Speakers for Asia Economic Forum 2023

Brajesh Singh is an accomplished Regional Talent Acquisition Senior Leader with close to 20 years of experience in the IT industry. He has an excellent track record in achieving extraordinary results in demanding, high volume, and interdisciplinary environment along with proven abilities in account management, leadership, developing and implementing highly effective full-cycle recruitment strategies. He is results-oriented, creative, highly motivated and has a unique ability to understand emerging technologies with strong business acumen and communicate effectively with all levels.

Daniel Kusmanto is an HR Digital, Analytics, and Services leader who is passionate about people and data. He is currently building HR Digital & Analytics capability within ASM, while bringing Employee Experience to another level. He has 10 years of experience in HR Digital & Analytics across industries ranging from banking to semiconductor and 5 years of experience in HR Services. He is always enthusiastic to share about HR Digital, Analytics, and Services to the HR community.

Originally from the United Kingdom, Darren Thayre has now worked overseas for 20 years, with the last 10 years being in Asia as a Board Advisor and Executive Leadership Coach. He is a Professor of Digital Innovation at one of Asia’s top business schools. Darren sits on the board of a venture fund and is an advisor to the G20 on accelerating digitization. His focus is advising CEOs and boards on accelerating growth, with a particular focus on new business models and CVC. Prior to Google, he was a Partner at Oliver Wyman and before that, he ran a global innovation function at Amazon Web Services.

Dr. Joey Tan (Joey) drives strategic collaborations and growth strategy with key customers in the region, helping them to address organizational approach to environmental responsibilities with business and digital transformation. Before AWS, Joey led the International Business Strategy team in the Alibaba Group Globalization office, working with various government agencies and Alibaba ecosystem businesses to drive innovation in cross-border trades, build mega hubs in various continents and facilitate eCommerce businesses across the globe. Joey is a Singaporean who has more than 24 years of experience in the Infocomm Industry, with 11 years in business engineering and transformation. He currently sits on various advisory boards and resides in Singapore.

Lt. General Sharma retired from the Indian Army in 2008 after four decades of an illustrious and brilliant career of selfless service to the nation. He commanded the largest operational force in the world and led the logistics and administration of the 1.3 million strong Indian Army in his last assignment before retirement. Gen Sharma is also a passionate advocate of sustainable and responsible development with expertise in the areas of environment, renewable energy and ecology. He writes on national strategy and security issues and lectures business leaders on decision making, motivation and positivity. He is currently the Chairman of MitKat Advisory Services, a niche Asia-Pacific-focused risk mitigation company.

Malminderjit Singh (Mal), a public affairs and communications leader with over 18 years of experience, is Chief Operating Officer and Regional Director of Speyside Group overseeing its Asia Pacific business. He has worked on strategic communications, issues management, crisis communications, media relations, public policy, and government relations campaigns for large MNCs and start-ups in various sectors. Mal has also been a speechwriter and advised political and industry leaders on political and policy communications, as well as thought leadership. He has also worked in academia as the Chief Editor at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore and as Executive Director of the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI) besides being an Editor at CNA and a Correspondent at The Business Times.

Pallavi Srivastava is a passionate HR professional with 25 years of experience, with 20 years in IBM and 1.2 years in JCI. She holds a Master’s in Economics and Master of Business Administration along with several Business & HR certifications including certified for People Analytics, Big Data and AI in HR platforms, and HR Digital Transformation. She is also a well-known DEI Champion in the industry and a published author of several HR Thought Leadership articles in print and social media channels in the APAC region, external interviews and HR profession awards. Pallavi is an active and well-regarded international conference speaker on Future of Work, Digital HR Transformation and Diversity & Inclusion and Guest Lecturer on HR Digital Transformation, AI in HR and Future of Work at Nanyang Business School, and SP Jain Institute of Management in Singapore.

Santanu Ghosh is the Head of Digital Transformation for Asia Pulp and Paper, which is part of the large Indonesia conglomerate SinarMas Group. Santanu has more than 25 years of experience in Consulting and System-Integration in Asia and Europe, and he is a strong advocate of Talent Transformation that accelerates value realization for the Client, Organization and Partner Eco-system.

Sarjit Singh is a Senior Advisor at Deloitte Southeast Asia and the Leader of Deloitte Learning Solutions. He leads a team of experts in conceptualizing and delivering programs in financial reporting, corporate governance, risk management, internal controls, sustainability, artificial intelligence, board readiness, and leadership. With over 30 years of experience in accounting and finance, Singh has held various leadership roles, including CEO Singapore of InCorp Global, Chairman and Senior Partner of Kreston ACA, CFO of Aviva Asia, and CFO of AIA Singapore. He has extensive experience in assurance and advisory, having spent 16 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers. He also serves as a member of the Advocacy Committee of The Institute of Internal Auditors Singapore, and a member of the Investigations and Disciplinary Panel at the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants.

Tan Kwan Chet is the lead for technical presales consulting at AI Singapore. He provides consultancy services to companies that are keen to adopt AI under AISG’s flagship program, 100 Experiments (100E). In addition, he is a contributor to the Innovation & Commercialization Working Group, Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (“GPAI”) to drive the broad adoption of AI by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) globally. Through his AI consultancy experience in AISG, Kwan Chet has worked with companies to define the AI project scope and translate their business requirements into data and technical requirements. He also conducts AI Discovery workshops to help companies identify AI use cases based on their business importance and data readiness.