Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Business Networking Forum

Harness the power of technology to transform

your business and achieve innovation success

SPEAKERS

Dr Charles Ling, Chief Operating officer, Informatics Executive Education, Singapore

Dr Charles Ling is the Chief Operating Officer of Informatics Education Limited. In his current portfolio, Dr Ling is responsible for the strategic direction, development and management of the core businesses of Informatics Education. Before joining Informatics Education, Dr Ling was the Founding Director of the Strategic Technology Management Institute (STMI), an institute within the National University of Singapore. He was responsible for shaping the strategy, business and operation of the institute. Dr Ling also held leadership positions at the Office of CIO and Services Management in the Singapore Exchange. An active speaker in conferences and seminars, Dr Ling also published his research and industrial work in various international journals, magazines, newsletters and newspapers.

Lim Wei Wah, Director, Asia IT Site Operations, User Experience Services, Microsoft IT, Singapore

Lim Wei Wah is the Director, Asia IT Site Operations responsible for key site infrastructure and cloud initiatives for 137 sites across 18 countries in Asia ranging from developed large to small emerging subsidiaries, business groups, regional operation centre and two global support centres with total users of 30,000. He embarks on New World of Work program in order to create new IT work experience within Microsoft.

Wei Wah provides a technology environment across Microsoft Asia that enables a productive workforce by using and showcasing Microsoft products (often in beta stage) and latest partners’ technology. He has been driving internal IT Environmental Sustainability program to reduce carbon footprint and Data Centre virtualization. As a part of the User Experience IT responsibility, he also owns and manages the relationship between the internal Microsoft clients, vendors and worldwide IT team.

Praba G Menon, Managing Director, PestBusters , PestBusters, Singapore

Mr. Praba G Menon was appointed as a Managing Director of PestBusters Pte Ltd on 16 April 2015, as the Company goes global with its war against pest and operational start up in the United Kingdom, Dubai, Maldives, China, India and other pest-filled cities. Mr. Praba Menon brings along with him 30 years of a very strong background in quality hospitability management, managing 5-star luxury hotels and resorts in many countries – such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, etc.

Mr Menon is a distinctive, highly-driven individual with strong and diversified background in strategic planning, quality management, team leadership and operational enhancement in sales & marketing, food & beverage and associates management and training.

Robert MC Yap, Deputy Chairman and Executive Director, Y3 Technologies, Singapore

Robert is the Deputy Chairman & Executive Director of Y3 Technologies, a leading supply chain management application software and technology provider. He drives the expansion of Y3 Technologies through strategic partnerships, providing business advisory and consultancy to the company. Robert held senior global leadership position for over a decade from 2004 with DFS Group Limited. , and was appointed Group Executive Vice President in charge of global finance and corporate shared services, information technology, procurement and HR services. DFS is a luxury travel retailer with annual turnover around US$5 billion and majority owned by the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy.

Robert is currently involved in several techno-ventures in the capacity as investor, C-level board leadership, helping companies achieve greater access to markets both in the region and globally, building brand value and equity, strategic investments and divestments.

As a business and technology leader, Robert was privileged as company representative and recipient of several notable industry awards including the Computerworld Smithsonian Leadership Award and Laureate Award in 2000 and 2002, and CIO of the year in 2001 by Computerworld (ASEAN & Hong Kong).

Shiva Venkatraman, Former Chief Technologist & Strategist, Hewlett-Packard, Singapore

Shiva Venkatraman is the Former Chief Technologist and Strategist for HP Enterprise Services (ES) in Asia Pacific and Japan. Shiva assisted the HP Enterprise Services business unit in delivering new technology-enabled transformation and innovation services centered on HP’s mobility and workplace, mobile applications, IOT and manage cloud offerings that help clients reduce cost and complexity. He helped to drive innovation not only in IT/Technology, Strategic and Transformational Outsourcing and Operations but also around Sales, Marketing and other functions.

He brings over 20 years of global experience in particular venture backed startups offering innovative new offerings in Wi-Fi Networking and Security, Digital Marketing as well as Consulting Advisory Services on Cloud and Mobile to the market.

Gurbachan Singh, Principal Practice Leader, Lean Management Specialist, GloApp Human Capital, Singapore

Gurbachan Singh has over 32 years of experience with exposure to a broad range of manufacturing industry and operations consulting; about 20 years in executive management positions and over 10 years in consulting, doing business process diagnostics, process quality and efficiency improvement, and plant wide cost down programmes.

He has a Bachelor Degree in Engineering, Post-graduate Diploma in Manufacturing Engineering, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and PRINCE2 Certification.

His industry operations background spans different sectors that include high technology precision electronics (Hitachi Semiconductor), heavy industry (Air Radiators) and truck manufacture (Iveco Trucks).