Women of the Channel Leadership Summit Singapore
 
2018 Event Speakers
Uma Thana Balasingam, Co-Founder, Lean In Singapore & VP, Channels & Sales, Asia Pacific & Japan, Riverbed
Uma Thana Balasingam is the co-founder of Lean In Singapore and the founder of Lean In Women in Technology Asia & Women In Technology Singapore which has >800 members today. LeanIn.Org was founded by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to empower women to achieve their ambitions. Lean In Singapore, founded in 2016, is a community of over 2000 women that comes together to be inspired, empowered and educated with a focus on driving gender diversity in the workplace.

Uma is Vice President of Channels & Sales, Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ) for Riverbed. She is responsible for defining the region’s go-to-market strategies including channel, service providers, alliances and the wireless business. As a key member of the leadership team, she plays an active role in shaping the company’s growth strategy in the region.

Uma has 17+ years’ experience in business and strategic channels development in the APJ region. Prior to joining Riverbed, she served for more than seven years at EMC in various senior leadership roles, with a focus on product expansion, business development and channels development. She previously held roles in management at Brocade and field sales at IBM.

Uma has a Bachelor of Computer Science and Management Information Systems from University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur.

 
Dr. Tanvi Gautam, Founder Leadershift Inc, Best-selling Author

Dr. Tanvi Gautam, C-suite advisor, HR influencer on Twitter and executive coach. Winner of many international awards including being listed as a game changer by Workforce Magazine (USA), Dr. Tanvi has built an authentic and global brand on social media. She works with companies across the globe on the topic of leadership in the age of disruption with a special emphasis on corporate narratives and storytelling. She is passionate about women and leadership and runs Asia's only global women and leadership program at Singapore Management University. She is the author of the Amazon bestseller - The Spark Lies Within: And other secrets of women leading inspired and authentic lives.

 
Sophie Guerin, Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Asia Pacific, Japan & China, Dell Inc.

Sophie Guerin is the Head of Diversity & Inclusion, APJC at Dell Inc responsible for setting and driving Dell’s diversity & inclusion strategy, serving our team members in 18 countries. In APJC she focuses on delivering on Dell’s promise to team members to create an environment for them to do their best work. This includes the Asia roll out of the Catalyst Men Advocating Real Change initiative and introducing LGBTI inclusion to the region via the APJC launch of Pride LGBTI and Allies ERG.

Located in Singapore, she is a recognized expert on diversity & inclusion in Asia and speaks frequently at industry forums on the topic. She is co-author of "Examining Diversity & Inclusion from an Asian Perspective" and “Developing Dependency” which explores special economic zones in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. Sophie served as a member of the official U.S. Delegation to the 2017 APEC Women and the Economy Summit at the invitation of the U.S. State Department. She is also a member of the Diversity & Inclusion in Asia Network Advisory Council and the American Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong Women of Influence Steering Committee.

Prior to joining Dell, Sophie was Head of Diversity & Inclusion for Community Business as well the Beijing-based Greater China Deputy Director for WEConnect International, a Washington D.C. headquartered, corporate driven non-profit that helps to empower women business owners to succeed in global markets.

Sophie is also the Founder of Women in International Public Affairs based in Paris, France. She has a Masters of Public Affairs with a concentration in public policy and economic development from SciencesPo Paris and a Bachelors of Fine Arts from New York University with a double major in East Asian studies and theatre. She speaks Mandarin and English.

 
0Jessie Quek, Head of SMB & Commercial Channel Sales, HP, Inc
Jessie Quek is the Head of SMB Business & Commercial Channel Sales for HP in Asia Pacific and Japan. The vision of the Commercial Channel & SMB business segment is to position HP as a preferred vendor of choice to do business with in APJ. To achieve this vision, Quek and her team focus on delivering the best-in-class partner experience for profitable growth of joint business. Quek focuses on four key priorities, namely; partners enablement, enhancing partners engagement, creating excitement with partners and driving accelerated growth in the SMB segment.

Quek has more than 25 years of experience in the IT industry and has held various positions in general management with PnL responsibilities covering Worldwide, Asia Pacific region, Go-To-Market initiatives, Channel Sales Management, End User sales & marketing.

Quek recently returned to HPi after staying with HP for about 10 years. Prior to her current role, she was General Manager for Lenovo Singapore. Her most recent role as Regional General Manager, Global Accounts at Lenovo, Central Asia Pacific region.
Jessie is a graduate from the University of London with a Bachelor of Science in Economics, Upper Second Class Honours.

 
Kate Barker, Managing Director, PWC
Kate Barker has extensive experience in partnering with boards and C-Suite executives on digital transformation, leadership development, HR strategy, diversity and inclusion. Barker has built successful programs for leading, selling and structuring global human capital consulting programs across numerous industries. She helps clients digitally transform their organizations, develop senior leaders and create innovative talent and HR strategies.

 

Barker serves as the managing director and regional HR transformation leader at PWC advising organisations on how to drive business performance through people-centric solutions, dynamic HR practices and digital technology innovation. Barker is recognised as a leading HR futurist with organisational insights and pragmatic implementation.

She previously served as vice president, executive HR advisor at SAP leading the COE team for digital HR services across the APJ region, advising clients on the future of work. She was appointed to work with SAP’s board to design SAP’s own diversity and inclusion strategy for SAPs’ more than 86,000.

In 2009, Barker was the global executive director, consulting services at EY where she led a global consulting team for EY's top global priority projects.

Prior to EY, Barker was the founder of Leadership Transformation Partners where she built a multi-million dollar consulting firm within the Asia Pacific region. In 2004 she was nominated Deloitte Businesswomen of the Year recognising her achievements as one of Deloitte's most talented women.

In 2017, Barker was selected to attend Harvard Business School, Women in Leadership Forum. She has commenced her PhD in Women in Leadership in Tech and holds an MBA and a Masters in Organisational Psychology. She is a board member, an accredited executive coach and professional mentor and avid marathon runner.

 
0Tay Bee Kheng, Managing Director, Singapore & Brunei, Cisco

Bee Kheng, Managing Director for Singapore and Brunei at Cisco has more than two decades of experience in enterprise technology. She has held various leadership roles in sales, operations, as well as other verticals across Asia-Pacific and Japan.

Kheng is a seasoned leader with a proven track record in building innovative sales organizations that are characterized by their focus on customers and partners, operational excellence and winning culture. Kheng is passionate about encouraging women to pursue careers in the IT sector.

 
Lisa MacKenzie, Partner, Executive Vice President, The Channel Company
Lisa MacKenzie is a seasoned executive with expertise in marketing, sales, product management and operations. Lisa was instrumental in The Channel Company's evolution from providing traditional media to offering a full portfolio of solutions and services. She brings her proven expertise to The Channel Company's extensive events portfolio - helping ensure that our events meet the evolving needs of our customers. Thanks to Lisa's leadership, The Channel Company attracts record audiences and receives high customer satisfaction scores. Lisa also re-positioned our consulting, research and education offerings, resulting in increased profitability and new product launches.
 
Ms Karinna Boey, Senior Marketing Manager, Fortinet
Karinna Boey is the Senior Marketing Manager at Fortinet. She manages field marketing for Southeast Asia and Hong Kong and has been in the IT and Telco scene for more than 15 years. Boey has worked in SingTel, Microsoft and Cisco Systems in Marketing and Partner Marketing roles. Her passion is in hi-tech and channel community where she can work tirelessly with the field and partners to drive integrated campaigns to end users through partners. She has led high growth revenue results in driving SMB and solution Marketing programs through partners.

 

 

 
0Vicki Batka, Vice President, Partner Organization, Asia Pacific, Japan & China, Cisco

Vicki Batka leads Cisco’s Partner Organization in the Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China (APJC) region. She is responsible for developing and enabling the growth strategy of Cisco’s APJC partner ecosystem, including distributors, global strategic partners, independent software vendors (ISVs), systems integrators and resellers. In addition to nurturing existing partner relationships, Batka is also responsible for building the future partnerships needed to deliver compelling value to customers.

Batka leads a cross functional team that collaborates with close to 20,000 partners across the region to drive simplicity, ensure alignment, and create value exchange with the partner community. Batka sees her role as a true advocate for partners, representing their needs across various organizations at Cisco and ensuring partners and customers remain at the center of Cisco’s APJC strategy. As a member of Cisco’s APJC senior leadership board, she works closely with the Global Partner Organization to scale global channel models to the APJC region, driving business growth across all market segments.

Prior to her current role, Batka was Cisco’s Managing Director, Data Center Sales, APJ. Aside from growing the Data Center and Virtualization business in the region, Batka drove Data Center-related channel partner relationships.

Batka, a 30-year veteran of IT, has held senior positions in management, sales and marketing for SAP, VMware, CA Technologies, Adobe, Toshiba and Network Associates.

Batka has spent 28 years of her IT-career focused on channels, with broad experience across all hardware and software product segments, channel sales models and routes to market. Based in Asia for over a decade, she has an extensive network across the Asia Pacific partner ecosystem with resellers, distributors, systems integrators and ISV partners.

In previous roles, Batka has been responsible for the entire partner ecosystem, including time at VMware, where this contributed to 95% of all sales revenue. She has spoken at many technology events across Asia Pacific and is often called upon by leading industry publications for comments on channel and IT trends.

Batka is the regional executive sponsor for Cisco’s APJC Connected Women’s Network and takes a keen interest in coaching and mentoring.

 
Donna Grothjan, Vice President, Worldwide Channels, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company
Donna Grothjan is vice president of worldwide channels for Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. In this role, Grothjan leads and manages all aspect of Aruba’s partnering strategy, channel sales, partner programs, partner enablement and go to market for alliances and OEM worldwide. In addition, she also has responsibility for overseeing all SMB-related strategy and planning for Aruba worldwide. Grothjan has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry and has been named one of CRN’s Power 100 executives for nine consecutive years in a row.