Speakers
Uncover breakthrough insights from IDC experts and exclusive sessions featuring influential voices transforming technology and leadership today.
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Ronita Bhattacharjee
Event Sessions
Saturday, March 14 2026 9:10 am | Location:
Welcome Address & Recap from Day 1
Friday, March 13 2026 9:05 am | Location:
Powering Up the Event: A Warm Welcome to the Future of IT
Sakshi Grover
Sakshi Grover is a senior research manager for IDC Asia/Pacific Cybersecurity Services, supporting its research and client engagement activities across Asia/Pacific markets. Additionally, she serves as the lead security analyst for IDC India. Sakshi is responsible for delivering syndicated custom research and consulting engagements on next-generation emerging and disruptive technologies. Her tasks include developing and socializing IDC’s point of view within security services, covering both legacy and modern cybersecurity technologies. Her role involves close collaboration with technology vendors and buyers, developing market insights, and providing research, consulting, and advisory services in the fields of security software and services. This includes partnering on research efforts with relevant country analysts in the local IDC offices. Sakshi’s views on security have been quoted in numerous publications, such as the Economic Times, Business Standard, Data Quest, CRN, and others.
Sakshi has a wealth of experience in the IT space, managing diverse areas such as research and analysis, business development, product management, and client-centric engagements. Before joining IDC, Sakshi was a principal analyst at Gartner Inc., where she managed research on datacenter infrastructure and cloud security products. Prior to Gartner, she was associated with Accenture and Wipro Ltd., where she was responsible for business development across EMEA and Asia/Pacific markets within the TMT space.
Event Sessions
Saturday, March 14 2026 10:55 am | Location:
CIO Masterclass Workshop: Designing the India-Led Global Enterprise of 2028
Friday, March 13 2026 9:15 am | Location:
The AI Moment: Strategies for CIOs in India
AI, predicted to have a $19.9 trillion impact on the global economy by 2030, is reshaping economic landscapes, creating new revenue streams, and redefining competitive advantages. This session will provide unique insights and analysis drawn from IDC’s extensive study of CIOs and key decision-makers across India. It will provide a deeper understanding of current and planned AI strategies and use case road maps, covering key topics such as AI-ready data, unified governance, fit-for-purpose and scalable infrastructure, and AI talent.
Amit Luthra
Amit Luthra is a technology industry executive with over two decades of experience building high-performance businesses across enterprise and infrastructure markets. He is known for building high-performance teams, shaping go-to-market strategies, and forging strategic partnerships that accelerate digital and AI-led transformation.
As the One Lenovo Commercial Leader at Lenovo India, Amit is responsible for driving integrated enterprise growth across Lenovo’s Intelligent Devices Group (IDG), Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG), and Solutions and Services Group (SSG). In this role, he leads a unified commercial strategy that brings together Lenovo’s full-stack capabilities: from devices to data center infrastructure and services, to deliver end-to-end Hybrid AI solutions for customers across India. He works closely with enterprise clients, hyperscalers, and ecosystem partners to strengthen Lenovo’s position as a strategic transformation partner in the Indian market.
Previously, Amit led the scaling of Lenovo’s Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) business in India, expanding its enterprise footprint, strengthening the partner ecosystem, and institutionalizing disciplined execution to drive profitable growth and market share gains.
Before joining Lenovo, Amit held leadership roles at Dell Technologies, Sun Microsystems, and HCL, where he led enterprise sales, strategic account management, and business transformation initiatives across India.
An engineer by training with an MBA from leading institutions in India, Amit is based in Bengaluru and is passionate about building resilient teams and shaping future-ready technology businesses.
Event Sessions
Friday, March 13 2026 9:55 am | Location:
Unlock the Full Value of Enterprise AI
Krishna G
Event Sessions
Friday, March 13 2026 10:15 am | Location:
Legacy to Digital Resilience: Innovation with Agentic AI Platforms
Application development (AppDev) has undoubtedly become a critical part of most organisations in this digital era.But what happens to digital transformation goals when the bulk of an organisation’s critical software applications written in Java and .NET were produced years or even decades ago?
Join us on this event where we will show CIOs how to modernize legacy applications rapidly—without sacrificing control or overwhelming engineering teams. We cover:
- Automated Legacy Code Analysis for accelerated migration : Use AI-powered code analysis to surface risks, dependencies, and modernization paths quickly—bypassing laborious manual assessment and accelerating modernisation.
- Unified Data Fabric for seamless Integrations: Maximize value from existing IT investments by harmonizing data across ERP, CRM, data lakes, relational databases, and other knowledge systems in your enterprise.
- Agent Workbench for Custom Agentic AI Development: Whether for bespoke apps or domain specific functions, agents can automate workflows, integrate with multiple models (including third party ones), and operate under the governance you define. We offer real time monitoring, auditability, and built in guardrails to ensure secure Agentic AI deployment at scale.
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Kunal Matta
Event Sessions
Friday, March 13 2026 11:10 am | Location:
Leading AI Transformation with Confidence: The Enterprise Context Layer for Agentic AI
AI is no longer a science project—it’s a board-level mandate. Yet most organizations are stuck between moving too slowly and spinning up disconnected pilots that create risk, sprawl, and low ROI. In this session, we’ll unpack how an open, horizontal Work AI platform and a shared enterprise context layer can turn AI from scattered tools into a trusted, company-wide capability that transforms people, processes, and platform. You’ll see how leading enterprises are using Glean to unify context across their apps, safely deploy multi-model agents, and deliver tangible outcomes—from 25%+ productivity gains and faster feature velocity to higher win rates, better CSAT, and AI initiatives you can finally scale with confidence.
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Gaurav Agrawal
Event Sessions
Friday, March 13 2026 11:35 am | Location:
Agentic AI in CX: From Automation to Autonomous Outcomes
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Kamalkanth Tummala
Experienced Business Leader with a couple of decades of experience across multiple roles in P&L Management, Sales and Distribution Management, Technology enablement, Team Management, and Strategy for large enterprises. I am passionate about driving success through people-focused solutions that are highly collaborative and meaningful to the customer business outcome whilst at the same time leveraging my own strengths to grow and succeed. I have a keen interest in Technology disruption and helping customers transform and achieve greater business agility.
Event Sessions
Friday, March 13 2026 12:00 pm | Location:
Democratizing Data + AI
Data and AI are now core to competitive advantage, yet their use is still concentrated among specialists. CIOs must democratize data and AI so every function can act on trusted insights. This session will show how a unified, governed data foundation and modern data and AI platform enables secure self service analytics, AI and domain specific applications. CIOs will gain practical guidance and examples on scaling adoption across business units while maintaining governance, compliance and control.
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Rajesh Ramdas
Event Sessions
Friday, March 13 2026 12:00 pm | Location:
Democratizing Data + AI
Data and AI are now core to competitive advantage, yet their use is still concentrated among specialists. CIOs must democratize data and AI so every function can act on trusted insights. This session will show how a unified, governed data foundation and modern data and AI platform enables secure self service analytics, AI and domain specific applications. CIOs will gain practical guidance and examples on scaling adoption across business units while maintaining governance, compliance and control.
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Tarang Bapat
Tarang Bapat is a recognised leader in tax technology and automation, currently serving as Director of the Corporates business, Asia & Emerging Markets, at Thomson Reuters.
With over a decade of experience in indirect tax, tax compliance, and digital transformation, Tarang helps global organisations modernise their tax functions through intelligent automation, ERP integration, and e-invoicing solutions.
He specialises in designing and implementing scalable tax automation strategies that align with evolving regulatory landscapes and enterprise systems like SAP S/4HANA.
Tarang has worked closely with tax and finance leaders to streamline processes, ensure e-invoicing compliance across jurisdictions, and unlock operational efficiency through technology.
A frequent speaker and advisor on tax innovation, Tarang brings deep insights into how automation and e-invoicing are reshaping the future of tax departments worldwide.
Event Sessions
Friday, March 13 2026 12:25 pm | Location:
Rethinking compliance in the age of AI
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Namit D’Cruz
Proven track record of transforming territories into high achieving sales units Experience in leading complex negotiations to secure strategic market making multi-year deals Passionate in helping customers solve business problems and find success in their unique cloud journey Deep understanding across various industries built over 20 years of selling to large and small customers
Event Sessions
Friday, March 13 2026 12:50 pm | Location:
Predict. Prevent. Perform: The AI Edge in Observability
As technology environments grow more complex, IT and security teams need more than traditional monitoring. In this session, Datadog will show how a unified observability and security platform, powered by AI, helps organisations predict issues, prevent risks, and improve performance across their entire tech stack. With end-to-end visibility across infrastructure, applications, security, and digital experience — plus AI Agents that automatically detect, investigate, and remediate problems — CIOs can move from reactive firefighting to proactive, resilient operations that drive stronger business outcomes.
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Guru Ragavendra
18+ years of experience in solutions design for infrastructure monitoring and automations covering both Presales and Postsales for Observability, AIOPS, FinOps and Automation requirements. Seasoned professional experienced in designing and implementing solutions for Large Hybrid multi-cloud environments. Working with the Partners and Customers in aligning their roadmaps and driving innovation. Proven ability to understand business problems and apply technology to formulate workable solutions. Highly motivated, result oriented with good interpersonal and project management skills.
Event Sessions
Friday, March 13 2026 12:50 pm | Location:
Predict. Prevent. Perform: The AI Edge in Observability
As technology environments grow more complex, IT and security teams need more than traditional monitoring. In this session, Datadog will show how a unified observability and security platform, powered by AI, helps organisations predict issues, prevent risks, and improve performance across their entire tech stack. With end-to-end visibility across infrastructure, applications, security, and digital experience — plus AI Agents that automatically detect, investigate, and remediate problems — CIOs can move from reactive firefighting to proactive, resilient operations that drive stronger business outcomes.
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Mandar Bhide
As an APAC Technical & Solutions Lead, I am responsible for the developing and achieving business goals for Hitachi core Infrastructure storage platform and software in Asia Pacific region. As a Regional Product Manager for APAC, I am involved in product requirements gathering, business validation and market analysis, engineering-field interactions, setting software strategy and directions.
Specialties: Technical resource to the field sales/ presales, product management, requirements gathering and business justification, storage infrastrcture management and performance assessment, datacenter mangement and reporting, capacity planning, infrastructure workflow Automation, Data Protection and Copy Data Management
Event Sessions
Friday, March 13 2026 1:15 pm | Location:
Building a Data Foundation for Innovation
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Arujh Gopal
Abhilash K L
Results-driven territory account manager with duties including devising sales plans, managing relationships with existing and targeted clients and marinating in depth account profiles on key clients. 9 years of Experience in Corporate Business Development with a demonstrated history of working in the business supplies for leading corporate companies in india. Skilled in providing audio visual solutions,Project Management, and Customer Service. Strong sales professional with a Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) focused in Electronics and Communications Engineering from BIET.
Subash Baliga
Praveen Kumar
Technology Services provider, specialised in AI, Machine Learning, Low Code Development, Automation, Mobile Application, Web development and Big Data Analytics. Bringing innovative products and ideas into Digital Space with high quality, help clients in identifying risks and opportunities that address both short-term challenges as well as long-term value creation, provide the full project management support for a spectrum of IT projects from pre-concept to ongoing strategic promotion and evaluation.
Githen Ronney
Mareeswar M
Experienced Technology Architect with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry in Payment and Financial Domains. Delivered Software product in multiple geographies (India, UK, EMEA, USA). Possess unique skillset of performing both Management and Technical activities of the Project by following Agile and Waterfall methodologies for Software Development. Work experience in Solution Definition and Design, Development of Microservice capactablie to Cloud platform using Spring Cloud frameworks to support Payment services domain business functionalities. Work experience in developing web applications and server side application using Struts, Spring, AJAX, Rest services using Struts, JSP, FTL, Servlets, JavaScript, XML, CSS, HTML, various Design Patterns. Skilled in using tools like Sonar, PMD, CheckStyle,Yslow, Java Profiler, Splunk, SoapUI, Postman, Fiddler, DynaTrace, AppDynamics, Maven build tools, Repository like Git, Perforce. Coordinated Product Implementation into User acceptance & Production environment and Integrate with Internal and External systems for validation and sign off. Conduct review on Release planning and Governances for Product releases Effectively Managed a team of team of 15+ resources. Manged Client and Stakeholder Relationship. Research-oriented, motivated, proactive, self-starter with strong technical, analytical and interpersonal skills. Team player and quick learner with ability to adapt new technologies and architecture. Strong engineering professional with a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) focused in Mining and Mineral Engineering from National Institute of Technology Rourkela.
Gopi Reddy
Seasoned Senior Solutions Engineer with over 12 years of experience in pre-sales, digital transformation, infrastructure transformation, and cloud services. Demonstrated expertise in enterprise storage, virtualization, K8s, data management, data analytics, AI, hybrid cloud, and disaster recovery solutions. Adept at designing and delivering high-impact solutions across industries including BFSI, ITeS, Healthcare, Pharma and manufacturing. Recognized for driving technical strategy, enhancing ROI, and achieving excellence in client engagement.
Ravikant Sharma
Ravikant Sharma is Research Director- Government Insights with IDC’s Asia/Pacific team. Based in India, Ravi is responsible for managing and executing insights consulting projects in the Asia Pacific region. He had led numbers of intricate and diverse engagements which helped business heads understand market potential and expected growth and define their market entry strategy. He also helped enhance and sustain their competitive advantage and improve profitability through better understanding of supply-side industry dynamics, competitive landscape, and demand side ecosystem.
Ravi has over 12 years of experience in market research and consulting. Prior to joining IDC Asia/Pacific, he worked at IDC India as a senior manager in consulting practice. In this role, Ravi was responsible for business development, identification and growth of new consulting services, client relationship management, market analysis, and project delivery. Before that, he was a research director with IPSOS India in the loyalty, Media CT and Public Affair division.
Ravi holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (Marketing) with first class distinction from ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad and Bachelor of Technology from Rajasthan, India.
Aman Walia
Event Sessions
Saturday, March 14 2026 9:30 am | Location:
Panel Discussion – Redefining the CIO Role: From Technology Leader to Business Partner
The role of the CIO is rapidly evolving beyond traditional IT management to becoming a strategic business partner. This panel will explore how CIOs are driving enterprise-wide transformation, enabling innovation, and aligning technology initiatives with core business objectives. Industry leaders will share insights on shifting from operational oversight to value creation, influencing board-level decisions, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and leveraging emerging technologies to deliver measurable business impact. The discussion will highlight the skills, mindset, and leadership approaches required for CIOs to thrive in today’s dynamic and digitally driven environment.
Pankaj Sharma
IT leader with 25 years of experience building and transforming technology functions across manufacturing, pharma, and specialty chemicals — from 300-location MPLS networks and Tier III data centres to enterprise SAP S/4HANA rollouts and AI-driven cybersecurity frameworks. Currently Head of IT at Hikal Limited (Pharma & Agrochemicals), leading IT Applications, Infrastructure, Services, and Cybersecurity across the organisation. Previously at Nuvoco Vistas and Shree Cement, where I spent nearly 19 years scaling IT from the ground up — building India’s first Cisco TelePresence deployment, creating a Greenfield Tier III Data Centre with 10,000+ IP devices, and leading S/4HANA and SuccessFactors rollouts.
Event Sessions
Saturday, March 14 2026 9:30 am | Location:
Panel Discussion – Redefining the CIO Role: From Technology Leader to Business Partner
The role of the CIO is rapidly evolving beyond traditional IT management to becoming a strategic business partner. This panel will explore how CIOs are driving enterprise-wide transformation, enabling innovation, and aligning technology initiatives with core business objectives. Industry leaders will share insights on shifting from operational oversight to value creation, influencing board-level decisions, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and leveraging emerging technologies to deliver measurable business impact. The discussion will highlight the skills, mindset, and leadership approaches required for CIOs to thrive in today’s dynamic and digitally driven environment.
Kayzad Hiramanek
Event Sessions
Saturday, March 14 2026 9:30 am | Location:
Panel Discussion – Redefining the CIO Role: From Technology Leader to Business Partner
The role of the CIO is rapidly evolving beyond traditional IT management to becoming a strategic business partner. This panel will explore how CIOs are driving enterprise-wide transformation, enabling innovation, and aligning technology initiatives with core business objectives. Industry leaders will share insights on shifting from operational oversight to value creation, influencing board-level decisions, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and leveraging emerging technologies to deliver measurable business impact. The discussion will highlight the skills, mindset, and leadership approaches required for CIOs to thrive in today’s dynamic and digitally driven environment.
Sanjeev Tyagi
Senior level IT Cum Business Executive with over 28 years of experience, I have successfully led complex IT strategy development, digital transformation, innovation management, and technology execution across diverse industry verticals. My ability to align IT initiatives with business goals has made him a key player in mergers, acquisitions, corporate IT integrations, and application delivery on a global scale My expertise extends across SAP Technical, IT Infrastructure, and Business Applications, playing a critical role in managing IT operations for India’s largest and the world’s 5th largest generic pharmaceutical group. His hands-on approach to technology architecture, SAP deployments, and high-value IT projects has driven operational excellence and strategic growth. Has a proven track record of converting strategic IT roadmaps into actionable results. Managed large-scale high-value and complex projects has empowered businesses to enhance productivity, reduce costs, and accelerate digital transformation. By implementing advanced IT governance models and technology frameworks, he has enabled organizations to harness the full potential of their digital ecosystems. Experience in high-growth, high transactional, high availability and highly regulated organizations with extensive knowledge of IT Infrastructure Management (including Systems Administration, SAP Technical, IT Security, Network, Database, Datacenters, Disaster Recovery, end user computing, Compliance, Process / Policies etc.), IT Service Management, Applications and Enterprise Management tools.
Event Sessions
Saturday, March 14 2026 9:30 am | Location:
Panel Discussion – Redefining the CIO Role: From Technology Leader to Business Partner
The role of the CIO is rapidly evolving beyond traditional IT management to becoming a strategic business partner. This panel will explore how CIOs are driving enterprise-wide transformation, enabling innovation, and aligning technology initiatives with core business objectives. Industry leaders will share insights on shifting from operational oversight to value creation, influencing board-level decisions, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and leveraging emerging technologies to deliver measurable business impact. The discussion will highlight the skills, mindset, and leadership approaches required for CIOs to thrive in today’s dynamic and digitally driven environment.
Rajneesh Garg
Event Sessions
Saturday, March 14 2026 9:30 am | Location:
Panel Discussion – Redefining the CIO Role: From Technology Leader to Business Partner
The role of the CIO is rapidly evolving beyond traditional IT management to becoming a strategic business partner. This panel will explore how CIOs are driving enterprise-wide transformation, enabling innovation, and aligning technology initiatives with core business objectives. Industry leaders will share insights on shifting from operational oversight to value creation, influencing board-level decisions, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and leveraging emerging technologies to deliver measurable business impact. The discussion will highlight the skills, mindset, and leadership approaches required for CIOs to thrive in today’s dynamic and digitally driven environment.
Vivek Shankar
Event Sessions
Saturday, March 14 2026 9:30 am | Location:
Panel Discussion – Redefining the CIO Role: From Technology Leader to Business Partner
The role of the CIO is rapidly evolving beyond traditional IT management to becoming a strategic business partner. This panel will explore how CIOs are driving enterprise-wide transformation, enabling innovation, and aligning technology initiatives with core business objectives. Industry leaders will share insights on shifting from operational oversight to value creation, influencing board-level decisions, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and leveraging emerging technologies to deliver measurable business impact. The discussion will highlight the skills, mindset, and leadership approaches required for CIOs to thrive in today’s dynamic and digitally driven environment.
Sandeep Bhambure
Sandeep is the Vice President and Managing Director, India and SAARC and leads business operations in India. He is responsible for market development, expanding solutions offerings to customers, further strengthening partner network.
Sandeep is a business leader with over 20 years’ experience in driving IT solutions across enterprises of all sizes, as well as a transformational leader with over 10 years track record in leading, retaining and sustaining high performing teams. An industry veteran with a proven track record of consistently driving business growth, drill-down planning, and operational execution, Sandeep has established long-term relationships with business partners, alliances, distributors, OEMS, ISVs, system integrators, independent consultants, and regulators across India. He has an excellent sales experience cutting across multiple industry verticals, market segments and broad range of IT solutions. Prior to Veeam, Sandeep was the Regional Director (enterprise) and Country Manager (cloud service providers business) at Dell EMC. Prior to this, he has held senior sales leadership roles within IRIS Software, Symantec and SAS. He began his career at Sonata Software as a Regional Manager (ERP)
Event Sessions
Saturday, March 14 2026 9:50 am | Location:
Accelerating Safe AI at Scale: Unified Data Protection, Governance & Recovery
See how Veeam + Securiti AI unify data protection, security, governance, privacy and AI trust into one command center so you can deploy SAFE AI fast—on trusted data. Learn how to understand data everywhere, secure AI pipelines, verify clean restore points, and orchestrate rapid rollback when incidents occur, turning resilience into competitive advantage and compliant innovation.
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Monika Kapoor
Event Sessions
Saturday, March 14 2026 10:15 am | Location:
Measuring Success Beyond KPIs
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Deepika Giri
Deepika manages and leads the research programs in big data and analytics (BDA), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and Web3.
Deepika is a seasoned data and AI professional and brings extensive knowledge about the impact of data engineering, big data cloud platforms, and data science across critical sectors. She has extensive experience in software delivery as well as sales leadership and management. She also has over 20 years of experience in IT services, including leadership roles, at Capgemini, Infosys, and Accenture, and has strong industry expertise in the telecommunications and retail industries. More so, Deepika has an entrepreneurial spirit and has previously founded her own online retail fashion business.
Deepika holds a master’s degree in communication systems engineering from the University of Kent in United Kingdom and a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communications from the University of Madras, India.
Event Sessions
Saturday, March 14 2026 10:35 am | Location: