Alpesh Patel
CIO Asia
UBS

Alpesh Patel has been with UBS for 12 years and was appointed APAC Regional Head of IT for UBS Investment Bank in 2006. Prior to that, Alpesh held the position of Regional Head of Equities Technology which he retained until January 2008. Effective January 2008, Alpesh has also taken on the role of APAC Head of ITI.

Alpesh's career in Investment Banking spans over 16 years having worked in London, Frankfurt, New York, Stamford, Singapore, Tokyo and now Hong Kong.

Andy Yan
Regional Head - Customer Strategy - Regional Marketing & Strategy
AXA Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd.

Andy Yan is Regional Head, Customer Strategy, in AXA Asia Pacific Holdings Limited responsible for developing and driving customer related strategies, including building up the CRM roadmap and infrastructure, enhancing customer insight and satisfaction, and maximizing customer value etc.

He has been serving in Financial Service industry (including banks, insurance and smart card companies) for almost 20 years. His experience covers business intelligence, CRM capability, direct marketing, e-business and new business development.

Arthur Wong
Senior Vice President
Head of Business Technology Management
Fubon Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd

Arthur is the Senior Vice President and Head of Business Technology Management of Fubon Bank (Hong Kong) and has over 22 years of experience in the information technology industry with major international and Chinese banks. He is responsible for the overall management of all IT functions for the Bank. Before Arthur joined Fubon in 2008, he had been with China Construction Bank for 13 years where he was the IT Head of CCB Hong Kong Branch and the Overseas Support Centre. Arthur also worked for National Australia Bank, Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank before.

Arthur holds an MBA degree from University of Warwick, UK.

Benjamin Chien
Principal, Customer Intelligence
SAS HK

Chia Chong Hai
Solutions Engineering Manager
Sterling Commerce Asia

Chia Chong Hai is the Solutions Engineering Manager of Sterling Commerce Asia. He helps customers integrate business applications across horizontal industries.

Chong has expertise in a number of functional areas across development, IT Management, System Integration, and consulting encompassing Document/Workflow Management, Enterprise Application, Integration, Advanced File Transfer management and e-Business Integration.

Chong Hai joined Sterling Commerce in 2000. For the past 5 years in Sterling Commerce, he has been working with enterprises across geographical boundaries and, as such understands the cultural behaviors of different industries in the various regions. This valuable experiences that allows Chong Hai to advise multi-national companies on their business strategy, as well as help small and medium size company to be adaptive to the ever changing IT trends. Chong Hai is highly conversant in Mandarin.

Chong Hai holds a bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (honors) degree from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Cliff Harkins
Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing (Worldwide)
WealthCraft Systems Limited (A partner of Microsoft)

As Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Cliff Harkins is responsible for the company's worldwide sales & marketing activities, focusing on building a regional sales platform and the management of customer relationships. Cliff joined "WealthCraft Systems Limited" from "ING Financial Planning Limited", where he worked as "Head of International Wealth Management", leading the expansion of ING's Wealth Management division. During this time at ING his role also required involvement in the development of WealthCraft's "Advisor Workbench"(AWB), which was driven in part by the requirements of ING as one of the first group of users on the platform.

Prior to ING, Cliff worked in Australia, involved in the establishment of a new financial planning business in Perth, "Addwealth Pty Ltd" this following a period of 8 years working with a couple of the major UK banks on the Financial Planning side, culminating with NatWest Bank in Scotland, as "Financial Planning Manager". Cliff's experience in the "Financial Planning" and "Banking" sectors gives him an enormous amount of appreciation for exactly what our customers are looking for regarding a wealth management platform, specifically from a users perspective, rather than a technical perspective. This expertise has greatly enhanced our sales and marketing capabilities within WealthCraft and will greatly assist in the long term development of the business and the platform.

Derek Huynh
Head of Technology Control
CLSA

Derek is the Head of Technology Control and Information Risk Management at CLSA, an Asian Pacific markets focused brokerage and investment group headquartered in Hong Kong. CLSA has institutional clients around the world and offices in over a dozen Asian locations, as well as New York, London and Dubai.

Derek has over 20 years of experience in IT industry having held various management positions in Big-4 accounting firms, global IT vendors and international financial institutions. Over the recent 7 years, Derek has focused on enterprise risk management and IT controls.

Derek holds MBA and BSc degrees from Australia.

Edward Scheckler
Global Head of Infrastructure Information Technology
CLSA

Edward W. Scheckler is currently Global Head of IT Infrastructure at CLSA, Ltd., an Asian equity focused brokerage and investment group headquartered in Hong Kong. CLSA has institutional clients around the world and offices in over a dozen Asian locations, as well as New York, London and Dubai.

Mr. Scheckler has 17 years experience in the Asia Pacific region having held senior IT roles including Asia Pacific head of Technology Infrastructure at Credit Suisse and Japan Region Head of Technology Infrastructure at Citigroup. Mr. Scheckler has also been a consultant to the financial services and life sciences sectors with Monolith Corporation, a consultancy based in New York and Tokyo that has a particular interest in green computing technologies. His clients have included the Japan National Institutes of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and Pfizer, Inc. He first came to Japan as a visiting researcher in microlithography at Hitachi's Central Research Laboratory.

Mr. Scheckler holds M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California Berkeley, and B.S.E.E. and B.A. degrees from the University of Notre Dame. At Berkeley he won the Samuel Silver Memorial Award given to students who best combine intellectual achievement in science and engineering with serious humanistic and cultural interests. He has also published several articles and book chapters in the fields of semiconductor manufacturing, nanotechnology, and on his experiences working in a Japanese company.

Emil Chan
First Vice President
Head of IT - Asia Pacific
BayernLB

With over 20 years' experience on IT and back-office operations of foreign banks in Hong Kong, Emil is currently the First Vice President of BayernLB leading the IT teams of the bank in Asia. He graduated from the Hong Kong Open University with a Bachelor of Applied Computer Science and from the University of Northern Iowa with a Master of Business Administration. He is a Certified Master Practitioner on Neuro Linguistic Programming and also a member of the ISACA with a certificate of CISA. Emil is the Chairman of the Hong Kong IBM User Group, a non-profit-making organization for the IBM users in Hong Kong to do networking and idea exchanges and the Co-chairman of the Offline Club of iProA to create opportunities for the members to get closer together and exchange views in a fun and relaxing atmosphere.

Jerome Yen, Dr. and Professor
Visiting Professor
Department of Finance
HKUST Business School

Prof. Jerome Yen currently is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Finance at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), which ranked No. 1 in Asia and also No. 23 in the world based on the survey by London Financial Time in 2005. Dr. Yen was a Senior Vice President (SVP) and Deputy Chief Risk Officer from 2005 to the end of 2006 at Cathay Financial Holdings (CFH), which was the largest Financial Holding Firm in Taiwan with AUM greater than USD 100 Billion and also one of the Forbes 500. On such capacity Prof. Yen was responsible for establishing and supervising the operation of Risk Management Division with more than 25 staff members. He also managed the special Basel II task force to support the Cathay Union Bank, a subsidiary of CFH, to get complied with the requirements of the new Basel II Accord. He also developed the “Quant” team who focused on the development credit scoring and rating models as well as pricing models for equity structured products.

He received his PhD. in 1992 in Systems Engineering and Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona. His Ph.D. research was conducted in the Economic Science Lab. (ESL) at the University of Arizona that led by Prof. Vernon Smith – a Nobel Prize Laureate. His dissertation investigated the behavior of decision makers in dynamic markets, which included price movement forecasting and competition strategies formation, such as, coalition.

Prof. Yen has taught at leading universities, such as, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the University of Arizona, the University of Hong Kong (HKU), and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He was promoted to professor in 2001 at Chinese University of Hong Kong within nine years, which was much faster than his colleagues. Currently he also holds chair professorship in the Business School at Hunan University, China. He is also the deputy general secretary of the Financial Engineering Association of Taiwan (FeAT) and a member of the executive committee of the Asia Association of Risk and Crisis Management (AARCM). On such capacities, he contributed in teaching and research as well as building a bridge between the academia and the industry.

Jonathan Andresen
Director of Product Marketing - Asia Pacific
Blue Coat Systems

Jonathan Andresen is Director of Product Marketing at Blue Coat Systems, Asia-Pacific. Mr. Andresen has been working in the telecommunications sector since 1996 and relocated to Asia in 2003. Prior to joining Blue Coat Systems, Mr. Andresen held various marketing, strategy and business development management positions in Nortel’s Wireless and Optical Business Units. Mr. Andresen’s career includes positions with Teleglobe, MetroPhotonics and Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Mr. Andresen holds a Master's Degree of International Management from Carleton University in Canada. Located in Bangkok, Mr. Andresen also serves as the Vice-President of the Thai-Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

Michael Ma
Corporate VP
IT, AIA Company Ltd

Michael Ma has been in the Information Technology industry for over twenty years in both North America and Asia Pacific. He has extensive experience in project management, consulting, systems integration and systems development, in addition to his sales, marketing and management expertise. His experience spans many industries including airlines, IT and consulting, banks, insurance, clearinghouse, warehouse & distribution, utilities, and the public sector. Mr. Ma has held various technical, management and executive positions with such large global enterprises as IBM (Canada & Greater China Group), Unisys Asia, Canadian Airlines International, and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), and Sun Life Financial.

Mr. Ma is currently a Corporate Vice President, Regional Information Technology, American International Assurance Company, Limited (AIA). AIA is the life insurance division of one of the largest financial services companies in the world, American International Group Inc. (AIG). Mr. Ma has responsibilities spanning across Asia Pacific covering 12 countries in 14 business units.

Prior to joining AIA, Mr. Ma was the Corporate Vice President and Regional Chief Information Officer for Sun Life Financial, Regional Headquarters, responsible for regional Information Technology and Operations. Mr. Ma holds a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, in addition to having professional designations as a Certified Computing Professional (CCP) and Information Systems Professional of Canada (ISP). He is a Fellow of the Hong Kong Computer Society (FHKCS), and a Fellow of the Hong Kong Institute of Directors (FHKIoD).

Micky Lo
Managing Director, Head of Asia IT Risk Management
JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A.

Micky's current responsibilities include management of the Information Technology risk. He also manages a program that monitors the firm's IT security exposure in the region - including provision of security technology solutions to business and governance of LOB's IT Control Self Assessment (CSA) deliverables. He is also responsible for developing JPM's regional IT control policies to ensure they meet regulatory standards.

Micky joined JPM in 1997 and is based in HK. He has held various management positions in Global Technology Infrastructure (GTI) before taking on his current role in 2004 - and has since expanded his team from three staff to the current 170.

Prior to JPM, Micky was a VP at Citibank Technology Group and Technology Audit department. He has worked in the HK and Florida office of Citibank.

Micky is also a Certified Information Security Auditor.

Patrick Wong, Professor
A Renowned Financial Expert and Analyst

Prof. Patrick Wong is an internationally renowned financial expert, investment consultant and independent stock analyst. In the 1980s, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of an international money broking firm and handled daily transactions equaling to several billion US dollars. Later, he became Financial Director of an engineering company, participating in the construction work of the North Lantau Highway of Hong Kong International Airport and it's 3.5 billion HK dollars’ construction syndicated loan. In addition, Prof. Wong has been a guest lecturer for universities in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau (AIOU). He is also a financial columnist for the local newspaper "Apple Daily" and am730. In 2006, he was invited to host the financial programme ‘Global Market Express’ on NOW Business News Channel commenting on international finance and economical issues. Prof. Wong is currently appointed as the Chief Consultant of a Chinese business consultancy company and founder of website www.wongsir.hk.

Paul Lee
Head of IT Support
Cantor Fitzgerald

Paul has been with Cantor Fitzgerald for 3 years and is the Head of IT Support in Asia Pacific. In addition to the role of handling IT Support and Infrastructure, Paul is actively involved in trade cycles and electronic trading with extensive knowledge in exchanges and regulations in the Asia Pacific equity markets.

Paul has over 15 years of IT experience in the financial industry. Prior to joining Cantor Fitzgerald, Paul was the Head of IT for Shenyin Wanguo Securities. He also worked for ETRADE Securities and Societe Generale in both their New York and Hong Kong offices.

Paul holds a Masters of Engineering degree from Columbia University, New York and a Bachelors of Science degree from SUNY Stony Brook.

Paul Yung
Regional Sales Manager for Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea
Avocent International Ltd

Paul Yung is responsible for driving the Avocent IT Operations Management Solutions including Out-of-Band Management and IT Services Management in Asia Pacific.

With his extensive knowledge and experience on data center management through the various positions held, he has expertise in advising and implementing IT solutions to overcome business challenges and sharing the best practice, particularly for the Financial Service Industry.

He has provided business management and technical consulting on IT operations management for over 100 projects across various industries including banking & finance, government, telecommunications, logistics and manufacturing in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea.

Robert Siu
Sales Director, Document Imaging of Graphics Communications Group, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau
Kodak (Hong Kong) Ltd

Robert Siu is responsible for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as the Sales Director of the Kodak Document Imaging Strategic Business Line in the Graphics Communications Group in Kodak. Robert leveraged his solution and product knowledge of document imaging gained from his technical background for more than 17 years in Kodak to even better support his leading role in document imaging area since the year of 2000,

Being the Chief Technical Consultant for a Hong Kong Government IT Project in regards to Computer Output Solutions in early 2000, Robert contributed a lot in the overall future direction of the Government in Hong Kong in the area of information management. Not only helping users in Hong Kong leveraging best quality document scanners, but also more exciting is the fact that he helps end users and resellers leverage the use of Kodak document solutions with latest technologies to efficiently support corporate operations from front end to the back end.

Robert Siu has good applications experience in document imaging segment at Banking and Finance, Insurance and Government segments. In 1983, Robert graduated from Hong Kong Polytechnics with a major in Electronic Engineering.

Steve Bingle
Vice-President
Asia Risk

Steve is Vice-President, Asia Risk. He has more than 30 years’ experience as a partner-level consultant and frontline banker. His consulting experience spans more than fifty client engagements across Asia and he has worked with the leadership teams of many of the leading global and regional financial services organisations on complex strategic, operational and risk issues. Prior to joining Asia Risk, he led Molten’s Asian consulting practice, including their operational risk business.

Steve has worked on risk management issues with ING, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Macau Monetary Authority, China Southern Airlines and Goldman Sachs.

Prior to his consulting career, Steve spent 14 years with HSBC as an International Manager. During this time with HSBC, Steve held executive positions in both retail and corporate banking in Asia and the Middle East.

His work has been recognized internationally, winning the Wharton Business Transformation Award and the Institute of Financial Services Innovation Award.

Thio Tse Gan
Executive Director
Deloitte & Touche Enterprise Risk Services Pte Ltd

Tse Gan is the Executive Director of Deloitte Singapore's Enterprise Risk Services Division. He is responsible for managing operational risk, process and technology innovation projects.

As a veteran with over 15 years of experience, Tse Gan specialises in evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of business processes in assisting organisation in managing their risks and improving their business. He has also been instrumental in leading a team within Deloitte to develop several management tools, including an operational risk management solution and a transaction and messaging solution.

Prior to joining Deloitte, Tse Gan has held several key positions in two international accounting firms and a leading local bank. Some of his clients include, DBS Bank, OCBC Bank, Malayan Banking Corporation, United Overseas Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, VISA International, Taipei Fubon Bank (Taiwan), Shing Kwong Bank (Taiwan), First Commercial Bank(Taiwan), Ping An Group, Siam Commercial Bank (Thailand), Government Housing Bank (Thailand) Lippo Bank (Indonesia), Temasek Holdings.

Thomas Parenty
Managing Director
Parenty Consulting Limited

Thomas Parenty, Managing Director of Parenty Consulting Limited (Hong Kong), has twenty five years of experience in the computer security and cryptography fields, including employment with the National Security Agency. He has designed and evaluated the information security protection of numerous national and global systems, including those for banking, electronic commerce, credit card processing, healthcare, and nuclear command and control. In addition, Parenty has designed security features in enterprise applications that are currently used by governments and businesses across the globe.

Mr. Parenty has testified five times before the United States Congress on global competitiveness, national security, law enforcement, and encryption. In addition, he has served as an advisor to the National Academy of Sciences and the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection. Harvard Business School Press published Parenty’s book, Digital Defense: What You Should Know About Protecting Your Company’s Assets. His consulting practice currently focuses on the enablement of electronic commerce and the protection of intellectual property in Asia.

Toa Charm
Regional Head of BI Competency Centre, Asia Pacific, HSBC
Chairperson, BI Special Interest Division, Hong Kong Computer Society

Mr. Toa Charm has over 20 years of management, marketing and consulting experience in the information technology industry. Currently, Toa is the Regional Head of Business Intelligence Competence Centre (BICC), Asia Pacific, HSBC. His mission is to empower HSBC Asia Pacific to compete and operate effectively with world-class business intelligence best practices and transform the company into a data-driven enterprise. Before joining HSBC, Toa was the General Manager of Oracle Business Intelligence where he managed the business intelligence solutions business and operations in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan for Oracle. Toa also held senior management positions in leading software companies such as Kingdee, Hyperion, Informix and Ardent.

Toa actively serves the Hong Kong, China and Asia Pacific communities through participating major business, IT and academic associations in these regions. He is the founder and current Chairperson of the Business Intelligence Special Interest Division of the Hong Kong Computer Society. He is an advisor in a number of advisory boards in Hong Kong, such as, Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Department of Computing), The University of Hong Kong (the External Advisory Board of Information Systems Association, BEA, HKUSU), Hong Kong Baptist University (the School of Business), etc. Toa also served the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (China Trade Advisory Board) as an appointed advisor from 2005 to 2008.

Toa possesses a M.A. degree in Business Administration and B.Sc. degree in Computer Science. He is currently pursuing a Doctoral degree in Business Administration (DBA) at the City University of Hong Kong.

Trevor Lewis
Business Partner, Large Projects, Asia Pacific
Orange Business Services

Trevor Lewis is Orange Business Services - Business Partner, Large Projects, Asia Pacific Located in Melbourne, Australia.

Trevor spent over 24 years in the UK Financial Services sector with General Accident Group (now Aviva Plc).

Roles included senior underwriting across personal and commercial lines of business and development of the company's "direct" insurance division, followed by regional and national management positions, including CEO of GA BONUS Plc - the UK's leading commercial insurance BPO for the major national and international brokers and bancassurance channel.

In 1998 Trevor joined the world's leading insurance administration software group - PMSC as International Director of Product Marketing and 2 years later moved to Australia as MD of PMSC Asia Pacific where he was responsible for successfully restructuring the regional BU and it's offices across 10 Asian countries. Following the global acquisition of PMSC by the outsourcing and SI group CSC, Trevor took on the role of COO Financial Services Group for CSC Australia and then VP & Global Account Executive for CSC's largest regional infrastructure and applications outsourcing client - BHP Billiton. Trevor joined Orange Business Services in 2008 as part of the company's increasing focus on strategic transformation and outsourcing for MNCs and major regional businesses, where he is responsible for developing large and complex opportunities and bringing the full global value of Orange Business Services to our clients.

William Tam
Senior Head of Technical Consultancy - Asia Pacific and Middle East
Websense

William has more than 15 years of experience in the security industry with extensive experience in technical consulting and product management role and hold various positions across both global operation and dynamic startup companies. He joined Websense in 2003, as Field Sales Engineer for the Greater China region and promoted to Senior Head of Technical Consultancy - Asia Pacific and Middle East in Sept 2005, managing the APAC and Middle East Sales Engineering team as well as day-to-day web and data security consultancy and services across the region.

In 2006, William was awarded the 1st Annual Harold Kester Award by Websense, Inc. The award goes to one employee worldwide every year who displays the most outstanding level of contribution in the areas of quality, innovation, teamwork and leadership.

Prior to Websense, William is the Manager of Sales Engineering at Network365, an Ireland based multinational powerhouse and pioneer in 3G wireless data and mobile commerce and messaging technologies. Prior to that, he was the Product Manager for IP Service Group, Lucent Technologies (formerly Ascend Communications), managing a suite of IP VPN, firewall security and QoS appliances. He also served previously in technical positions and product management role at various companies including, Tivoli Systems Inc, Sun Microsystem and several local IT companies as well.

William Yin
Partner
Managing Director
Boston Consulting Group

William Yin is a Partner and Managing Director of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and is based in the Hong Kong office. He leads our IT practice in Greater China and focuses on the Financial Services industry.

Prior to joining BCG, Mr. Yin worked for A.T. Kearney for 10 years where he was the General Manager of the Hong Kong office and also lead the Financial Services and IT practice in Greater China. In this role, he was successful in executing numerous strategic IT projects for leading Chinese banks. Before joining A.T. Kearney, William worked for EDS for 5 years in the UK and in North America.

William holds a Masters degree in Information Technology from University College London and a Bachelors degree in Physics from King's College London.