Reg Athwal (www.rawltd.com) is the Founder of 'RAW Group LLC' with offices in London and Dubai, and Co-Founder & Chairman of 'OneTVO' (www.onetvo.com). He is also the Past President of the 'Professional Speakers Association' of the UK, and Founding Chairman of the 'Professional Speakers Association' of the Middle East (www.psame.org). Reg has built numerous multi-million dollar businesses, prior to becoming a strategic advisor to CEOs and a world renowned professional speaker. Over 30,000 CEOs have been through his 'Unleash Your DNA' private sessions in 40 countries since 2002. Reg presents at over 100 events every year and is a world-class expert keynote speaker, moderator, emcee and master of ceremonies for prominent gatherings to include: awards ceremonies, product launches, executive conferences, international congresses, government forums and royal family addresses. He also writes for numerous business publications, appears frequently on radio talk shows and is the host of the 'Talking Tycoons' and 'Entrepreneurs Express' shows on OneTVO.

Dr Kanak Madrecha, Senior Manager – Quality, DP World-UAE Region is a world class professional in supply chain & logistics and business excellence. Dr Madrecha has been honoured by H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE & Ruler of Dubai several times for his notable contributions to business excellence movement in emirate of Dubai. He has been also awarded by several organisations for his contributions to business excellence field in UAE/GCC. He is Ph.D. in Quality Management in addition to Post Graduate in Industrial Engineering from NITIE Mumbai (India) and Graduate in Mechanical Engineering from BITS Pilani (India). He has a unique experience of combining work experience in diversified businesses, i.e. manufacturing, service, research, academics, assessment, auditing, training and consulting. His 28 years of experience has a 50:50 mix of working in India and UAE. His assignments have led to significant improvements in productivity, quality, customer service, sales revenue, income, expenses, and profit. He is a firm believer, practitioner and promoter of performance / result oriented excellence culture within organisations. He has widely traveled throughout the USA, UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Iran, Kenya, UAE and India.

Dr. Graham R Smith joined ADNH Compass in Abu Dhabi in October 2008, to lead the implementation of SAP ECC6, previously Dr Graham was the SAP Supply Chain Superintendent for Sohar Aluminium, specialising in the requisition to pay process, supply chain management and metal management (and EH & S). During this period he was internationally acclaimed by winning first prize for his paper on implementing e-procurement for PDO and published his paper on e-procurement in the middle east. Overall Graham has spent the last thirty three years in the contracting and procurement industry primarily in the oil and gas exploration and production environment. He has worked for many of the oil majors in his career; this includes Shell, Mobil, ESSO, PDO, QGPC and ARCO. He has additionally worked in many different countries with a diverse range of cultures; these include Africa, Russia, The Middle and Far East, plus the United States. He is a regular contributor to the Digital Oman magazine as the gadget guru.

Björn Bergmark has many years of professional experience within the document automation industry. With more than10 years expertise, Björn has worked with many multinational corporations within the accounts payable automation space, helping thousands of companies to achieve best-in-class performance. Currently, Björn is responsible for the Enterprise Capture sales area within ReadSoft International Sales. Björn is committed professionally to ensure that the most optimal capture process is achieved and implemented in every case, as he believes that this is the base for all successful AP/AR automation projects.

Wissam Nasr is currently the Regional Manager – Procurement Middle East and Africa at Agility. Previously to joining Agility, Wissam held the positions of Six Sigma Black Belt at Avery Dennison, Cleveland, Ohio in the USA and also the Sourcing Manager - New Category Development, at General Electric, Consumer Products division in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Wissam holds an MBA, International Management from Baldwin Wallace College in Ohio and a B.A., Business Administration, Major Finance, Minor Economics from Baldwin Wallace College in Ohio.

Ibrahim Yacoub
Director Contracts & Purchasing Department
Dubai Municipality

Dr. Dermot Carey DBA, MPhil, MSc, BSc, MIIPMM,MIITD is an experienced management consultant, trainer and business coach. He is a Doctor of Business Administration where part of his research focused on the implementation of integrated Procurement & Supply Chain systems and structures in a complex business environment. He formed MRM Ltd. in 1990 in Ireland dedicated to supporting industry across vital business functions including Change Management, Business Process Re-Engineering with a specialist interest in Procurement & Supply Chain Management. His career spans 40 years, he has held a number of senior management positions in both the private and public sectors. In twenty years of consultancy he has successfully completed many major assignments in a variety of industries at home and overseas. He holds a number of strategic and advisory roles in SCLG Middle East and is responsible for regional development in Ireland the UK and across Europe and Scandinavia. He is also President of CSCMP Roundtable for Ireland. He is a regular speaker at conferences internationally. Dr. Carey’s experience includes such sectors as Telecommunications, Software Development, FMCG, Pharmaceuticals, Aerospace, Construction Industry Federation, Aircraft Maintenance, Airlines, Defence, Financial Services, Computer Manufacturing, Education, Clothing, Confectionery, Electronics, Engineering, Government Departments, Healthcare, Logistics, Mail Order, Oil & Gas Exploration & Drilling, Print, Railways, Retail, Steel Manufacturing, Software Supplies, and Ship Building. This experience was gained in Ireland, UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Malaysia, and the USA.

Mohammed Kapitil
Director Supply Chain & Logistics
Jumeirah

Sharifa Marhuby has a passion for exposure to a diverse work environment, following the receipt of an MSC in Economics from the United States and upon joining Petroleum Development (Oman) Ltd 27 years ago, she has gained experience from procurement of goods and service, stock analysis of goods, and business analysis, to identifying and implementing IT solutions. Her enthusiasm in keeping pace with the e-world has taken her into various projects, with the key ones that she has either led or taken part as a project member being electronic requisitioning (RR-EMA), vendors and contracts management system (Omnicom), electronic document transfer (Form-server), online bidding, public open tendering, and the most recent ones, the procurement card and the IX2 (digital document exchange) replacement project. The end results have been a more streamlined and transparent supply chain process. Through her current role as the Team Leader for the section in charge of online bidding, public open tender, local community contractor development, and vendor registration, in general, she is currently managing a vendor clean up exercise, a vendor document clean up exercise and a minor service review..As she is approaching retirement and coming towards the end of her career with PDO she’s looking forward to switching lines and move from Economics/IT to travelling. However, as a strong believer of challenges being the spices of life she’s not ruling out the establishment of her own SME to enrich her post-retirement experience.

Maha Shakir is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at Zayed University, UAE. Her primary research areas are information system strategy, strategic management of information systems, and the implementation of enterprise system applications (e.g., ERP, SCM, and CRM). Her current work involves studies of enterprise systems in the Arab Gulf Countries, e-procurement in the petroleum industry in the Middle East, and Arab women adoption of IT. Her publications appeared in MIS Quarterly Executive, University of Auckland Business Review, Journal of Cases on Information Technology, International Journal of Information Systems and Change Management, Journal of Decision Systems, ERP edited books, Laudon & Laudon MIS textbook, and several international IS conferences. Maha’s case study "E-Procurement Through Supply Chain Integration: Reaching out to SMBs," recently won first prize in the Society for Information Management’s 2006 Paper Awards Competition [www.simnet.org]. The case was developed in collaboration with Dr. Graham Smith and Erkan Gulec.

Tony Loh is Dow’s Senior Purchasing Resource leader for the Asia Pacific region, based in Shanghai. Tony is responsible for all Procure to Pay (P2P) operations which include Accounts Payable, Travel and Expense Reporting (TER) and transactional service delivery in the region and provides functional leadership to all Center employees. Tony joined Dow in Sydney, Australia in 1995 as Accounts Payables/TER Accounting supervisor. In 1997, he was named Asia Pacific Payables/TER Subject Matter Expert and Global Subject Matter Expert in 1999. Tony relocated to Singapore and was named Regional Controller for Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam in 2001, and Asia Pacific Accounts Payable Process Leader in 2003. He relocated to Shanghai, China, to assume his current role in 2006. Tony graduated from the University of New South Wales, Australia, with a bachelor of commerce in accounting and information systems, and obtained his master of business administration from the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. He is a Certified Practicing Accountant (CPA) of Australia and member (AIA) of The Association of International Accountants, UK.

Charlie Villasenor is the Chairman of the Procurement & Sourcing Institute of Asia which is the official affiliate of the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) in the Asian Region. ISM is the oldest and largest supply management institute in the world and the most respected one. He is also the President and CEO of TransProcure a leading global procurement solutions and services company. He is well known as a Procurement icon in Asia. He has many successes in the profession such as launching the global procurement transformation in 1998 of CALTEX (ChevronTexaco) in Asia where he was recognised as best-in-class in the oil & gas industry in the Asia. After Caltex, he founded and became the COO of the Philippines largest procurement portal that was a consortium by the country’s six (6) largest multi-industry conglomerates and became the ASEAN Managing Director of Ariba, a spend management software company. He has also held various senior supply management positions in 3M and Coca-Cola companies. He has multiple industry exposure in procurement and supply management notably oil & gas, manufacturing, telecom, financial services, transportation, construction and retail industries.

Under his leadership, TransProcure has been cited by the Philippines Department of Trade and Industry as the “Rising Star” on BPO-Procurement Services in 2004. TransProcure was also awarded as the “Most Innovative Business Process Outsourcing Company of the Year” during the Annual International ICT Awards ceremony held this year (2007). And last year, TransProcure was recognised as the “Most Home Grown BPO Company” during the national awards programme.

Charlie was a recipient of the highest award “Gawad Sinop Award /Purchasing Manager of the Year” in 1999. In 2004, he was again recognised worldwide as “Pros to Know” by the Demand and Supply Chain Magazine, USA. Last 10 February this year (2009), Charlie was recognised by the Philippine BPO Industry during the 9th eServices Award as a Leader in promoting the Philippines as a preferred BPO hub in the global market.

Shireen Atassi has over 14 years of experience in a variety of consulting and procurement roles in a big 5 consulting firm and an international FMCG. In 2007 Shireen founded PROCU FZ LLC- a procurement services and solutions company in Dubai Internet City. During the set up stage, Shireen became a passionate advocate of automation in the Procure to Pay cycle. As such, PROCU became a Certified Reseller of a globally leading P2P solution. Shireen strongly believes in the concepts of efficiency and process quality as corner-stones of a company’s future growth. She believes that especially in rough economic circumstances, technology enables organisations to build their capabilities and to strengthen their competitiveness. Benefits of automating P2P process spill way beyond the immediate functions to positively impact customer service, productivity and financial planning.

Chris Welsh is a Principal Consultant and Director at ACT Global Consulting and has over 20 years of technology, e-Commerce and consulting experience. As a Director of ACT he provides executive level consulting for buy-side and sell-side projects in both the Upstream and Downstream sectors of the Oil & Gas industry. Prior to co-founding ACT he was Customer e-Procurement Project Manager for Baker Hughes Inc. where he was responsible for managing e-Procurement initiatives and B-2-B integration between Baker Hughes and its large Oilfield customers. Chris is Chair for the API’s PIDX Europe Committee and a past-Vice Chair of the International PIDX Executive; he is a Member of the SPE and holds a Masters Degree in Computing for Commerce and Industry.

Andy Ross is a Principal and Director at ACT Global Consulting, and has been involved in advancing electronic business for the Oil & Gas Industry since 2000. He has served as a workgroup chair for the API's Petroleum Industry Data Exchange (PIDX) committee, and was part of the team that developed the industry standards for electronic transactions. Andy coordinated the implementation of the industry's very first electronic invoice in 2003, and pioneered multi-tiered supplier enablement, a strategy that uses different solution categories to expand the reach of e-Business across the supply chain. This approach is now broadly adopted worldwide, and thousands of oil & gas operators and suppliers are now annually transacting tens of billions of pounds in a fully electronic manner. Andy has worked for and with NOCs, Super Majors, Independents, Suppliers, and Technology Companies, thus is aware of both the opportunities and challenges for all of the major stakeholders in e-Business. He has managed implementations across North America, Europe, and the Middle East, and is currently based in Aberdeen.

Martyn Smith – Stangar has 23 years experience as a procurement and transformation management professional and he has worked with a diverse range of leading private and government sector organisations successfully delivering a multitude of programmes ranging from baseline contract negotiation and benchmarking to establishing, remodelling and developing best practice procurement and supply chain functions. After firmly establishing himself as a leading professional with employers in fields such as defence, automotive, electronics and communications, Martyn saw the opportunities available to assist a far wider range of organisations to realise the benefits of effective procurement and SCM management and in doing so established his own consultancy company out of the university city of Cambridge, UK. Despite establishing himself initially to support his wide range of supplier contacts developed over his 23 years in the profession Martyns skills were quickly sought by many government agencies being driven to introduce efficiencies and who saw the need to transfer industry best practice into their environments. Through this work he has become known to many leading consultancy and business management firms who have hired his services to support them in compiling strategies which have assisted them in successfully winning multi-million pound outsource services agreements. In many cases his services have then been retained to ensure the successful delivery of these programmes. Martyn now works with Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank as Head of Procurement establishing a sustainable and effective procurement delivery model. Despite his relatively short tenure with the Bank he has already delivered significant change within its operating practices is implementing various new technologies to automate many processes including that of P2P reducing operating overheads and is focusing on establishing ADCB procurement as a leader within the UAE.

Anup Mathew has over 14 years of experience on the P2P with a direct focus on the post procurement side of the P2P process. A Chartered Accountant from India and a certified Black Belt from the BMG University Colorado USA, Anup has been working with Global Telecom Conglomerates in their Shared Services divisions to run the Accounting and payment portions of their P2P processes over the years and currently works with a fortune 500 American company heading their Shared Services Accounting Division for it’s group of companies in the Middle East and based out of Dubai UAE. Anup has been a key driver for automation of the P2P processes (with special focus on the accounting) within “Shared Services” organisations where he has worked over the years. Anup looks forward to the day all “Accountants” would play the role of “Quality Controllers” (Data) as against their current role of running repetitive processes. The efforts of these financial accountants should be harnessed to run quality checks on data classifications and presentations, in the process providing critical check points for business decisions. He thinks in a tough business environment like the current one business leaders need quality data inputs to decision making rather than shop floor processors and their supervisors.

Carl Claughton-Wallin
International Sales Manager – ERP Capture Solutions
ReadSoft