Amal Clooney is a British human rights lawyer practicing at Doughty Street Chambers in London, where she specializes in international law and human rights. She is also a visiting professor at Columbia Law School, where she teaches Human Rights.

Her clients have ranged from political prisoners and ousted heads of state to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the Republic of Armenia. She has appeared before the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, the European Court of Human Rights, and various courts in the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Oxford-educated lawyer is a frequent adviser to governments on international law and has held a number of posts within the United Nations, including senior adviser to Kofi Annan when he served as the UN Envoy on Syria. While in The Hague she worked on the genocide trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Since then she has challenged the detention of former Ukrainian Prime minister Yulia Tymonshenko at the European Court of Human Rights. She has advised the Greek government on the return of the Parthenon Marbles, represented the Chagossians on their legal fight to return to their islands, and acted as counsel to the Armenian government in a case on the Armenian genocide. 

She has recently represented three political prisoners: Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy, who was convicted in the ‘Al Jazeera trial’ in Egypt; former president of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed, who was imprisoned on false terrorism charges; and award-winning Azerbaijani journalist ‘Khadija', who was arrested in Baku after reporting on corruption by the Azerbaijani president. All have now been released from detention.

She is currently counsel to Nadia Murad and other Yazidi women who have been sexually enslaved by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, working to secure accountability for the genocide committed by ISIS in national and international courts. 

Amal Clooney is on the UK government’s list of experts on international law and on the government’s panel to prevent sexual violence in conflict. She has also been named a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, and she serves on the Forum’s Global Council on Human Rights.

In 2016, she co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice with her husband. One of their first projects – aiming to educate thousands of refugee children in Lebanon – was showcased at the 2016 United Nations summit on the refugee crisis.

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Rana el Kaliouby, Ph.D., is co-founder and CEO of Affectiva, the pioneer in Emotion AI, the next frontier of artificial intelligence. She invented the company’s award-winning, emotion recognition technology that is built on a science platform using deep learning and the world’s largest emotion data repository of nearly 4.5 million faces, analyzed from 75 countries, and amounting to more than 50 billion emotion data points.

Prior to founding Affectiva, as a research scientist at MIT Media Lab, Rana spearheaded the applications of emotion technology in a variety of fields, including mental health and autism research. Dr. el Kaliouby was named to the 2018 Thinkers50 Radar list of management thinkers most likely to shape the future of how organizations are managed and led; Fortune named her to its 2018 40 Under 40 list of the most influential young people in business; WIRED named her one of 25 Geniuses Who Are Creating the Future of Business; Entrepreneur honored her as one of The 7 Most Powerful Women to Watch; and MIT Technology Review featured her among the Top 35 Innovators Under 35.

Recently inducted into the Women in Engineering Hall of Fame, Rana was also selected as a World Economic Forum (WEF) Young Global Leader and serves on WEF’s Global Future Council on AI and Robotics. Rana holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from the American University in Cairo and a Ph.D. from the computer laboratory, University of Cambridge.

Michèle Mees, author of The Balanced Leader, co-founder of The Centre for Balanced Leadership, and TEDxSpeaker, is a highly acclaimed speaker and seasoned professional with more than 20 years of management experience.

Michèle is a leading expert on balancing masculine and feminine qualities in leadership. Her concept of balanced leadership as key to creating inclusive corporate cultures and sustainable gender balance is recognized globally. She supports CEOs and managers across the globe in creating a balanced organizational culture by valuing, developing, and using feminine and masculine qualities as an individual, as a leader, as a team, and as a company.

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Madelyn Abreu is a procurement professional with interest in contingent workforce and total talent management. She currently supports the global contingent workforce management program at Roche.

Starting at Roche as a procurement specialist, Madelyn has refined her skills and now serves as a global category manager at the company. Notably, Madelyn helps businesses realize value through indirect spend management, supplier portfolio management, process optimization, business partnering, and change management.

Søren Bartels is a program director at Atea. He has been with the company for more than 22 years. After a few years in different roles within procurement, sales, and customer service, he has been focusing on B2B e-commerce for the past 18 years.

In his current role, he is leading virtual teams across seven countries to develop e-commerce business and systems designed to deliver business value through self-service, automation, integration, and on-line marketing.

Atea is the market leader in IT infrastructure for businesses and public-sector organizations in Europe’s Nordic and Baltic regions. With 7,400 employees and 4,000 consultants located in 87 offices across seven countries – Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia – Atea combines a unique breadth of competence in IT infrastructure with a powerful local presence in each market.

Nandini Basuthakur was appointed chief executive officer and board member of Procurement Leaders (PL) in March 2017 after joining as chief operating officer in September 2015. PL serves 33,000 senior procurement and supply chain executives from 700 major worldwide corporations, providing a unique intelligence platform with in-depth insights, practical tools, and access to an unrivalled expert network.

Nandini is an experienced senior executive with more than 20 years of expertise in business growth, scale, and transformation internationally. She began her career with EY Management Consulting in APAC. Subsequently, she served as executive committee member of CEB, leading teams in North America, EMEA, and India.

After CEB, she was at Opower (now Oracle), where she was senior vice president and managing director, tasked with launching their EMEA business and supporting their successful Nasdaq IPO.

Nandini holds a Master of Science degree in economics and development from the LSE. She completed her undergraduate studies in economics, management, and psychology at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, TechLondon Advocate, and board trustee and treasurer for St Hilda’s East Community Centre.

François-Xavier is an accomplished IT professional with 21 years of experience in SAP IT management consulting across a wide variety of industries and focusing on SAP ERP and SAP Ariba supply chain areas.

Following graduation from the Lyon Engineer INSA school in 1999, François-Xavier joined SAP France as an SAP supply chain consultant where he developed his SAP skillset specializing in SAP integration. During this time, he’s done numerous SAP implementations for French and international SAP customers. He also acted as an SAP trainer and as the SAP representative for the procurement/distribution area in the French SAP user club.

In 2006, he joined the Sigma-Aldrich company and has covered different roles inside the IT team: SAP senior analyst, IT team leader, and project manager for different international projects. In 2015, he joined Richemont and serves as a supply chain IT functional architect and IT project manager where he is leading the digital transformation of procurement area.

Mayank Chandla is a procurement transformation and technology specialist. He leads IBM Procurement Technology business for Europe, which is primarily focused on SAP S/4 HANA, SAP Ariba, and IBM Watson Cognitive Procurement Technology.

Over the last two decades, Mayank has played a key role in several global procurement transformation programs enabled by SAP Ariba and other leading procurement technologies. He is passionate about procurement and has been an evangelist for the development of cognitive procurement technology. He has great personal eminence and is a regular speaker at events around the world in this space.

Andy Daly leads on corporate partnerships at Social Enterprise UK (SEUK), the UK’s national body for social enterprise – business with a social or environmental mission.

Andy has worked with procurement leaders at a range of large businesses to help them bring positive societal impact into their supply chains. His role at SEUK includes development and delivery of the Buy Social Corporate Challenge – the world’s largest commitment to social procurement – supporting a growing group of high-profile businesses to spend £1 billion with UK social enterprises. He is also working with SAP to accelerate access to markets for B2B social enterprises via the SAP Ariba platform.

Andy has previously worked at several UK social enterprises and intermediaries, such as HCT Group, School for Social Entrepreneurs and UnLtd. He holds a master’s in international development from the London School of Economics and is proud to be a Fellow (alumnus) of On Purpose, a community of professionals in London, Paris, and Berlin committed to building a fairer and more sustainable economy.

Zoe is responsible for all procurement at IAG and its operating companies, which includes Aer Lingus, British Airways, Avios, Iberia, and Vueling. She currently serves as a board director on the British Airways (BA) Pension Scheme and is a member of the IAG Global Business Services Management Committee.

Prior to joining IAG, Zoe worked in the U.S. for two private equity-owned businesses, implementing their cost transformation model. Zoe currently leads a team of 215 people covering £16.5b of spend and was recently voted by Supply Chain Digital as one of the top five female CPOs in the UK.

Angel Pes Guixa is deputy director-general of CaixaBank and corporate director of institutional representation, global compact, and sustainability for the organization. Since 2012 he has been president of the Spanish Global Compact Network.

He received a Ph. D. in economics from the University of Barcelona and is a senior lecturer and associate professor (on voluntary leave) of the Faculty of Economics and Business there.

A chartered accountant, Angel is the author and co-author of several books and numerous articles about economics in newspapers and specialized journals. His last book, Emprender con responsabilidad (To undertake responsibility) was published in 2012.

KC Hamels is a senior director of business development at DocuSign. KC joined DocuSign in 2012 with a focus on building strategic partnerships aimed at cultivating value for current and future customers by expanding DocuSign’s partner ecosystem.

KC’s background includes account management, marketing, and product management in the financial services industry. Prior to DocuSign, KC worked at Experian for six years where she held various roles managing strategic partnerships and creating fraud and identity management solutions for B2B institutions. She also spent six years in the banking industry managing top affinity sales and marketing programs for MBNA America.

KC received her BA from the University of Southern California.

Safia Minney is an award-winning social entrepreneur and internationally recognized for the company she founded, People Tree, the pioneer of sustainable fashion. She led the business as global CEO for more than 20 years in Japan and the UK. Safia is recognized by the World Economic Forum as an outstanding social entrepreneur and is a leading influencer in sustainability, anti-modern slavery, and fair trade.

Safia set up her consulting business to promote leadership for sustainable business and responsible supply chains. She is the author of nine books, including Slave to Fashion, campaigning to eradicate modern-day slavery, and Slow Fashion – Aesthetics meets Ethics.

Safia is currently working on leadership for sustainability and climate action. She has spoken several times at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, where she is recognized as one of the world´s leading social entrepreneurs by the Schwab Foundation.

Alejandra Miranda leads on new business activities in Iberia and Latin America and is also responsible for growth in the French market for EcoVadis, the world's leading business sustainability ratings solution. 

Alejandra works closely with chief procurement officers and other senior-level executives to develop strategies on sustainable procurement, third-party risk management, and business financing solutions based on the environmental, social, and ethical performance of companies.

She has over 15 years of experience in the corporate sector and has previously worked at Société Générale, Transportadora de Gas del Perú (TgP), and Red de Energía del Perú, in the energy and utilities sector. She holds an MSc from HEC and an MBA from Universidad del Pacífico. She completed her undergraduate studies in industrial engineering at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.

Amar Nathwani currently manages the global Workforce Solution Program for Verizon which encompasses T&M and source-to-pay SOW. Amar has a depth of global experience within the human capital labor field, which has ensured the continued growth and success of the Workforce Solution Program.

Since joining Verizon in 2012, Amar has strategically worked across the Verizon business, including the human resources, professional services, and sourcing departments. He facilitated the finance restructure increasing profitability; he also set up a platform within professional services for Verizon’s external clients to receive SOWs faster, thereby creating a great customer experience and increasing revenue. Amar has outsourced teams, reducing cost and increasing profitability, which enabled him to become a trusted business partner.

Tara Norton leads BSR’s global supply chain sustainability practice. She advises CPOs and senior directors at leading global companies on the development of supply chains that create business value and address urgent and long-term risks and opportunities. Tara drives strategy and implementation projects across industry sectors covering sustainable procurement, supply chain strategy, collaboration, traceability, blockchain, and supply chain finance.

Tara has authored reports including The Supply Chain Leadership Ladder 2.0, Win-Win-Win: The Sustainable Supply Chain Finance Opportunity; The Future of Supply Chains 2025; the UN Global Compact Supply Chain Sustainability Guide; and the UN Glocal Compact Guide to Traceability. She also teaches on the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership Sustainable Business certificate courses.

Before joining BSR, Tara directed supply chain work at 2degrees, the sustainability collaboration platform, and was the general manager of Sedex, where she ran and significantly grew the world's largest not-for-profit sustainable supply chain membership organization and database. Previously, Tara worked in sustainable procurement at BAA, was project manager at the World Trade Center Association Los Angeles, and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kherson, Ukraine. She is a dual citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom, has lived in five countries, and speaks fluent French.

Tara holds an M.B.A. from London Business School and a B.A. in international studies and French from Northwestern University.

Sebastian Ociepka’s professional experience has been gained in different industries and various purchasing, finance, and operations areas. Currently, he represents the International Airlines Group (IAG) as the head of business intelligence and systems in the global business services organization.

He is responsible for driving common digital services, which includes analytics, data, automation, and systems' Centers of Excellence (SAP Ariba, SAP, Hyperion, RPA). This is continuation of his previous role as head of digital procurement and payments in which he helped establish a world-class source-to-pay process for the organization.

Sebastian’s career started in the automotive sector in the supplier quality function, which provided him with a strong foundation in lean manufacturing and supplier management. Afterwards, his primary responsibility as a rolling stock producer was conducting the purchasing function with an emphasis on developing a low-cost strategy, projects budgeting, and manufacturing needs management. In the aerospace industry he was accountable for business development of the supply chain in the EMEA countries, assisting diverse stakeholder groups to achieve savings and reach overall company goals in the region.

Over his 30-year career as a social entrepreneur, Paul has dedicated himself to developing, refining, and realizing the vision at the heart of Givewith: By prioritizing social impact, businesses can deliver a sustainable source of funding for the critical work of nonprofits and differentiate themselves from the competition – driving sales, increasing profits, and raising share prices.

Paul proved his theory with EcoMedia, the company he founded in 2001 and sold to CBS in 2010. Under Paul’s leadership, EcoMedia directed more than $100 million in funding and resources to environmental, education, and community health and wellness programs across the country, improving the quality of life for nearly 60 million people. By successfully differentiating CBS in the competitive, crowded advertising marketplace, EcoMedia's social impact offering helped the media giant achieve enormous sales success.

Paul launched Givewith in 2016, scaling his model far beyond the American media and advertising sectors. Givewith, a social impact technology platform that can be applied to any and every transaction between seller and buyer, unleashes the intrinsic power of commerce as an engine of world-wide social change. It’s a radical paradigm shift that’s transforming the way both business and philanthropy are done, but Paul has remained true to the core mission and principles that first motivated him to dip his toes into the waters of social entrepreneurship. That was in 1989 when, as an avid surfer distressed by the pollution plaguing his hometown waters – the Santa Monica Bay in Southern California – Paul pioneered technology to remove toxins from run-off before it entered the storm drain system and ultimately, the Bay.

Paul has been honored with numerous recognitions for his work, including the Santa Monica Baykeeper’s and the Waterkeeper Alliance’s Keeper Award (2001); Coastal Living Magazine’s Leadership Award (2003); the U.S. Conference of Mayors Award for Excellence in Public Private Partnerships (2009); back-to- back Edison Awards for Social Innovation and Social Impact (2012, 2013); the Starlight Children’s Foundation’s General H. Norman Schwarzkopf Leadership Award (2014); and Volunteers of America's Good Samaritan Award (2018). He has been named an Environmental Hero by US EPA, a Public-Private Visionary by Vanity Fair magazine, and Social Good Leader of the Year by Cynopsis Media.

A frequent guest lecturer at business schools across the country, Paul is a senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, where he was also an inaugural member of the board of advisors for the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab.

David Price is the managing director of client coverage for Barclaycard Commercial Payments. With 12 years of experience in blue-chip financial organizations, David uses his expertise in the payments market to enable organizations to both make and take payments across a highly complex, fragmented eco-system.

His role within Barclaycard has him leading an international team operating across the UK, Europe, and North America with overall accountability for over 20,000 corporate clients.

Tania Seary’s mission is to change the face of supply management to more accurately reflect the critical role of the profession in business today.

A “serial supply management entrepreneur,” she is the founding chairman of three innovative companies:

1. Procurious.com, the world’s first free, online business network for high-achieving supply management professionals
2. The Faculty, one of Australia’s leading supply management advisory firms
3. The Source, a boutique supply management recruitment firm

Tania’s commitment to the profession started sixteen years ago in the United States. After finishing her MBA at Pennsylvania State University, she became one of Alcoa’s first global commodity managers. Prior to moving to the USA, Tania’s career was focused on marketing roles within Alcoa and Rowland in Australia, and the Walt Disney Company in the UK.

With a passion for “all things supply management,” Tania is helping to change the way all of us learn, advance, and exert influence. Under her leadership, Procurious broke ground with the first digital think tank event for the global supply management community, the Big Ideas Summit. At The Faculty, she also created the Corporate Board for Social Procurement, a new type of foundation to encourage Australian businesses to focus their spending on social enterprises.

Tania’s heartfelt goal is to continue to inspire and empower new generations to grow and thrive in our dynamic profession.

As global director of the Purchasing Information Management and Systems organization at Ford Motor Company, Lisa is responsible for delivering transformational business process design and with technical partners, enabling system solutions for global purchasing operations in Europe, North America, South America, Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific.

Lisa has spent 30 years in automotive purchasing, including 10 years with Toyota North America. During that tenure, she held numerous direct materials buying and senior leadership roles, and she also led North American Purchasing’s centralization efforts as well as the design and delivery of the company’s first direct materials, web-based, e-procurement solution.

Lisa has previously held various roles at Ford including indirect purchasing director, and director of the Global Purchasing Process Leadership group. Currently, Lisa leads a team of procurement specialists in nine countries that concentrate on streamlining, standardizing, and designing source-to-pay and requisition-to-pay processes for direct and indirect materials – all while challenging the status quo and driving change management to enable increased material cost reduction and increased operating efficiency.

Prior to her automotive tenure, Lisa taught supply chain management in Bowling Green State University’s College of Business. She earned a bachelor’s degree in business, specializing in marketing, and an MBA, specializing in supply chain.

Lisa is a member of the SAP Ariba customer advisory board, chairs Ford’s Professional Women in Purchasing organization, and has served for nine years as a cabinet member for the United Way of Southeast Michigan. She guest lectures on supply chain management at Michigan State University’s Broad School of Business and serves on their Supply Chain Management Council.

Erika Thier successfully leads various global projects within Novartis clinical development/data management and IT areas to ensure innovative IT solutions as well as in-time study completion.

After overseeing Aventis Behring’s IT research and development function, she worked as an independent management consultant for several years for various pharmaceutical companies. Returning to Novartis, she took over the external workforce management and contingent labor category in procurement, as well as ownership of the SAP Fieldglass solution. Since then she has implemented end-to-end processes, the e-contracting functionality, and enlarged the coverage of the external workforce solutions.

Dawn Tiura is passionate about raising the executive presence of sourcing, procurement, and outsourcing professionals. She does this by staying educated on the latest trends in the industry, working with some of the most innovative companies in the world and surrounding herself with the best team on earth.

From her early days as a CPA to consulting across industries, Dawn brings the knowledge necessary to heighten the awareness of the sourcing profession. Dawn's expertise goes beyond consulting. She has hands-on experience leading hearings, testifying on behalf of client initiatives, and serving as an expert witness about sourcing outcomes. Dawn ghost-wrote one of the first published books on strategic sourcing, which has been translated into multiple languages. She is a frequently requested, high-energy speaker at dozens of industry events every year.

In his role, Graham Wright is responsible for global go-to-market of IBM Procurement Services as well as IBM procurement across Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

Previously, Graham was the director for global sourcing for labor services; technology products; services and maintenance; logistics; travel; marketing and communications; and facilities management. Graham started his IBM career in production procurement and materials management.

As the leader of SAP’s Cloud Business Group, Jennifer Morgan has end-to-end responsibility for the company’s cloud lines of business, including SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, SAP Fieldglass, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP C4/HANA, SAP Customer Experience, and Qualtrics. Jennifer is spearheading the company’s rapid and aggressive shift to the cloud as her portfolio includes revenue, product development, research, engineering, operations, and sales and marketing across SAP’s cloud businesses. In 2018, SAP cloud revenue surpassed license revenue for the first time in the company’s nearly five-decade history.

Jennifer became the first American woman ever appointed to the SAP Executive Board when she was named President of the Americas and Asia in 2017. In this role, she was responsible for SAP’s, revenue, strategy, and customer success in North America, Latin America, and Asia Pacific Japan, regions encompassing more than 43,000 employees and nearly 230,000 customers.

Prior to being named to the Executive Board, Jennifer served as president of SAP North America, where she led the region’s rapid shift to the cloud, sharpened the focus on growth and innovation for more than 155,000 customers, and helped build a culture that earned SAP North America its first ever listing on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For. Jennifer was also instrumental in the region securing its place as a leader in the areas of diversity and inclusion through programs like Autism at Work, and particularly the company’s receipt of EDGE certification – a recognition awarded by the World Economic Forum recognizing the company’s commitment to gender equality and equal pay in the workplace.

Jennifer has served in several other leadership roles for SAP since joining the company in 2004. As head of SAP North America’s public sector organization, and later as president of its Regulated Industries business unit, she was a recognized thought-leader on government and public sector technology innovation, represented SAP to the U.S. Government, and testified before the United States Congress on technology and acquisition issues. Earlier in her career, Jennifer served in various management roles at Siebel Systems, and Accenture.

Jennifer has been named one of Fortune Magazine’s Most Powerful Women in Business and by Forbes as one of the Most Powerful Women in the World and Technology. She is a proud graduate of the James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Jennifer serves on the Board of Directors of the Bank of New York Mellon, a global leader in investment management and investment services, as well as on the non-profit board of the National Academy Foundation (NAF) and the Board of Advisors at James Madison University’s College of Business.

Mike Eberhard was named president of SAP Intelligent Spend Group including SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, and SAP Fieldglass in May 2019. As the leader of these integrated cloud solutions, he is responsible for the oversight of end-to-end operations, vision, and strategy.

Previously, as president of SAP Concur, Mike was responsible for setting the vision and executing against the operating plan for SAP Concur. He joined SAP Concur in 2003 and has more than 25 years of global sales and executive management experience in high-tech and has been instrumental in developing the vision for SAP Concur in business travel since 2006.

His previous roles at SAP Concur include president of global distribution, in which he oversaw more than 1,800 sales and marketing professionals; executive vice president and general manager of global accounts; executive vice president and general manager of Asia Pacific; and executive vice president of worldwide sales and business development. Prior to SAP Concur, Mr. Eberhard was vice president of worldwide sales at Xign; vice president and general manager for Ariba; and vice president and general manager of education and government at PeopleSoft.

Vish Baliga is the chief technology officer for SAP Fieldglass and has been with the company almost since its inception. He plays an integral role in the company’s award-winning solutions, establishing product strategy and managing the application's design, development, testing, and delivery. He oversees several departments including technology operations, product management, information technology, quality assurance, and security.

Vish brings over 30 years of IT experience and nine years of consulting experience to the organization. Prior to joining SAP Fieldglass, he worked for such leading companies as Ernst & Young, IBM, and Syntel.

He holds a master's degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, and a bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Mysore, India.

Mike Evans is senior solution consultant for SAP Ariba, based out of the UK. He is responsible for helping customers understand the value that SAP Ariba cloud-based applications and Ariba Network provide their businesses.

Catherine Hill has been in the TradeWorld, Quadrem, Ariba, and now SAP family for 21 years, filling various management, leadership, and customer engagement roles.

In her role as head of customer engagement for SAP Ariba’s teams EMEA North (Nordics, the UK, Ireland, France, and Benelux), Catherine is responsible for all current and future customer engagements to deliver profitable revenue, renewal, margin, net promoter score, and network growth. She works both within the SAP Ariba Customer Value Organization (CVO) and more broadly across SAP Cloud lines of business, SAP market units, and the SAP Ariba organization.

Catherine’s responsibilities include customer-focused leadership and people development in a strategic capacity and as a key stakeholder within the CVO leadership team, where she plays a significant role in representing SAP, the Intelligent Enterprise Suite, and SAP Ariba to the outside world.

Before moving into her current role, in June 2018 Catherine relocated from Cape Town to Amsterdam to fill the role of regional vice president (RVP) for the UK, Ireland, and The Netherlands. Prior to her relocation to Europe, Catherine filled the role of RVP Africa for more than five years.

Darren Koch is the chief product officer for SAP Ariba and is responsible for driving the overall technology and innovation vision and platform for the business. 

Prior to joining SAP Ariba, Darren served as chief product officer for the SAP Business Network. Darren joined SAP via the Concur acquisition in 2015. At Concur, he held various positions including senior vice president, global product and platform strategy; vice president, product management traveler services; and vice president of data science and services. Before joining Concur, Darren spent almost ten years at Hotwire.

Darren holds an MBA from UC Berkeley and masters of science degree in management science and operations research from Case Western Reserve University. He also holds a bachelor of science degree in mathematics and economics from Allegheny College.

Tifenn Dano Kwan is chief marketing officer for SAP Ariba and is responsible for leading and defining the global marketing vision for the business.

Previously, Tifenn served as vice president of SAP Ariba’s Integrated Marketing organization. In this role, she created and led a unified audience, go-to-market, and solution teams to deploy end-to-end strategies to impact the awareness and adoption for IT, finance, procurement, and supply chain customers. Prior to that, she was the head of go-to-market launches and brand platform at SAP Ariba, responsible for delivering a consistent and compelling brand experience strategy for all customers and the successful execution for innovation launches.

Tifenn joined SAP in 2006 and has since held various leadership roles across the marketing organization including those in channel and partner marketing. 

Tifenn holds a Masters in management from the Audencia Business School as well as a Law Degree from the Institut Catholique d'etudes Supérieures.

Chief Operating Officer James Lee is responsible for business operations, commercial strategy, business development, presales, and enablement across the globe for SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass.

Previously, he was chief operating officer and general manager of sales for SAP Greater China. During that time, he also served as interim head of Greater China for SAP Ariba. James was previously the chief of staff to the president and general manager for SAP Taiwan and Hong Kong. Since joining SAP in 2008, James has worked across various organizations and geographies within the company. From 2011 to 2013, he also led the SAP Private Equity group across Asia Pacific and Japan.  

Prior to SAP, James led global SAP implementation projects at Hewlett Packard and worked in strategy consulting for McKinsey & Company. James holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of British Columbia, and a Diploma in Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music.

In his role as head of an SAP S/4HANA solution area, Salvatore Lombardo drives innovation and thought leadership across the source to pay and order to cash processes. This benefits buyers and suppliers by enabling companies to sell physical, digital, and subscription-based goods as a service and by monetizing subscriptions and real-time usage-based services.

Salvatore joined SAP in 2003 as a developer and since then has held various product and development management roles. In 2007, he moved to SAP Custom Development as program manager, where he delivered several extensive customer-specific development programs with his teams across different industries. He later became head of logistics at SAP Custom Development.

In November 2016, Salvatore took over the P&I S/4HANA organization as the head and CPO of procurement. This organization expanded under Salvatore’s leadership and became the SAP S/4HANA Source to Pay & Order to Cash organization in 2019. It now also includes Sales and Services Management.

Salvatore holds a master’s degree in business informatics from the University of Mannheim.

James is vice president of Network Value at SAP Ariba. He has been digitally connecting companies since joining Ariba in 1998. In his current role, he works with IT professionals on building their business cases for SAP Ariba solutions.

James is also responsible for new-hire training at SAPAriba. With this responsibility, his goal is to turn everyone into a passionate advocate and storyteller.

James has a degree in mathematics from Southampton University.

Madiha manages the Supplier Management portfolio of SAP Ariba across APJ. She has always been passionate about driving more sustainable procurement, at home and at the workplace.

Madiha has previously worked with governments and non-profit organizations to implement programs and policies for upskilling underprivileged communities and creating market places for them to expand. She is excited to now work on the other side of the fence: using technology to enable those market places and help companies achieve procurement with purpose.

As general manager of SAP Ariba, Pat McCarthy is responsible for the go-to-market strategy, sales performance, and operations of the SAP Ariba field organization globally. On a deeper level, he leads SAP Ariba’s effort to understand customers’ goals and to marshal the power of digital transformation to help meet or exceed them.

Since joining SAP in 2005, he has held a broad range of executive roles, including successfully leading the SAP Ariba North American region and various teams responsible for mobile and other emerging technology platforms.

Prior to joining the technology world, Pat practically grew up in supply chain and procurement. He spent 11 years at PepsiCo and its subsidiary Frito-Lay, Inc., where he led teams in warehouse and fleet management, distribution operations, manufacturing and supply chain planning and optimization.

As a former practitioner turned technology enthusiast, Pat loves finding new ways to extend a customer’s competitive advantage, from funding its strategic objectives to leveraging speed and efficiency to outpace rivals.

A native Chicagoan, Pat graduated from Elmhurst College; sits on the board of Chicago Tech Academy, a charter non-profit for Chicago high school students, and supports global charitable endeavors through Kiva.

Padmini Ranganathan is vice president of products and innovation for supplier risk, compliance, and sustainability solutions for SAP Ariba. In this role, she is responsible for product strategy and engineering and leads a team of experts focused on delivering solutions that enable risk-aware, sustainable, and ethical supply chains.

Prior to SAP Ariba, Padmini led the analytics for industries solutions marketing team at SAP which brought to market the first analytical applications and content for “art of the possible” industry and line-of-business application scenarios. Before joining SAP, Padmini worked at Oracle, where she was part of the procurement product management team that delivered the first web-based, self-service applications for procurement. She also was a technical consultant in the areas of order management, inventory, distribution, procurement, and manufacturing.

Padmini is a passionate advocate for bringing technology to business users that simplifies and enriches their daily work and decision-making. And as the products and innovation lead for SAP Ariba’s procurement-with-purpose initiatives, she is dedicated to helping businesses balance their costs with conscience and make an impact on the larger world.

Padmini has a post-graduate diploma in computer science from UC Berkeley, California, and a bachelor’s degree in commerce with a major in cost and management accounting from Bangalore University, India.

Arun is the senior vice president of strategy and customer operations at SAP Fieldglass and has been with the team for eight years. In his role, Arun is responsible for ensuring customer success. The departments he oversees include strategic consulting, implementation, account services, support, shared services, and marketing.

Arun has more than 20 years of experience helping global corporations design and deploy enterprise software solutions. Prior to joining SAP Fieldglass, Arun held positions in general management, development, marketing, and product management while working at ClickCommerce, Elance, and Oracle.

He holds a master's degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Science and a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Madras, India.

As the global head of the SAP Fieldglass pre-sales and solutions organization, Sara Sullivan is focused on setting strategy, enablement, and solutioning as it relates to solving customer's business problems with services procurement and external workforce management.

She has 17 years of experience with SAP Fieldglass and has worked with clients across a variety of verticals, such as utilities, oil & gas, banking, finance, and high tech, as well as supporting clients in a number of regions, including the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, India, and Japan.

Sean Thompson is senior vice president of business network and ecosystem at SAP Ariba. In this role, Sean leads the company’s strategy for business network and payments, including Ariba Network; oversees the growth of SAP Ariba’s ecosystem; and leads the company’s partner and business development teams. Prior to joining SAP Ariba, Sean served as the chief revenue officer of SAP’s SMB cloud ERP business.

Before joining SAP, Sean was CEO and co-founder of Nuiku, a leading-edge, natural language processing and artificial intelligence company that brought voice-driven user interfaces to enterprise applications and home automation domains. Nuiku was sold to Nortek (NASDAQ: NRTK) in 2016.

Prior to heading up Nuiku, Sean spent 10 years at Microsoft, where he worked in a variety of roles including director of product management within the Server and Tools division and managing director of strategic partnerships (Accenture and SAP) in the Enterprise Group. He also served as a member of Microsoft’s senior leader bench program.

Previously, Sean worked at several technology startups, including drugstore.com, where he was part of the pre-IPO team and director of venture integration, and Nimble Technology, where he was vice president of sales and services.

Sean spent the first decade of his career at Deloitte Consulting, where he managed service line delivery in areas such as ERP (SAP), business intelligence, process reengineering, risk analysis (audit), and M&A advisory (tax). He was also a member of Deloitte’s Senior Management Advisory Committee.

Sean received his Master of Business Administration from Harvard University and his Bachelor of Business Administration with high honors from Gonzaga University. Sean is also a CPA in the State of Washington.

Etosha Thurman is the head of the SAP Ariba Global Business Network, focused on facilitating global buyer/supplier commerce while delivering market-leading value-drivers and an engaging, impactful experience to customers. She has been with SAP since 2010, spending more than six years in the SAP Ariba line of business in various customer-facing roles, driving internal and customer change management to adopt and excel in cloud software.

Etosha has been involved in SaaS companies since 2002 and has a passion for leveraging the cloud to deliver exceptional business results.

Chief Digital Officer Marcell Vollmer is responsible for defining and driving digital transformation for SAP Ariba customers globally. A thought leader in procurement, supply chain, finance, and shared services, Marcell’s expertise lies in defining digital transformation strategy. He makes Run Simple a reality for customers around the world by helping them achieve significant cost reductions in procurement.

Previously, Marcell was chief operating officer for SAP Ariba. In this role, he successfully developed and led global business development, procurement, go-to-market, sales operations, and enablement. Prior to that, he was chief procurement officer for SAP and was responsible for the reorganization and process optimization for an end-to-end, source-to-pay organization.

Since joining SAP in 2005, he has held various leadership roles involving restructuring, improving project efficiency, and execution of global programs in finance, procurement, sales, human resources, and post-merger integrations. 

Marcell has a PhD and Masters Degree in Economics from University of Hamburg. He is well known throughout the industry as a procurement and business thought leader. An author of books and a popular blog, he is frequently invited to speak at industry events.