Wednesday, March 18, 2026: Main Program

Shared Services was meant to bring stability, but today many leaders are expected to deliver faster, cheaper, and more compliant results in an environment they don’t fully control: suppliers won’t comply, upstream departments create exceptions, and risk and approval layers keep growing. This practical roundtable brings leaders together to share what actually works to influence change anyway, from getting suppliers on board, to building credibility across P2P, to using the right KPIs to create predictability and fewer surprises.

Sponsored by: Transparent

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Lourens Van Zyl

Director of Business Development
Transparent

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Join industry peers for a fast-paced, interactive forum focused on the real-world impact of agentic AI across Global Business Services (GBS), Global Capability Centers (GCC) and a broad range of enterprise support functions — including finance, IT, HR, procurement, supply chain, compliance, and more. This roundtable will feature real examples of AI Agents in GBS and GCC settings and highlight how leading organizations are deploying next generation solutions, while evolving talent and operating models to drive business value.  

Sponsored by: Deloitte

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Diane Ma

US Global Business Services Leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Deloitte Services LP

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• How to apply process intelligence to drive transformation across shared services
• How to identify and prioritize high-impact automation opportunities with real operational visibility
• How to create a scalable foundation for AI across shared services teams 

Sponsored by: Mimica

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Brandy Hulsey

VP, Returns & AP Solutions
McKesson

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Tuhin Chakraborty

CEO & Co-Founder
Mimica

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As new technologies reshape the business landscape, Shared Services and GBS leaders are being challenged to reimagine the very foundations of how work gets done. But technology alone doesn’t drive transformation—people, processes, and performance must evolve in tandem.

• Dive into how to reengineer processes while also building the capabilities, skills, and mindset your teams need to thrive
• Examine the rise of process orchestrators and how to embed this role into your operating model
• Discuss practical strategies for driving performance, from redesigning workflows to fostering adaptability, resilience, and innovation
• Learn how to balance operational efficiency with human potential, ensuring your workforce is ready to maximize technology’s value today—and stay ahead tomorrow 

Sponsored by: KnowledgeLake

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Jakub Wojdat

Sr. Director, Global Head of Finance Shared Services
TE Connectivity

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Kirti Talwar

VP, Accounting Operations
Palo Alto Networks

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Brian Chan

VP, Finance Systems & Projects
Pet Valu

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Russell Malz

CRO
KnowledgeLake

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As Shared Services and GBS organizations look to scale and innovate, process harmonization is no longer optional—it’s foundational. Explore how leading enterprises are leveraging process mining and execution management to align siloed workflows, standardize operations, and pave the way for intelligent automation and AI. Learn how to move from fragmented execution to real-time, data-driven process excellence—turning complexity into a measurable growth driver.

• Visualize and harmonize your end-to-end processes across regions and functions using real-time process intelligence capabilities
• Benchmark global processes to identify inefficiencies, best practices, and standardization gaps
• Build a transformation roadmap that sets the groundwork for AI enablement—powered by accurate process data
• Drive change at scale by uncovering bottlenecks and automating root cause analysis
• Set AI up for success by ensuring your operations are clean, standardized, and execution-ready 

Sponsored by: Celonis

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Patrick Thompson

SVP, Global Customer Transformation
Celonis

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Durga Yeluri

Director, Performance & Profitability Optimization (P2O) CoE
Pfizer

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Shared Services and GBS organizations are entering a new era of digital finance transformation powered by Agentic AI. Beyond automation, it brings intelligent digital agents that can independently manage, optimize, and learn across the Order-to-Cash (O2C) cycle.

In this session, learn from longtime O2C innovator and Emagia Founder Veena Gundavelli how global enterprises are leveraging Agentic AI to build autonomous finance teams. See how AI agents free your teams from manual tasks to focus on strategy — accelerating cash flow, enhancing customer experience, and achieving true digital finance excellence.

What You’ll Learn

This executive-level session delivers actionable insights, frameworks, and real-world examples to help finance teams evolve from automation to autonomous execution.

• The New Human + AI Hybrid Workforce Model
•  Where AI Agents Deliver the Fastest ROI in O2C
• Real Shared Services Use Cases in Credit, Collections, Cash App & Deductions
• How to Deploy Agentic AI Safely with Guardrails 

Sponsored by: Emagia

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Veena Gundavelli

CEO
Emagia Corporation

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What if travel and expense (T&E) management wasn’t a source of frustration—but a showcase of operational excellence? Discover how next-gen Shared Services and GBS organizations are transforming T&E from a tedious back-office task into a streamlined, data-driven engine for compliance, efficiency, and visibility. Join this session to learn how companies are using intelligent automation and policy-first design to tame complexity, curb spend, and create a seamless experience for employees on the move.

• Automate away manual bottlenecks in travel booking, expense capture, and approval flows
• Bake policies into processes—no more chasing receipts, exceptions, or last-minute fire drills
• Harness real-time analytics and dashboards to track, optimize, and forecast travel spend across regions and teams
• Design one T&E framework that scales globally while respecting regional rules and nuances
• Build mobile-first, self-service experiences that win hearts while boosting speed and accuracy

T&E may not be your flashiest process—but it touches nearly everyone. Walk away inspired to make it a shining example of what process excellence can look like in a modern SSO. 

Sponsored by: SAP Concur

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Tony DeNardo

Principal Solution Advisor
SAP Concur

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Finance transformation is no longer just about cutting costs. It’s about protecting working capital, strengthening compliance, and delivering trusted, decision-ready financial insights across the enterprise. Dive into a real-life use case that outlines how this balance was achieved by applying AI-driven, continuous monitoring to surface hidden risk, prevent leakage before it occurs, and automate controls across complex spend environments. Walk away with a roadmap for transforming controls into a proactive, data-driven advantage that unites compliance, cash protection, and operational visibility under a single strategy. 

Sponsored by: Oversight Systems

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Tawn Gutermuth

Solutions Consultant
Oversight

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As organizations launch or expand SSO functions, the traditional focus on cost reduction is no longer enough to define success. Today’s business environment demands that SSOs deliver broader enterprise value—driving agility, compliance, customer experience, and innovation from day one. Go beyond spreadsheets and expense reductions to articulate how your function can become a catalyst for transformation.

• Learn how to measure and communicate success using value-based outcomes (e.g., improved cycle time, better compliance, stakeholder satisfaction) rather than just cost savings.
• Discover how to position your SSO as an enabler of larger business goals, such as digital transformation, resilience, regulatory readiness, and ESG outcomes.
• Get practical advice on establishing realistic baselines, KPIs, identifying leading indicators, and setting achievable targets for year one and beyond—especially when internal benchmarks are limited.
• Understand how to justify upfront spend in automation, talent, and change management—even when traditional ROI models fall short.
• Hear tips for building early momentum while laying the groundwork for sustainable, scalable value creation across the enterprise. 

John Haynes

Head of Cash Cycle Management - Aon Business Services
Aon

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Wolfgang Satori

Head of GBS Americas
Siemens

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One of the most overlooked risks in standing up a new SSO is the lack of a cohesive data strategy. Early-stage centers often face fragmented systems, unclear data ownership, and inconsistent reporting—challenges that can slow progress, hinder automation, and erode stakeholder trust. The solution? Establish a data-first mindset from the start. Together we will learn how to build a unified, enterprise-wide data foundation that supports decision-making, process visibility, and future AI-readiness.

• Dive into best practices for establishing centralized, flexible data infrastructure that aligns with your operating model and functional scope
• Define data stewardship roles, create accountability structures, and ensure high-quality inputs across functions
• Learn how to identify and map critical data flows across core processes like P2P, O2C, R2R, and procurement to eliminate blind spots and silos
• Explore tools and techniques for consolidating reporting, enhancing analytics capabilities, and building a single source of truth
• Learn from early adopters who struggled with disconnected systems and how they course-corrected to create actionable data ecosystems 

Sponsored by: ProHance

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Before you automate, map. Join this session for a step-by-step guide on how to bring order to operational complexity through process mapping and smart automation strategies specifically geared to new SSOs:

• Uncover best practices to document and analyze workflows across key shared services functions to create a solid foundation before automation by uncovering inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and variation that need addressing
• Discover how to prioritize automation opportunities that deliver immediate impact with minimal complexity
• Use process mapping as a guiding tool to align technology investments with real operational needs, ensuring automation solutions are scalable and sustainable
• Gain practical advice on challenges specific to immature SSOs, including fragmented data, lack of standardization, and change resistance—helping you navigate a smoother path to automation maturity
• Explore how involving frontline staff and stakeholders in process mapping drives buy-in and uncovers hidden insights critical for successful automation 

Debbie Lougheed

Sr. Director of Shared Services
Diocese of Orlando

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• Accelerate value realization: Create a unified knowledge layer from siloed systems that drives autonomous business operations
• Deploy autonomous agents: Move beyond simple automation. Learn how to deploy AI agents that intelligently act on information, with practical examples in contract intelligence, smart mail routing, and seamless new account setup
• Automate risk detection and remediation: Autonomously detect non-compliance issues and automatically initiate action or remediation, establishing a rapid and defensible pathway to risk reduction 

Urvish Khandwalla

Sr. Director, Product Management, GBS Portfolio & AI
Iron Mountain

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Victoria Roehrich

Sr. Director GBS Strategy and Transformation
Iron Mountain

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In today’s volatile global environment, data fragmentation continues to undermine supply chain resilience, procurement agility, and risk management. Explore how leading supply chain and procurement teams are working to unify data across regions, systems, and partners to improve decision-making and drive consistent performance.

• Build a reliable data foundation to support better forecasting, planning, and supplier management
• Break down internal silos to create connected insights across procurement, logistics, and finance
• Tackle the challenges of cross-border coordination, tariff visibility, and regulatory compliance
• Develop dashboards and reporting frameworks that track meaningful KPIs and support strategic action
• Embed data quality controls and monitoring into daily operations for long-term impact

Whether you’re just beginning to consolidate your procurement data landscape or looking to scale enterprise-wide intelligence, benefit from practical insights to drive clarity, control, and agility in your supply chain operations. 

In an era of constant disruption, supply chains must evolve from linear execution engines into adaptive, intelligent networks. The real challenge facing enterprises today is no longer speed of decision making, but the quality of decisions, shaped by how insights are framed, choices are surfaced, and actions are orchestrated across the enterprise.

This session explores how AI led Autonomous Operations, enabled through mature Global Business Services (GBS), are redefining supply chains, from reactive, siloed firefighting to foresight driven, enterprise wide orchestration. By bringing together Connected Organizational Intelligence™ (COI), Intelligent Choice Architecture (ICA), and Autonomous GBS capabilities, supply chain leaders can fundamentally rethink how decisions are made and executed.

Discuss how agentic AI operations integrate decision making across functions, unlock latent value across the value chain, and enable supply chains that continuously learn, adapt, and scale as necessary. Attendees should gain practical perspectives on building future ready supply chains that are not just resilient, but autonomous and evolving.

Sponsored by: TCS

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James Wells

Senior Vice President & Global Chief Supply Chain Officer
Royal Caribbean Group

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Ashok Pai

SVP & Global Head, Enterprise Cognitive Business Operations
Tata Consultancy Services

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When it comes to driving cost optimization at scale, vendor rationalization is often overlooked—but it can unlock powerful efficiencies and enterprise-wide value. In this candid case study, hear best practices on how you can partner closely with procurement to consolidate a fragmented vendor landscape through a disciplined, strategic vendor indexing initiative. Discover how the team:

• Developed a framework and series of guiding principles to set the tone for how they engage outsourced providers and manage costs and expectations
• Reduced their current list by 40-50%, setting the stage for a future goal of a single-digit master vendor list across technology
• Addressed functional silos and stakeholder resistance, navigating preferences and legacy relationships to achieve greater enterprise buying power
• Took a long-term, data-driven approach to categorize and analyze vendor overlap, enabling smarter strategic decisions
• Balanced cost-saving imperatives with change management, including shifting some functions to fully outsourced models where appropriate

Walk away with actionable strategies for conducting a successful vendor indexing exercise, securing cross-functional alignment, and partnering with procurement to build a more cost-efficient, agile, and future-ready Shared Services organization. 

Anotte Francois

Senior Director, Procure to Pay
TheKey

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Tage Smith

VP, Head of Technology Strategy and Governance
FM Global

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The traditional playbook for cost reduction in Shared Services and GBS is no longer enough. As the pressure to deliver more with less intensifies, GBS and Shared Services leaders are shifting focus—from pure efficiency to enterprise enablement. This session brings together organizations that have evolved their scope to include non-traditional, high-impact functions like sales enablement, engineering, compliance, and real estate. Join forward-thinking GBS leaders to answer the hard questions:

• How are GBS organizations moving beyond cost to deliver strategic value?
• What’s driving the inclusion of new functions like sales ops, real estate, or compliance?
• How do multi-function, multi-location, agile models unlock growth and innovation?
• What skills and leadership mindsets are required to elevate the scope of GBS?
• How do you secure buy-in for expansion and prove ROI in emerging service areas? 

Tom McFarland

SVP, Head of Customer Success Shared Services
LHH

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Joaquin Garcia Smith

HR SSC Director Americas
FLIX

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Johnnie Moore

Global Logistics & Bestshoring Strategist | Advisor
The JR Moore Group, Inc

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McCormick’s Technical Shared Services team stands out as a unique example of scope and value evolution, moving beyond traditional back-office functions to deliver complex, business-critical services across quality, regulatory compliance, product certification, and technical documentation.

What sets McCormick apart is the integration of these technical and regulatory services within their GBS, enabling rapid, high-quality support for both internal and external stakeholders. Their ability to deliver complex documentation within 24 hours, navigate global regulatory environments, and support business expansion into new markets demonstrates the strategic value of a mature, innovative shared services model. Join this session to:

• Explore McCormick’s journey in building and scaling their technical shared services and the challenges and opportunities of scope expansion
• Discuss lessons learned along the way in seeking to differentiate and elevate their GBS operations
• Hear how the function provides direct value to both internal (R&D, manufacturing) and external (customers, vendors) stakeholders 

Milena Biardzka

Global Delivery Lead, Technical Shared Services
McCormick & Company

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