Jyoti Lalchandani is a seasoned business executive with more than 25 years of experience in emerging markets across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). In his role as IDC’s Group Vice President and Regional Managing Director for the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META), he has been instrumental in establishing IDC’s presence in the region – first, through the initial expansion of the Dubai headquarters and then by spearheading the development of IDC offices in Johannesburg, Istanbul, Riyadh, Casablanca, Lagos, Nairobi, and Cairo.
Jyoti is responsible for the planning, development, implementation, and coordination of IDC’s market intelligence and advisory services, sales, conferences and events, go-to-market services, and office development activities across the META region. As a respected authority on emerging market tech trends, he is also regularly invited to speak at major industry events throughout the region and is frequently quoted by both the national and international media.
His field of expertise includes key tech areas such as cloud, analytics, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, and he is well known for providing guidance on digital transformation strategies for the entire C-suite. He is a trusted advisor to senior executives in the supplier/enabler space across the ICT ecosystem, as well as to tech buyers from the CIO and line-of-business communities.
Starting at IDC’s CEMA (Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) headquarters in 1995 in Prague, the Czech Republic, Jyoti served as IDC’s regional consulting manager. In this role, he headed several country-based project teams that advised local and multinational IT vendors on issues relating to entry strategy, competitor analysis, ROI analysis, distribution and partner evaluation, and market segmentation. He later took on the additional responsibility of overseeing the CEMA software practice, in which he was responsible for overseeing all related research (applications, system infrastructure, and tools) and advisory work across emerging EMEA countries.
Before joining IDC, Jyoti served on the national board of international non-profit organization AIESEC, where he managed the association’s partnership agreements with leading Indian conglomerates. He graduated from Loyola College, India, where his studies focused on strategy management and business policy. He later attended a corporate-sponsored program at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts.

Jebin George joined IDC’s vertical markets group in 2009. As a research analyst, he is responsible for the verticals research and analysis practice in the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, including assessment of market sizing, market trends, forecasting, and vendor strategies for the region. He contributes to consulting and advisory projects and prepares and publishes reports focused on this region.

Having worked as a research analyst with SunTec Business Solutions, a software product company in India, George possesses strong product marketing and market research experience. At SunTec, he handled primary and secondary research, quantitative and qualitative analysis, market sizing, competitor analysis, analyst relations, and worked with analytical tools. He was also involved in business writing, research interviews, collateral development, and market requirements documents (MRD) and business requirements documents (BRD).

George’s academic background includes a postgraduate degree in management from SCMS, Kochi, and a Bachelor’s degree in engineering from Madras University. In addition to his native Malayalam, he speaks English and Hindi.

Ana Paula Assis leads IBM’s business operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), driving revenue growth, client satisfaction and employee engagement in a region with more than 100 countries. She also guides IBM’s relationship with the European Union. In addition, Ana Paula Assis has overall responsibly for market development for the company’s growth markets, including Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Mexico, UAE, and India.

Prior to this role, she was General Manager of IBM EMEA. Previously, she was General Manager for IBM Latin America, where she drove sustained growth and increased market share. She also held multiple positions in the US and China. Ana Paula Assis played a key role in the separation of Kyndryl from IBM, an action taken to sharpen IBM’s focus on hybrid cloud and AI.

An executive with more than 25 years of international experience in the Information Technology market, she has led high-performance sales teams and engaged with clients in their digital transformation journeys.

Atul Soneja is Chief Operating Officer at Tech Mahindra. A core part of Tech Mahindra’s leadership team, Atul comes with a rich and extensive professional background and has served as the COO at CitiusTech, where he successfully oversaw the overall delivery and operations for the organization. Prior to that, he spent over two decades at Infosys, managing multi-billiondollar services lines across financial services, retail, and manufacturing industry segments.
Moreover, he headed the Infosys subsidiary, EdgeVerve, where he led the platforms and products business with a focus on AI and automation.

Atul holds a Bachelor of Technology from the prestigious IIT Kharagpur and did his schooling at
De Nobili School, Dhanbad.

In addition to his professional and family responsibilities, he is passionate for sports, travel, and
immersing himself in diverse cultures and cuisines.

Samir Akel is the Regional Vice President for Emerging Markets at Nintex, where he oversees operations across the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe. With over two decades of experience driving digital transformation across both public and private sectors, he has held senior leadership roles at global technology leaders including Oracle, BMC Software, and Udacity.

At Nintex, Samir leads the regional growth strategy, strengthens the partner ecosystem, and champions customer success across some of the world’s most dynamic digital economies. His expertise spans go-to-market leadership, cloud transformation, and scaling high-impact teams that deliver measurable business outcomes.