Contributors

Priya Lakshmi and Gaurav Arora

Priya Lakshmi
Head of Startups, ASEAN, Amazon Web Services

As the Head of Amazon Web Services’ Startup business across ASEAN, Priya Lakshmi leads a team committed to supporting the region’s most exciting startups, helping founders and entrepreneurs succeed on the journey from inception to IPO. 

Priya’s team helps startups leverage the latest technology to bring a great business idea to life, and scale it quickly and cost effectively. Having grown multiple businesses from the ground up, she is passionate about the innovation and wide-reaching impact that startups can achieve by building on AWS. Priya has particular expertise on topics like Amazon’s Culture of Innovation, hiring best practices, and AWS initiatives designed to support startups throughout their lifecycle. 

Priya’s career spans 20 years in the technology and IT industries, comprising sales and business development roles across India and Southeast Asia. Before joining AWS in 2015, she held positions with multinational technology companies working with a broad range of businesses across startups, small businesses, enterprises and more.

Priya holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration Strategy and a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Studies.

Gaurav Arora
Director & Head of Startup Business, Asia Pacific and Japan at Amazon Web Services

As the Director & Head of Amazon Web Services’ Startup business across Asia Pacific and Japan, Gaurav Arora leads a team committed to supporting the region’s most exciting startups, helping founders and entrepreneurs succeed on the journey from inception to IPO. 

Gaurav’s team helps startups leverage the latest technology to bring a great business idea to life, and scale it quickly and cost effectively. Gaurav is passionate about the innovation and wide-reaching impact that startups can achieve by building on AWS, and speaks regularly at key startup events on topics like emerging technology trends, Amazon’s Culture of Innovation, hiring best practices, and AWS initiatives designed to support startups throughout their lifecycle. 

With deep roots in the regional startup ecosystem, Gaurav and his extended team work closely with the leading venture capital (VC) firms, accelerators, and incubators, to support their portfolio companies as mentors and advisors at every stage from building the best technology solutions to leveraging the broader Amazon network to unlocking new go-to-market and expansion opportunities.

Before joining AWS in 2013, Gaurav gained international VC experience as an investor at Prime Ventures in the Netherlands. He has also held positions at multinational tech companies such as Intel, AMD, and Texas Instruments.

Gaurav holds an MBA in Strategy and Finance from the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, and a Bachelor’s Degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Prof Alfred Huan

Prof Alfred Huan is the Executive Director of both the A*STAR Graduate Academy and the Institute of High Performance Computing. He graduated with Bachelor of Arts in Physics in 1983 and Doctor of Philosophy in 1987 from the University of Oxford. Following two years of military service, he took up a Lecturer position at the Department of Physics, National University of Singapore in 1989 and was appointed as Deputy Head of Department in 2004. In 2005 he co-started the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at the Nanyang Technological University.

Prof Sattar Bawany

Prof Sattar Bawany is the CEO & Master Executive Coach of Centre for Executive Education (CEE Global).

Quan Yao Peh

Senior Research Analyst, Euromonitor International

Quan Yao Peh is leading Euromonitor's Channels practice for Southeast Asia. With his interest in the impact of retail digitalisation and evolving business models, Quan Yao helps clients to better understand industries’ competitive landscapes, market trends & strategic outlook through his content on Euromonitor's Passport database, external publications, & client and industry conference engagements. 

Quentin Pak

Quentin Pak is a Director responsible for running Burford’s office in Singapore and expanding Burford’s presence in Asia and Australia.

He joins Burford with 20 years of experience in finance and law, most recently as Head of Commodities (Asia) at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Singapore. His previous experience includes senior positions at major global financial institutions including Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. Before going into banking, he practised law for a number of years with Allen & Overy in both London and Singapore.

Quentin graduated from the University of Bristol and College of Law in the UK.

Rachel Woolley

Rachel Woolley, Global AML Manager at Fenergo, has over 10 years of experience in the financial services industry, having worked primarily in the funds industry and retail banking. She has a strong background in regulatory compliance, particularly in the areas of anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML/CTF).

Rachel holds a BSc (Hons) Degree in Applied Accounting from the Oxford Brookes University and is an ACCA Affiliate. She currently holds three professional designations: Licentiate of the Association of Compliance: Officers in Ireland (LCOI), Certified Financial Crime Prevention Practitioner (CFCPP) and Certified Data Protection Officer (CDPO).

Raed S. Haddad

Raed S. Haddad is Managing Director, Asia Pacific, ESI International. He is an in-demand speaker at conferences, events and with executive audiences worldwide. Raed holds a bachelor's degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering and a master's degree in Engineering, both from the University of Rhode Island. Additionally, he holds an MS in Engineering Administration in Project Management & MIS from The George Washington University.

Raen Lim

Raen Lim is the Head of Apps at Oracle Singapore. Prior to assuming this role, she was the General Manager responsible for bringing innovation and success to customers in the ASEAN region through leveraging Oracle’s social and mobile suite of Customer Experience solutions. Raen is a passionate cloud evangelist and has more than 15 years of industry experience in technology sales, market and business development, as well as channel recruitment and enablement. Prior to joining Oracle, she had spent 6 years with Salesforce growing the ASEAN business. She was also with Symantec Corporation in various enterprise sales positions before she joined Salesforce.

Raen holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Studies, majored in Marketing, from Nanyang Technological University. She also holds a Master of Business Administration degree with Distinction, from University of Manchester.

Raghunath Subramanian

Raghunath Subramanian is President & CEO (India & APAC) of UiPath.

Raj Dhamodharan

Raj Dhamodharan is Group Head of Emerging Payments, Asia/Pacific at MasterCard. Prior to joining MasterCard, Raj worked at Visa in various product and technology leadership roles. He graduated from Coimbatore Institute of Technology, India with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Technology. Raj also holds MBA degrees from the Columbia Business School, Columbia University, NY and Hass Business School, and University of California, Berkeley.