Strategic CFO Forum
SPEAKERS
Kelly Cook
Chief Marketing & IT Officer, David's Bridal
Mrs. Cook is a seasoned omni-channel, digital, and marketing executive who thoroughly enjoys the challenges of growing companies and transforming brands. She specializes in centering brands around the customer, advancing brands down the digital path, and galvanizing a workforce behind growth strategies. Her successes include substantial profit increases and stock growth relative to company competition and participatory growth sectors. Her industry experiences are as diverse as they come, from airlines to recycled waste to fashion to big box retail to home décor…and now brides. Companies include Continental Airlines, DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse, and Pier 1…and now David’s Bridal where she proudly leads marketing, IT, digital, harmonious experiences, analytics and insights plus ecommerce.
She was named one of Business Insider’s 2021 CMOs to watch and recognized by Harvard Business School as one of 2003’s Most Dynamic Women in Business. She considers herself a leader with a servant’s heart who is thrilled by ordinary folks doing extraordinary things.
Rich Gilbert
Senior Vice President, Chief Digital Information Officer, Aflac
Rich Gilbert joined Aflac in January 2019 as senior vice president; chief digital information officer. He oversees the day-to-day operations and digital strategy for the company, including both business and information technology initiatives. He specializes in developing creative technology solutions and break-through strategies to transform customer and employee experience, improve operations, lower costs and accelerate business growth.
He most recently served as vice president of Business Enablement and IT Service Management at DXC Technology. Previously, he was vice president of Infrastructure and Operations Enterprise Services and vice president and chief information officer of Infrastructure and Operations at Hewlett Packard Enterprises. He also held several leadership roles at SunTrust Bank as senior vice president and chief technology officer of Technology Services, senior vice president of Enterprise Information Services, and senior vice president of Enterprise Testing and Quality Assurance.
Ketan Pandit
Chief Information Officer, QBE North America
Ketan Pandit is the Chief Information Officer at QBE North America. He is responsible for driving the company’s brand value through an IT strategy that is guided by providing customers with an experience of excellence through innovation and simplification. Since joining, his team of highly skilled professionals have positively influenced a number of areas across the business including Business Operations, Claims IT, Business Intelligence, and Salesforce, among others.
With over 20 years’ experience in the Financial Services Industry & Consulting Services, Ketan brings deep leadership expertise in Strategy, Transformation, Operations, Digital, Data and Innovation. Prior to joining QBE in 2015, Ketan was with Farmers Insurance Group (part of Zurich Financial Services), where he led a staff of more than 800. As a Divisional CIO for Claims, he was also responsible for leading the development of a company-wide Digital Center of Excellence as well as defining the enterprise Cloud and Digital Strategy.
Ketan also worked for 11 years at Capgemini/Ernst & Young Consulting as their leader for CRM, Strategy, Architecture, Integration and Front office practice servicing Financial Services, Retail, Life Sciences customers. He also led large accounts and was instrumental in setting up the company’s offshore centers.
Dru Rai
Chief Information Officer, American Cancer Society
Dru Rai serves as chief information officer for the American Cancer Society. Dru is responsible for driving the digital and information technology strategies to create value across the organization and for its constituents. As the chief information officer, Dru collaborates with marketing, development, program leaders, finance, and other key functional stakeholders to implement strategy in an environment where innovation is an integral and differentiating component for both organizational culture and brand.
Dru will help lead the next generation of transformation for the American Cancer Society, leveraging emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data and cloud computing to enhance donor, volunteer, and patient engagement across the customer journey. This includes web and mobile platforms, social media channels and eCommerce.
Virgil Wong
Chief Digital Officer, Hinduja Global Solutions
Virgil Wong is the Chief Digital Officer of HGS, a global leader in business process management and optimizing the customer experience lifecycle (37,460 employees, 61 delivery centers, 7 countries, 34 languages, $754M annual revenue). He is also co-founder and former CEO of Medical Avatar LLC, a digital health company creating time travel virtual reality applications to improve healthcare delivery, reduce health care costs, and improve outcomes.
Virgil has led digital transformation initiatives across the U.S. for enterprise clients (Autozone, Dunkin’ Donuts, Federated Insurance) and leading healthcare organizations (Anthem, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medicine, and City of Hope). To design evolving systems for effective change, he combines digital technology expertise (MFA, New Media, Transart) with best practices based on cognitive psychology (Columbia University, Research Certification from Ph.D. cognition and intelligent technologies program).
