Mr. Dick Ho

Assistant General Manager, Head of Mass Retail, Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited

Dick has 20 years of experience in customer analytics, particularly in the retail banking industry. Apart from his data science career, he has run various business units for the Banks he served.His experience across disciplines becomes the key to put big data applications in action.

Dick joined Bank of China (HK) in 2011 as AGM – Head of Mass Retail. He is responsible for the P&L of Mass market, Proposition & Branding of “iFree Banking”, Customer Analytics and Marketing.It's a true combination of business unit and decision science to deliver outstanding financial results and customer experience.

Prior to that, Dick was the Head of Cross Sell and Pricing in Standard Chartered Bank, and a few other roles in Sales Management Office, Segment Management and BIU.He also served HSBC for 8 years, the time he started the data science career.

Professor Mike So

Associate Professor, Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management, HKUST;
Co-regional Director of the Hong Kong Chapter, PRMIA

Professor Mike So devotes to excellence in research on nonlinear time series analysis, dynamic modeling of economic & financial data, Bayesian analysis, risk management and data analytics. His research findings have been published in more than 50 scholarly articles in international journals.

Active in university and industry collaborations, he has served as an advisor in numerous collaborative projects with mutual funds, stock exchange and international companies in financial and data analytics areas.

Currently, he is a co-regional director of the Hong Kong Chapter of Professional Risk Managers’ International Association (PRMIA). Prof So is also a recognized professor who demonstrates outstanding dedication on teaching and learning development. He is the founding director of the Risk Management and Business Intelligence Program of HKUST.

Mr. Deepak Ramanathan

Chief Technology Officer, Asia Pacific, SAS

Deepak is a member of the SAS Center of Excellence for Analytics Platforms supporting the Technology Platform initiatives across the Asia Pacific region.

Deepak works with organizations in formulating their analytics strategies and helping them craft out the supporting infrastructure.

Deepak has been supporting the Asia Pacific region for the past 8 years and has advised customers across the verticals including Financial Services, Communications, Manufacturing and Public Sector.

Deepak has been with SAS over the past 13 years and is based out of Singapore.

Mr. Ramez Younan

Managing Director, PCCW Solutions

Mr. Younan has over 25 years of experience in Fortune 500 companies including organizations in IT and telecommunications in 60 countries, and has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, integration and assimilation of global organizations.

Mr. Younan joined PCCW Solutions as Chief Operating Officer of its international business in August 2013. Prior to that, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Orga Systems in Germany making it the fastest growing in the industry during his tenure. He had also served at Oracle Corporation for more than a decade in several roles, last of which was Global Group Vice President of Global Consulting Services of the telecommunications unit making it the largest global telecom software provider at the time.

Mr. Younan has received several awards for his achievements in the industry including his selection as a top 100 worldwide executive in telecommunications for three consecutive years.