Bharath Thota is a Partner of Kearney in the firm's Digital and Analytics practice. Since joining Kearney in early 2006, Bharath has been pivotal in scaling its analytics practice, and has since grown to be a leader in the digital and analytics domain. He is passionate about the potential of AI and data science to solve complex and challenging problems for clients across various industries and functions.

His work involves applying AI and cutting-edge technologies to help clients’ enhance their business performance, streamline operations, and foster an insights-driven culture. He is also a frequent speaker on the intersection of AI and business, often illustrating the transformative power of AI through tangible examples.

Besides his client work, Bharath spearheads Kearney’s AI program, aimed at nurturing an environment of AI innovation and integration across the firm. He is also the founder of Kearney's Data Science Center of Excellence, a global team of AI scientists that develops bespoke solutions for clients, and the Solutions Factory, a pioneering platform within Kearney for the innovation and incubation of digital assets, cementing his status as a trailblazer in the field of AI and digital transformation.

Bob Ghafouri is a Managing Director and the Global Head of A&MPLIFY by Alvarez and Marsal, an AI-powered Digital Transformation unit focused on helping organizations reimagine customer experience, reinvent digital products, and optimize operations with AI. Ghafouri is an innovative founder and CEO with three successful exits. He is skilled generating value for clients with artificial intelligence and Digital technologies.

Prior to joining A&M, Ghafouri served as Chief Commercial Officer with Red Ventures and was a Senior Managing Director and founding member of Accenture’s Digital Business unit called Accenture Interactive. In addition, Ghafouri founded, launched, and scaled three digital businesses in the government, retail, and real estate industries.

Conrad Heider, a partner at Simon-Kucher, leads the firm's digital team, Simon-Kucher Elevate. As the Head of Elevate, Heider drives digital transformation and delivers measurable results for his clients. Simon-Kucher is a global consultancy firm with over 2,000 employees in 30+ countries, focused on unlocking better growth that drives revenue and profit. Elevate, Simon-Kucher’s cutting-edge digital consulting team, combines data, AI, and ML with commercial consulting expertise. The team of specialized data scientists and machine learning engineers delivers solutions like dynamic pricing, next-best-action algorithms, predictive customer models, and generative AI-based sales and marketing tools.

Heider specializes in transforming data and AI into practical, business-enhancing solutions. His expertise includes optimizing pricing, sales, and marketing strategies, enhancing customer experiences, and driving commercial growth through data, AI, and machine learning (ML). Known for delivering fast and hands-on impact on growth via fast piloting, MVPs, and proof of concepts, Heider helps businesses understand and capitalize on AI opportunities, leading to significant improvements and increased profitability.

Before joining Simon-Kucher in 2020, Heider was a principal at Kearney, where he helped clients achieve commercial and operational excellence. He also served as Director of Strategy and Intelligence at Freeletics, Germany's leading B2C fitness app scale-up. Heider holds a Master of Public Administration from the London School of Economics, a Master of Public Policy from the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, and a BSc in European Studies from Maastricht University.

John Simmons is the Principal at PwC, a network of firms across 151 countries with over 360,000 professionals committed to delivering assurance, advisory, and tax services. Simmons focuses on improving commercial products, services, and operations to enhance access to critical resources like energy, food, work, and education. With over 30 years of experience, he has worked across various industries, including technology and SaaS software, telecommunications, finance, manufacturing, and aerospace and defense, leveraging data and technology to drive change.

Previously, Simmons was an SVP in application development at First Marblehead Corporation and before that a Principal at PRTM. Earlier in his career he worked with PRTM Management Consultants as a Manager. Simmons holds an MBA in operations, product development, and information technology from the MIT Sloan School of Management and an undergraduate degree in electrical technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jennifer Meyers is the Managing Director and co-founder of A&MPLIFY, Alvarez and Marsal's AI-powered digital growth agency. She collaborates with clients to accelerate growth by creating new products, services, and value propositions at the intersection of strategy, design, and technology.

With over 20 years of experience as a growth strategist, innovator, and change-maker, Jennifer leverages AI and analytics to help clients ignite and accelerate strategic value capture. She serves as a trusted advisor and operator throughout the entire strategic activation process, even taking on interim executive roles to drive client success.

Jennifer has a proven track record of addressing the most complex business challenges faced by Fortune 500 companies, delivering accelerated business outcomes.
Her work spans multiple industries, including retail, healthcare, beauty, consumer goods, and hospitality, where she helps clients design, build, and scale new digital businesses, products, services, and platforms for sustainable growth.

One of her notable achievements includes inventing a patented machine learning solution that predicts and prevents retail returns, recognized as a top innovation in the retail industry.

John Collins is the Founder of Deep Vertical AI, a company that combines customization and deep industry expertise with advanced AI products, focusing on customized, multi-model, and multi-modal solutions. Deep Vertical AI emphasizes the power of AI when it integrates reasoning across text, vision, and audio.

Collins brings 24 years of experience to his current role. Before founding Deep Vertical AI, he was a Head of AI practice in Asia at FTI Consulting and before that an Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics Laboratory Director at HSBC. Earlier in his career he worked with Citi in OTC derivatives and OTC services. Collins graduated from EDHEC Business School with a PhD in finance.

John is an international technology executive with over 37 years of experience in the fields of data, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI).

John is responsible for the global AI function at EY. His role is to actively lead the design, development, implementation, and use of innovative AI solutions, including Generative AI, Traditional/Classical AI, and Causal AI, across all of EY Service Lines and functions and for EY's clients. The team is comprised of - an Applied AI Research group, a product development organization, and an AI Consulting Practice. At EY John’s team has developed and released:
- the world's largest, secure, private LLM based chat service, which has been the fastest growing tech svc in EY's history serving over 300,000 employees
- a Synthetic Data Generation Service
- an Enterprise Prompt Engineering & Mgt Service
- a new model orchestration layer

Prior to EY, he was responsible for the AI and advanced analytics team at CSL Behring, a leading biopharmaceutical company where he led a team that developed and deployed over 25 analytical applications in 4 years. John was an Executive Partner at Gartner, where he was management consultant to market leading companies in the areas of digital transformation, data monetization and advanced analytics. Before Gartner, John was responsible for the advanced analytics business unit of the Dell Software Group.

John’s most recent book – Causal Artificial Intelligence, is intended to provide guidance for data scientists, by providing deep technical information as well as the type of information needed to collaborate with subject matter experts (SMEs). SMEs hold deep organizational knowledge about how each business operates. Business executives and managers must be able to guide the combined team based on the direction that the organization wants to take and the problems that need to be solved. The book is meant to be a primer on how teams can work together to derive value from this new pillar of the AI field.

John’s 3rd book is an effort to raise awareness and knowledge of the topic of data – Data for All, has been written for the general public, the book is an outline of how the world of data works today and how it will work in the near future. The book instructs people in how to protect and manage their data and the data of their loved ones. Data for All communicates how to do this in applied and practical terms.

John is the author of the bestselling book – Building Analytics Teams: Leveraging analytics and artificial intelligence for business improvement. The book was published in June 2020 and outlines how to hire and manage high performance advanced analytics teams. The book outlines how to engage with executives and senior managers, and how to select and undertake analytics projects that change and improve how a business operates.

John is co-author of the bestselling book – Analytics: How to win with Intelligence, which debuted on Amazon as the #1 new book in Analytics in 2017. Analytics is a book that guides non-technical executives through the journey of creating an analytics function, funding initiatives, and driving change in business operations through data and applied analytical applications.

Mr. Thompson’s technology expertise includes all aspects of advanced analytics and information management including – descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics, artificial intelligence, analytical applications, deep learning, cognitive computing, big data, simulation, optimization, synthetic data, and high-performance computing.

John has built start-up organizations from the ground up and he has reengineered business units of Fortune 500 firms to reach their potential. He has directly managed and run - sales, marketing, consulting, support, and product development organizations.

He is a technology leader with expertise and experience spanning all operational areas with a focus on strategy, product innovation, growth, and efficient execution.

Thompson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Ferris State University and a MBA in Marketing from DePaul University.

Karthik Narain is the Group Chief Executive of Technology at Accenture, where he oversees cloud, data and AI, enterprise and industry technologies and security, and technology ecosystem partnerships and its Advanced Technology Centers. As a member of the Global Management Committee and Chair of the Board of Avanade, Accenture’s joint venture with Microsoft, Narain plays a key role in steering the company’s technological direction.

Before assuming his current role, Narain led Accenture Cloud First and its data and AI business, where he helped clients move, shape and operate their businesses in the cloud. Under his leadership, cloud-certified talent has tripled in the past three years. He has extended the company’s leadership with ecosystem partners and driven substantial investments in solutions, acquisitions, and talent to keep Accenture at the forefront of the industry.

Most recently, Narain helped define Accenture’s approach to generative AI through investments in its Generative AI Center of Excellence. With 24 years of experience across various industry sectors, including financial services, high tech, and software and platforms, he has driven many strategic and innovative programs. Narain previously led Accenture Technology in North America, helping guide Global 2000 brands in using the cloud and other technologies to transform their businesses.

Kevin Carl is a Managing Director with A&MPLIFY by Alvarez and Marsal, the AI-powered business unit focused on helping organizations reimagine customer experience, reinvent digital products, and optimize operations with AI. Carl’s focus is on business and digital transformation leveraging technology.

Prior to joining A&M, Carl served as General Manager and SVP, Product & Engineering at tech unicorn Copado, the market leading DevOps platform for Salesforce, and previously was Group Vice President of Global Hospitality Consulting at Oracle.

Carl also served as EVP and Global CIO for Radisson Hotel Group where he led a broad transformation of the company’s technology platforms and culminated his 18 years at Accenture as their global lead for Digital Travel. Carl is a graduate of Washington and Lee University and has a certification in AI/ML from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Lou DiLorenzo Jr. is a Principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP. Deloitte provides audit and assurance, tax and legal, consulting, financial advisory, and risk advisory services to nearly 90% of the Fortune Global 500 and thousands of private companies. DiLorenzo leads Monitor Deloitte’s AI and data strategy practice, serves as National Leader for Deloitte’s CIO program, and leads the US generative AI advisory practice and the US Gen AI market incubator within Deloitte Consulting LLP. With over 20 years of experience across various sectors, DiLorenzo excels in bringing key stakeholders together to drive change, develop new capabilities, and achieve positive financial results for both large corporations and startups.

Prior to returning to Deloitte as a Principal in 2019, DiLorenzo served as COO of Bright Health. Previously, DiLorenzo was an appointed officer of Cargill and senior IT executive for Cargill's global food ingredients and systems division. DiLorenzo also led Cargill’s corporate enterprise process, data, and technology governance committee, working for the corporate CFO to drive alignment between dozens of business units and Cargill’s strategic technology project portfolio. DiLorenzo holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Colgate University.

Partha Gopalakrishnan is President and Partner at Brane Group, where he leads business development and business transformation consulting. With over 25 years of experience, he is an expert in business transformation, directing global teams to drive digital growth. With expertise in AI, Web3 and digital transformation and a focus on sustainability, Gopalakrishnan leads new technology practices and implements IT systems which combine business insights with advanced cognitive technologies to create integrated business platforms and services.

Gopalakrishnan’s company, PG Advisors, offers board advisory and non-executive director services for prominent analysts and PE firms. With a strong focus on value creation, digital risk management, ESG and responsible AI, PG Advisors uses its extensive network to strategically guide growth agendas. Gopalakrishnan has served in executive leadership positions at multiple technology and consulting global system integrators, including 17 years with Infosys followed by a tenure at Tech Mahindra. He holds a MBA from Pondicherry University and a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communications engineering from the University of Madras. He has also completed executive education programs at Stanford University Graduate School of Business and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Pepe Cafferata is a Senior Partner at McKinsey and Company, a global management consulting firm that provides advisory services to leading businesses, governments, and institutions. Cafferata is the firm’s regional leader for QuantumBlack, McKinsey’s unified artificial intelligence branch, in Latin America. In this role, he helps clients enhance business value and performance through AI and advanced analytics transformations across various industries, including banking, agriculture, energy, and consumer goods. Additionally, he advises major financial institutions on a wide range of transformation topics.

Pepe also brings industry knowledge from working at a global financial services corporation for over a decade, where he held executive committee positions in Latin America in areas such as strategy, CRM and data, digital, marketing, and customer experience. Previously, Cafferata was a Head of Strategy and Planning at HSBC Latin America. Earlier in his career he worked with Citibank as a Management Associate. Cafferata holds an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

Senthil Ramani serves as Lead – Data & AI for Accenture. In this role, he oversees data & AI strategy, services and investments and builds market-leading capabilities led by client value. He has decades of experience, helping companies transform through technology—by developing strategies, identifying use cases, building a strong digital core and developing talent for the future. Most recently, he has helped enterprises become AI-first organizations, ready to drive growth, optimize operations and reinvent business. Senthil is also a member of the Global Management Committee.

Prior to his current role, Senthil was Accenture’s lead for data & AI in Growth Markets. Over his 24- year career, Senthil has held a diverse set of leadership roles in Accenture’s SAP Digital, IoT, AI and Sustainability practices. Notably, he served as Chief Digital Officer of the Resources industry practice, helping mining, metals, forest products and building materials companies drive digital transformation and build high-performing teams.

Senthil is an author of the thought-provoking piece "The Art of AI Maturity,” which recommends five ways to advance and accelerate AI business transformation. Senthil is also focused on harnessing the power of AI for good, to help shape real-world problems—including applying computer vision to monitor coral reef health and using data science to help clinicians improve precision medicine.

Senthil holds a master’s degree in operations research from Arizona State University and an Advanced Management Program degree from Harvard Business School. He is currently pursuing studies in The Art of Music Production at Berklee College of Music.
Outside of his professional pursuits, Senthil is a philanthropist. He supports Anandam Children’s Home, which provides specialized education for children with learning difficulties.

As Principal and leader of CohnReznick’s Digital Consulting practice, Shawn takes a data-driven approach to understanding the complex challenges associated to an organization’s digital transformation. With a background in Data & AI, Digital Strategy, and Enterprise Applications, Shawn brings expertise and leadership to the forefront of transformation.

Shawn is a growth-focused leader with success in implementing strategic roadmaps and designing innovative technology solutions to help clients achieve their goals. He has extensive knowledge of digital transformation; business intelligence and data analytics; risk assessment and mitigation; data migration and integration; and more. His focus is on developing strategic business relationships with clients that create sustainable, leading technological operating models and bottom-line improvements.

Before joining CohnReznick, Shawn was Partner, National Consulting Leader – Data & Analytics for a major audit, tax, and consulting firm. In this role, he was responsible for designing and implementing industry-centric and solution-based delivery models to create value for mid- and upper-market clients. This included developing strategies and services such as data warehousing; AI/ML; IoT; and ERP offerings involving platforms such as Microsoft Dynamics F&SC, BC, CRM, and Oracle NetSuite.

Shawn holds a bachelor’s degree in computer and information sciences, finance, and accounting from Miami University in Ohio and an MBA in strategic management from Baldwin Wallace College.

Susheel is a Partner in Kearney’s Digital and Analytics practice. Since joining the firm in 2008, Susheel has grown to become an analytics and AI consulting leader for Kearney. His passion is in guiding his clients in their analytics and AI transformation journey, and prides himself in being a long-term strategic advisor for his clients. Susheel has a global perspective, having actively led client data and AI transformations with Kearney in the Americas and the Middle East, while supporting Kearney clients across markets.

Susheel’s work has been focused on topline and strategic transformations leveraging data and AI. He has been a pioneer for Kearney’s GenAI program and is advising his clients on efficient use cases to AI investment decisions. Susheel’s advice to his clients is anchored in a philosophy of human centered and guided artificial intelligence.

In addition to his client work, Susheel is actively orchestrating Kearney’s AI capabilities. He has been a serial innovator within Kearney, building assets and teams, and pushes his teams to go above and beyond the beaten path of client service. He spearheads Kearney’s AI Lab, the firm’s AI R&D and innovation capability. He is also leading Kearney’s efforts in broadening its AI partnership ecosystem, with high impact startups and scaleups.