Ascend IAG Leadership Conference

Ritesh is a Managing Director in Deloitte & Touche’s Cyber Risk Services practice. Ritesh has over 18 years of experience in design and implementation of Security & Controls solutions and Information Security Risk Management. His areas of expertise include Cloud Security, Identity Management, Application Security, Process Controls, Enterprise Security and Architecture. He has extensive experience in architecting, designing and implementing security solutions. Ritesh also has extensive experience designing compliant business processes leveraging SOX and other compliance guidelines. Prior to joining Deloitte, Ritesh worked at Oracle Corporation as a Quality Assurance Engineer developing and testing Oracle Fusion Middleware technology. Primary industry focus includes Industrial Products and Energy & Resources.

Tashiana Briggs, CPA, has nearly 15 years of public accounting experience. Her primary focus is professional service and manufacturing, distribution, and retail. Her professional background encompasses numerous areas of federal and state tax including tax compliance and consultation. She also has experience providing state and local tax compliance services to clients of all sizes. Tashiana is a certified public accountant in the state of Texas and a member of American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA). She earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from Stephen F. Austin University.

Wilber Chan is a Senior Manager at KPMG Houston, working in the state and local tax practice. He specializes in sales and use tax audit defense, reverse audit reviews, and consulting, with a focus on the oil and gas, public utility, and manufacturing industries. Wilber has over 10 years of experience in his field. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Wilber moved to the USA when he was 18. He attended Texas A&M University, where he earned a Bachelor's degree in Accounting. In 2015, he obtained his CPA license in Texas. Wilber is an active member of KPMG's internal Asia Pacific Islander Business Resource Group (API BRG) and Ascend. He enjoys mentoring and developing others and is passionate about networking. In his free time, Wilber loves playing soccer, traveling, and spending time with his family.

Richin Chhajlani is currently a Global Asset Development Consultant within Chevron Technical Center where he advises and assures Chevron’s Major Capital Projects, New Energy Portfolio (CCUS, Hydrogen, Geothermal) and Shale & Tight project portfolio. Previously Richin was a Senior Asset Manager, managing and optimizing Chevron’s production across all 6 fields in California. Over the course of his 34 years’ experience, Richin has worked in many cross functional leadership roles within Operations, Planning and Asset Management across North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Richin is an active member of Chevron’s Asian Executive Advisor team helping to promote D&I aspects for our Asian Colleagues. Richin holds an Executive MBA from Rice University, MS in Petroleum Engineering from University of Oklahoma, and BS also in Petroleum Engineering from University of Pune, India. Richin has 3 daughters and enjoys travelling across the globe with them. Richin’s other interest lie in playing golf, listening to music, and learning about history and ancient cultures.

Bio

Bio

Afsheen is a Senior Manager at KPMG’s Tax Global Mobility Services Technology practice.She has 20 years of experience delivering global mobility systems solutions to multinational companies. She leads the delivery of global mobility technology to clients’ global mobility and finance functions. Primary responsibilities included collaborating and advising clients during mobility transformations and implementation of KPMG technology to multinational organizations. She has a strong background in HR and Payroll processes and technologies, including PeopleSoft, ADP, and Workday. Overseeing functional requirements, design, testing and implementation of HR, Payroll and Benefit solutions. Current and past clients include leaders in the manufacturing, information technology, oil & gas, consulting and financial services industries. Chapter lead of Houston KPMG Diversity Business Group and member of Ascend.

Julie is a Partner in Deloitte & Touche LLP's Cyber Risk Services practice. She has over 25 years of expertise in business and technology risk management. Specializing in application security and internal control implementations for both cloud and on-premise Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Julie helps her clients design cost-effective solutions for complex regulatory and compliance issues. She also leads diverse teams to help organizations address cyber risks and protect critical system information. Passionate about nurturing future leaders, Julie serves on the Board of Ascend's Houston Chapter and was the past President for the Chapter. She leads other equity and inclusion initiatives within her practice. Outside her professional life, she is an avid traveler and actively contributes to several non-profit organizations.

Sean is a Senior Manager in Tax Services. Sean joined the RSM in 2021. He took a unique role that focuses on both tax technology and tax compliance service. He was part of the team that built PartnerSight – State Module, an innovative technology solution to address the complex state tax compliance problems. Sean is currently part of leadership of the SALT Asset Management team that focus on State and Local tax issues for investment funds and flow-through entities. Sean had over 10 years of experience with a Big Four firm’s State and Local tax practice where he led state compliance and consulting services for multiple flagship and high-profile clients in Texas market as a director. He has extensive experiences with asset management industry clients, specifically private equity funds, fund of funds, family offices, and operational pass-through entities. Sean also specialized loan origination and Oil & Gas tax matters. Sean also co-chaired the national technology committee and lead several major firm’s technology developments.

Zarina is a Tax Talent Acquisition Leader at Crowe with twelve years of recruiting experience and prior experience as an operational accountant in start-up energy companies. She has specialized experience in recruiting for Public Accounting firms and is a data-driven leader. Her strengths are in process improvement/organizational effectiveness, leadership, and helping others maximize their potential. Zarina is passionate about advancing DEI efforts and paying it forward in her community. Outside of work, Zarina is a mom and enjoys traveling, reading, and spending time with her daughter, her pets, and family/friends.

Linh is a proven growth-minded business and people leader with a track record of success. He has a unique combination of expertise in creative deal shaping, enterprise delivery, people development acumen and a passion for forging "trusted" client relationships. His experiences span over 30+ years career in technology consulting at Accenture for 8 years then Avanade for 22 years to help our Fortune 500 clients capture value in a cost-effective manner on the Microsoft ecosystem. He’s a part of the leadership team in Deloitte's Energy Cloud Engineering and Strategy practice to help our clients realize the value of cloud transformation. Linh has proven experiences in Business Leadership, Business Development, Account Management, Program Delivery, People Development, Corporate Citizenship, People Champion, IT Strategy, Cloud Strategy, Integration, M&A, and Design Led Thinking. He is based in Houston, loves to cook and golf!

Bio

Jing is a Tax Senior Manager at Crowe and has over ten years of tax experience serving clients in the various industries including real estate entities, oil & gas related businesses, manufacturers, international businesses, high-net-worth individuals, and professional service companies. She serves as the client primary contacts and provides tax planning and compliance services to the clients. She coordinates the tax engagement team and firm resources to serve client’s need and deliver timely quality service. Jing is a member of the AICPA, TSCPA and its Houston Chapter. She earned the Bachelor of Finance, Master of Accountancy and Master of Business Administration degrees from New Mexico State University.

Renu Sachdeva is the Head of Client Solutions for the Americas with Talking Talent. She works with clients across many industries to understand their unique cultures and talent processes and delivers innovative, coaching-led, and research-based solutions to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in their organizations. Renu has deep subject matter expertise in building diverse and inclusive workplaces, leading ERGs across multiple markets, creating equitable performance management and development systems, and developing inspirational and visionary leaders. As an Executive Coach and facilitator, she is skilled at working with groups and individuals to have courageous conversations about DEI-related topics, and she holds space for her coaching clients to explore belief systems so that they may expand their paradigms about self and others. Renu has facilitated numerous DEI workshops and group coaching sessions on topics including intersectionality, unconscious bias, allyship, inclusive leadership, and psychological safety and belonging. She has previously taught DEI courses to undergraduate business students with the mission of growing the next generation of inclusive leaders and serves on the Board of the Bauer College of Business Inclusive Leadership Institute at the University of Houston.

Vikas Shah is General Manager of Commercial & Land for Chevron’s Pipeline & Power organization. Vikas and his team are responsible for pipeline commercial, business development and land management, financial performance, commodity transportation movements, digital systems stewardship, enterprise midstream commercial support and customer relationships across our portfolio of assets. Vikas joined Chevron in 2006, as a Commercial Analyst on the MBA Development Program and since then has held numerous commercial, planning, project management and technical positions of increasing responsibility across the upstream and midstream organizations in the United States, Thailand, and Singapore during his Chevron career. Prior to Chevron, he worked as a Principal Pipeline Engineer for Kinder Morgan. Vikas received his Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering and his Master of Business Administration from the University of Texas, in 1999 and 2006 respectively. Vikas is married with two kids, 16 years and 13 years old, and really enjoys spending time with family, travel and sports.

Shakeb is a Senior Manager in Tax Services. Shakeb has been serving the state and local tax compliance and consulting needs of clients for over 16 years. Prior to joining the RSM team, Shakeb spent eight years with two of the largest Big Four firms and an energy consulting firm where he focused on providing tax services to clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to smaller privately held companies. He also served in an in-house role for a multinational oil field services company where he was responsible for the company’s entire state income and franchise tax function. Specifically, Shakeb has provided tax services in the areas of: state income and franchise, sales and use, property, employment, excise and severance taxes. In providing these services, he has worked closely with clients’ personnel at various levels: from tax associates to CFOs & CAOs. Additionally, he has served clients in the following industries: airlines, agriculture, chemicals, energy, food services, mining, construction, financial, healthcare, telecommunication, transportation, waste disposal, retail and manufacturing.

Lily is an audit partner at Crowe. She has over 25 years of experience in public accounting, serving clients in multiple business sectors including energy, manufacturing, distribution, and construction. She is responsible for managing and supervising engagement teams on the day-to-day aspects of financial audits, managing risk assessments, developing audit plans, and providing financial expertise in both private and public companies.

Xian-Huan Wen is a Chevron Fellow and the Chapter Manager of Reservoir Simulation Research and Optimization in Reservoir Engineering & Simulation Discipline at Chevron Technical Center, Houston. Xian-Huan has been with the Chevron for more than 25 years. Wen’s interests include research, development and deployment of reservoir simulation, uncertainty analysis, history matching and optimization technologies. He is also increasingly involved in the R&D of machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and data-driven physics-based modeling methods for improved reservoir development and management. Xian-Huan leads the enterprise effort in CTC, Chevron to build integrated workflows from subsurface to market to support faster & better decision making via cross value chain optimization. Wen has authored or coauthored more than 100 papers and holds four US patents. He severed as a member of SPE Reservoir Description and Dynamics Advisory Committee (2016-2018) and acted as a technical committee member in several SPE Workshops/Forums. Wen received 2022 Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE) Career Achievement Award and was honored with Cedric K. Ferguson Certificate from SPE in 2022. Xian-Huan holds a PhD degree in Water Resources Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden and a PhD degree in Civil Engineering from the Technical University of Valencia, Spain. He also holds a MS degree in hydrogeology from China University of Geosciences, Beijing China.

Daria Wenas is a Managing Director in the Partnership Transaction Group of the National Tax Office of Ernst & Young LLP. Daria serves as a national tax resource to external clients and internal engagement teams across EY on complex partnership issues, as well as all manners of US taxation subject matters within the infrastructure and public private partnership space. Daria's focus is tax modeling, where she helps clients manage and understand US tax consequences in any stage of transactions, from planning, to compliance, as well as winding up. Throughout her career in EY, Daria served on a number of initiatives and committees such as the People Advisory Forum and EY Ways of Working.