Meet the Speakers

Emma Flett is a partner in Kirkland’s Technology & IP Transactions Practice Group and heads the London team. Emma's practice is focused on complex IP and technology-related transactions, carve-outs and business separations and EU data protection. Emma regularly counsels clients on the emerging legal risks surrounding the use of AI.

Max Harris
Partner, Technology & IP Transactions, Kirkland & Ellis

Max Harris is a partner in the London office of Kirkland’s Technology & IP Transactions Practice Group. Max supports clients on the IP, technology and data elements of corporate transactions, and regularly counsels on legal risks and considerations in the development and use of AI systems.

Ben Zeris
Associate, Technology & IP Transactions, Kirkland & Ellis

Ben Zeris is an associate in the London office of Kirkland’s Technology & IP Transactions Practice Group. Ben’s practice focuses on advising clients on a variety of complex commercial and corporate transactions in which technology, IP and data play a major role.

James Lee
Principal & Global Supplier Governance Practice Lead, Avasant

Jim Lee is a solutions-oriented leader and accomplished problem-solver specializing in supplier governance and risk, service integration and management, digital transformation, and business and technology architecture. An experienced IT executive and former CIO, he possesses a diverse background of management consulting and hands-on IT architecture, management, applications, and service delivery experience with Fortune 100 US and global clients. Jim has led large sourcing transition programs, vendor governance engagements, and org transformations to enable clients to achieve their business & technology transformation goals. He is a graduate of the University of Phoenix and member of the IAOP Collaborative Supplier Governance CoE.

Mike Wheeler
Partner & Global Supply Chain Practice Lead, Avasant

Mike Wheeler values driving tangible and sustainable results that influence improved operation capabilities and enhanced performance and has over forty years of professional experience, including significant time spent in executive management consulting roles for the energy, construction, and telecommunication industries. He has significant global experience in procurement, contract management, material management, travel and corporate card services, and logistics. Mike holds a BA in Business and Computer Science from Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Yele Adelukan
Associate Professor of Information Systems, DePaul University, CDM & Executive Director, iD Lab DePaul Innovation Development Lab

Olayele Adelakun is an Associate professor of MIS at DePaul University Chicago, Illinois, College of Computing and Digital Media (CDM). His research focuses on IT Outsourcing, ERP systems implementation, and Information Systems Quality, IT Evaluation and Emotional Intelligence among IT Leaders. He has conducted studies in both medium size companies and large multinational companies in Europe, Africa and the United States. He has chair several academic and industry focus conferences. He started the study abroad program in the school CDM in 1994. He has also lead several executives’ presentations. He has published over eighty articles in conferences, books and journals. He holds an M.S. in Information Processing Science from University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland and Ph.D. in Information Systems from the Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, Turku, Finland.

Marv Richardson
Co-Founder & Chairman, Driving Forward

Marv Richardson is an investor and advisor in the healthcare technology sector. He brings distinctive value to his portfolio firms based on his extensive experience as a Fortune 500 technology & operations executive and as a successful entrepreneur, growing companies from first dollar to $100 million in revenue. As a customer and as a provider. Marv has been a key negotiator and accountable leader for billions of dollars in business-to-business services. His current portfolio in the B2B healthcare sector focuses on the leading edge of provider & product data management, healthcare payments, and claims processing.

As a passionate advocate for education and mentorship, Marv Richardson co-founded and is board chair at the Driving Forward Institute. Driving Forward is a nonprofit corporation that prepares first generation and underrepresented college students for meaningful careers via mentorship, professional development, and intern opportunities.

Marv is a first-generation college student with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from the University of Manitoba, Canada, distinguished with the Governor General’s Gold Medal for highest standing. He has been a featured speaker at Reuter’s Digital Health Conference, HIMSS, CIO Summit, and is a CIO 100 and CTO of the Year award winner.

Dan Lang
Practitioner with Sutherland Labs, and Chief Advisor to IAOP in the Center for Social Impact

As a founding member of Sutherland's executive team, Lang has experienced every aspect of building a business, from an idea and a handful of people to a multinational provider serving some of the most well-known and trusted brands in the world.  In his 35-year career, Dan has led US Service delivery, overseen Global Business Development, been President, Chief Marketing Officer, and held a series of individual contributor roles working on breakthrough missions.  Over the past two decades, he has also led cross-industry social impact investments and sustainable development initiatives that extend beyond the walls of his company.  Initiatives that have been recognized by Microsoft Community Affairs, Rockefeller Foundation, IAOP and the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition for groundbreaking contribution.  He is one of the few private sectors people who has addressed the member countries of the United Nations on the power of companies to change lives and upgrade communities where they operate.  He is known as persistent, and a pioneer with a record of putting people and purpose together to achieve greater ethical and commercial outcomes.  Lang is hardly a typical corporate personality.  He is authentic, a lateral thinker, quite opinionated, and sometimes entertaining. 

Alistair Niederer
CEO, Needlerock

Alistair is a seasoned global executive with over 30 years of experience at the C-level and on various boards. He's worked with leading companies in customer experience, business process outsourcing, CX technology, and business services. From launching a tech startup in Asia to overseeing 10,000 employees at the world's largest CX outsourcer, he's built successful ventures across EMEA and APAC. Now, he's leveraging this wealth of experience to support global businesses. Additionally, Alistair provides guidance on sustainability and ESG practices from a practical, business-focused standpoint.

Christiane Laframboise
VP, Sutherland

Christiane is responsible for Sutherland’s Customer Experience program with the goal of achieving 100% positive references from our clients. When she first joined Sutherland, Christiane worked in London, UK, handling e-retail customer care and premium support programs of leading European brands delivered from our offshore and near shore locations. Prior to Sutherland, Christiane worked for Bell Canada, where she handled the sourcing, contract negotiation and implementation of its contact center programs. Before Bell, Christiane worked at Convergys/Concentrix in Paris where she was first responsible for leading the EMEA sales and bid management team and then as Account Director for EMEA Inside Sales operations for leading high-tech logos. As Client Services Director for TeleTech, in the USA, Christiane supported Fortune 500 clients in setting up and managing their customer care operations. Christiane is based in Canada, and when off work she enjoys travelling, skiing and cycling with her family and friends.

Michael Nacarato, COP
Head of Third Party Risk Management,Transamerica
 

Over the last 25 years Michael has held executive leadership roles designing, developing, and implementing outsourcing, offshoring and third party risk management programs for some of the top US and multi-national financial services companies.  In his various roles he has established multiple offshore captive and vendor operations in India, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and the Philippines.  Michael is IAOP COP certified and currently sits on the IAOP’s Strategic Advisory Board.  He is a past IAOP Member of the year, Deputy Global Ambassador, and Buy Side Ambassador.  Michael is committed to maintaining high industry standards and has supporting multiple resources obtaining their IAOP COP certifications.  And most recently he participated as a judge for the 2023 IAOP Global Top 100 Awards.

Troy Riley
Sr. Director, Vendor Risk Management, Fannie Mae

As the Sr. Director, Vendor Risk Management, Troy reports to the VP Supplier and Vendor Risk Management and manages a team of Vendor Management professionals who provide governance, oversight, and vendor management of CIO / Operations technology based critical third parties, ensuring contract, financial, and service performance expectations are delivered per our contractual agreements. Troy also oversees the Third Party Security Management function responsible for assessing the information security posture of prospective and current supplier / vendors to Fannie Mae and Seller / Servicers that work with Fannie Mae.

Before joining Fannie Mae in 2013, Troy held numerous leadership positions including Director and Account Executive roles for several large technology firms overseeing the management of data centers, cloud infrastructure, agile applications development, and production support for EDS, HP, and SAIC with customers that included The World Bank and IFC, DOD and DHS, as well as FINRA (formally NASD/R) and AMEX. His 30+ years of experience in the management of technology and people spans across healthcare, financial services, and the public sectors with both onshore and offshore capabilities.

Cristina Messerschmidt
Associate, North America Privacy & Technology Practice, Baker McKenzie

Cristina G. Messerschmidt is an associate in the Privacy and Security practice group based in Chicago, advising global organizations on privacy and data security compliance requirements, as well as data security incident response.

Cristina focuses her practice on domestic and global privacy and data security. She provides advice to a wide range of clients in the healthcare space, including pharmaceutical and medical device companies, healthcare providers, financial institutions, sourcing providers, retail companies, online businesses, and other organizations on issues relating to healthcare privacy, domestic and global privacy, cross-border data transfers, behavioral advertising, and the preparation and implementation of broad-based privacy compliance. Cristina is well-versed in HIPAA and related issues, as well as GDPR and CCPA readiness, CPRA, CAN-SPAM, other US privacy and state medical privacy laws.

Cristina also regularly counsels clients on complex domestic and global data security events, including investigations of potential compromise, determining notification obligations to federal and state and global breach notification requirements, as well as response to related inquiries from government agencies and other parties. Cristina had advised companies on a wide range of data security incidents, including ransomware, HIPAA breaches, insider threats, phishing attacks, and access controls.

Chris Zlocki
Head of Client Experience, Executive Vice President, Global Occupier Services, Colliers

Chris is responsible for leading innovation, generating increased value to our clients and internal service lines. He is focused on developing new service offerings for Colliers to leverage with our clients and improving service delivery across all areas of Corporate Solutions. This includes the evaluation of strategic alliances with other 3rd party providers. Chris also oversees Consulting Services and Colliers360. Over the course of his 20 years in consulting, Chris has established a reputation of scale in development, planning and strategy for corporate and institutional clients. His range of experience encompasses the financial services, real estate development and industrial sectors. Throughout the years, Chris has developed expertise in business analytics, portfolio strategy, footprint optimization, operational consolidation, capital expenditure management and financial forecasting.

Pam Sands
Associate, North America Privacy & Technology Practice

As Vice President within the Diversity Office at Kelly, a global workforce solutions provider, Pam Sands leads defining, implementing, and managing relationships strategic partners. Pam also spearheads initiatives for enterprise inclusion through the Kelly Affinity Group network. She also responsible for reducing barriers to work and connecting underleveraged talent with meaningful work opportunities. She is passionate about social impact and advancing diversity, equity and inclusion at Kelly and with clients, and she builds partnerships across the industry’s supply chain in support of that goal.

Mark Voytek, COP
Chief Advisor of Thought Leadership, IAOP and Founder and Managing Partner, Voytechnology Partners

Mark has over 25 years of experience as a transformational business executive helping Global 1000 organizations drive business and technology transformations across several industries, including CPG, health care & life sciences, technology & software, services, manufacturing, energy and utilities, financial services, and retail. Prior to his current role at SirionLabs, Mark held leadership roles at EY and KPMG advising clients across all aspects of enterprise transformation related to Information Technology, Supply Chain & Operations, Quality, Finance & Accounting, Enterprise Resource Planning, Procurement, and other functions.

Mark is a frequent guest-lecturer for top MBA programs such as Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, Vanderbilt’s Owen School, Ohio State’s Fischer College of Business, and UNC Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler, where he shares his expertise and industry insights with young professionals across the U.S.

Peter George
Partner, Baker McKenzie

Peter George practices international commercial law and regularly advises clients, both on the buyer and provider side, on domestic and multi-jurisdictional sourcing transactions, complex business process transactions involving human resources, finance and accounting and other web enabled services. Peter is a recognized leader in the areas of electronic contracting, social media, contracting for cloud services, robotic process automation, Internet of Things and other disruptive technologies. He regularly advises clients on the issues these technologies raise, both domestically and from a global perspective. Peter also helps clients manage the complex technology and data rights issues that these technologies raise.

Peter advises clients in the areas of cross-border and domestic sourcing transactions, data and technology transfers and licensing transactions. He also assists clients with the general management of their intellectual property assets.

Kevni Parikh
Chariman & CEO, Avasant

Kevin S. Parikh is the CEO and Chairman of the Avasant Group of companies and the Avasant Foundation, with operations in over 50 countries across the Americas, UK, EMEA and Asia. He is a modern visionary, best-selling author, and regularly speaks on topics of Globalization, Digitalization and Innovation.

Kevin founded Avasant, a leading management consulting firm, with the underlying mission of empowering people, businesses, communities, and countries to reach beyond the status quo and realize their potential to acquire new levels of success. An avid philanthropist, Kevin is dedicated to initiatives that support disadvantaged youth, women empowerment and sustainable development. Social entrepreneurship has been a key tenant and continuing theme throughout his career.

Having published numerous white papers and articles, and two books, he is widely acknowledged as a global thought leader, futurist, and expert on digital business strategies, technological solutions, and business transformation. His books New Horizons of Business Process Outsourcing in Africa, Latin America & Caribbean, and Digital Singularity: A Case for Humanity have been written to further empower business professionals to navigate global landscapes in ever-changing digital marketplaces.
 

Mr. Parikh specializes in IT and business process (BP) outsourcing contract and service-level negotiations, strategic management, business risk evaluation and software licensing. His practice engages in both nearshore and offshore sourcing solutions. As an attorney by training, he specializes in negotiating large and complex transactions where he works toward bridging the gaps between legal counsel and business team objectives.

Ves Kjenstad
Executive Advisor, Kjelp Tech Consultancy

With more than a decade in senior leadership roles, Ves has established herself as a skilled and accomplished executive. As member of the IT leadership team at Bristol Myers Squibb, she was instrumental in enabling IT delivery through cross-IT capabilities, including IT Business Management, IT Service Management, IT Finance Management, IT Quality Management, and IT Supplier Governance. She has extensive Supplier Provider governance and relationship management oversight of key IT suppliers representing >$1B in annual spend commitment.

Reflecting an IT delivery model with a high dependency on 3rd parties, Ves drove a strategy to integrate IT Service Management practices with Supplier Governance and Quality Management disciplines. This resulted in her organization's ability to negotiate major outsourcing agreements, oversee offshore and onshore service delivery, and build end-to-end cross-supplier interdependent processes that incentivize effective partner collaboration. Under her leadership, IT leveraged process design building on the ServiceNow platform creating a seamless delivery across internal and external teams. This is supported by the organization's Quality Management System, which ensures compliance with IT controls, including Computer System Validation & Sarbanes Oxley. Additionally, the centralized platform streamlined several governance processes, including financials, service level reporting and change management. Realizing the importance of collaboration, she sponsored and co-developed a training program (TEAMWORK - Together Everyone Achieves More) with key providers recognizing the dynamic tension between internal and external teams.

The company’s digital transformation and integration activities from major acquisitions relied heavily on third parties. Ves' centralized Program and Project Management framework and CoE were critical in driving IT’s ability to deliver these programs. She has implemented tools and standard practices that ensured strong financial planning, estimation, and oversight. This ensured both a control component as well as visibility to 3rd party spend.

After leaving Bristol Myer Squibb, she formed her own consultancy to provide advice to others, including not-for-profit organizations.

Ves’ career spans international experience in the US, UK, Norway, Nigeria, Austria. She holds a masters degree in Social Sciences from the University of Bergen, Norway.

Amita Goyal
Partner and Head of Global Centers of Excellence (GCoE) practice, Zinnov Consulting

Amita Goyal, Partner, and Head of Global Capability Centers business practice at Zinnov, specializes in global engineering and business strategy for Fortune 500 firms. With expertise in software, retail, healthcare, and automotive sectors, she drives transformative globalization initiatives, leveraging her extensive experience in R&D and strategic implementation.

Vinny Sanchez
Partner, DLA Piper

Vinny Sanchez is the Global Co-chair of DLA Piper's Technology Transactions and Strategic Sourcing practice and is highly recognized as a leading technology and outsourcing lawyer by The Legal 500 US and Chambers.

Vinny advises clients in complex technology, strategic sourcing/outsourcing and commercial transactions, including post-contract matters that arise during the normal course of these relationships such as implementation/transition challenges, governance, audits and disputes. A significant part of his practice also includes representing clients in digital transformation programs and supply chain management, including Nth party risk, business continuity and data and cyber risks. He also advises clients in technology acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures; strategic alliances and collaborations; and the commercialization of technology and data assets.

Juan Coronado
Managing Director, Deloitte Consulting

Juan is a managing director in Deloitte’s Tech Strategy & Business Transformation practice where he partners with Technology executives to envision and craft business-led tech strategies, modernize and transform the IT Operating Model into state-of-the-art Operating & Service Delivery Models. Juan is recognized as one of the most influential executives in the outsourcing industry. Drawing from his deep experience in IT outsourcing, business process outsourcing, shared services, location strategy, third party ecosystems, and AI-enabled workforce, Juan helps C-suite and Tech executives unlock value from existing or new service delivery and outsourcing plays.

Peter Mueller
VP of Partnerships, America, Scalehub

Peter has been an IAOP member for 7 years and oversees the Americas sales organization for ScaleHub. His17 years in the tech industry have focused on business process transformation, in particular in the document processing and management space working alongside BPO partners and enterprises alike. 

Krinsesh Amin
Managing Director, Synechron

As a Global Business & Technology Executive Leader, Krinesh is proud to lead a dynamic team focused on accelerating digital transformations for Synechron's Tier 1 banking and financial services clients. In this capacity, he is tasked with driving business growth, guaranteeing customer success, and generating substantial value for our clients.

Prior to joining Synechron, he devoted 15 years to UBS, fulfilling a range of roles in Infrastructure Services and Application Development. His tenure culminated in the role of Head of India for the Technology Operations Centre and specializing it outsourcing.

Samar ElShafie
Head of Commercial & Client Relations, Octopus Outsourcing

Samar is a seasoned leader with a passion for strategic growth, with 11 years’ experience in CX/BPO, spent in developing and executing innovative, results driven business strategies. She has a strong foundation in Operations, Business development and transformation, with a proven track record of success in both corporate and startup environments.

Samar’s unique blend of strategic planning expertise, market analysis skills, and entrepreneurial spirit coupled with hands on experience, enables her to connect with diverse stakeholders, drive results-oriented solutions, and foster a culture of innovation and excellence.

She started her career in Operations with Teleperformance Egypt, leading high scale projects across four delivery locations, her diverse experience in Operations leading projects serving various clients’ markets (North America, Europe, GCC, MEA), across different sectors and through human & digital assisted channels. Throughout her journey in Teleperformance she has used her COPC knowledge and SIX Sigma tools to establish a data-driven operations with regular product and process enhancement projects for clients.

In her current role as head of commercial at octopus outsourcing, Samar is leveraging her industry expertise coupled with in-depth business knowledge and practice from her MBA in strategic planning to build and execute growth strategies for Octopus Outsourcing, targeting global expansion.

Eric Feil
Senior Vice President, Marketing, ECLARO

Eric oversees the wide range of ECLARO’s marketing efforts and initiatives worldwide, driving the vision of growing ECLARO’s brand, reputation, client base and global business while innovating and evolving to always help clients and job candidates excel.  He brings more than three decades of experience in brand-building, content creation, audience acquisition and engagement, and, well, storytelling. But more on that in a minute.

Before joining ECLARO in early 2022, Eric was Director of New Business Development for Richner Communications Inc, where he oversaw the creation of cross-platform, content-driven brands and new products—comprising digital, print, social, email marketing, podcasts and webinars, plus virtual and live events—from ideation to creation and delivery to market.

In the decade prior, Eric served in myriad capacities—from Digital Director and Editorial Director to CEO and President—at Dan’s Hamptons Media. In addition to overseeing day-to-day operations and creating strategies and implementation plans for sales, marketing and content teams to align their goals and efforts with overall corporate goals, he helped spearhead the evolution of the famed Dan’s Papers from a legacy print publication into the largest media company on Long Island’s fabled East End.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Eric began his career at the national entertainment-publishing company TVSM, launching the first-ever TV-listings-based online property (TotalTV.com) before moving on to TV Guide Magazine Group, ESPN’s Cold Pizza morning show as live on-air talent, and launching multiplatform products with organizations and brands such as HBO, Lowe’s, NASCAR, DIRECTV and others while working with companies ranging from Hachette Filipacchi Media to the integrated marketing division at Meredith Corporation.

James Donovan
CEO, ADEC Innovations, and Chairman, Global CEO Alliance

James is an entrepreneur focused on impact investing that generates measurable social and environmental impact alongside financial return. With over 25 years of investment banking and entrepreneurial expertise, James has invested in the areas of sustainability, healthcare, education, technology and data management. James redefines and delivers innovative Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) solutions to fortune 1000 corporations. Integrating Big Data expertise into ESG solutions, his companies have developed some of the most advanced applications that promote ethical and sustainable practices in the corporate world.

Dennis Williams
Partner, Healthcare & Life Sciences Regulatory, Kirkland & Ellis

Dennis Williams is a corporate healthcare partner in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Dennis’ focus is on healthcare entities and related companies. He is regularly engaged in structural, transactional, regulatory and enforcement matters on behalf of private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies.

Micah Desaire
Associate, Healthcare & Life Sciences Regulatory, Kirkland & Ellis

Micah J. Desaire is a corporate healthcare associate in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He regularly represents private equity funds, private and public companies and health systems in complex transactional, healthcare regulatory and data security and privacy matters

Audrey Cushing, COP
Senior Director, Business Operations and Quality Officer, Vee HealthTek

Audrey Cushing is COP-GOV and a Vested Certified Deal Architect.  She has extensive experience designing, implementing and managing high value, complex outsourcing projects for fortune 500 companies.  She hold master’s degrees in the counseling and organizational psychology from the University of Hartford.  She is a board certified executive coach and currently works at Vee HealthTek as the Senior Director of Business Services and Quality.   Audrey is passionate about outsourcing and working with individuals to achieve their personal goals.