Ajit combines AI roles in Research, Industry and Education
Ajit is a researcher and teacher of Applied Artificial intelligence at the University of Oxford.
He also works in senior AI Research and advisory roles such as recently for the
UK Ministry of Justice as an applied AI researcher / fellow
Currently, he serves as the Course Director for several AI programs at the University of Oxford - ranging from AI Engineering, Low code AI and AI in Cyber security and Risk. He is also a Visiting Fellow for AI in Engineering Sciences at the University of Oxford. His work is rooted in the interdisciplinary aspects of AI.
Ajit’s applied research and consulting activities include areas such as AI in Cyber security/Risk management - Human AI collaboration - Data governance for AI agents - AI for Engineering Sciences. These areas are also related to his teaching.
He works globally in a consulting and advisory capacity.
Ajit is passionate about democratising the teaching and learning of AI using large language models and is doing some pioneering work in this area at the University of Oxford.
He has presented at the Capitol Hill / White house - The G7 summit, the World Economic Forum and the European Parliament on AI. At the UK Ministry of Justice, Ajit primarily worked with the use of AI in Cyber and Risk management working with the senior leadership in the Risk space at the Government.
He is currently writing a book aimed at teaching AI through mathematical foundations at the high school level.
Ajit resides in London, UK, and holds British citizenship. He is actively engaged in advancing AI education and innovation both locally and globally. He is neurodiverse - being on the high functioning autism spectrum.
Sample Consulting clients: UK Ministry of Justice, Verizon, Nvidia, Microsoft, European Internet Foundation
His newsletter on AI in Linkedin has a wide following
Vikram Tegginamath is a Cyber Security leader and a technologist with over two decades of experience in developing, managing and securing information systems for high-growth consumer electronics, broadcast, data science and artificial intelligence organisations. In addition to leading cyber security for the Global Operations Practice, he also leads the AI Security domain at McKinsey & Company, serving clients across diverse industries.
As a trusted advisor to senior business and security leadership, his current role involves securely adopting new technologies (such as GenAI and Agentic AI), building successful internal security teams, creating security programmes and taking the organisation’s security capability forward in an accelerated time-frame.
With extensive experience in DevSecOps and cloud security, he is actively engaged in research on emerging AI security challenges and contributes to the broader security community. He brings deep technical expertise and substantial industry experience to this course. He holds an MSc in Cyber Security (GCHQ certified) from the University of Oxford and BEng in Electronics and Communication.
Mr Yemi Adeniran
- Course Tutor
Yemi is a senior cyber security and AI risk & governance professional with more than 25 years’ experience in cyber security, AI governance, risk and compliance. He has led and advised on multiple high-profile technology transformation programmes across global markets, bringing together deep technical expertise and business solutions.
He holds an MSc in Cyber Security and an MBA from leading UK institutions, providing a solid academic foundation that complements his extensive hands-on experience.
Throughout his career, Yemi has helped organisations strengthen their cyber resilience and AI risk posture by designing and implementing cyber risk profiles in line with ISO and NIST frameworks. His strategic guidance has supported the development of comprehensive cybersecurity improvement programmes, AI governance frameworks, and regulatory compliance roadmaps.
A committed advocate for cyber security and responsible AI, he regularly delivers executive workshops on topics ranging from global cyber security to AI governance and risk.
Onur Bicakci
- Course Tutor
Onur Bıçakçı is a Vice President at Alysian, with extensive experience in technology transformations and M&A transactions—from tech due diligence and Day 1 readiness to post-merger integration. As Senior Manager at Motive Create (formerly Motive Partners) and previously Assistant Director at EY-Parthenon, he has specialised in IT strategy, cloud migrations (AWS, Azure, GCP), and enterprise AI implementations across sectors including telecoms, life sciences, healthcare, finance and private equity. Onur holds an MBA from the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and a BSc in Industrial Engineering from Bilkent University.
Chris Fong
- Course Tutor
Chris Fong has over 12 years of direct experience in Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) and has worked for Big Four advisory firms lKPMG and PwC, as well as major financial institutions such as Standard Chartered Bank, United Overseas Bank, and Singapore's sovereign wealth fund - GIC. Chris subsequently co-founded a VC-backed agritech startup and stepped away from active management after 6 years leading it from inception to a partial acquisition. He is now fully focused on helping enterprises operationalise AI Governance and provides training and consulting services around an operational framework and toolkit that he developed.
Chris has a Bcomp in Computing and a MSc in Technopreneurship and Innovation from Singapore's top universities - NUS and NTU. He is also a certified AI Governance Professional (AIGP) and AI Governance Architect (AIGA), Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information System Auditor (CISA), AWS Certified AI Practitioner and IBM watsonx.governance: Technical Essentials trained.
Clyde Johnson
- Course Tutor
Clyde Johnson has over 30 years of experience at the intersection of cyber security leadership and AI governance, with credentials spanning information security, assurance frameworks and UK Government (CESG) security accreditation. Drawing on experience across global financial services, PCI-DSS regulated payment environments and secure UK Government systems, he examines how emerging AI systems are reshaping accountability, oversight and executive responsibility within high-assurance contexts.
His work focuses on developing disciplined approaches to governing agentic AI workflows within security operations, strengthening transparency, defensibility and executive accountability as autonomous systems assume greater decision-making roles.
Steven Alexander Kok is a core member of Boston Consulting Group's Digital, Financial Institutions and Energy practices, and an expert in engineering productivity, platform operating models and strategic governance. With over 20 years of experience across capital markets, broader financial institutions, insurance and energy, he advises executives on how to mitigate risk, accelerate time-to-value, and drive cost efficiencies in technology transformations.
Steven has delivered results in driving step changes in engineering excellence, on complex initiatives including recovery of SAP migrations and other ERP transformations, scaling GenAI adoption and enterprise-wide digital transformations. His strong engineering background informs his ability to align technology strategy with business objectives and consistently deliver sustainable impact in the face of rapidly evolving industries and contexts.
Before joining BCG, Steven was an Engagement Manager at Oliver Wyman and a Vice President at Barclay's Bank in London.
Nicole Königstein is an AI Researcher and Practitioner in Agentic Systems, working across research, consulting, teaching and direct system implementation to build reliable, production-ready AI systems. Her work focuses on multi-agent architectures, evaluation, safety and long-term system behaviour.
She served as an external evaluator for a European Commission AI Grand Challenge and has advised the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) on generative AI in regulated environments. She also serves on advisory boards for leading AI and quantitative finance conferences. Nicole regularly delivers invited talks and technical workshops across academia, industry and international events.
She is the author of Math for Machine Learning and Transformers in Action (Manning Publications).
Her forthcoming books, Transformers: The Definitive Guide – Applications Beyond NLP and AI Agents: The Definitive Guide, will be published by O’Reilly Media.
Vignesh Manikam is the AI Risk Manager Lead at Nationwide Building Society, where he oversees AI validation and the strategic development of enterprise-wide governance frameworks. He leads the technical delivery of IBM Watson Governance, embedding ethical safeguards and model risk oversight into both customer-facing and operational systems. His work ensures that AI solutions adhere to rigorous standards of transparency, fairness and regulatory compliance, bridging innovation with institutional trust.
Prior to his role at Nationwide, Vignesh served as a Director at Barclays, where he led the technical delivery of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance and successfully executed a range of regulatory programs (IFRS9, BCBS) across the bank’s global footprint. His leadership was pivotal in enhancing governance and control structures for emerging technologies and data-driven platforms.
Vignesh holds the Artificial Intelligence Governance Professional (AIGP) certification and the Certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF).
