Lifen Tang, Director, Investments Legal, OMERS Asia 

Event Chairperson

Lifen is Director of Legal for the OMERS Capital Markets business in Asia. She handles legal affairs of OMERS Capital Markets Asia.

Prior to her current role, Lifen was General Counsel at a private credit investment firm. She was a lawyer for over a decade at Allen & Overy and Ashurst in London and Singapore, focusing on complex cross-border financings and restructurings.  She completed client secondments to Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered Bank in London and Singapore. Earlier in her career, she was a Business Analyst at McKinsey & Company. 

Lifen has a BA and MA in Law from Jesus College, University of Cambridge. She is admitted as a lawyer in England and Wales and Singapore. She is fluent in English, Mandarin, French and Cantonese. 

Ben Rusch, VP Review Solutions, Europe & Asia, Consilio 

Ben Rusch is a Vice President at Consilio, where he is responsible for all Consilio document review projects in Europe and Asia, and the compliance of his departments with the ISO/IEC 27001 standards for Information Security and Information Security Management Systems. Ben has spoken extensively on Information Security considerations during remote working arrangements.

Ben studied law at Oxford University and qualified as a Solicitor with Herbert Smith (London).  He has also worked as an Associate in the EU & Competition department of Ashurst in Brussels.
Ben has extensive experience in EU merger control and advised clients in the UK, Belgium, Taiwan, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Russia, South Africa, Greece, and Brazil on complex mergers across a wide range of industries. He helped develop competition law compliance programs for some of the largest companies in Europe and advised non-EU law firms on EU leniency procedures. 

Ben Bowden, Head of Compliance and Regulatory, APAC, Currencycloud 

Ben Bowden is the Head of Compliance and Regulatory, APAC at Currencycloud, a cross-border payments and FX specialist which is now a part of Visa.  

Ben qualified as a lawyer in London but has worked in Singapore for more than two decades. First as a lawyer at Linklaters and then in various regional and global legal and compliance roles at Standard Chartered Bank. Since leaving banking, he has focused on the payments industry. He currently leads the compliance and regulatory function for APAC at Currencycloud, helping obtain licences and expand the business in Asia. 

Cyril Shroff, Managing Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas 

Cyril Shroff has over 40 years of experience in a wide range of practices areas, including corporate and securities law, disputes, banking, bankruptcy, and infrastructure.

Over the years, his passion for a just world, blended with a keen sense of fairness and empathy has helped cam firmly establish itself as a trusted advisor to its clients. Mr. Shroff has consistently been ranked as a “star practitioner” in India by Chambers Global and is often regarded as the “M&A King of India”. A thought leader and a visionary, Mr. Shroff is known for advising on many first-of-its-kind transactions in India. He regularly gets recognised as an award-winning professional across practices

Christopher Betts, General Counsel, Grab 

Christopher is currently the General Counsel with Grab. Mr. Betts was previously a partner in the Hong Kong office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP, a New York-based international law firm, where he worked on a variety of equity and debt offerings and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Betts brings over 20 years of experience across the Asia Pacific region. He has led and participated in over 60 IPOs and various secondary listings, including landmark transactions for Xiaomi, Meituan, and JD.com. Mr. Betts has also advised companies on post-IPO debt and equity fundraising activities and mergers and acquisitions across various industries. From mid-2006 to early 2010 he served as associate general counsel for McKinsey & Company, where he covered legal and risk management across the Asia Pacific region. 

Cheow Ai Ling, Managing Director, PEMA and Transaction Risk Asia Leader, Marsh Asia 

Ai Ling leads the Private Equity and Mergers & Acquisitions Services and Transaction Risk Services of Asia in Singapore. Ai Ling’s principal responsibility is advising private equity and corporate clients in their risk issues through their deal cycle. Ai Ling has pioneered the development and growth of warranty and indemnity insurance throughout ASEAN where she started the practice in 2007. She has achieved milestones such as placing the first onshore warranty and indemnity policy in Malaysia and the Philippines, placing the first Litigation Buyout policy in the Asia Pacific, and placing the policy with the largest limit in Asia in 2015. Since then, Ai Ling has grown both the team and the market share of Marsh in all countries in Asia and maintained Marsh’s market share at 70%.

Elaine Chew, Vice President, Group Data Protection Officer, Frasers Property 

Elaine Chew is Group Data Protection Officer at Frasers Property. Previously, she served in the same capacity at Changi Airport Group. As a lawyer qualified at the Singapore and New York Bar, Elaine works at the intersection of technology, privacy and the law to create effective solutioning of business issues. She has had wide cross-sectoral experience, across private practice, academia, judiciary and policy making, prior to going in house. Elaine is concurrently an Adjunct Assistant Professor with the NUS Faculty of Law, and also serves as Vice President of AsiaDPO, a self-organising peer-to-peer community of practicing Data Protection Officers.

Kate Merrifield, Head of Corporate, Practical Law Asia & Emerging Markets, Thomson Reuters 

Kate Merrifield has more than 10 years’ experience practising as a corporate lawyer at the leading Australian law firm Gilbert+Tobin. Her practice included advising clients on a range of corporate transactions and commercial matters including restructures, acquisitions and disposals of private companies, commercial contracts, corporate governance and compliance with the Corporations Act and Listing Rules.

Krishnava Dutt, Managing Partner, Argus Partners 

Krishnava Dutt’s experience encompasses the entire repertoire of corporate commercial practice including mergers and acquisitions, private equity, banking and finance and commercial disputes.

Krishnava has closely worked with several large corporate groups, investors, private equity funds, and renowned banks and financial institutions. He has also worked closely with both the central and state governments in India while advising on several transactions including disinvestments of public sector undertakings and framing of policies. Clients have deeply appreciated his strong financial, accounting, and business acumen, which helps in providing well-rounded commercially prudent legal advice to clients.

Krishnava started his legal career at Calcutta High Court. After a short stint at the High Court, he joined ICICI Bank in Mumbai where he gained several years of experience in handling transactions involving stressed assets and the international banking sector. He joined Amarchand Mangaldas in 2005 and was made partner in 2007. He retired from Amarchand Mangaldas in June 2009 after which he founded Argus Partners.

May-Ann Lim, Director, Fair Tech Institute, Access Partnership 

May-Ann is the Director of the Fair Tech Institute at technology consultancy firm Access Partnership, and is concurrently the Emeritus Director of the Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA). She has worked extensively on technology policy development, including data governance policies, digital economy, emerging technology, ICTs for development, green digital sustainability, and cybersecurity. She has worked with many global, regional, and local organisations such as APEC, ASEAN, PECC, INTERPOL, Council of Europe (CoE), the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), FELEBAN in Latin America, the ACCA, and the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC), on thought leadership development, government outreach, and stakeholder engagement efforts.

She is appointed to the Singapore Data Protection Appeal Panel 2019-2023, and sits on various international agency task forces, such as the World Bank Group’s Cloud and Data Infrastructure Private Sector Advisory Committee, World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Digital ASEAN Taskforce, the Data & Jurisdiction Team for the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network. A strong advocate for inclusive education, digital literacy, and sustainability, May-Ann also volunteers as a youth mentor with Advisory Singapore, and with nonprofit organisation Engineering Good, which focuses on assistive technology and digital inclusion of the underprivileged and disabled.

Naveen Bhardwaj, Regional Senior Counsel, Terumo Asia Holding

Naveen Bhardwaj is Regional Senior Counsel at Terumo Asia Holdings Pte Ltd, the APAC regional headquarters of Terumo Corporation. Terumo is a global medical technology company from Japan. Naveen is the Regional Leader for the Legal and Compliance function of Terumo for APAC and is responsible for designing, implementing, and monitoring Terumo’s Global Compliance Program in the APAC region (except China and Japan). Naveen is a qualified lawyer, with a law degree (LL.B) from the University of Delhi (India), a Certified Compliance and Ethics Professional (CCEP-I), and a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE). Naveen has been a speaker at various renowned national and international compliance and ethics forums.

Nishtha Kharb Shukla, Chief Legal Officer, MBK Healthcare 

Nishtha Kharb is a distinguished technology & innovation-focused lawyer with over 16 years of experience in handling complex legal and regulatory issues, particularly in the Asia region. She is presently the Chief Legal Officer at MBK Healthcare Management, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsui & Co with a mandate to grow the healthcare ecosystem of Mitsui with investments in leading healthcare providers such as IHH. She has been nominated among a select panel of UN WIPO’s Neutral (Arbitrator/Mediator) in Asia. Previously, in her role as Legal Director, ASEAN, Japan & Korea at Reckitt, she managed legal affairs contributing to innovative solutions to people’s everyday challenges in the arena of health and well-being.

A prominent thought leader and avid contributor to public policy debates shaping the future of health- tech, intellectual property, data privacy, and use of AI by the legal sector, Nishtha has been speaking and moderating at various international conferences. She has been mentoring start-ups and acting as an evangelist to help shape the digital future of the legal profession.

Peggy Lim, Head of Legal, APAC, GSK  

Peggy is currently GSK Consumer Healthcare’s Head of Legal, Wider Asia Region. In her role, she oversees the legal support to GSK’s Consumer Healthcare business and operations in Wider Asia (ANZ, India-Subcontinent, Japan, Korea, South East Asia, and Taiwan) from R&D to manufacturing to marketing and sales activities. 

Peggy started her career with GSK in 2006 as Legal Counsel of GSK Pharmaceuticals (South East Asia, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka). Over the years she held various other positions providing and overseeing legal support for GSK Asia Pacific Vaccines business, GSK Asia regional headquarter, GSK global nutritionals and systemic pain category, and also served on GSK’s Legal Digital Centre of Excellence. Peggy is an alumnus of GSK’s Asia Leadership (Emerging Leaders) Program and was instrumental in building up a legal team in South East Asia.

Rajesh Sreenivasan, Head, Technology, Media & Telecommunications, Rajah & Tann  

Rajesh heads the Technology, Media & Telecommunications Practice at Rajah & Tann, and also the co-founder & Director of Rajah & Tann Technologies and Rajah & Tann Cybersecurity.

He has been advising clients on matters relating to technology, cybersecurity, data protection, telecommunications, electronic commerce, distributed ledger technology implementations, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, digital forensics and social media for over twenty years.

Rajesh is unanimously ranked as a Tier 1 lawyer for TMT in publications such as Chambers Asia Pacific and The Legal 500 Asia Pacific since 2008. He was also recognised as Lawyer of the Year in Media Law by Best Lawyers 2021, and an Elite Practitioner in Technology and Telecommunications by Asialaw Profiles 2021.

As Rajah & Tann Asia’s Technology Advisor, Rajesh played a major role in moving the network forward in digitalisation, and as a result, garnering the accolade of being the winner of “Law Firm Strategy” at the Financial Times (FT) Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific Awards 2020.

Reet Chaudhuri, Partner, McKinsey & Company 

Reet Chaudhuri is a partner in the Singapore office of McKinsey & Company. He co-leads the Payments and Fintech practice for McKinsey in Asia. Reet has extensive experience working with a broad mix of incumbent and attacker banks as well as Fintech companies across Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and Myanmar as well as multiple other emerging markets in Asia, EMEA and Latin America. He has served clients on payment topics on both the issuing and acquiring side, as well as on digital lending and loyalty. From a functional perspective, Reet has worked with clients on a diverse range of topics including growth strategies, market-entry, M&A, organization, process improvement, and technology and has worked with a number of clients to help them execute their transformation. A prolific speaker, Reet has presented on payments and transaction banking topics at several leading global conferences including SIBOS.  

Renita Sophia Crasta, Legal Counsel, Surbana Jurong Private 

Renita is part of the Legal & Corporate Secretariat team for the Surbana Jurong Group of companies. Following her 7 years of experience at Allen & Gledhill LLP, she then went on to spend the last 10 years of her in-house career at various real estate sectored companies ranging from Ascendas-Singbridge, CapitaLand, and is now with Surbana Jurong. Over the years, she not only appreciates her Litigation and Corporate background, but also that she has been exposed to a number of deals across the real estate asset classes from industrial, retail, office, hotels, and to even data centres, for both listed and non-listed entities, and her experiences on a management track to help the companies she was with. She is grateful to her many excellent colleagues that she holds in high regard, both in the legal department and beyond, and enjoys serving with them. Outside of work, Renita also gives back to various communities, including the legal community as a Board / Exco Member of the Singapore Corporate Counsel Association (SCCA), and most recently helmed the Younger Lawyers Chapter there to encourage greater cross-learning, community, and giving back by in-house counsels as well. Last but not least, Renita has been recognised as ALB Young In-House Lawyer of the Year 2020 and has since been a finalist for ALB’s Woman In-House Lawyer of the Year 2021 and 2022.   

Reshmi Khurana, Managing Director and Head of South East Asia, Kroll 

Reshmi Khurana is currently the Managing Director and Head of Kroll in Southeast Asia, based in Singapore. Over 17 years of experience in the U.S., South Asia and South East Asia conducting complex corruption investigations, litigation support and due diligence on the management, operations and business models of organizations. Experience includes helping clients identify and bridge gaps in internal controls and corporate governance through people, processes and technology. 

Experience with Kroll in the US before moving to Kroll in Singapore in 2009 where she oversaw the operations in South East Asia, before joining Kroll’s Mumbai office in 2011 to manage the operations in South Asia. Currently heading Kroll in Southeast Asia, based in Singapore.

Prior to joining Kroll, she was a consultant with McKinsey & Company in India, where she advised clients on strategy and operations.

Ritwik Ghosh, Head of Lending Business and Operations, Grab Financial 

Ritwik holds an overall leadership of lending-focused country teams across SE Asia. He is responsible for lending P&L, business and operational management, and new business, and partnership development at Grab. Ritwik Ghosh has 12-plus years of the financial services industry and consulting experience across emerging markets, including Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Africa. He is an expert in retail and small- and medium-sized enterprise's banking strategy development, sales productivity enhancement, and customer analytics. 

Sarita Misir, SVP, Global Legal, Legal Lead for M&A & Technology Transactions, Fullerton Healthcare Corporation 

Sarita is a transactional and technology lawyer practicing in the areas of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), capital markets, and information technology law, with a keen interest in employment law.

She is currently Senior Vice President, Global Legal at a major Asia-Pacific focused international healthcare company, where she acts as the legal lead for global M&A, capital markets, and healthcare tech, and helps to fulfill the organization’s purpose of providing affordable and accessible care for all in the Asia Pacific. She also manages strategy for complex dispute-related matters, having originally "cut her teeth" as a litigator before moving to the corporate transactional world. 

Simon Gardiner, Head of M&A, APAC, Dentsu International 

Having completed over 70 acquisitions for Dentsu in the last 8 years, Simon is one of the most experienced M&A professionals in the Marketing Services industry.
Leading the regional M&A teams based in Singapore, and previously London, he has been responsible for deals across EMEA (including the UK, Spain, Italy, Russia, Nigeria, and Kazakhstan) and APAC (including China, Australia, India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia). His principal role as the Regional Head of M&A is to ensure Dentsu is making acquisitions that accelerate the strategy, have a good cultural fit, are capable of being successfully integrated, and at the right price with appropriate deal protections. 

Previously Simon spent 10 years working in Transaction Services at KPMG in London where he gained technical expertise in due diligence and completion mechanisms. He is also a Chartered Accountant.

Stanley Tan, Regional Director, Legal (APAC), Menarini Asia-Pacific Holdings  

Menarini is a global pharma company headquartered in Italy. Stan heads Menarini's legal, antitrust, and data privacy functions in the Asia Pacific. In his role, Stan focuses on business development transactions, enhancing governance, and developing legal excellence and best practices for his teams across the region. 

Stan has 16 years of commercial and legal experience covering in-house roles in the retail-FMCG and industrials sectors, and as an M&A lawyer in a Magic Circle firm.

Stan graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the National University of Singapore and is admitted to Singapore and England & Wales. Stan was previously a full-time competitive athlete and has represented Singapore at 2 Olympic Games. ​​ 

Suzanna Barrett, General Counsel & Head of Corporate Affairs, Delfi Limited 

Based in Singapore, Suzanna advises the Board and senior management of Delfi Limited on legal, compliance, ESG, and HR issues arising from the Group's international operations. Prior to joining Delfi, she has spent over 20 years in multinational companies based in Europe and Asia, leading legal teams in advising on a wide range of cutting-edge and complex TMT and infrastructure projects, corporate and commercial transactions, IP, and data protection matters. She has a deep interest in technology and Fintech matters.  
 
Suzanna earned her law degree from the University of Bristol, UK and has an MBA (Distinction) from Warwick Business School. She has qualified as a lawyer in Singapore as well as a barrister and solicitor in England & Wales. She is married with three children and in her free time, enjoys traveling and rescuing ugly vegetables as part of SG Food Rescue to help climate change.  

Tarun Samtani, IAPP Asia Advisory Board Member & Singapore Chapter Co-Chair, DPO & Privacy Program Manager, International SOS 

Tarun is a Privacy Leader with a background in Data Security, Privacy and Data Protection. Formerly the Global Privacy Manager for Qantas Group that includes Qantas Airlines, Jetstar Airlines and Qantas Loyalty, Tarun brings over two decades of experience working in various industries such as Retail, Telecoms, Leisure, Airlines, E-commerce, and Banking across global organisations. His specialisation includes operationalising Privacy, working with global Privacy legislations across 90+ countries building & leading progressive, pragmatic and sustainable Data Privacy programmes. With strong business acumen, he has the ability to bridge the gap between technical, legal and regulatory landscapes. Tarun currently holds various certifications in Information Security and Data Privacy (ISC2 CISSP, ISACA CISM & IAPP CIPM). He is a member, Chapter Chair, and Asia Advisory Board Member for IAPP (International Association of Privacy Professionals). Previously, he has also been the Advisory Board Member for Cybersecurity and Privacy startups. He has been interviewed by various UK publications including BBC and regularly addresses the global audiences at various international conferences.

Tyrilly Csillag, Head of Commercial and In-house, Practical Law Asia & Emerging Markets, Thomson Reuters  

Tyrilly Csillag is an experienced senior in-house lawyer skilled in technology law, data protection and privacy law, cyber security, and commercial law. Tyrilly served on both the NSW Law Society's In-house Corporate Lawyers Committee (2020-21) and the Privacy and Data Law Committee (2019- 2021) and received the In-house Counsel Certified (ICC) designation in 2019 from the Association of Corporate Counsel. Tyrilly is proudly a Thomson Reuters Wellbeing Ambassador and Regional Co-Chair of Women@TR for Asia and Emerging Markets. She is also the presenter for Practical Law's In-house Podcast, and a regular contributor to Thomson Reuters' digital media including Thomson Reuters Legal Insights, Practical Law webinars and the popular Changemakers podcast. 

Ujjaini Ghosh, Vice President, Senior Counsel (APAC) – Corporate Banking, Deutsche Bank, AG 

Ujjaini Ghosh is a senior counsel in the corporate banking team of Deutsche Bank AG in Singapore.  Having worked at Deutsche Bank for over 9 years, she has developed her expertise in the area of payments and digitalization, cash management, and trade finance.  Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, she worked as a banking solicitor with Linklaters in Singapore and Herbert Smith Freehills in London. She has a deep interest in the role technology plays in transforming the world of finance, and increasing economic efficiency, transparency, and accessibility. 

Ujjaini graduated in 2006 with a Bachelor of Laws from the National University of Juridical Sciences in India and completed her master's in law (Bachelor of Civil Laws) from the University of Oxford in 2007.  She is a qualified solicitor and is admitted to practice law in England and India.

Vivek Chhabra, CIO, Fraser and Neave 

Vivek joined Thai Beverages/Fraser & Neave in 2015 (the largest beverage player in ASEAN with sales revenue of USD 10bn and market capitalization of USD 13 bn and has held several roles including as CFO of the USD 4bn beer business; Head of the M&A function; CEO of the USD 700m soft drinks business in Thailand. Vivek has also served as a Director/Exco member of several listed companies in the group.

Vivek has received awards from governmental bodies in Vietnam and India and has also been a member of the World Bank/IFC Private Sector Reform program in Vietnam, the Industry and Finance sub-committee of the Government Parliamentary Committee in Singapore, and was the Vice Chairman of the South Asia Business Group of the Singapore Business Federation. Vivek is a member of the Rotary Club of Singapore which recently celebrated its 90th anniversary and is also a keen golfer with 2 holes in one and an active investor in the clean energy space.

Vivek Kathpalia, Managing Director & CEO – Singapore, Cyril Amarchand Mangalda 

Vivek Kathpalia has over 22 years of experience, 14 of which have been in Singapore as a licensed foreign lawyer. 

He has vast experience of advising varied clientele in Singapore, Japan and globally, with respect to their Indian law requirements and developing key markets with a focus on India. He has experience in a broad range of areas including M&A and PE transactions, Technology and Education. He also practiced as a litigator in the Bombay High Court in his early years as an advocate. 

Yixiang Zeng, Southeast Asia Correspondent, Regulatory Intelligence, Thomson Reuters 

Yixiang Zeng joined Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence in April 2020 in Singapore, covering Southeast Asia and greater China regulatory developments. Prior to this, she had nine years’ experience writing on asset management, oil trading, financial regulations, and corporate law firms' legal ranking related subjects. She previously worked in London and Hong Kong.