Zach Pugh is the Chief Underwriter and Vice President of Underwriting Transformation at Legal & General America, where he leads initiatives to modernize and humanize the life insurance underwriting process. Since joining in 2022, he has focused on integrating predictive analytics and digital technologies to streamline decision-making, improve accessibility, and expand inclusivity across underwriting. Under his leadership, Legal & General has eased the criteria for applicants with health conditions such as vaping, sleep apnea, and diabetes, reflecting a broader commitment to reducing coverage gaps and making protection more attainable. He has also advanced the adoption of electronic health records to accelerate underwriting, resulting in faster, more efficient outcomes. Beyond his work at Legal & General, Zach contributes his expertise to the wider industry as a member of DigitalOwl’s Client Advisory Board, where he provides guidance on AI-driven solutions designed to enhance underwriting efficiency and accuracy.

Conrad Chen serves as the Assistant Vice President of Integrated Analytics at Munich American Reassurance Company (Munich Re Life US), where he plays a pivotal role in developing and advancing data-driven strategies across underwriting, pricing, and insights. Drawing on his background in engineering & analytics, Conrad contributes to initiatives that leverage predictive modeling and third-party data to enhance risk segmentation and drive efficiency - particularly in life and group benefits underwriting. Notably, his work on mortality risk segmentation using medical claims data helps underwriters deliver faster and more accurate assessments for group life insurance cases. Conrad brings a depth of expertise in applying analytics within insurance frameworks, which supports Munich Re’s mission to modernize and modernize underwriting processes through meaningful data integration partnerships.

Chris Siudzinski is Chief Insurance Officer at Afficiency, leading insurance operations and product development for its fully digital life insurance offerings. A client-focused actuary, he previously drove product and distribution innovation at INSKI Consultants, working with Life and Health insurers, reinsurers, and Insurtechs to launch digital products and automated underwriting solutions. His career spans Milliman, AIG, and MetLife across both U.S. and global markets.

Vijay Sikka is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sikka Software Corporation. Under his leadership, Sikka Software has grown from a start-up to have over 35,000 practice installations and 120m patients on its platform for healthcare on the demand side and over 50 companies which have built applications on the supply side. Prior to Sikka Software, Vijay has worked in Artificial Intelligence and decision systems for more than 25 years of experience with large scale projects at Intel Corporation, National Institutes of Health, Glaxo Smith Kline, Roche and UCSF affiliates. In 1996, Vijay founded IBrain Software, Inc. that used to compete with Informatica, Hyperion and Cognos and served as its CEO until its acquisition in 1998 by Entigen Corporation, a healthcare information company that later became part of Roche. After that Vijay co-founded Bodha.com that was acquired by Peregrine Systems/Remedy that later became part of BMC Software. Vijay holds an M.S. degree in EE and AI from Syracuse University, New York, pursued doctoral studies in neurosciences at Stanford University (incomplete Ph.D), and is a Registered Continuing Education Provider in California. He is a frequent speaker at big data, AI, healthcare, technology and quality meetings. Vijay’s book on Maximizing ROI on Software Development was published by Taylor and Francis International and earns him a proud royalty check every few months.

Vijay was invited keynote speaker at the Digital Health World Conferences in 2019 and 2020, AI Global Forum 2020 and Biohacking Congress in London in 2020. He has published and presented in many artificial intelligence and neural network meetings and conferences including International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, SPIE, IEEE, AAAI and CHMT and the precursor of NeurIPS.

Lewis Goldman has over 20 years of experience in insurance and financial services, leveraging data for disruptive innovation across a variety of products and services, and is leading Sikka Software’s Insurance business. Before working with Sikka, Lewis served as executive of LendKey Technologies, a FinTech company. Prior to LendKey, Lewis worked for several years in insurance, including as head of marketing and product for Global Life Distribution and the MetLife direct to consumer life insurance business. He brings a track record of success nurturing and scaling businesses through marketing, new products, new channels of distribution, partnerships, and cross-sell at companies where he worked including Citigroup, LinkedIn, 1800flowers.com, Amazon, New York Life, and several FinTech and InsurTech startups. Lewis currently teaches marketing at St. Johns University, and is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Business School.