Speakers

Bernard CHARLÈS has been Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dassault Systèmes, since January 2024. He served as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer from 1995 to 2022, and was Chairman & CEO in 2023.

Charlès started his career in the company in 1983 to develop new design technologies. In 1986, he founded a dedicated New Technologies, Research and Strategy department, and in 1988 was appointed President of Strategy, Research and Development.

He has helped instill a culture of ongoing innovation to further consolidate Dassault Systèmes’ scientific capabilities and make science part of the company’s DNA. The inspiration behind digital mock-up, product lifecycle management and 3DEXPERIENCE®, he firmly believes that virtual technology is about making possible the impossible: 3DEXPERIENCE universes are the most powerful vehicle for testing concepts and creating the future, bringing dream and reality together, and stretching the limits of science and imagination to drive progress in society.

Charlès has positioned Dassault Systèmes as the preferred partner for sustainable innovation in three major sectors of the economy: Manufacturing Industries, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Infrastructure & Cities. The company, established in 1981 and world leader in virtual worlds, was recognized as one of Forbes’ "World’s Most Innovative Companies".

Bernard CHARLÈS is co-author with philosopher Pierre Musso of The Industry Renaissance, which discusses the power of virtual universes to sustainably transform industry.

He is a foreign member of the US National Academy of engineering and a member of the French Academy of Technology. He holds the rank of Commander in the “Légion d’honneur” (French Legion of Honor). He is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure engineering school in Cachan and has a PhD in mechanical engineering majoring in automation engineering and information science. He also holds an agrégation — the most senior teaching qualification achievable in France (specializing in mechanical engineering).

Florence VERZELEN is Dassault Systèmes’ Executive Vice President in charge of Industry, Marketing & Sustainability since 2018. Her role is to grow the portfolio of solutions and significantly increase the revenues of Dassault Systèmes in the 12 industries it serves, in order to achieve sustainable growth and rapid business development. To this end, she focus on creating “forward looking” industrial solutions that will help all industrial players to transform through digitalization. Florence has also created the sustainability function within Dassault Systèmes, with the vision that digital solutions can help transform the industries to help them become more sustainable. She is also leading Dassault Systèmes’ service organization, transforming its business model towards “outcome based” solutions.

Before this latest appointment, Florence was working at Engie, a world leader in the energy sector – holding different positions, as Business Development Vice President, Engie Qatar CEO, Performance Plan Vice President and finally Engie Europe COO.Florence has an extensive experience in both public and private sector, having held different positions in the European Commission and the French Administration.

She is also an experienced board member, with board position at PSA and currently at Air France; CNES, the French Space Agency and Institut Montaigne, the leading think tank in France. Florence is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique / Corps des Mines.

Deepak NG was appointed as Managing Director for Dassault Systèmes India in February 2020. He joined Dassault Systèmes in 2011 and carries more than 22 years of experience across different industries. He has driven key transformational projects in various industries including Automotive, Aerospace and Defense, High-tech, and Government. In his previous role at Dassault Systèmes, as Director of Global Affairs and Innovative Business Development, he was instrumental to establish new partnerships by engaging in smart city projects and by developing industry-based programs for the workforce of the future

Rucha NANAVATI is the Chief Digital Transformation Officer (CDTO) at Mahindra and Mahindra Limited Automotive and a director on board of Mahindra Lifespaces Developers Ltd. She is a global leader with experience in enabling business strategies through technology solutions. Rucha has led successful digital transformations in multiple industries including high-tech, retail and manufacturing. She is passionate about fostering innovations and cultivating an engineering culture. Rucha is known for developing and directing large global, cross-functional tech teams that deliver innovative, high-value, transformational initiatives.

Rucha’s previous experiences range from consulting roles at Zensar and PricewaterhouseCoopers to technology leadership roles at Albertsons Companies and Motorola across UK, US and India.

Rucha has been recognised for her transformation work through technology in multiple industries. Some of the awards she has received include Top Women in Grocery Award, CIO Powerlist Award, Excellence in Cloud Computing Award, Leading CIO of the Year Awards by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and many more. She has been listed in the top 100 women leaders in technology (globally) 2023 by Technology Magazine. She is appointed a member of the CIO Agenda Task Force, which is a joint initiative of CAII (CEO’s Association for Inclusive India) and SKOCH Group with a motto of ‘Digital Grows, Business Grows, India Grows’. She has assumed the roles of director and board member at INDUS (India SAP User Group), an independent user group comprising customers and partners within the SAP ecosystem in India. She has recently been recognised among the top 24 Women IT Mavericks by Dataquest.

A strong proponent of diversity and inclusion, Rucha is passionate about mentoring and helping women move forward in technology and at workplaces in general.

A passionate leader with rich and wide experience over 30 years across multiple functions in the automobile industry, such as Production, Projects, Planning, Vendor Development, Logistics, HR Function, HR Policy Formulation, and Vector Alignment of all stakeholders.

He is currently Chief Operating Officer (COO) in Ashok Leyland Limited, globally taking care of all manufacturing plants, foundry business, sourcing, supply chain, project planning, quality, logistics, fully built solutions, operations strategy & business excellence.
He is also Board Chairperson of Ashok Leyland UAE LLC, GTVS Bus Body Builders Ltd, and Vishwa Buses and Coaches Limited.

As an ardent lover of Industry 4.0, he has spearheaded digitalization initiatives and pioneered green operations.
Before joining Ashok Leyland, he was Wholetime Director on the board and in operations of Hyundai Motor India Ltd, where he guided Hyundai’s strategy and operations, and led the organization’s initiatives towards a successful future, enabling its global ranking to rise from 22 to top 3.

He was also Vice President of Maruti Suzuki India Limited, where he worked in various functions over two decades.
Mani is a Mechanical Engineer & MBA with double gold medals in Operations and Finance Management from Management Development Institute (MDI) and a Dean’s List Medallion from the ISB Global Executive Management Program (PGP-Max-22).

He has won multidisciplinary awards across industrial forums and academic institutions at a global level for outstanding contributions in many functions.
He is Chairman of the Technical Committee at Global Automotive Research Center (GARC), Co-Chairman of CII Southern Region Sub-committee on Global Partnerships & International Linkages, and has headed various panels in industry bodies (CII / ACMA).
He loves adventures.

Ekta has over 25 years of IT and Digital experience, servicing Airports, Airlines, OTAs and TTCs. Her experience spreads across multiple domains of Aviation technologies – from design to execution. Her key competency areas include Technology Vision and Strategy, Digital Transformation and Innovation.

Ekta currently leads the Digital Agenda for Adani Airport Holdings Limited (AAHL), as Chief Digital Officer. Her key mandate is to create a digital-first organization servicing multiple stakeholders for AAHL at Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Guwahati, Jaipur, Thiruvananthapuram, Mangaluru, and the upcoming airport at Navi Mumbai.

Prior to joining Adani AAHL, Ekta was associated with GMR Group as Chief Digital Officer, WAISL – responsible for digital transformation and deployment of DigiYatra at GMR Airports. She spent over two decades with Coforge, in her role as CTO for the incubation of emerging technology solutions for the Aviation industry.

Abhay TARNEKAR is a seasoned professional with over two decades of experience at Tata Motors, where he plays a pivotal role in driving digital product development. With a strong technical background, he holds an M.Tech degree from IIT Kanpur, one of India’s premier institutes for engineering and technology.

Throughout his career at Tata Motors, Mr. Tarnekar has been at the forefront of innovation in the automotive industry, focusing on integrating advanced digital solutions to enhance product performance, safety, and customer experience.

Beyond his professional accomplishments, Abhay is passionate about photography, particularly in capturing the beauty of birds and wildlife. His love for nature and attention to detail is reflected in his work, where he seeks to bring out the most intricate aspects of his subjects through his lens.

With a balance of technical expertise and creative pursuits, Mr. Tarnekar continues to contribute to both the automotive industry and the art of wildlife photography.

Shailendra SHARMA is a distinguished Digital Transformation leader with over 15 years of experience. An alumnus of NITIE (IIM Mumbai), Shailendra has been pivotal in driving business growth by developing and implementing advanced decision-making and collaboration technologies across Supply Chain, Sales, Marketing, and Manufacturing domains.

Shailendra has successfully engineered world-class Industry 4.0 solutions for Asian Paints' mega factories, transforming them from ideation to realization. These advancements have been seamlessly integrated with one of the largest direct distribution networks, servicing over 130,000 dealers daily, supported by a robust B2B Commerce backend. He has been involved in various CRM and Loyalty initiatives, including the development of custom lead management systems and the enhancement of existing processes and assets. This include the successful launch of the inhouse Décor Platform, an integrated seamless platform that enables the Beautiful Homes journey for consumers under the brand Beautiful Homes with almost 70+ full home décor retailing offline stores powered by immersive instore tech experience and the platform to execute end to end Interior Design service Beautiful Homes Service.

Shailendra firmly believes that democratization and open platforms with advancement in AI will drive exponential growth. He advocates that organizations leveraging their data and analytics early on will have a key differentiating growth vector in the industry over the next few years. With an ambition to foster human-centric innovation, Shailendra is focused on contributing to digitalization and focused on creating more moments of joys for the consumer making their dream home.

Currently working as Chief Technology Officer, Indian Register of Shipping- Mumbai, Super heading Digitalization and new technology initiatives for digital Transformation at Indian Register of Shipping
32 Years of Experience with Tata Motors & Tata Technologies for providing engineering services (Design to Manufacturing) using digital technologies & Industry 4.0 solutions for more than 100 customers in APAC, Europe & USA
Graduated from National Institute of Technology-NIT Patna in B. Tech (Mechanical Engg) stream having distinction & Topper in department. He has been best sportsperson and allrounder student of NIT.
Did his master’s degree in data science and engineering from BITS Pilani.
Also pursuing his PhD at Amrita University
30 years of working experience with Tata Technologies and Tata Motors in the space of Digital Product Development system and working in engineering research and design and manufacturing End to End Manufacturing (Digital to Physical)
Industry leader and veteran who has worked for more than 150 customers worldwide – US, Europe and APAC
Worked on almost digital engineering technology and Industry4.0 in providing services to customer
Worked for the Industries - Automotive, Aerospace, Industrial Heavy Machinery, Process Industry – Steel, Port, Air Cargo, FMCG, Media & Entertainment
Strong Domain for End to End - Product Design & Development, Product
Great sports leading personality since childhood and continues to plays games and sports and motivates people to adopt. Drives and led many social responsibility initiatives voluntarily.

Winner of Best Manager Award, Winner of Customer Whispers Award, best customer service, Winner excellence Award Captive -Innovative Sales Deal Year, Led the Truck for winning Truck Racing for Tata Technologies/Tata Motors

29 years expertise in Product Development & End to End Virtual Product / Experience Innovation.

Since December 2019, CEO of CATIA at DASSAULT SYSTEMES.
He started his career at Dassault Systèmes (3DS) in 1995 in CATIA’s Shape Design Industrialization Team. He then joined 3DS international Automotive Competency Center working with renowned customers like HONDA, FIAT, BMW, CHRYSLER and PSA to help them transform their design practices in the area of car body and styling. Through these experiences, he acquired deep knowledge of the automotive sector and customers’ business processes.

In 2011, he was appointed Vice President of the new defined Transportation & Mobility industry, which helps manufacturers and suppliers to develop new mobility experiences for their consumers.
As CATIA CEO, he is looking forward to empower the Community of Design Innovators to Engineer & Experience the best System of System from Concept to Experience Driven Engineering.

Ravikiran Pothukuchi leads Dassault Systèmes’ Manufacturing & logistics, and Data science business in India. His role is to define the business strategy to expand Dassault Systèmes’ solution footprint in
India’s rapidly growing manufacturing & logistics sectors.

Ravikiran started his career with Dassault Systèmes in 2004 and donned various roles within its R&D organization before moving into a business development role in 2011. In 2017, he took the countrywide
responsibility to grow the market share in its core industry verticals. Having delivered a YoY double-digit growth for the last 4 years, he is entrusted with the responsibility to tap the growth potential of India’s
manufacturing & logistics sectors.

A graduate of premier academic institutions IIT-Madras, and IIM-Bangalore, he is also a DAAD scholar and a member of several industry bodies such as SAE and IFCCI.

Cdr Thomas Philip (Retd) is a mechanical engineer with specialisation in the field of Design Engineering from IIT Delhi and operations management from IIM Kozhikode. His professional experience of 25 years started as a commissioned officer with the Indian Navy with the engineering branch. His service with the Navy involved leadership roles in Ship Design, operations, building and repairs. In addition to his years spent at sea service on board Indian naval ships and the naval dockyards, he was also involved in prestigious projects such as the nuclear submarine and Indigenous Aircraft carrier projects for design and build phases.

In the corporate industry, prior to joining Dassault Systemes, he has worked with Mahindra & Mahindra group, KITCO and KPMG in new business building and strategy consulting advisory roles for manufacturing and logistics sector. He has been instrumental in numerous consultancy projects for evolving growth strategies for Public and Private Organisation. At present, with Dassault Systèmes, he drives the logistics industry solutions for India.He is passionate about process reengineering the digital transformation way for operational excellence for the clients that he serves in the industry.

Saiprasad Poyarekar is founder and CEO at Pacify Medical Technologies Pvt. Ltd, an award-winning medical device innovation start-up. Pacify Medical empowers plastic surgeons through innovative technology of spraying skin thereby advancing the standard of care for large wounds that would significantly reduce the surgery time and skin requirements, resulting in rapid healing and shorter hospitalizations.

As CEO at Pacify Medical, Saiprasad drives the strategic thinking for the company while being involved with the close-knit Pacify Medical team in reviewing every aspect of the device development. At Pacify Medical, he aims to create a future where people who need life-changing technology won’t feel the heavy stress of their situation.

Saiprasad is an alumnus of IIIT-DM Kancheepuram, IDEA2 MIT, USA and Leaders in Innovation Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering, London. He is a Product Designer by training and before starting Pacify Medical, he has worked with BETiC Lab, Awakey Tech and other technology companies as product designer and researcher developing new product from concept to manufacturing stage. Some of his design product are sold in 90+ countries and also World’s first in the category. He has a Master of Design degree from IIITDM, Kancheepuram.

He is recognized by young innovator award in medical device and he is also a Mentor of Change appointed by AIM, NITI Aayog.

Techno-commercial professional with 8 years of industry experience and 2 years of research experience. Trained biotechnologist with expertise in B2B and international sales.

Previous companies: Anthem Biosciences – Bangalore, Syngene International – Bangalore, CP Group - Thailand

Education: M.Tech by Research (Biotechnology) from VIT University (2015-17), B.Tech Biotechnology from K.S. Rangasamy College of Technology (2010-14)

Deep passionate tissue engineering specialist devoted to develop innovative solutions in the field of regenerative medicine to make a positive impact on people's lives. A decade close experience in tissue engineering and cell biology, developed a deep understanding of the intricacies involved in creating functional tissues and organs for various applications. Having 8 years of experience in the tissue engineering field.

Previous companies: De-novo labs – Bangalore, NBIL – Bangalore

Education: M.Tech Biotechnology from VIT University (2014-16), B.Tech Biotechnology from K.S. Rangasamy College of Technology (2010-14)