Alfian Talib is the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of the New Straits Times Press Malaysia. As the CCO of NSTP, Alfian oversees the Marketing, Advertising Sales and Newspaper Sales & Distribution (NSD) departments, ensuring growth in all three commercial sections of the company. He reports to the CEO of NSTP.

Alfian holds a Master’s in Marketing Management from New York University (USA) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Electronics Engineering from King’s College London, UK. He brings 20 years of experience in strategy, marketing planning and operational improvements primarily in the service and technology industries.

Over the course of his career, Alfian has also been able to develop a specialisation and understanding of the SME industry with more than 10 years in serving the sector’s growth. Before NSTP, Alfian was CEO of TM Info-Media Sdn Bhd (a subsidiary of Telekom Malaysia Berhad).

Alok Sanwal is the COO of Dainik Jagran I-Next, a broadsheet daily newspaper published by Jagran Prakashan, one of the largest media companies in India with the highest print circulation. He is a media professional with experience in the fields of sales, services, brand management, media services and running a print media set up.

Mr Sanwal is a Communication postgraduate from MICA (formerly known as the Mudra Institute of Communications) and an Engineering graduate from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani. He started his career in 1993.

He was previously COO and Editor of I-Next, the bilingual compact-sized daily from Jagran Prakashan Ltd and was managing content and the business of the publication. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Jagran Prakashan Ltd.

Andrew has worked for over 10 years as a journalist and editor in the UK, Spain and France. He has been with WAN-IFRA since the beginning of 2010 and was previously responsible for editorial and communications in the Press Freedom and Media Development team.

Based at the organisation’s Paris secretariat, he has worked in a number of countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia as part of WAN-IFRA's on-going efforts to defend press freedom and support independent news publishers.

Anthony joined SPH as Executive Vice-President, Chinese Media Group in February 2015. Anthony was appointed Deputy Chief Executive Officer on 1 July 2016. He oversees the media businesses of SPH, which includes titles such as Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, Berita Harian, Tamil Murasu, as well as radio stations under SPH Radio.

Anthony also manages the Group’s Healthcare business.

Prior to joining SPH, Anthony was Deputy Secretary (Policy), Ministry of Health and concurrently Special Assistant to the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew (2011-2014). During his career with the Singapore Public Service spanning more than 15 years, he served in various organisations including the Ministry of Finance, Home Affairs, Manpower as well as the People’s Association.

Anthony currently serves on the boards of Singapore Power Limited and several SPH subsidiaries. He also serves on private/non-profit organisations.

Anthony graduated from the National University of Singapore in 1997 with a Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) in Political Science. He also has a Master of Science (Management) degree from the Stanford Business School.

Chris is Chief Digital and Publishing Officer at Nine (prev Fairfax Media). Prior to this appointment he was Managing Director of Australian Metro Publishing, and Director of Publishing Innovation. In his current role, Chris oversees The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, nine.com.au, and 9Now. 

Chris was previously the founding CEO of HuffPost Australia, a joint venture between The Huffington Post and Fairfax Media, and has more than 20 years' experience building market-leading digital media businesses. He was also the founding CEO of Allure Media, one of Australia's largest independent digital publishers, and responsible for launching Business Insider, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, POPSUGAR and ShopStyle in Australia.

Chris' previous experience includes senior editorial roles at News Corp and production company Endemol Southern Star.

Gemi is an all-round marketing professional with more than 13 years experience in advertising/marketing area. He have worked at MEC Indonesia as Director of Strategy & Innovations then moved to brand side at FWD Indonesia where he led its Digital Marketing unit and E-Commerce. Expanding his experience, he then moved to publishing business by joining Kompas Cyber Media (Digital Group of Kompas Gramedia) as GM Marketing. 

Recently, Gemi was appointed as Head of Marketing & Product for KG Media where he’s overseeing all media platforms (Broadcast, Print & Digital) in Kompas Gramedia Group which give him better understanding of the industry's ecosystem. 

As the Managing Director, Geoff Tan oversees an extensive portfolio that includes partnerships and strategy, insights and intelligence, activations and sponsorships. His team is responsible for a host of deliverables such as engaging specific consumer segments via targeted database strategies, curated content syndication, channel partnerships, bespoke event activations, international licensing amongst other things.

Prior to joining SPH Magazines, Tan was heading the strategic marketing portfolio in SPH’s marketing division. He was also a mentor to start-ups housed within the SPH Plug and Play media accelerator initiative.

Tan was conferred the PANPA 2011 Marketer of the Year accolade by the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers Association for outstanding performance in marketing for a publishing company.

Jayant Bhargava is the Vice Chief Executive Officer of Kompas Gramedia Group.  Kompas Gramedia Group is an Indonesian-based conglomerate with primary business interests across media, hotels, retail, education, light manufacturing, event management and logistics sectors.

He joined Kompas Gramedia Group in October 2018.  Prior to joining Kompas Gramedia Group, he was a partner with Strategy& (formerly Booz & Company) in the Digital, Business & Technology domain, leading their Media & Entertainment practice.  His experience has been focused around digital transformation, internationalization, M&A, operational restructuring and growth strategies.

Joon-Nie leads the WAN-IFRA APAC team in Singapore. A lawyer by training, Joon-Nie spent over 15 years in broadcast television as a reporter, interactive producer, current affairs producer and news editor at Channel News Asia and its predecessors SBC News and TCS News. She has won several in-house awards for reporting, executive producing and best ‘live’ coverage and a Student Emmy for her Masters documentary project produced at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism while under a fellowship from MediaCorp. 

In her seven years teaching at Nanyang Technological University, Joon-Nie set up and headed Newsplex Asia, a US$700,000 convergent training newsroom and media lab in partnership with WAN-IFRA.

Besides being a Vice-President of the Singapore Press Club for over 16 years and co-founding the Hacks/Hackers Singapore chapter in 2015, Joon-Nie is also a regular speaker and trainer at conferences, workshops and industry panels both locally and abroad.

Manfred Werfel was WAN-IFRA’s Deputy CEO until he retired on 1 June 2019. He was responsible for the Expo business of the association. He also managed the World Printers Forum, the print community within WAN-IFRA.

Since 1996 Werfel was part of WAN-IFRA’s management team. Over time he was responsible for Research, WAN-IFRA Reports, Expert Committees, Consulting, Training, Print Quality Projects, Events, Innovation Projects, World Press Trends, World News Media Congress, World Printers Forum and Expo. In 2012 he acted as Interim CEO.

Winner of South Asia Digital Media Awards 2017 by Google and WAN-IFRA, "South Asian Business Excellence award by HRD Congress and The Most Influential global marketers by World Marketing Congress, Tajdin is a bold but a thoughtful leader who has brought a vision of change, far broader than " a tweak here and a tweak there". Currently working as "Head of Marketing" in The Daily Star, the leading English daily of the country. He is a passionate, creative and result driven leader with strong understanding of Business strategy and transformation. He has revamped the business model of The Daily Star and created alternative channels to ensure business growth. He has recently launched Messenger BoT, kind of first for a media house in South Asia and this achievement has been highlighted in INMA, the International News Media Association and GXpress, an Australia based technology newspaper. He has also been invited to Chennai, India as a speaker to present case study on Artificial Intelligence based digital product along with BBC UK and other renowned
brands.

He possesses extensive knowledge in marketing, strategic planning, project management and business development experience across media, telecoms, Oil & gas, courier & logistics and fast moving consumer goods industries. He has also worked for flagship brands like BAT, Chevron, Robi Axiata ltd and DHL Express ltd.

He represented The Daily Star in World News Congress in Washington DC and Digital Media Congress
in Hong Kong. Apart from that he attended number of training programs and workshops in Germany,
Switzerland, Singapore, Bangkok and Srilanka. Tajdin is also a successful Google Squared (The digital
marketing leadership course developed with Google) online graduate. He is also passionate about writing articles on his blog (www.tajdinhassan.com) and sharing those on various social networking sites. He has done his executive MBA from IBA and currently he is also the President of Alumni Association of Brac University.

Nasr ul Hadi leads the Int'l Center for Journalists' (ICFJ) Knight Fellows in India.  This team — editorial, multimedia, product, technology and strategy consultants with diverse experience across print, broadcast and digital news media​ ​— drives innovation experiments​ in newsrooms' story, product, workflow and/or business models, by developing and expanding the use of new technologies and digital-led best practices that improve access to quality information and journalism.

ICFJ Knight's hosts/partners in India have included established legacy brands and journalism startups, publishers in both English and local languages, mostly in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, but also in smaller cities deeper in the subcontinent — Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Dainik Jagran, Deccan Herald, IndiaSpend, among others.

Hadi's own focus is “culture hacking” in editorial teams to encourage sustainability, scalability and replicability of data-led news workflows. He has been a regular speaker and trainer on digital-led newsroom innovation at leading industry conferences, bootcamps and leadership roundtables worldwide, including those organised by the Online News Association (ONA), World Association of Newspapers (WAN-IFRA), Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), and Int'l Journalists Network (IJNet).

Beyond work, he co-manages local chapters of the global Hacks/Hackers community, and has occasionally taught digital storytelling in postgraduate and mid-career classrooms. Hadi studied engineering and digital media at the Aligarh and Columbia universities, respectively. 

Pichai Chuensuksawadi currently wears several hats. He is an independent media consultant for the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta on their ASEAN Media Forum project. He is also the editorial consultant for Frontier Myanmar, an independent English-language current affairs magazine. He is also president of the Australian Alumni Association i(Thailand).

And since January 2019, he is a founding director of the Foundation for Public Policy and Good Governance, an independent body whose role is to promote transparency, accountability and best practices in government and not for profit organisations.

Pichai retired from the Bangkok Post as Editor-in-Chief of Post Publishing’s three newspapers (the Bangkok Post, Post Today and M2F) on 1 September 2016. At the time he was also the Bangkok Post’s Editor.

Pichai worked as a journalist for 34 years, including 22 years as Post’s top editor. He started off as a proofreader with the Bangkok Post, working his way up the ranks as a copy and layout editor to feature writer, foreign affairs reporter.

Rashmi Dalai joined the Economist Group in June 2017 as a Managing Editor for Asia. Her work focuses on thought leadership programmes for the financial services and healthcare sectors.

Rashmi started her career on Wall Street with time spent in both convertible bonds sales and trading at Goldman Sachs and structured derivative products at Lehman Brothers. She left to form her own healthcare consulting practice, and spent over a decade advising a wide range of clients from large university hospitals to start-ups on business and financial strategies. Her role included taking interim COO and CFO positions for clients managing periods of high growth or other business transitions.

In 2007, she began splitting her time between the US and Asia (China, Indonesia, and Singapore) and expanded her consulting business to include advisory on business communications strategies and global thought leadership. Prior to joining The Economist Group, she was Head of Strategic Planning at Weber Shandwick, a global communications and PR firm, in Singapore.

Rashmi holds a Bachelors in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins University and a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University with a concentration in International Finance and Banking.

Sarmad Ali is Managing Director at the Jang Media Group, Pakistan’s largest media conglomerate having presence in Print, Broadcast and the Digital space.  He is responsible for the group’s revenue function.

Sarmad  has over thirty years of experience in marketing, advertising and media management.  He has been associated with the Jang Group since 1994 when he joined the group as Executive Director of the English daily “The News”.  Under his stewardship, The News became one of Pakistan’s two premier English dailies.  In 1997 he took over as the Group’s Executive Director, Marketing & Sales and in 2006 was promoted as Managing Director. 

Prior to joining the Jang Group, Sarmad has been associated with some of the country’s leading advertising agencies including IAL/Saatchi, where he worked as Director Client Service from 1987 to 1993.

He is presently President of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) and has previously served as its Secretary General and Joint Secretary.  He is also President of the International Advertising Association’s Pakistan Chapter and serves on IAA’s Global Board of Directors.  Sarmad also serves on the council of the World Branding Forum.  He is Board member and Hony Secretary of the Management Association of Pakistan. He is also the Chairman of the Ad-Asia 2019 organizing committee.

Described as of one of Pakistan’s marketing thought leaders, Sarmad has been thrice the President of the Marketing Association of Pakistan.  In 1999, he was awarded the coveted Marketing Excellence Award for his contribution in the field of marketing,  Ranked amongst Pakistan’s top 100 Business Leaders, Sarmad received the Asian Brand Leadership Award from the Asian Brand Congress in 2007 and the 50 Most Talented CMOs Award at the World Marketing Summit in 2013.

In 2013, the President of Pakistan conferred upon Sarmad the Sitara-I-Imtiaz, Pakistan’s third highest Civil Award.

He serves on the Governing Board of the Intellectual Property Organization, Cabinet Division, Government of Pakistan and on the Board of Directors of the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP). He has served in the past, as member of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Privatisation and Investment in 2003 and as member of the Sindh I. T. Board from 2000–2003.

Sarmad has also been on the Jury of the Global AME Awards (Advertising & Marketing Effectiveness) as well as the M&M Global Media Marketing & Advertising Awards and INMA (International News Media Association) awards.

Sarmad is also on the Board of Directors of the Pakistan Parkinson’s Society and Board of Governors of the Friends of the Burns Centre.

He holds a Master degree from Villanova University, Pa, USA.

Thomas Jacob was appointed as the Chief Operating Officer of WAN-IFRA in 2012. He is responsible for developing and implementing the organization’s strategy to be a platform for exchange of ideas, information and experiences among the global news publishing industry. Prior to this Jacob was the Deputy CEO, taking care of regional operations.

Prior to WAN-IFRA, Jacob worked for DMG Media, publisher of Daily Mail and Metro in the United Kingdom. As the International Development Director, he identified and evaluated digital media companies in Asia for potential acquisition. He also conceptualized and launched a compact midmarket newspaper, Mail Today, for the Indian market as a JV with the India Today Group.

Jacob is an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. As a summa cum laude, he is also a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, an honor society for management in the United States.

He is a trained engineer in electronics and telecommunications, having graduated with distinction from the National Institute of Technology, Suratkal, in India.

Wahyu Dhyatmika, Indonesia, is an investigative reporter and an editor for Tempo Media Group, an independent news organization based in Jakarta.

In 2010, Wahyu and his colleagues investigated suspicious bank accounts that belonged to prominent police generals in Indonesia. After publishing their findings, unidentified men threw a molotov cocktail bomb into Tempo's office. His investigation into fraud and corruption within the government-backed insurance scheme for Indonesian migrant workers in 2012 won an award from The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Jakarta.

With his team, he also won the prestigious Mochtar Lubis Award for best investigative reporting in 2011, for a story about match-fixing in the Indonesian soccer league. Wahyu initiated a collaborative reporting project between Tempo, The Reporter (Taiwan) and MalaysiaKini (Malaysia) to investigate human trafficking in the region in 2016. 

Wahyu was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2015. He is also a board member for The Alliance of Independent Journalist (AJI) Indonesia.