Raghu Bhat

VP - Unit CIO International Card Services American Express

Raghu Bhat is Vice President and Unit CIO for International Card Services Technology at American Express, where he leads the technology organisation that supports the company's International Card Services business across 27 markets. In this role, Raghu is responsible for shaping and executing the technology strategy that supports American Express' international growth priorities while strengthening operational resilience and technology risk management. His focus includes modernising platforms and customer journeys, scaling capabilities across markets, and evolving product and engineering practices to deliver with greater speed, quality and consistency.

Raghu is also helping advance how technology is planned and delivered across the international business, with an emphasis on multi-market scalability, product and portfolio management, engineering autonomy, and the use of AI to improve engineering productivity and business outcomes. Prior to joining American Express in September 2024, Raghu held senior digital, strategy and engineering leadership roles at National Australia Bank, ANZ Bank, Capital One, Citibank and Deutsche Bank.

His experience spans digital transformation, banking platforms, payments, lending, loyalty, marketing and customer acquisition. Raghu holds a Bachelor of Engineering from Karnatak University, an MBA from Victoria University and a Graduate Certificate in Artificial Intelligence from Deakin University. He has also completed executive education in Strategy and Financial Performance at INSEAD and Digital Business Transformation at MIT Sloan School of Management.

Panel Discussion:

From FOMO to Foundations: Scaling Responsible AI in Complex Enterprises

The time has come to take a brutally honest look at AI readiness. Enterprises cannot scale responsible AI on top of architectures taped together with legacy systems, brittle integrations and cloud parameters that were never designed for how AI actually behaves. This panel examines what it truly takes to shift from hype-driven pilots to mature, explainable, human-centred AI at scale, all whilst cutting costs, protecting operations and keeping pace with fast-moving regulation. Leaders will explore how to rebuild data and architecture foundations in the middle of large scale transformations, how to move organisations from FOMO fuelled experimentation to deliberate deployment, and how to embed ethical, transparent AI into operating models rather than bolting it on under pressure.

• Debating modernisation pathways by examining whether enterprises should capitalise on AI opportunities through bite-size increments, or rewiring the architecture all at once

• Scaling through deliberate deployments by moving from pilots to disciplined, governed rollouts that reduce risk, accelerate maturity and create repeatable patterns for enterprise-wide adoption.

• Embedding explainability into the operating model, ensuring transparency, auditability, regulatory alignment and human oversight