Bhavna Sethi

Bhavna Sethi is a seasoned technology executive and thought leader with deep expertise at the intersection of blockchain innovation, enterprise risk management, and financial services. With over two decades of experience, Bhavna has held leadership roles across top-tier consulting firms and high-growth technology companies, where she has consistently helped organizations adopt emerging technologies to solve complex business challenges.

Bhavna is the Founder of Katalyze, a boutique digital strategy firm. She recently served as the Chief Strategy Officer at WaveBL, a blockchain-based SaaS company that is transforming global trade and logistics through digitization of trade documents. Prior to this, she led enterprise blockchain initiatives at IBM, focusing on digital identity, trade finance, and risk mitigation strategies in partnership with major financial institutions. Her work contributed to the global scale-up of TradeLens, a blockchain-powered supply chain platform co-developed with Maersk.

Her career includes consulting roles at EY and IBM and leadership as a CTO in e-commerce. Across these positions, she has helped clients in the financial services, capital markets, legal, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, automotive, technology, and global trade sectors navigate digital transformation with confidence and resilience.

Bhavna holds a Master’s degree in Computer and Information Technology from the University of Pennsylvania and recently pursued Sustainability Leadership studies at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

In her classroom, Bhavna brings a practitioner’s perspective grounded in real-world deployments and board-level strategy, offering students both technical insight and critical thinking frameworks for understanding blockchain’s role in managing modern enterprise risk.