I'm Akshaya Bhargava, Chair Designate at Bank of Ireland Group and Co-Founder of Bridgeweave Ltd. At Bank of Ireland Group, I am due to take over as Chair and Governor of the Bank with effect from Jan 1, 2025. I currently serve as a Non-Executive Director on the Board and on the Risk Committee and Group Transformation Oversight Committee. I have served on a number of Boards in the past (including Mindtree Ltd., Barclays Asset Management, Wealthify, Vahanna LLC) and have chaired Risk Committee as well as Audit Committee.At Bridgeweave, the company's mission is to use AI to help investors make better decisions. Its products are marketed in India under the brand name “InvestorAi” and are aimed at next-gen, digital investors, who can access the InvestorAi family of products via our distribution partners (brokers).I have over four decades of experience and this has been a combination of banking and entrepreneurship. As a banker, I have spent 22 years at Citibank, 4 years at State Street and most recently at Barclays where I was the global CEO of Wealth and Investments. I have worked in many countries and many roles in banking but I have to say, wealth management is what I feel most passionate about today.As an entrepreneur, I have been the founding CEO of Progeon (acquired by Infosys and renamed as Infosys BPO), founder of InfraHedge (acquired by State Street and renamed as State Street Managed Account Services) and am currently Chairman of Bridgeweave along with my co-founders, Bruce and Sarthak as also incoming Chair for Bank of Ireland Group.In my spare time, I enjoy exploring abstract minimal art from early to mid 20th century. I enjoy reading both fiction (especially science fiction) and non-fiction. I have lived in London for over 30 years and consider it home.I hold an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and I was a finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2005.