Director, Global Strategy and Market Development, Boeing Commercial Airplanes
Avik Bhattacharya is director of Global Strategy & Market Development for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, based out of Seattle. Avik leads a team responsible for developing strategic partnerships, industrial participation strategies and other business collaboration opportunities in leading markets across the world, including China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Africa and Australia.
Previously, Avik served as Boeing Commercial Airplanes’ director of Business Development and Strategy, in Boeing’s offices in Seattle and New Delhi. In that role, he was responsible for developing and growing Boeing’s industrial collaboration in the Asia-Pacific.
Prior to joining Boeing, Avik worked in mergers and acquisitions, private equity, strategy consulting and business development roles in China, Indonesia, Germany, France and India. Avik speaks multiple Indian languages and makes do in Mandarin and French.
Avik holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and two master’s degrees in business administration and international studies from the University of Washington.
45th Legislative District (Redmond), Deputy Majority Leader of the Washington State Senate
Sen. Manka Dhingra is Deputy Majority Leader of the Washington State Senate. She brings two decades of experience as a prosecutor and behavioral health expert to her role as chair of the Senate Law & Justice Committee. She also serves on the Health & Long Term Care Committee and the Ways & Means Committee.
Dhingra was first elected to the Senate by the constituents of the 45th Legislative District in November 2017, the first Sikh state legislator elected in the nation. Since then, she has sponsored and passed legislation addressing a wide range of issue areas, including: curbing domestic violence and sexual assault, preventing firearm violence, providing property tax relief for seniors and people with disabilities, prosecuting financial fraud, and reforming the criminal justice system with an evidence-based approach.
During her time in the Senate, Dhingra founded the Senate Behavioral Health Subcommittee and helped pass legislation and funding to transform the Washington State behavioral health system, reorienting it around prevention rather than crisis response. She continues to strive to ensure that Washingtonians with behavioral health needs get the treatment they need and deserve.
As a member of the Special Committee on Economic Recovery in 2020, she helped the state craft an economic plan to lead an equitable recovery from the COVID economic downturn. She also serves on several task forces dedicated to reducing poverty, reforming the criminal justice system, improving equity in state government, and providing a sound and fair fiscal footing for the state.
Dhingra continues to serve as a Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. As Chair of the Therapeutic Alternative Unit, she helped develop and oversee the Regional Mental Health Court, the Veterans Court, and the Community Assessment and Referral for Diversion program. As a mental health and crisis intervention expert, she has also been an instructor at the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission for the 40-hour Crisis Intervention Training for law enforcement officers to reduce the risk of tragedy and improve the response to people in crisis.
Outside the courtroom, Dhingra is a community leader and anti-domestic violence advocate. She co-founded Chaya, an organization that assists South Asian survivors of domestic violence. She serves on the board of Hopelink, a nonprofit organization in Redmond working to end poverty in our community, and on the Behavioral Health, Aging, and Disability Steering Committee of NASHP — the National Academy for State Health Policy.
City of Seattle
Mayor Bruce Harrell was born in Seattle to an African American father who was one of the first Black union lineman at Seattle City Light, and a Japanese American mother who had been incarcerated at Minidoka during World War II. His mother "Rose" worked for the Seattle Public Library and was elected to the Seattle City Credit Union Board of Directors. He is Seattle's first Asian American and first biracial mayor and Seattle's second Black mayor.
From an early age to today, Bruce has drawn from the experiences of his parents and lessons learned from his youth to challenge injustice, celebrate the diversity of our communities, and bring people together around our shared Seattle values.
The Harrell family lived in Seattle's redlined Central District, where Bruce graduated from Garfield High School in 1976 as valedictorian of his class. Bruce went on to attend the University of Washington on a football scholarship - declining offers from Harvard and Stanford to stay in his hometown. At the University of Washington, Bruce earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science, won a Rose Bowl, and made the national Academic All-American First Team in football. In 2013, Bruce was inducted into the Pacific Northwest Football Hall of Fame as a College Player.
Bruce later earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Washington School of Law. As an attorney, he spent his early career in technology and telecommunications as an in-house attorney. He later joined a downtown firm representing employees, youth, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations. He frequently served as a mentor and coach for students and young people across South Seattle.
Bruce was elected to the Seattle City Council in 2007 citywide, and re-elected twice, later serving his home district of South Seattle after City Council positions became districted. He was twice elected City Council President by his peers, one of just a few to ever serve multiple terms in that role. And, in 2017, Bruce served as interim mayor.
On the Council, Bruce was a leader on issues of racial equity, public safety reform, and economic and educational opportunity for all. He sponsored the law to "Ban the Box," led efforts to pass Seattle's first bias-free police law and was the first to advocate for the use of body cameras by SPD officers. He championed Seattle's Race and Social Justice legislation, requiring all Seattle policies to be reviewed through an equity lens.
Bruce was the first to enact the pilot program that eventually became the Seattle Promise, providing free college education to Seattle Public School students, and he originated the Great Student Initiative that provides 20,000 Seattle Public School students with access to computers and high-speed Internet access. He helped lead negotiations to pass the $15 minimum wage and supported other groundbreaking pieces of legislation to advance support for workers and small businesses before retiring from the Council in 2019.
In 2021, Bruce was elected mayor of Seattle on a commitment to address the homelessness crisis with urgency and compassion, to ensure public safety for all communities, and to restore trust, hope, and unity in local government and civic life. He is a member of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and chair of their Standing Committee on Technology and Innovation.
With a belief that we can accomplish more when we work together, Bruce is working every day to drive innovation and effective solutions addressing the challenges - and opportunities - in front of Seattle. He believes creating One Seattle will be critical to address the needs of the day; a Seattle where we embrace our differences and celebrate our commonality.
Bruce and his wife Joanne are proud to be the parents of three children and the grandparents to two grandchildren.
Deputy Assistant Secretary For India Bureau Of South And Central Asian Affairs
Nancy Izzo Jackson is a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA), where she supports the Assistant Secretary in formulating and implementing U.S.-India policy. Prior to her current assignment, Ms. Izzo Jackson served as the Senior Bureau Official in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) from January 2021 to March 2022. Previous assignments included SCA Deputy Assistant Secretary for Afghanistan from November 2019 to January 2021, and PRM Deputy Assistant Secretary from 2015-2019. She has been a member of the Senior Executive Service since 2010. Prior to becoming a member of the Senior Executive Service, Ms. Izzo Jackson was a tenured member of the U.S. Foreign Service, serving with distinction at U.S. embassies in Liberia and Sri Lanka. Domestic assignments included serving as Special Assistant to the Secretary of State’s Senior Advisor on Haiti following a coup that threatened a mass migration to U.S. shores. She is also the recipient of numerous State Department Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards.
General Counsel and Head of Strategy, Everstone Group
Ms. Pratibha Jain is the Head of Strategy and Group General Counsel at Everstone Group. Prior to Everstone, Pratibha was a Partner at Nishith Desai Associates where she founded their New Delhi office and lead their Funds and Regulatory practice.
She’s an alumnus of Harvard Law School, Oxford University and Delhi University. She brings with her a breadth of international and Indian experience having worked with Sullivan & Cromwell in New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong, with Skadden Arps Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP in Hong Kong and Goldman Sachs in Mumbai.
She has worked on some of the most challenging projects in financial services and regulatory sector globally and in India, including representing Ministry of Finance in setting up of National Investment and Infrastructure Fund and designing USD 1.3 billion special ‘window for funding stalled affordable and middle income housing projects’ as an AIF fund, listing of companies on US exchanges, representing private equity investors in some of the biggest investments into India such as Mubadala’s investment in Reliance Jio and reliance Ventures, Softbank’s in its investment of USD 1.4 billion in PayTM, , representing investors for facilitating listing of stock exchanges in India including BSE and IEX, representing investors in investigations by the Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation and Reserve Bank of India.
She enjoys working and writing on public policy issues and is regularly quoted in news on various public policy issues.
She sits on various important committees including IVCA Executive Committee, FICCI Capital Markets Committee and CII Financial Markets Committee and co-heads the IVCA Regulatory Committee.
She is a Fellow of the Seventh Generation Class of Ananta Aspen’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and member of Aspen Global Leadership Network. She received the “Woman Lawyer of the Year Award 2019” by Business World magazine. Recently, she has been recognized as a Top Individual Lawyer by Forbes Legal Power list 2020.
US House of Representatives, Washington's 7th Congressional District
Rep. Pramila Jayapal was elected in 2016 and is now serving her fourth term in Congress representing Washington’s 7th District, which encompasses most of Seattle and its surrounding areas including Shoreline, Vashon Island, Lake Forest Park, and parts of Burien and Normandy Park. She is the first South Asian American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and one of only two dozen naturalized citizens currently serving in the United States Congress.
Congresswoman Jayapal is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, where she serves as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement. She also serves on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. She is the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which represents nearly 50% of the entire Democratic caucus; the Immigration Task Force for the Congressional Asian Pacific Asian Caucus; and a Vice Chair of the Congressional LGBTQ Equality Caucus where she is the co-chair of the Transgender Equality Task Force.
In Congress, Representative Jayapal has been a leader on immigration, including fighting the Trump Administration’s inhumane policies of separating children from their parents and crafting legislation to create a fair and humane immigration system. She has also championed legislation to address income inequality, such as the $15 minimum wage and expanded collective bargaining rights for workers. She has worked extensively on health care issues as the lead sponsor of the Medicare for All bill in the House, and she is the author of the College for All Act, which would ensure every American has access to higher education. She has authored other landmark pieces of progressive legislation including the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Ad, Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, the Housing is a Human Right Act, and the National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. She has also helped to introduce the THRIVE Act and other legislation to transition our economy to 100% clean energy and address the crisis of climate justice.
Prior to serving in elected office, Congresswoman Jayapal spent twenty years working internationally and domestically in global public health and development and as an award-winning national advocate for women’s, immigrant, civil, and human rights. She spent almost a decade working on global health and development for the international nonprofit organization, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), and spent 12 years as the founder and Executive Director of OneAmerica, the largest immigrant advocacy organization in Washington State and one of the largest in the country.
Representative Jayapal was born in India, grew up in India, Indonesia and Singapore, and came to the United States by herself at the age of 16 to attend college at Georgetown University. She later received her MBA from Northwestern University, worked in a number of industries in both the public and private sectors, and published her first book in 2000, Pilgrimage to India: A Woman Revisits Her Homeland. She has since published a second book, Use the Power You Have: A Brown Woman’s Guide to Politics and Political Change.
She is married to Steve Williamson, a long-time labor leader and strategist, and is the proud mother of a transgender daughter named Kashika, step-son named Michael, and 65-pound labradoodle, Otis.
Professor of Law and Associate Dean
Professor Sital Kalantry is an expert in comparative law, business and human rights, feminist legal theory, and contract law. Her book, Women’s Rights and Migration, explores the consequences of the use of acontextual information to develop laws relating to reproduction in the United States. She has written over a dozen articles and book chapters that have been published in major legal journals such as the Cornell Law Review and the Stanford International Law Journal as well as peer-reviewed social sciences journals including the Forum for Health Economics and Policy. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, Slate, and the Hill (among others). She is a regular media commentator on reproductive rights, law in India, and human rights issues. Her writing has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and Indian Supreme Court.
Professor Kalantry teaches business and human rights, comparative constitutional law, and contract law. Her teaching is informed by her scholarship as well as her seven years of experience as a corporate lawyer at two major U.S. law firms, Milbank and O’Melveny & Myers, and by her litigation experience in international and foreign courts, including the Indian Supreme Court, Inter-American Court of Human Rights and Constitutional Court of Colombia.
She founded the Cornell International Human Rights Clinic, the University of Chicago International Human Rights Clinic, the Avon Global Center for Women & Justice at Cornell Law School, the Cornell India Law Center, and the India Center for Law and Justice at Seattle University School of Law. She is the founding faculty director of an online Master’s in Legal Studies Program at Cornell Law School. In that role, she designed the curriculum, recruited tenured and adjuncts to teach courses, created admissions criteria, and coordinated with instructional designers and other administrators for this new master's program at Cornell Law School.
She has won awards for her book, for her public interest work (from the South Asian Bar Association), and for her mentorship and support to women students at Cornell University. She has received several grants, including a $1.5 million grant to start the Avon Center for Women and Justice, a grant from NYC Visioning Committee, and teaching innovation grant. She received the Fulbright Scholarship to teach at Jindal Global Law School in India and to conduct empirical research on the Indian Supreme Court.
Professor Kalantry has degrees from Cornell University (A.B.), the London School of Economics (MsC), and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (J.D).
Vice President, International Consumer, Amazon
Samir Kumar is the VP, Category Management for Exports and Expansions, and Global Stores organization at Amazon. The Amazon Exports and Expansions, and Global Store organization is responsible for expanding Amazon’s stores business to new locales. Since joining this team in 2016, he has led the effort to double the number of countries with Amazon Stores. During his tenure, Samir also worked on the Amazon India leadership team for four years and played a pivotal role in launching Amazon.in in June 2013. Before joining the India team, Samir was the Technical Advisor to the Senior VP of International Consumer, with special focus on Amazon’s business in China. Samir joined Amazon.com as a Systems Engineer in 1999 to launch the first wave of fulfilment center expansion for Amazon in the US.
Samir earned Masters in Electrical Engineering from Utah State University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela in India. He grew up in India and moved to the US in 1993.
Chairman & Managing Director, Vishvaraj Group
Arun Lakhani, an M.Tech in Petro-Chem. founded the Vishvaraj Group in 1998 and has been leading it as CMD ever since. Along with this he was the Managing Director of Orange City Water in its formative years. Prior to this he was the CMD and Chief promoter of company called “Mahagas”. Along with these positions he holds several other positions of social responsibilities across various fields such as being the President of Maharashtra Badminton Association, Vice President of Badminton Association of India, Chairman of Narkesari Prakashan Ltd. and other trusts, and is a member of BRLF and FICCI water mission. He is also the president of KLM Trust which runs 1,000 single teacher schools in deep forest habitation.
Co-U.S. and Seattle Managing Partner, K&L Gates
Pallavi Mehta Wahi is the Managing Partner of the Seattle office and Co-Managing Partner of the United States for K&L Gates. She is Chair of the Firmwide Diversity Committee and a member of the Management Committee. Pallavi frequently represents clients in complex commercial litigation matters and works closely with many Fortune 50 corporations and other companies worldwide, representing their interests with an emphasis on corporate and technology issues. She has argued before various tribunals and courts in hearings and at trial with success. She has represented clients across the country in multiple jurisdictions in commercial and intellectual property disputes. She also acts as the trusted advisor and litigator for several clients across a wide range of jurisdictions, countries, and business matter areas. She represents some of the largest household brands in the world on a regular basis.
Pallavi is ranked in Chambers USA for Litigation: General Commercial in Washington State. She also has been named to the Washington Super Lawyers list for Business Litigation for many years; the “IP Stars” list published by Managing Intellectual Property in the U.S. and Washington State categories; and recognized in Best Lawyers in America in the Commercial Litigation and Litigation – IP categories. She is similarly included in “The A-List: International,” a list of the top India-focused lawyers at international law firms, compiled by The Indian Business Law Journal, and is an active member of the International Women's Forum.
Pallavi has also been named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the U.S. by editors and writers across The Business Journals’ network of more than 40 publications. For many years, she has been honored with inclusion in the Puget Sound Business Journal's “Power 100,” a spotlight on the 100 most influential business leaders in the Puget Sound area. The Puget Sound Business Journal also recognized her as a “Woman of Influence” and a member of the first-ever group of 40 Under 40 “All-Stars.” She was also selected as one of the Most Influential People of 2021 by Seattle Magazine.
Pallavi was also named to the fifth annual “Power List” by Lawyers of Color which recognizes the most influential minority attorneys and allies in the nation. She was included in the inaugural “Nation's Best” List, also published by Lawyers of Color, which recognizes noteworthy accomplishments and a commitment to diversity and inclusion. She was selected by the National Diversity Council as one of Washington's “Top 15 Business Women” and selected to the Indian Corporate Counsel Association's “Most Trusted Corporate Lawyers” list. She is also a past recipient of the Outstanding Young Lawyer Award from the King County Bar Association.
Pallavi is an experienced and well-known litigator in the local and national arena and business community. In 2022, she was appointed to the Seattle Branch Board of Directors of The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco to represent the interests of the 12th Reserve District and help the Board fulfill its policy and operational responsibilities. She is currently serving as the Chair of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce Board and is a passionate advocate for the Seattle business community and the people and companies who help it thrive.
Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha)
Dr. Sasmit Patra is an Indian politician and a member of the Biju Janata Dal. Since 28 June 2019, he is the member of the Parliament of India representing Odisha in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house[1] and appointed chief whip of the party.[2] He is currently Spokesperson of Biju Janata Dal . He is a Christian. His father was Swarupananda Patra, the former president of the Odisha Minority Forum (OMF).[3].He has been renominated to the Rajya Sabha by Biju Janata Dal for the second time in May 2022.
Dr. Patra has a rich experience of academia as well as public policy and governance. An academic by profession, he has taught courses in the areas of organisational behaviour and human resource management. He also has experience of working in industry.
Dr. Patra has wide-ranging experience of working across all four pillars of democracy – legislature, executive, judiciary and media. As Vice-Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, he brings with him deep knowledge of legislative practices. Having worked closely with the Odisha government, he has wide experience of working with the executive branch as well. Trained as a lawyer, he is also putting up a pro bono law practice. As media coordinator of the Biju Janata Dal, he has handled the IT and digital platforms for his party.
Dr. Patra has 17 Years of work experience in academics, business research, industry and corporate sector, UNDP-Government of Odisha project apart from political work and social work. He was the Dean of XAVIER-EMLYON Business School, the first Indo-French business school in India, a joint collaboration between Xavier University, Bhubaneswar and Emlyon Business School, France.
President, Seattle University
President Eduardo Peñalver is Seattle University’s 22nd president.
Prior to being named Seattle U President, Peñalver served as the dean of Cornell University’s Law School from 2014 until 2021. Peñalver is a Rhodes Scholar and a professor of law who clerked for former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. Peñalver received his bachelor’s from Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences in 1994 and his law degree from Yale Law School in 1999. As a Rhodes Scholar, he received his Master of Arts in Philosophy and Theology at Oriel College, Oxford.
In addition to Cornell Law School, Peñalver has held faculty appointments at Fordham Law School and the University of Chicago, where he was the John P. Wilson Professor of Law. He has also been a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale law schools. Peñalver’s work on property law has been published in scholarly law journals at Yale University, the University of Michigan, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. He is considered a leading voice in the “progressive property” movement, deriving many of his insights from Catholic social teaching.
His research explores how property law creates or reinforces communal bonds and how property rights mediate the relationship between individuals and communities. His book, Property Outlaws (co-authored with Sonia Katyal), published by Yale University Press in February 2010, explores the vital role of disobedience within the evolution of property law. His book, An Introduction to Property Theory (co-authored with Gregory Alexander), was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011.
Peñalver was raised in Puyallup and is married to Sital Kalantry, an associate professor of law at Seattle University School of Law. The two met as undergraduates at Cornell and have two sons.
Global Head, Mental Health and Wellbeing, RoundGlass Foundation
Prakriti Poddar was born in India, and grew up all over the world, moving from one boarding school to another. Amid the environment changes, she remained fiercely connected to her own spirit. One constant in her life was visiting her grandmother, a prolific healer and soothsayer who taught Poddar faith healing before she learned how to read.
At the time, she took those lessons for granted, but found her way back to her foundations when she began working in mental wellness in 2000. “I’m a firm believer in aligning your mind, body, and spirit as one,” she says. “Your being is more than a physical being — it is a divine being.”
As the global head for mental health and wellbeing at RoundGlass, Poddar is actively involved in developing an integrated platform for wholistic wellbeing. She creates communities, initiatives, and outreach for mental health awareness and support, and focuses on integrating peace and harmony to address mental and emotional health.
She empowers people of all ages in a systematic way, addressing audiences on private and public platforms about the mind and spirit, peace, and wellbeing.
Professor, Department of Economics
Dr. Meenakshi Rishi is a Professor of Economics at Seattle University. She also holds the Eva Albers Professorship at the Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University. She has taught previously at the College of Business Administration, Ohio Northern University. She earned her PhD from the Department of Economics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Dr. Rishi is a member of the American Economic Association and the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economic Profession. She is a Fulbright Specialist and the Executive Director, Association of Indian Economic and Financial Studies . Dr. Rishi teaches courses in macroeconomics, international political economy, and economic development. She has been instrumental in designing Seattle University’s international economic development curriculum and has been a strong advocate for student-faculty research, having served as the University’s Coordinator for Undergraduate Research. She has also served as the director of the International Development Internship Program. Dr. Rishi’s research has examined a variety of issues for emerging economies, capital flows, and the Indian economy, among others. She is currently working on the linkages between trade openness, financial openness, and economic growth, and also investigating whether development aid can be used to reduce carbon emissions in emerging nations. Since joining our faculty, she has published more than 25 journal articles, including in such highly regarded outlets as the Journal of Development Studies, the International Review of Financial Analysis, the Journal of Developing Areas, and Energy Economics. Two of these articles were co-authored with her students.
King County Superior Court
Judge Ketu Shah was appointed to the King County Superior Court in May 2019. Previously, Judge Shah served on the King County District Court from 2013 to 2019. Judge Shah is currently the Chief Criminal Judge and Assistant Presiding Judge and former Chief Judge for the Maleng Regional Justice Center. Judge Shah also presided over the Regional Mental Health Court and the Regional Veterans Court for 3.5 years.
Judge Shah has been a faculty member for Judicial College since 2017 and a Dean for Judicial College in 2019 & 2021. He is a member of the Minority and Justice Commission, and several King County Superior Court Committees, including executive, budget, and education committees. He is also co-chair of the SCJA Education Committee.
Since 2017, he has been a board member of Washington Judges Foundation and is currently the Treasurer. Judge Shah also is member of King County’s Mental Illness & Drug Dependency (MIDD) Advisory Committee since 2016 and was co-chair from 2019 to 2022. He has presented at the WSBA Pro Tem training on ethics, virtual voir dire, and immigration and competency issues at judicial conferences. Judge Shah has been a panelist with the Washington Leadership Institute and Judicial Institute for Diversity. He has also volunteered as a judge for the University of Washington Law School Gates Scholarship, Seattle University Legal Clinic, ABAW Mock Trial, Renton High School, and Hazelwood Elementary School.
Judge Shah is a graduate of Whitman College and the University of Minnesota Law School where he was a Managing Editor for the Journal of Law and Inequality. Judge Shah clerked for Judge Carol Schapira of King County Superior Court and was a public defender intern. He also prosecuted domestic violence cases, helping implement a domestic violence court in the City of Vancouver and assisted in forming a domestic violence unit for the City of Bellevue. Judge Shah also had his own private practice focusing on immigration law, and as part of his work, volunteered extensively representing pro bono clients through API Chaya, REWA, Immigrant Family Advocacy Project, and Eastside Legal Assistance Program (ELAP).
Judge Shah was on the board for several years with the South Asian Bar Association of Washington and served on the Judicial Evaluation Committee for the Asian Bar Association. He took on Chaya’s first pro bono case in 2001 and then later served as Board Chair for over 6 years. He was awarded the 2008 Community Service Award by the South Asian Bar Association and 1998 Community Award by the City of Vancouver. He coached select soccer for over 15 years for girls and boys after playing soccer in college and is a former board member of his local youth soccer club.
Founder, Shah Safari
Over his 50+ year career in Seattle, Raj Shah has successfully built numerous companies in industries as diverse as fashion apparel, real estate, and venture funding, and he is now counted among the leading lights of the Seattle business and philanthropic communities.
In that span, he has founded and built a number of highly successful global companies in the fashion apparel industry, most notably flagship companies Shah Safari, Inc. and International News, Inc. With offices and production facilities globally, in places like the U.S., Kenya, India, and Hong Kong, the Shah companies have given rise to brands noted both nationally and internationally for innovations in design, marketing, and distribution, and many national brands now rely on the Seattle-based conglomerate for private label production. As Chairman and CEO of The Shah Apparel Group, Mr. Shah has earned the respect and goodwill of both the industry and the Seattle community, and he was recognized by Merrill Lynch and Ernst & Young as “Northwest Entrepreneur of the Year” in 1995. Mr. Shah was honored again in 2000 with the “Pride of India” award presented by the India Apparel Exporter Association. Moreover, a study by the World Bank, recently cited in an article about Mr. Shah in The Seattle Times, demonstrated the positive economic and social benefits resulting from the Shahs’ manufacturing facilities in countries like Nepal and Bangladesh. The parliaments in those countries further recognized the Shahs for their healthy corporate practices and significant contributions to those countries’ export industries.
Mr. Shah has also built one of the largest privately held real estate investment and development firms in Seattle. The firm focuses on the development, construction, and operation of multifamily housing, and has been credited with bringing the first loft-style apartment concept to Seattle, The Shahs’ cutting-edge projects now span downtown Seattle and surrounding areas as well.
Over the years, Mr. Shah has successfully translated his business experience and acumen into the funding and mentorship of over seventy (70) start-up and growth phase businesses in a variety of industries, including technology, entertainment, and retail consumer goods. Several of these investments have evolved into successful exits.
Mr. Shah’s latest focus is on bringing highly sustainable textiles to the market with technology developed in-house. This tech, Filium, takes natural fabrics and makes them supernatural. To learn more about Filium and the brands using the tech head to the website https://filium.com/
Managing Partner, National Practice Head, Dispute Resolution, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co.
Pallavi Shroff is the Managing Partner of Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co and heads the Dispute Resolution Practice at the Firm. She is also the Chief Mentor for the Competition Law Practice.
Pallavi has been a driving force in further enhancing the positioning of SAM & Co as India’s premier full service law firm ever since she took over as a Managing Partner in 2015. Under her guidance, the Firm has grown to become more than a 100 Partners entity, diversified practice offerings, accelerated pan-India presence with offices in seven cities and embraced technology initiatives such as use of Artificial Intelligence to transform the way the Firm works. Pallavi has been instrumental in establishing a number of special initiatives for women that includes versatile work arrangements, flexible timings, women-centric events and fostering women lawyers to advance to leadership roles.
With over 39 years of extensive and highly regarded experience, Pallavi’s expertise spans across Dispute Resolution, Competition Law and White Collar Crime. Focused on commercial dispute resolution, Pallavi advises clients on large trials in formal proceedings but also actively evaluates new or alternative resolutions to disputes at an early stage, including counselling them during the life cycle of projects to restrict issues from developing into disputes and, if that does happen, to ensure the clients have the best legal advice and are well prepared in the event of litigation or arbitration.
With regard to White Collar Crime, Pallavi has deep experience in undertaking clients across multi-jurisdictional investigations, including matters involving allegations of bribery and corruption. She has represented companies and individuals in investigations involving simultaneous enforcement actions by government agencies.
Pallavi is also a well-renowned advocate for competition law cases before the Competition Commission of India and the Competition Appellate Tribunal. As a sought after legal expert, she has contributed to various international competition law publications and regularly speaks at national and international forums. Taking cognizance of her standing and expertise, the Government of India nominated Pallavi as a member of the Competition Law Review Committee constituted to ensure that the enacted legislations are in tune with the changing business environment. She was a member of the High Level Raghavan Committee which contemplated the new competition law regime in 1999-2000.
Chambers and Partners has called Pallavi Shroff “a widely acknowledged stalwart in the field of competition law, best known for her handling of cartel, abuse of dominance and other contentious issues, but increasingly active providing strategic oversight on very large-scale, multi-jurisdictional merger control mandates” while ‘Who’s Who Legal of Commercial Arbitrators’ has rated Pallavi as “one of three leading practitioners involved with arbitration”. RSG India 2019 has quoted clients’ comments that says, “Pallavi’s ‘understanding of the issues’ was commendable and that her ‘knowledge of business related laws’ and ‘responsive approach’ was excellent.”
Pallavi is a director on the boards of prestigious Indian companies and advises them on governance law and regulations. Apart from her professional commitments, Pallavi is actively involved and guides the many corporate responsibility initiatives across the Firm in the education, women empowerment and other focus areas.
Founder, Edifecs and RoundGlass Foundation
Sunny Gurpreet Singh is an entrepreneur and philanthropist based in Seattle, US. He is the founder of RoundGlass, a global Wholistic Wellbeing organization established in 2014.
Sunny began his entrepreneurial journey with a goal — to make healthcare delivery better for patients, caregivers, and professionals — and his own company, Edifecs, in 1996. Today, Edifecs is a profitable multinational company and a market leader in the global healthcare technology space with over 350 healthcare customers serving more than 215 million lives.
Through his experience in the US healthcare system, Sunny realized the importance of a proactive wellness approach. RoundGlass offers the RoundGlass Living app, which provides technology-driven solutions, expert-led content, and access to renowned wellbeing coaches and mental health experts. It serves as a tool to assist people in making positive, long-term changes and enhancing their lives.
As a philanthropist, Sunny established RoundGlass Giving, which includes social impact initiatives such as the RoundGlass Foundation, RoundGlass Sports, and RoundGlass Sustain, aimed at promoting wellbeing for the communities and the planet.
The RoundGlass Foundation, is working to improve the lives of people in Punjab, India, the community that shaped Sunny, through on-ground initiatives around sports and learning for children, women's empowerment, tree plantation, waste management, and much more. These have already impacted over 1.6 million people across more than 1700 villages.
RoundGlass Sports provides access to an international standard of coaching for the children and youth of Punjab to explore their potential in sports such as football, hockey, and tennis. The RoundGlass Punjab Football Club recently made history by being the first club to be promoted to the ISL.
RoundGlass Sustain with over 55million+ impressions, just in 2022, has a two-fold mission of documenting biodiversity and increasing awareness with an intention to build a conservation and sustainability mindset, thereby arresting the decline of species and wild habitats.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Greater Seattle Partners
Brian Surratt is president and chief executive officer of Greater Seattle Partners (GSP) and leads GSP’s global marketing, economic development and international trade and investment strategies to drive quality jobs, investment, and talent to the Greater Seattle region. Prior to leading GSP, he served as the executive director of the Puget Sound office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), one the country’s largest community development organizations. Previously, he was vice president for real estate development and community relations at Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., an urban real estate investment trust focused on building collaborative life science and technology campuses in the nation’s leading innovation centers.
From 2015 to 2017 Surratt worked for the City of Seattle, serving as the director of the Office of Economic Development. During that time, he successfully negotiated a memorandum of understanding to redevelop Climate Pledge Arena, outlining the major financial, development, operational, public benefit, and labor terms for the $1 billion redevelopment project. He is also credited for expanding Seattle’s youth employment program to 3,500 youth employed and facilitating several innovative real estate development projects in Seattle’s Black community to address displacement and gentrification.
Prior to that, he held various positions in Seattle’s Office of Economic Development—including deputy director, business development director, and industry sectors manager. He was also a senior policy advisor for Seattle’s Office of Policy and Innovation, where he served as the policy lead on Seattle’s historic effort to establish a $15 per hour minimum wage. In the early 2000s he was a public affairs manager for First & Goal, Inc./Seattle Seahawks. He began his career as a legislative assistant for former Washington State Representative Jim McIntire.
Surratt holds a BA in Philosophy and Political Science from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Washington’s Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance.
Executive Vice President and Global Industry leader, Infosys Communications, Media and Technology
Anand Swaminathan is the Executive Vice President and the Global Industry leader of Infosys Communications, Media and Technology business group that serves clients in Communications, OEMs, Semiconductors, and Cloud and Enterprise software. Anand is responsible for the global P & L and leads the strategy and execution of these industries across global markets. He leads the development of many of Infosys’ strategic and large clients and partners. Since joining Infosys in 1999, Anand has been responsible for incubating and building the Infosys data science and analytics practice, as well as both launching and expanding the partner and alliance eco system, while also leading some of the firm’s most complex and large-scale systems integration work for global clients. Having seen the world with a global role, but having equally spent much time in the USA in his career, Anand is keen to see the impact of the Infosys Foundation USA deepen as we work to bring digital skills to the wider community so that industry benefits from a wide talent pool of tech-savvy future leaders. Anand has a MS in Information Systems from BITS Pilani in India, and has an associate degree from the Institute of Cost and Management accounts of India. In addition to serving as a Trustee to the Foundation, he is a board member of WONGDOODY, the digital experience company owned 100 percent by Infosys. Anand is a golfer, and resides in Seattle, WA with his family. In addition to his work with McKinsey, Anand serves as a trustee and member of the board of directors of Case Western Reserve University.
Senior VP, Head of Public Affairs, Adani North America
Anurag Varma is Senior Vice President, Head of Public Affairs, for Adani North America. In this role, he creates and executes public policy strategies and stakeholder engagement for the entire group of Adani companies in the U.S. nationally and across regional markets. In this regard, Anurag develops and maintains partnerships with governments, business organizations, industry associations, educational institutions, media and community organizations.
From 2016-2023, Anurag held this same role worldwide for Infosys, India's 2nd largest tech company.
Prior to joining Infosys, Anurag was public policy counsel at the Patton Boggs and Akin Gump firms representing foreign governments, other sovereign clients, Indian private sector interests and Indian American trade associations. He also provided strategic trade advice, engaged U.S. and Indian government officials, and coordinated legal strategy for U.S. multinationals on market entry issues and other policy matters related to India.
In addition to his public law and policy work, Anurag served on the lead plaintiffs’ counsel teams for national civil rights class action cases on behalf of African American and Native American farmers resulting in settlements of over $2 billion and $760 million, respectively.
Anurag’s volunteer work has included serving on President Obama’s Presidential Rank Awards Review Board, the Board of the Indian American Leadership Initiative, and as pro bono counsel for the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Center and the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center.
Anurag has earned degrees at the Georgetown University Law Center (L.L.M.), University of Denver College of Law (J.D.), and University of Alberta (B.Comm.). He is married to Monika Kalra Varma, a human and civil rights lawyer. They reside just outside Washington, DC with their 3 children: Ambika (13), Akshay (9), and Amrit (9).
Chief Strategy Officer, Gates Foundation
Ankur Vora is the Gates Foundation chief strategy officer and serves as a principal advisor to the co-chairs, chief executive officer and Executive Leadership Team on the foundation’s overall strategic opportunities, risks, and tradeoffs. He leads the Strategy Office, which is responsible for enabling the highest and best use of the our resources - co-chair time, reputation, people, and dollars - to accelerate the foundation’s impact.
Ankur is a thought partner who pushes innovative thinking and brings an outlook of positivity and optimism. He strives to bring an external perspective and insight to support longer term strategic planning. As CSO, Ankur leads a community of practice for foundation deputy directors of Strategy, Planning, and Management to develop organizational norms that optimize the implementation of strategies and improve coordination and alignment across teams.
Ankur joined the foundation in 2013 to lead the foundation’s strategy team. Prior to that, he was the director of programs at The Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) in London where he oversaw a cross-cutting portfolio of programs focused on health, nutrition, education, and climate change across Africa and South Asia. Before CIFF, he served as principal at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he focused on healthcare, financial services, and social impact projects. Ankur was also a lecturer of Economics at the University of Chicago, and worked briefly at Goldman Sachs, the Industrial Development Bank of India, and the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in India.
Ankur grew up in India watching his parents donate most of their time, energy, and money to help others. This upbringing and mentality has been foundational to Ankur’s perspectives and purpose. With the fundamental belief that the world can be a lot better, Ankur fights the solvable injustices of our time with IQ, EQ, and a mindset to win. He holds a doctorate in Economics from the University of Chicago, along with a Master of Science in Economics and bachelor’s in Engineering, Computer Science from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani.
Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company; social entrepreneur and philanthropist
Dilip Wagle helps high-tech providers and media firms refine their strategies and undertake organization-development initiatives. His clients include enterprise-software companies, media and entertainment technology providers, IT services vendors, and office-automation-equipment players./p>
Recent engagements have included developing the overall services strategy and operating model for a diversified software vendor, working with a global set-top-box provider to create and implement its platform and technology strategy, and helping a global technology provider to sell solutions and establish platforms with network service providers. On the organization and operations front, Dilip's client contributions include building the underlying operating model for delivering software as a service for a global software vendor and developing a talent-identification and management architecture for a multinational software provider./p>
Dilip has led several research initiatives at McKinsey and most recently coauthored an article exploring the implications of slow-growth economic cycles for high-tech companies./p>