Judges - 2023

Alice Yip
Head of Consumer & Industrial Markets
KPMG China
Hong Kong

Alice Yip is the Partner, Head of Consumer & Industrial Markets, Hong Kong with KPMG China. She has been providing professional services to clients in the consumer, retail and industrial sectors for more than 25 years. She is experienced in handling initial public offering projects and has assisted a number of enterprises raise funds from the United States and Hong Kong capital market and has been actively involved in a number of cross-border projects for her clients.

Alice is also a frequent public speaker on changing industry trends and the new reality driven by digital transformation, data analytics and consumer behaviour involving various media channels.

Alice is a Fellow Member of ACCA, a member of Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants, a Fellow Member of Hong Kong Institute of Directors, and a Certified Internal Auditor.

Alice was the Chairman of ACCA Hong Kong for the term 2016/2017 and has been elected as a member of ACCA Global Council since 30 November 2017. Alice is also a Council Member of the Hong Kong Institute of Directors. Alice was appointed by the Chief Executive on 28 December 2018 to be a member of the Antiquities Advisory Board.

Allan Tan
Editor-in-Chief
Cxociety
Hong Kong

Allan is Group Editor-in-Chief for Cxociety and oversees the editorial team for FutureCIO, FutureIoT, and FutureCFO. He is responsible for developing and launching Asia’s first dedicated IoT publication, and also supports content marketing engagements for Cxociety clients as well as moderates and speaks at events. He has more than 36 years of experience across a broad spectrum of business and operational disciplines, including sales, marketing, public relations, industry analyst relations, and software design and programming.

Daryl Wang
Associate Partner, ASEAN Tax and Finance Operate Managed Services
EY
Singapore

Daryl is an Associate Partner at EY. He specializes in Finance Transformation and has more than 20 years of relevant finance practitioner experience both in the industry as well as a consultant, across Asia, Australia and the United Kingdom.

As a finance professional, in his previous roles as Chief Financial Officer for PwC’s South East Asia Consulting and as Head of Finance Shared Services Delivery and Digital Finance for a Temasek subsidiary, he demonstrated both practical and operational experience of leading and transforming the finance functions. He spearheaded the organizations’ digitalization efforts for Finance to drive business outcomes, improve efficiency and harness data for business insights and decision making. He had also previously managed the APAC Change Governance for an MNC Private Bank’s Portfolio of Programs, driving disciplined investment and program execution governance practices that supports the businesses in delivering the Bank’s strategic priorities and financial objectives.

As a consultant, Daryl helps CFOs and businesses transform their finance function (including design and implementation of target operating models, process redesign and digitalization). He has substantial experience in delivering large scale projects, including assisting clients to improve operational efficiencies of their finance departments through operating model re-design, process re-engineering, enhancing key finance controls and implementing financial systems.

Daryl often shares insights and his experience on the Future of Finance as guest and panel speaker at events organized by professional accounting bodies, tertiary institutions, clients and technology vendors. He is also experienced in conducting trainings both for external paying participants and internal co-workers.

Elmer Sarmiento
Director, Finance and Accounting Outsourcing
PERSONIV
Philippines

Elmer is currently the Director of Finance & Accounting Operations for Personiv, a Texas-based outsourced service provider who has been in the creative design industry for 35 years and who also recently embarked on finance & accounting service delivery since 2017. He has 22 years of finance experience, which includes co-founding a recent startup in the professional training space.

His day-to-day role includes designing solutions for clients’ accounting to reporting needs, pricing analysis, organizational design & competency mapping, and managing risks for Personiv’s finance service organization.

Before joining Personiv, he served as CFO of Business Process Outsourcing International, the largest domestically owned outsourced service provider in the Philippines. He also served in leadership roles focusing on process transitions, project management, and service delivery for Conduent-formerly Xerox Services, Shell Shared Services Asia BV & Maersk.

Elmer is a Certified Public Accountant & Certified Forensic Accountant in the Philippines (PICPA) and a Certified Management Accountant in Australia-New Zealand (ICMA). He’s also pursuing his MBA in the Ateneo de Manila University in partnership with Regis University, Colorado, USA.

Keith Chan
Chief Financial and Technology Officer
McDonald’s Hong Kong
Hong Kong

Keith has over 25 years of extensive professional experience in leading financial management, transformation, innovation, strategic planning, risk management, procurement and information technology with various world-class multinational companies.

Keith is currently Chief Financial and Technology Officer at McDonald’s Hong Kong, backed by reputable shareholders including CITIC Group, Carlyle Group and McDonald’s Corporation. McDonald’s has been a leading consumer brand and restaurant chain in Hong Kong for over 45 years, serving more than 1 million guests every day in Hong Kong with its 15,000 passionate employees. McDonald’s is also strongly committed to corporate social responsibility efforts in Hong Kong to help under-privileged children in need.

Prior to McDonald’s, Keith held senior finance leadership positions in multiple top tier MNCs and global industry leaders, including Maersk, Volkswagen AG, Walt Disney, Philip Morris International, Swire Pacific Group and Sun Hung Kai Properties Group.

In 2014, Keith was awarded the honor as the “CFO of the Year – Excellence in Technology Innovation” by CFO Innovation Asia, marking an important milestone of his progressive career.

Keith accomplished executive programs at various prestigious institutions including Harvard, IMD, INSEAD and The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Keith also holds an MBA Degree from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and a Bachelor Degree in Economics from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). In addition, Keith is a Certified Public Accountant in both the U.S. (AICPA) and Hong Kong (HKICPA).

LEE Pei Yin
Financial Accounting Advisory Services Leader
EY
Malaysia

Pei Yin is an Assurance Partner and the Malaysia Financial Accounting Advisory Services Leader in Ernst & Young PLT.

She has more than 20 years’ experience providing a wide range of assurance and advisory services to clients across sectors such as financial services, energy (including power and utilities), telecommunications and real estate.

Pei Yin’s experience includes finance transformation projects, accounting standards implementation, finance and treasury function compliance and effectiveness, audit readiness and remediation projects using data and technology as an enabler.

Parthasarathy VS
Coach Mentor & Entrepreneur
Ex President and Group CFO
Mahindra Group
Singapore
(Judge for SAP Transformation Awards)

Fondly known as Partha, He is a leader who relishes challenges. In his rich experience of over 35 years, has successfully led businesses, functions, and organization transformations, M&A of over 125 transactions. He was awarded with the Lifetime Achievement Awards for both his CFO and CIO roles. He is also the recipient of the Business World – Yes Bank Hall of Fame Award, Best CFO of India Award by IMA, Corporate Excellence Awards and Digital Icon of India Award by HPE and CIO 100 – Hall of Fame by CIO after winning the awards for 4 consecutive years. He runs for Nanhi Kali (the Girl Child Education NGO) at the Mumbai Marathon and awarded as Change Legend for 2019 creating history in terms of the largest collection that year. By way of qualification Partha is a Chartered Accountant from ICAI and ICAEW and an alumnus of Harvard Business School’s AMP (2011).

He is currently a Director on board of Allcargo logistics a listed company and mentors Startups. He is devoting this phase to upliftment of Rural and informal sector poor women. Prior to being appointed as the President of Mobility Services Sector, Mahindra Group in April 2020, Partha was the Group CFO & Group CIO, Mahindra Group for 7 years. Besides, this he was a member of the Mahindra Group Executive Board. He has been a Board member of several listed companies which includes Tech Mahindra, Mahindra finance, CIE automotive (Spain), Punjab tractors, Mahindra holidays etc. Partha has held and continues to hold several industry forum positions which include – Chairman of Sustainable Council of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) – 2021, President – Bombay Chamber of Commerce & Industry (2019-2020), Chairman of Association of Finance Profession of India (AFPI) (2015-2020) besides working closely with Ministry of Finance through CFO Board, and on global advisory boards for CISCO/ SAP. .

Pulkit Abrol
Director – Asia Pacific
ACCA
Singapore

Pulkit Abrol is the Director for ASEAN and Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) region at ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), the global body for professional accountants.

Based in Singapore, Pulkit leads the regional development agenda, leading teams in advocating ACCA’s work and value to the profession in upholding the very highest standards through thought leadership, professional insights, continuous learning and ethics.

Across his career, he has had a diverse leadership career spanning finance education (ACCA), consumer goods (Diageo, ITC limited), Advertising & Design (Open D Group) and Telecom (Reliance communications) in Asia, Europe, Middle East, India and China.

Pulkit is passionate about organisation diversity, economic empowerment, sustainability, inclusion and business value creation.

Sarah Lawrance
Founder & Chief Dreamer
Hot Toast
Australia

Like oil and water, tiger balm and itchy eyes, creatives and accountants don’t usually mix… until now.

Meet Sarah Lawrance, one of the world’s top 50 women working in accounting and one of Australia’s top 50 most forward-thinking accountants.

She is the Founder of Hot Toast, a new breed of accounting firm created exclusively for creatives and start ups. Sarah and her team have helped countless businesses grow by extracting value from the numbers.

Less bean counting. More innovation, technology and big ideas.

Sim Siew Shan
CFO Aviation Group
AIRASIA
Malaysia

Siew Shan is a Fellow of the Chartered Certified Accountant (FCCA) with 2 decades of Experience in the finance field which believe that accountants are not bean counters but key business partners in an organisation. She believe a deep understanding of business processes and keeping updated in the technical developments in the finance world whilst keeping a keen eye on current economic environment shifts will enable the merging of a financial advice with commercial viability.

She started as the Group Financial Controller for AirAsia Group Berhad in August 2018 and is promoted as the CFO of AirAsia Berhad in November 2019 and subsequently to Airasia Aviation Group CFO in July 2021. As part of her role, she oversees the finance operations and actively involved in the strategies for all airlines under AirAsia whilst navigating the Group through the pandemic by safeguarding its liquidity and fund raising exercises.

Before joining AirAsia, she was the Head of Finance in KLCC Group of Companies which oversees the entire range of financial related activities. KLCC Group practices shared services whereby all the different businesses within the Group shares the same finance function. In this respect, the finance team she leads needs to be agile to meet the different specific needs of different businesses within the Group.

Prior to joining KLCC, she had spent a 2 year stint with a Khazanah investment subsidiaries which is newly start up to invest in Desaru, Johor through building a range of resorts, hotels and golf courses. Her experiences in maneuvering through these different needs was attributed to her more than 10 years working experience as an auditor with Ernst & Young.

Woranat Dumrongsiri
CFO
Deloitte Thailand and Laos
Thailand

Woranat Dumrongsiri is the Country CFO for Deloitte Thailand and Deloitte Laos, a strategic partner to the CEO and senior management team. Her responsibilities include leading the finance transformation. She is responsible for the strategic planning, implementation, managing all the finance activities of a company, including business planning, budgeting, forecasting, risk and governance as well as negotiations.