- 27 September 2023
- 9:00am - 6:00pm
- Raffles City Convention Centre
EVENT OVERVIEW
There is no doubt that today’s business leaders are under duress. The past three years have shown that disruption is not only the norm but to be expected. The ongoing uncertainty, inflation, global economic, and geopolitical turbulences have created unprecedented challenges and disruptions in current businesses’ operating environments.
While we are always hopeful that things will eventually become less chaotic, as leaders it is incumbent upon us to build organisations that are resilient to disruption and adaptive to change. CEOs and his/her C-Suite team must forge ahead to meet their strategic business goals and key stakeholders’ expectations through relentless innovations and business transformation amid the changing dynamics.
Running in its fourth year under the theme of “Optimise, Accelerate and Transform” at C-Engage Convention 2023, we ask business, technology, finance, and operations leaders how they are laying out frameworks that will enable them to not only transform the business (and business model) but possibly innovate their way out of current and future crises.
At this year’s flagship event, we will cover:
- The essentials to outperform and be agile
- The future of work
- Managing the margin pressures in an inflationary environment
- Leading enterprise in the post digital transformation
- Closing the talent hole and managing the AI generation
WHY YOU SHOULD ATTEND
C-Engage Convention aims to give insights on driving technological transformation and on addressing pressing concerns to optimize digital investments and business performance to over 300 senior IT and finance leaders from multiple industries in the region.
This one-day event offers the best opportunity to hear from the industry’s leading professionals, contribute questions from the floor, engage in panel discussions, attend hands-on workshops on harnessing the power of disruptive technologies, and witness first-hand best practices in deploying the right technology and strategy to be successful in moving to the next phase of digital transformation and managing the change.
High-Level Industry Speakers
We gather 40+ industry speakers and experts from leading organizations for keynote presentations and incisive discussions so you can tap on their invaluable insights and best practices to your digital transformation journey.
Networking Opportunities
Meet new business partners, engage and forge new connections with our business leaders, end users, solution providers and many more at our event through luncheons, coffee breaks, one-to-one meetings and informal introductions.
Interactive Discussions
Be part of our interactive panel discussions that address the current hot topics, share ideas and experiences and get the answers to your pressing questions from prominent business leaders on stage.
Targeted In-Depth Sessions
8 hours of learning and networking opportunities packed into 10 in-depth sessions. Listen to corporate-driven best practices and case studies sharing that are targeted to your profession through the personalized conferences we crafted for you - FutureCIO and FutureCFO conferences.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
CEOs, COOs, CIOs, CTOs, CMOs, CHROs, CROs, CSOs, CSCOs, CPOs, Directors, Heads, MDs, SVPs, VPs, Leads, involved in:
- Information Technology
- Finance
- Operations
- General management
- Procurement
- Supply Chain
- Sustainability
- Innovation & Digital Technology
- Human Resources
- Risk Management
Last year's event
AGENDA
08.15
Registration & Welcome Coffee
09.00
Conference Chairperson’s Welcome Remarks
Joey Chua
Head of IT, GULF MARINE
09.15
PANEL DISCUSSION I: Building Business Resilience through Technology
The recent developments in economic and geopolitical landscapes have transformed the objectives of digital investments. Therefore, CIOs must understand the types of financial and business impacts and the time frame that other key business leaders from the organisation expect IT to deliver. This session will investigate the evolution of the CIO’s role, leadership, and organisational and technology priorities that IT leaders need to lead today and tomorrow.
- How IT should be run in the future in the face of volatile markets and unstable geopolitics situation
- Supporting business growth targets through business and digital transformation
- Improving the quality of IT projects execution and lead time to deliver core IT services
- Fostering strong relationships with key partners across the business
- Measuring and communicating the value of IT investments to the business
MODERATOR:
Joey Chua
Head of IT, GULF MARINE
PANELISTS:
Evelyn Ooi
Regional Director, Information Technology (CIO), GEODIS
Jeal Desai
CIO & Digital Leader, SEA, MONDELĒZ INTERNATIONAL
Rajiv Renganathan
IT Director – Supply Chain Digitization, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC
09.50
KEYNOTE I: Accelerating AI and ML Adoption in Enterprise Business Systems
As organisations accelerate digitalisation with the infusion of AI and ML into their technology landscape, both IT and user organisations are grappling with the many approaches that could be adopted to achieve tangible results. While the attention is focused on front-end sales and customer engagement systems, the opportunity to leverage the vast volumes of quality data in the core enterprise systems is often overlooked. This session examines the proven and in-production use cases in the areas of business planning, financials and HR, to maximise the benefits of enhanced automation and decision-making through AI and ML in the digital core – the enterprise business applications.
Raghu Prasad
Vice President, Solution Consulting, Asia-Pacific and Japan, WORKDAY
10.15
PANEL DISCUSSION II: Data Privacy and AI Governance: Challenges and Solutions
- Transforming real-time data governance with AI
- How AI governance and data privacy go hand in hand
- How to better align data, AI, governance and business goals
- Challenges in achieving data and AI governance
- Creating framework to preserve privacy without losing data’s usefulness in AI applications
MODERATOR:
Allan Tan
Group Editor-in-Chief, CXOCIETY
PANELISTS:
Chaitanya Gorrepati
Head of Reliability Engineering (SRE), Core Banking & Payment Hub, Wealth Management, CREDIT SUISSE
Harry Chan
AVP, IT, IHH HEALTHCARE
Raju Chellam
Chairman, Cloud & Data Standards, ITSC (IT STANDARDS COMMITTEE)
Shamal De Silva
Senior Director, IT/IS, REC SOLAR
09.00
Conference Chairperson’s Welcome Remarks
Jeremy Gray
Editorial Consultant, CXOCIETY
09.15
PANEL DISCUSSION I: Continuing the Pace of Change: Unlocking Growth Opportunities and Tackling Challenges in 2024
The confluence of rising inflation and interest rate, tensions in geopolitical, regulatory changes, energy security, foreign exchange volatility, supply chain disruptions as well as climate change risk had reshaped CFO’s responsibilities in magnitudes. With things changing rapidly locally and globally, exacerbated by slowing growth, planning for 2024 is certainly not an easy task for finance leaders in Singapore. CFOs are required to drive the necessary transformations, be agile and flexible to capture new opportunities especially with the potential shrinking in customer demands as the world is likely or already in recession.
- Doing more with less in the growing volatility, uncertainty complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) environment
- Managing the margin pressures: How can finance leaders help accelerate recovery and ensure long-term sustainable growth post-pandemic?
- Areas to raise and cut spending in 2024
- Keeping pace with sustainable financing and ESG efforts in 2024
- Navigating the changing tax landscape in 2024-2025
MODERATOR:
Allan Tan
Group Editor-in-Chief, CXOCIETY
PANELISTS:
Goh Yin Shian
Group Finance Director, GOODPACK
Rangnath Deshpande
CFO ASEAN, DXC TECHNOLOGY
Tay Siang Leng
CFO Asia, QBE
09.50
KEYNOTE I: Future of Finance – Tackling the Fundamentals
Global megatrends such as economic pressures, digital push, evolving customer landscapes and ever-changing regulatory environments drive the need for change and redefine the shape of the Future of Finance. However, many organisations must address fundamental core elements within the finance functions to embark on transformations, such as handling information, people readiness and adequacy, operating model definition, legacy policies and procedures, key data structures and many more. If not done well, these would eventually lead to transformation failures, misaligned expectations, loss of investments and underachieved benefits.
- How best to begin your transformation journey
- Addressing the fundamentals
- Adopting new-age solutions sustainably to reap the maximum benefit and achieve your transformation goals
Karthik Manoharan
Director, CBS CORPORATE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
Lum Wai Leng
Consulting Director, CBS CORPORATE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
10.15
PANEL DISCUSSION II: Digital Transformation and Reality Gap: What’s Next Post Digitalisation?
Digital transformation saved many businesses when the pandemic struck. However, in reality, almost no organisation has finished their digitalisation journey. While most organisations are now more digitally mature and they are in a better position to thrive in the post-pandemic era, what businesses are asking for constantly evolves?
- Advancing digitalisation initiatives vs. traditional work environments
- Capitalising on digitalisation investment to stay resilient, flexible and efficient amidst escalating costs
- Keeping up with digital acceleration while ensuring employee’s continuous engagement
- Planning and sequencing finance transformation activities in 2024
- Lesson learnt from 2023: What can be done differently in 2024?
MODERATOR:
Jeremy Gray
Editorial Consultant, CXOCIETY
PANELISTS:
Karen Lai
Director, Business Control of Global Operations, ASM
Katherine Tan
Group CFO, WEARNES AUTOMOTIVE
Pankaj Kabra
Senior Vice President Finance, TRAVELOKA
Peter Oey
CFO, GRAB
10.50
Morning Coffee Break
11.20
KEYNOTE II: Banking on the Cloud: Trailblazing the Way Forward with Site Reliability Engineering
Anil Kumar Saha
Senior Vice President, Engineering, DBS BANK
11:45
PANEL DISCUSSION III: Fast-Tracking Application Modernisation and Embracing Agility in Digital Enterprise
Dealing with legacy systems and technology today and in the coming years is complicated and finding the necessary expertise to deal with legacy technology can be challenging. Enterprises with a lot of legacy technology find that legacy systems are a major inhibitor to staying agile and accelerating their digital transformation initiatives. This session will discuss insights into modernisation drivers, challenges, and best practices.
- The state of legacy systems in 2024
- Application modernisation in the context of digital acceleration
- Accelerating application modernisation with platform engineering
- Roadblocks facing enterprises in Singapore working to modernise legacy systems into their digital infrastructure
- Roadmap for application modernisation for the digital enterprise
MODERATOR:
Alvin Rodrigues
Editorial Consultant, CXOCIETY
PANELISTS:
Bruce Leong
Director, Technology & Strategy, MOUNT ALVERNIA HOSPITAL
Daniel Ong
Director, Solutions Architecture, Asia Pacific, DIGITAL REALTY
Darren Sim
Regional IT Director (APAC Digital & Connected Commerce), JOHNSON & JOHNSON
Pauline Sng
Senior Director of IT, BD
12:20
FIRESIDE CHAT: CIO Imperatives to Help Businesses Become More Resilient and Sustainable
With digital transformation increasingly vital to businesses, CIOs have been tasked to exploit technology to stave off today’s economic pressures and future unpredictability. Yet, despite digital investments being viewed as necessary, CIOs need to be strategic about the technology innovations they choose to ensure their tech investments pay the digital dividends desired.
- The balancing act to manage current pressures while positioning the business for long-term prosperity
- Selecting the right digital initiatives to help the business rise above uncertainty
- Positioning for quick time to value and long-lasting success
INTERVIEWER:
Alvin Rodrigues
Editorial Consultant, CXOCIETY
INTERVIEWEES:
Casey Kwan
VP and Head of Enterprise Cloud, SAP SOUTHEAST ASIA
Ng Yee Pern
Chief Technology Officer, FAR EAST ORGANIZATION
11:20
EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW: Winning Formula for Integrated FP&A
To adapt to uncertainty and rapid changes, organizations need be agile and quick in decision-making. But organizational agility often faces a considerable barrier: unaligned top-down and bottom-up planning processes.
In this session we will discuss the full potential of integrated Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) that creates a more complete picture of an organization and its performance, enabling teams to work smarter, collaborate better, and hit the mark, regardless of uncertainty or headwinds.
- Common challenges faced by organizations when implementing their FP&A strategy
- Key drivers of a successful FP&A strategy that enable organizations to stay ahead in today’s dynamic business landscape
- Importance of people, processes and culture for adoption of integrated financial planning and analysis
- Role of technology in the successful implementation of integrated FP&A
INTERVIEWER:
Allan Tan
Group Editor-in-Chief, CXOCIETY
INTERVIEWEE:
Andrew Soon
VP Sales Asia, JEDOX
11:45
PANEL DISCUSSION III: More than Turnover and Profits: Making Finance a Better Strategic Partner to Business
This session will unfold the new expectations for the finance role as a strategic business partner and how to transform the finance function into a strategic business partner, capable of providing critical support and insights to deliver sustained profitable growth and seamless operational excellence.
- Rewriting and solidifying the finance function’s roles as the most trusted strategic business partner to capture new opportunities
- Evolving transactional finance to value creation and becoming enterprise’s critical enablers
- Communicating and engaging with the Board
- Up-skilling the finance team to leverage fully on digitalisation and better partner with the business
MODERATOR:
Allan Tan
Group Editor-in-Chief, CXOCIETY
PANELISTS:
Alison Bertholon
APAC Finance Director, Business Control, VOLVO BUS
Karl-Michael Mouantri
Managing Director, CCH Tagetik APAC, WOLTERS KLUWER
Munish Kaushal
CFO APAC, HALEON
12:20
KEYNOTE II: Harnessing AI and ML to Accelerate Finance’s Role as Value Creator
AI and ML are no longer an option when modernizing the finance IT ecosystem—it’s a requirement. Modern finance is fully digital and intelligently automated, embracing AI and ML to process high-volume transactions faster with increased precision and greater accuracy. This session will share an up-close look at practical use cases for AI and ML applications and how to accelerate finance’s role as value creator.
Lee Thong Tan
CFO Practice Lead, Asia, WORKDAY
12:45
Lunch
13.45
KEYNOTE III: The Path to Net Zero: Managing the Physical to Digital Journey through Effective Governance, Technology and Culture
This session will discuss how organisations can secure, digitise and unlock value from their information and data in order to set the foundations for true digital transformation. Also, it will explore how IT leaders can drive sustainability and meet ESG goals through an ecosystem lifecycle approach to:
- Capture, structure, comply and reduce risk through the Information Management Lifecycle
- Achieve productivity gains by unlocking value and automate workflows
- Discover better ways of working as you transform operations and workplace expenditure
Wei Ping Ong
Digital Commercial Regional Head, Asia Pacific, IRON MOUNTAIN
14.10
PANEL DISCUSSION IV: Optimising Work Everywhere: The Future of Work in the Era of Flexibility
Workplaces in 2024 will be more diverse, flexible and distributed than ever before. As enterprises in Asia adapt to the new way of working, to cater to the shifting employees’ expectations, IT leaders in Singapore need to find ways to ensure productivity across the organisation while keeping employees happy and engaged in the hybrid working world.
- CIO’s changing role in managing the next generation of work
- Workforce and operations issues in the future enterprise
- The rise of the metaverse and how it affects the future of work
- Fundamentals in making hybrid-first strategy work
- Maximising employee engagement with automation and digital intelligence
- Empowering the workforce to work seamlessly with digital labours
MODERATOR:
Alvin Rodrigues
Editorial Consultant, CXOCIETY
PANELISTS:
Annie Chong
Global IT Director – Manufacturing and Head of IT Singapore Hub, ILLUMINA
Gary Ng
Divisional Director and CIO, SENTOSA DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
Irwan Yulianto
Head of Enterprise Infrastructure and Smart Innovation, PANASONIC ASIA PACIFIC
Kevin Lew
VP Global IT HR Systems, DHL EXPRESS
14.45
KEYNOTE IV: Enabling a Data-Driven Organisation: A Pragmatic Approach to Enterprise Data Platform Architecture
- Accelerating the creation of data products which can be monetised with data mesh & fabric architecture
- Supporting regulatory reporting and analytics and achieving modern data science with data lake and warehouse (LakeHouse) architecture
- Data platform architecture patterns, data mesh architecture topologies and principles for achieving excellence in data platform architecture
Wei Ping Ong
Digital Commercial Regional Head, Asia Pacific, IRON MOUNTAIN
13.45
FIRESIDE CHAT I: Sustainability – Delivering a Single Source of Truth for ESG and Beyond
Organisations across the globe are increasingly making environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) initiatives a top business priority. Measuring and reporting on ESG goals against plans is complex as it requires data collection from multiple systems and formats.
To address these challenges, operational leaders can apply a unified solution across their business to plan, manage, and report on sustainability initiatives. This session will share how CFOs can bring data together and align cross-function ESG planning processes effectively — integrating financial and non-financial data to fulfil not just reporting requirements, but also to plan and manage ESG practices.
INTERVIEWER:
Alex Jee
Director – Finance Transformation, ORACLE
INTERVIEWEES:
Adrian Teng
Group CFO & Group COO, CLIFFORD CAPITAL HOLDINGS
Prof. Roy Ling
CEO & Founder, FOLLOWTRADE
14.10
FIRESIDE CHAT II: Collaboration between Finance and Procurement: Enhancing Value and Performance
CFO’s role is pivotal in bridging the gap between finance and procurement within the organisation. CFOs need to unlock these two key functions’ full potential for the business’s overall success. This session will delve into the crucial topic of collaboration between finance and procurement teams and its impact on driving value, optimising spend and aligning strategic objectives within organisations.
- The various aspects of effective collaboration between finance and procurement
- Understanding the intersection
- Identifying the shared goals and objectives of finance and procurement
- The intertwining roles of finance and procurement in the Source-to-Pay process: Opportunities for alignment and cooperation.
INTERVIEWER:
Allan Tan
Group Editor-in-Chief, CXOCIETY
INTERVIEWEES:
Ching Terk Ming
Director, Management Consulting, KMPG
Derrick Sun
Business Development Director, ESKER ASIA
14:35
PANEL DISCUSSION IV: Ensuring Financial Resiliency in the Face of a Potential Economic Downturn
Pritika Bhattacharjee, Vice President, Research in the Gartner Finance Practice says: “CFOs are telling their FP&A leaders that they need to improve the flexibility of budgeting and forecasting, enable faster capital reallocation, and updated financial models to reflect rapidly changing business realities”.
With economic activity slowing down, optimising sales is often a challenge for many businesses. As businesses enter into low-growth and high-cost settings, securing collections has become difficult and cash flows get increasingly difficult to predict.
- Improving working capital and cash flow amidst high-interest rate and squeezing credit to ensure business continuity
- Transforming cost structures to operate efficiently and balance fluctuations
- Creating more agile, scalable and flexible FP&A
- Optimising business decisions and cash flows with AI/ML-driven scenario planning
- Rolling forecasts and scenario planning to protect free cash flows and reserves
MODERATOR:
Jeremy Gray
Editorial Consultant, CXOCIETY
PANELISTS:
Alexander Joramsa
CFO Asia Pacific, TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS
Gabriel Low
Managing Director, (Asia)/CFO (APAC), THEBEN ASIA
Neeraj Singhal
Chief Finance Officer, Asia Pacific, BCD TRAVEL
15.10
Afternoon Coffee Break
C-ENGAGE CONVENTION PLENARY
15:40
CONFERENCE CHAIRPERSON’S WELCOME REMARKS
Allan Tan
Group Editor-in-Chief, CXOCIETY
15:45
C-SUITE FIRESIDE CHAT: Powering through the Uncertainty with Finance Transformation: In Conversation with Dialog Axiata PLC
While today’s business landscape is changing at breakneck speed, the economic instability, inflation and recession has made planning for the future even more difficult for business and finance leaders.To overcome these challenges, organisations need to be armed with agile insights, streamlined processes, and real-time data to remain resilient.
This session will delve into how Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka’s largest mobile network operator is staying ahead of the curve by driving business performance through digitalisation of its finance processes.
INTERVIEWER
Thomas Palmer
Managing Director, APAC, ONESTREAM SOFTWARE
INTERVIEWEES:
Wong Hong Zhou
Group CFO, DIALOG AXIATA PLC
Darshana Sanghavi
Managing Director APAC, AMCO SOLUTIONS
16:10
C-SUITE PANEL DISCUSSION I: The Agile C-Suite: The CXO’s Agenda in Mastering the Essentials to Outperform
New research shows that innovating leaders are rapidly ascending beyond their peers by comprehensively committing themselves to deliver net new growth at scale. Leaders who prioritize growth and innovations during crises tend to outperform their competitors over the years.
- Creating and testing operating models to win amidst changing dynamics
- Collaboration: The organizations’ role in supporting the business
- Mitigating risk while accelerating transformation and growth
- Embracing tech enablement and capabilities necessary to innovate quickly and repeatedly
- Scaling digital and innovation capabilities across the organization
MODERATOR:
Carol Fong
RVP Sales, ANAPLAN
PANELISTS:
Abhi Sharma
CFO, CODA PAYMENTS
Balaji Uppili
Region CIO, GE HEALTHCARE
Lee Siew Kit
Vice President (Technology & IT), SINGAPORE CRUISE CENTER
16:45
C-SUITE PANEL DISCUSSION II: Innovation Matters: Overcoming Human Barriers to Innovation
Creating a culture that accounts for the human side of innovation, including worries about failure, criticism and the impact of a career that holds back people from embracing innovation. As innovation is a critical factor in driving growth, this session aims to explore the fundamentals that leaders need to know to tap opportunities for growth through innovation.
- Preparing for an era of innovation without borders
- The correlation between culture, employee experience, leadership style and success rate of innovating
- Tackling the internal and external resistance to innovation and change
- Creating a sustained culture of innovation
- Advice for business leaders facing difficult transformation challenges
MODERATOR:
Allan Tan
Group Editor-in-Chief, CXOCIETY
PANELISTS:
Arvind Mathur
CIO – AMEA, KELLOGG COMPANY
Benjamin Chin Fook Chuan
APAC Finance Director and Managing Director SG/MY, ECCO SHOES
Max Tiong
VP and Head of Innovation, INCOME INSURANCE
Muhammad Khalil Bin Shaiful Bahari
Deputy Director, Group Technology Office, BOUSTEAD PROJECTS LIMITED
17:20
CLOSING KEYNOTE: Generative AI for Business in 2024
Excitement around Generative AI (GenAI) is palpable, and executives rightfully want to move ahead with thoughtful and intentional speed. In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, the focus on cutting-edge GenAI is dominating the conversation. However, it is important to remember that GenAI is not a silver bullet, and it is not always the right tool for the job. It can be easy to forget the role and value that “traditional AI” and legacy tech products that enterprises already have and continue to provide for the business.
- How GenAI is reshaping innovation
- The benefits and limitations of GenAI
- Best practices in matching the right tech tools to the problem/opportunity
Andrew Beasley
Regional Best Delivery Director APAC, CLIFFORD CHANCE
17:45
Closing Remarks
Allan Tan
Group Editor-in-Chief, CXOCIETY
17:50
End of Event
WHY SPONSOR
We will help you GENERATE quality business leads.
We will help you INCREASE your regional profile.
We will help you CREATE new business opportunities.
- Get cost-effective marketing exposure and branding to your target audience, culminating in face-to-face meetings with your prospects.
- Position and profile yourself as an industry leader.
- Increase your brand recognition.
- Create new partnerships and alliances.
- Develop relationships through new networking opportunities.
- Showcase new products and services to a targeted audience of decision makers.
- Get direct and exclusive access to Key decision-makers
Sponsorship Opportunities:
- Clarise Goh
- +65 9387 8878
- [email protected]
- Nigel Standley
- +65 9176 6363
- [email protected]
VENUE
AT THE CONVENTION


