Dr. Usman Zafar

International Board Advisor | Public Speaker,

Bio:

International Board Advisor | Public Speaker -An accomplished Business Management and Technology Executive with an extensive experience in both private and public sector with successful track record in building, transforming and leading result oriented professional organization, leading complex programs & business change initiatives with full P&L responsibility. Held Executive level positions with major Blue-Chip & Fortune 500 Technology Corporations.

Dr Usman has been at the forefront of many of the region’s (MENA) multi millions $ IT projects and extensively recognized for his expertise in the areas of eGovernment, e - services, ERP, process automation, specialized training initiatives and Strategic IT Planning.

An integrity driven personality and performance-driven executive with proven success in developing e¬ective and pro table partnerships with business stakeholders in risk adverse environments, strong communication skills with a reputation for being a detail oriented, and creative solutions provider focused on doing the right thing, the right way.

As an Organized Strategist and Entrepreneurial team player, he has provided strategic leadership to fully own and manage Life Cycle of Business Management, introduced innovative solutions to global marketing, and improved contract/proposal management processes. It produced breakthrough results in technology growth, business pipeline, exponential increase in revenue, and great market rapport.

Dr Usman has participated actively in several regional and International conferences / workshops and exhibitions as a keynote speaker to talk about various topics, such as Leadership, Marketing, Corporate Branding, Image Building, eGovernment Barriers, Change Management, Business Process Management, Public Private Partnership, Social Media, Strategic Planning, and Communication/Presentation Skills.

Apart from serving Large Enterprises and Public Sector, Dr Usman has several years of experience in the education sector as a consultant and professor with renowned Universities and Corporate Training Centers Globally.

Dr Usman has received several awards in the past few years for his outstanding performance and delivering Complex projects both in public and private sectors.

Hanane Benkhallouk

Co-founder & Executive Director,Sustain Leadership consultancy

Bio:
Hanane Benkhallouk is an award winning senior consultant with a broad scope of expertise and exposure to international markets, from the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

In Dubai since 2005, with a thriving career,  that included being in charge of innovation and entrepreneurship programs across the Arab World, at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum foundation. Hanane works  today as he Executive Director of Sustain Leadership, a consultancy specialised in strategic leadership, Innovation management  and diversity and inclusion.

A culture change and certified innovation strategist, Hanane supports corporates, government institutions, NGOs and SMEs, in building human centric business models, and create cultures of innovation, to remain relevant and sustain their leadership in an ever changing world.

Hanane is also recognized as a thought leader, a global conference speaker, and author, some of her articles were published on Harvard business review Arabic, and Forbes Middle East to name a few.

Hanane’s vision is to contribute to the move of the Arab Region into an innovation and knowledge based economy.

Dr. Náder Alyani

Director,Enlightened Robot

Bio:
Náder is the advisory lead at Enlightened Robotand executive director of German-based Bloomsbert Associates acting as a specialist on strategic alignment and digital technology investment projects. He was previously theMenas Associates’ Gulf region lead and a correspondent with the Economist magazine. His managerial, consulting and academic activities focus on capability development, facilitating risk analytics and implementing innovation. His career has spanned ascending positions in the public and private sector,and as an adviser to MNCs (on FDIs, PPP, local content and human capital), having served with research, consulting and policy-design and implementation institutions. He has advised upon, managed, or directed 20+ projects and programmes with integrity and cultural awareness, covering digital transformation and operating models, PMO, M&A and lean organisational change, robotic process automation (RPA),smartKPIs, organisational redesign and people analytics with industry software toolsand has specialised on developing capabilities and upskilling for 4th Industrial Revolution, utilising Artificial Intelligence applications (e.g. ML, DL, DLT) with use cases in Smart-Cities.

A doctoralalumnus of University College London and a Fellow of Royal Geographical Society in London, with a focus on economic geography of innovation, he remains engaged in human capital,industrial andsectoral policy challenges in, and related to the Gulf region in the recent years.

Hani AlGhofaily

Saudi Media Consultant, Former Official Spokesperson for the Ministry of Information,Saudi Arabia

Bio:

I have a master in e-media and a bachelor's degree in computer. I worked in a number of government and private sectors in a number of technical and media positions, and established major websites. I currently work as an e-media director at the Ministry of Defense, and before that I was an adviser to the Minister of Media and a official spokesperson. Always succeed in building teams and achieving excellence, I was awarded the King Salman Award for Best Leader 2015.

Work Experience:

Advisor to the Minister - 2016 - 2018
Ministry of Media

Director of E-Media Department - 2007 - 2016

Al-Yamamah Press

Supervisor of e-services - 2004 - 2007

Emirate of Riyadh Province

Web developer - 2000 - 2003

king Saud university

Asem E. Galal

Co-Founder, Galal & Karawi Consulting (G&K),

Bio:

Asem Galal is an entrepreneur, a management consultant and a regional authority on business and channel development in the information technology sector in the middle east. Galal has held middle east wide product

management and marketing responsibilities in microsoft and hp from 1996 to 2002 and regional general management and sales responsibilities in hp and mcafee from 2002 to 2008. Galal started as a lead developer and s/w project manager at IDSC in 1992. He has received hp's president award for  outstanding performance in 2003 and mcafee's president outstanding performance award in 2005, 2006 & 2007. Galal is listed in Marquis Who'sWho in the World since the 26th Edition in 2009.

In 2008 Galal co-founded Galal & Karawi Consulting (G&K), based in dubai, to enable middle east organizations and individuals to re-invent themselves. Among G&K's customers are top Fortune 500 and leading regional companies. Since then, Galal has delivered multiple consulting and training engagements on business and channel development, retail business enablement, social media strategies, creativity & innovation and strategic market re-invention. In 2010 G&K launched Retail++ program focusing on developing the middle east's retail market. Galal delivered Keynote speeches for many regional events including Egypt's Central Bank annual conference, SAP, Lenovo, Evonik, Etihad Airways & Dell conferences. He also contributes in the content selection and moderation of panels for ITP annual channel conference and is on the Judges panel of the Middle East channel awards for multiple years.

Galal holds a B.Sc in electronic engineering from cairo university, an MBA from maastricht school of management and currently working on his Ph.D. in applied management sciences at walden university.

Galal is a frequent writer and guest analyst in business and information technology media such as Forbes, SkyNews & CNBC Arabic. Some of his interviews can be found on www.galalkarawi.com and www.youtube.com/asemgalal.

Meyer Manfred

Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder,Next Commerce

Bio:

Kunasellan Kathigesan

Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder,Next Commerce

Bio:

Sumit Sharma

Consultant,

Bio:

Mr. Dieter Hovorka

Chief Technology Officer / Strategic Alliances ,SKILLZ Middle East FZ LLC

Bio:
Dieter Hovorka is a creative Marketing and Solution Consultant with over +20 years industry experience working for multi international organizations to develop whole enterprise IT strategy, business process optimization, engineering projects and customer communication solutions  with integration into digital and social media marketing initiatives.
Starting his carrier as a software developer in the gambling industry he quickly developed his business skills to succeed in fast growing markets by delivering business goal driven solutions which go beyond technology. Innovation and creativity allowed him to develop his knowledge across many markets, economies and technologies and in following companies into logistics, retail, manufacturing, services and multi lingual back office solutions.
As a senior Dieter was working over five years as the Global Information Technology Officer for Artesyn Technologies Inc., an U.S. based electronic manufacture across four continents implementing communication and information technology infrastructure projects, driving global initiatives for knowledge management and information centric solutions like ERP, CRM, IMMS and MRP. During his engagement he had to ability to develop creative solutions for complete new manufacturing standards and data exchange between manufacture, supplier and customer. He was driving also the implementation of ISO9000 and many government safety standards special in the Asian operations.
After he was holding multiply management positions, as CEO, Marketing Manager, Sales Manager, Quality & Product Manager, in a couple of start-up companies across Europe, which developed a complete web based business process management suite, a content transformation solution, a web based marketing solution, a multi-channel output management solution. During this period he was invited in as guest speaker in many forums across Europe and North America to share his experience and knowledge.
Dieter was establishing the Adobe Systems regional sales in Austria as Technical Pre-Sales Lead where he quickly contributed in many innovations for the product management for Adobe’s enterprise solutions, reforming the digital signature initiative and mobile initiative.
Three years later Dieter moved for Adobe to the Middle East as Technical Manager, building Enterprise Solution sales and partner network and helping deployment of electronic forms solutions, web experience management, customer experience management and content centric solutions for eGoverment and commercial sector companies across the GCC.
 Recently Dieter launched a digital agency Skillz Middle East in Dubai, developing the transformation of knowledge management across information channels including social networks and building for company’s digital and social marketing strategies across Middle East and Africa.
In his free time Dieter is passionate into scuba diving, beach sports, traveling and enjoying good food and cigars.
Dieter graduated from the Higher Technical Institute in Moedling Austria in communication technologies.