Speakers

Pascal Daloz has been Chief Executive Officer of Dassault Systèmes since January 2024. He was the company’s Chief Operating Officer and Head of the Operations Executive Committee from 2020 to 2023, and Deputy CEO in 2023.

Having acquired an extensive experience in strategy and technology innovation management with investment banks and consultancy firms, Pascal Daloz joined Dassault Systèmes in 2001 as Vice President Research, Strategy and Market development. He became Vice President, Strategy and Business Development (2003), Executive Vice President, Strategy and Marketing (2007), then Executive Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Market Development (2010), and then Executive Vice President, Brands and Corporate Development (2014). In 2018, Daloz became head of corporate Finance and Strategy.

As Deputy CEO & Chief Operating Officer, his role was to orchestrate the transformation of all strategic functions, with the aim for Dassault Systèmes to become the world leader in three key sectors of the economy: Manufacturing Industries, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Infrastructure & Cities.

With the firm belief that disruptive technology and social evolution cannot be approached as distinct entities, Daloz has made a key contribution to Dassault Systèmes’ policy of pioneering new sectors, especially in life sciences and healthcare, resulting in the unique market coverage it has achieved today. With his ability to embrace future trends and bring together the most original talents, he takes a multidisciplinary approach to the company’s development, combining operational knowledge, technological expertise and an astute acquisition strategy.

Daloz has been a member of the Board of Directors of Dassault Systèmes since 2020. He serves as Chairman of MEDIDATA, world leader in clinical trials, and of 3DS OUTSCALE, the cloud services company founded by Dassault Systèmes. He represents the company to the Creative Industry initiative supported by the French government.

Pascal Daloz is an independent member of the Board of Directors of Sopra-Steria and STMicroelectronics, both companies being listed in Euronext. He holds the rank of Knight in the French Order of Merit.

As Executive Vice President and Managing Director, Americas for Dassault Systèmes, Erik Swedberg, is responsible for business operations in North and Latin America. Focused on moving the organization to a customer-first model and positioning the 3DEXPERIENCE platform for user success, Erik is constantly uncovering ways to help customers – from legacy giants like Boeing and Johnson & Johnson, to innovative industry upstarts like Tesla, and Joby Aviation – to create innovative experiences for their own customers.

Prior to this role, Erik served as Dassault Systèmes’ Managing Director for North America and Global Account Director for Boeing, where he led some of the company’s largest services programs and initiated the Boeing supply chain program. After nearly two decades with Dassault Systèmes, working in a variety of roles, Erik’s experience cuts across industries enabling him to offer opinion and insight on industries from Aerospace to High Tech, Industrial Equipment, Consumer Goods and Life Sciences.

Michelle Lee is an AI keynote speaker, technology and leadership expert, and the founder and CEO of Obsidian Strategies. As the former VP of Amazon’s Machine Learning Solutions Lab, Michelle advised Amazon’s biggest clients on how to implement AI, GenAI, and machine learning into their business. Now, as founder and CEO of Obsidian Strategies (“Architects for AI-Driven Strategies”), Michelle shows business leaders how AI is being applied to increase productivity, enhance customer experiences, and drive revenue across a wide range of industries. Michelle was also an executive at Google during their formative years and she brings unique perspectives based on her time in Silicon Valley.

Michelle has spent her career building and advising some of our country’s most innovative AI/data-driven companies (Amazon and Google), which gives her unique perspectives on the opportunities and applications of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning.

Michelle is a frequent speaker on AI, innovation, digital transformation, and board governance and has spoken at The World Knowledge Forum, South by Southwest, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Conference, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and the National Association of Corporate Directors.

Michelle has spent her career building and advising some of our country’s most innovative AI/data-driven companies (Amazon and Google), which gives her unique perspectives on the opportunities and applications of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning.

As the CEO and Founder of Obsidian Strategies (“Architects of AI-Driven Strategies”), she helps Fortune companies identify and implement their highest return-on-investment AI opportunities. Previously, she was a senior executive at Amazon and the Vice President of the Machine Learning Solutions Lab at Amazon Web Services (AWS).

At AWS, she led a global team of business consultants and data scientists who worked with clients from a broad range of industries to spot and implement their most fruitful AI/machine learning applications. She also played a key role in addressing policy, regulatory, and ethical risks associated with AI services and applications and was the founding business executive lead for AWS’s responsible AI efforts. Through both her industry and government experiences, Michelle has a unique understanding and ability to balance the opportunities and risks in AI, an area of active interest to regulatory and legislative bodies as well as society.

Michelle is an MIT AI Lab-trained computer scientist and has worked at the MIT AI and Hewlett-Packard Research Laboratories. She has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, NPR, and the MIT Sloan Management Review. For her expertise, she has testified before Congress about 10 times and received numerous awards for her leadership and professional accomplishments.

Before Amazon, Michelle served as the presidentially-appointed Under Secretary of Commerce and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, one of the largest intellectual property offices in the world, where she brought AI and data analytics to the agency to enhance operations. As the head of the 200-year-old U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, she led over 10,000 people to implement an agency-wide AI strategy, increasing the quality, speed, and consistency at which patents were issued.

Prior to public service, she spent her entire career in Silicon Valley, including eight years as an executive at Google during its formative years.

Siva Balasubramanian is Vice President of Manufacturing Engineering and Digital Operations for Spirit AeroSystems.

He is responsible for the Manufacturing Engineering and Digital Operations Teams across all domestic sites and taking the Spirit production system to the digital world including the strategic approach to Industrialization.

Prior to this role, Balasubramanian was the Director of Production Engineering with Triumph Aero Structures in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has also held numerous other leadership and management positions with Spirit, Triumph and Hawker Beechcraft companies in Production and Manufacturing Engineering as well as Quality.

During Balasubramanian’s prior to employment with Spirit, he has successfully led teams to improve the manufacturing processes of complete composite and metallic fuselage line, a wing assembly lines and composite and metallic fabrication sub-assemblies. During his stay at Spirit, he led the establishment of McAlester 3 & 4 Axis Center of Excellence and was instrumental in automating the nutplate assembly process in Tulsa, Balasubramanian brings a diversified manufacturing knowledge of automotive, agricultural farm machinery and aircraft with his manufacturing experience.

He holds a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering and a Master of Business Administration, focusing on Finance, both from Wichita State University. He also has several certifications: Certified Production and Inventory Manager (CPIM – APICS), Certified Supply Chain Professional (CSCP – APICS), Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB – ASQ), Certified Quality Engineer (CQE – ASQ).

He resides in Wichita, Kansas, with his wife and one daughter. He enjoys spending time with his family doing cooking and watching movies with them.

Chris Ritter is the division director of scientific computing & AI and director of the Digital Innovation Center of Excellence at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). His team of ~100 computational and data scientists are changing the world’s future with AI/ML, digital twinning, digital engineering, multi-physics, HPC, and digital thread technologies across a portfolio of nuclear energy, non-proliferation, semiconductor, and defense applications.

Chris founded INL's nationally leading digital engineering team which grew from 0 to over ~57 of the nation’s top researchers and developers in digital science. His team led the first nuclear reactor digital twin, built the Deep Lynx open digital thread platform, developed the first autonomous non-nuclear microreactor, and is actively building multiple petabyte-scale digital thread platforms. Additionally, he is co-president of Newcomers in Leadership and is the Chief Digital Officer of SMART USA. Prior to INL, Chris co-founded and led development of the #1 cloud-native MBSE tool, Innoslate, used in 107 counties across 2,000 companies around the world.

Lalitha Sivanesan joined Spirit AeroSystems, Inc. in September 2017 as a Senior Industrial Engineer (IE). She has held multiple lead IE roles in strategic, current and new programs.

In her first months with the company, she developed an improved method of establishing trades using takt-based calculation which is being benchmarked and used in all new programs. Lalitha was promoted to a Principal Architect within a year and a half and Chief Architect six months later. She established herself as an instrumental member of the Advanced Manufacturing Strategy organization and was responsible for the design of "Engineered Factory" principles that is being used to implement Future Factory projects. She was then promoted to Senior Manager in 2021. In October 2023, she developed the strategy for Operation Transformation, and in January 2024, she was awarded the title of Distinctive Capability Leader for Engineered Factory. She is one of six Distinctive Capability Leaders for Spirit AeroSystems.

Prior to joining Spirit, Lalitha served as Project Manager at Electromech Technologies, where she managed new product introduction from development to FAA qualification testing, to pilot build, to production handoff. Prior to this role, she was a Continuous Improvement Manager in AGCO and a Manufacturing Engineering Supervisor in Case New Holland where she was promoted to the World Class Manufacturing Site Leader within one year of employment. She managed, coached and was one of the key members that assisted in culture change for these organizations to move toward World Class.

Preceding her tenure at Electromech, she served in several positions such as: Project Manager at Thermadyne, Sr. Manufacturing Engineer at Victor Equipment, Sr. Industrial Engineer at Tweco Products, Robotics Industrial Engineer at Tweco Products and Paint Industrial Engineer at General Motors Fairfax. She has also served as an Adjunct Instructor at Friends University.

Lalitha earned her bachelor’s of science degree and a master’s of science degree in Industrial Engineering from Wichita State University, specialized in Lean Manufacturing and Quality Management. She was trained and became a trainer for Fiat World Class Manufacturing for the Case New Holland Site.

Lalitha was born and raised in Malaysia. She moved to the U.S. in 1996 to further her education. She and her husband, Nallu, have twin 11-year-old boys, Dharmik and Kaushik.

Graduate of Utah State University with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering.  Followed by, 20 years in product development with companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500. Now, 15 years into a transformational journey working with multiple companies to install & manage their PLM systems & strategies.  Currently Director of PLM at Vermeer.

Gilles Bacquet is a Senior Pre-Sales Manager at Capgemini Engineering, specializing in supply chain, quality, and manufacturing solutions. With over 20 years of experience, he has worked across the aeronautics, automotive, and energy sectors, driving supplier development, operational efficiency, and continuous improvement initiatives.

Gilles has led large, geographically dispersed teams and developed supply chain strategies for global clients. He has played a key role in shaping Capgemini’s supply chain offerings, driving innovation, and supporting industry leaders in enhancing operational efficiency and sustainability. Currently, he focuses on advancing Aeronautics & Defense supply chain, quality, and manufacturing solutions for North America.

Lindsay Bridenbaker is the Senior Director of Packaging R&D at PepsiCo, leading the digital transformation of packaging to drive sustainability and innovation. With over 13 years at PepsiCo, she has held key leadership roles in R&D strategy, global packaging, and product development.

Prior to PepsiCo, Lindsay worked with General Mills, Campbell’s, and Mondelez. She holds an MBA from the University of Connecticut and a BS in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University.

Passionate about innovation and STEM, she serves on the University of Connecticut’s Digital Frontiers Initiative Advisory Board and is a member of the Society of Women Engineers. An avid traveler, she has visited 46 U.S. states and 26 countries. She lives in Valhalla, NY, with her family.

Present - 2021 – Solution Architect, 3DExperience Administrator, and Design Engineer at White River Marine Group
- Solution Architect to various Directors and Plants
- Administrator of the 3DExperience Platform
- Design Engineer in between supporting our fine product brands.

Former Work Experience - 15 years with Dassault Systèmes
- Dassault Systèmes Services NAM - OCM Architect - 2019-2021
- Dassault Systèmes Services NAM - Knowledge Architect - 2012-2019
- Dassault Systèmes Services NAM - Education Architect - 2009-2012
- Dassault Systèmes Services NAM - Education Lead Consultant - 2006-2009

Skills
- DS 3DEXPERIENCE, CATIA, and ENOVIA Certifications
- Customer Contracts for Education and OCM Services
- PM on several customer projects

Boeing Aerospace - 9 Years
- Boeing Education Lead Wichita Plant - 2003-2005
- Boeing Education Trainer Wichita Plant - 2001-2002


Skills
-CATIA V4-V5, ENOVIA LCA Applications


Education
Friends University
Bachelor of Science , Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services Jan 1998 - Dec 2000Jan 1998 - Dec 2000

Oklahoma City Community College
Associate of Science - AS, Computer Engineering Technologies/Technicians Feb 1989 - Jun 1990

Zhihong Chen is the Reilly Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. Before joining the university, she was the Manager of Carbon Technology Group at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. At Purdue, Chen’s research focuses on the design and fabrication of novel materials, devices, and circuits for beyond-CMOS applications and novel computing schemes. Since 2023, Chen has been the Mary Jo and Robert L. Kirk Director of the Birck Nanotechnology Center. She served as the Technical Program Chair for the 2020 Device Research Conference and as its General Chair in 2021. She also served as the Program Chair and the General Chair for the International Interconnect Technology Conference since 2022. She is an IEEE Fellow for her contributions to the understanding and applications of low-dimensional nanomaterials.

Mike Crance is a Program Quality Engineering Manager at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics leading a Digital Transformation team focused on Product Lifecycle Management and Manufacturing Execution Systems. In his most recent assignment of his 14-year Lockheed Martin career, Mike led the quality-related scope of the Aero Apriso Pathfinder project in developing and deploying an integrated IT ecosystem that bidirectionally connects Apriso to 3DX to enable the future full as-built digital twin.

Clifton Davies joined Virgin Galactic in 2022 as the Director for Digital Transformation for Engineering after a long career at Lockheed Martin in aircraft conceptual design, tools and processes, and Lockheed Martin Fellow for conceptual design and Digital transformation including 3DX implementation. Clif is the 3DX Engineering Product Owner and worked across the VG team to transform VG business processes as well as integrate several key suppliers into 3DX as part of the Delta spaceship program.

Dr. Nerissa Draeger is Director of Open Innovation in the Office of the CTO at Lam Research. Her vision of innovation lives at the intersection of emerging technologies, strategy, and people. She drives internal innovation programs, guides external research collaborations, and builds academic partnerships to grow Lam’s technology pipeline. Dr. Draeger has managed pathfinding programs on advanced deposition and etch processes at Lam Research and Novellus Systems. She serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors for UIDP and recently served on the Board of Directors of the Materials Research Society. She earned her Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her B.S.E. from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

GV has over 25 years’ experience in Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Product Management and Digital Engineering. He currently leads Digital Engineering, Smart Manufacturing & IoT offerings for the Manufacturing vertical in North America. He has advised clients on improving their business processes enabled by digital transformation of the underlying business processes and technology solutions. He is focused on delivering business outcomes to clients enabling their Digital thread spanning Market Research, Design, Product Life Cycle Management, Manufacturing and After Market services through solutions and value proposition built including Infosys’ partner eco-system.

Atul Gupta leads Waymo's Structural and Subject Matter Experts team, ensuring the structural integrity, material behavior, and dimensional stability of autonomous vehicle sensors and integration structures. With over 24 years of experience in computational mechanics and material characterization, Atul brings expertise from diverse industries, including autonomous vehicles, medical devices, and human biomechanics. His background includes research at UC Berkeley focused on large-scale computational modeling and material models for bone structures, as well as contributions to industry collaborations on biomechanics, superelastic material fatigue, and ASME V&V standards for medical devices.

Glenn is the Vice President of Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing Innovation at Bell. He has held key leadership roles across engineering, aircraft programs, and Business Systems Modernization at Bell Helicopter. His past positions include Vice President of Xworx, Vice President of Business Optimization, and Executive Vice President of Customer Support and Services, giving him extensive experience in nearly every aspect of the company’s operations. Glenn joined Bell Helicopter in 1996 as a design engineer at the New Product Development Center. Since then he has served in a number of key engineering leadership positions, including wiring and installation, integrated product team lead on the H-1 Program and manager of Experimental Engineering at Xworx.

Glenn has a passion for both driving efficiency in both design and business operations. He has recently transitioned back to work in product development which has been his life's passion as Bell develops a suite of next generation products that will change the flight experience. His ability to view work from the customers perspective and see how business processes, systems and product designs tie together to provide a strategic advantage, serves him well in his new role.

Glenn holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University and a Master of Business Administration from The Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University, where he graduated as a Neeley Scholar. He is also a certified Textron Six Sigma Green Belt.

Dr. Neil Littell, PMP, CSMS, is an Associate Professor at Ohio University in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, where he researches digital transformations focusing on the engineering efforts of the enterprise. He has worked with Viking Range for over 16 years, and he has over 20 years of experience leading engineering projects. He is passionate about helping companies realize value through the strategic execution of digital transformation projects. He is also leading the newly established Digital Enterprise Collaboratory with locations in both Dayton and Athens Ohio.

Antonio Mazzoldi is an Engineering Director at Capgemini Engineering with 15 years of experience in aerospace engineering, specializing in product development, engineering services, and digital transformation. He has a strong background in model-based enterprise, digital engineering, and technological innovation.

Antonio has led engineering and agile transformation teams internationally, supporting the development of commercial, military, and unmanned aircraft, including vehicle design for eVTOL and UAS. He has also driven large-scale engineering transformation initiatives for leading aerospace manufacturers. Passionate about shaping technology vision, delivering complex projects, and building strategic partnerships, Antonio works across industry and academia to advance innovation in aerospace engineering.

Dr. Kristie S. McLin is Director of Subsurface Technology Development at ConocoPhillips. In this role, Dr. McLin manages the global portfolio of ConocoPhillips technology development to develop leading edge technologies in the disciplines of geoscience and reservoir engineering.

Dr. McLin has served in numerous roles within ConocoPhillips, including Manager, Fluid Characterization, Senior Advisor Supply Chain Sustainability, Water Management Project Lead for the Mid-Continent Business Unit, and Senior Geologist in Reservoir Quality Prediction. Prior to joining ConocoPhillips, Dr. McLin conducted geochemistry research related to exploration and production of geothermal systems at the Energy and Geoscience Institute at the University of Utah and consulted on these topics for industry. She has a BS in Geology and MS in Geochemistry from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and a PhD in Geology from University of Utah.

Enrique Michel currently serves as Senior Director Digital Transformation and Program Management in PepsiCo R&D. He is passionate about adding value through simple, human-centric solutions to enable the re-invention of R&D.

His teams are accountable for helping PepsiCo R&D become a ‘virtual-first’ organization and increase the speed of better innovation. He is proud to say that in digital him and his teams have had great success as well as failures, and haven’t stop progessing the digital agenda and culturethrough resiliency and teamwork.

Initiatives he leads impact product specification creation, portfolio management, and consumer and analytical operations for more than $80B portfolio of products. Despite the challenging nature of digitally transforming R&D, his teams have been awarded multiple times the R&D Excellence award for ‘Exceptional Teamwork’ as well as the ‘Leader’s Choice’ Award.

Prior to digital, Enrique spent 5yrs in strategy where he architected sustainability roadmaps as well as annual operating plans for the Foods and Compliance divisions of PepsiCo R&D. During his first 10 years at PepsiCo, he launched innovation that landed in more than 35 countries and led core product upgrades for multi-billion dollar brands achieving the highest company recognition at the scientific and business level for his contributions to product and process innovation. He was the Chair for Frito-Lay North America Hispanic employee resource group and holds 22 patents with 14 of them currently in use as a process or a product.

Enrique has a bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering from UPAEP (Mexico), a Master’s from Georgia Tech (where he is currently External Advisory Board for the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering), and a MBA with concentration in Finance and Strategy from SMU’s Cox School of Business.

As a Head of IT for Karma Automotive, Ashish is responsible for overseeing all Information Technology functions (IT - Business Systems, IT Infrastructure for HQ/KICC production hub, Compliance and Cybersecurity), vision, strategies, roadmap, tactics, personnel and budgeting.

• 20+ years experience working for Fortune 250 high tech company(s) in engineering and IT leadership roles, directing cross functional teams and multi-million dollar business systems and infrastructure in US & international 

• Executive experience serving as a member of M&A and Product Life-cycle committee for Fortune 250 company.

• Proven business experience focused on IT Product & Technology Development, Enterprise Data Strategy & Analytics, Engineering Operations, Evangelizing, Identifying Tools/Partners for timely & cost efficient ‘build or buy’ solutions enabling organizations competitive advantage & market leadership.

• Technical Leader in Cloud Based Data Engineering, Competitive Business Intelligence, SAP Cloud Platform, SAP ECC, Dassault 3DX, SmarTeam/Catia, SAP Hybris CPQ B2B, Sales Cloud, Oracle ERP, TeraData & large Database/Warehouse/Data-marts, Big Data, SAS Analytics, Salesforce CPQ/CRM, SQL,Reporting Services, Web SDLC, SOA, SaaS, User Experience(UX), Agile/Scrum, IT Hardware, Quality Assurance (QA), Wireless Products, iOS/Android Apps, Security, AWS, Azure, Google Analytics, SEO, Statistics, Excel, Project Management Tools & Cybersecurity.

INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP WITH A PASSION FOR BUILDING WORLD CLASS TEAMS

Dr. Lalitha Subramanian is a Science Fellow and Senior Director of Global Contract Research & Scientific Consulting Program. She leads a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers on strategic collaborations with industry customers to solve their business-critical challenges using 3D modeling & simulations and generative AI methods. For over 25 years, she has successfully delivered energy savings, helped remediate product and process failures and driven product innovation for her customers. She and her team have won innovation awards from her customers for the break-through scientific work that solved critical industry challenges and enabled better and more sustainable products and processes. Conventional and clean energy, battery and fuel cell chemistry, downstream and upstream catalyst optimization, CCUS, completion tool materials and their performance, etc., are few of the many topics she and her team have worked on recently. With a Ph. D. in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, India and postdoc at Cornell University, New York, USA with Prof. Roald Hoffmann (Nobel Laureate), Lalitha combines her knowledge from wet-lab and analytical characterization experiments with integrated computational materials engineering and generative AI. With several publications, book, book chapters, and patents, she has been invited to present at various international conferences, the most recent being Shell.ai conference in Oct 2023. 

Norihiko Taniguchi has been with ASICS for approximately 25 years, having joined the company as a new graduate. Throughout his career, he has been deeply involved in R&D, particularly leading innovation initiatives. His expertise lies in integrating cutting-edge technologies into footwear development, always staying ahead in information gathering and technological trends.

Leslie Turckes is an Associate Fellow at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics focusing on Digital Transformation and the integration of Manufacturing Execution Systems. A Lockheed Martin employee, for 15 years, in her most recent assignment Leslie has led the Aero Apriso Pathfinder development and deployment effort to deploy a production ready ecosystem tying the Apriso MES into the larger MOM and engineering value streams.

Vice President of Analytics