The Future for Finance Professionals: AI, Ethics, and Skills in a Human-machine Era

Bhavesh Kamdar is a highly experienced financial risk management professional with over two decades in the industry, focusing on fixed income markets. Based in Singapore, he holds both the Financial Risk Manager (FRM) and Certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF) designations. He combines strong statistical foundations with practical applications of machine learning in finance, making him a respected voice in quantitative risk analytics. Bhavesh has held key roles in major financial institutions and regularly shares insights on finance and risk management, contributing to thought leadership in the field.

Anthony is currently serving as Chapter Director for the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP) Singapore chapter. In his professional role, he is the Director of Risk at Seviora Holdings. Anthony has more than 28 years of experience in financial services sector focusing on risk & compliance. Prior to his current role, he was CRO, APAC at Aviva Investors. Prior to that, he was Regional Investment Risk Director at Eastspring Investments. Anthony holds a MSc Finance (Quantitative Finance) from University of London. He is a CFA charter holder and certified FRM

Prof. Huang Ke-Wei is the Executive Director of the Asian Institute of Digital Finance and an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore. His research focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence, data mining, and finance, with a particular emphasis on Machine Learning and Causal Inference, Applied data mining in finance. Dr. Huang holds a Ph.D. in Information Systems from NYU’s Stern School of Business and has published extensively in leading journals. He brings deep expertise in leveraging AI to transform financial decision-making and innovation.

Emily is the Group Head of Analytics at LSEG. In these roles Emily is responsible for driving the business success, strategic direction, delivery and alignment of analytics products and solutions across LSEG. This includes asset classes ranging from Fixed Income to Equity Derivatives, Traditional and Data Science led analytics disciplines and a breadth of applied analytics solutions ranging from Structuring to Portfolio Management.

Emily joined LSEG in 2016 from BlackRock's Financial Markets Advisory business. Prior to this, Emily spent a number of years at Barclays Capital within the Barclays Risk Analytics and Index Solutions (BRAIS) business, as UK head of POINT. In this position, Emily oversaw a rapid expansion of the adoption of Barclays' fixed income index and analytics solutions. Prior to Barclays, Emily held various roles at Lehman Brothers, RBS and UniCredit.

Robert Barkhuizen is a Market Risk professional originally from South Africa. He began his career at Standard Bank in Johannesburg, later working in London before relocating to Singapore, where he is currently with ICBC Standard Bank, a subsidiary of ICBC. Robert started in the quant space before transitioning to risk management and is now also contributing to the rollout of AI productivity tools within the risk function. Outside of work, he’s a keen fitness enthusiast and can often be found running or cycling along East Coast Park.