Fellows are at the center of the association

Product & Innovation Leader

Key Expertise:

• Strategic Vision & Strategy: Adept at crafting strategic visions and roadmaps for data-driven, analytical, and AI-enabled products.
• Product Lifecycle Management: Proficient in managing products from inception to maturity, including sunsetting / declining offerings.
• Revenue Growth: Proven track record of taking products from Zero to One, resulting in significant revenue growth with market share capture.
• Health-Tech Leadership: Successfully launched and managed AI-enabled Health-Tech products, driving approximately $80 million in revenue and serving over 50,000
  users.
• Team Leadership: Lead and inspire cross-functional teams of 80+ product managers, engineers, and designers to foster innovation and product excellence.

Credentials:

• ISPMA Certification: Trained and certified in ISPMA Foundation & Excellence programs.
• ISPMA Fellow Member
• Industry Mentorship: Engaged as an industry mentor with esteemed institutions such as IIM Bangalore, IIM Sambalpur, IIIT Bangalore, and Great Learning since 2019.

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Prof. Dr. Alexander Mädche is a full professor at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. He heads the research group “Information Systems I” at the Institute of Information Systems and Marketing (IISM).

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Dr. Andrey Maglyas is an experienced software product manager with a deep knowledge of managing products, when is the best time for them, and what is necessary to do next.

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A Researcher and Lecturer at LUT University, Fellow and Extended Board Member at International Software Product Management Association (ISPMA).
The areas of research and teaching expertise include product management and pricing of software services, data and business analytics, and digital platforms.

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Antti Paajoki has been working in the software-intensive product business since 2007 in product development, product management, and sales roles in the Nordics at Aidon Ltd. His particular area of interest is value creation, product evolution, and sustainable development for software products with a long product lifetime (10+ years) and related management processes.

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Barbara Hoisl is an independent consultant and trainer, supporting software vendors and internet companies. She helps clients to implement their business vision by supporting strategy and business planning initiatives, including the development of business models and market entry strategies for new offerings.

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Dr. Christof Ebert is the managing director at Vector Consulting Services. He supports clients worldwide to sustainably improve product strategy and product development and manage organizational changes. He serves on several advisory and industry bodies and is a professor at the University of Stuttgart in Germany and Sorbonne in Paris. Prior to that, he held engineering and management positions for fifteen years in IT, transportation, and aerospace.

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David Fradin has over 50 years of product management, product marketing management and senior management, experience. He is a Distinguished Professor of Practice and Advisor, Product Management Programs, WileyNXT, Faculty, IIML-Wiley Data-Driven Product Management Program. David has trained thousands of managers throughout the world. He infuses his workshops with insights and experiences gained as a product leader at companies like Apple & HP.

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Dr. Dimitri Petrik is a Post-doctoral Researcher with a passion for digital platform design, industrial IoT, and ecosystem management.

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Diomidis Spinellis is the Head and a Professor in the Department of Management Science and Technology at the Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece. Diomidis has also published more than 250 technical papers in journals and refereed conference proceedings, which have received more than 5.000 citations.

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Efi Papatheocharous is a senior researcher in software engineering for RISE ICT and is based at the research Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS) in Kista, Stockholm. Her research focus is on improving developer productivity and increasing software quality. She has extensive background of research in the areas of project management, requirements engineering, and software cost estimation, and has carried out empirical and computational intelligence (machine learning) studies.

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Farnaz is Assistant Professor at Chalmers and the University of Gothenburg. She is interested in applied research, combining her over twelve years of industrial experience in software companies with research knowledge. Her main research interests are user feedback for modelling product success, requirement engineering, continuous software evolution, software product management, and software ethics.

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Franco Gatti is a senior product manager with almost 20 years of experience with ABB in several technical and management positions. Franco is currently engaged in a Product Management Excellence Journey to enhance the professional level of ABB large product management community. Franco holds a master degree in Applied Physics from the Milan State University in Italy, specializing in System Theory and Automation. Before moving to the Product Management profession, Franco spent 14 years as a Software Development Manager in the Automation business of ABB, and prior to that, five years as a software developer for business applications.

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Frédéric Pattyn is a versatile professional in both product management and academia. He serves as an independent board member and has a successful track record as a software startup product manager, having launched and supported numerous ventures. Additionally, Frédéric is doing his PhD research on “Product Management at Software Startups” at Ghent University, Belgium. Currently, he’s also the co-founder and principal product manager of NOWJOBS, a leading mobile staffing platform in Europe, part of The House of HR.

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Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Global Income Coin. Garm was the first to conduct large-scale academic studies on User Stories, earning him a Ph.D. from Utrecht University in 2017. Garm thrives when working on complex, unsolved problems that require entirely novel conceptual solutions. Primarily interested in VC-backed B2C startups and scaleups active in his personal Fs: fintech, food, and fashion. Particularly if they make things more equal, accessible, and sustainable.

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Prof. Dr. Georg Herzwurm holds a Chair for Business Administration and Information Systems at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. His research interests include market for software and IT-services, service engineering for IT-services, customer-oriented (software) product management, software quality and software project management and business software (esp. off-the-shelf) as seen from market, supplier, and customer perspective.

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Gerald Heller works as consultant and trainer on the topics of software product management, requirements management, and agile development.
He has more than 30 years of experience in large-scale, global distributed software development. During his professional career he covered almost every aspect of the product development lifecycle.

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Greg Coticchia is an award-winning entrepreneur, business leader, professor, and author, with over thirty years of experience in tech products and services. He serves as the CEO of Sopheon (LON: SPE), a leader in enterprise innovation management software and service. Prior to Sopheon, he created and launched Carnegie Mellon University’s Master’s Program in Product Management (MSPM), the world’s first product management degree, serving as it’s founding executive director.

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Greg Prickril is a software product management consultant, coach and trainer specializing in the intersection of software product management with disciplines such as Scrum, Lean and Design Thinking. Greg has spent the last 20 years helping some of the biggest companies in the world deliver better products and solutions by focusing on the strategic perspective of offering development. He worked as a product manager shipping products at IBM, Microsoft and SAP before opening his own consultancy focused on enterprise product and solution strategy.

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Hans-Bernd Kittlaus is the owner and CEO of InnoTivum Consulting and works as a consultant, interim manager, and trainer for software organizations, particularly in software product management, SaaS, IT strategy, and business process management. Before he was Director of SIZ GmbH and Head of Software Product Management and Development units of IBM. He is Diplom-Informatiker, ISPMA Certified Software Product Manager, Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Certified PRINCE2 Practitioner, founding board member of ISPMA, and member of ACM and GI.

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Hara Mangipudi is a career software product professional, with over two and a half decades of building and growing enterprise software products and businesses across the six continents. He helped few hundred global banks in their transformation journey in the past two decades. Hara co-created finUNO®, world’s first multimodal intelligent financial assistant.

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Harish Srigiriraju is a Distinguished Engineer at Verizon. His work is primarily focused on product management leveraging Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence to improve software products. As a technical product manager, I have led teams to build a wide range of products including investment platforms, collaboration tools, ERP systems, an inventory management tool, an e-commerce website, a volunteering application, a cancer kit, a digital media platform, and a hiring management application. He has prior experience in software programming and graduated from Kellogg School of Management with an MBA.

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Helena Holmström Olsson is a Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Media Technology at Malmö University, Sweden. Her research interests include e.g., engineering aspects of AI systems, data-driven development practices, digitalization and digital transformation of the embedded systems domain, and software and business ecosystems. She is a senior researcher in Software Center and her research is conducted in close collaboration with companies in the embedded systems domain. She is the supervisor of several Ph.D. students in the area of data-driven development and AI Engineering, and has a continuous collaboration with European industry. She is a frequent reviewer for software engineering journals and conferences and she is also a frequent member of program committees for software engineering conferences.

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Jan Bosch is an executive, professor, and consultant with more than 20 years of experience in large-scale software R&D management and business. Extensive consulting experience with Fortune 500 companies and a board member & angel investor in startups. Areas of expertise include digitalization, aligning business and R&D strategy, R&D management, data-driven innovation management, and software ecosystems.

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Karl Werder is an Assistant Professor at the Cologne Institute for Information Systems of the University of Cologne. Karl received his doctorate degree in Information Systems from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. His research interests include investigating complex organizational processes, digital options, and data-driven decision-making. Currently, he is conducting studies on the use of artificial intelligence, data-driven development, and organizational agility. His work focuses on the software product, video game, and esports industries.

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Karl Michael Popp is a Karl Michael Popp is senior director for mergers and acquisitions as part of the Corporate Strategy Team of SAP AG, responsible for holistic analysis of acquisition opportunities and post-merger integration. In addition, he continuously researches on structures of the software industry, especially ecosystems of companies, management of ecosystems, and business models for partnerships between software vendors. In his career, he successfully analyzed, worked with and managed the relationship with over 120 software companies in OEM, resell relationships as well as over 30 successful mergers and acquisitions.

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Katharina Peine is an expert in internal software product management and outlines strategies for software products. She holds a Ph.D. in technically oriented business administration from the University of Stuttgart. Nowadays Katharina is the Head of Product and Innovation Management at the highQ Computerlösungen GmbH, a company in Freiburg focusing on SW products mainly in the mobility sector. Katharina offers training courses that concentrate on software strategy, she is also a lecturer at different Universities in this field to share her software product management knowledge.

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Lucas Weber is the Director of Product Processes and Integrations at Sanoma Learning, an EdTech company. Lucas’s software career has spanned the breadth of both product management and product marketing. Working in companies of various sizes, several countries, and multiple industries, has given him extensive experience with different types of products, stakeholders, and processes. His goal is to share that experience and inspire others interested in the same subject matter.

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Marc Hilber is specialized in advising companies on technology-related transactions, particularly joint ventures, outsourcing, and software development projects. He advises on contracts for cooperations, sales systems, software licensing and maintenance, ASP, and national and international data protection law. Marc is a partner in the Information, Technology & Telecommunications Group at Oppenhoff & Partner Rechtsanwälte.

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Michael Cusumano is a Deputy Dean and Sloan Management Review Distinguished Professor of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. Michael specializes in strategy, product development, and entrepreneurship in computer software as well as automobiles and consumer electronics. At MIT, he has recently taught Software & Internet Entrepreneurship as well as Advanced Strategic Management. Michael received a B.A. degree from Princeton in 1976 and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1984 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Production and Operations Management at the Harvard Business School from 1984-86.

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Mika Helenius is an independent board professional, senior advisor, and active keynote speaker on software-based macro and micro economy, industry, education, platforms, and products. He has over 25 years of experience in new product development (NPD) with global software organizations and over ten years of experience in developing post-graduate degree programs and executive technology management education in university and private education networks for business and public organizations. Mika holds a Master of Science diploma from Helsinki University of Technology in Finland and a Tuck executive program diploma from Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, USA.

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Niklas has a long track record of product management and business development within B2B-, B2C- and multi-sided, partner-intensive SaaS- and online platforms. His experience includes growth companies as well as multinational corporations in the IT, Telecom, Media, HR-tech and Financial Technology industries. Niklas has a Master of Science MSc in Industrial Engineering and Management from Linköping Institute of Technology, and has completed an Executive Management Program at Stockholm School of Economics. He is particularly keen on discussing product architecture, team efficiency, combining waterfall with SAFe and agile ways of work, and digitalization of incumbent businesses.

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Peter Stadlinger is an experienced product leader with a demonstrated history of working in SaaS. Skilled in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Digital Marketing. Strong product management professional with a Master’s degree focused in Computer Science from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). In his current role, Peter focuses on democratizing artificial intelligence, specifically deep learning and natural language processing, for the purpose of personalizing customer experiences at scale.

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Rainer Grau holds the head of business development position at digitec Galaxus, one of the top E-Commerce companies in Switzerland. In this position, he is responsible, together with his team, for the innovation and portfolio management and the execution of all strategic projects. Before he joined digitec Galaxus, he was the director and partner of Zühlke. He was responsible for the development of the topics of Agility, Lean Management, Requirements Engineering, and Product Management. Rainer Grau teaches at various universities of applied science in Switzerland, is engaged in the SAQ Swiss Association for Quality, and is one of the founders of the Swiss Agile Leaders Circle. The goals of this engagement are the support of the community in the topics of requirements engineering, enterprise agility, and lean management.

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Richard has 20+ years experience in developing strategies for product growth in several B2B and B2C industries. He possesses an MBA from Bradford University and hold an BSc in Electrical Engineering. His pragmatic software and product management strategies led to a substantial growth in the number of successful product launches. Throughout his career, he has utilized his experience at various prominent businesses, including Royal Bank of Scotland, General Electric, NXP Semiconductors, Randstad and CM.COM

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Ruth’s consulting company assists firms in developing more effective B2B marketing strategies. She is Adjunct Associate Professor, Marketing and New Product Development at NYU Stern School of Business. Ruth consults on customer acquisition and retention, for business-to-business clients.  Ruth serves on the boards of directors of the HIMMS Media Group, and the Business Information Industry Association.   She is a trustee of Princeton-In-Asia, past chair of the Business-to-Business Council of the DMA, and past president of the Direct Marketing Club of New York.

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Sacha Reis is Head of Service Line Management at IHK-GfI mbH in Germany. Together with his team, he is responsible for the software development and IT operations of all IT Services provided by IHK-GfI. He has more than 20 years of experience in Software Engineering in different domains, especially in the areas of Software Development, Software Product Management, Requirements Engineering, Software Testing and IT Portfolio & Release Management. He is an associate member of the International Requirements Engineering Board (IREB) and works in the working group for Agile Requirements Engineering (RE@Agile).

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Sami Hyrynsalmi is an Associate Professor (tenure track) of Software Engineering at LUT University, Finland. In addition, he serves as the academic head of the Software Product Management and Business Master of Science in Technology Programme in Lahti, Finland. Hyrynsalmi holds a doctoral degree in software engineering from the University of Turku, Finland. He has previously worked for the Turku School of Economics, Tampere University of Technology, and Tampere University. His research interests include software and its production, as well as software platforms and ecosystems.

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Prof. Dr. Samuel Fricker is a renowned scholar in the field of software product management, known for his in-depth knowledge and experience in cloud and edge computing, cybersecurity, and data-centered systems. His research has had profound effects on both academic discourse and industry practices. In addition to his academic roles, Samuel served as the first Chairman of the ISPMA and remained a Board Member for 12 years.

Samuel earned his Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 2009. Subsequently,he has led a team of researchers and developers focused on cybersecurity in the Swiss digital infrastructure and banks. His hands-on experience with SMEs and multiple startups has provided him with valuable insights into the cybersecurity needs of these entities.

Possessing the rare ability to translate empirical research into practical engineering solutions, Samuel has emerged as a leading voice in the ISPMA. His contributions have substantially augmented the ISPMA Body of Knowledge. Furthermore, he co-authored the first edition of the ISPMA-compliant study guide on software product management. His extensive contributions to the software product management community have already left a lasting imprint on the field.

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Sangeet Paul Choudary is the founder of Platformation Labs and the best-selling author of Platform Revolution and Platform Scale. He has advised the leadership of more than 30 Fortune 500 firms and has been selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Sangeet is a WEF’s Global Future Council member, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD Business School, and the MIT Platform Strategy Summit co-chair. Harvard Business Review has selected Sangeet’s work on platforms as one of the top 10 ideas in strategy.

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Shyvee is a respected thought leader in the digital transformation and product management space with over a decade of experience serving clients across various industries, including telecommunications, financial services, retail commerce, media, and non-profits. She is now Product Lead at LinkedIn, an instructor at LinkedIn Learning, and has worked with top consultancies and tech companies delivering impactful solutions that drive business growth and innovation. Shyvee is also a sought-after speaker, having taught workshops and spoken at leading universities and Fortune 1000 companies, including LinkedIn, Deloitte, Cloudflare, and Snowflake. With her daily content creation on LinkedIn, she has built a large and engaged global following, making her a prolific source of product management and career insights!

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Prof. Dr. Sjaak Brinkkemper is an eminent figure in the fields of software product management and entrepreneurship. Currently, he serves as a Full Professor of Organization and Information at the Department of Information and Computing Sciences of Utrecht University. He leads a dedicated team that investigates how market conditions impact software development methodologies and processes.

Sjaak earned his Ph.D. from the University of Nijmegen in 1990 and has since then achieved considerable success both in academia and industry. His professional journey includes key roles such as Chief Architect at Baan and Consultant at Vanenburg Group. Moreover, Sjaak contributes to several influential journals including Business Informatics, European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Database Management, Journal on Information Systems and e-Business Management, and Management Information Systems Quarterly as a member of the editorial boards.

Sjaak is a regular speaker at SPM Summits and a significant contributor to the ISPMA Body of Knowledge. His work has already left a lasting impact in the field of software product management.

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Slinger Jansen is an Associate Professor at the Department of Information and Computer Science at Utrecht University. He is one of the leading researchers in the domain of software ecosystems and co-founder of the International Conference on Software Business and International Workshop on Software Ecosystems. He is the lead editor of the book “Software Ecosystems: Analyzing and Managing Business Networks in the Software Industry” and several others. Besides his academic endeavors, he actively supports new enterprises and sits on the boards of advisors of several start-ups.

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Sowmya Sadagopan was the Founding Director of IIITB from 1999 to 2021. He graduated from Madras University, India and Purdue University, USA. He taught for 25+ years at IIT Kanpur, IIM Bangalore, IIT Madras, and IIITBangalore, in addition to short teaching assignments at RUTGERS, USA and AIT, Bangkok. He has wide research interests, including Operations Research, Multi-criteria optimization, Decision Theory, Simulation, Enterprise Computing, Programming Languages, Databases, Multimedia, and e-Governance. Prof. Sadagopan consults widely across different industry segments and lectures extensively at corporations, industry events, and universities across the globe on all aspects of IT.

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An Information Systems researcher with enthusiasm and passion for identifying and solving interesting research problems in the domains of Design Science Research, Product Management, Human-Artificial Intelligence Collaboration, and Healthcare Informatics. Experienced in using both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to design research studies, she led and co-authored publications in major international conferences (AMCIS, DESRIST, AMIA) and journals (JMIR, IJMI, IT & People). Her research on designing mobile health applications for Clinical trials received funding from Gates Ventures. Her research interests center around collaboration between Humans and emerging technologies.

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Tolulope Ayeni is the Director of Product for Client Business Intelligence and Reporting at Egencia AmexGBT, where she leads teams to provide data insights and reports that help clients to optimize their business travel management. She has led eCommerce, SaaS, Mobile & ERP Product teams to build B2B tech products that deliver business value to clients across Finance, Insurance, Banking, Retail, Energy and Travel sectors. Tolulope is an international product mentor and as a guest lecturer, she teaches Data Analytics and Product Management at Management Schools in France.

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Tony Wasserman is a Professor in the Software Management program at Carnegie Mellon University’s Silicon Valley campus, where he teaches courses on software product management, software product strategy, open source software, and more. His research centers on the evaluation, adoption, and use of open-source software. He also serves as an advisor to several startups and organizations. Tony was previously the founder and CEO of Interactive Development Environments (IDE), creator of the innovative multiuser Software through Pictures (StP) development platform, an early low-code tool, and one of the first 100 dot-coms. Tony earned a Ph.D. in computer sciences from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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Venkatesh Balakrishnan leads the Centre for Software and IT Management at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. Prior to joining IIM Bangalore, he worked for Infosys, IBM, Logica (now CGI), and Capgemini and was leading teams of solution architects providing innovative solutions involving software products, services, and system integration. He holds a degree in Engineering and is also ISPMA Certified Software Product Manager (Foundation Level). He has been involved in teaching Software Product Management over the last two years.

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Fellow-British computer society, Mentor-Columbia & Northeastern University,
Transformative CIO, Independent Director(Board Member), Tech Hall of Fame, IT
PERSON of Year, Podcaster, Tech Evangelist & Angel Entrepreneur.
Ex-Chief Information Officer @ Dubai Investments PJSC. Strategic Advisor and
Transformation Consultant for Marquee clients in India and UAE in the areas of Strategy,
Technology and Digital Transformation.
C-Level Technology Executive with three decades of international professional exposure
(India, South Asia, Middle East & NA) with Fortune 100 corporations such as Motorola,
Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble & very recently with Dubai Investments PJSC.
During his professional career across several industries, including FMCG, Public Sector,
Financial Services, Telecom & Retail, he has held several leadership positions and been a
member of the Executive Committee, serving on Leadership Boards.

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Vibhuti is an entrepreneurial leader with a proven track record in driving product and business model innovation and global go-to-market strategies across B2B2C in FinTech and Healthcare. 19+ years of executive experience in start-ups, hyper scale-ups, Big Tech, Big 4, and Fortune 50 companies. A global professional with a unique cultural understanding from living in 7+ countries, operating in 50+, multilingual and dual competence in Software Engineering and Business. Vibhuti has built international multi-cultural teams, restructuring and scaling product, engineering, design, research, and marketing teams for global growth.

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Xiaofeng Wang is an associate professor at the Faculty of Engineering, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. She received her PhD from the University of Bath, UK. Then she worked in Lero, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre as a postdoc. She has many years of experience in the research areas of agile and lean software development, software startups, and human aspects in software engineering. She has collaborated with industry, including several multiple-international corporates in various national and European projects. She is actively publishing in both software engineering and information systems venues. She is also active in serving various conferences related to software development and business.

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Zhi Jin is a Professor of Computer Science at Peking University. She is the deputy director of the Key Lab of High Confidence Software Technologies (Ministry of Education) at Peking University. Her research is focusing on requirements engineering for software intensive systems. She is/was the principal investigator of over 10 national competitive grants. She has authored/co-authored more than hundreds peer-reviewed journal or conference papers and as well as three books. She is the Chair of the Technical Committee on System Software, China Computer Federation.

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Zornitsa Nikolova has 15+ years of IT experience and 10+ years of project and people management background. She has been applying Agile methodologies for a decade and is a CSPO (ScrumAlliance.org), PSPO (Scrum.org), and a professionally trained coach. Zornitsa holds an EMBA degree from COTRUGLI Business School. Currently, she works as a trainer and a coach with companies and individuals who are looking to apply agile approaches to product development. In addition to her consulting practice, Zornitsa engages with startups as a co-founder and mentor.

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