1 banking clients during a period of rapid growth. He also introduced innovative platform features that significantly reduced integration complexity and accelerated a financial institution's global product launches. At Deutsche Bank, Michael led multi-million-Euro technology initiatives delivering award-winning, mission-critical systems across front-office and operational functions. These initiatives modernised enterprise operations and addressed critical regulatory requirements. Earlier in his career, Michael served as a finance and technology strategy consultant with Accenture, Deloitte, and PwC, guiding major global financial institutions through significant transformations. During a pivotal secondment to the UK Financial Regulator he contributed meaningfully to the high-profile and public investigation into the Northern Rock supervision failure following the 2008 financial crisis. Michael holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh and began his career as an engineer at Goldman Sachs on their Fixed Income Program Trading team. He is passionate about customer-focused innovation, collaborative cultures, and achieving exceptional outcomes.