7 Questions with leaders of small and medium enterprises

Name: Nir Shavit

Current title: Co-Founder & CTO

Current organisation: LungTek ltd.

I grew up in Israel's thriving high-tech industry, started as a programmer, with tons of passion. After a long time of wanting and waiting I finally made it, with a leap of faith, into a world full of challenges, rewards, great people and endless interest.

Name: Ava Naeini

Current title: Founder

Current organization: Pulse Operations

I'm the founder of Pulse Operations and umbrella of innovative products for helping humanity and operating software.

Name: Kiara Thomas

Current title: CEO

Current organisation: Quality Resolution Systems LLC

In her studies for Engineering Management, Kiara has found a further need to help with the advancement of Automotive Technologies & Manufacturing Processes, while keeping her focus on her family and her community. She has been working for the top OEM Manufacturers and Tier-One Supplier companies for almost a decade.

Name: Paul Marks

Current title: CEO & Founder
Current organisation: Healthy Returns

Paul has 18 years in talent strategy, culture creation and organisational health, working with businesses that invest in their people to build happy, healthy and purpose-led cultures. He is the Founder & CEO of Healthy Returns, working with founders and entrepreneurs to build their mental resilience, and the Co-Founder & Chief Wellbeing Officer of Healthy R Communications, a culture strategy agency working with ambitious companies to create workplaces of the future. A TEDx speaker talking about mental and emotional resilience, Paul is active in the mental wellbeing community, and is most likely to be found moderating, speaking and sharing his knowledge at conferences, workshops and on podcasts.

Name: Zitah McMillan

Current title: CEO

Current organisation: Predictive Black

Having spent a long career working in advertising & communications for large ad agencies, then the UK Government and financial regulator, I moved into leading a European lending business which reignited my dormant passion for SMEs. This led to me starting my own Company with my co-founders in 2019, and Predictive Black was born.

Name: Nathan Kinch

Current title: CEO

Current organisation: Greater Than X

Nathan is a 3x entrepreneur, speaker and writer, impact focused startup investor, wanna be athlete and plant-based home chef. He's spent most of his career designing organisations for the qualities of trustworthiness. He's led work for federal governments, major corporations, fast growing startups and research and policy institutes around the globe. He lives on the sunny Gold Coast (Australia) with his life partner, 2 year old daughter, two four legged friends and a vibrant fruit and veggie garden.

Name: Peggy Molloy

Current title: Creative Head

Current organisation: Pegalomania The Artsquuen

Began ballet classes at age three, & continued with training, performing, choreographing, teaching & directing for many decades. Began college late in life, B.A. in ART AS COMMUNICATION; Humboldt State University.

Began selling high end jewelry, attended Full Sail University Online; Masters of Science in Entertainment Business. Eldercare of parents, began study of Law. A real estate broker paid for me to attend CA courses to work with him. Developed affiliate marketing relationships (still adding to this) & personal art available on my own website: BrandingByPeg.com

Name: Heather Murray

Current title: Managing Director

Current organisation: Beesting Digital

Proud Brummie with a lot of energy. In addition to running two companies, runs Festive Friends, a charity providing a free meal for 100 isolated older people every year. Has a Spanish rescue dog, Dotty and long-term partner, Paul.

Name: Swathi Young

Current title: CTO

Current organisation: Integrity Management Services Inc

Swathi Young is an innovator, speaker, mentor and award-winning CTO with over two decades of technology experience. Over this time, she has led over 100 projects globally -- in Belgium, India, and the US -- across e-commerce, supply chain, Hi-tech, financial and healthcare sectors. She is most recently involved in designing AI/ML applications to enhance organizational performance especially for US government agencies. She is a Woman in AI Ambassador for Washington DC and also a Forbes Technology Council member. She recently co-authored the Ethical Application of AI framework to help US federal agencies evaluate the ethical implications of AI systems.

Name: Nadh Thota

Current title: Vice President - Sales

Current organisation: Ambient Scientific Inc (Head-Quartered at San Jose, USA)

Over 20 years of excellence in Sales/Marketing [ ICT ] with special eye on Smart Cities, IOT, AI, HMI, Voice Assistants, OTT, Biometrics, AFIS, Data Storage, Surveillance, RFID, Smart Cards, Mobility, Network Security, Web Services, E-Commerce, SEO, SMM, Social Commerce, new media. Hard-core Sales/Presales professional with passion to excel. Floated & ran successful start-ups in London, UK & India

Core-competencies: Artificial Intelligence, Smart Cities, IOT, Voice Assistants, Far Field Voice (FFV), OTT, Smart Home, Smart Speakers, STB, POD, Voice Remotes, Biometrics, UIDAI Solutions, AFIS, Data Storage, HPC, Network Security, CCTV, Surveillance, RFID, Web/Mobile Services, e-Com, SEO, SEM, SMM, Social Commerce, Mobility

Name: Patrick Conte

Current title: CCO

Current organisation: Opsani

Silicon Valley startup executive with 20+ years building successful Go To Market strategies and teams. Have successfully exited several startup companies and built many others. Technology areas include AI, cyber security, data center, cloud infrastructure.

Name: Rohit Dhawan

Current title: Chief Information Officer

Current organisation: Bank of Kigali Plc

Rohit Dhawan as Chief Information Officer at Bank of Kigali has been with the bank since 2019. In his role he has been spearheading the transformation of the Technology organization to become service oriented. The transformation journey focuses on balance operations and strategic changes, some small and some path breaking to enhance the value that the bank offers to its customers. The pillars of strategy are Simplification, Scalability, Resilience, Compliance, Data and Innovation.

He has been using technology and innovation, based on the knowledge of the banking industry, to engineer business optimisations. He has been able to create solutions and opportunities for complex and sensitive requirements. His ability to amalgamate the conventional wisdom from the traditional project management with agile practices has helped him accelerate and deliver critical successes varied in scale, value and complexity during his career.

He is an empathetic leader who likes to connect with people at grass root level. His people approach is focused on identifying, developing, coaching and promoting talent. His people management philosophy is to create and run energized teams in a professional, transparent and friendly atmosphere.

Rohit is an engineer by education, A Bachelor of Technology Degree in Computer Engineering from Kurukshetra University.