Waters Advisory Board

Neha heads Digital Channels for Private Banking clients at Bank of Singapore. She oversees product strategy and roadmap, defining client journeys and driving adoption of the bank’s digital channels. Under her leadership, BOS digital channel adopting grew exponentially with significant improvements in Client satisfaction score and won multiple industry leading awards.  Neha’s prior experience includes establishing Innovation Lab for BNP Paribas Wealth Management in Asia and co-creation of  products with clients & fintech’s.

Brijesh Ammanath is the Global CIO for Trade and Working Capital Technology team spread across Pune and Chennai in India, London, Birmingham and Radbroke in the UK. 
Prior to Trade and Working Capital, Brijesh has played technology leadership roles in Treasury, Legal, Product Control and Market Risk in Barclays. 

Brijesh has strong international work experience having worked for over a decade in London with Merrill Lynch and later with the merged entity BoAML where he was the Technology Delivery Lead for the FX Options business.

Brijesh comes from a strong technology background, which coupled with a keen interest in the business has allowed him to develop and deliver customer centric solutions.
Brijesh’s keen interest in the Trade business and in Operations has ensured that all the technology initiatives have TWC board level support and the team collaborates across functions to drive a successful delivery. Brijesh is able to finely balance implementing Innovation to deliver transformative solutions to the business and at the same time deal with legacy IT issues built up over many years of operation.

Brijesh is a globally experienced leader with an established track-record in enabling strategic and cultural change to deliver desired business outcomes.
 

Lionel Bruchez is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for Singapore and deputy CISO APAC, covering regulatory and governmental engagements across Asia Pacific and the cybersecurity program, capabilities and cyber defense for 25,000 staff members in Asia across 13 countries. In addition, Lionel is key committee member of the global Cyber Threat Management board and the strategy and governance lead for the bank’s Cyber Threat Intelligence service.

In his role, Lionel focuses on generating a business context for the cyberdefense capabilities and providing strategic and tactical awareness to the key decision makers. The wide array of issues he pursues include Geopolitical Analysis, Threat Intelligence, Threat Modeling, Security Monitoring, Security Reporting and Analytics, Compliance Monitoring, Cryptography, Signal Processing or System Security. 

Leadership that drives business growth | Aspiring writer | Speaker | BAI Global Innovation awards Jury | Fin-tech & Design thinking influencer

I am a leader with a proven track record of successful businesses. I am also a very keen student, influencer and practitioner of financial services in Asia and Africa and have been fortunate enough to spend over 25 years working on both these continents. I want financial services to work harder for the customers and communities we serve.

Financial services must drive better outcomes for customers. I believe that Design thinking can create superior financial products and services. I believe we can design really great financial products and services using design thinking, analytics and technology.

Superior EXECUTION, along with the benefits of a customer led approach, enabled by technology can help build really successful customer propositions and profitable models. My career has been shaped by my early days at Citibank and then the transformation work at Shinsei Bank

Sameer is the Group Chief Analytics Officer at DBS. He is responsible for driving analytics transformations across DBS, and has been leading the design and execution of the bank’s AI and data evolution for over 7 years.

Before joining DBS, he has worked at IBM, Standard Chartered Bank and GE Capital, in various roles across Asia and Europe. During this time, he led large scale transformation initiatives in areas such as customer centricity, new product introduction, process reengineering, lean six sigma, acquisition integration, analytics and outsourcing.

Sameer holds a MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta India and is a GE certified Six Sigma Black Belt.

Memo is the MD of Group Cyber delivery and transformation accountable for the roll out of all security technology across the Bank.  Prior to this, Memo was the CIO of Global Markets and Institutional Bank internationally for CBA, running a large team across Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, London, New York, Malta and Amsterdam.  Leading technology teams for both run and change supporting: FX, Derivatives, Fixed Income, Commodities, Institutional Lending, Credit, securitisation, and Trade finance businesses.

She has unique skills that span across all aspects of technology with strong delivery of large complex transformations, IT operational excellence, driving innovation and digitisation leveraging latest technologies, data, IT and business operating models to differentiate and position organisations for future profitable growth.  This is combined with extensive Information Technology, Strategy, Leadership, Corporate, Institutional Banking and Financial Markets expertise.

An experienced C-suite executive, Memo has significant exposure working alongside other C-suite focussing on strategic direction and operation of organisation.  She has experience working globally in London and New York at Credit Suisse, and multiple leading financial institutions in Australia including Westpac, NAB, Macquarie Bank, BNP Paribas and consulting.  She has lead initiatives for digitisation and focused on emerging IT models and technologies such as decentralised services and platforms, software as a service models, agile delivery models,  “pay per use” technology, multi-tenant models, building of Lego style architecture and creating strategic partnerships with technology organisations globally.

She comes from a strong technology background of engineering, architecture coupled with formal education in business, finance and leadership.  She has a keen interest in leveraging unique and innovative technologies to solve complex business problems for growth and differentiation.  Draws executive management insights from uniting teams in complex markets, through diverse cultures and market research to add unique value as a CIO.

Worldwide digital technology executive with 20 years' experience leading multiple successful digital innovation and execution with large multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams in global corporations.  Mr. Ho currently works in AXA Hong Kong & Macau as the Chief Technology Officer with full responsibility for IT including strategy, architecture, transformation, delivery, operations & cybersecurity.  Before joining AXA, Mr. Ho worked in various IT leadership role from AIA, Sun Life, IBM and Accenture.  Before working in Insurance industry, Mr. Ho is the trusted management consultant / lead architect stationed in APAC & EMEA countries for various digital and cloud transformation projects from strategy to execution in financial services sector.  Mr. Ho holds an MBA degree from University of Iowa – Henry B. Tippie School of Management in US.  He is also a TOGAF Certified Enterprise Architect, IBM Certified Senior IT Architect - API Integration Specialization, IBM Certified Cloud Solution Advisor and Microsoft Certified Azure Cloud Specialist.

Sandra has over 10 years of experience across cyber security, data protection, governance, risk, compliance and quality assurance in APAC and Europe. 

She is currently leading the APAC Data Security and Confidentiality Team in Credit Suisse that focuses on managing the divisional deployment of global initiatives related to data protection, data risk governance and implementation of the data protection strategy and delivery roadmap for Wealth Management. Before joining Credit Suisse, Sandra worked for Deutsche Bank, where she was APAC Data Leakage Protection Head. While there, Sandra worked on a data loss detection and monitoring program, controls implementation and awareness. She demonstrates a profound expertise in establishing and implementing DLP controls, process optimisation, risk reduction and management. She successfully implemented DLP detective monitoring in 13 APAC, 4 AMER and 25 EMEA countries. Prior to this, she worked at UBS and PwC as a Subject Matter Expert where she was responsible for compliance process implementation, audit/regulatory remediation and process transition.

Sandra is a hands-on executive, working alongside the C-suite in areas including cyber security, regulatory requirements, business expectations, strategy and governance to achieve the best results. She leads and develops cross-cultural and high-performing teams, driving vision, establishing actionable solutions, achieving operational goals, and maximizing organizational objectives.

Arun Mehta has 22+ years of high impact transformative data-centric architecture and engineering leadership experience, operating globally across financial, telecoms, shipping and logistics domains. He is currently the Head of Data & Analytics Engineering in NatWest Group.

He has owned and executed digital strategy right through to architecture roadmap creation and value delivery for data driven topics such as Digitalization, Data Science, Cloud adoption, Machine Learning, Big Data, Predictive Analytics / AI. He has been fully responsible for global Data transformation agenda operating at C-level equivalent for conceiving the investment budgeting advising CxO level and in line with CEO priorities, formulating business cases.

He is a thought leader in the Data & Analytics/ Cloud field acting as guest faculty at international universities and keynote speaker in global conferences. He has strategized and delivered value initiatives keeping right shoring and cost leadership in mind. He is a core member of NASSCOM BFSI Strategy Innovation Group (SIG) for accelerating industry level innovation. Key is a key member of the India leadership group and regional head of Innovation stream responsible for scouting and bringing / investing into FinTech’s of strategic importance to the Organization.

Arun holds AFRM from IIM-Bangalore and holds Masters in Finance (MBA) and Computer Application (MCA). He also holds international certifications in various technologies like AWS, Oracle, Microsoft and Teradata.

Nonna is Chief Data & Analytics Officer at RMIT University and is helping RMIT to improve the lives of students, staff and community through trusted insights. Through the development and implementation of Data & Analytics Strategy, Nonna is establishing data-driven culture and foundations for better decision-making to support learning, teaching and research and deliver innovative outcomes using data, ML and AI capabilities.

With wide range of industry experience in consulting, telecommunications, finance and IT, Nonna is an award winning Data and Analytics Champion. She is a thought leader in data quality and use of analytics to improve customer service and productivity of Australian businesses. Nonna partners with business stakeholders and IT to drive data strategy, develop enterprise Data Governance and deliver large, complex data and analytics related initiatives, significantly improving business bottom line. Nonna has been recognised by IAPA in the top 10 Analytics Leaders in Australia in 2021 and by Corinium in the top 100 Data and Analytics Innovators in the world in 2020. Nonna is a frequent presenter at Australian and International conferences and podcasts.

Mr Nandakumar has two-decade-long experience in the IT sector with a professional background in Application & Infrastructure Engineering, Architecture, and Business Consultancy in the Financial Management sector. He is pursuing a Doctoral Scholar in Consumer Behavior – Psychological and Sociological impact with AI/ML. He holds certifications in Project Management, Lean Sigma, ITIL Masters, Certified AWS Cloud Solution Architecture, Statistical and Data Analytics. His overall service experience covers IT & Financial management consulting with exposure to varied domains within the Retail, Wealth, and Institutional Financial industry. Technology modernization, Delivery governance, Business Transformation, Cost Optimization, Merger and Acquisitions, Strategic Tools deployment, and in building/managing competency models and Event-driven architecture are his key areas of specialization. Mr Nandakumar’s current focus in his role as Technology Head, Asia Pacific, Westpac Institutional & Retail Banking, Asia-Pacific, drives a Customer-Centric technology program for transforming Institutional and Retail Banking experience.

David has unique experience spanning the full trade lifecycle, execution to ledger. An experienced C-suite executive, David has significant exposure reporting to and working alongside CEOs and other C-suite focusing on strategic direction and operation of firms.

His geographic experience spans London, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Moscow and Johannesburg having held senior executive positions in ask these locations. His experience spans established and emerging markets.

Currently based in Singapore he is looking at opportunities to work with businesses focused on growth and geographical expansion where his strategy and build experience can be leveraged.

Raj Solanki is an Executive Director with over 15 years’ experience shaping global strategies and delivering successful change. Raj’s current role at JPM sees him responsible for driving strategic and digital transformation across APAC Operations to facilitate new business, efficiency, scale and an improved client experience.

Prior to JPM, Raj worked at ABN Amro and Royal Bank of Scotland across London, New York and now Hong Kong where he’s been for the past 10 years. His roles spanned across Technology and the Business with focus solely on change the bank initiatives.

Raj holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and enjoys spending his free time travelling with his family and learning Mandarin.

Vidhya is a Senior leader driving business outcome with clear Data and Digital strategic direction who is a Winner of Analytics India Magazine Women In AI Leadership Awards 2021 & CXO BFSI Top 100 Women Achiever Award 2021.

She has hands-on problem solving experience at all levels of business. She adds value to the business through data analytics offerings and insightful advisory services using Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning.

She is adept in developing & leading top-performing teams with Data Scientists and Machine Learning experts to solve challenges by providing data-driven sustainable solutions through Big Data technologies and analytics storytelling.

Certified in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Deep Learning, Agile and Product Owner.

Her strengths include Strategic Planning & Forecasting, Business Intelligence, Develop & communicate compelling narratives, strong networking, communication & influencing skills, ability to build, shape, lead, inspire, coach & mentor high-energy teams.

TK Yap is Group Chief Transformation Officer at CGS-CIMB Securities and will drive and accelerate its transformation in the areas of superior products, efficient technology, and effective scalability to maximize customer engagement.

He currently oversees the Group's digital solutions, technology infrastructure and solutions, operations and processes, electronic trading platforms, and program management office functions.

His 35 years in the securities industry has included roles in local and global firms, buy and sell sides, distribution and origination, as well as research and sales functions.

TK is an IBF Fellow and currently serves on its CMFAS Exam Board.