Co-Founder and Chairman, Sirion

Amanda Bresler serves as President of PW Communications, a woman-owned small business founded in 1996 that provides proposal and business development support to government contractors worldwide. In 2019, she launched SHELDON, a data science firm serving customers in the United States government.

Ms. Bresler’s research into the effectiveness of Department of Defense procurement policies has been widely published, including by the Naval Postgraduate School, Contract Management Magazine, Bloomberg, Defense News, the Defense Innovation Board, and the Journal of Defense Analytics and Logistics. Recognized as an expert in military innovation strategy, she regularly engages with Senate and Congressional stakeholders on these issues.

She contributed directly to the drafting and passing of Section 220 of the 2019 NDAA, and testified before the House Committee on Small Business in 2024.

Andrea S. Patrucco (PhD, Politecnico di Milano) is an Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management at the Department of Operations Management, Copenhagen Business School. His research interests are in the field of management of buyer-supplier relationships in both the private and public sectors. He is one of the academic leaders of the International Research Study on Public Procurement Research group and the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Managemen

Cinthia es especialista en investigación e innovación comercial en WorldCC, con formación en Legal Engineering y Derecho Corporativo, y una maestría con distinción en International Business Law por la University of Leeds. Su trabajo se enfoca en analizar cómo la tecnología y los nuevos modelos comerciales transforman la contratación y las relaciones de negocio, traduciendo ideas complejas en insights prácticos sobre IA, negociación y transformación comercial. Cuenta además con experiencia en automatización y CLM.

Dr. Daniel Finkenstadt, an expert in public procurement and policy, supports the CCM Institute with over 23 years of acquisition experience across operational units, headquarters, and international roles in Italy and Afghanistan, including work with the intelligence community.

Formerly an assistant professor of defense management at the Naval Postgraduate School, he pioneered gamified acquisition training and founded the Simulation and Ideation Lab for Applied Science (SILAS), winner of NCMA’s 2023 Innovation in Contracting Award. Author of two books and numerous peer-reviewed and professional works, he is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, with his article “How Generative AI Can Augment Human Creativity” ranking as a best-seller. 

Senior Expert in Contract and Commercial Management within the Telecommunication environment, Senior manager expertise.

Fred C. Payne is an international business executive who has successfully led Engineering, Project, Program, and Portfolio Management operations in corporate roles with leadership development, customer and client relationships, strategic planning, change and transformational management, and merger and acquisition integration by focusing on performance excellence in a variety of roles as Corporate Director/Vice President Engineering and Program Management in both Commercial and Aerospace & Defense businesses and as President of a non-profit focused on Complex Project Management.

Executive in Residence at World Commerce & Contracting

Vice President, Commercial Management for Global Programme Management business, including commercial excellence, best practice, enterprise critical programmes, market management, supplier engagement, commercial solutions, contracting and commercial delivery, operations & delivery support, commercial performance, governance risk and compliance.

Currently a Founder & CTO of a US-based business, "Noha-Z" ("Beautiful Mind") focused on developing an ecosystem for document content discovery & knowledge management, using natural language engineering, machine and human intelligence, with one patent already granted for our work. 

I am originally a Mathematician with an MPhil in speech recognition & natural language processing (NLP) and a PhD in AI, read at the University of Cambridge, on a full scholarship. I completed a 3-year postdoc at the University of Oxford before moving to industry. 
 
I was an advisor for a UK-based EdTech curation startup "Wakelet". I have been also a research scientist at the Educational Testing Service working on educational and content scoring technologies, with 3 granted patents, and an assistant professor at the American University of Beirut. Among my other credentials, I am a consultant, a teacher and forever a student.

Expert service operations and transformation consulting to help you achieve operational excellence |Author of Beyond OK  | Public Speaker | Corporate Wellness Adviser | Company Director | Non-Executive Director

Experienced Association Executive with a record of global growth and building powerful professional communities. Current focus on establishing a global profession through ANSI accredited consensus based standard setting, ANAB accredited certifications, and a practice research institute.

Oscar Hernández es Director Regional para América Latina de Open Contracting Partnership, donde lidera la estrategia y las operaciones de la organización en 12 países de la región. Trabaja con gobiernos, sociedad civil y organismos internacionales para transformar la contratación pública mediante datos, tecnología y reformas orientadas a mejorar la forma en que el Estado compra y entrega bienes y servicios a la ciudadanía.

Su trabajo se ha enfocado en usar la contratación pública como herramienta para mejorar resultados. Antes de unirse a OCP, fue Government Innovation Fellow en el Government Performance Lab de la Escuela de Gobierno de Harvard, donde asesoró a gobiernos locales en Estados Unidos y América Latina en contratación, gestión del desempeño y mejora de servicios públicos. Ha liderado o acompañado reformas en temas como contratación por resultados, transformación digital, monitoreo de riesgos, inclusión de proveedores y compras públicas estratégicas.

Pepe Toriello asesora a equipos legales de corporativos en Estados Unidos y Latinoamérica a innovar su operación implementando softwares de firma electrónica y CLM. Sus pláticas se han enfocado en innovación legal y es anfitrión del podcast Contract Heroes. También es miembro del consejo global de la World Commerce & Contracting. Estudio la carrera de derecho en el ITAM y su maestría en Northwestern University.

Rob Handfield is the Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at the North Carolina State University Poole College of Management, and Executive Director and founder of the Supply Chain Resource Cooperative (http://scm.ncsu.edu) based in Poole College. The SCRC is the first major industry-university partnership to integrate student projects into the MBA classroom in an integrative fashion, and now provides real world supply chain/operations experiences for both undergraduate and graduate students. The SCRC currently has 15 major Fortune 500 companies participating as industry partners. 

Sharon Zacharia is a commercial and technology lawyer, founder of Innovation Law, and former partner and Head of Commercial, Data Protection, and Technology at London firms Waterfront Law and Laytons ETL. With over a decade of in-house experience at international organisations like the Institution of Engineering and Technology, YouGov, BNY Mellon, and London South Bank University, she brings a broad, sector-agnostic perspective to complex contracting and regulatory challenges.

A seasoned speaker and trainer, Sharon has delivered seminars for clients and international legal network Libralex on contracting best practice and the responsible use of AI. A long-standing contributor to WorldCC, she received a WorldCC Innovation Award in 2015 for her work on setting up effective legal departments. A speaker of six languages, Sharon combines deep technical expertise with an engaging communication style that makes complex legal topics accessible.

Group Vice President & General Manager,
EMEA, Docusign

Tim Cummins serves as the Executive Director of CCM Institute and as the President of World Commerce & Contracting. He has also lectured in Law at the University of Leeds. For 25 years, Tim has led research and the development of standards for the Commercial and Contract Management discipline, an achievement that was recognised by the Financial Times ‘Market Shaper of the Year’ award in 2019.

Over that time, Tim has been instrumental in developing the world’s only international not-for-profit association dedicated to commercial and contract management and continues to work with its 80,000 members in both public and private sector to improve the quality and integrity of trading relationships.

Tim’s inspiration came from a career in Finance and Commercial Management, spanning multiple industries and countries and providing insight to the critical role that commercial innovation plays in delivering business and social value.

Senior contracting executive with proven record of leading teams focused on unparalleled customer service and innovative acquisitions. Unique experience with a wide range of acquisitions to include research and development, services, and systems using the entire spectrum of contracting solutions such as other transactions, procurement contracts, and assistance vehicles. Believes acquisition leaders are responsible for empowering individuals to find innovative solutions to meet ever evolving warfighter needs at the speed of relevance.