Judging Panel

Arash Taheri

Director, QA/QE

My name is Arash Taheri and I’m currently working at Central 1 as the Director of Quality Assurance and Quality Engineering. My role is to define the QA/QE processes and roadmaps, as well as implementing best practices for automation testing on various channels (FE, BE, and Mobile) across Central 1.

Prior to Central 1, I worked as a Senior Engineering Manager at Samsung Research Canada for five years. During this time, I led the development and QA teams in delivering highly secure and scalable B2B software with high performance and quality. I have a master’s degree in Electronics Engineering from Simon Fraser University. My engineering background, combined with my MBA degree and PMP certification has empowered me to take a project management approach to delivering releases that are in scope and on schedule.

I have over 16 years of industry experience including software quality assurance, automation testing, team leadership and project management. Furthermore, to collaborate more effectively with various agile stakeholders, I have obtained various certifications such as ISTQB, CSM, CSPO and A-CSM. My “hands-on” experience with various automation testing tools (JUnit, NUnit, Appium, Java, C#, Postman, JMeter, Selenium, Cucumber, etc.) has empowered me to make critical decisions around tool selection and implementation of automation testing projects in various organizations.

Joseph Sukanth Yeruva

Senior Engineering Manager and QE Lead

Joseph is a Quality Engineering Manager with extensive experience in search infrastructure, test automation, and developer platform engineering across the technology industry. Currently working at Apple, he leads a cross-functional engineering team driving quality strategy and scalable platform tools that create seamless developer experiences at scale. He holds a strong technical foundation built across globally recognized organizations including Amazon, Intel, and Blippar.

Josep’s leadership and technical depth have been instrumental in shaping automation tools development, engineering roadmaps, strategies that build high-performing quality teams. He has proven experience in establishing robust QE practices, mentoring junior engineers, and championing quality as a shared engineering discipline — spanning technologies like AI, Search, Mobile, and Augmented Reality.

Abhijit Banerjee

Director

Rich experience in Quality Assurance and Engineering practice across Insurance and Banking organizations in North America. Spearheaded end-to-end QA delivery for many mission-critical large-scale initiatives such as Centralized QA practice, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Test Data Management, Automation Factory Model, and Enterprise Innovation to name a few. In addition, possess strong experience in standing up organization maturity model, KPI & Metrics, Scorecard with regards to risk, quality, efficiency, time-to-market and cost. A thought and transformational leader who leads by example with authenticity, trust, empathy and care. Emphasizes a lot in coaching and mentoring the team to create a follower-ship and help shape future talents for the organization. A big believer in engaging leadership and embracing change. Always strive for excellence and follows some key shared commitments such as Thinking like a customer, acting like an owner, Innovating with purpose, Executing with speed & impact and Developing our colleague

Possesses a keen interest in music spread across Indian Classical, Rock, Pop, Electronic et al. Play Tabla (Indian twin drums) and have a YouTube channel where I post my tabla cover/renditions of popular Hindi and English songs (Available upon request?). Play ping-pong and is a fitness enthusiast. I love to travel and make memories (my favorite holiday destination is Austria).

Avi Afik

Director of QA

Avi is a veteran QA professional with over 15 years of hands-on experience building, guiding, and developing QA teams and disciplines. Avi is an innovator with a strong track record of success. He has been instrumental in strategizing and designing Test automation, QA Tools, and Performance Testing. Avi works to streamline QA procedures for maximum productivity and effectiveness.
Today Avi is QE Director at BERA (Brand Equity Relationship Assessment), the world’s first and only truly Predictive Brand Tech platform. BERA’s technology solves the number one issue in marketing and building brands: the inability to quantify and predict the impact of brand on current and long-term business value.

Sheldon W. Foster

Head of Product and Senior Director

Sheldon W. Foster is an accomplished leader in Agile Delivery, with over 15 years of experience in digital delivery and transformation. Sheldon has been hands-on in fostering a culture of collaborative, cross-functional, high-performing teams. Most recently as Manulife’s Director, Strategy & Execution with the Global Agile Office, previous to that he was Vice President of Delivery at Rangle, accountable for over 20 Agile teams in 3 countries. For 10 years (2005-2015) he was a Business Analyst & Quality Analyst consultant/contractor engaged in large initiatives with; Bell Canada, Canadian National, TMX Group, Intact Insurance.

Vignesh Govindarajan Ravichandran

Assistant Vice President

I have more than 1.5 decades of industry experience, and head Quality teams for Risk, Analytics and Investment science at Wellington Management LLP, the 11th largest biggest asset manager in the world by AUM. I have deep expertise in managing big enterprise testing teams. I work in cutting edge projects like NLP, AI, Climate research, data engineering, high velocity Financial risk systems and interactive dashboards used by the investors.

Boyapati Saichand

Director

Sai is currently leading and managing a dynamic global QA team in the US, Canada and India at the forefront of innovation.

His focus spans across emerging hardware and software products, encompassing AI, AR/VR platforms, mobile technology, health, and B2B domains.

With over 14 years of dedicated experience in quality assurance, he has the honor of spearheading diverse teams that have delivered groundbreaking achievements.His expertise extends to meticulously crafted test plans and strategies, tailored for proof of concepts, mid-to-large scale commercial projects, and the seamless release of multiple devices—all aimed at ensuring the highest standards of quality and customer satisfaction. His mission is to continuously elevate our industry standards, delivering impactful results that shape the future of technology.

Swastika Sinha

ScotiaBank

Swastika Sinha is a Quality Assurance leader who has 18 years of experience in Banking, eCommerce and digital space, and holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Computer Science & Engineering. She is currently working as Director, Quality Assurance at Scotiabank where she leads the QA and Test Automation Engineering practice for a large portfolio.

Swastika’s leadership skills and innovation-oriented approach have been instrumental in successful testing and implementation of large projects for Scotiabank, Publicis Sapient/ Razorfish, Indigo, The Globe and Mail and Nagarro. She has proven experience in establishing high-performing QA practice at organizations, and championing strategies for transformations focussed on Agile, Test automation, Accessibility and Performance.

Kulas Angeles

Director, Software Quality Engineering

Mark Nicholas Angeles, or Kulas, is currently a Director, Software Quality Engineering with Sun Life Financial. Kulas is a seasoned Engineering leader with more than 17 years of experience in IT mostly in quality engineering and DevOps.

Sourav Mallick

Head of Technology

Sourav is a highly accomplished Technology and Management professional with over 19 years of extensive global experience in leading large-scale Quality Engineering, Quality Assurance, and Agile transformation programs across North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Throughout his career, he has worked across diverse regions and industries, successfully leading cross-cultural teams and delivering impactful IT transformation projects. Currently, Sourav serves as the head of the Quality Engineering (QE) department for the Commercial Banking division of a leading Canadian bank. In this capacity, he also manages Shared Services for Automation and Agile Transformation for the Commercial Banking, Payments, and Wealth Management Technology groups.

Shripad Deshpande

Senior QA Engineering Manager

As a seasoned engineering leader with over 16 years of experience in the quality field, Shripad is at the forefront of driving innovation and excellence in the tech industry. He currently supports the GenAI and Messenger QA teams across all platforms, including mobile and AR/VR, ensuring seamless integration and top-notch quality.
With a proven track record of scaling quality for multiple 0 to 1 products that now serve billions of users worldwide, Shripad is a pioneer in his field. His expertise lies in making quality a first-class citizen within the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and pushing it upstream to ensure that companies move fast while maintaining the highest standards.

As an ambassador of quality, Shripad has previously led multiple teams at Twitter and Samsung, where he successfully implemented cutting-edge quality strategies and processes that drove business growth and customer satisfaction. His mission is to continuously elevate industry standards, delivering impactful results that shape the future of technology.

With his extensive experience and innovative approach, Shripad is a trusted advisor and leader in the tech industry, empowering companies to achieve their goals while prioritizing quality and customer satisfaction.