Shri V. Leeladhar
Deputy Governor, The Reserve Bank of India
Shri Leeladhar is one of the most prominent leaders in Asian banking. As the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Shri Leeladhar’s responsibilities include guiding and overseeing the challenging issues per taining to commercial banks, financial institutions and non-banking companies such as information technology as well as the payment and settlement systems and personnel management. He represents India in international forums such as the International Liaison Group ( ILG) and the ILG Working Group on Capital constituted by the Bank for International Set tlements(BIS). Shri Leeladhar is also a director on the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the chairman of the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology. Before becoming a central banker, he was the chairman and managing director of Union Bank of India.

Sir Peter Burt
Chairman, Promethean Investments
Former Chief Executive Officer, Bank of Scotland
Sir Peter is one of the transformational figures of UK banking, instrumental in the creation of one of the world’s largest banks. He spent the majority of his career with Bank of Scotland, which was then one of the UK’s leading banks. He was appointed chief general manager and chairman of the management board in 1988, later becoming group chief executive. Following the bank’s merger with Halifax in 2001, he became deputy chairman of the new HBOS plc. He retired from this post in January 2003. Sir Peter is currently executive chairman of the private equity fund Promethean Investments LLP. He was also a director at Royal Dutch Shell and the chairman of ITV, the largest commercial terrestrial television network in the UK.

Professor Jayanth Varma
Director, Axis Bank (formerly UTI Bank) and
Dean, Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad
Professor Jayanth Varma is the dean of one of Asia’s top business schools, a best-selling author, and internationally renowned expert on risk management and banking reform. He is currently chairman of the Risk Management Group of the Forward Markets Commission, and was a former member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)and a former director of the Punjab National Bank. Professor Varma has chaired several committees and expert groups for SEBI, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution and the Ministry of Finance and Company Affairs.

Mr V. Vaidyanathan
Executive Director, ICICI Bank Limited
Before being appointed as an Executive Director of the Board of ICICI, Mr Vaidyanathan was the country head of retail banking at ICICI, overseeing consumer lending, retail liability and the SME business. Under his leadership, the bank’s consumer banking business has grown its asset base to over USD 28 billion. It now has 20 million customers, over eight million of whom are credit card customers.

Mr Kazuhiko Saiki
Managing Director, Customer Service, eBANK
Mr Saiki is in charge of Customer Ser vice and Public Relations at eBANK, winner of the Best Internet-Only Award at the 2006 Asian Banker Excellence in Retail Financial Services programme. eBANK was not only one of the first profitable Internet-only banks in Japan, it also over took larger rivals in terms of absolute account numbers and growth figures with a 46.8 percent increase in accounts growth.

Mr A. Rajan
Country Head-Operations, HDFC Bank India
Mr A. Rajan is responsible for providing operational support to all the bank’s business divisions corporate banking including retail banking, treasury, DP/Custodial Services and credit cards. He has extensive experience in operations integration, system implementation and construction of a centralised operations infrastructure to support business processes across a widely distributed geography and product range. Prior to joining HDFC Bank, he was the head of operations for Bank of America in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.

Mr Samir Bhatia
Managing Director, Global Retail and
Commercial Banking, Barclays, India
Mr Bhatia Samir is responsible for retail banking, corporate banking, treasury, trade finance, cash management, credit risk and all central support functions for Barclays in India. Previously, he was Country Head of Corporate Banking at HDFC, and before that, he held various positions in credit, risk management and corporate banking with Citibank.

Mr Khajawa Mohamad Alwas
Executive Vice President and
the Head of User Team, Allied Bank
Mr Khawaja Muhammad Almas is the executive vice president and Head of User Team (Core Banking Software) at Allied Bank, one of the largest banks in Pakistan with more than 700 branches connected to an online network. His responsibilities include core banking software analysis, design and implementation, data cleanup and enrichment and business transformation. He joined the bank in 1984 and has taken on various senior positions, including Corporate Head and Regional General Manager.

Mr Yusuf Nawawi
General Manager, Training, Bank Rakyat
Indonesia, Former General Manager,
Micro Credit, Bank Rakyat Indonesia
Mr Yusuf Nawawi has been working for Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI ) since 1995. During his 22 years at the bank, he has been exposed to almost all aspects of operations such as marketing and lending, funding, human resource management, credit administration, strategic planning and training and development. Before his current position as the GM of Training Division, he was the GM of Micro Banking Division (2004-2006) and the director of BRI’s International Visitor Program (2002 – 2004)

Mr Pishu Ganglani
Head of Business Reengineering, Emirates Bank
Mr Pishu Ganglani is head of Business Reengineering at Emirates Bank, a team he built when he joined the bank in 2005 as senior manager in charge of IT Operations and Projects. He started his career in 1993 as a customer liaison executive with Reuters and went on to hold various positions including head of liquidity management for Reuters Automated Dealing services in the Gulf and helped set up Reuters Consulting practice in the Middle East. In his most-recent position with the global news and information service provider, he led the Treasury Risk Management implementation team for the Middle East and Africa. Among his professional qualifications, he has completed both the Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Market Technician programmes.

Mr Clive Haswell
CEO, Standard Chartered Sri Lanka &
former Group Head of Strategic Sourcing
and Vendor Management, Standard Chartered Bank
Mr Clive Haswell CEO, Standard Chartered Sri Lanka & former Group Head of Strategic Sourcing and Vendor Management, Standard Chartered Bank Mr Clive Haswell is the chief executive officer for Standard Chartered Bank in Sri Lanka and has more than 16 years experience at the bank. Prior to taking up this post, he was the Programme Director for Standard Chartered Bank’s Bohai Bank Project in China. Previously, Mr. Haswell served as the first Head of Governance for Asia. In this role he coordinated the work of all Standard Chartered Bank’s Chief Executive Officers across the region.

Mr Varun Sabhlok
Director, AVS Asia Ventures, Former Regional
AuditDirector, Citibank Global Consumer
Banking Division, Asia Pacific
Mr Varun Sabhlok, director of AVS Ventures, has been engaged in bank consulting and advisory in the Asia Pacific region for the last seven years, primarily in the areas of risk assessmentand credit risk management, wealth management, relationship management and CRM, strategic business planning, equity investment, and financial restructuring. Mr Sabhlok also spent 11 years with Citibank in its global consumer banking division in Asia as South Asia regional audit director, country credit director in Thailand, and as CFO of the Singapore business.

Professor Brett King
Vice President, International, American Academy
of Financial Management
Professor Brett King is an internationally acknowledged expert on wealth management and private banking specialising in the Middle East and Asia Pacific. In addition to sitting on the Global Board of Standards for the American Academy of Financial Management, Professor King is also a chartered wealth manager, master financial professional, and registered business analyst.

Mr Christian Kapfer
Head, Consumer Banking Research, The Asian Banker
Mr Christian Kapfer is the Head of Consumer Banking Research at The Asian Banker and leads the firm’s prestigious Excellence in Retail Financial Services Programme. He monitors key tactical and business issues concerning retail banking and develops the benchmarking practice of The Asian Banker. Christian routinely presents to senior banking industry insiders in the Asia Pacific and is quoted regularly in various media such as BBC, CNBC and regional media.

Mr Matthew Kovac
Associate Editor, The Asian Banker
Mr Matthew Kovac is the Editor of The Asian Banker Journal based in Singapore. He is responsible for producing the bimonthly Journal as well as several respected researchbased publications, such as The Asian Banker 300. Prior to The Asian Banker, he was Taiwan/China Correspondent for BusinessWeek, the weekly U.S. business magazine. He has also worked as a banking, insurance and personal finance reporter for Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper in London.

Mr Firdaus Mohamed
Research Analyst, The Asian Banker
Mr Firdaus Mohamed is a research analyst at The Asian Banker, focusing on Retail Banking and Islamic Finance. Mr Firdaus came from a leading Malaysian bank, where he focussed on strategic planning and development and implementation of the bank’s Balanced Scorecard at senior and middle management levels.

Mr Nigel Lee
President, Asia Pacific, First Data International
Nigel L. Lee is president of First Data’s Asia Pacific region and is responsible for card issuing and merchant acquiring services business strategy and operations. Based in Singapore, Nigel has more than 15 years’ experience with leading IT and consulting services businesses across Asia Pacific, the United States and Europe. In October 2007, Nigel expanded his responsibilities to include the overall management, growth and development of First Data’s business in Australia, New Zealand and India. He holds a Master of Engineering from Imperial College London, and an MBA from Manchester Business School, UK.

Mr Ram Guduru
Regional Director, South Asia, Cognos
Mr Ram is the regional director for South Asia with Cognos. He has extensive experience working with large international clients in performance management and brings over 20 years experience from the IT industry, with leading firms like Andersen, SAP, Informix & Digital. He has a degree in electronics engineering and masters from the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore.

Mr Rajesh Balaraman
Senior Principal, Diamond
Management & Technology Consultants
Mr Rajesh Balaraman has over 13 years of global consulting and industry experience. He has broad experience developing business and technology solutions and has led strategic business and technology initiatives to help clients increase revenue, reduce costs and enhance operational efficiency. He has significant experience managing new business launches, business process analysis, technology strategy, program and vendor management. Rajesh has a MBA in Finance and Strategy from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and MS in Computer Science from the Universit y of Illinois at Chicago.

Mr Muti Ur Rahmen
Country Leader, Enterprise
Content Management, IBM India
Mr Muti Ur Rahmen is the country leader for content services for IBM India. He has a wealth of experience in consultation and sales for national rollout enterprise class solutions/ projects for the public sector, BFSI, telecommunications, Corporate Enterprise Portals, LOB applications, Complex Data integration and business integration technologies. He also looks after BI/DWE, Master Data Management( MDM), Document management Systems, Workflows, Full Text retrieval systems, Content Management, Knowledge Manzagement, Business Process Management and Application Integration.