Keynote Women Speakers

Expertise: Technology

Gabriela is a leader in the social justice sector, lawyer and speaker, with a career spanning Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. She is currently Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Pro Bono Centre, Australia’s government-funded center of leadership for pro bono legal services. Gabriela practiced corporate finance law in Sydney, London, and Tokyo with top tier law firms and as in-house corporate counsel with a leading investment bank. Mid-career, she made a decision to dedicate her career to social justice and swapped life in the City of London to work in the field for UNHCR in Damascus. She was then appointed Special Advisor to Head of Mission of Tony Blair’s Office of the Quartet Representative in Jerusalem, helping to support Palestinian economic development and institution building. Gabriela now bridges the private and social justice sectors, dedicating her career to guiding private sector organizations on a similar journey to work with a social purpose. Gabriela holds a Master’s in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford. She also has a keen interest in film and television production, has executive-produced a number of productions, and is a Voting Member of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA).
Engineer by nurture, feminist by nature; Her first award-winning keynote, aged 20, was titled “Am I Being Too Ambitious?”, referring to comments she received for studying engineering. Her decades of keynote and panel moderation experience range from Cloud Asia and TechXLR8 to teaching Cloud and AI at the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisation’s ITHub.  She was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in Australia, and now resides in Singapore. Shehara’s relentless passion for innovation enabled the design of game-changing digital experiences. She has taken leadership roles at SingTel, Telstra, and Cisco, in Cloud Computing, Security, and Software. She was the Head of International Cloud Portfolio at Telstra, helping the company create award-winning differentiation in Asia Pacific’s highly competitive cloud market, resulting in 6 industry awards.  Shehara recently served as Vice-Chair of the Asia Cloud Computing Association and is now a Lead Advisor for Cisco APJC.   
Pallavi is currently the Global Talent Partner for Kyndryl Inc – a newly created spin-off of IBM’s Global Technology Services where she was the APAC Talent Leader until 2021. Prior to the Talent role in IBM, Pallavi was the Country HR Leader for IBM Singapore. Pallavi has more than 23 years of experience in the field of Human Resources across areas related to HR consulting & strategy, HR Analytics, Talent, and Leadership. Development, Compensation & Performance management. Pallavi has held several portfolios with IBM’s internal HR and HR consulting units. After having worked in India and the US, she has been based in Singapore for 10 years now. A passionate believer in leveraging technology for HR solutions of the future, Pallavi often represents IBM’s point of view on the future of HR at regional and international conferences. Pallavi holds a B A (Hons) in Economics and a Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resources. Pallavi also received the Business HR professional and Global Compensation & Benefits certification from Cornell University. Certified by. IBM for Design Thinking, Agile, and as a Cognitive HR practitioner, Pallavi was recently featured in the HRD Magazine’s HRD Hot List in 2017.