Sandra Ng is Group Vice President and General Manager for IDC Asia/Pacific including Japan (APJ) research. Based in Singapore, she is responsible for thought leadership and deep-dive insights and advisory content on IDC’s 3rd Platform disruptive pillars of Cloud, Mobility, Big Data Analytics, and Social along with C-suite (CIO, CMO, CEO, COO, CFO and CxO) research and tech buyer engagements as well as the Service Provider industry. In her role, she advises both tech buyers (CIO and LoB) and IT suppliers/enablers across the ICT marketplace.

As IT becomes the epicenter of our economy, IDC sees the intersection of Digital Transformation (DX) and the 3rd Platform’s Innovation Stage. Here is where we see governments, industries and consumers consuming the four technology pillars as well as increasingly the six innovation accelerators (Internet of Things or IoT, cognitive computing, 3D printing, robotics, next-gen security, and augmented/virtual reality [AR/VR]). To this end, IDC created a portfolio of tech buyer/end-user research and methodology frameworks, the IDC DecisionScapes, to provide targeted advice in an increasingly complex and fast-paced marketplace.

Sandra leads a team of IDC’s senior analysts with collective expertise across the ICT industry. This team leverages the core research created by IDC’s Asia/Pacific Domain Research Group, through contextualizing the content and increasing its relevance for clients and their businesses. This value creation process enhances the proposition IDC brings to strategy, planning and market intelligence stakeholders. This unique delivery of research content also brings with it IDC’s thought leadership analysis and business executive insights for marketing, product management, sales and strategic leadership teams within the client’s organization.

Along with the Domain Research team, the Practice Group extensively collaborates with IDC’s Integrated Marketing Programs (IMP), IDC’s Industry Insights, and IDC’s Consulting organizations to provide a comprehensive scope of intelligence services to meet the diverse needs of today’s dynamic and complex technology marketplace.

From research to IDC’s customized go-to-market services (GMS) to executive roundtables and end-user events, Sandra and her team provide independent and insightful perspectives of market conditions, assisting clients in making informed business decisions and achieving business goals.

Sandra’s role also extends beyond quality research content delivery. She plays a key role in driving forward-looking assessment and analysis, often sharing her market insights and predictions to Asia Pacific management teams and heads of strategy within her customer base. She moderates and engages extensively with the client communities, including both traditional technology buyers and increasingly influential line of business heads often leveraging the IDC DecisionScape methodologies and deep-dive research.

Sandra has been in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) advisory and consulting industry for 20 years. While her technology research expertise is vast and diverse, she is best known in the industry for her Telecommunications knowledge and opinions within the Asia Pacific region. Her ability to discuss broad, strategic and converged issues across the ICT industry enables her to engage with many C-level management teams and technology executives in Asia.

Prior to joining IDC, Sandra was with Gartner/Dataquest for more than four years, where she was managing a variety of IT research projects ranging from midrange systems to peripherals. In addition to base unit research, she was actively leading in channel and consulting work.

Sandra has established a keen following within the Asia Pacific media fraternity and is frequently quoted in leading regional business and trade publications such as the Asian Wall Street Journal, Computer World, Telecom Asia, tele.com and Wireless World, and also in locally-based media such as Singapore’s Business Times and Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. She is often invited to present IDC’s opinions on CNBC Asia, Bloomberg and Channel News Asia. Sandra is also a regular keynote speaker at global and regional ICT conferences.

Fluent in English and Mandarin, Sandra graduated from National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree.

Chris has been serving in the Public Service for about 30 years. He currently serves as CIO of A*STAR and is responsible for IT, digitalisation and cybersecurity in the organisation that is home to some 30 research institutes and national platforms performing research and technology translation, in disciplines ranging from genomics, cellular biology and drug discovery at one end of the spectrum, to high performance computing, robotics and advanced manufacturing to the other. Earlier in his career Chris had served as the Assistant CIO of MINDEF, CIO of DSTA, CIO of the Ministry of Communications & Information (MCI) and CIO of IDA.

Jackson Ng is the chief operating officer and chief technology officer of Azimut Investment Management. He is also an award-winning C-suite executive recognized by IDG’s 2024 CIO100 and CSO30 Awards. As chief operating officer, he leads strategic business initiatives, drives digital innovation, enhances Azimut’s brand value, and oversees all aspects of business operations. Concurrently, as chief technology officer, he leads the company’s fintech, AI, digital transformation, and cybersecurity strategies. He also steers global and regional technology projects and initiatives.

Suhada is an IT strategist with more than 17 years of experience working in technology space while learning other things in life to the extent that he believes digital transformation is not just about technology, it is about people and culture.

He holds MBA in Strategic Management supported with various industry certifications such as Project Management Professional (PMP), Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP), Agile and Scrum, and several technical industry certifications.

He is currently engaged with Blue Bird, one of the largest land transportation companies in Indonesia – widely known with their taxi – helping them with their digital transformation as Vice President of Information Technology. Before joining Blue Bird, he spent 8 years working with one of the global leaders in ICT in their APAC hub in Cyberjaya, Malaysia.

Sonny is a seasoned professional and has led Pricing and Data Analytics projects/transformations in Asia, Europe and North America. Sonny returned to Indonesia in July 2019 after spending 20 years living and working in the UK. His current responsibility at Maybank Indonesia is to lead and manage a team of data scientists, market researchers, pricing specialists, and Data Governance, developing a relatively new Division to convert data into meaningful and actionable insights for the Bank to better serve its customers.

Ivan is currently the Chief Information Officer of Telekom Malaysia Berhad. He manages a team of 700+ employees across Information Technology and Digital. In just 9 months, he has been able to transform Telekom Malaysia, a fully converged MNO into a Digital Pioneer in the country by adopting a cloud based Digital BSS stack that is decentralized through TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture standards. This transformation also marks the fastest BSS Transformation globally for an organization of this scale and complexity with the first minimum viable product launched in 75 days and full successful migration in 218 days at 99.98% accuracy. Ivan has led his team to reduce 1376 custom APIs by 80% and drove TM’s API conformance from ZERO to Diamond status elevating Telekom Malaysia to the #1 position on the TM Forum global leaderboard in 6 months. As Ivan has successfully transformed Telekom Malaysia into a TechCo platform company through Telco-as-a-Service, Ivan strengthened it further into a Digital Powerhouse by internalizing 90% of critical developments from 20%, empowering businesses to increase GTM speeds through low-code/no-code platforms powered by analytics and automating operations (Zero Ops) through RPA and assimilation of AI. Lastly, Ivan has been able to successfully turn Telekom IT and Digital from a cost center to a revenue supporting center through monetizing resources and platforms such as RPA, API and TaaS.

Ivan has accumulated a total of 20 years’ working experience with over 15 years in Global Technology and Management Consulting firms such as Accenture across 13 different countries. Over the course of his career, he has attained several professional certifications namely, Telecom MBA, Leadership Program from Harvard, PMP (PMI), Advanced SCRUM Master, ITIL V3 and Data Center Professional. Ivan possesses the depth and breadth of experience across multiple industries such as Telecommunications, Financial Services, Resources and Healthcare.

He currently reports to the Group CEO of Telekom Malaysia Berhad and is serving in the Malaysian Reserved Army as a Telecommunications Expert