Zsolt Katona

Zsolt Katona has more than 25 years of experience in capital markets, stock exchanges, clearing and settlement, depository and CCP, investment banking, corporate finance, stock brokerage, equity research, and venture capital investments. He has gained cross-border experiences mainly in the CEE region, especially Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovenia, and Austria. After starting his career in 1991 at a local brokerage firm, in 1995 he joined ING Group’s Hungarian securities trading, research and corporate finance effort, where he developed ING’s local presence to highest standards and gained top market share in stock exchange trading. Participated in several corporate finance and investment banking transactions, including bond issuances, IPOs, listings, buy-outs and de-listings in various industry sectors. In 2012 he was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of the Budapest Stock Exchange, where – apart from running the day-to-day operation of this key capital markets institution of Hungary – he formulated the company’s new strategy and worked on developing the overall Hungarian capital market, while also working in cross-border environment as the BSE was part of the CEE Stock Exchange Group including Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Hungary. In the past couple of years he was engaged in venture capital and private equity investments, being the Chairman of HiVentures, a venture capital firm that provides funding for innovative, start-up and early-stage growth micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, and also as the Chief Executive Officer of MFB Invest, a venture capital and private equity investments subsidiary of the Hungarian Development Bank.