Raj Seshadri is the Chief Commercial Payments Officer at Mastercard and a member of the company’s Executive Leadership Team and Management Committee. She is responsible for Commercial & New Payment Flows focused on bringing the same safe and seamless experience consumers have in retail carded payments to business and corporate customers. She was previously president of Mastercard’s global Data & Services team, having joined the company in 2016.

Clara Shih is a technology pioneer, entrepreneur, and bestselling author. She currently leads artificial intelligence efforts at Salesforce and is also the Founder and Chairwoman of Hearsay Systems, a client engagement SaaS startup backed by Sequoia and NEA. She has been named one of Fortune’s “40 under 40” and “Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs,” Fast Company’s “Most Influential People in Technology,” “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, and TIME's 100 most influential people in AI.

Valerie Karplus is a leading expert and catalyst in the intersection of energy innovation, the decarbonization of global supply chains, and climate policies. As a co-founder and director of the MIT-Tsinghua China Energy and Climate Project trying to solve one of the most daunting challenges facing the earth, she helped enable a whole new generation of leaders from MIT, Tsinghua, and other collaborating groups to lead on energy and climate issues worldwide.

Fatima Kardar is the Corporate Vice President of the AI Infrastructure, Partnerships & Marketplace, Microsoft AI. The AI Infrastructure and Partnership team is building a unified platform to support all copilot offerings across Microsoft’s products. The Marketplace team is creating a services marketplace to connect customers to high-quality services provided from around the world.

Samantha Freebairn is the Senior Manager of Aviation Safety Training at Qantas Airways. Previously, she was a pilot for the Royal Australian Air Force, where she flew humanitarian and combat missions across Asia and globally and conducted aeromedical evacuations.

GWA celebrated International Women’s Month by spotlighting notable Women in STEM, our theme for 2024. We held an online conversation between GWA co-founder and board member Fritz Demopoulos and Dr. Songyee Yoon, an AI technology humanist.

Global Women Asia (GWA) announces the establishment of the Women in STEM Council. This advisory body is committed to expanding the women in STEM pipeline globally, from sparking interest in STEM education to advocating for workforce career advancement.

Ambassador Chantale Wong is the U.S. Executive Director to the Asian Development Bank. Trained as an engineer, Ambassador Wong has had a long and distinguished career in public service.

We’re championing women in STEM in 2024. In addition to the 2024 Women in STEM Fellowship, Global Women Asia will also profile women in STEM role models and their allies throughout the year.