The Technology Decision Makers Conference is designed for:

• IT decision makers in financial institutions—CIOs, CTOs
• Heads of business units (retail, consumer, transaction, corporate banking, risk management, marketing)
• Senior executives responsible for transformation, innovation and strategy
• Senior executives in mobile banking, payments, channels, IT infrastructure, applications, data and analytics, security, procurement and BI
• Regulators, bank supervision departments and risk monitoring units
• Executives of fintech and startup companies

Andra Sonea
Lead Solutions Architect, Innovation & Digital Development Directorate, Lloyds Banking Group, UK

Andra Sonea is lead solutions architect with the Innovation & Digital Development Directorate at Lloyds Banking Group in London where she is focusing on building the next generation data analytics platform, collaborating with start-ups and monitoring the global FinTech scene. As part of her role she conducts well-structured experiments that answer important business questions. Sonea joined the bank in November 2014. Prior to this, as an international consultant, Sonea gained over twenty years first-hand experience of building and changing the IT architectural landscapes at some of the world’s largest banks whilst working for leading IT services companies and consultancies including IBM, SAP, EY and KPMG. Sonea has a BSc in Economics and Political Sciences, and an MBA in Corporate Finance from London Business School.

Neal Cross
Managing Director and Chief Innovation Officer, DBS Bank

As managing director and chief innovation officer at DBS Bank, Neal Cross is driving the bank’s innovation agenda, working with internal stakeholders and external collaborators to enhance customer experience and better engage customers in the digital landscape. Cross has more than 20 years’ experience in financial services technology. Prior to DBS, he worked for MasterCard as vice president of MasterCard labs in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. Cross also worked with Microsoft in Australia and in Singapore as financial services industry director. During his spare time he established the Hotel Orangutan, a social enterprise in Sumatra, to help save the critically endangered Sumatran Orangutan and give local villagers employment and education.

Amit Sethi
President and CIO, Axis Bank,India

As president and chief information officer at India’s Axis Bank, Amit Sethi is responsible for driving growth with profitable business solutions as well as for delivering operational excellence. Sethi has played a leading role building an agile and lean IT organisation at Axis Bank. Prior to his current position, he was senior president and chief information officer at Yes Bank where he headed the technology solutions group and was responsible for driving innovation projects, and developing strategic planning guidelines in accordance with the business strategy of the bank. He started his career at ICICI bank where he successfully implemented transformational technology initiatives for retail banking, corporate banking, treasury, finance, digital channels, and business intelligence.

Gyorgy Ladics
Chief Operating Officer, Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam Berhad

Dr. Gyorgy Ladics has over 20 years of banking experience. Prior to his current role, he was chief information officer at Barclays – emerging markets region. As a key member of the team for M&A and integration activities, he helped enable Barclays' geographical expansion into new markets including India, Pakistan, and Russia, and re-launch of businesses in the UAE, Egypt and Uganda. Prior to joining Barclays, he was vice president at Citigroup – Central Europe region where he held various senior positions in operations and technology departments. This included leading efforts to standardize and migrate business processes into strategic end state operating models and onto technology platforms.

Igor Mushakov
CIO, Vietnam Prosperity Bank, Vietnam

Igor Mushakov has 18 years of international experience developing IT strategies and building platforms, managing projects and upgrading IT processes at a number of multinational organizations. Currently he is CIO at Vietnam Prosperity Bank (VPBank), one of the oldest joint-stock commercial banks in Vietnam. Prior to joining the bank, Mushakov was the CIO of X5 Retail Group, the 2nd largest food retail chain in Russia. He has also held the roles of CIO at Bank Uralsib and head of the customer relationships division in Sberbank. Previously he worked as a business consultant at IBM Eastern Europe and Africa, and held different management roles in Alfabank.

Dennis Khoo
MD and Head of Personal Financial Services, Singapore, United Overseas Bank

Dennis Khoo is the managing director and head of personal financial services, Singapore at United Overseas Bank (UOB) where he is responsible for consumer banking business in Singapore, covering all consumer banking products and segments from core banking to privilege banking. Prior to joining UOB in 2013, Khoo worked for Standard Chartered Bank, holding various positions including global head, personal and preferred banking, head of consumer banking (Singapore & Brunei), general manager, lending/retail banking products, wealth management and head of marketing, business intelligence, e-commerce & strategy. He started his career with Hewlett-Packard.

Jaspar Roos
Chief Inspiration Officer, XL Family and CEO, Ventur.es

Jaspar Roos is a renowned authority in the field of innovation and was chief inspiration officer for ABN AMRO Bank for many years. Managing the innovation and venturing lab Dialogues Incubator, Ross has been one of the pioneers in themes such as wearable technology and crowdfunding. He is also a columnist with the Dutch Financial Times, international keynote speaker, advisory board member of an hospital incubator and expert innovation member of the OISP group for the European Commission. He is partner at XL Family, an international incubator and accelerator.

Markus Gnirck
Partner & Co-Founder, tryb, Former Co-Founder and Global COO, Startupbootcamp Fintech

Markus Gnirck co-founded Startupbootcamp FinTech in London, now the largest innovation program for FinTech companies and the financial industry with offices in London, Singapore and New York and supported by 18 corporate partners. In his position of expanding Startupbootcamp to Asia, he played an instrumental role in building up FinTech ecosystems across the region and driving policy change and he is now rated as one of the key FinTech influencers in APAC. Gnirck has worked with more than 100 early stage companies in Asia to create partnerships with financial institutions. Additionally, he supports the financial industry and regulators in the digital transformation through the use of technology.

Alex Medana
CEO, WIP Solutions, Risk & Compliance Expert, Start-Up Advisor & Investor

With 17 years of relevant experience in the securities industry, Medana has held a number of key management roles in global tier 1 financial institutions in operations across various asset classes, client segments, business lines and locations particularly in post-trade. His front-to-back knowledge of regulations, inner workings of banks, brokers and buy sides with his uncanny drive for simplification through a lean methodology approach is a great asset to take start-ups from concept to market. He is currently developing ecosystems on the blockchain to improve risk and controls whilst cutting costs and generating revenue.

Axel Winter
Global Head of Retail and Private Banking Architecture, Standard Chartered Bank

As global head of retail and private banking architecture at Standard Chartered Bank, Axel Winter is driving the retail transformation and digital strategy for the bank. In his current role he is adopting the API and big data architecture that he defined in his prior role as global head of process & data architecture. Previously, Winter has worked as CTO for Cisco Systems, global chief architect at GE Capital, and as a consulting executive for Deloitte and Accenture pioneering their cloud and e-business. In the earlier times he ran a startup aimed at implementing internet and e-businesses in various countries across the Asia region.

Rahul Joshi
Digital, Mobile Payments Leader, ICICI Bank

Rahul Joshi has more than 22 years of experience in retail banking, especially in the areas of payments, e- and m-commerce and digital channels including internet, mobile and ATM. As a member of RBI’s technical committee, he was at the forefront of mobile expansion in India bringing basic banking products and services onto the mobile phones of millions of customers. His deep technical knowledge has enabled him to play a key leadership role in changing payment services at ICICI Bank into a profit centre, with the development of a platform capable of customer acquisition and sale of third party products and services in addition to payment services.

Andrew Koh
Deputy Chief Manager, Risk Control, China Construction Bank

Andrew Koh is a risk and governance professional, currently as risk control deputy chief manager at China Construction Bank. He has 25 years experience covering the banking, finance, cards and payment sectors where he has worked in credit, market, operational, regulatory, sovereign risk management and cross-functional roles within audit, compliance and fraud risk management. Prior to re-joining the banking sector, Koh was vice president and head of enterprise risk management for Singapore’s national payment operator, where he was in charge of managing the group’s enterprise risk management policies with direct responsibility for on-boarding major online merchants and other international payment operators.

Vivek Bhanot
Director, Business Intelligence Competency Center, Vietnam Prosperity Bank

Vivek Bhanot has extensive knowledge and experience of data governance, data warehousing, business intelligence, business analytics, MIS & Reporting as well as CRM systems. As business intelligence director, Bhanot is responsible for realizing the CEO’s long term vision of transforming VPBank into an “information driven bank” by framing & implementing data management strategies and providing decision analytics to stakeholders. Under his leadership, VPBank has implemented a comprehensive data governance mechanism that won international recognition. He has also set up a BI Competency Center (BICC) at the bank. Prior to joining VP Bank, Bhanot had responsibilities for customer analytics & campaign management for TechcomBank.

Paulus Adinata Widia
Group Head Transaction Banking Product Development, Bank Mandiri

Adinata Widia is head of transaction banking product development at PT Bank Mandiri responsible for profitably growing the bank’s wholesale banking capabilities by identifying and targeting market segments with product innovations. He addresses the minutiae of developing existing and new products focusing on for example dimensioning, segmentation, buyer behavior, pricing, sales cycles, and delivery channel capabilities. Prior to joining Bank Mandiri, he worked in a variety of senior product development roles at PT Bank Danamon, PT CIMB Niaga, PT LippoBank and Citibank N.A. Indonesia. Widia started his career with Ernst & Young Intl., Philippines.

Piyawat Jirapongsuwan
SVP, Business Engineering Division Head, CIMB Thai Bank PCL, Thailand

Dr. Piyawat has more than 25 years of experience in the business process reengineering, business process management, Lean Six Sigma, operational risk, strategy and transformation within the financial services industry. He plays the key role in the area of customer experience management, process improvement, cost and productivity management and operational excellence across CIMB Thai and CIMB Group. Dr. Piyawat received his B.Eng. from Kasetsart University, Thailand and his M.S. and Ph.D. in industrial engineering from The University of Texas at Arlington, Texas.

Nazmul Karim Chowdhury
Senior Vice President & Head of Brand, The City Bank Limited, Bangladesh

Nazmul Karim Chowdhury is currently senior vice president and head of brand at City Bank. He joined the bank in July 2009 and has since reshaped the bank’s brand image. He has overseen multiple product launches and marketing campaigns including the bank’s award winning American Express ‘My Life My Card’ campaign. During his brand leadership tenure the bank has won several prestigious industry awards, receiving recognition at an international level. Previously, he spent six years in the advertising industry.

Arnab Ghosh
Head of Cards & Consumer Lending, Vietnam International Bank

Arnab Ghosh is a consumer banking, digital banking and payments professional specializing in emerging markets across the Asia Pacific region. In 2014 he joined Vietnam International Bank as head of cards and consumer lending. Prior to that, he served over three years as director and business head for cards and ATMs at Maritime Bank, Vietnam where he envisioned the payments business strategy for the bank. Ghosh also held a variety of roles in sales, marketing and product management within the credit cards business of HDFC Bank in India. Over the last five years, he has won multiple regional awards including the industry’s highest honours for innovation, product excellence and marketing.

Asmita Panchal
Deputy Vice President, Information Technology, RBL Bank

As deputy vice president – information technology at RBL Bank, Asmita Panchal is currently handling large enterprise banking projects, including enterprise HR initiatives, credit card, e-banking and digital banking projects. She has more than 12 years of experience in various domains such as identifying business requirements, building IT systems/infrastructure and applications, IT operations management and service delivery, project implementation, transition management, network administration, service help desk management in multiple business industries like IT, telecom, banking and financial environment.

Kitinan Toomngern
Head of IT Security Division, Bank of Ayudhya

Kitinan Toomngern has more than 15 years of experience in IT security within the finance and banking industry. In 2013, he was appointed head of IT security at Bank of Ayudhya, commonly called Krungsri Bank, the fifth largest bank in Thailand. Since then, he has led initiatives to improve and strengthen IT security control in multiple critical areas at Krungsi Bank. Toomngern also played a leading role in developing and maintaining the cyber security framework for the bank. Prior to joining Krungsri Bank, Toomngern worked for GE Capital Thailand for over 10 years as IT security leader.

Ken Arthur J. Tiambeng
Head of Electronic Banking, Banco de Oro, Philippines

Ken Tiambeng is currently head of electronic banking at Banco De Oro Unibank, Inc., where he is responsible for the online, mobile, and phone banking business. He has over 15 years of experience in electronic banking, technology and operations, and marketing. Previously he was vice president for the information systems group at Asiatrust Bank and prior to this he spent 10 years with Citibank, Philippines rising to become assistant vice president for operations and technology. Mr. Tiamberg has extensive expertise in engineering and holds a masters degree in technology management from the University of the Philippines.

Endra Halim
IT Consultant and former Group Head of Core Banking Application Management, PT. Bank Central Asia

Endra Halim has more than 30 years of experience in application design, core banking, treasury systems, data warehousing, business intelligence, banking business processes and project management. As group head of core banking application management, Halim led BCA’s strategic projects where he implemented new technologies and headed a team involved in maintaining and developing core applications for the bank. Before joining the bank, Halim held key positions at Inti Salim Corporation and Caltex Pacific Indonesia. He holds a mechanical engineering degree from the Institute Technology Bandung, Indonesia.

Alan Seow
Cyber Security Practitioner

Alan Seow is head of cyber security at the Ministry of Communications & Information in Singapore. He heads the cyber function overseeing the resiliency of Singapore’s infocomm and media sectors, focusing on cyber protection of the sector’s critical infrastructures. Prior to this, he ran whole-of-government level ICT, Cyber security for the public sector. During his early years, he served in the Ministry of Home Affairs undertaking IT security consultancy work for various Singapore government agencies coupled with periods in academia where he held an academic chair (digital security & forensics) in a government tertiary institution. Seow is a certified security professional and has an MSc in Information Security from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Ian Estrada
Vice President of Consumer Lending, Mynt

Ian Estrada is the vice president of consumer lending for Mynt, a Philippine startup which aims to be the next billion's “bank”. He leads Mynt’s activities to create, test, and launch consumer credit products. This involves building partnerships, exploring new technologies and developing best practices to provide credit powered by technology and data. Previously, Estrada played a leading role in the creation of the consumer lending business of BanKO, the mobile based Philippines bank founded by Bank of Philippine Islands, Globe, and Ayala Corporation to drive financial inclusion in the country.

Daniel Wolfram
Business Solutions Group Head, FIS Asia Pacific

Daniel Wolfram serves as the head of the business solutions team for the FIS Banking Group for ASEAN and North Asia markets. In this role, he is responsible for working directly with clients on solution design, innovation, and implementation of leading edge technology that facilitates banks in technology transformation. Wolfram has been with FIS for more than 15 years and has provided leadership and strategic consulting in the areas of core banking, integration, electronic banking channels, digital banking, analytics and customer centricity. Within the region, he has led large client engagements in innovative and transformative projects, and has provided strategic counsel to FIS' Innovation Center for Asia Pacific banking.

David Brearley
CEO, Silverlake Consultancy

David Brearley is currently working with Silverlake, on the development of innovative software architectures to enable banks to compete in the Digital Economy. Brearley has spent 45 years in consulting and senior management positions in financial services world-wide, including 18 years as a CIO. In 1988 he was appointed the first Group Head (CIO) of Standard Chartered Bank. In the last fifteen years, David has focused on practice areas of Business Transformation, IT Strategy and Enterprise Architecture working particularly with large local bank CEOs, COOs and CIOs in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. He has also worked on the early stage development of software businesses in search, middleware and omni-channel services.

Alex Kwiatkowski
Senior Marketing Strategist, Banking & Digital Channels, Misys

Alex Kwiatkowski focuses on strategic developments in banking and digital channels after becoming a member of the Misys Global Solutions Marketing team in October 2014. He was formerly a research director for IDC’s financial insights division, where he was responsible for all advisory and consulting services in EMEA, working closely with banks, technology vendors and service providers. Before joining IDC, Kwiatkowski spent 4 years as a principal analyst within Ovum’s Financial Services Technology practice. Prior to this he was a senior manager within Lloyds TSB’s business delivery team. He began his career with Vodafone, where he served in variety of roles between 1995 and 2000.

Dean Young
Head of Product Management, eWise

 Dean Young is the head of product management at eWise, a large international provider of personal data management and money management solutions. Young has over twenty years of experience in the financial service industry. Based on his extensive work with retail banks across the world he gained expertise in customer management strategies, client engagement based on consumer insights and optimization of client relationships. This includes online and mobile banking strategies, and how banks must adapt to changes in customer behavior. Young joined eWise in July 2014 and is based in Singapore. Prior to this, he worked as vice president for product management retail banking at SunGard and as manager of Aperio Solutions for Fiserv.

Hitesh Arora
Director, Strategy and Customer Advocacy, CRMNEXT

Hitesh Arora has over 25 years of experience in global technology, strategy, sales, and operations in financial, retail, and technology services. He has held leadership positions in organisations across emerging markets and Asia Pacific, including Bank of America, Max Life Insurance, Yum Brands, Nucleus Software, Polaris Financial Technologies, and NIIT Technologies. Arora has led transformational change in various organisations including delivering greenfield start-ups; ensuring an organisation’s future readiness; and building capacity in people, processes, and platforms. He has established global operating models and led transformation initiatives for analytics, share of wallet programs, and digital channels.

Gary Heatherington
Board of Directors and CEO Advisor, Bhutan National Bank

Gary Heatherington is a highly experienced, industry leader with significant board and international experience. He has served as Chairman and CEO at a number of payment and technology companies, establishing and growing new businesses and brands, and reinvigorating existing ones. Since 2013 he has been based in Bhutan advising the Royal Government of Bhutan on economic, monetary, fiscal and regulatory policy. He also assists new business start-ups in the country, creating employment opportunities and building long term sustainability.

Howard Mannella
Managing Principal, Alternative Resiliency Services

Howard Mannella, CBCP, MBCI, is a seasoned executive in business resiliency, business continuity, disaster recovery, crisis management and related disciplines. As managing principal of Alternative Resiliency Services he is serving clients such as global expense and travel management firms, market-leading pre-paid credit card processors and name-brand member service organisations. Prior to this he was principal resiliency strategist for Expedia where he established the global program that covered over 5,000 people in a dozen locations across North America and EMEA

Matt Dooley
Managing Director, Connected Thinking

Matt Dooley is founder and director of Connected Thinking, providing digital strategy, marketing, and training to banks. He is a member of the Next Bank team with over 20 years international experience driving change at two of the world’s leading banks, across three continents. He was global head of Internet strategy and head of digital experience for the global commercial banking division in HSBC. He pioneered HSBC’s global Internet design standards as a result of establishing the first Internet banking platform back in 2000. He stays abreast of the latest trends in mobile and virtual technology as well as social media and is instrumental in helping participants develop their own personal disciplines in handling these areas.

Akshaya Gaur
Founder, Aayan and Advisor, Intech50

Akshaya Gaur has more than 26 years of experience in banking technology holding senior leadership roles covering the UK, Africa and Asia. Until recently, Gaur was the chief information officer of Mashreq Bank and CEO of Mindscape IT. He led the transformation of Mashreq’s Technology function creating a stable, business-aligned organisation and delivered the bank’s innovation agenda with a focus on mobility, customer solutions and straight-through processing; under his leadership the bank won multiple awards for the innovative solutions it took to market. Gaur is the founder of Aayan, an independent advisory service for the banking technology space. He is also on the advisory board of Intech50, an organisation committed to creating a positive eco-system for young entrepreneurs.

Alexander C. Escucha
SVP, Investor and Corporate Relations Group, China Banking Corporation, Philippines

Alex Escucha has chaired or moderated sessions at the technology conferences of the Asian Banker Summit since 2006 and has attended every Asian Banker Summit since the first event in 2000. At China Banking Corporation he is responsible for investor relations, corporate marketing, and service quality elements of customer experience management. He is also a board director of the bank’s China Bank Savings subsidiary, serving on risk management, corporate governance and IT steering committees. Escucha has over 35 years of banking experience across multiple disciplines and was one of the incorporators of BancNet, the largest ATM consortium in the Philippines in 1990. He has also served as chairman of the Federation of ASEAN Economic Associations.

Neeti Aggarwal
Senior Research Manager, The Asian Banker

Neeti heads the Technology Research practice at The Asian Banker. With over 12 years experience in research and publication industry, she specializes in banking research and technology developments across Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. She earlier worked for five years at The Economic Times, India’s largest selling financial daily. Neeti is a CFA Charterholder from CFA Institute USA, and an MBA (Finance) from India.

Anne Weatherston
Chief Information Officer, EnergyAustralia, Non-Exec. Dir., Mint Wireless Ltd. and Advisor, Venturetec

Anne Weatherston has over 28 years of experience in banking and technology. She was group CIO of ANZ Bank for four years, during which she was responsible for a major transformation of the bank’s technology strategy which resulted in a major turnaround of underlying infrastructure and the design and execution of a new technology roadmap to underpin the bank's super-regional agenda in Asia. Prior to ANZ, Anne was group CIO at Bank of Ireland. She has also played technology leadership roles at Santander, National Australia Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Eric Tachibana
Managing Director, eXtropia Holdings

Eric Tachibana has held senior banking roles at Barclays Capital, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, and most recently as Chief Operating Officer for the Asia Pacific technology office at UBS where he covered business management, enterprise applied innovation, strategy, marketing and engagement for investment banking, wealth management, and asset management. Eric has experience as entrepreneur in Silicon Valley as well as a successful private equity fund manager. He has also taught as an adjunct professor at the National University of Singapore and Thammasat University business schools. Currently he is working with Amazon Web Services in Platform Strategy and transformation.

Pravir Vohra
Former President & Group Chief Technology Officer, ICICI Bank

Pravir Vohra has over 30 years of working in the banking industry with senior roles in technology at ICICI Bank, State Bank of India and Times bank. He retired as the President and Group Chief Technology Officer of ICICI Bank in 2012 where he was responsible for IT strategy and innovation, enterprise architecture, process automation and leveraging technology synergies across the operations of the bank. Pravir is now a mentor to two start-up companies and advisor to a few technology companies.