Red Hat Summit: Connect 2026 | Mumbai

Navtez brings a unique combination of deep technical expertise and go-to-market strategy experience. He has held leadership roles including Chief Operating Officer for India at Microsoft for over three years, where he was responsible for the public sector business in India, overseeing the entire P&L and operating team. Under his leadership the team facilitated digital transformation projects for central ministries, state governments, public sector units, and educational institutions, such as the National Language Translation Mission (Bhashini), E-Shram, and Diksha, while working towards doubling Microsoft's public sector revenue over three years.

He also spent over nineteen years at McKinsey, where, as a Senior Partner, he played a pivotal role in establishing two key service lines at McKinsey India office (INO) - RTS and tech-enabled operations which together accounted for 45% of INO's client engagements. His extensive cross-sector experience spans Technology, Industrials (including metals & mining, power, chemicals, and oil & gas), and Infrastructure. Most recently, Navtez was with IBM for 1.5 years, serving as Vice President and General Manager for Strategic Business Development, covering India and South Asia.

Vishal Dhupar, MD, NVIDIA South Asia, has played a key role in driving the widespread adoption of accelerated computing and AI in India. Recognized as the top Tech 100 influencers by MIT Sloan India, Vishal actively contributes to various organizations and advisory bodies such as the CII, IDGS, and is an active member of the World Economic Forum’s AI Advisory Council in India. With a strong belief in the power of AI for India and AI for all, he champions the philosophy of leveraging AI to tackle the most complex challenges across industries.

Vincent Caldeira is CTO APAC at Red Hat and focused on technology strategy and emerging technology engineering in hybrid cloud, cloud-native AI and technology sustainability domains. Named a Top 10 CTO in APAC by Technology Magazine in 2023. Has 20+ years in IT, excelling in technology transformation in the financial industry, and is a Technical Advisor to LF OS-Climate, member of the GSF Green AI Committee, Technical Oversight Committee at LF FINOS and CNCF TAG Sustainability.

Mangesh Surve has been in crucial leadership roles as the technology influenced the digital transformation of Industries and impacted daily lives of its consumers.

He is currently leading the Red Hat Solutions Architect team for India and South Asia. He is consulting crucial verticals like BFSI, Telco, IT/ITES, Manufacturing , Defence , Government and Pharma on Cloud Native & Open Source based Digital transformation. He had also lead the technology teams in Oracle during its transition to Cloud; He was leader of Information Management at IBM during that time when Business has started looking at Analytics as one of the crucial pillars of their business.

Abhishek currently leads Sales and Business Development for the Enterprise segment across India and the South Asia region at Red Hat. In this role, he drives strategic growth initiatives and leads digital transformation partnerships across key sectors including financial services, government, and telecommunications.
With over 20 years of experience in the IT, cloud, and telecom industries, Abhishek brings deep domain expertise and a strong track record of helping organizations unlock business value through open-source technologies and innovation.

Prior to Red Hat, Abhishek led the Telecom and Cloud Providers vertical at NTT, where he was instrumental in enabling several leading operators in India to embark on their hybrid cloud journeys. His professional journey also includes leadership positions at Dell, Netmagic, and Siemens Communications, where he contributed to business expansion across diverse industry segments.

Abhishek holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunications from Mumbai University, and an MBA from the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

A seasoned business leader with experience in general management, sales and business development, service design and delivery, customer relations and success, partner engagement, customer experience and digital business transformational programs.

Misha has rich experience working with system integrators such as Infosys, IBM, Syntel and Fujitsu Consulting, has run a B2B telecom business at Vodafone India, led Professional Services at VMware India and led the Industry Solutions (consulting) business at Microsoft India and South Asia.

She is passionate about achieving business outcomes for customers through suitable business transformation decisions combined with the efficient use of technology.

An active speaker and mentor at Women in Technology forums, Misha also strongly believes in leveraging diversity of thought, gender and demography at the workplace. In addition to her day job, she mentors people and champions multiple initiatives in aspirational leadership, diversity and inclusion within and across organizations.

Mukesh Mehta is a seasoned technology leader with over 29 years of experience in driving go-to-market strategy, sales management, and business growth across enterprise, government, and mid-market segments. As Director of Commercial Business at Red Hat India & South Asia, he leads revenue growth across corporate and territory segments, guiding teams across sales, consulting, and partner ecosystems to deliver consistent double-digit performance.

Over the years, Mukesh has held leadership roles at global technology giants including Adobe, Oracle, Microsoft, Lenovo, IBM, and Compaq. He has built high-performing teams, driven new market initiatives, and delivered transformative business results. Known for his deep understanding of hybrid cloud strategy and customer-centric execution, Mukesh has been instrumental in building trusted relationships with C-level leaders and strategic partners.

A Computer Science engineer by education, he is passionate about mentoring talent and driving business transformation through innovation, collaboration, and value-driven leadership.

Giridhar Ramaraju is Senior Director - Global Engineering at Red Hat in the Core Platforms division. Giri has a passion for building & leading teams in engineering software solutions in Open Hybrid Cloud. In his current role, Giri leads a global team to deliver reliable, scalable enterprise grade software solutions and services to RedHat's customers.

Prior to the role in Red Hat, Giri was part of the Engineering leadership at EMC India and worked on Storage and Data Center Technologies. Giri has a Bachelor's Degree in Engineering and a PG in Business Management from XLRI. Giri lives in Bangalore, India.

Chintamani heads Solution Architecture & Presales for the Enterprise FSI & Manufacturing segment at Red Hat India. With 25 years of experience across Red Hat, IBM, and TCS, he brings deep expertise in cloud, AI, enterprise IT and Telecom Network Assurance. He works with customers to align Red Hat’s enterprise open-source solutions with business goals and helps in their Digital Transformation, Application Modernization, Automation and AI journeys.

Cheriyan Mathew is a seasoned technology leader in the industry with multi-technology domain, multi-industry vertical experience. His passion is to help customers navigate their hybrid cloud journey by designing  cutting-edge solutions that increase the revenue, productivity and optimize the cost and performance.

In his current role at Red Hat, he leads a vibrant team of solution architects to help public sector and commercial customers with right open source technology solution for achieving their aspirational outcomes and best experience to their clients and citizens.

Ravi Goyal is the Head of Solution Architecture for Public Sector, Manufacturing, and Oil & Gas at Red Hat India/South Asia. A seasoned professional and recognized thought leader, he brings extensive experience across enterprise architecture, and consulting for large-scale transformational projects.

He has been instrumental in designing and delivering several major e-Governance initiatives for the Government of India and actively contributes to national and international forums, including IndEA 2.0 (MeitY), World Economic Forum (WEF), the Association of Enterprise Architects (AEA), the Delhi Management Association (DMA), and UNICEF. Ravi has played a key role in strategizing and conceptualizing multiple IT and e-Governance programs that are now adopted across both central and state governments in India.

Vaibhav, a seasoned Principal Specialist Solution Architect at Red Hat, specializes in cloud-native and hybrid cloud architectures. As a trusted advisor to senior executives, he has been instrumental in driving transformative solutions for public/private sector banks, government projects, manufacturing and telecom, through enterprise open source innovations.

In his current role, Vaibhav excels at crafting joint success, ensuring his partner organizations achieve unparalleled digital experiences through open, scalable, resilient and secure architectures. His strategic approach paves the way for current and future needs, making him as a reliable pillar for executives aiming for sustained business growth through technology excellence.

Sarabjit is a Principal Specialist Solution Architect at Red Hat, focusing on strategic customers in AIML domain,, hybrid cloud architectures, and cloud-native applications. With over 22 years of industry experience, Sarabjit has extensive expertise in developing architecture blueprints, roadmaps, and leading discussions with CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs. He holds numerous industry certifications in technologies including cloud computing, integration technologies, workflow management, and security solutions.

Balvinder Singh is a senior technology and business leader with over 25 years of experience in the IT industry. He currently leads Global Learning Services for India and South Asia at Red Hat, helping organizations and technology professionals build the skills needed to accelerate innovation and business outcomes.

Prior to Red Hat, Balvinder held leadership and customer-facing roles at Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and VMware, spanning customer support, solutions architecture, consulting and advisory. His experience sits at the intersection of technology, business strategy, customer success and capability development.

A Systems Engineer at Everpure (formerly Pure Storage), brings more than 25 years of hands-on experience in IT Infrastructure Architecture and Solution Design across BFSI, Telecom, and IT/ITeS sectors. Over the course of career, has held customer-facing technology and solution sales roles with global leaders including Veritas Technologies, NetApp, VeeAM, and Hitachi Data Systems. The expertise lies in designing and delivering complex, enterprise-scale infrastructure solutions spanning Virtualization, Storage, Backup, Disaster Recovery, Migration and Cloud technologies.

Nirmal Puranik is a technology leader with over 27 years of experience across diverse IT organizations and roles. His expertise spans Product and Solution Architecture, solution strategy, and business value realization.

He has led complex infrastructure modernization and cloud migration initiatives, helping organizations transform their technology landscape. Nirmal has also driven the adoption of AI solutions across multiple business use cases, delivering innovation and measurable outcomes.
His experience covers infrastructure management, cloud, and AI solutions for both enterprise customers and service providers, spanning private, hybrid, and public cloud environments.

Enterprise Infrastructure and Cloud Solutions Architect with 17+ years of experience across Kubernetes, OpenShift, cloud platforms, enterprise storage, backup & recovery, and infrastructure modernization. Specialized in Kubernetes ecosystems, cloud-native data protection, disaster recovery, and hybrid cloud architecture.

Experienced APJ Pre-Sales delivering end-to-end enterprise engagements — technical discovery, architecture workshops, POCs, and solution demonstrations — across mission-critical Kubernetes and OpenShift environments. Track record of driving customer success across multi-cloud production environments while leading infrastructure modernization and operational optimization initiatives.

Choice Without Compromise: Enabling Platform Flexibility Through Intelligent Data Infrastructure

Modern enterprises are embracing platform choice to support diverse application architectures, hybrid cloud strategies, and evolving infrastructure requirements. However, true choice is only possible when data can move seamlessly across environments without creating complexity, risk, or vendor lock-in. NetApp empowers organizations with a consistent and intelligent data layer that spans on-premises, public cloud, virtualized, and containerized environments. By integrating with Red Hat OpenShift and cloud-native platforms, NetApp enables customers to modernize applications, support Kubernetes workloads, enhance operational flexibility, and build a future-ready platform strategy where infrastructure choices can evolve without compromising access to critical data.

Prasad brings over 15 years of open source technologies expertise. As an AI Architect and part of the AI Specialist team at Red Hat APAC, he enables organizations to harness the Red Hat AI stack to drive innovation, solve complex business challenges, and deliver measurable customer outcomes.

Nitin Gupta is a Specialist Solutions Architect at Red Hat, where he supports  organizations accelerate their modernization journey through virtualization, hybrid cloud, and cloud-native technologies. He partners with customers to architect scalable, secure, and resilient platforms that enable application modernization, infrastructure transformation, multicluster operations, and modern security practices.

With deep expertise across the Red Hat portfolio—including Red Hat OpenShift/Virtualization ecosystem, Openstack, Storage & Networking solutions—Nitin advises customers on designing and implementing production-ready architectures aligned with their business and technology objectives

He works closely with customers throughout their transformation journey, from architecture and strategy to hands-on enablement, delivering solution blueprints, technical workshops, proofs of concept, and demonstrations that help organizations confidently adopt Red Hat technologies and realize business value.

Rohan Sawant is the Associate Principal Consultant at Red Hat, serving as a trusted consultant to customers seeking to maximize the value of their Red Hat investments. With around two decades of diverse IT experience, Rohan specializes in guiding organizations through effective adoption and implementation of Red Hat solutions to achieve their strategic business goals. Specializing in cloud-native application modernization, he focuses on delivering scalable architectures that directly align with and achieve strategic business goals. Rohan leverages a rich blend of expertise across application development, Devops and the Red Hat open-source stack to ensure successful enterprise-wide digital transformation. Before Red Hat, he was Architect in Integration Practice at TCS and acted as a Digital Transformation Architect for its Customers.

Business-savvy, customer centric solution sales professional with 28+ years of experience in the IT industry selling, architecting enterprise solutions and driving business innovations focused around cloud technologies, platform modernization and application modernization in the FSI vertical.

As an Openshift Sales Specialist, I engage in strategic dialogues with IT decision makers to drive outcome based adoption and application of cloud-native technologies across platforms, applications and business transformation.

Rachna Dodia is a Solution Architect at Red Hat specializing in enterprise automation, hybrid cloud, and digital transformation. She works with customers to design and implement scalable automation solutions using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, helping organizations modernize IT operations, improve operational efficiency, and accelerate business outcomes. With expertise spanning infrastructure automation, cloud platforms, OpenShift, and enterprise architecture, Rachna is passionate about simplifying complex IT challenges and enabling customers to build resilient, future-ready technology ecosystems.

With over 18 years of global IT experience, Nitin serve as a Senior Account Solution Architect specializing in high-availability, resilient, and scalable open enterprise architectures. He specializes in partnering with key public sector and commercial accounts—including the Ministry of Railways, the Aviation sector, and Indian Metros—to power mission-critical applications at nationwide scale.

An alumnus of IIM Lucknow, Nitin bring a strategic fusion of business vision and deep technical architecture to complex hybrid cloud landscapes. Having worked across global markets including India, the US, Japan, and Thailand.

Mandar Dixit is responsible for Presales across West & North India for Corporate Customers.

With 20+ years of Presales & Consulting experience, in varied segments like Cloud, Data Center, Telco & System Integration, he brings an excellent blend of Business & Technical skills.

At Red Hat he has remarkable contributions towards business growth in the hybrid cloud market based on Enterprise open source technologies.

Proven record of accomplishment in complex solution building across Industry verticals like BFSI, Manufacturing & ITES.

Has been a Trusted Advisor to Large Business Conglomerates, in their Application Modernization & Hybrid Cloud journey.

A passionate and results-driven Solution Architect with a deep expertise in Red Hat solutions. I specialize in designing and implementing innovative technology strategies that directly contribute to business growth. My work focuses on leveraging the power of open source technologies across diverse environments, including on-premise, cloud, and at the Edge.
My approach is centered on empowering customers. I believe in translating complex technical requirements into clear, scalable, and impactful solutions that help organizations meet and exceed their business objectives. I have a proven track record of architecting robust and efficient infrastructures, modernizing application stacks, and optimizing cloud-native environments.

I thrive on solving real-world challenges and am constantly exploring the latest advancements in open source. From containerization with Red Hat OpenShift to enterprise Linux solutions and automation with Ansible, I am committed to delivering architectures that are not just effective today but are also built for the future. I am dedicated to helping businesses navigate their digital transformation journey and unlock their full potential with open source technologies.

Gulshan has held multiple Customer and Partner facing roles in Red Hat’s journey of 8+ years. He has worked as Red Hat Certified Instructor & Consultant, then moving to Partner Solution Architect role and now he is a Specialist Solution Architect of RHEL in APAC.

He is Passionate about delivering solutions based on Open Source Technologies, mainly Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Linux based technologies such as Ansible and OpenShift .
He has a rich experience in designing solutions for business applications use cases.

Shailendra Kumar Singh is an Associate Principal Specialist Adoption Architect at Red Hat, with nearly 15 years of experience designing and implementing solutions for enterprise, banking, and public sector clients. He specializes in cloud-native application modernization and OpenShift platform migration, with deep hands-on expertise across the Red Hat portfolio.

Passionate about open source, he contributes through technical blogging, YouTube videos, and speaking at open-source conferences.

Senior Solutions Architect at Red Hat focussing on Red Hat Openshift and Red Hat Application Services Technologies, helping customers with their digital transformation journeys. Previously worked in the services industry with BFSI and Telecom customers in India and  across APAC and EMEA. Have 19 years of experience in  development, integration technologies, solution design and architecture.

Jitender Kohli is a Principal Specialist Architect in Red Hat's Global Telco Center of Excellence, partnering with telecom operators and cloud providers to accelerate AI-powered transformation and cloud modernization. His expertise spans AI platforms, cloud-native infrastructure, automation, DevSecOps, and telecom architectures. Jitender advises organizations on building secure, scalable, and future-ready digital platforms, helping them leverage open-source innovation to drive business agility and operational excellence.

Anshu Kumar is an experienced Cloud Architect with nearly 15 years in the IT industry, combining deep technical expertise with strong business acumen.

In his current position, he partners with leading telecommunications clients, promoting the use of open-source solutions to modernize network infrastructure, drive enterprise transformation, and support the digital evolution of internal systems.

Ami Desai is Manager of Architecture for Red Hat Professional Services in India, where she leads a high-performing technical consulting team. With deep expertise in hybrid and sovereign cloud architectures—particularly within the telecommunications sector. Ami specializes in translating complex business objectives into scalable, future-ready technology solutions. Recognized as a trusted advisor, Ami helps Red Hat's customers turn technology into a competitive advantage by seamlessly aligning their architectures with overarching strategic goals. A passionate advocate for open source, Ami is also an active contributor and frequent speaker at industry events.

Priyadarshini has an extensive 15 plus years experience in Customer Success and strategic account management, she focuses on driving adoption and business value for large BFSI customers through Red Hat’s hybrid cloud and enterprise open source technologies.

She works closely with customers and C-level stakeholders to align technology with business priorities, manage complex workstreams, and ensure effective execution and closure.

As a trusted advisor, her focus is on stakeholder engagement, adoption, governance, and value realization—helping customers successfully progress their technology transformation journeys.

Shrinivas Dikhonda is the Principal Specialist Solution Architect at Red Hat, is an established Technologist with more than Two Decades in diverse IT Industry experience across multiple domains helping customers & partners realize their business goals.

His expertise in Cloud Native Application Modernization has greatly influenced and helped customers & partners realize the business value.

He brings in the wealth of experience in the Application Building & Modernization space getting the best of Enterprise Open Source technologies with Red Hat technology stack.

He has worked extensively with global fortune 500 customers, led CoE’s & Projects driving innovation & growth with his thought leadership.
Prior to joining Red Hat, Shrinivas was the Director at TIBCO India leading Cloud & Integration Practice while also actively working as Digital Transformation Architect for APAC.

Ritesh Shroff is a an Associate Principal  Solution Architect focusing on the BFSI sector. Ritesh has over 23+ years of experience in the IT Industry. Ritesh has always been a technical advisor for clients and customer centricity is his forte.

He brings in extensive experience in creating architecture blueprints, roadmaps, leading discussions with C- Suite and working with customer business & technical teams in all of his accounts. Also collaborates well with the larger ecosystem and the SI community for critical projects such as Digital Transformation.

Saurabh Rai is a transformation architect at the intersection of open-source innovation and public sector modernization. As Pre-Sales Thought Leader for APAC Corporate at Red Hat, he partners with enterprises and governments to bridge legacy complexity with cloud-native agility. Saurabh Rai is a results-driven technology professional with expertise in cloud platforms, developer solutions, and enterprise modernization. With a strong background in solution architecture and customer engagement

With 17+ years of experience in hybrid cloud, Saurabh blends business empathy with technical precision—championing enterprise open source as a strategic enabler for scale, security, and sustainability.

Sumit Mukherjee is a Senior Specialist Solutions Architect for OpenShift Application Platform at Red Hat, with over 17 years of experience in open source technologies, enterprise middleware, and cloud-native architecture. As a trusted technical advisor, he helps organizations design secure, scalable, and resilient platforms that support application modernization and hybrid cloud transformation.

His expertise spans Red Hat OpenShift, OpenShift Virtualization, enterprise integration, API management, event-driven architectures, identity and access management, and cloud-native security. Sumit works closely with customers across banking, healthcare, aviation, government, and other regulated sectors—translating complex business requirements into practical, execution-ready architectures.

As a Principal Technical Account Manager (TAM) at Red Hat with over 18 years of IT experience, Kailash accelerates enterprise cloud transformations through open source innovation. As a trusted technical advisor, he provides end-to-end guidance across the solution lifecycle, from initial architecture design to full operational execution, ensuring systems are resilient and future-ready.

Leveraging deep expertise across the Red Hat Cloud portfolio, he proactively solves complex challenges to deliver an exceptional customer success experience. By translating technical capabilities into tangible business outcomes, he ensures workload stability, consistently drives customer success, builds long-term trust, and delivers lasting value for both customers and Red Hat.

Rudolf Sequeira is a Senior Solution Architect focusing on the BFSI Vertical. He is a dynamic professional with 20+ years of rich experience as Presales and Solution Architect in the IT Industry. He engages to ensure Customer success addressing Business needs and solving problems using Technology solutions in pursuit to be Trusted Advisor for his Customers.

As part of Enterprise Digital Transformation, he has been engaged in architecting Technology solutions for building  on premise Private Cloud,Hybrid Cloud and Multi Cloud Solutions. He also has expertise on Data Center services and Infrastructure solutions. At Red Hat, he engages with Financial Institutions on Platform led Approach for running Cloud Native Applications and Traditional Applications ensuring Resilient Scalable IT Systems and how customers can leverages enterprise wide Automation for integrated, orchestrated approach for achieving Operational Efficiency.

Rahul is Senior Specialist Solution Architect in Red Hat with overall 18 years of IT professional experience in architecting, designing & delivering Hybrid Cloud Platform Solutions across Unix/Linux OS, Virtualization, Containers,  Security and Automation technologies.

In his current Role at Red Hat, Rahul works closely with BFSI sector customers and assists them in digitally transforming and modernizing their businesses using Red Hat Open Hybrid Cloud approach.

Akshay Poddar leads the Red Hat OpenShift business for the West Commercial segment, driving digital transformation across Manufacturing, Small Finance Banks, Conglomerates, and Pharma. He helps enterprises accelerate hybrid cloud adoption, application modernization, virtualization, automation, and AI initiatives, enabling scalable, secure, and business-focused technology outcomes through open-source innovation.

Vikash Gupta is a Senior Solution Architect at Red Hat, supporting corporate customers across the South India and Maldives region.

With over 20 years of experience in presales, helped organizations to address complex business challenges and accelerate digital transformation through his expertise in open source technologies, hybrid cloud, AI, cybersecurity, and enterprise architecture.

A trusted advisor with a customer-centric approach, Vikash has led strategic engagements across Manufacturing, Public Sector, Pharmaceuticals, and BFSI verticals, designing secure, scalable and sustainable solutions that enabled innovation and business growth.

He works closely with customers, system integrators, and technology partners to deliver impactful solutions that help organizations maximize the value of their technology investments and achieve sustainable business outcomes.

Ninad Kulkarni is a Senior Account Solution Architect at Red Hat with over 19 years of experience in enterprise architecture, pre-sales, and digital transformation. He specializes in helping BFSI organizations modernize their IT landscape using cloud, Kubernetes, automation, and AI technologies, with a strong focus on aligning technology solutions with business outcomes.