GBG strengthens APAC leadership with three appointments

• New hires will help drive company growth, innovation capabilities
• GBG to continue  investing in talent, 42% to be hired in the APAC 

GBG, the global expert in digital identity has announced the appointment of Bernardi Susastyo (pic, left) as General Manager of Asia, Shekhar Bhagat as Head of Alliances of Asia Pacific (APAC) and Ng Han Liong as Head of Presales of Southeast Asia, in a move to drive the company’s growth and innovation capabilities across the region. 

In a statement, GBG said that its financial performance, profits & customer satisfaction registered a year-on-year growth of 12.1 percent between FY2020 and FY2021 and the new hires are set to bolster this growth momentum and drive penetration in key markets across APAC. 

"Bernardi, Shekhar, and Han Liong (pic, right), bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to GBG that will enable us to boost our presence and position ourselves for long-term sustainable growth in the region. Today, GBG is well-positioned as APAC's leading fraud, compliance, identity and location intelligence solution provider and the new hires will enable us to grow from strength to strength," said Dev Dhiman, managing director, APAC at GBG.

"Singapore is Asia's premier business and tech hub with excellent regional and international relations, local talent pool, and collaborative tech ecosystem in the financial services space. Leveraging these resources, the team will bring to market sustainable solutions and create robust partnerships across data, technology, and channels that can help financial institutions improve detection and prevention of emerging financial crime. " Dhiman added.

The pandemic has accelerated digitalisation in this region, which resulted in a large growth in the digital population. With today's digital-first economy, financial institutions (FIs) need more robust measures to bridge the increasing volume and complexities of online fraud, financial crime and cyberthreats. 

To deepen GBG's engagement with senior decision makers and further enrich fraud and compliance management, the company has made the following senior appointments based out of Singapore:

Bernardi brings close to three decades of industry experience and has held various senior leadership positions at Advance.AI, Experian, and SAS. With his extensive knowledge of the SEA financial services industry, Bernardi will be responsible for bolstering GBG's foothold and establishing market leadership in the SEA region.

Shekhar joins from Experian, where he was Director of Partnership for SEA. In his new capacity, Shekhar will be responsible for establishing technology and data partnerships, as well as a network of channel partners to support local sales activation across APAC. 

Ng is an experienced regional solution leader and compliance specialist, having spent the last 10 years in Oracle, Thomson Reuters, and IBM working with the financial services sector. He will facilitate market penetration efforts and sales readiness to expand our reach into Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines further. 

In addition to these senior hires, the company is continuing to invest in talents and is recruiting more than 100 roles globally, out of which 42 per cent will be within the APAC region.