Alexander Grenz is currently the President and CEO of Allianz PNB Life after serving as its Chief Operating Officer for three years.
Prior to joining the company as an Executive Director in May 2019, he held various roles in Allianz entities for over 15 years, including being the Chief Integration Officer, Head of Strategic Project Development and Regional Head of Bancassurance and Partnership Developments in Allianz Asia Pacific. He also acted as the Deputy CEO and COO of Allianz Russia Life. His journey includes working as the Regional Head of Life & Health Central for Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa of Allianz Group, and Senior Consultant European Pensions for Allianz SE.
Alexander graduated from the University of Applied Sciences, Regensburg, Germany with a degree in Business Administration specialised in Banking, Investment and Financial Management.
Jennifer’s current role is the HR Director for Baxter Southeast Asia cluster and Global Functions in APAC. She has extensive experiences in Healthcare and Consulting industries across Asia Pacific. She is a commercial minded, result driven & strategic HR leader, specialised in HR strategy, organisational design, large scale change management and HR digital transformation.
Jennifer has a broad international experience and clear achievements in multiple geographies with a strong track record of working closely with talented teams to grow business results. Her extraordinary work supported Baxter to be recognised as the “Best Employer” in China, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
In her recent role as the Cochair of Human Capital Committee at The American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (AmCham SG), she brought in tremendous thought leadership and contributed to a stronger voice and overall advocacy in Human Capital Practices. Her passion is to create value for organisations, enable people’s purpose and unleash their best potential in work and lives.
Shashank Luthra is a global technology executive with over 20 years of industry and management consulting experience across functions and geographies. He is responsible for the sales of Cisco Services and its Software Buying Programs for Southeast Asia. He also leads the region’s strategic business development team for the theatre.
He works with customers, partners and internal delivery teams to drive the sale and renewal of services. These include our entire portfolio of professional (advisory, implementation and optimisation), support and managed services. Our services help IT teams to design, manage, and maintain some of the most sophisticated, secure, intelligent platforms for digital business.
His strategic business development team supports Cisco’s top customers on their IT transformations and pursues large opportunities.
Shashank has been at Cisco for over 10 years and his previous roles include leading Cisco’s Digital Transformation Office for ASEAN, managing the Cisco Consulting Services business for ASEAN, leading business development across APJC for the enterprise verticals (including financial services, retail, manufacturing, oil & gas and mining) and global strategy & planning for Smart + Connected Communities and transformational initiatives for Cisco India.
Prior to Cisco, Shashank headed strategy and the Office of the COO at WNS Global Services (a top 3 Indian BPO provider). He also spent 10 years at McKinsey & Company, part of the Mumbai and Chicago offices, and leaving as an Associate Partner.
Passionate about technology, Vish Iyer leads Cisco’s Architectures business in Asia Pacific, Japan, and China. With three decades of experience in the fast-growing ICT sector, Vish and his team have co-created world leading innovations with key customers to solve the most complex problems in the region, including mobile transport innovations for 5G/4G mobile broadband services, affordable video platforms for 350 million connected homes in Asia, pre-integrated API driven enterprise service stack for multi-cloud adoption, smart city platforms, and contact centre solutions with extensible ethnic language support.
Vish’ passion is to build the next generation of leaders, he collaborates with INSEAD School of Business in Singapore where he’s a frequent speaker in the Emerging Leaders Program for South Asia and India. The joint case studies built through this program are now used extensively in Wharton and INSEAD.
Vish is helping university students develop a startup mindset by setting up Southeast Asia’s Cisco ThingQbator program which is geared towards identifying commercially viable innovations with a strong social purpose. Vish takes pride in consulting, counseling, and championing dozens of young teams looking to make a mark on the world through innovative ideas and intelligent experimentation.
Based in Singapore, Vish is passionate about family, reading, sports and gastronomy.
Ras has 24 years of experience in digital infrastructure and he has spent the last 11 years in Asia. He leads the development of customer relationships and new market opportunities across the Asia Pacific, aligning with DCI’s strategy to expand into hyperscale markets. During his 24 years of experience in digital infrastructure, Ras launched two new hyperscale data centres in Japan, and acquired land for Colt Data Centres’ expansion into Osaka and Mumbai. Prior to this, he held roles at CenturyLink in both Japan and Singapore, leading sales and operations. Ras will continue DCI’s mission to become the preferred partner in the Asia Pacific region for the delivery of secure data centre solutions.
Nitin has more than 20 years of experience in the field of leadership development, coaching and counselling and has been a consultant for various global institutes/organisations in the United States, India and Singapore. Some of his expertise has been in areas of developing world-class Senior Executive Teams, Team Alignment and Strategic Leadership, Diversity and Culture sensitivity, Managing Conflict, amongst many others.
One of the highlights of his career was when he volunteered for President Obama’s Presidential campaign in 2007-08 for the Midwestern college states. During this time, he had the humble opportunity to plan and organise college rallies for the President. His team was part of a rigorous marketing campaign that helped connect college students at Midwestern universities to the President’s message. Nitin is also a passionate thought-leader and has presented at several National and International forums, from topics ranging on Leadership Development, Talent Retention, The Gig Economy, Intercultural Sensitivity, Cross Cultural Communication, and a 21st. Century Global Mindset.
Prior to joining Deloitte, Nitin worked at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) as a Regional Director and Faculty and was instrumental in expanding the CCL Leadership development footprint across Asia Pacific, including key Emerging Markets.
Sam leads the Markets function in Southeast Asia. He is a trusted advisor in organisational transformation, and adept at bringing ecosystem players across public and private sectors together to address complex business and national issues. He has worked with numerous organisations, both in the public and private sectors, on performance management, organisational restructuring, project management, finance transformation and technology. He also helps clients to embrace citizen-centricity at the heart of policy-making and public sector transformation. Sam holds a Bachelor of Accountancy (Hons) from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
As Chief Marketing Officer of Google APAC, Simon Kahn oversees marketing for all of Google’s consumer and business solutions across 16 markets in APAC and leads Google’s Next Billion Users & Payments product marketing globally. His team covers everything from research and insights development to brand management and advertising. Through strategic initiatives and go-to-market activations, they accelerate revenue growth and move user metrics to deliver on business goals. They have helped transform APAC into one of Google’s fastest growing regions and have become a significant contributor to the company’s success.
Through programs that close the digital skills gap and products that offer help across everyday moments, Simon and his team enable access, growth, and opportunity. They empower organisations to leverage digital experiences to connect users with the right information at the right time, improve operational efficiencies, and drive business performance. They aim to help everyone—from individuals to industries—thrive.
APAC is a hotbed for innovation and one of the most dynamic regions in the world. Multiply its scale and diversity with technology’s pace of change and it is no wonder that the global centre of gravity is shifting towards Asia. Today, APAC is moving from a “Catch Up” to a “Catch Us” state. The region now represents one of the most advanced digital economies globally. Outside of the 9-5, Simon enjoys discussing the region’s changing consumer landscape and speaks frequently about technological advancements that are blurring the lines between “offline” and “online” realms.
Martin Chee is IBM ASEAN’s General Manager. He has direct responsibility for leading IBM in Singapore while also spearheading IBM’s growth in the ASEAN region.
Martin brings deep industry experience to lead IBM’s engagement and collaboration with clients and partners in their digital transformation efforts, through the adoption of IBM’s Open Hybrid Cloud and AI capabilities
Prior to this role, Martin was Vice President for IBM Analytics in the Asia Pacific region with responsibility for helping clients leverage emerging technologies to modernise and unlock the value of their data assets.
A senior leader with two decades of regional experience, Martin started his career with IBM Singapore in the software division in 2001. Throughout his career with IBM, Martin has held various leadership positions in services, software and enterprise sales in the Asia Pacific region.
Martin holds a Bachelor of Laws from the National University of Singapore and started his career as an Intellectual Property lawyer before his transition to the IT industry.
Based in Singapore where she has lived for the past 15 years, Godelieve van Dooren spearheads the growth and expansion of Mercer in South East Asia’s high growth markets of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, helping companies navigate the health, wealth and career needs of the fast-evolving workforce in the region.
In her role as Asia Career Business Leader, she drives the innovation and expansion of Mercer’s Career solutions and services, enhancing the firm’s capability to design and deliver impactful people solutions to clients across Asia, empowering more clients in their business and workforce transformation as they navigate the realities of a post-COVID 19 world.
Prior to this role, Godelieve was the Regional Industries Leader for Asia Pacific. She established Mercer’s Asia Pacific Employee Benefits Solutions segment and grew the firm’s benefits benchmarking and design consulting across the region. From 2013 to 2016, she led the Career Products business across eight markets in ASEAN.
In recent years, she has played a critical role in growing Mercer’s Regional Career Products business and expanding Mercer’s Human Resources Industry networks comprising of large High-Tech, Life Sciences, FMCG, Chemical, Retail and Hospitality companies – where she worked with leading clients to shape progressive and sustainable HR programs.
Godelieve holds a MA in Law from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.
As Vice President of Marketing for UPS Asia Pacific, David oversees all marketing strategy, revenue management and customer communications activities across the 41 countries and territories in which UPS operates throughout the APAC region.
A native of the United Kingdom and now based in Singapore, David joined UPS following its acquisition of courier company Lynx Express UK in 2006. He began his UPS career as a Product and Technology Supervisor for UPS Europe in Brussels, earning a promotion to manager soon after.
An avid traveller always keen to experience life in other cultures, from 2010 to 2018 David assumed a number of positions for UPS in Europe, including marketing manager roles in France and the UK and subsequently as UPS Eastern Europe Marketing Director which first took him back to Brussels and later to Prague, Czech Republic. During this time, David oversaw projects enhancing the UPS network in Eastern Europe, including with ground network improvements, a domestic portfolio redesign and strategy projects to accelerate growth in Russia.
He assumed his current role as Asia Pacific Vice President of Marketing in September 2020 and has since been instrumental in driving UPS’s regional e-commerce strategy at a time when businesses around the world were navigating the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic. Among his achievements has been the launch of UPS’s digital access program (DAP), which allows small businesses to integrate UPS shipping services into their e-commerce operations, saving both the time and cost spent on logistics.
