Past event summary

JIGNESH SANGHVI
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

DMCC

Jignesh Sanghvi is the Chief Financial Officer at DMCC, and a senior member of its leadership team.

Directing the organisation’s overall financial strategy, Jignesh is responsible for leading a variety of corporate finance teams including strategy, accounting, treasury and reporting.

Shaping DMCC’s culture of regulatory compliance and corporate governance, Jignesh oversees the organisation’s critical financial and risk management processes.

Joining in 2006, Jignesh has held various leadership roles within the organisation and across a broad range of operations

With over 20 years of experience in strategy, financial operations and management, Jignesh is a proven strategic leader with a strong track record of both building and managing successful finance and operating teams.

Prior to DMCC, Jignesh worked with Chicago Bridge and Iron, an international EPC company and leading auditing firms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and India.

Jignesh is a qualified Chartered Accountant with the ICAI in India, ACCA in the United Kingdom, and UAECA in the UAE, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Gujarat University, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from Symbiosis International.

JAMES DAVID BERNARD

HEAD OF CORPORATE SALES

DMCC

James Bernard is currently the Head of Corporate Sales at DMCC (Dubai Multi-Commodities Centre) and has played a pivotal role in its growth and development into a multi-award winning free zone with a portfolio of over 17,500+ companies till date. 

A special economics and free trade zone expert, James joined DMCC as Associate Director of Commodities and was later appointed as Director of Business Development in 2009 and has spearheaded both trade and commercial activities.

With over 14 years of experience and passion for commodities, logistics and global trade, James also specialises in big data, predictive analytics and distributed ledger technologies.

Prior to joining DMCC, James worked with several global financial institutions and trading houses across London and also set up his own trading companies for physical commodities and derivatives.

James is one of the founding members of the Dubai “Global Blockchain Council” and completed his higher education at the Westminster University in London.

K.S. RAMAKRISHNAN
PRESIDENT & CEO

DEI (DIGIPHOTO ENTERTAINMENT IMAGING)

K.S. Ramakrishnan (Ram) is the President and CEO of Digiphoto Entertainment Imaging (DEI), the world’s leading souvenir imaging provider to theme parks, water parks, resorts, and leisure attractions. DEI serves as an 'exclusive operating partner', providing end-to-end infrastructure for imaging solutions, working in more than 300 partner sites worldwide. DEIs presence spans across UAE, USA, Canada, UK, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Kuwait, and the Maldives.

A prudent entrepreneur and his business acumen can be measured by his success in varied business verticals. An adroit insight of commercial dynamics combined with an innovative spirit has enabled him to hone a logical strategic drive. An inherent understanding of crucial business dynamics across multiple markets and industries has proven instrumental in his ability to pinpoint critical problem areas with his team. His belief in empowering people percolates from top management through to operational teams and thus he leads by example to motivate a worldwide team comprising over 4,000 personnel across continents.

Ram also serves as CEO of BDC Holdings, a Dubai based, multi-million dollar global conglomerate with a diversified portfolio of operations spanning photography, souvenir imaging, retail, hospitality, communication, and other service sectors and is consistently in pursuit of expansion plans internationally

RAJA LAHIRI
PARTNER

GRANT THORNTON INDIA

Raja is an advisory partner and leads the Western Region Markets for the Firm. Raja is a qualified chartered accountant from India with 20 years of experience in the accounting and consulting world. He has advised a wide range of corporates, private equity, and entrepreneurs from business strategy, corporate finance to leadership consulting, and focuses on the “growth agenda”.

Raja was part of a Big Four Accounting Firm for close to 14 years before joining the Firm. He was one of the co-founders of the Transaction Advisory Practice of the Big Four Accounting Firm. He had led and advised for more than 240 deals and has advised Private Equity, Venture Capital Funds, Corporates (Indian and International).

Raja Lahiri is a Chartered Accountant who has a B.Com from St. Xavier’s College and has been part of a Leadership Program at IIM Ahmedabad.

GEORGE STOYANOV
PARTNER TRANSFORMATION ADVISORY

GRANT THORNTON UAE

George is a Partner for Transformation Advisory at Grant Thornton UAE. He has over 19 years of professional experience within advisory gained across projects in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. He has worked previously for Ernst & Young, PwC, Arthur Andersen and Kraft. He has extensive experience in Corporate Governance, Risk Management and Internal Audit. He has serviced the financial services industry, including banks, regulators, private equity and insurance companies, in addition to clients in the real estate, telecom and oil & gas sectors.

Throughout his career, George has helped clients develop their policies, procedures, delegation-of-authority matrices and organizational structures, including operating models and governance frameworks. In addition, he has performed finance benchmarking and improvement solutions, feasibility studies, stakeholder management, corporate governance, and risk management across industries and clients.

ALOK VERMA
PARTNER

GRANT THORNTON INDIA

Alok is a Senior Strategy Leader with over 20 years of experience in consulting across growth strategy corporate strategy, mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, market entry strategy & business transformation advisory. Alok has had extensive international consulting experience being based out of US, India, Europe, & APAC.

Alok works with Global Corporate Boards, Promoters, CEO’s, Senior Management as part of his Strategic Advisory efforts. Alok focuses across Technology, Auto & Industrial portfolio. Alok is part of CII Future Business Council as well as part of its select committee on Artificial Intelligence.

Before joining Grant Thornton, Alok has worked with leading strategy firms and has been involved in varied cross-sector engagements like Performance Improvement, Feasibility Studies, Commercial Diligence, Growth Strategy, Supply Chain & Business Transformation.

Alok is a B.Tech from IITD  and an MBA from IIM Bangalore

RUSSELL DALGLEISH

SERIAL SCOTTISH ENTREPRENEUR AND INVESTOR, STRATEGIST AND INNOVATOR

Russell has enjoyed the benefits of a highly successful international career in the technology sector and now focuses his efforts on supporting owners and boards of small and medium size companies to devise and implement growth strategies to create shareholder value. In his earlier career he has held board leadership positions with International companies achieving turnover more than £200m.

Core areas of focus are Leadership, Value Creation and Strategic thinking. He is a regular speaker at events on Leadership in business and has spoken at conferences from Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi.

Russell is founding Managing Partner of the advisory group, Exolta Capital Partners, www.exolta.com and Founding Chairman Scottish Business Network, www.sbn.scot the global network supporting Scottish business leaders. Other roles and accolades,

Currently holds eight non-exec and board advisory roles with fast growing business and organisations.

Member of Scotland Trade Board chaired by Keith Brown, Cabinet Secretary.

Named as one of the 100 most influential British Entrepreneurs and in thee top 100 most influential figures in technology today.

A member of the Maserati List of business leaders who support the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Scotland: Board member Institute of Directors Scotland, ScotlandIS, Merchant Company of Edinburgh and Asia Scotland Institute.

London: Advisor to Tech Advocates and member of the Mentium Group.

International: Board advisor Talent Tech Labs, New York.

Addressing the gender imbalance in business through his support of the Association of Scottish Business Women and Changing the Chemistry.

Advisor to a range of disruption led companies in UK and US.

Investor/Advisor Par Equity angel investor fund.

Russell continues to live in Linlithgow, Scotland with his business interests based from London. Not all work - since turning 50 Russell has have developed a passion for endurance events and can often be found at weekends mud splattered clambering over obstacles and "trying to keep up".

DANIEL SOLOMON
CEO & DELIVERY ADVISOR

EROE

Daniel Solomon is the CEO and Delivery Advisor of EROE, a business and digital transformation agency with global operations in Dubai & San Francisco.

As a seasoned professional, Daniel is known for driving growth and the employment of strategies that are guaranteeing the success of project delivery.  

Before his role at EROE, Daniel built an impressive track record of project deliveries in positions such as Project Director at Reality State Interactive a start-up building Augmented Reality software and project manager at Publicis.Sapient.  

Daniel earned an MBA from the University of Liverpool and a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology from Middlesex University.  

Daniel’s expertise blends leadership, people’s culture, technical skills and practical case studies aimed to help intelligent businesses to grow and change the way world works.

Together with a team of experts at EROE, the consulting agency became the business transformation ally for global partners such as Coca Cola, Lexus, LNG, Virgin Mobile, Tenaris, Toyota, PwC, Publicis.Sapient and numerous others.