Industrial Edge
Enterprise Use Case
Prashanth Chakravartula
Senior Director, Warehouse & Logistics
Bayer
Gen AI
Ahmed Menshawy
Vice President of AI Engineering
Mastercard
Ahmed Menshawy is the Vice President of AI Engineering at Mastercard. In this role, he leads the AI Engineering team, driving the development and commercialization of AI products that deliver business value across the organization. His work focuses on enabling Mastercard to harness the power of AI to solve complex problems, optimize operations, and enhance customer experiences. Ahmed collaborates with cross-functional teams to bring innovative AI solutions from concept to market, ensuring they align with Mastercard’s strategic objectives
An accomplished author and recognized contributor to the AI community, Ahmed has co-authored Deep Learning with TensorFlow and written Deep Learning by Example. His most recent book, Graph Learning for the Enterprise, published by O’Reilly, provides practical insights into efficiently training and deploying graph learning pipelines at scale
Compute
Networking
Memory
Storage
Brett Simpson
Co-Founder & Senior Analyst
Arete Research
Brett is a co-founder of Arete (formed in 2000) and is based in the firm's London office. He focuses on the global semiconductor component sector. Brett is a regular public speaker at industry events and after 17 years looking at the sector, has a wealth of experience to draw on. Prior to Arete, Brett spent two years at Goldman Sachs in an equity analyst role, specialising in European technology following three years with Ericsson UK, working in business development, covering all aspects of wireline and wireless telecom infrastructure.
Janco Venter
Equity Research Analyst
Arete Research
Janco joined Arete in 2023 and is based in the firm’s Cape Town office. He focuses on the global semiconductor component sector as an equity research analyst. Janco joined Arete after a distinguished career as a professional sportsman, where he took on various leadership roles and was a regular public speaker.
Marc Hourican
CTO
CleanArc Data Centers
A technical leader, Marc has led the design and construction of large-scale data center projects across the United States as well as in the Middle East and Asia. His projects have included greenfield, brownfield, build to suite, and adaptive reuse projects for colocation, corporate, and hyperscale data center customers.
Before joining CleanArc, Marc held leadership positions at leading data center consultancy firms Orchard Green Associates, Smith Engineering, PLLC and Syska Hennessy Group. Marc takes pride in understanding the technical and cultural nuances required for project execution across geographies. At CleanArc, he takes a collaborative and comprehensive approach to project management and execution, bridging the gaps between infrastructure and design/construction teams as CleanArc works to deliver best-in-class reliability, sustainability, supply chain management and capital efficiency during the entire data center life cycle. Marc holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and an MS in Real Estate from the NYU Shack Institute of Real Estate.
Jason Carolan
Chief Innovation Officer
Flexential
Jason Carolan leads Flexential’s customer-driven innovation and advisory programs office, providing leading insights to product and technology evolution in a dynamic industry. Operationally, Jason keeps grounded by leading our information technology and security teams, enabling new products and services. He and his team are responsible for developing insights on what’s next on the horizon to further position the company to empower enterprise's hybrid IT journeys. He joined the company in 2011 and has held various roles in product, operations and technical management.
Jason has more than 25 years of experience in leadership positions in product architecture, software engineering, technical sales and support across a variety of companies, including Sun Microsystems, where Jason was honored as a Distinguished Engineer, VMware and the Mayo Clinic.
Jason was the lead author of “Building N1 Grid Solutions,” one of the first books highlighting the combined use of virtualization and automation. He also has several patents in networking, data center resource management, virtualization and security.
He has a bachelor’s degree from Luther College and a master’s degree from Western Governor’s University.
On-Device ML
Compute
Gen AI
Optimized Infrastructure
Brett Simpson
Co-Founder & Senior Analyst
Arete Research
Brett is a co-founder of Arete (formed in 2000) and is based in the firm's London office. He focuses on the global semiconductor component sector. Brett is a regular public speaker at industry events and after 17 years looking at the sector, has a wealth of experience to draw on. Prior to Arete, Brett spent two years at Goldman Sachs in an equity analyst role, specialising in European technology following three years with Ericsson UK, working in business development, covering all aspects of wireline and wireless telecom infrastructure.
Jacey Heuer
Head of AI & Data Science
Pella Corporation
Jacey leads AI, Data Science and Advanced Analytics for Pella Corporation. Pella Corporation, based in the U.S, is one of North America’s largest manufacturers of premium windows and doors. Jacey’s current focus is on expanding the footprint of AI, Data Science and Advanced Analytics at Pella Corporation, guiding the organization to realize the value promised in this space. Jacey is a storyteller who bridges the gap between the possible and the practical, ushering organizations along their journey to become data driven. Jacey holds master’s degrees from Iowa State University in business and data science. He carries strong advanced analytics experience across many industries including manufacturing, e-commerce, energy, financial services and real estate.
Compute
Industrial Edge
On-Device ML
Compute
Gen AI
Enterprise Use Case
Arun Nandi
Chief Data & AI Officer
Carrier
Arun Nandi is a visionary keynote speaker, advisor and thought leader in AI. His professional experience driving impact for larger enterprises from Data, Analytics & Insights initiatives spans close to 20 years.
He was presented the Top 100 Influential AI & Analytics leaders award, the Top 40 AI Leaders under 40 award and LinkedIn Top Voice. He currently works as Chief Data & AI Officer at Carrier Global Corp, a Fortune 200 company. He previous was Head of Data & Analytics at Unilever. He has built AI and analytics practices from the ground up on multiple occasions.
Arun serves and consults with advisory boards and investment firms recognized as a credible voice in the industry. He was esteemed jury member at prestigious events such as The Drum Awards and LVMH’s Dare Competition. He has delivered keynote addresses at many events with other experts including Andre Ng (Deep Learning), Julien Simon (Hugging Face).
Arun works with numerous service providers within the AI, data and Analytics ecosystem and shapes the strategy for his enterprise and the industry at large.
Arun is based in New York, NY, USA. He is a keen traveler, foodie and adventure motorcyclist.