Meet CELP Cohort 7 Mentors
Bhavini Amin is a senior executive with 25+ years of experience driving strategy, growth, and operations across fintech, banking, investment management, and lending organizations at CoreLogic.
Most recently, Bhavini was the Chief Marketing and Revenue Operations Officer at CoreLogic, which acquired Roostify, a fintech, B2B SaaS company, where Bhavini helped lead the organization through a period of rapid growth; maturing marketing capabilities, building a revenue operations function and setting the company up for acquisition.
Bhavini is also an active advisor within the startup ecosystem including VCs, Accelerator Programs and Startup Incubators globally particularly helping India-based startups looking to expand into the US markets.
Prior to CoreLogic, Bhavini has made significant contributions in her roles at top Fortune 500 companies such as Freddie Mac, T. Rowe Price, Bank of America, Vanguard, Northwestern Mutual, and Merrill Lynch.
Bhavini holds an MBA in management and marketing from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Science in finance and international business from the University of South Carolina
Urvi Bham is CEO and Founder @ Vikara Risk & Compliance Solutions | Risk and Compliance Advisory Services.
Prior to starting her venture, Urvi worked at Bank of America as Senior Vice President (SVP) and Chief Operating Officer (COO) where she was highly successful in developing firm-wide risk and control strategies to address global complex issues, towards sustaining a strong risk culture within the Bank’s risk appetite. Urvi’s Executive Mentors | 2 background also includes leadership tenure with Freddie Mac, America Online and Ernst & Young LLP.
She is highly regarded for developing next generation leaders and leading diverse multi-disciplinary teams through direct and indirect influence.
Urvi is a strong advocate for her community and consistently reaches back to pay it forward. At Bank of America, Urvi sponsored the Asian Leadership Network. She is an Advisory Board Member for Ascend Greater Philadelphia Chapter, a member of the Ascend Greater Washington Corporate Executive Leadership team, a motivational speaker, and an executive coach.
Urvi holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Pittsburgh. Urvi resides in Northern Virginia with her husband and two children.
Rakesh Bhatia is a retired partner in PwC and led the Global Business Services practice in the US. He had 35+ years of progressive leadership experience in sales, delivery, and operations for consulting and outsourcing with P&L responsibilities and working with global clients in Healthcare, Energy, Telecom, Media, and Technology industries. He was focused on the Fit-for-Growth platform and helping C-Suite clients in driving Operational and Financial Transformation, Strategy, Change management, Global Business Services, Organization Redesign and Automation benefits.
Rakesh served as the Transformation Office Leader to drive Transformation to the "The New Equation" Strategy across PwC Consulting Solutions Organization.
Rakesh has a deep experience of not only advising clients in leveraging their investments in the global delivery and shared services operations, but he has also operated delivery centers and CoEs in multiple countries to have a practical hands on knowledge of the opportunities and constraints while managing such operations.
As a PwC US partner and Service Delivery Network (SDN) leader, Rakesh had overall accountability for building scale, managing operations in multiple countries, driving adoption, resources, delivery, automation and quality control in the Acceleration Centers worldwide.
Currently, he also serves as a Global Relationship Partner for a large software industry client.
Before joining PwC, as a partner in KPMG, Rakesh was also the global relationship partner for Fortune 50 Telecom client and as Senior Vice President, led the global delivery for BearingPoint (formerly KPMG Consulting).
Rakesh also has an extensive experience in sales and marketing. He led business development organization in the US and South America for one of the largest System Integrator.
Rakesh has served on multiple boards including the Board Chair, PwC Acceleration Centers in India & China, Executive Board member of PwC Charitable Foundation (Humanitarian/Disaster Response Leader), President of Pratham DC Board, and Advisory Board Member of Ascend DC Chapter.
Rakesh has a degree in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from University of Delhi. He has been an invited speaker in many industries and universities forums for Telecom, Broadband convergence, outsourcing trends,speaker program management and global consulting landscape. Rakesh was one of the keynote speakers for the Ascend Annual convention, 2013 – “Innovative Leadership in the Borderless World.”
Rakesh lives in Great Falls, VA with his wife and two adult children.
Rich Chang is a Managing Director in the Deloitte Risk and Financial Advisory practice. Rich has over 25 years of experience, 15+ at Deloitte, solving the cybersecurity challenges of the United States Federal Government. He has a wide breadth of skills and knowledge areas including identity and access management, biometrics, zero trust, and cybersecurity policy and standards, At Deloitte he has been a trusted advisor across the Federal Government, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Transportation Security Administration, and national intelligence agencies.
He is also involved in leading and driving large cybersecurity opportunities across the federal market. In addition to his role in the marketplace, Rich has a passion for mentoring and developing the next generation of leaders. He has taken an active role in coaching minorities internal and external to Deloitte. He is also a board member of Ascend Greater Washington.
In his free time he attempts to play golf, actively searches for hidden food treasures, and with his wife volunteers for animal rescue organizations, doing their best to not be foster failures.
Jeannette L. Chu is Vice President for National Security Policy at the National Foreign Trade Council, She leads national security and competitiveness efforts at the intersections of business, technology, trade, manufacturing and policy. 24 years in law enforcement and 10+ years of diplomatic experience in China for over twelve years, serving as the key interlocutor and subject matter expert on a broad range of complex policy issues including strategic trade, export controls and immigration policy.
Unparalleled depth and breadth of China due diligence, trade compliance and verification experience across multiple sectors including aerospace/aviation, composite materials and semiconductor manufacturing. Over 24 years of federal law enforcement experience. Proficient in Mandarin Chinese.
Specialties: Trade compliance, ITAR, Export Control Reform, EAR, OFAC, operational due diligence, U.S.-China relations, export controls, nonproliferation, immigration issues including human trafficking, law enforcement and investigations.
A recognized subject matter expert and thought leader on export controls and trade sanctions, Jeannette joins NFTC from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where she served as a Senior Managing Director advising U.S. and multinational companies and co-leading the national security regulatory compliance practice. She will continue to hold a concurrent role as a non-resident senior associate with the Trustee Chair for Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Affairs (CSIS).
She previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), U.S. Department of Commerce where she worked on export control reform, export licensing and foreign policy matters. She also served at the American Embassy in Beijing and the U.S. Consulate General Guangzhou in several capacities including as the Senior Export Control Attaché for nearly six years, conducting end-use visits to more than 250 locations across China and negotiating a landmark export control cooperation agreement with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. She was the first Officer-In-Charge of the Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS) in China.
Jeannette received her B.A. in Political Science from American University in Washington, D.C. and is a 2020 graduate of Women in Technology’s Leadership Foundry program on preparing women for corporate board service. She serves on the Executive Board of Ascend Greater Washington and volunteers as a mentor for Ascend’s Corporate Executive Leadership Program, the Women’s Foreign Policy Group and Women in Technology.
Liz Benson Feigel is Chief of Staff to the President & COO / Senior VP at Tungsten Automation. She focuses on operational excellence and creating enterprise value in recurring revenue models. She previously led the Conversational Artificial Intelligence practice for Deloitte across the federal, state, and local government and higher education markets.
Liz is passionate about advancing diversity and inclusion in the workplace. She has spent the last decade engaging in the Pan-Asian business community in the Greater Washington Area (GWA), currently serving as a member of the Board of Directors at Ascend GWA Chapter. She has also served as the Ascend GWA Corporate Executive Initiative and Corporate Executive Leadership Program PMO Lead and Inspiring Across Generations Conference Chair. Having had mentors and many inspirations in the Pan-Asian community, she has endeavored to support other colleagues and students in the Pan-Asian community through professional development and community programs.
She is a graduate of West Virginia University and enjoys spending time with her husband Steven, children Kinsley and Jack, two dogs, and cat.
Susan Go is Senior Director of Solution Engineering at Salesforce, the #1 customer relationship management (CRM) platform. With over 20 years of experience in enterprise software sales she helps government agencies innovate faster and transform mission delivery to better meet the demands of constituents with user-centered technology. Under her leadership, her organization has grown 6x in revenue and scale embracing innovation to provide value-based solutions to government agencies during a time of rapid change. She has spearheaded organizational pipe generation initiatives that have resulted in more than $150m in impacted revenue.
Susan believes in a diverse and inclusive workforce and community. She models inclusive leadership which puts people at the center and builds a foundation of trust to create psychological safety and a coaching culture which drives high performance for the individual and the team. She is Founder and President of Salesforce’s Asian American employee resource group for the DC Metro area, leading member of Greater DC AAPI ERG Leaders’ Network, founder of Salesforce's Equality Council for the DMV and member of Salesforce's Citizen Philanthropy Council.
She serves on the Board of Touching Heart, on the Leadership Council for DC for Upwardly Global and is a Bestselling author.
Mahwish Hamlani is a Managing Director for Accenture’s Financial Services Technology practice. She has over 18 years of experience with leading large and complex transformation programs for Accenture's commercial and federal clients. Mahwish is also involved in numerous Inclusion & Diversity initiatives to help retain, attract, and advance women and minorities within Accenture. She is also the Executive Sponsor for the Interfaith and Muslim Employee Resource Group.
Mahwish is the recipient of the Washington DC Women in Technology Leadership award and 40 Under 40 award. Mahwish has a Bachelors of Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Masters from University of Virginia. She lives in the Virginia with her husband and two children.
John Hwang is a Managing Director within Accenture Federal Services’ Defense & Intelligence Portfolio where he is a Client Account Lead responsible for program delivery and growth. He joined Accenture in 1999 and has supported a variety of Telecom and US Government clients with business consulting, technology modernization, and innovation led transformation.
John embraces challenge and uses his skill in delivery and sales, as well as his account management experience and business acumen to meet any challenge he’s faced with – articulating value, engaging with senior leadership, and driving business in a powerful way. One of his superpowers is leveraging his technical knowledge to understand, analyze, and speak to its value and outcomes – supporting both the business and his clients in all capacities.
John graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and Biology. He lives in the Fairfax/Centreville area with his wife, Sunah (Pre-School Teacher), and four children, Connor (17, 12th grade), Cailey (15, 10th grade), and twins Colin and Cameron (9, 4th grade). Fun fact – John has been on the cover of a CNN article!
Professionally, John lives by two tenants: 1) Helping our clients be the best and 2) Creating opportunities for our people. Doing both well motivates John to do his best every day.
Rik Khurana Vice President | Innovator, Strategy, Digital Transformation, Cloud, AI, Analytics.
He provides technical and thought leadership on several strategic initiatives including Technical Transformation, Product Modernization, Cloud Enablement, Agile Transformation and DevOps. Rik provides engineering leadership for the development and implementation of key technology initiatives to drive FEPOC Business strategy.
Rik is responsible for developing and managing application development standards, processes, and tools. Also, Rik develops and implements the technology strategy, process automation and human capital capable of supporting a scalable, functional and reliable suite of products with a focus on innovation, emerging technologies and making recommendations on the strategic use of technology to achieve business results.
Rik provides visible technology leadership for the FEPOC to customers, partners, and vendors, as well as to the technology community Prior to joining FEPOC, Rik served as Sr Director of Product and Delivery for the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan, where he was responsible for developing departmental technology vision and roadmap, overseeing technology operations and providing thought leadership for business transformation activities.
He played a pivotal role in transforming the FEP Bridge into a multi-tenant and innovative product suite comprised of 10 unique products that are currently used by seven Plans. Rik earned an MBA in IT Strategic Management from the University of Maryland Smith School of Business and a Bachelor of Engineering from the Delhi College of Engineering.
Additionally, Rik holds several technical certifications including: AWS Certified Solution Architect, AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialty, Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Project Management Professional (PMP).
Lance Morimoto is a Deloitte Consulting Principal focused on strategy and operations transformation in the Health industry.
Over his career, Lance has served a wide range of health provider and health plan clients, and brings an integrated perspective to addressing issues in the U.S. health system. Lance serves as Growth Leader for a large Health Care client and is a member of the Management Committee for Deloitte's Federal Health sector.
Lance earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles and an M.B.A. from New York University.
Michele Sipes is a Principal in Deloitte’s Risk and Financial Advisory practice. She has over 20+ years of experience in cybersecurity, specializing in transformative solutions for federal clients. Throughout her career, Michele has led the development of comprehensive cyber risk programs, implemented cyber workforce strategies, created zero trust architectures, and navigated the security complexities for enterprise modernization programs. A passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, Michele actively supports creating inclusive workplaces and is inspired by the opportunities she’s gained from Pan-Asian leadership programs.
Michele graduated from the University of Virginia and loves spending quality time with her family, exploring travel destinations, discovering unique restaurants, and indulging in guilty – pleasure TV shows.
Linh Walker is a Managing Director leading Enterprise Applications and Operations under the CIO for Accenture Federal Services. Linh has 20+ years of experience with federal and commercial clients and specializes in large-scale enterprise implementations.
She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two children.
Garrett Yee currently serves as the Vice President and General Manager of the Army and Defense Agencies Sector at GDIT. In this role, he is responsible for the successful operation, execution, and management for GDIT’s Army and Defense Agencies mission programs. He leads over 3,000 employees with operations in 22 countries, implements effective employee and customer engagements, and focuses on improving service delivery in all major programs.
Garrett is a seasoned leader with over 20 years of experience specializing in executive leadership, customer engagement, team building, performance improvement, and productivity optimization.
Prior to GDIT, Garrett served in the U.S. Army retiring as Major General. In his final assignment with the Army, Garrett served at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) where he helped to lead a global organization of approximately 8,000 military and civilian personnel who plan, develop, deliver, and operate joint, interoperable, command and control capabilities and a global enterprise infrastructure in direct support of the president, secretary of defense, joint chiefs of staff, combatant commanders, Department of Defense components, and other mission partners across the full spectrum of operations.
Prior to his assignment at DISA, Garrett served as the Military Deputy to the Army CIO/G-6 and Senior Information Security Officer in the Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO)/G6, Headquarters, Department of the Army in the Pentagon