Prof. Dr. K.G. Satheesh Kumar, Ph.D.
Professor, kgsatheesh@duk.ac.in, 91-471-2788-091
Panel Discussion Moderator
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PhD, MBA, BSc (Engg) with 39+ years of experience spanning:

• 19 years in industry
• 6 years in consulting
• 14 years in academics, research, and disability management

2015-2021: National Institute of Speech and Hearing (NISH) as Director/Executive Director (in Charge)

2007-2015: Asian School of Business as Professor/Dean

2001-2007: Management Consultant, VMA Consultants

2000-2001: Specialized Global as CEO

1990-2000: Technopark as Chief Executive Officer/General Manager/Project Manager

Area of interest: Strategic innovation, entrepreneurship, disability management

Mr. Biju Nair
Chief Audit Officer, Zand Bank, Dubai
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Biju is currently working as the Chief Audit Officer of Zand in Dubai which isthe first full-fledged digital bank in the Middle East.He has 25 years of experience in Financial Sector in India & UAE.He has been a regular speaker in International Conferences and has been a mentor to many young professionals inbanking, internal audit and cyber security domains.

Last 10 + years he has been working at "C" Level reporting to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors. He provides strategic consulting,specifically on Corporate Governance, Risk Management, Internal Controls and Compliance to all stake holders including the C-Suite.

He holds various leading certifications in Audit and Cyber Security domains like CISA,CISSP, CIA, CRISCetc. He has several years of experience in investigating cyber frauds and is also a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE).

He did his B-Tech from College of Engineering Trivandrum in 1993 and has also completed a Management Development Program from IIM Ahmedabad.

Mr. Gautham Pillai
Equity Research Analyst
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Gautam Pillai is an accomplished and results oriented Equity Research Analyst in the Technology sector covering European Software, IT Services & Fintech/Payments. He has worked at global investment bank Goldman Sachs from 2010 until early 2022. Gautam will be moving to a different role to focus specifically on the UK fintech landscape.

Gautam is a CFA charter holder (2016) and completed MBA in Finance & Banking from NMIMS, Mumbai (2009). He is a CET alumnus and graduated in B Tech , Mechanical engineering in 2005.

Mr. Sunil Cherian
Founder & CEO, Copperwire Systems, USA
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Sunil Cherian is the founder and CEO of Copperwire Systems, a Silicon Valley blockchain applications middleware company, that helps easily unlock, accelerate and maximize value from blockchain technologies, without having to reinvent the wheel or deal with setup risks and headaches.  

Copperwire Conductor suite of services, pre-built applications, and solutions bridge the gap between blockchains and existing systems, offering up the potential to drive efficiency, visibility, and security in your supply chain, tech systems, and more.  

Sunil was a founding team member of Array Networks, a company that he was involved in all the way from founding through IPO and beyond. He has held various senior management roles in Marketing, Product Management, Engineering, and Business Development and has been involved in companies in the networking, cloud & security space. He started his career at VMX/Octel/Lucent and was part of Alteon Web Systems before Array Networks.  

He has a B. Tech in Computer Science & Engineering from College of Engineering, Trivandrum, Kerala, India, and a Masters in Computer Science from SUNY Albany, New York. He was also responsible for one of the largest IT job creation programs in N. America for minority women and veterans (Step IT Up America) through Mentor Global, a company he co-founded with other alumni from the College of Engineering, Trivandrum. He is an investor and advisor/mentor to many start-ups and tech-enabled companies. 

Sunil has co-authored two books namely 'Breakfree to Peace, Love & Unity with SeemaGiri, and 'Blockchain Impact' with Christian de Vaartaven. He has been a panelist/speaker/ moderator and has been on podcast shows related to Supply Chain, Bitcoin, and Blockchain Technology. He also has given guest lectures on Blockchain technology in different colleges and universities including most recently on Supply Chain at Naveen Jindal School of Management University. of Texas at Dallas. He is an active member of the College of Engineering NIRF task force aimed at improving the overall position of the college in national rankings.

Mr. Jithesh P.V
Head of Fintech Partnerships at Federal Bank
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Mr. Jithesh P.V. is the Head of Fintech Partnerships at Federal Bank. Mr.Jithesh has more than  two decades of experience in Federal Bank and has significantly rich experience in Branch Banking, General Banking, Information Technology and Digital Banking. Prior to taking up this role he was heading the Digital Banking vertical of the Bank.  The bank launched a series of innovative products like Video based Account Opening, FedSwagat- appointment booking app, Account Aggregator, Feddy-Bank's AI based Personal Assistant, Tokenisation, All in one Mobile Application- FedMobile, under his leadership. In the current role, he is spearheading Open Banking based partnerships and has partnered with top NEO banks in the country. The Bank has created a state of the art Open Banking Platform with 13 API bundles and 100 plus APIs and Bank is working with more than 50 partners.