Herman Warren is The Economist Corporate Network’s Network Director for Africa. Herman works with corporate clients to provide insight and analysis on a range of topics related to the broad and specific African context, helping clients to prosper in one of the world's fastest growing and most dynamic economic zones. He regularly chairs and moderates events and delivers custom briefings to senior executives. Herman is the author of a number of white papers on infrastructure, financial and commercial developments in the region. Herman has previously worked as a management consultant with Bain & Company, started and run a successful mobile technology company and has held senior posts in both public- and private-sector corporations. Herman holds a BBA degree in Finance from Howard University.

Dimitry Rakin is the Associate Director of the Economist Corporate Network North Asia, where he is responsible for events planning, private briefings, data analysis and research in Japan and South Korea. He is an expert on Japanese economy, business and trade as well as on the history and politics of the East Asia region.

Prior to joining The Economist Group, Dimitry was a Senior Officer of Economic Affairs in the Trade Delegation Unit of the Russian Embassy in Japan connecting Russian and Japanese companies, promoting Russia as an investment destination and facilitating Russia-Japan intergovernmental negotiations on economic cooperation. He started his career as an editor covering East Asia in one of the biggest Russian news agencies (ITAR-TASS) working in the central office and Tokyo Bureau of the agency.

Dimitry has an MA degree in Japanese language and history from the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU) and was also a Japanese government (MEXT) research scholar at Meiji University’s Graduate School of Law, Tokyo. In addition to native Russian language skills, he is fluent in English and Japanese.

Fabio Vacirca is the market unit group lead responsible for managing Accenture’s business across Australia and New Zealand, South East Asia, India, Africa and the Middle East. In this role, he is responsible for the people and performance of the various market units, overall strategy, sales and delivery excellence. He is also a member of Accenture's Global Management Committee.

Prior to assuming this role in March 2020, Fabio served as the lead for our Asia Pacific markets, including Japan and Greater China, for our clients in industries such as air, freight and travel services; industrial equipment and automotive; consumer goods and services; infrastructure and transportation services; life sciences; and retail. In this role, he has helped to triple the size of Accenture’s business across Asia.

In his nearly 30-year career with Accenture, Fabio has held a variety of leadership roles, including serving as the worldwide lead for Accenture’s consumer goods and services practice where he was responsible for business planning, industry development, investments and market strategy. He also led Accenture’s acquisition and integration of two consumer products software businesses (CAS and NewPage) growing the business to scale further in emerging markets. Additionally, he was the global account lead for large multi-national clients in the consumer goods and services industry.

Throughout his career, Fabio has led large-scale transformation and IT projects for clients and, as an early adopter of experimentation and fail-fast, he developed and grew the Accenture Customer Innovation Network where he scaled innovation hubs around the world (Singapore, Milan, Tokyo, Shanghai, Dubai) bringing together the best of Accenture’s capabilities to help our clients transform their business.

Fabio joined Accenture in 1991 and became a partner in 2001. He holds a Management Engineering degree from the Politecnico di Milano University in Italy and speaks five languages. He is currently based in Singapore.

Sasithorn is Align Technology’s Managing Director in Southeast Asia.

Responsible for Align’s business performance in Southeast Asia, Sasithorn sets the company’s strategic direction in Southeast Asia, oversees financial performance, manages partnerships and explores business opportunities for the company in the key markets of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam as well as manage plans for new market entry.

Sasithorn has more than 20 years’ experience in medical device and pharmaceutical industries and has spent her entire career building and managing brands and businesses in Southeast Asia.

Professional recognition earned by Sasithorn includes awards for emerging market performance, leadership and people management in the ASEAN region.

Sasithorn holds M.B.A from Vanderbilt University in United States, and Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy degree from Mahidol University in Thailand.

Mahesh has held the position of Market Group Leader Growth Markets with Signify, formerly known as Philips Lighting, since July 2018. Before that, he held various senior management roles in the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Shanghai from 2001 to 2018, including Business Group Leader LED.

Before Signify, Mahesh worked in various senior sales & marketing positions at Procter & Gamble in India and Singapore from 1989 to 2001.

Mahesh, an Indian national, holds a postgraduate degree in Management from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, both in India.