As someone who has built, and continues to build, ‘attacker’ businesses and lead teams from start-up to IPO, Azran passionately believes that organisations and corporations can deploy similar structures, focus, and creativity that single-minded entrepreneurs have used, to create breakthrough business models and innovative products and services.

He is currently active in the internet technology space as a co-founder, investor and advisor, bringing to bear his expertise in mass-market consumer marketing and scaling organisations across Southeast Asia. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Naluri, a health technology start-up. He is also an investor and advisor to i¬ix, MoneyMatch, Cognifyx, and YellowPorter. He was previously the CEO of i¬ix in Malaysia and its Group COO – a disruptive internet television video-on- demand service that was launched in Kuala Lumpur in May 2015, and now operates across over 20 markets across Asia, Middle East and Africa with 650 employees after only two years from launch.

Mr Thil serves as Vice President Digital Innovation at SIA, bringing to the job a proven track record of entrepreneurship and innovation spanning both start-ups and multinational organisations in Europe and Asia. 

He was CEO of a number of start-up firms, which he founded, grew and ultimately sold to companies like France Telecom/Orange and Travelport. In 2006, Jerome founded Sprice.com, the first major Travel Meta Search website in Southeast Asia and India, which became Travelport’s hotel aggregation platform in 2010. 

While being CEO of Sprice, he was appointed Vice President Innovation for Travelport in 2013. He joined Wildfire in Shanghai in 2015 as its CEO & President, growing the Big Data business in China before selling off the company to an Internet major. 

Most recently, he served at Amadeus and Sabre, driving product innovation, marketing and digital transformation at the GDS (global distribution system) leaders.

As Vice President Digital Innovation, Mr Thil’s key responsibility will be to drive and implement the Company’s digital innovation blueprint aimed at making SIA the world’s leading digital airline.

Vinod currently oversees commercial at Scoot – this involves areas such as Sales, Marketing, products & ancillaries, Revenue Management, Route Planning and Customer Service. The Scoot commercial team has launched a number of initiatives in the recent past to leverage technology to improve efficiencies and elevate the top-line, e.g. : launch of a transactional chatbot on the FB messenger platform, implementation of a customer satisfaction measurement tool, implementation of more payment channels like WeChat etc.

Before his appointment to Scoot, Mr Kannan was Vice President Network Planning at Singapore Airlines, responsible for strategising the airline’s long-term growth plans and fleet deployment. Prior to that, Mr Kannan held General Manager roles in Indonesia, Italy and the Middle East. He was also posted to Kolkata in India, as Manager Eastern India, and held various commercial roles in head office before that.

Spencer is the Chief Executive Officer of BIG, AirAsia’s award-winning loyalty programme and Travel360, the digital expansion of AirAsia’s inflight magazine and a content-driven online travel agent (OTA).

Spencer has over 10 years of experience in the aviation industry from serving AirAsia in several positions since he joined the company in 2006, culminating in his appointment as Commercial Director of AirAsia Malaysia in 2015. He led the entire Malaysia commercial functions including product development, revenue management, marketing, sales and distribution, ancillary, government relations, partnership and customer relationship management and has received numerous industry awards. Innately innovative, he has pioneered a number of projects in the group, including the setting up of AirAsia BIG Loyalty programme and ancillary income department.

Spencer is an advocate of talent development through effective leadership. With the backing of a solid work culture, he champions openness, innovation and a ‘can-do’ spirit in the workplace and has led the growth of the airline to be a leader in the region.

He is a member of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and Malaysia Advertisers Association (MAA). When not conjuring new marketing strategies, the Commerce grad from Curtin University of Technology, Perth, supports Manchester United FC.

Mr. Xuewu(Shawn) Wang is the founder of MU Data Labs at China Eastern Airlines. From 2009 to 2015, he successfully built the core business intelligence platform and the data warehouse for China Eastern Airlines, China Cargo Airlines and China Eastern Logistic. Mr. Wang focuses on data strategy, data governance, big data, machine learning, Natural Language Processing and AI. He is building a big data analytics and application ecosystem through data technologies, data platform and innovative collaboration to empower all business fields in the China Eastern Airlines Group.

The MU Data Labs he founded won the IDC DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AWARDS: The Leader of Information and Data Transformation in China, 2018

Akira joined Japan Airlines in 1989, and has previously been responsible in the company for passenger services, business and network planning, international affairs, business development in China, internal auditing, marketing and strategy in APAC, before taking on the role from November 2017 as VP of Products and Services Planning, where he oversees customer experience management and innovation.

He is working on exciting new ways to innovate personalised customer experience through blending their core competencies in hospitality and precision with advanced digital technologies. He understands that air travel is just part of a wider customer journey, all of which are unique to each traveller. They, therefore endeavor to be a platform that supports the full journey in a more personalised and relevant way.

Shane Hodges joined American Airlines on July 1, 2017 as the senior commercial representative in the region and will represent the company to corporate customers and agency partners as well as support all general commercial activity in Asia Pacific in close co-operation with key industry stakeholders.

With more than 22 years of experience within the travel industry, Shane recently occupied the role of Vice President, Global Group and Emerging Sales Platforms at Starwood Hotels and Resorts. Prior to this role Shane held several other senior leadership roles at Starwood Hotels & Resorts leading teams that developed global strategies in the corporate, leisure, online and distribution connectivity segments. Prior to these global leadership positions, Shane spent 17 years of his career leading sales and marketing teams at various Starwood properties throughout the world.

An Australian, Shane brings a truly global perspective to American Airlines having lived and worked in numerous locations in Asia Pacific, Europe & the United States. His leadership strengths include developing strong strategic relationships with senior internal & external stakeholders, being well versed in the latest technology platforms, successfully executing broad change management & being a strong advocate of global team development.

Yoguichi has nearly 30years of experience in Japan Airlines, executing duties in vast area of airline managements (always in Japan Airlines), such as corporate strategy, corporate planning, domestic sales and planning, schedule planning and management in the cabin crew division, or in the administrative sector of the overseas branch. He recently moved to Singapore, focusing more on marketing and strategy research around Asia and Oceania region.  

As Head of eCommerce Marketing & CRM at Finnair, Mrs. Ruusa Koskelainen has responsibility for a global digital and performance marketing actions, personalized customer dialogue, customer lifecycle strategy and loyalty program marketing. Mrs. Ruusa Koskelainen’s team holds responsibility for reaching a broad global audience both in paid online media and in Finnair’s own channels. Additionally Finnair Plus loyalty program marketing and engagement actions secure highly valuable customer relationship management towards the loyalty program members.

Mrs. Ruusa Koskelainen joined Finnair 4 years ago and she has a broad, over 10 years’ experience within the aviation and travel industry in general. Mrs. Koskelainen has held various positions linked to digital marketing, ecommerce, customer dialogue, CRM and loyalty at both airlines and tour operators

Marc Cavaliere joined the team in May 2017. In his role at Fiji Airways, Cavaliere is responsible for all commercial activities including Sales, Marketing, Global Alliances, Network Planning, Pricing and Revenue Management. His airline industry experience spans thirty-seven years with numerous international expatriate assignments, leading airlines in various regions of the world as well as in the United States. Cavaliere’s areas of concentration cover commercial development, marketing, sales management, e-commerce, distribution, and collaborative tourism expansion. His background has a strong emphasis in airline global alliances, strategic partnerships and network optimization through expanding partner-carrier networks and maximizing revenue opportunities. During his career, Cavaliere held senior management positions with South African Airways, Spirit Airlines, American Airlines and Pan Am.

Benjie today leads a team that drives technology at the Commercial Group of Philippine Airlines – the country's first and only airline to have a 4-Star rating that flies to 77 international and domestic destinations in 18 countries.

He works with a range of projects in customer experience, network planning, revenue management, marketing, ancillary business, sales and distribution. 

He has logged 21 long years in the airline industry accumulating knowledge in airport operations, financial services, commercial aviation and information technology. 

He is the forerunner in the development of e-commerce and m-commerce solutions at PAL. 

Benjie introduced acceptance of alternative payments that drive further e-commerce growth. He also enabled online reservations for the unbanked customers by offering payment through ticket offices, banks and collecting partners. 

As more customers transact across multiple channels and devices, Benjie reinforced fraud management with data insights — increasing payment acceptance while mitigating fraud loss.

Eric Thain is the General Manager of HK Express, overseeing all aspects of brand, marketing, digital, social media & PR for HK Express.  As the modern chief marketer, Eric led the step-up efforts across the whole corporation in this accelerating pace of change in response to evolving consumer behavior, with a wide range of potential new priorities, including shaping the company’s public profile, manage complexity, and building new capabilities.

Eric is a hybrid experienced business leader with profound mixed discipline experience in developing Integrated Marketing Strategies and leading Digital Transformation projects across APAC (including a decade of in-market experience in China). 

Eric is also President of Artificial Intelligence Society of Hong Kong, pushing the role & integration of AI in the modern brand space. He also sits on the Board of Advisors in various Marketing Associations, advising issues that affect the marketing industry. Eric is a recipient of numerous personal & team awards in marketing, including APAC Brand Communicator of The Year.

Eerika is responsible for leading the Travel retail sales & development at Finnair. She has a background in CX development and management consulting. Before this position, she was responsible for driving customer experience initiatives forward and ensuring all relevant stakeholders (internal & external) were involved, one of the main focus areas being personalised customer experience. She contributed to customer experience concept development, customer dialogue throughout the customer journey and loyalty building.

Arlene is currently heading the Sales Dept and holds the post of Director for Passenger Sales & Distribution. She manages international branch offices located in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea, as well as City and Airport Ticket Offices in the Philippines and distribution coverage for GSA, Wholesalers, Preferred Sales Agents, Corporate Accounts, Government Accounts, Charterers and OTAs. She manages B2B & B2C Distribution, both commercial and charter. And she looks after distribution through the GDS, BSP, API connectivity aside from direct channels. She has been with Cebu Pacific Air (CEB) for 15 years, and used to work for Singapore Airlines for 5 years in Sales before moving to CEB.

Ms. Mindy Teo is the Vice President of Brand and Marketing for The Ascott Limited, taking care of the company’s online and offline marketing efforts, including the online customers’ Digital Experience.  In addition, Ms. Teo leads Ascott’s newest serviced residence brand, lyf, which was launched in late 2016 as a co-living brand for the millennials and the millennial-minded.

Ms. Teo joined CapitaLand Limited in 2005 as the pioneer batch of the Graduate Development Programme, gaining broad-based exposure through several department rotations over an 18-month period.

She was deployed to The Ascott Limited in 2006 and over the past 10 years held key responsibilities in various departments. She was previously head of the Strategic Planning department which works closely with Ascott’s senior management in areas of Strategy Formulation, Communication & Execution, Research Support & Environment Scan and Corporate Planning. She also has experience in Talent Management & Organisational Development and Asset Management and was responsible for establishing Ascott’s Innovation department. 

Ms. Teo has a Master in Science (Engineering) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Brett Henry is a travel tech industry leader and a seed stage, angel investor. He brings a strong travel, travel tech, and VC/start-up executive network combined with 20 years of B2B travel technology industry experience across disciplines including product marketing, business development, strategy, planning and sales.

Born in Hong Kong and educated in Canada, Christopher worked in multi-media design, digital signage, IPTV, music and guest control systems before joining The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels in 2011 as Engineering and Maintenance Manager overseeing the global system support for guestroom control systems. He then became Manager of New Development and Senior Manager, Research and Development before assuming his current role as General Manager, Research & Technology, where he oversees a group of 26 engineers, project staff and software developers engaged in the development and implementation of the latest in cutting edge guestroom technology for new and existing developments globally. 

Timothee is responsible for building the hotel group’s digital culture and exploring emerging trends in the technology space to enhance the digital guest experience. He brings over ten years of experience in sales and marketing strategies, with a high level of competency in partnership marketing within the digital space. Prior to joining Rosewood Hotel Group, he was regional account director for marketing solutions in China, Hong Kong and South Korea at Linkedin. Previously, he served as vice president of sales and marketing at YouFu Media in China and client director at Posterscope China, part of Dentsu Aegis Network China.

With 14 years of digital experience and innovation worldwide Marcos Cadena is today the Vice President of Digital Marketing, Distribution and CRM at Minor International where he leads the strategy and implementation of the technologies for digital, ecommerce and distribution for all Minor Hotel brands.  

During his career, he managed the Corporate Digital marketing department of Kempinski Hotels worldwide and led his own consulting company key projects in digital for Mandarin Oriental, Accor, Campanile and many independent hotels. He received his MBA at IE business school and Berkeley University in Digital Marketing and recently completed his executive training in Innovation of Products and Services: MIT’s Approach to Design Thinking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Sloan School of Management.

Marcos has a passion and a focus for innovation management and design thinking and specializes in the areas of change management and how to influence the organization to accept and drive change. He is also very passionate about Triathlons and the challenges of pushing yourself to the limits.

Marc is leading the group marketing strategy, brands and product developments expanding the overall hospitality portfolio to over 40 properties as of 2018. During his tenure, Marc has been leading the development of award winning lifestyle brand: Hotels G, the conception of trendy shared accommodation concept: Hostel G, the revival of luxury brand in Myanmar: The Strand Hotel & Cruise, the launch of Campus Student Co-living hubs and the in-vogue dining concepts operated by leading restaurant and bars platform R&B Lab.

In his previous Senior Executive roles, Marc was instrumental in the launch of several brands including Accor’s first Pullman Hotel in Asia, Hotel G pioneering the lifestyle market in China and overseeing the worldwide rebranding of Europ Assistance Group to name a few.

Marc received his Master’s Degree in Marketing with Honors and cumulates over 15 years marketing experience gained in Europe and Asia including spells with internationally recognised branding agencies, institutional firms and hospitality groups.

He is part of the Advisory Board of the Boutique & Lifestyle Lodging Association.

Prasad manages all the direct revenue streams on IHCL’s (Taj Hotels Palaces Resorts Safaris) digital points of sale, digital marketing, mobile platforms, social media & ORM and new innovations in the digital space. He is also responsible for collaborating with cross functional partners to manage all aspects of the eCommerce business including - content and strategy development, brand campaigns, customer-service, web analytics and web technologies.

Prasad brings over 16 years of experience with more than a decade in the digital space which includes international work practice and senior management position across e-Commerce, e-Business marketing, business development and managing alliances. Articulate, self-motivated and savvy, Prasad brings foresight and vision to his role as AVP – Digital Marketing & eCommerce. Prior to joining IHCL, Prasad headed the eCommerce, Digital services and Online Sales & Marketing efforts for all operational Marriott International Inc properties across 7 brands in South Asia. His professional footprints span across global travel giants such as Cox & Kings, ClearTrip.com and the Australian Cruise Group – Australia.  

Sunish has worked with several hotels and resorts chain for the past 18 years doing revenue management and e-distribution at property as well as corporate levels, for which his primary job scope was to maximise overall hotel revenue; while balancing profitability through implementation of an effective revenue management process and data driven fact based business decisions. He has held area distribution level positions with Anantara as well as Amari Group. He has pre-opened two hotel chains located in Dubai and Philippines leading the revenue, eCommerce and reservation sales teams. He has also successfully set up revenue management systems including ideas and EZRMS in his previous companies with hands on training experience in building the revenue management culture.

Nantaporn oversees e commerce activities including social media, promotions and website analytics. She is managing the rate structures for Best Western Hotels and ensure parity throughout all online channels. Regional websites management by using Joomla and WordPress, regional online advertisement in term of Google Search, Youtube and Facebook Advertising are also part of her remit. Not only that, she also oversee Best Western Rewards program within the region.

More than 20 years of experience as an Information Technology specialist and has held senior management positions in New Zealand, Japan, Russia, Philippines and Indonesia. He pent 12 years in Japan, Russia and the Philippines as Senior Vice President for ValueCommerce (TYO:2491), one of the largest online affiliate and performance marketing companies in Japan and now a subsidiary of Yahoo Japan. With E-commerce Team, he was awarded Presidential Award by Swiss-Belhotel International last 2015. He is globally in charge of eCommerce, Distribution and Information Technology for Swiss-Belhotel International. 

Kiran is responsible for digital marketing and online distribution strategy across all Asia hotels which comprises of multiple brands and different stakeholders. The vision and strategy are to drive the value proposition of the properties, developing product positioning and messaging that differentiates the product in the Market. He leads a digital team who specializes in SEO, Paid Media, Programmatic, Display, Search, Mobile, Affiliate Marketing, Analytics and Website content management.

Blessy has 17 years of experience in Digital Marketing and successful portfolio in SEO, PPC, E-Commerce, Social Media, and Online Reputation. Single-handedly managing the group’s digital campaigns in-house, she launched SEO-friendly and mobile compliant websites in 2015 and achieved 100% growth in Book Direct production for two consecutive years; relaunched websites with sustained Google ranking and increased direct booking revenue by PHP61M in 2017. YTD Book Direct initiative contributes 31% of revenue outperforming OTA’s 26%. Before joining Discovery, Blessy was Director of E-Commerce at Sofitel Manila launching the property’s SEO campaigns and social media accounts, which were the strongest in Sofitel network worldwide.

Ben George is Senior Vice President & Commercial Director, Asia Pacific for Hilton. A member of the Asia Pacific Executive Committee, he leads a team of more than 60 people, performing the revenue management function for over 280 hotels across the Asia Pacific region. Ben manages eight key brands in the Hilton portfolio – Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, Conrad Hotels & Resorts, Canopy by Hilton, Curio Collection by Hilton, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, DoubleTree by Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn and Hilton Honors, Hilton’s award-winning guest loyalty programme.

Ben’s role at Hilton reflects the integration of the leadership of sales and revenue management in Asia Pacific as part of global alignment of the two key functions to drive greater synergy. He brings with him deep familiarity with the demands and expectations of today’s travellers and loyalty members, especially through his experience in building a world-class team that delivers incredible experiences for all guests.

Prior to his current role as Senior Vice President & Commercial Director, he was Senior Vice President Sales & Revenue Management, Asia Pacific for Hilton, where he built a world-class revenue management team in Asia Pacific and deployed a best-in-class revenue management service for hotels, which has enabled Hilton to consistently deliver market-leading performance. He was also responsible for the opening of Hilton’s third Revenue Management Consolidated Centre in Shanghai, China.

Ben joined Hilton in 1991, working in numerous hotel management positions in Europe prior to taking up a corporate role. He moved to Asia in 2001 as Regional Director Revenue Management for Asia, and has since gained in-depth industry experience through working in a wide range of Asia markets, including Japan, China, Australia, India and South East Asia. Ben possesses a deep understanding of the Asia Pacific marketplaces, translating to his ability to adapt his management and leadership style to work within multi-cultural teams across different business environments and markets.

A native of the United Kingdom, Ben graduated from Cherwell College, Oxford. He currently resides in Singapore, where he is based.

Mr. Tejveer Singh Bedi, an MBA graduate from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad has been Group Revenue Director of Park Hotel Group since October 2014 and serves as the current President of HSMAI Singapore Chapter. He oversees performance and distribution strategy for the Park Hotel group's portfolio of hotels. He has extensive experience in yield and pricing strategy as well as distribution management and digital marketing. Mr. Bedi also serves as a trainer for Singapore Institute of Hospitality and has trained officers of Singapore Tourism Board as well as other senior executives.  Prior to joining Park Hotel Group, he held senior revenue and distribution management positions for various international hotel chains.

Andy currently holds the position as a General Manager with the Bandha Hotel & Suites and Corporate Director of Revenue & Distribution with PMG Hotels & Resorts in Bali. Prior to this appointment, Andy was the Executive Director with L Hotels & Resorts, the Group Director of E-Commerce & Distribution with Swiss-Belhotel International, and the Corporate Director of Global Revenue Management & Distribution with Santika Indonesia Hotels & Resorts.

Andy's expertise in travel industry includes hotel sales & marketing, e-commerce & distribution, revenue management, and digital marketing & social media.

Burhanuddin Pithawala is the Vice President of Conversions function at OYO Hotels and Homes, South Asia’s largest, one of China’s top five, and the world’s fastest growing chain of hotels, homes and living spaces. Burhan joined OYO in September 2014. He has been a part of the key teams that instituted systems and operations helping in scaling up rapidly and continue to deliver on the key customer promise. Prior to his current role, Burhan was heading the South region for OYO.

Before starting his journey with OYO Hotels, Burhan Co-Founded a Technology Driven Digital Marketing Company. There he was instrumental in setting up initial business models and development of team and product verticals. He is a Graduate from IIT Kharagpur and also has Extensive Leadership and Management Experience at ITC Ltd

Leader in the marketing and digital sectors with more than 21 years of proven success in the hospitality space. Recipient of the HSMAI Top 25: Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality Sales, Marketing, Revenue Optimization. Earned an MBA from Syracuse University, and was a member of the HSMAI Marketing Advisory Board for over 8 years.  

In his current role with Minor Hotels, Isaac is responsible for devising and developing the strategic annual marketing plan and oversees all marketing campaign planning and execution across all channels, in close collaboration with the eCommerce, CRM and Marketing teams. Additionally, Isaac is responsible for the website and CRM content strategies including the implementation of personalization and dynamic content to drive awareness and revenue to Anantara Hotels & Resorts and Avani Hotels.

Daniel Welk is Vice President of Hilton’s portfolio of luxury and lifestyle properties in the Asia Pacific region, covering the Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, Conrad Hotels & Resorts, LXR Hotels & Resorts, and Canopy by Hilton brands.

As the Asia Pacific luxury and lifestyle brand leader for Hilton, Daniel is responsible for ensuring the existing operating portfolio of 25 hotels are market leaders, by partnering with the operations team to drive Rev PAR performance; bringing to life all brand initiatives; and enhancing and growing partnerships and loyalty throughout the region. He is also responsible for bringing together the cross-functional partners at Hilton to ensure the existing pipeline of 20 hotels are launched successfully. In addition, he works with the business development team to secure new deals.

Daniel’s experience in the hospitality industry spans over 28 years and encompasses various roles in the United Kingdom, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and India. He recently celebrated his tenth anniversary with Hilton, having joined the company in 2008. Before assuming his current position in April 2018, Daniel was Vice President of Operations for the Luxury and Lifestyle portfolio in Asia Pacific. During his time in this position, he oversaw the rapid growth of the portfolio and was responsible for the day-to-day trading of key, strategic assets and hotel launches.

Prior to this role, Daniel was the Vice President of Operations for India, where he oversaw 15 trading hotels and resorts in the region as well as numerous projects in the active pre-opening stage. He was also the local representative Director for Hilton Management Services Pvt. Ltd and led the operation through a period of growth, with a multi-brand and multiple-partner strategy.

Before taking charge of India in December 2013, Daniel served as General Manager and was responsible for the overall leadership and asset management of the award-winning Hilton Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Prior to that, he was responsible for launching the 506-room year-round mountain resort Hilton Niseko Village in Hokkaido, Japan. At the time, the hotel was the first internationally branded ski resort to be launched in Asia, and it has received numerous accolades over the years.

With over 13 years of experience in Digital Marketing and in the travel industry, Chutima joined ONYX Hospitality Group in 2010 under the role of Manager of Digital Marketing. Since joining she has been instrumental in the planning and successful execution of the Group’s digital marketing strategy, in addition to optimising campaign performance, overseeing content and social media strategies, programmatic advertising, web analytics, and email marketing and other channels.

Chutima holds an Associate’s Degree in Computer Science, majoring in computer programming (cum laude) from Quincy College, Massachusetts, USA. Prior to studying in the United States, Chutima received a Bachelor’s Degree with second honours in Political Science, majoring in International Relations from Kasetsart University in Bangkok.

Brendan joined YOTEL in April 2016 to lead the pre-opening and launch activities for Orchard Road, the first YOTEL to open in Asia.

With over 25 years' experience in the hospitality industry, Brendan has been based in Australia and Asia throughout his career working for several respected hotel companies within the region including Starwood, Accor and Onyx Hospitality in both pre-opening and operating capacities.

His most recent hotel launch was the opening of Aloft Bangkok in 2012, the first for the brand in Southeast Asia.

Brendan is driven to deliver more than just financial results with a focus on building strong relationships with owners, guests and his team in order to achieve operational excellence.

Ross is CEO & Co-Founder at Wego, which is online travel marketplace that provides top ranked mobile apps and websites for users living in the APAC and MENA regions. Wego harnesses powerful technology that simplifies the process of searching, comparing and booking flights and hotels across hundreds of airlines, hotels and online travel agency websites. Wego has dual-HQs in Singapore and Dubai and is backed by top-tier investors including Tiger Global, Crescent Group, Square Peg Capital and the MBC Group.

Ross is a veteran of the Asian internet industry having established Yahoo!s Southeast Asian operations in Singapore back in 1998 and leading product development efforts across the region for 6+ years. He is also Singapore Co-Chair of H2, the premier global leadership network for the digital industry. Ross has been an active angel investor in the technology sector for a decade and enjoys working with other passionate entrepreneurs. He has worked in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Kuala Lumpur and is now splits his time between Singapore and Dubai. He travels frequently for business but not nearly enough for leisure

Filip is VP of Product Management at Skyscanner, where he leads a range of teams focusing on the supplier side of the marketplace. 

Prior to this, Filip was Director of Skyscanner for Business, an independent unit within Skyscanner offering a customizable suite of tools that are designed to power the travel internet. Filip as responsible for overseeing the planning, growth and development of the affiliate and data analytic products. 

With an extremely strong understanding of the travel arena and an avid traveller himself, Filip has contributed to our Future of Travel whitepaper and has been instrumental in in Skyscanner’s move into the word of Bots with Facebook, Skype and Amazon. He is a much sought after speaker at international travel and technology events, having spoken previously at Phocuswright and Web in Travel, amongst others.  

Filip has also held a variety of senior management positions in a wide range of industries and areas, including Travel Capitalist Ventures where he was responsible for evaluating start-up opportunities in the travel industry and Everbread Limited, where he was Deputy COO of the business’ airfare pricing engine.  

Balu manages the P&L for the air business. He is responsible for leading the distribution efforts for Cleartrip that comprises solutions for corporate travel, small and mid-sized travel agencies as well as API and whitelabel solutions for various partners in the ecosystem.

In this role, Balu manages and maintains relationships with all airline partners. He plays a vital role in driving the strategy for the air business to grow Cleartrip’s web and mobile footprint in India. 

Prior to Cleartrip, he has worked with BMR Advisors, Nokia Siemens and Tech Mahindra primarily in corporate development roles driving business growth through inorganic investments and alliances. Balu has an engineering degree from Cochin University, and an MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Balu enjoys parenting and reading fiction in his spare time.

Parin leads the Airbnb Trips business in APAC which covers Experiences, Concerts and Restaurants. Airbnb Experiences are activities designed and led by inspiring locals. He and his team are focused on acquiring hosts and helping them become successful on the Airbnb platform.

Parin has grown both small startups and large global sales organisations across APAC, EMEA and the US. He previously worked for Google in Singapore, California and London to help superscale products such as Chrome, Android, GMail and Google+. Prior to joining Google, Parin was a management consultant and a teacher in rural Japan.

Parin advises and coaches several start-ups and entrepreneurs around the world. 

Takashi is responsible for marketing at Rakuten Travel, which is part of Japan’s largest e-commerce company “Rakuten”. The Rakuten Ecosystem is formed by various services offered by Rakuten Group, which is a one-of-a-kind member-based business model that connects Rakuten services through the Rakuten Super Points reward system. The Ecosystem includes ICHIBA, Travel, Internet Finance (Card, Bank, Securities), Digital Content (Kobo), and Digital Services (Viber, Ebates). In his role as general manager for Marketing, he manages all Rakuten Travel’s marketing actions (Brand, Online marketing, Membership, Partnership, Content marketing). Under his leadership, Rakuten Travel keeps continuous growth. 

An executive with more than 12 years’ experience in the online industry across Asia Pacific, Vaibhav is currently Senior Vice President, heading the domestic holidays business at Yatra. During his time at Yatra is has been responsible for a wide product portfolio including Hotels, Homestay, Activities, along with CRM, Customer Support automation, SEO and Marketing automation solutions. Prior to Yatra, Vaibhav co-founded Vliv, a startup in the social video space, and worked for Yahoo! in a number of roles in both Asia Pacific and India related to mobile offerings.

Mr. George Zhang is Founder&CEO of iGola. George had worked for many years at companies such as Unisys, Cisco Systems, HDS, Google and Dimension Data, which required him to travel around the world for business. Ever since reading Adventure of Niles on the Goose as a kid, George had dreamed he could travel around the world and experience all the wonderful adventures with his friends. As one of the top frequent flyers in China, George fully understanding the pains of the international travelers and decided to start iGola in Guangzhou, 2014. Through iGola, George wishes to empower the travelers all around the world to spend less time in front of a computer and more time exploring the world. George holds a Bachelor's degree from the South China University of Technology.

Peter Yoshihara is the General Manager of Trip.com Japan. His primary responsibility is to promote the Trip.com brand throughout Japan and drive the usage of its Japanese-language site. Previously, he worked as Regional Director of Marketing for Hotels.com, looking after Japan and Korea markets.

Kei co-founded and runs Venture Republic, a global online travel company that owns Japan’s largest online travel metasearch & content media “LINE TRAVEL jp” (formerly known as "Travel.jp"), Singapore based travel enthusiast generated online travel guide media “trip101,” and “allstay,” a leading mobile hotel search apps in Korea. In 2018, company made a strategic partnership with LINE Corporation, one of the leading messaging apps in Asia. 

As CEO, he took the company public in 2008 (2177. JASDAQ) after 7 years in operation.

Angel investor in travel & tech. MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Over 20 years experience in the travel industry both domestic and international.  Initial career started as a DMC in the U.S. for the Japanese market both Inbound and Outbound travel. Now in sales and marketing for the Taiwan and Korean markets as well.  A pioneer in online booking for inbound travel from around the world to Japan.  Objectives are to utilize experience in both domestic and international travel, establish a solid concept and platform which will penetrate the market of travel components.

 OpenDoor is a metasearch site with multi products such as flights, hotels, packaged tours, and more.  

His job includes all international contracts for all products that they have, and to provide the customer all online products to compare from around the world.

Kiren is the Co-founder and CEO of ZENRooms.com, Asia’s largest budget hotel network operating in 5 core countries and over 1000 properties. Started in 2015, ZEN Rooms enables the fast-growing segment of cost-conscious budget traveler, to discover, book and enjoy quality budget accommodation across the region. Every room and property on the platform has been thoroughly audited to guarantee quality stay experience. ZEN Rooms has raised USD 24M in funding to date including latest Series B growth round from Korea’s biggest accommodation company Yanolja

A veteran of the Internet startup space in South East Asia since 2007, before ZEN Rooms,  Kiren was founder & CEO of Rocket Internet portfolio company FoodPanda.com (exited to DeliveryHero in 2016) starting the company from scratch in 2012 and growing it to the biggest food delivery company in Asia and the most recognizable brand in the space. After FoodPanda, Kiren was the CEO of Rocket Internet in South East Asia through APACIG, their investment joint venture with Indosat-Ooredoo. Kiren is also active on the startup scene in South East Asia as mentor and investor.

Before entering the startup world with Foodpanda, Kiren was a Senior Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company in Singapore serving clients across Asia in banking, telecommunications and logistics on a range of corporate finance and strategy issues. Kiren grew up in India, where he graduated top of his Engineering Class from Mumbai University and top of his MBA class from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

Ravish Doctor leads Growth Marketing in Asia for Luxury Escapes, one of Australia’s fastest growing travel companies, and is currently focused on building the brand in the region.

Ravish has over 12 years of experience across a spectrum of marketing and sales roles with startups as well as large scale corporations in travel, telecom and consumer goods. His expertise ranges from performance marketing, content marketing, social media and affiliate marketing to brand building via traditional channels like integrated campaigns, public relations and partnerships.  

Warren Wang has fruitful experiences in finance, accounting, internal control and capital market. Before he joined Tujia.com, he was the chief finance officer of a Chinese AdTech company and a China-based, US-listed company in food and consuming industry. He worked in PricewaterhouseCoopers as an auditor before that. He graduated from China Europe International Business School with Master of Business Administration degree. He is a qualified China CPA and US CPA. 

AsiaYo is one of the largest Asia-focus vacation rental platform providing travelers with more than 60,000 distinguishing accommodations among 60 cities in Asia including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Hong Kong etc. To create better user experiences, AsiaYo provides user-friendly customer services (multilingual, multichannel, quick responses and amiable services) and also applies machine learning technologies to offer predictive recommendations to our customers.

With a focus on special and distinguishing accommodations, AsiaYo expects to offer the most rewarding experiences to travelers with best services. AsiaYo also expects to innovate travel industry with technologies 

AsiaYo's vision is to be a platform to inspire travelers to step out experiencing different things, exploring different aspects of the self, and discovering the beauty of Asia

Prior to AsiaYo, CK was Head of Research at CLSA specialising in the high-tech sector and also served as Investment Manager in AsiaTech Ventures. Closely observing the evolution of the industry and noticing a growing need, CK founded AsiaYo in 2013. 

Anton joined the Group as VP Products in Mar 2015. He was responsible for all the new product development from idea and design to production and marketing, as well as making all the existing products work smoothly. Starting from Aug 2018 Anton became Chief Operating Officer of the Group.

In the previous 5 years Anthony worked in Sports.ru LLC — Russian online sports media as Product Director and co-owner, making it the most popular sports media in Russia and CIS.

Winnie is the founder of TripZilla.com, Southeast Asia’s leading digital travel media company which reaches an audience of over 20 million travel consumers every month. TripZilla inspires the wanderlust in its audience with authentic travel stories, guides and tips, and helps the audience make these travels a reality by connecting them to the travel suppliers.

A “doer” by nature, Winnie is passionate about pulling limited resources together to create something of much greater value. She enjoys making things happen and constantly moving her business forward. Having built and sold off two businesses, she understands the importance of building a sustainable business – one with real users, paying customers and a clear revenue model. With TripZilla, she continues to focus on building a useful product, and growing TripZilla into a recognized travel brand in South East Asia

As an entrepreneur and startup founder, she has been involved in many functions within the business, including product, finance, business development, marketing and sales. Developing new opportunities and the ability to sell TripZilla’s vision and products are her strong suits.

Whey Han is Regional Manager and Head of Southeast Asia at KAYAK where he leads and manages the brand’s growth and business across the region. He joined KAYAK in 2017. 

Prior to KAYAK, Whey Han was Project Leader at The Boston Consulting Group and co-founded his own F&B concepts in Singapore. He started his career as a management consultant at Deloitte in the United States. Whey Han holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and also a Bachelor in Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A consultant by karma and an entrepreneur by nature, his passion for work and life has guided Purav through his 18+ years of professional career.

His love for 3Ts - Travel, TV and Technology led him to set up QuaQua.com, his long-time dream. QuaQua is world’s first virtual travel platform that curates and integrates the best content, meta-information, personalized bookings and community for every Point of Interest around the world leveraging 360/VR/AR/XR.

While accumulating fly miles, he’s been advising Fortune 1000 companies on strategy, M&A, digitalization, post-merger synergies, product innovation, business turnaround, process efficiencies, technology-business alignment and strategic sourcing.

He is a keen proponent of the Army cause and extremely vocal in favour of women empowerment in various forums. His heart is India.

Akshay is an IIM Indore Alumni with 15+ years of diverse experience in Product development, Digital strategy, e-commerce, and Business Consulting. He has worked with some of the best-known fortune companies worldwide in domains like customer experience management, e-commerce, competitor intelligence, business strategy, and new product development. Akshay heads product development at QuaQua, and he is awarded with multiple patents. He is an avid traveler and strong advocate of more humane, inclusive , and ethical products.

Uri Keren is currently the Chief Revenue Officer at WishTrip, responsible for global business expansion. WishTrip is an In-Destination Experience Management Platform that combines a B2C social network for travelers with a B2B business solution for tourists’ destinations. Within first year in the market WishTrip multilingual Apps already passed 1M active users in 80 countries and successfully on-boarded business customers such as municipalities, parks, accommodations & tour companies.

Prior to his current role, Uri served as an executive in Kodak and Applied Materials, as an entrepreneur and founder of several startup companies, and as a mentor and business leader. Uri holds B.Sc. in Computer Science, lived and worked in 4 continents, is a world traveler, and loves extreme sports.

Dannis Muhammad is one of the core team at Traveloka. He joined in 2012 at the early phase and built the foundation of Traveloka Marketing and Analytics. As Head of Marketing, Dannis orchestrates the efforts in optimizing the company’s resource allocation through data-driven methodology and he has led Traveloka to become Indonesia's market leader in flight and hotel booking in less than 3 years. At this time, he is focusing to accelerate the company’s growth in other Southeast Asian markets. 

Prior to joining Traveloka, he was an IT Consultant at IBM Indonesia, managing a database warehouse project for a client with more than 50 million users. Dannis received a bachelor’s degree in Informatics from Institut Teknologi Bandung and took an exchange program at National University of Singapore in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

Michael is responsible for the design, execution, and lead of the GO-POINTS and GO-DEALS product-tech and business streams of GO-JEK which include its growth, strategy, business development and operations. 

Alan joined Grab in 2015 and is currently Head of Regional Business Development for GrabRewards within GrabPay.  

Alan has had extensive travel experience. Previously, Alan was the Director and Head of Sales, ASEAN at American Express.  He has a strong travel background with both GDS and TMC experience and a proven track record for growing businesses through client acquisitions. Prior to American Express, Alan was with RADIUS Travel where he held the position of Senior Vice President for Asia Pacific.  As a member of RADIUS’ executive management team, he was responsible for all the agency network, corporate client acquisition and supplier relationships.      

Prior to RADIUS, Alan was based in Singapore with Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) where he was Director of Global Strategic Planning.  At CWT, he had global responsibilities for the strategic planning and prioritization of the Traveler and Transaction Services group.  He has also worked for Travelport and Worldspan in business development capacities since 2004. Additionally he has worked within the financial services industry with significant experience in investment banking having worked for global institutions such as Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch.  Alan has sound international business experience having previously been based in Hong Kong and New York. 

John Sinke is an experienced (Digital) Marketing and e-Commerce Professional having worked with various businesses in Travel, Telecommunications, Finance, Recruitment and Automotive over the past twenty years in Hong Kong, Singapore, London and Amsterdam. 

He is currently Director, Marketing at Hong Kong Disneyland, a leading international resort in Asia (hongkongdisneyland.com). John is also an Expert Speaker for Squared Online (Google's Digital Marketing Course) and trainer/facilitator for Avado Learning. 

Before joining Hong Kong Disneyland in 2017, John was in charge of Digital Marketing & e-Commerce at Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore. John has worked for several other blue-chip companies, including CMC Markets, lastminute.com, easyCar.com, France Telecom, Manpower Group and KPMG.

As Klook’s Marketing Head for Southeast Asia, Marcus drives the travel activities booking platform’s customer acquisition and marketing efforts across the region. He is responsible for growing the brand’s presence and bookings amongst the rapidly growing FIT (Free & Independent Travellers) segment across six markets - Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia.

Prior to joining Klook in 2016, he was Digital Marketing Lead for SCOOT where he charted the airline’s global digital acquisition efforts and management of their (notoriously quirky) social media presence across 7 markets in the region. Marcus started his career at the Singapore Economic Development Board, focusing on digital brand and channel management for North America.

A born and bred Singaporean, Marcus subscribes to the 80-20 mantra of 80% pure unadulterated hard work and 20% thinking of "the next big thing". Despite being a digital native, he enjoys reading good old paperbacks about growth hacking and disruption. Marcus lives to learn and spends his spare time exploring museums and onsen towns in Japan.

Chen Min-Huang (Mike Chen), the leader of KKday's Innovation Center, is an experienced engineer who is in charge of exploring the massive database and detecting insights. Skilled in analysing and identifying meanings behind numbers, Chen Min-Huang plays an important role in providing suggestions and evidences for the optimisation of the business development and marketing strategies of KKday.

Prior to joining KKday, Chen Min-Huang had served in TSMC, the leading technology company in Taiwan. He had also participated in the pioneering stage of several startups after TSMC. Experiences in both large enterprise and startups equipped Chen Min-Huang with encyclopedic knowledge of engineering and data mining, and also the ability to solve problems in a limited time.

Always eager to find out the core essence of everything, Chen Min-Huang is not only an excellent engineer and a talented data analyst, but also a curious traveler who loves exploring the world with an experimental spirit.

Liu Weichun, co-founder and Executive Vice President of KKday, is in charge of KKday’s marketing and operational strategies in the Southeast Asian region.

Before taking on the role as Executive VP, Liu served as Chief Operating Officer at KKday, where she oversaw KKday’s global product management and customer services. She led groundbreaking achievements, including the build-up of KKday’s SCM (Supply Chain Management) system, the development of QR code redemption, and API (Application Programming Interface) integration with large tour providers, such as Taipei 101 and Hong Kong TurboJET.

Liu joined KKday as one of the founding members and subsequently held the position of Chief Financial Officer before her promotion to COO. Prior to KKday, she held the role of a supply chain manager at Dell and also served as an investment banker upon graduation from New York University.

Felix is a traveller and co-founder of surprise trips curator Anywhr. From weekend getaways to exotic adventures, Anywhr sends travellers to personalised destinations that are usually off the beaten track. Anywhr was started with a vision to help travellers experience the joy of discovery that spontaneous trips bring.

With several startup experiences and a stint at venture capital, he eventually became Head of Operations at a Rocket Internet venture before being half of the founding team at Anywhr.

Zelia is the co-founder of surprise trips curator Anywhr. The Singapore-based travel tech startup sends travellers from everywhere in the world to anywhere in the world. Each trip is personalised and planned just for the unique traveller, to destinations away from the mainstream. Anywhr wants to empower travellers to discover journeys differently - in themselves, and the world around them.

With a background in luxury hospitality and eventually as Head of Marketing at Rocket Internet, Zelia still dreams of travelling the world while living out of a van. But for now she found her place in the world building the new travel movement that is Anywhr.

Jiali Wong is the first dedicated regional manager in Asia and responsible for establishing CLIA’s presence in this region. Based in Singapore, Jiali engages the industry in collaborative partnerships and actively grows the membership base for CLIA. Her role includes intensifying efforts in advocating, educating and promotion on behalf of the cruise industry.

Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) is the world’s largest industry trade association with over 50 cruise lines, 340 executive partners and 25,000 travel agent members. CLIA offers a globally recognised online training and accreditation programme, specially designed for travel agents.

Mike leads the Accenture Travel and Hospitality business across Asia Pacific, Africa, Middle East & Turkey that includes airlines, airports, hospitality and travel services organizations. Throughout his career, Mike has worked with some of the biggest travel companies such as British Airways, InterContinental Hotels Group, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Marriott International. Mike is passionate about practical innovation and how it can deliver the elusive genuine personalized experience that travelers crave.

Russell has worked in the online travel and tourism industry for over fourteen years. As APAC managing director, he leads Sojern’s APAC sales and account teams, expanding Sojern’s footprint in the Asian-Pacific market and developing global travel partnerships. With experience in a variety of progressive leadership roles, Russell has a proven track record of building deep sales and account competency and increasing revenues and profitability across a matrix environment.

Prior to joining Sojern, Russell was the media director for lastminute.com, where he was responsible for strategy development, agency sales, and media in the UK, Ireland, Germany and the Nordics.

With 20 years of experience in the region, Jonathan Hardy is recognized for his knowledge and background in the Asian media industry. Jonathan currently leads sales strategy and operations in Asia Pacific for ADARA, the leader in leveraging global travel data to drive future business performance. Prior to joining ADARA, Jonathan served as Microsoft’s sales strategy lead in Asia, where he was responsible for developing multi-channel advertising sales strategies across several platforms and applications. Before his tenure with Microsoft, Jonathan was based in Hong Kong, where he founded the regional sales  agency, Energy Media Networks and prior to that served as managing director at Dow Jones International Marketing Services.

Chandler Nguyen is the Vice President of Product, APAC at Essence, a global data and measurement-driven agency which is part of GroupM. 

Joining in 2014, Chandler played a critical role in growing Essence’s APAC operations from 1 office to 9 offices across Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, India, Japan and Korea. Starting as a biddable media and performance lead for APAC, he later headed the agency’s media planning practice across APAC, managing a team of more than 60 members and covering all clients in the region. As a leader, he is focused on setting his team up for success, from evolving the organisational structure, to building the right processes and tools, to coaching the next generation. 

A graduate from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Chandler’s previous positions include Digital Director at advertising agency Edge Asia, as well as Co-Founder and Managing Director at digital agency IDM in Vietnam. Given his experience, he has developed a keen grasp of client business challenges and an ability to solve them with innovative solutions

Experienced in many different fields with the final focus in digital marketing. Over 10 years covering all aspects of digital marketing - with experience in multiple markets.

Key strength currently is bridging the International markets with the China market with Programmatic media buy.

Hari Saini is a forward-thinking, data-driven and focused Digital Marketing and Technology leader with nearly 3 decades of experience. Hari has a deep background in technology and marketing with over 15 years working in High Tech technologies as well as another 15 years working in the email and digital marketing world.

Hari’s many varied roles such as Customer Success, Solution Consulting, Product Development and Partnerships, has always driven him to help customers succeed with the technologies they have invested in. Hari’s roles have also enabled him to gain unique experiences having lived and worked in the UK, Australia, India and USA.

In his spare time, he is a keen amateur photographer and a die-hard Tifoso Ferrari Formula One fan.

Katy Gallagher has been in the digital travel space for over ten years. Starting her career in Chicago with Orbitz Worldwide, Katy nurtured digital campaign strategies for airlines, hotels, car hire and cruise lines and tourism boards. She grew and expanded into global role focusing on hotel chains, which eventually led her to Singapore in 2013. Over the last four years, Katy grew and developed partnerships throughout the APAC region. Katy joined Sojern in April 2016, bringing programmatic and data driven opportunities to the APAC region, and expanding her partnerships digital portfolios.

Christopher has spent close to two decades in the turbulence that has fundamentally altered the landscape for businesses today, globally and even more so in Asia – digital, consumer behaviour, innovative competition and evolving market conditions are just some of the forces in play that businesses must keep pace with for above category growth. As Senior Partner at Ogilvy Consulting, Chris helps clients identify growth opportunities, simplify, solve and transform around complex business and marketing issues for growth.

From the outset in his career, he has been frontline with end consumers, giving Chris an intimate, and more importantly, human understanding of the behaviours and natively digital experiences they demand – something he fervently keeps at the heart of all strategy. At Ogilvy, Chris has created transformational strategy for clients that include Zung Fu, China Mobile, Marriott International, Ralph Lauren, La Prairie, HSBC, Huawei, Asia Miles, AXA and SwissRe, resulting in both palpable business outcomes and award-winning work. Chris has also authored a number of thought leadership pieces including Mind the Gap, Digital Desire Paths, Ad Blocking is the best thing for Advertising and Luxury, not as you know it.

Chris has been based in Asia for over a decade, where he calls Hong Kong home, proudly, providing him access to sixty percent of world’s population, on average within four hours (assuming no delays of course). Here, across Asia, he unites integrated teams, combining crafts and creativity, across geographies and cultures, both left and right brain, to meet the business ambitions of our clients with real-world solutions.

Chance Dubuque is a Global Director for iPinYou. After working as a marketing intelligence consultant for Capgemini Consulting, Chance is now leading iPinYou’s global strategy and solutions development across APAC, North America, and Europe. He specializes at leveraging his combined digital marketing and international background to help brands navigate their China marketing strategy and grow their business in the region.

Prasanna is the Chief Product Officer at GoQuo - a Travel Technology provider for enabling Airlines, Hotels &  OTA’s sell all kinds of travel products that are not their core focus(like Flights, Rooms, Tours & Activities, Transfers etc.) and fulfill needs from all stages in travelers’ customer journey. He is responsible for the strategy and development of a portfolio of products - including some very cool direct customer facing products they are on the verge of releasing soon!

He has 20 years of experience in the tech industry working for companies like Microsoft and Intel - in multiple markets like USA, China, India, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan & Malaysia. In addition to being a successful software professional, he is an ardent traveler - having been to more than 500 cities in 229 countries- which has empowered him with hands-on insights & trends in all sectors of the Travel industry. The deep personal expertise around several tools and platforms in multiple markets – he managed to gain from his extensive travel research  - combined with the strong technical background, has enabled him to successfully lead Product divisions at digital travel companies like Cleartrip, KKday etc. prior to this role.

Cetin Sekercioglu is a hospitality and travel industry visionary. The enterprising leader is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Upgrading.cc , the world’s first online platform that increases Revenue Per Available Room (RevPar) gains through disruptive upselling technology. His professional hospitality expertise of over 30 years has seen him excelling in the roles of Executive Vice-President of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts for Southeast Asia and Oceania as well as Greater China on three separate terms, and President of Asia, Millennium Hotels and Resorts, the Asian arm of Millennium & Copthorne Hotels. For his roles, Sekercioglu was responsible for operations, business development and asset management for all the brands and hotels within the groups. 

The achievements in his exceptional track record, leading companies in 12 countries across 4 continents, also include growing business through new hotel management contracts, franchising and acquisitions, creating value by maximizing operating assets, innovation of new concepts and processes, turning around underperforming business units, developing, launching and managing diverse hotel brands, attaining market leadership in Revenue Generated Index (RGI) and profit, while delivering supreme quality standards, digitizing businesses and processes, achieving unprecedented guest and staff satisfaction and generating USD 1 billion via commercialized ideas.

His wealth of experience also extends beyond the hotel arena, to include spending more than 3 years in the cruising industry with Royal Caribbean International Cruise Line and a stint marine training in the navy. The leader in strategic direction is also an innovation and technology advocate. Never one satisfied with the status quo, Sekercioglu has applied his forward thinking to harnessing technology to revolutionize traditional areas in the hospitality industry. In 2017, he led the way to introduce relay robot servicing at Hotel Jen Orchardgateway and Hotel Jen Tanglin in Singapore, a first for an international hotel brand in Asia in adopting this technology. The service robots are programmed to deliver amenities and in-room dining around the clock. Other innovations at five-star properties include digitizing food and beverage loyalty programs and the Bookers’ Club, an online booking membership program. Sekercioglu also served on the Board of Directors for the Shangri-La and Millennium groups, CEIBS Corporate Advisory Board and China Real Estate Association.

Paul Pruangkarn is the Director – Communications & External Affairs at the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand.

He oversees day-to-day operations of all communications and serves as the senior spokesperson for the Association. Paul works to enhance PATA’s public image through various media outlets and maintains the Association’s media partnerships with such organisations as BBC World News, National Geographic Traveller (UK), Skift, TTG Asia, Travel Weekly Group and the Professional Travel Bloggers Association (PTBA). He has also spoken regularly at conferences on behalf of PATA, as well as facilitated and emceed many events organised by the Association. 

Paul hails from New York and has spent the past eight years living in Thailand. Prior to PATA, Paul worked at an Internet start-up in Bangkok as the Senior Business Development Manager, overseeing its daily operations and B2B hotels sales partnerships, and as the Sub-Editor at Radio Thailand English Language News, where he also worked as an on-air personality. Before moving to Thailand, he spent five years as the Newsroom Supervisor at Business Wire, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.

He has also worked for such companies as Reuters, British Petroleum, and Traditional Home Magazine. Paul received his Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Classics with a concentration in Mediterranean Art and Archaeology from the University of Buffalo in New York.

Ms. Kim-Chua is currently an Assistant Professor with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Asia and instructing technical communications and Aviation social research undergraduate and professional development courses. 

Additionally, she also conducts Aviation English courses for flight ops and is a certified rater for the ICAO Language proficiency requirements for Aviation Personnel.

Concurrently, she is also a part time an EdD Doctoral student majoring in Stem Education, at the University of Bath (UK) 

Ms. Kim-Chua received a Master’s in Asian Studies from S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and a Master’s degree in Education from the University of York. .  

A firm believer of global citizenry, Ms. Chua completed a United Nations University International Course in 2010 for UN Systems, Peace and Human Rights and collaborated with UN practitioners to propose suggestions on pressing global issues, including youth employability, gender equality, diversity and inclusion and sustainable education through the achievement of the SDGs.

More recently, she received a full sponsorship from the East-West Center in Hawaii to participate in the 18th run of the Asia Pacific Leadership Program where she had the opportunity to work on social innovation labs and learn from some of the world’s leading experts on leadership and human performance.

Raphael Rubin is the director of Business Development, APAC at Riskified, a leading eCommerce fraud prevention company, turning shoppers into customers by improving conversion at all stages of the path to purchase. Riskified helps eCommerce merchants like Air Europa, lastminute.com and eSky approve more online bookings. Prior to this Raphael led the growth team at an AI-Powered video  editor and before that worked as an analyst at a Tel Aviv based investment fund. Raphael graduated from IDC Herzliya with a degree in Business and Finance.

Nick is an industry manager for the Travel vertical and works with Google’s largest clients to drive their digital strategy and business across the Asia Pacific region.  Prior to Google, Nick worked in strategy and data science in the finance industry and as a management consultant.

Jay Pring is an experienced digital marketer and leader in business transformation. He has guided some of Asia Pacific’s most prominent brands, including Salesforce, Samsung, BMW, Meralco, ABS-CBN and others to find deeper, richer ways to engage with their customers. 

He began his career as a journalist, before being tasked by Australia’s richest man, Kerry Packer, with monetising digital content across the country’s leading websites. Since then he has specialised in driving revenue via digital channels. More recently, his focus has shifted to the new corporate battlefield—customer experience. He now devotes himself to developing unique customer engagement strategies that improve customer satisfaction and drive revenue growth.

A published author and avid scuba diver, Jay is now heading up APAC sales for Resulticks, the world’s best consumer engagement platform.

Lindsay has worked in the eCommerce and Payments industries for the last twenty years from the dot-com boom in the late 1990s to pioneering arguably the world’s first in-taxi electronic payment system at National Australia Bank in the early 2000s. At Bank of America he worked extensively with US Fortune 500 companies to assist their expansion into the Asia-Pacific, in particular China, India and the development of regional B2B payments solutions.

As Asia-Pacific Sales Director at GlobalCollect (now Ingenico ePayments), Lindsay led the company’s growth and expansion in the region focusing on the Travel Industry vertical including the product development, sales and marketing for a tailored eCommerce payments solution for the Hotel and Hospitality sector.

In his current role as Director, Business Development for South East Asia, he is focused on business growth in the region and again with a focus on the Travel Sector.

Angie is responsible for Twilio’s Go-To-Market across Asia Pacific & Japan and is a trusted advisor to global companies on building intelligent & frictionless omnichannel CX experience in the cloud at scale. She brings over 18 years experience in software & telecoms technology spanning APAC, EMEA & North America and is a strong believer that the core of an amazing customer experience lies in how quickly businesses interacts & responds with context anywhere, anytime. She is passionate about how programmable application platforms give companies complete control over their communications that solves complex CX challenges globally.

Gary Zurnamer leads Stackla's New Business team across Asia Pacific. He helps Stackla's largest global travel clients create a strategy around user-generated content from guests and travelers sharing about their brands. Prior to Stackla, Gary spent eight years working across brands and agencies on digital strategy in Sydney, London and New York.

Angus McDonald is the Co-Founder, and CEO of Cover Genius,  one of the fastest growing insurtechs globally. Cover Genius has received dozens of awards within insurance and tech circles for its patent-pending platform and global capability that ensures user-centricity throughout the entire customer journey, an approach that has led to global partnerships with, amongst others, Booking.com (NASDAQ:BKNG). Prior to starting Cover Genius, Angus was in the executive team of several high growth technology companies, including iClick Interactive (NASDAQ: ICLK) and Yahoo, building world-class partnership teams. Angus has a Bachelor of Science majoring in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Technology Sydney. Angus grew up in rural Australia and is passionate about finding ways to help country children get the same opportunities as children in major cities. Helping regional areas reach their potential through education and international exposure.

As the Head of Growth for one of the worlds fasting growing marketing operations platforms, IntelligenceBank, Adam’s role has been to ensure that global brands are exposed to the benefits of moving marketing operations and digital content into a unified SaaS platform.

Adam and IntelligenceBank have worked with some of the worlds most widely recognized travel, hospitality and leisure brands (as well as many other industries) so that they can improve operational efficiency, centralize and control content and creative process and just as importantly allowing those brands to stand out and thrive in their respective markets.

Adam hails from Australia and works across Asia, North America and globally with IntelligenceBank who have offices and customer teams in all corners of the globe.

Sandy Tsang is the Managing Director, APAC of leading global training provider AVADO.

With a background in digital marketing, Sandy was a practitioner in the financial services sector for more than a decade before making the switch into ed-tech to focus on building enterprise-wise capabilities.  Some of her accomplishments at American Express include having brand and direct response digital advertising oversight for new customer acquisition and new product launches.  At the world’s first peer-to-peer lending company, Zopa, Sandy more than doubled the personal loan business, and spearheaded cross-channel tracking and attribution between TV and direct response channels.

Her passion for digital started when she built her own website and sold music paraphernalia to fans around the world in 1998. Having experienced the evolution of the internet, Sandy is extremely passionate about digital transformation within companies and how she can help.

With 16 years of Digital Advertising experience spanning Europe and Asia, Caroline started her Digital career in London with Digital start-up, Kelkoo.com -  working with Global Travel Brands educating and consulting on the evolution of Digital Media. Following this, Caroline spent 10 years at Microsoft & Yahoo London in various leading sales roles, predominantly in performance marketing before leading the programmatic sales team at Yahoo UK, working closely with Global Agency trading desks to transforming the adoption of media buying to Real Time Buying.  This eventually brought Caroline to Asia in 2014 where she led both Yahoo & AOL APAC teams as Regional Sales Director and then Commercial Director. Caroline is now the General Manager of APAC for Brave Bison, a Global Social Video Company who own, produce and help distribute social video content that is fit for the Digital world.

With 16 years of Digital Advertising experience spanning Europe and Asia, Caroline started her Digital career in London with Digital start-up, Kelkoo.com -  working with Global Travel Brands educating and consulting on the evolution of Digital Media. Following this, Caroline spent 10 years at Microsoft & Yahoo London in various leading sales roles, predominantly in performance marketing before leading the programmatic sales team at Yahoo UK, working closely with Global Agency trading desks to transforming the adoption of media buying to Real Time Buying.  This eventually brought Caroline to Asia in 2014 where she led both Yahoo & AOL APAC teams as Regional Sales Director and then Commercial Director. Caroline is now the General Manager of APAC for Brave Bison, a Global Social Video Company who own, produce and help distribute social video content that is fit for the Digital world.