Global Advisory Board

The Global Advisory Board of GCF will consist of path-breaking and successful leaders from various walks of the industry. The Board and the board members will be responsible for disseminating knowledge on executive leadership and provide timely advice on crucial decisions for the Forum, whilst engaging with the other members to; 

  1. Provide support and advice to program(s), assist in the development of new programs, and identify best practice standards.
  2. Serve as an ambassador and advocate to the program(s) providing a connection to and ongoing exchange of information and ideas with practitioners in the field and other external contacts.
  3. Ensure that the Forum is delivering assets and knowledge that is current, up to date, and relevant to current business, industry, technology, and professional employment practices
  4. Make recommendations to help assure that the Forum addresses career and vocational needs of members
  5. Serve as an advocate of the Forum and a communication link between the host institutions and the community

Advisory Board Members

Venkatesh Mahadevan

Above 25 years of Technology Leadership, Strategy, Technical, Operational, Security and Risk management experience.Result-oriented CIO with indepth experience in the FMCG, Financial Services, Telecom & Retail space. Information Technology & Transformation expertise. A rich blend of business and technology experience. Global experience across cross-functional areas and multiple geographies.

Venkatesh Mahadevan

CIO, Dubai Investments
Ajay Rathi

Passionate ‘Transformation-Agent’, assertively launching break-through technology initiatives leveraging business focused IT strategies to help organizations maximize today’s opportunities while preparing for the future. ‘Collaborative Leader’ with proven skills to foster a culture committed to driving ‘Business Value’, and in developing high-performance teams with diverse Business Technologists. Seasoned professional in managing Corporate IT Strategy & Budgets, Investment Planning, Charge-backs, Bench-marking, Cost Optimizations, & Business Value drivers. A ‘Steller Communicator’ with outstanding interpersonal abilities to present complex issues in both technical and business formats.

Ajay Rathi

Director of IT, Dubai Healthcare City
Derrick Louis

Derrick has often been described as an analytical problem solver, assessing gathered information and driving creative business solutions. Holds repeated success guiding strategic direction and enterprise implementation of retail, transportation, payroll, and accounting systems with emerging technologies to achieve maximum operational impact. Has an innate talent for developing innovative direction and building consensus among IT and business leaders. As a leader, he is keen on exemplifying ethical business acumen, collaboration, and professional development. He has also a talent for risk-management, anticipating business needs, and working through process developments to achieve change. An expert presenter, negotiator, and communicator, able to forge solid relationships with key stakeholders, strategic partners, and executive leaders across multiple organizational levels.

Derrick Louis

CIO - The Future CEO, Racetrac
Ashith P

A senior IT Management professional with over 14 years of experience in diverse IT. Currently handling 2 dynamic roles – CIO of Al Masah Capital and CEO of Guardian One technologies. 

A self-motivated and goal-oriented ‘C’ level IT Management professional and PRINCE2 Registered Practitioner with ITIL® 2011 Certification. Solid experience in Application Management, ERP Implementation, IT Infrastructure Management, Business Analysis, Project Management, Delivery Management, Service Desk Management, Change Management, & Software Development in the areas of sales and Distribution, Supply Chain, Marketing and Finance in Pharmaceuticals, Multinational FMCGs, Banks, Logistics and Entertainment industries.

Ashith P

CEO, Guardian One Technologies
Girish Kulkarni

Experienced CIO / CMIO with a demonstrated history of working in the Hospital & Healthcare industry. Strong healthcare services professional skilled in Service Delivery, Business Planning, Operations Management, Analytical Skills, and Requirements Analysis. Have demonstrated deployment of Digitally Integrated provider ecosystems.

Girish Kulkarni

Chairman, CHIME India Chapter
Nana Bambara-abban

Nana brings out the best in people and companies From the Shop floor to the Board room working with Dev Teams, Architects, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Customers, Stakeholders and Executives. He coaches Executives and Senior Managers on how to increase enterprise agility and lead their business by making smarter decisions using evidence. I help to measure the investment in agile, scaling scrum and ROT (Return on Team) with meaningful agile and business agility metrics. EBM. Experiences include B2B, B2C, B2B2C, B2E. H2H (Human to Human) across all sectors in non profit, private and public.

Nana Bambara-abban

CEO & Product Owner of Akaditi
Dr. Esam Alfalasi

Experienced Chief Information Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the government administration industry. Skilled in Business Process, TOGAF, ISO 27001, Analytical Skills, and Technology Management. Strong information technology professional with a ICME INTERNATIONAL CERTIFIED INFORMATION TEHCNOLOGY LEADING CONSULTANT focused in ICME INTERNATIONAL CERTIFIED INFORMATION TEHCNOLOGY LEADING CONSULTANT from high school.

Dr. Esam Alfalasi

Director of IT, Ministry of Economy
Sanjeev Walia

Experienced Chief Executive Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the computer and network security industry. Skilled in Data Privacy, ISO 27001, IT GRC, CISA, and Computer Forensics. Strong business development professional.

Sanjeev Walia

Anand Choudha

An all-out entrepreneur, Choudha is passionate about seeking new challenges and addressing them with innovative strategies. His forte lies in developing businesses to their maximum potential through clarity of vision, and determined execution. Possessing a natural transformational leadership style, Choudha is an IT industry veteran with significant channel experience. With a deep understanding of the intricacies of the IT market, he founded value-added distributor Spectrami in the Middle East, and aims to deliver similar success in Europe and Africa in the coming years.

Anand Choudha

Mohammed Mahnashi

Technically sophisiticated & business savvy management professional with notable success of nearly 2 decades in directing a broad range of corporate IT initiatives, while participating in yearly planning, analysis & implementation of solutions in support of business objectives; holds full P&L accountability for business transformation and projects. Highly competent ICT / project / service delivery consultant; experienced in aligning with NTP2020 & Vision 2030 Transformation Initiatives; management of Vision 2030 and Digital Transformation Consultations; Strategy Formulation; Business Development; Budgeting and so on.

Mohammed Mahnashi

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Dr. Jassim Haji

Dr. Haji is a veteran in the field Information and Communications Technology with over 3 decades. He is continuously doing research and publications on latest technologies and how to be leveraged operationally and economically in organizations. He is leading the entire Information Technology department in Gulf Air and he implemented numerous cutting edge projects and technologies. He managed to achieve over 40 prestigious awards including 15 distinguished CIOs (Chief Information Officer). He currently serves on the board of directors of a leading hospitality and tourism technology provider in the Middle East and on SITA Council representing Middle East and North Africa. 

Dr. Jassim Haji

President, AI Society Bahrain
Yahya Al Mawali

Yahya served the industry and my country for the last 38 years in different capacities, taking up different roles within organizations I worked for and on the national level. He has have served both public and private sector, where ROI, cost/benefit analysis and other financial consideration is essential, either to reduce cost or to increase revenue.

His advanced age comes with wisdom, patience, commonsense and diplomacy to handle, mentor and motivate younger generation of professionals.

Yahya Al Mawali

IT Consultant, Rawnaq IT Consulting
Manoj Saxena

Recipient of Digital transformation leadership legendary award Top 5 in Singapore and global CIO200 in December 2019

Senior IT Executive with over 20 years’ experience in leading multidisciplinary teams to deliver innovative technological solutions that align with globalstrategies and roadmaps across diverse world-class organizations globally.

As a former CIO of APAC for Ingram micro I did championed the digital commerce roadmap, achieving 250% year-on-year growth across B2B and 150% across B2C over 3 consecutive years based defining the digital customer journey using agile methodology.

Manoj Saxena

Chairman of RosettaNet Singapore (GS1 digital commerce Standards)