Shilpa is currently Chief Strategy Officer APAC at McCann Worldgroup.

In a versatile career spanning over two decades, Shilpa has worked as a marketer & strategist, in global, regional and local roles in preeminent organisations like Unilever, WPP & IPG. Armed with firsthand senior leadership stints in prominent markets like India, the UK, China, Russia and Singapore, Shilpa has relentlessly imbibed the cultural zeitgeist of the Orient and the Occident. Shilpa’s rich brand building experience transcends diverse categories & brands like L’Oreal Paris, Lakme, Nivea, Sunsilk, Mondelez, Coca Cola, Nestle, Lincoln, BMW and more. Additionally, Shilpa has served as Assistant Private Secretary to HRH The Prince of Wales (The Commonwealth, Faith and Ethnic Communities’).

Shilpa has headlined Asian thought leadership with ‘Truth about Ascending Asia’, has been on the jury of several Effectiveness Awards and has been featured in Campaign Asia’s Women to Watch 2024. She is also a Founding Board Member at IAA Singapore and Chair of IAA Singapore’s Professional Development Council.

Global in her outlook but deeply Indian at heart, Shilpa’s business foundations were shaped at Hindustan Unilever Limited, often labelled as a ‘School for Indian CEOs’. She has lived, studied and worked in different parts of India and looks forward to retiring in India after she wraps up her professional career, making a small impact in society!

Ms. Priyanka Kishore is the Founder and Principal Economist of Asia Decoded, a macro consultancy delivering advisory services to policymakers, think tanks, corporates, and institutional investors. With two decades of experience in macroeconomic research across Asia, she specializes in analyzing long-term economic trends, trade dynamics, global value chains, climate change, debt sustainability, and scenario planning.

A sought-after speaker and presenter, Ms. Kishore regularly conducts high-level briefings for corporate boards, industry associations, and policy forums. She also writes for major economic and business publications. She is a columnist for the Nikkei Asia Review (NAR) and frequently appears on Bloomberg, CNBC, BBC, CNA and other prominent media platforms.

Before founding Asia Decoded, Ms. Kishore served as the Chief India and Southeast Asia Economist at Oxford Economics. Her earlier roles include senior economist and strategist positions in the banking sector, where she built her reputation as a leading expert on financial and economic trends in the region.

Nish Shetty specialises in dispute resolution, with a particular focus on international arbitration, restructuring & insolvency and regulatory work. He regularly advises on complex cross-jurisdictional disputes including arbitrations and is widely recognised as a leader in the field of dispute resolution in the region.

Nish is on the panel of arbitrators of most of the key arbitral institutions in the world.
He is the founder and ex-chairman of the SIAC’s Users Council, the Co-Chair of the Council of Arbitration of MCIA and the first in Asia to be appointed as a Judge of Appeal on the FIA International Court of Appeal in Paris. He is also inducted in the Hall of Fame for arbitration in Legal 500 and named as a Thought Leader for Arbitration by Who’s Who Legal 2021.

Sumedha Dasgupta is a Senior Analyst in the Asia Country Analysis team. She focuses on emerging markets in South Asia, providing forecasts and analysis on economic development, public policy and international relations in the region.

Sumedha has extensive experience in tracking India’s macroeconomy and financial markets. Prior to joining The Economist Group, she led a team conducting research on the Indian economy at ICICI Bank, one of India’s leading banks. She has also previously worked at ICRA Limited, a credit rating agency majority-owned by Moody’s, as a macroeconomist and public finance ratings adviser, involved in country and state ratings.

Sumedha holds a Master’s degree in Economics from Delhi School of Economics, New Delhi, and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics with Mathematics and Statistics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Frederick Kliem is the Southeast Asia Director of the Economist Intelligence Corporate Network (EICN) based in Singapore. Frederick works closely with network members to help inform their business strategies through political, economic and operational insights and to connect them with their senior leadership peers.

Frederick is a seasoned consultant and well-published thought-leader in politics, the economy and sustainability of Asia. He has more than 20 years of experience working on and in South- and Southeast Asia, and he has worked closely with business, political and civil society stakeholders to help inform their strategies and build networks.

Before joining The Economist Group, Frederick was the Director Climate Change and Energy Security for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation – a development organisation of the German government, dedicated to the promotion of a social market economy - in Singapore and Hong Kong. Prior to that, Frederick lectured and taught post-graduate students (MA and PhD) at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore.

Frederick holds a PhD in International Relations and Multilateralism in Asia and is passionate about politics and economics as well as climate and sustainability issues. On these and more, he is a well-published published author, with several books, peer-reviewed-journal articles and numerous media appearances and op-eds to his name.

Expertise:
South- and Southeast Asia, ASEAN, and Europe

Specialist subjects:
Geopolitics, Development, Energy Security and Transition, Politics and Economics ASEAN and the EU,

Languages:
English, German, and ever-improving Malay