Congratulation to the
finalists! Meet the best from the
world of digital engineering

Steve Hall is responsible for the firm’s Europe, Middle East & Africa region, as well as its global Digital Advisory Services business. During his time with ISG, Mr. Hall has led some of the company’s largest and most complex engagements with clients as diverse as United Airlines, Symantec, BP, World Bank, CEMEX and Motorola. He is a seasoned professional who brings considerable experience in emerging technologies to ISG clients. Prior to his position at ISG,

Mr. Hall held senior roles at a number of renowned IT services companies, including Unisys and MCI. He also led large-scale eBusiness initiatives for technology solutions providers C-Bridge and CBSI and gained deep outsourcing and offshore software development experience as a delivery executive with Covansys.

Mr. Hall co-authored Managing Global Development Risk: A Guide to Managing Global Software Development. He earned his degree in Computer Science from Regis University.

Prashant Kelker leads ISG’s Digital Advisory Services and is the Chief Strategy Officer of ISG. He offers ISG’s clients 21 years of experience in Technology Strategy & Management. He works with enterprises to shape their operating models for a digital journey and brings 25 years of expertise in all aspects of applications and platforms, from designing transformations through the whole sourcing lifecycle.

Prashant’s experience spans a range of industries, including Financial Services, Telecom and Media, Automotive and Utilities, and a range of geographies, including Europe, the Americas and India. Recently, he helped a Fortune 50 industrial manufacturing giant define its enterprise wide Digital Thread strategy. He has helped firms consolidate next-generation sourcing for applications, and execute digital transformations.

His experience spans from leading core software product development to delivering IT services for application portfolios both onsite as well as offshore – which he combines this with digital trends to bring thought leadership to his engagements.

Gaurav has more than 2 decades of experience focused on complex, transformational change across key industries, including Manufacturing, CPG, Energy, Utilities and Lifesciences and has held leading positions driving the change agenda. His experience in establishing business transformation tenets early stage, allow him to envision and define an end state strategy which can be operationalized.

As an ISG Partner, leading the Digital Engineering advisory, towards transformation programs which increasingly are assuming the shape of “Engineering led Digital transformation”, he will focus on building on the strong enterprise advisory & sourcing platform that ISG has and extend it towards the business-driven priorities.

Gaurav and his team support both our Industry/Verticals and regions towards our direct-to-client models, including onshore and offshore resources.

Debjani Ghosh is the President of the National Association of Software & Services Companies (NASSCOM) since April 2018. A veteran of the technology industry, she is the fifth president of NASSCOM and the first women at the helm in three-decade history.

She is a firm believer in the power of technology in enhancing lives and livelihoods, leveraging it for societal good. She was instrumental in developing ‘Think Digital, Think India’ strategy aimed at establishing India as a hub for digital talent and innovation. Debjani strongly believes technology will have the most impact on humankind when it’s used as an enabler of inclusive growth and that India must lead in the digital era with focus on the responsible build and use of tech as an accelerator and equalizer.

As the NASSCOM President, she actively works with the industry and Government to accelerate the growth of the Industry and strengthen India’s position as hub for Innovation and Digital Talent. Her approach has been focused on a three-point agenda - talent development and re-skilling, strengthening the innovation culture in the country and collaborating with governments across the world to open new opportunities for the Indian IT industry.

In January 2018, she was felicitated by the President of India under the auspices of the ‘First Ladies’ program, which honors exceptional women pioneers in their respective fields. In 2020, she has been honored by Vogue as the Tech Leader of the year 2020. She has also been listed among the India’s most powerful women in tech by Business Today.

With multiple feathers in her cap, before joining NASSCOM, she was the first woman to lead Intel India and the Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT), she was also a member of the executive council at NASSCOM. She believes that learning never stops and a trainable mindset is the biggest strength one can have.

Debjani holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Osmania University in Hyderabad, India, and an MBA degree in marketing from S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research in Mumbai, India.

Suja Chandra served as Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Digital and Information Officer at CommonSpirit Health, leading all aspects of product, technology, digital and marketing for the $34B healthcare integrated delivery network.

She is a global, operations, supply chain, digital transformation, eCommerce and P&L leader. Previously, she has been a member of executive leadership teams, global chief of digital, tech and operations at large companies including Walmart, Inc, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Nestle S.A., and The Timberland Company.

Suja serves as a board member on the boards of public companies American Eagle Outfitters (NYSE: AEO), global omnichannel apparel retailer, Brenntag SE (BNR.DE), DAX40 German listed company, Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH), a healthcare and pharmaceutical, Fortune 15 company and Agendia Inc, a precision medicine, molecular diagnostics company focused on breast cancer research, diagnosis and treatment. Suja is chairperson of board at HealthEM.Ai focused on care intelligence, delivering total care management, value-based care, patient and provider experiences, financial and performance management for healthcare providers and payers. Suja sits on the board of advisors of SAFE Security, focused on cyber risk management and Test Dynamics, healthcare AI platform for radiology, cardiology and other clinical focuses.

Suja is the founder and chair of the board of T200 Foundations – Women CXOs in Tech, non-profit focused on developing women in tech, software P&L, AI, digital, product and cybersecurity.

She is an industry expert in cyber security, digital health, digital marketing, customer experience, eCommerce, omnichannel, artificial intelligence, and scaled enterprise digital transformations. Suja has led significant business model transformations, business & consumer technologies, people/ organizational leadership, M&A experience and global consumer and regulatory expertise.

Jim Austin, a former senior executive at Baxter Healthcare, combines business strategy and organizational development theory with extensive industry experience. Jim is a Faculty, Wharton Business School, for Senior Leadership programs. Specifically, he leads programs at Wharton on:

• Finding New Growth Opportunities
• Building a Vision
• Execution and Leading Strategic Change
• Improving Strategic Decision-Making
• Scenario Planning and Strategic Agility

In 2013, Brown University appointed Jim a Senior Lecturer of Healthcare Leadership in their Master of Science in Healthcare Leadership (MHL). He is currently Adjunct Assistant Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice where he heads a graduate Leadership & Workforce Development course. From 1996 through 2016, Jim was a Business Management Professor at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management where he received the “Most Distinguished Corporate Education Faculty Member” (2009-10) and the “Learning Excellence” (2015) awards. From 2013-2016, he was an Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Health Systems Management, College of Health Sciences, Rush University, where he taught a graduate seminar on Healthcare Ethics. Jim’s book, Transformative Planning: How Your Healthcare Organization Can Strategize for an Uncertain Future (Health Administration Press, 2018), helps healthcare leaders drive transformational change.

From 2005–2016, Jim worked at Decision Strategies International, leaving as a Senior Principal. There, he directed numerous projects including scenarios of the future for a medical devices firm, R&D priorities for a major consumer products company, a strategic plan for the American College of Radiology, scenarios of the future for the League of Southeastern Credit Unions, and a new vision and strategic priorities for the national and IL Boards of Volunteers of America (VOA). He now heads his own firm, JH Austin Associates, Inc.

Prior to joining Decision Strategies, Jim spent 12 years at Baxter Healthcare, the last four as vice president of strategy development for the Renal Division. At Baxter, Jim identified new business opportunities, facilitated annual strategy planning processes, and worked with senior management on organizational development for this rapidly growing, nearly $2B Division. Before that, Jim was assistant to the president for ANCHOR HMO, a subsidiary of Rush Medical Center, Chicago. Prior to his move to Chicago, Jim worked as a consultant for Arthur D. Little, Inc., where he led several large-scale planning, business development, and strategic positioning studies. Between college and graduate school, he spent four years as an economist/planning officer in the Ministry of Finance, Botswana.

Jim holds a BA in economics and politics from Yale University. He was a Special Student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Urban Studies Department; he received a joint Master of Public Affairs (MPA) and Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) from the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. Previously, Jim was chairman of the Strategic Leadership Forum, a board member of the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois, member of the Board of Directors for the University Club of Chicago, treasurer of LaSalle Language Academy, and member of the Admissions Committee for the Latin School of Chicago.

Dr Kauffman is the Director of the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME) at Coventry University and a Fellow of the Institute for Innovation and Knowledge Exchange. He specializes in application of Digital Technologies for Manufacturing industry and has successfully led and implemented many industry led applied. research projects.

He has a strong academic background in innovation and business model transformation complemented by direct industrial experience and the track-record of successfully leading and delivering a successful large research intensive centre. He joined the AME in 2016 as Innovation and Digitalization Director. In this role he led and delivered successful cross-disciplinary R&D projects in a mixed industrial and academic setting, bringing together researchers from different disciplines and sectors to derive viable solutions to complex business problems and conceptualise new collaborative methods that explore optimality in engineering-business contexts.

Neelu Sethi is the SVP & Global Chief Information Officer of Brinks Inc, a leading global provider of cash and valuables management, digital retail solutions, and ATM managed services serving customers in 100+ Countries along with ~72K Employees across ~1300 Facilities.

With reputation of a proven servant leader, Neelu has ~30 years of experience in CPG, Hospitality, Healthcare and Textile industries. She is known for delivering business results by engaging people. She has been recognized as ‘2023 CIO of the year Orbie Award winner’, ‘2022 CIO Of the Year TechTitan Award winner’, ‘Top 15 Business Women’ in Dallas, ‘2019 WomenInTechnology’ award honoree by DallasBusinessJournal, ‘2018 Stevie Gold Digital Transformer of the year’ winner of American Business Awards, ‘2018 CGT’s IT Excellence Award’ winner, ‘2018 Dallas Power 50’ Awardee, 2019 & 2020 Orbie CIO Finalist and 2020 TechTitans CIO Finalist. As a business technologist, Neelu offers a unique blend of executive acumen, global team-enablement and driving transformation through innovative, problem solving and value creation culture.

Prior to joining Brinks, Neelu held various executive positions with Reddy Ice, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Cadbury Schweppes, ClubCorp and McKesson. She has successfully led IT Operations across Corporate, Commercial and Supply Chain functions including Logistics, Manufacturing, Warehousing, Engineering, Procurement, Consumer Relations, Facilities and Environmental Health & Safety. Her achievements extend across numerous disciplines including strategy, driving innovation, digital transformation, delivering complex system implementations and enterprise wide IT operations including Mergers & Acquisitions.

Neelu holds a Masters Degree in Computer Applications from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), India and a Masters degree in Mathematics from Delhi University, India. She is an active participant of the CIO Technology Executive Network, National Diversity & Inclusion Forums, Women Leadership Groups and serves as a board member of several non-profit organizations. She lives in Dallas with her husband and their son.

Sameer Hasija is a Professor of Technology and Operations Management at INSEAD. He earned his PhD in Operations Management and MS in Management Science Methods from the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester and his BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

Sameer's teaching focusses on using a process lens to understand new levers of innovation. Using a systematic analysis of processes within and across firm boundaries, he emphasises the role of process-based innovation in creating new business models and/or fresh competitive positioning for existing business models. Sameer conducts workshops for executives on understanding the latest developments in technology and their role in radically disrupting and/or transforming businesses.

Sameer's current research uses an economics lens to understand the design and management of technology, knowledge, and information intensive service systems.

An award-winning Data & AI Influencer in the Nordics and recognized as a Top 10 AI Women Leader, Vanessa is a trailblazing data expert with extensive experience in leading data-driven transformation. She has held leadership roles in some of Sweden's largest organizations as well as in tech scale-ups, sharing cutting-edge trends and best practices to inspire leaders to harness the power of data and AI.

As the founder of her advisory firm, Vanessa empowers organizations to unlock the full potential of data, (Gen) AI, and ethical decision-making. Driven by a passion for increasing the number of women in tech, she launched Girls in Tech Sweden in 2017, leading to the creation of Girls in Tech Nordics in 2022, a nonprofit driving transformative and sustainable change for women in tech.

Vanessa’s journey includes chairing PwC's CDO Advisory Board and serving on Gartner’s North America and EMEA Data Advisory Boards, solidifying her reputation as a trusted advisor and leader in the global data community.