Speaker

Ira Tan is the Regional Sales Manager for Asia Pacific (APAC) Region. Ira and her team worked closely with the designated subscription dealers in each APAC country to drive and create awareness to the IEEE Xplore users around the region. Ira has more than two decades of experience in the publishing industry, providing sales expertise in research, educational and consumer markets. Prior to joining IEEE in 2016, she has served many leadership positions at John Wiley & Sons (now WILEY) from 1996 through 2016. Her past roles have spanned nearly all aspects in the publishing industry, including expertise in strategic planning, sales, copyright and licensing activities, and local language publishing.

Mandy Sum is the Market & Business Development Manager for ASEAN & Oceania at ACS Publications. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (1996) and an MBA from Charles Sturt University (1999).
With over 30 years of experience in the publishing industry, Mandy drives strategic business development and leads sales and marketing efforts across academic, government, and corporate sectors. Since joining ACS Publications in 2018, she has played a key role in expanding regional engagement and strengthening partnerships throughout ASEAN and Oceania.

Julian Wilson joined IOP Publishing in October 2020 as the Chief Sales Officer. He is responsible for the development and execution of the global sales and marketing strategy which includes building strong and sustainable relationships with library customers, academic consortia and corporations. Prior to joining IOP Publishing, Julian was the Europe, Middle East and Africa Sales Director at John Wiley & Sons and has been in the STM publishing industry since 2005.

Lee Inn Beng is the Lead Solution Consultant for Government and University Strategy and Engagement at Clarivate, supporting institutions and stakeholders across the ASEAN region.

With over 20 years of experience in Higher Education, Lee works at the intersection of research strategy, journal development, and policy. He collaborates with academic leaders, research institutions, and publishers to enhance the quality, visibility, and impact of scholarly outputs. His expertise lies in leveraging data-driven insights to support evidence-based decision-making in research planning, performance evaluation, and institutional benchmarking.

Lee has led regional initiatives aimed at strengthening journal ecosystems, supporting publishers in developing holistic editorial strategies, and helping universities align their research strengths with national priorities and global standards. He is a strong advocate for using analytics to inform strategic investments, improve research competitiveness, and elevate the global standing of institutions and journals alike.

Tuyet-Anh Hoang is an invited speaker and a highly experienced academic librarian with two decades of experience in managing academic and educational libraries. As the Library Director at the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City since 2016, she has successfully led projects to transform a traditional library into a smart, modern facility. Her leadership includes effective management of operations, staff, and budget, all aligned with the university’s strategic goals.

A recognized thought leader in the field, in May 2023, Tuyet-Anh shared her expertise on driving sustainability as a Keynote Speaker at the YSEALI Regional Workshop in Hanoi: Innovating International Higher Education, delivering a speech titled “Resource Sharing and Beyond”.

From July 2005 to Dec 2015, Tuyet-Anh, a Library Manager of RMIT Vietnam, provided vision and leadership for the library in support of the university’s mission and goals; set up and managed the libraries in both HCMC and Hanoi campuses.

Tuyet-Anh’s innovative approach is built on a strong foundation of international training. She earned a graduate degree from Simmons University’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science and completed valuable internships at prestigious institutions in the United States: The Harvard-Yenching Library, The Columbia University Libraries (Lehman Social Sciences Library), and The University of Washington Libraries (Southeast Asia Section).

Tuyet-Anh is fluent in English and Vietnamese, with basic proficiency in French.

Tim is passionate about helping people and businesses achieve growth and outstanding results.
Tim achieves results for clients as a strategic consultant driving his TOP LINE TRANSFORMATIONS business and as a HIGH PERFORMANCE LEADERSHIP COACH developing emotionally intelligent, impactful leaders.

In a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, Tim is a crusader of organisational high performance and enables effective, sustainable transformations. His influence on leaders to disrupt old traditional beliefs, thinking and working, in favour of agile, healthy communication and future-readiness, is what his commercial reputation is built upon.

He brings over 33 years of international experience spanning UK, Europe, Middle East, Australasia and S.E.Asian markets. He has engaged with and had an impact upon almost every industry sector throughout his career and has worked in MNCs, mid-large local enterprises, government agencies, through to scale-ups and start ups.

Tim holds the International Coaching Federation (ICF) Professional Coach Certification (PCC), Advanced Certificate in Team Coaching (ACTC), NLP Master Practitioner, Master Trainer, Coach & Consultant Certifications, Emotional Intelligence Assessor & Coach Certification and has experience in all coaching modalities; Life, Executive, Professional, Business, and Organisational (OD) coaching. He applies these skills in all aspects of his life to positively impact human beings.

In his early twenties Tim was a high performing athlete representing England, UK and GB swim teams, a gold medallist and former national title holder. He understands what mindset is needed for high performance, and the effort needed to get & remain there.

Tim is a part time Post Graduate Research PhD. student at University of Nottingham, Malaysia researching High Performing Teams.

Tim has been delivering solutions regionally, in-person and remotely, from his home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, since he arrived in 2008, which he shares with his wife and young daughter. He is an active Rotarian (RCBKS) supporting KL community initiatives, an Irish Chamber of Commerce Malaysia (ICCM) member, a member of the Institute of Company Directors Malaysia (ICDM), a Vistage Singapore & Malaysia member, a KL Tigers juniors squad rugby coach, and still plays contact rugby, tennis and cricket.

Paul Gandel is a professor in the School of Information Studies. Previously he served as the Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Syracuse University. As Chief Information Officer he was responsible for all aspects for information technology and information service–computer services, voice and data networking, instructional services, business process improvement, and distance learning. During his tenure as CIO he was instrumental in modernizing the University’s technology infrastructure and IT support services to ensure that SU remain competitive with the growing demands of providing high-quality information resources for research, teaching, and student learning environments. He was also responsible for initiating and developing the Green Data Center at Syracuse, one of the “greenest” data centers in the world.

Before coming to Syracuse University, Gandel was Vice Provost and Dean of Libraries at University of Rhode Island. Before Rhode Island, Gandel was Associate Provost and Chief Information Officer at the Ohio University, Senior Director of Academic Computing and Associate Professor of Library Science at the University of North Texas, Supervisor of the Computing Technology Group at Bell Laboratories, Head of Media Services at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, and Director of the Research Library at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. He has also done work internationally as a Senior Consultant and Interim CIO for Singapore Management University.

Gandel has made presentations and published on topics related to the management of information systems, library administration and services, software engineering, and visualization of information.

Dr. Gandel has a Ph.D. in Information Studies from Syracuse University, an M.A. in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin, and an M.F.A. in Photography and B.A. in History from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Research
Paul Gandel has done research on: Software engineering, Information networks, Cooperative computing environments, Computer-assisted instruction for teaching statistical concepts, Application of multimedia expert systems for teaching and problem solving.

He is currently conducting research cultural differences in IT leadership effectiveness.

Professor Ts. Dr. Haji Mohamad Kamal Haji Harun is a board member at UiTM Private Education Sdn Bhd. Dr Kamal has previously held leadership positions as the Chief Executive Officer of Razak School of Government (2021-2024), Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, UMK (2011- 2015), and Director of the Higher Education Leadership Academy (AKEPT), Ministry of Education (2015-2017).

He was the Assistant Vice Chancellor – Continuing and Private Education at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). He has a long-standing history of serving UiTM, having held various leadership positions throughout over 30 years of academic teaching which includes Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic & International Affairs (2017- 2020), Deputy Vice Chancellor, Industrial & Community Networking (2007-2010), and Director of the UiTM Melaka Branch Campus.

Dr. Kamal obtained his PhD from the University of Manchester in 1998, Master of Arts (Analytical Chemistry) from the University of Northern Iowa in 1986, Bachelor of Arts (Chemistry) from Knox College, Illinois in 1984 and a Diploma in Science, Institut Teknologi MARA in 1981.