Mentors
M Vasanth Kumar
Business Advisor, Wooqer.
Experience: 30+ years across Consumer/Retail/Fashion and E-Commerce
Prior Companies: Samara Capital, Lifestyle International, Max Fashions , Madura Garments, Hindustan Unilever, TTK Prestige.

Based out of Bangalore, Vasanth Kumar is Business Advisor to Wooqer, a SaaS Company.

He was an Ex Advisor to Samara Capital.

He was earlier Managing Director of Lifestyle International till June 2020 and headed Lifestyle and Home Centre formats in India.

Prior to that till 2018, as Executive Director of Max Fashions India, Vasanth has conceptualized and led the brand's aggressive growth plans since its inception in 2005. Max is now the largest omni-channel mono brand in the Value Fashion segment with close to 400 stores across 120 cities.

Vasanth also conceptualized Easybuy retail format, a home-grown value apparel concept for Tier II cities in India in 2015 and mentored it to become profitable. Easybuy is distributed across 100 exclusive stores and Spar Hypermarket shop-in-shops in the country.

Vasanth has spent a decade with Madura Garments handling their Premium brand portfolio as Vice President Marketing handling brands such as Louis Philippe, Van Heusen and Allen Solly and has successfully established Peter England as one of the largest selling Apparel Brands.

He has also worked with Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) in Sales and Marketing becoming National Sales Manager and with TTK Prestige as Product Manager. Prior to his MBA, he has worked in Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Bangalore as Engineer in Jaguar Aircraft Project.

Vasanth was recognized amongst the "TOP 100 Retail Icons over the past 25 years" and by IMAGES in 2019. He has also been awarded "Retail Professional of the year" by CMAI in 2015 for his contribution to the outstanding growth of Max Fashion India and also received the "Retail Leadership" award at Indian Retail Congress in April 2016.

Vasanth is a certified "CEO Coach" from Coaching Foundation of India (CFI) . He is also a Marshall Goldsmith certified Stake Holder Centered "Team Coach". He recently became certified practitioner of "Business Model You" and also completed "Business Model Coaching Practicum" with Tim Clark and Bruce Hazen (Co-authors of the book "Business Model for Teams").

Vasanth holds a B.E. from Anna University (CEG) 1983, has an M.Tech from IIT Chennai 1986, and is a '89 PGDBM (MBA - Marketing & Finance) graduate from XLRI, Jamshedpur. He lives with his wife, a free-lance interior designer and daughter in Bangalore.

Ashutosh Vaidya
Former Global Chief Delivery & Operations Officer - Dell Services
Experience: 35 Years in Global Services, Consulting, Technology Industries
Prior Companies: Wipro, IBM, Microsoft, HP, Dell & Tata Technologies

Based out of Bangalore, Ashutosh is a senior business leader with more than 35 years of experience in global services/consulting/technology industries, he has a solid track record of transforming large scale businesses. He achieved results in different businesses by quickly identifying key levers, building long term strategic plans and following through with disciplined execution. Ashutosh also has good experience in Mergers & Acquisitions, with insights into the processes of both integration into large buyers and divestiture to smaller buyers.

With his entrepreneurial mindset and comfort in unstructured environments and ambiguous situations, Ashutosh has delivered growth in revenue and profits by driving simplification, facilitating rapid large-scale organizational changes and building cultures that thrived on technical and process innovation.

Ashutosh has experience in developing large talent pools in diverse cultures across the globe - India (10+ cities), US, Poland, Romania, China, Philippines, Japan, Australia, Brazil and UK - making them feel part of one global team with a common purpose and motivated to continuously deliver their best.

Ashutosh was a member of NASSCOM's Executive Council from 2014 to 2017. He has been advising and mentoring start-ups that are building cutting edge solutions for an array of sectors such as FinTech, Healthcare, Manufacturing and Social Impact.

He has a Bachelors Degree in Electronics from the NIT, Bhopal, India, and a PG Diploma in Management from IIM - Ahmedabad.

Deepak Srivastava
Former Supply Chain Manager, Nestle India
Experience: 35 years in FMCG
Prior Companies: Nestle India Ltd

Based in Kolkata, Deepak retired in 2018 as Supply Chain Manager for Nestle in Southern India. Currently he is a Supply Chain Consultant and also acts as a "Visiting Faculty" for management institutes in Kolkata. Through this, Deepak shares insights on sales and supply chain with the budding management students.

He has worked with Nestle India Ltd for 35 years. First 11 years were in front line sales and territory management and the remaining 24 years have been in Supply Chain Management.

He had been involved in planning and execution of Supply Chain systems in eastern (including north east) and southern parts of India, with focus on:

  • Distribution centre design and execution
  • Customer services and management of order management centres
  • Logistics
  • Demand planning
  • Network augmentation
  • Cold chain implementation and management
  • Safety and security

In 2001, Deepak went to Sri Lanka as an expat, and he designed and implemented "Demand Planning Processes". After two years, he came back to India and took the responsibility of Finished Goods logistics template design and implementation during the SAP integration in Nestle India.

He was also responsible for national primary logistics for 3 years.

He comes in with rich experience on regional and national supply chain management.

G. Ajay Row
Partner, DAN Consult
Experience: 30+ years of experience in data-driven, digital, loyalty, analytics and CRM
Prior Companies: LitmusWorld, Aimia, Taj Group of Hotels, FirstSource, WNS, Xplorite, UCP Direct, Wunderman, Rediffusion DY&R, Trikaya Grey Direct and ITC Ltd

Based out of Mumbai, Ajay is an entrepreneurial executive with over 30 years' experience in data-driven, digital, loyalty, analytics and CRM across a variety of industries and a number of countries. He launched the first CRM, loyalty and database marketing programs in this part of the world in the 1980s and has since implemented programs across some 65 countries globally. Ajay has founded several companies; LitmusWorld, FirstSource (formerly known as CustomerAsset), WNS (formerly known as Marketics), Xplorite, UPC Direct among several others with successful exits in two and numerous case studies. Ajay has spent 11 years with the Taj and then Tata Group in CRM. Currently, he is a full-time consultant.

Across his career, Ajay has delivered several CRM programs and scores of Loyalty, to name a few; Taj InnerCircle (a repeated Freddie-award winner) five other CRM programs for the Taj Group, Landmark's Shukran (one of the largest retail loyalty programs globally), Axis Bank eDGE (one of the world's first and largest whole-bank programs), WelcomAward (for ITC Hotels, first loyalty program outside the US and Western Europe), Shoppers Stop First Citizen, Gujarat Ambuja Cement, Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank 360o for cards, Ford, IBM, Microsoft and Eureka Forbes. Ajay has also consulted for CRM / loyalty delivery and IT companies.

Educated in India, England and France, Ajay is a graduate in Economics and Statistics from St. Xavier's College, Bombay and holds a PGDBM in Marketing and Systems from IIM Calcutta. He has been a copy-writer, judge and presenter at various international conferences, a lecturer at the IIMs and like management schools globally, run professional development seminars on topics related to CRM, loyalty, analytics and database marketing. Ajay is a keen weekend sailor, an enthusiastic classical guitarist and avid reader.

Jayant Murty
Former Director of Marketing, Intel Asia Pacific and Japan
Experience: 25+ years of experience across consumer brands and technology
Prior Companies: Intel, JWT, Lintas, Madura Coats

Jayant splits his time between Hong Kong and India. He has 25+ years of experience across consumer brands and technology, a seasoned marketer, corporate strategist, and a brand leader with a career divided between building transformational ideas and executing them on a global scale.

He began his career with Madura Coats and went on to work with JWT and Lintas in leadership roles in advertising across categories, including fashion, food & airlines to telecom, healthcare, and banking. He moved to Intel to manage the South Asia business rapidly expanding the PC franchise to a billion-dollar business

In the last 15+ years, he worked across geographies and headquarters in California strengthening Intel's brand, growing revenues, and enhancing their practices in strategy and delivery across B2B and B2C businesses. He played a pioneering role in the integration of technology in to sports equipment and broadcast analytics, drones for entertainment, VR for education and building digital command and analytics centres for real-time media and content delivery.

He was nominated to the Digital 25 by the producer guild of America and to the A-List that honours the most powerful people in the media business in Asia. Jayant has served on several juries to award great creative work in the industry. He is a regular keynote speaker across branding, design thinking, and creativity through data science. AdTech, Festival of Media, WPP Stream, CDX, Design-Think China, NYT & Economist conferences are some events at which he has spoken.

Jayant left Intel in 2019 and divides his time between mentoring start-ups, consulting, speaking to senior leaders in companies about innovation & transformation to build resilient brands and strong businesses.

He has a bachelor's degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and a master's degree in Business Administration from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.

Sharad Heda
Chief of Staff, Microland Limited
Experience: 37+ Years across senior managerial positions and product management
Prior Companies: Wipro Infotech Ltd

Based out of Bangalore, Sharad is a Business leader with deep expertise in managing high tech organizations, specifically in growth or turnaround stages. He is an IT industry veteran and an authority in modern IT Infrastructure and Digital Transformation domain.

Sharad has played a pivotal role in Microland's, (a leading Digital Infrastructure and Apps modernization company) growth and transformation journey since its formative days. He has helped build the company brick by brick and has held several leadership roles in the process including that of CEO-Global Tech Support, COO, CFO, Chief Automation Officer, Chief People Officer and President-India & Middle East.

In his current role as Chief of Staff at Microland, Sharad leads strategic projects of high importance, mentors senior leaders, and co-owns achieving the midterm and long term goals with the CEO - thus readying the organization to achieve its $1 Billion ambition.

Prior to joining Microland, Sharad worked with Wipro in its early stages for nine years, during which he set up India's first and most successful partner channel for computers and built its "Little Genius" line of highly successful PC products.

A practitioner of modern management practices, Sharad has been an assessor for three years for CII's prestigious "Excellence in Business Management" program that focuses on evaluating and selecting "best Managed" corporate entities of India.

Sharad was Vice-Chair of NASSCOM's IT services council, a think tank that works with Government, Educational institutions and Technology innovators in building and executing the vision for the next decade of Indian IT industry. He is a certified Six-Sigma Green Belt, an advisor for several new age IT startups, and a sought after speaker on "Technology and Business".

In his desire to give-back to the society, Sharad has been actively helping social sector organizations for last 5 years in their impact maximization endeavors. He is currently involved with Indian School of Development Management as an advisor to help strategize and execute on an audacious goal of building a pan India network of IIM like schools for the Development Management sector, graduating thousands of future leaders and creating impact at scale in years to come.

Over the next decade, Sharad aims to do at a much larger scale what he has done in Microland and with tech startups - working with senior leaders in their growth agenda. His association with ISDM and being a CEO/CXO coach are core to this journey - helping wealth creators on one hand and those who deploy wealth for social good on another.

Sharad is a Gold Medalist in Electronics Engineering from NIT, Nagpur and Rank holder in M.M.S. from JBIMS, Mumbai.

Dr. Sridhar R
Former Head - Corporate Human Resources and Member, Corporate Management Committee, ITC
Experience: 37 years in Human Resources
Prior Companies: ITC, Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore

Sridhar was working as the Director at Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore for about a year from March 2019 to May 2020. In addition to teaching Leadership and HRM Courses, he was responsible for strengthening industry linkages with the Institute. Prior to XIME, Sridhar was Head - Corporate Human Resources and Member, Corporate Management Committee of ITC.

During his 37-year tenure in ITC, Sridhar has had extensive experience in directly managing Relations at various locations in India and has led negotiating teams to conclude several "productivity" based Long Term Agreements with Trade Unions. As Head of HR for Businesses of ITC, his focus was on enhancing the salience of HR and establishing formal systems to manage and develop people. The initiatives included enhancing the effectiveness of Performance Management (through the implementation of the Balanced Scorecard), strengthen Employee Alignment and Bonding (through an Integrated Branding campaign) and systematize Training and Development (through a Competency Framework). As Head - Learning and Development (L&D), Sridhar developed an L&D agenda for ITC to enable the organization to be future capable and enable the Businesses / Divisions of ITC to become proficient in the practice of L&D. As Head - Corporate Human Resources and Member, Corporate Management Committee, the agenda had been to modify and upgrade HR systems and processes such as Recruitment & Selection, Performance Management, Compensation and Benefits, Employee Engagement and Capability Building.

Sridhar is a Post Graduate in Industrial Relations and Welfare from Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur, India (1982) and a Fellow in Management from XLRI Jamshedpur, India (2009).

Radhakrishnan VS
Ex-MD & CEO of Janalakshmi Financial Services Ltd.
Experience: 39 years in financial services
Prior Companies: Janalakshmi Financial Services Ltd., ING Vysya Bank, HSBC

Currently based in Bangalore, Radha is a seasoned veteran of the financial services industry. He has worked with a large multinational bank as well as with a private sector bank and an NBFC microfinance institution (MFI).

In 2017, he retired as MD & CEO of Janalakshmi Financial Services (JFS) which is India's largest MFI. Radha was jointly responsible for growing this startup MFI to India's largest MFI. When he left JFS, the company had over 5 million customers, employed 15,000 people, and had nearly 500 distribution points. Prior to joining JFS, Radha was with ING Vysya Bank. During his stint there, he held positions such as Regional CEO (West) and All India Head SME and Regional CEO South India excluding Andhra Pradesh. Radha worked with HSBC for 25 years in different functions in various locations in India and Hong Kong. His last position there was Senior Manager Western India which covered 50% of HSBC India's balance sheet. He worked in the finance departments of Forbes Forbes Campbell & Co Ltd and Jay Engineering Works Ltd.

Radha was Chairman of AKMI, an industry body based in Karnataka and Vice President of MFIN, a National level body representing MFIs. He has participated in various seminars and panels.

Radha graduated with an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He is a Chartered Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers.

Amitava Chatterjee
CEO at PLR Consulting
Experience: More than 25 years of strategic & operational General Management experience
Prior Companies: International Brand Ventures, Global Consumer Products Pvt Ltd, KV Asia Capital, Sara Lee Corporation, Reckitt Benckiser

Currently based in Gurgaon, Haryana, Amit is an accomplished, passionate business leader with more than 25 years of strategic & operational general management experience with 2 leading global Fortune 500 Corporations- Sara Lee Corporation & Reckitt & Colman (Reckitt Benckiser) in senior leadership roles across Asia including India, China & Indonesia. He is a decisive & result oriented team leader with highly effective skills in Business Development, Marketing Strategy (development & execution), M&A/JVs structuring & establishment and can instrument growth & change.

In a successful 12 year career with the Household & Bodycare business of Sara Lee Corporation, Amit was responsible, as CEO of the business in Indonesia, delivering double-digit sales revenue growth, increasing market shares of the Key Power Brands and generating negative working capital utilization/cash flows by restructuring the supply chain and strong embedding of the SNOP Process. He also had additional responsibility of India for a while re-launching & developing Kiwi & Brylcreem. As President of Greater China, directed and accomplished a unique financial turnaround and breakeven of a complex business (3 JVs in 3 manufacturing locations, 800 people) in record time with skilful Project Management, Leadership and meticulous execution. As the Regional Vice President of Marketing in Asia, he was responsible of the rapid rollout of Ambipur Air Fresheners and embedded a strong innovation process that improved the speed to market of innovations and led to faster & higher growth of the key brands. As the Regional Marketing Director of Reckitt & Colman India/South Asia, he successfully led a 2 times market average growth of the Indian business (+25%) with aggressive innovation, motivating teamwork and powerful innovation leading to brands delivering 30%+ sales from new products. Having worked in 5 countries, in regional & country roles, he is adept at managing cross cultural teams in global/matrix/local. Amit has served as a Director in the Boards of private and listed companies in India, China, Singapore & Indonesia. He was successful and highly reputed & competent in establishing & managing relationships with joint venture partners. He is an extrovert and was an active member of the debating & sports teams at school & university. He is an active Rotarian and likes to engage with the community. He was a member of the Sara Lee Global jury that judged the Corporate Social Responsibility PP Program, judged advertising awards and was a member of the American Chamber of Commerce.

Amit graduated from the University of Bombay with a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) and then also completed his MBA in Marketing from the same university. In 2004, he was nominated by Sara Lee to attend and complete the Advanced Management Program in Harvard Business School. His clients included an American companies whom he advised and supported in them launching a natural sweetener, other international/global companies developing business & marketing /brand strategy & plans to enter Asia - organic and M&A. Amit has since May 2015 been an Advisor to KV Asia Capital & PLR Consulting India, and other Private Equity firms on Strategy Development and identifying & closing Deals in ASEAN. He was also on an Advisory Board Member of Global Consumer Products Limited, India (a JV with Goldman Sachs & Mitsui). He has excellent contacts & relationships across Asia.

Krishnaswamy Alladi
Management Consultant at Marathon Land Inc
Experience: Over 40 years of experience in the fields of Strategic Planning, Financial Management, Mergers and Acquisition, Management Consultancy, Factory Management and guidance to start-up companies.
Prior Companies: GlaxoSmithKline, Unilever, Decision Systems Corporation, PriceWaterhouse Coopers

Currently based in Bengaluru Alladi is an accomplished professional with over 40 years of experience. Other than India, Alladi has worked in South East Asia and United States of America. The sectors covered were Electronics, Telecommunications, Pharmaceuticals, Plantations, Agriculture Produce, Real Estate, Theme Parks, Steel Pipes, Entertainment and Broadcasting.

He has assisted start-up companies in the field of Food Processing, Health Care, Home Security Systems and Computer Assisted Language Learning using Artificial Intelligence.

Some of the senior positions held include: Management Consultant at PriceWaterhouse Coopers India, Finance Director at GlaxoSmithKline-Indonesia, M&A Advisor Unilever Indonesia, Financial Controller at Marathon Land USA, Development Engineer at Hindustan Brown Boveri, Consultant at Decision Systems Corporation, Philippines.

Alladi holds a BSc from Madras University, Electronics Engineering from Madras Institute of Technology, Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Management from Bombay University and an MBA from Asian Institute of Management Philippines.

Nagendra Venkaswamy
MD, India and South Asia at Riverbed Technology
Experience: More than 30 years experience in the IT/Telecom/Engineering industry
Prior Companies: Arista Networks Ltd, Tejas Networks Ltd, Juniper Networks, Datacraft India Ltd, PSI Data Systems, Digital Equipment India Ltd

Currently based in Bangalore, Nagendra Venkaswamy (Venky) is a professional with more than 30 years' experience in the IT/Telecom/Engineering industry. A graduate of BITS, Pilani and IIM-Bangalore, he has held senior positions in the industry and has served as CEO and Independent Director on the Board of various companies in India and abroad. With strong operations management experience he has led sales distribution, channel management, services, logistics and finance, manufacturing across a range of companies and product categories. He is a regular speaker at industry forums and institutes such as IIMs.

He was previously Managing Director, Juniper Networks India (Rev $80Mn), one of the leading networking companies in the world. He built, from ground-up, a nation-wide distribution and channel network covering the 5 metros and over 35 tier 2 cities in India .He also grew the India development centre from 600 people to about 1300 people.

He headed Dimension Data (an NTT company), as Managing Director. DiData (Rev $90Mn) is one of India's largest systems integration companies with every major enterprise in India as its customer.

Venky was President of Tejas Networks Ltd (Rev $140Mn), one of the world's leaders in Optical Transmission equipment for the telecommunications industry. Tejas has some of the world's largest telecom operators as its customers including Bharti Airtel, BSNL, Globe Telecom (Philippines), Neotel South Africa etc.

Venky was the Managing Director and Member of the Board of PSI Data Systems Ltd (the 51% subsidiary of Groupe Bull, France) one of India's leading software services firms. He led the sale and merger of PSI-Bull into the Aditya Birla Group. He has held VP and General Manager positions in Digital Equipment Corporation and IBM also.

He has wide experience in sales operations, organization building, cost management, growth strategies and M&A and brings extensive knowledge of business across industries.

R. Ram Mohan
Senior Advisor in the GMR Group.
Experience: Over 40 years of work experience
Prior Companies: Levers Group, RPG, TNT Express, Alcatel Business Systems, United India Insurance.

R. Ram Mohan is currently working as Senior Advisor in the GMR Group. He has been associated with the Group for over 20 years now and continues in the role of an Advisor. During his tenure with the Group, he has worked in several functions and was involved in the setting up of many projects, including the unique 220 MW Barge Mounted Power Plant. In addition to Finance and Governance, his core areas of specialisation have been strategy, planning and risk management. His forte also includes commercial contracts and structuring of investments. He was also part of the overseas operations of the Group. He has worked on the Boards of several of the Group Companies, Associate and External Companies.

Prior to his association with the GMR Group, Ram Mohan worked with many multinational and large Indian Groups. The notable among them being the Levers group, RPG, TNT Express, Alcatel Business Systems etc. He has also worked in the public sector Insurance Company, United India Insurance. His total work experience is over 40 years.

Ram Mohan has a B.Sc in Chemistry from the Madras University. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has also done his full time MBA Course (PGDM) from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

Suryanarayanan Ananthanarayanan
Independent Consultant to Startups
Experience: Over 25 years of experience in various functions in the Indian Healthcare Industry
Prior Companies: BHIVE Workspace, DERBI Foundation, IIHM, IIM-Bangalore, Lifetime Healthcare Pvt Ltd

Currently based in Bangalore, Surya's last corporate assignment was CEO at Dayanand Sagar Entrepreneurship Research and Business Incubation (DERBI) Foundation where he helped set up a state-of- the art co-working space and a DST approved TBI (Technology Business Incubator). He also helped finalize an innovative and lucrative co-working seat barter for technology infra with a leading MNC before his term ended on 30 th June, 2016. Surya also did a short assignment as Head, Incubator consulting Services at Bhiveworkspace (www.Bhiveworkspace.com)

A first-generation serial entrepreneur, Surya has the distinction of spotting opportunities where not many would look for. Surya began his career working for companies like Union Carbide and Nicholas Laboratories but began his entrepreneurial stints with a pharmaceutical company called Recon in 1988, where he helped the company grow aggressively, taking it to the top 100 and successfully took them through an IPO with a large premium and prepared the company to face the post patent era and successfully created an exit strategy. He then created an IT- enabled health services company called Medybiz in 2000 before selling it of along with Medi Assist, a third-party administrator to the Reliance ADAG. He then went on to create a modern chain of pharmacies (LIFEKEN) which was to be later acquired by Religare in 2008.

Using all his experience Surya had helped infuse a paradigm change at the N S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at IIM Bangalore that includes a business incubator and a seed fund between 2009 and 2011. He now assists as a pro bono mentor at the centre. He then spent 3 years as CFO of Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) till 31 st July 2014.

Surya is a passionate start-up evangelist and dabbles in angel investing. He is a fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and has a Masters in Management from McGill University, Canada. Surya now mentors start up entrepreneurs on their entrepreneurial journey as a freelancer. Surya is also on the governing board of TiE Bangalore.

He was jury member in the recently held Elevate 100, a competition by Karnataka government to pick the top innovative start-ups in Karnataka for assistance and support.

Sushma Rajagopalan
Venture Partner: Rittenhouse Ventures
Experience: 30 years in Information Technology Board/Advisor/Mentor: Rocketium, PowerFluence, iCubeConsortium, PACT (Philadelphia Alliance for Capital & Technology)
Prior Companies: ITC Infotech- Global CEO, LiquidHub (Now Cap Gemini)- Partner, L&T Infotech (Chief Strategy Officer), Threshold partners (own firm) iGate (Now CapGemini), Citbank, CMC

Currently based in Devon - a suburb of Philadelphia, USA, Sushma is a global leader with more than twenty years of C level experience in the technology industry driving growth through transformational strategy and strong execution. She has built and managed successful global teams and business in IT services across the U.S, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and India.

Sushma started her career in HR with CMC (now part of TCS) and then joined Citibank NA in Mumbai India. She then moved to the US and joined iGate (now part of Cap Gemini). At iGate she was part of the executive management team that took a $600M technology services firm public in 1996 and enabled the company to meet/exceed performance expectations for more than 14 consecutive quarters (iGate). She then became the President of a network and infrastructure spin off from iGate that she grew and sold to RedHat.

Sushma was the Chief Strategy Officer of L&T Infotech enabling growth from ~$257M in 2007 to ~$800M in 2012. She built a very successful global strategy, M&A and Marketing function. Global Partner in LiquidHub - brought in an investment of ~$50M through Chrys Capital in 2014. Was bought by CapGemini in 2018 for $500M. MD & CEO of ITC Infotech - transformed skills based professional services company into a ~$300M industry vertical specific digital solutions led company.

She was the Co-founder of Threshold Partners and Minority Angel Investment Network with Ben Franklin as a partner.

Sushma won the Best Woman Leader in IT And the Innovative Woman Leader in IT several times. She was featured in the list of "Marketing Maharanis" by Paul Writer.

She was invited to be a global speaker on Innovation, Strategy, Digital, entrepreneurship and leadership.

Her interests include Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Strategy, Music, Writing, Travel, Photography & Yoga.

Sushma is an alumnus of Women's Christian College (Chennai), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai), and Carnegie Mellon University.

Anup Goel
Ex Sr. Vice President, Hinduja Global Solutions Ltd.
Experience: 35 years in Sales, Marketing, and Operations
Prior Companies: Hinduja Global Solutions, Sony Orson, Wipro, Computer Garage, Teleshopping Network, and Hall Kinion Inc

Currently based in Bangalore, Anup spent the last twenty years working extensively in the North America and India markets, primarily selling IT consulting and Business Process Management services to a wide range of clients. He worked on small and large, multi-million dollar deals.

A Marine Engineer from Mumbai, in his varied experience he has excelled in any role he was placed in. At Hall Kinion, he was head of their Colorado and Utah regions during the downturn triggered by 9/11 and the dot com bust. Despite subdued market conditions, his was the only region amongst 42 that exceeded its sales and profitability targets. He later became the head of their West Coast Operations.

At HGS, Anup was given charge of the new fledgling Emerging Markets vertical which was made the most profitable vertical compared to the other established ones, like Telecom and BFSI and held the distinction of having closed the maximum number of deals. This division grew by about 400% in less than two years.

He is now retired from HGS and works as a consultant and advisor with multiple start-ups and is an investor in his own right.

Mann Mohan Prasad
Former Vice President, Tata Elxsi
Experience:35+ years in Sales & Marketing, Operations, & IT Services
Prior Companies: MSC Software, Tata Elxsi, MicroGenesis Techsoft

Based in Bangalore, Mann Mohan Prasad is a management professional with over 35 years of experience in the IT industry. His last assignment was as the CEO of MicroGenesis Techsoft, a software company, offering products and services in Application Lifecycle Management and Testing services.

He has had a long and successful tenure in Tata Elxsi as the Vice President and Head of their Systems Integration business unit. He is also a charter member at The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and currently operates as an independent consultant by assisting start-ups in their business development and "go to market" strategies. His interests lie in solutions around data analytics, IoT, Blockchain and Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality technologies.

Prasad has an excellent exposure to Enterprise solutions, HPC, CAD/CAM/CAE, Engineering services, VR/AR and Industry 4.0 solutions. Having managed business units consisting of both sales and technical teams nationwide, with a keen focus on business growth and profitability, he brings a rich all round experience to the table. While with Tata Elxsi, Prasad was always quick to spot new opportunities and introduce new businesses into the portfolio to retain the competitive edge of the business.

Being among the early initiators of Virtual Reality in India in 2004, Prasad was instrumental in starting the VR initiative in Tata Elxsi and setting up the earliest experience centres and VR design labs in India. He has operated extensively in the automotive, aerospace, defence, manufacturing, education, media & entertainment sectors.

During his career he was the Country Head of MSC Software's operations in India, a world leader in Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) products and services. Starting from its inception, to recruiting the teams, defining management processes and successfully establishing the company's business in India, also is one of his achievements.

Prasad is a graduate in Electronics & Communication engineering.

Rabindra Srikantan
Founder and MD of ASM Technologies Ltd
Experience: 20+ years of experience in building successful businesses based on strategic analysis

Currently based out of Bangalore, Rabindra is heading the team at ASM Technologies in providing medium and long term business strategies on leading edge technologies.

As a thorough leader, Rabindra has developed and mentored leaders, brought in an Entrepreneurial Spirit across the organization for growth, while building a sustainable business model. He is instrumental in setting up ARISE (ASM Research and Innovation Step for Excellence) and spearheading innovation.

Rabindra has professional experience in the areas including R & D, Engineering, Manufacturing and Application Solutions for Enterprise. He has implemented operational strategies to improve Quality and customer satisfaction ratings. His philosophy of driving continuous business reformation by leveraging on state-of-the-art technologies, backed by a strong customer driven service perspective, has enabled ASM to emerge as one of the leading Product R & D and Engineering Services organisation.

Rabindra has been instrumental in the M&A of Companies and integrating it with the vision of ASM Technologies Ltd.

Rabindra holds dual MS degrees in CE and CS from the University of Louisiana, USA. He also holds a BE in Electrical and Electronics Rabindra Srikantan is the Designated Partner of RV Forms and Gears LLP, Subsidiary and is the President and Chief Operating officer of Pinnacle Talent Inc. USA, the Director of Advanced Synergic Pte Ltd, Singapore wholly owned subsidiaries of the company and the President of ESR Associates Inc., step down subsidiary of the company.

Rabindra is Convenor - CII Karnataka Technology & Innovation Panel 2020, Charter Member -TiE, Member -NASSCOM Engineering R&D Council, Past National Executive Council Member- Indo American Chamber of Commerce and Past Chairman -Indo American Chamber of Commerce.

Manish Gupta
Vice President Strategic Supply, MoveInSync
Experience: 20 years of experience in startup, internet, e-commerce, SME & SAAS
Prior Companies: Indiamart, Unicommerce, Porter.in

Currently based out of Bangalore, Manish comes with two decades of experience in startup and internet with 2 successful exits. He was a founding team member of Indiamart.com and Co-founder of Unicommerce, later acquired by Snapdeal, both very successful startups.

Currently Manish is with Movensync - an employee commute platform that helps organizations automate and optimize their transport operations.

Manish possesses in-depth knowledge of building and scaling businesses from scratch.

He has an MBA in marketing followed by a stint at IIM Ahmedabad.

Sridhar Viswanathan
Entrepreneur
Experience: 30 years as an Entrepreneur, Investor and advisor in early stage Ventures

Based out of Bangalore, Sridhar specializes in Apparel Technology, Supply Chain Management and Sourcing.

As a first generation entrepreneur, straight out of Business school, Sridhar set up a green field manufacturing facility, in 1990.

In 2000, Sridhar set up a sourcing hub for International retail chains. He was responsible for setting up customized value chains for connecting manufacturing facilities in South and South East Asia and brand owners in North America and Europe.

In parallel, recognizing future trends, Sridhar concentrated on the development and adoption of technology in high performance Fabric, Industrial apparel and Active-wear, working with scientists and technologists internationally, for the same.

In 2015, Sridhar promoted a Media and Content Creation production company that specialised in audio/visual communication in the digital era, in a niche that concentrated on the adoption of crowd sourced content and execution.

From 2015, Sridhar has been on Advisory Boards and a Seed Investor in several start-ups, using his domain knowledge in assisting in initial-stage operations in supply chain management.

Sridhar is an Adventure sports lover and is an accomplished scuba diver and trekker. In addition, he is an avid golfer.

Sharad Gupta
Independent Consultant
Experience: Over 36 years of experience in IT Industry
Prior Companies: Cenduit (India) Services Pvt Ltd, IBM India Pvt Ltd, Webify Solutions, Orient Information Technology, Birla Consultancy Services, Jumbo Electronics, Amex Information Technologies

Currently based in Bangalore, Sharad is an independent consultant, advising global companies to set up business in APAC and Europe. He supports Startups and is also the Director on Board of Cognitive Scale India Pvt. Ltd.

Prior to this, he managed the Global Operations and Business Development in the APAC region leading a team of over 240 people in Cenduit Services Pvt. Ltd. Sharad started Amex Information Technologies Ltd. - A software company with a focus on Europe. He built and established the company with over 100 employees. The company was listed on Bombay Stock Exchange through an IPO (which was oversubscribed) in July 1999. He opened and managed offices in the UK and Germany.

Sharad was Managing Director, India, Webify Solutions. Here he managed the offshore software development with a team of over 70.IBM went on to acquire Webify Solutions and he led the integration team in India after the acquisition. He ensured a successful merger of the Operations with IBM India.

Sharad holds B.Sc, MA, PGDMS, Science, Philosophy, and Sales & Marketing degrees from Government College, Ajmer and Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan..
Atul Chand
Former CEO, ITC's Lifestyle Retailing
Experience: 30 years in Consumer Goods

Based in New Delhi, Atul Chand is an accomplished professional and a formidable business-builder in the FMCG, Fashion & Lifestyle and Retail Industry. Atul was with ITC Ltd for nearly 30 years, part of the Senior Leadership team with his last assignment as the Chief Executive of ITC's Lifestyle Retailing Business.

He has rich experience in building Consumer Brands, creating and managing Sales & Distribution and Retail Networks, pioneering Trade Marketing and leading Business Strategy. The diversity of exposure developed the capability of adapting to new environments, inspiring teams, leveraging market opportunities and addressing challenges. Passionate about institutionalizing brand led, process driven, sustainable & profitable growth with defined milestone future. Under his stewardship, the business & brands received recognition and were acknowledged as path breaking and setting new benchmarks.

An Economics graduate from Delhi University, he holds an MBA from Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad and actively participates at various Industry Forums and Management Institutes. With several noteworthy achievements to his credit, he was conferred the 'Distinguished Alumini' Award by IMT.

Currently examining new frontiers and experiencing different tracks, as Business Consultant, Strategic Advisor and Angel Investor, partnering the growth story of the Indian Start-ups..
Mohit Shukla
MD, Head of Legal & Compliance for Barclays India
Experience: 20 years in Legal & Compliance
Prior Companies: Citibank

Mohit Shukla is Head of Legal & Compliance for Barclays India. In this role, he is responsible for the general oversight of legal and compliance services to all the Indian businesses and Barclays entities, and for general legal and compliance risk management in India.

Prior to joining Barclays in 2010, he was with Citibank for nine years as Citi's Country General Counsel for South Asia, covering India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal for all of Citi's commercial businesses and its right-shoring and technology support arms. He has over 20 years of work experience with a diverse background, including the metals manufacturing, tobacco and hospitality industries, prior to financial services (first with the ANZ Group).

Mohit has a degree in law from the University of Calcutta, and has a keen interest in theatre, having designed sets for, directed, and acted in, plays on the proscenium stage, and in Indian classical music which he continues to study.
Prashant Butani
Senior Sales Director - South Asia MEASAT Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd.
Experience: 12 years in satellite and telecommunications industry
Prior Companies: Northern Sky Research, Vodafone Global Enterprise

In his current role, Prashant is responsible for building and supporting MEASAT's customer base and managing government agencies across the South Asian region.

Prior to joining MEASAT, Prashant was a Senior Analyst in a leading satellite industry research company and Regional Head for a multinational telecommunications services company. He has 12 years of experience in the satellite and telecommunications industry.

Prashant holds a Master of Sciences in Satellite Communications Engineering from the University Of Surrey, United Kingdom and a Degree in Engineering from the University of Mumbai, India.
Praveen Sood
Independent Finance Professional
Experience: Over 30 years in fund raising (INR 15,000cr+ raised through IPO, Debt, QIPs, FCCBs and working capital)
Prior Companies: Hindustan Construction Co.(HCC), Raymond Synthetics

Currently based in Mumbai, Praveen has been a professional with recognised expertise in investor relationship management , locally and abroad. He is well experienced in restructuring of stressed assets/corporations, having executed bank based restructuring, CDR & S4A. He was the Group CFO and EVP at HCC for over 21 years succeeding to his role of a Deputy General Manager at Raymond Synthetics for over 5 years.

At HCC, Praveen was worked as the group CFO and an additional role as the CEO of Lavasa Corporation from 2017 to 2018. He was actively involved in projects associated with first private equity placement, followed by first GDR/FCCB and various QIP for the HCC groups. He was part of the leadership team that decided the need, quantum and route for funding, led road shows and held investor meetings, created the pitchbook, prospectus and selected the investment banker and ultimate investors. In his role as the Deputy General Manager at Raymond Synthetics, Praveen was involved in taking a stressed company into CDR with fresh capital infusion. He was part of the key management team that took the decision for growth and sustainability, CDR was the only option with fresh capital coming from banks.

Praveen, a Hall of Fame CFO has featured in the CFO India Magazine consistently amongst the top 100 CFOs all over India from 2012-2016.

Praveen graduated in Commerce and is a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA) by qualification.

Salil Chaturvedi
Freelance Consultant - Agriculture & Management at SRC Consultants
Experience: 30+ years in plantation sector
Prior Companies: Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited

Currently based in Bangalore, Salil is a Seasoned Professional with experience of over 30 years in P&L management and results delivery, dominantly in the plantation sector in India and abroad. He has knowledge of the principles behind value chain and managed the processes around the same from raw material sourcing to marketing and selling. His areas of strengths are in working with people, planning and execution to meet targeted results. He has managed Tea, Coffee, Pepper, Marketing and Power Plants Operations with P&L responsibility for different business verticals with Turnover of over Rs. 100 Crores.

Salil has been involved in start-ups, managed a turnaround and also sold a business. He is experienced in labour union negotiations and management. Salil holds Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Madras Christian College.
Abhijit Jayapal
Founder & CEO, KrunchMatic
Experience: 14 years in Mobile & Digital Startups & Large Companies
Prior Companies: Synqua Games, Mobile2Win, Fannie Mae, Accenture, Motorola

Currently based in Bangalore, Abhijit is a mobile and digital entrepreneur, passionate about building technology products and scaling up companies. He is currently working on his next startup. He is well entrenched in the startup space and been an advisor to multiple startups, incubators and several other companies big and small. Abhijit has proven ability to identify and create new opportunities and markets, launch new products, generate and scale revenues and strike high value partnership deals. Abhijit also brings an in-depth knowledge of the mobile ecosystem in India and international markets - commerce, advertising, user centric product design, IoT, user acquisition, analytics, payments and industry connections with operators, OEMs and publishers.

Abhijit has over 14 years of experience working with startups as well as Fortune 500 companies in US and India - namely Motorola, Accenture, Fannie Mae, GoldPocket Wireless (Acquired by Motricity), Mobile2Win (Acquired by Altruist). More recently, in 2008, he founded Synqua Games - a 45 member award winning mobile and social gaming studio which garnered over 50 million downloads and few of the titles were the #1 played mobile game in India. He exited Synqua Games last year after running it profitably for 6 years.

He holds an MBA from Mason School of Business, William & Mary, Virginia and Bachelors from St. Xaviers College, Mumbai.
Abraham Chacko
Former Executive Director, Federal Bank
Experience: 38 years in Banking
Prior Companies: RBS / ABN Amro, HSBC

Currently based in Kochi, is a seasoned banker with over three decades of experience, most of it in the Middle East and Asia. He started his career in 1977 as a Management Trainee with HSBC India and worked with them till 1991. He pioneered the computerization of the bank's branches in the 80's, the first bank to do so in India, with all its attendant challenges.

In his over two decades on international assignments, he has held several senior management positions including Deputy Country Manager of ABN Amro Bank, UAE with additional oversight for Oman, Qatar and Iran, Country Manager for ABN Amro Bank, Sri Lanka and Trade Sales Head for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa for ABN Amro Bank / Royal Bank of Scotland - He was based in Singapore from 2001- May 2011.

In May 2011, he took up the role of Executive Director of the Federal Bank Ltd. looking after wholesale, Sme, retail, agriculture and financial inclusion. The bank has become a national bank with 1300 branches and over 11000 employees. Mr. Chacko is a postgraduate in Business Management from XLRI Jamshedpur. He was a regular voice on television and a panelist and speaker at numerous conferences on matters of banking and finance in India and abroad.

Ajay Jain
Vice President - Incubation & Scaling at T-Hub
Experience: 15 years in Start-up Incubation & Investment, Education and Semiconductors
Prior Companies: GEMS Education, Gray Matters India, Mindspark, AMD, NXP Semiconductors, Conexant, Intel, Synopsys

Currently based in Hyderabad, he has about 15 years of experience in both corporates and start-ups. He has an MBA from Indian School of Business (ISB) and Master of Science degree from University of Arizona (USA). He has a keen interest in the start-up space - playing the role of an angel-investor, mentor and coach for start-ups. He is the founding partner of Xseed Consulting, an investment and advisory firm for start-ups.

Presently, he is the Director-Investor Liaison at T-Hub - helping start-ups to grow through market access, investment, and advice. Before this he led the efforts at GEMS Intelligence Unit - a consulting arm of GEMS, a 5-billion-dollar education company. Prior to this he was the Chief Innovation Officer at Gray Matters India - an educational start-up for assessments in the K12 space. In his role as founding member, he was involved in strategy, product development, key customer relationships and fund-raising. Prior to this, he worked with Educational Initiatives (EI) as the Associate Vice-President. At EI, he was in charge of Mindspark, an online adaptive Maths learning tool. Before his MBA, he worked in the semiconductor industry in areas of product development and quality control.

Ekta Sheth-Balyan
Client Servicing, Pinstorm Technologies
Experience: 18 years in Public relations and Marketing
Prior Companies: Sparrow Consultants | Image Consultants, Perfect Relations, Clea Public Relations

Ekta Sheth-Balyan draws upon considerable expertise in public relations, marketing and strategic partnerships in the FMCG, Lifestyle, Luxury and Consumer Durables industry. In a span of 18 years she has worked with some of the largest agencies in the country handling several cornerstone clients, including The Collective, Nike, Marico, Kellogg's, Pernod Ricard, Group, Wipro Consumer Care, Diageo, CK, FCUK, DTC, Nirvana Jewellery, UB Group, Jack & Jones, Godrej Industries, Taj Hotels, Vero Moda, amongst others. She has been, responsible for strategic direction, day-to-day media relations management and the development of dedicated initiatives to build awareness around specific offerings. Ekta holds a Master's Degree in Business Economics from Victoria University, Melbourne.

Ajit George
Vice President - Treasury, Agrochemical Company
Experience: 35 years in Finance, Accounts & Commercial Operations
Prior Companies: Nagarjuna Group, Corning / Borosil,
Deloitte / A. F. Ferguson

Currently based in Hyderabad, has over 35 years of experience in the areas of Finance, Accounts and Commercial operations. He has handled project viability appraisals, designed internal control systems and procedures, and various MIS to facilitate effective decision making.

He spent the formative years of his career with A.F. Ferguson & Company (now part of Deloitte), and a stint with Borosil Glass Works Ltd, Mumbai (subsidiary of Corning, USA). In his 25 years with the Nagarjuna group in Hyderabad, he has held many senior management positions and has guided the group’s financial and risk management, legal and compliance functions and has led number of strategic initiatives. He is currently Vice President – Treasury of an agrochemical company. He is a B.Com graduate and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
Akash Bhatia
Co-Founder & CEO, Infinite Analytics
Experience: 14 years in Analytics and Product Management
Prior Companies: Oracle USA

Currently based in Mumbai, Akash is a successful entrepreneur with over 14 years of experience in areas such as business analysis, analytics, and product management. Akash is currently the co-founder and CEO of Infinite Analytics (www.infiniteanalytics.com), the most advanced predictive analytics company today. He is also the co-founder of India's first and largest ticketing company, Kyazoonga (www.kyazoonga.com). Prior to Kyazoonga, he has worked as an engineer with Oracle/PeopleSoft in Silicon Valley.

Akash has completed his B.E from College of Engineering, Pune, M.S. from University of Cincinnati and an MBA from MIT Sloan.

Alok Bhargava
Independent Management Consultant
Experience: 32 years in Consulting, Corporate Planning, Investment Banking, Private Equity, ICT based Education Services and integrated CSR
Prior Companies: IL&FS, Emerson Electric Company, 20th Century Finance Corporation, S.B. Billimoria & Company

Alok Bhargava is currently an Independent Management Consultant with 30+ years of experience across Private Equity, Project Development, Project financing, Financial Structuring and Business Development.

He also serves on the Board of Directors of various IL & FS Group Companies such as IL&FS Environmental Infrastructure and Services Limited, IL&FS Technologies Limited, ISSL Market Services Limited, IL&FS Renewable Energy Limited and many more.

He has been associated with organizations and businesses at the conceptualization, incorporation, startup and operational stages, with related man management and business development exposure. He has extensive experience in day-to-day operational, planning and strategic roles over the years, including the last 17 years at the leadership - ED/CEO levels.

Mr. Bhargava has held several senior management positions at IL&FS. He is currently the CEO of the Nalanda Foundation (IL&FS), before which he was the CEO of Social Inclusion Group (IL&FS), the mandate of which is to conceptualize and implement socio economic development projects with primary focus on livelihood and income enhancement, skill training, education and healthcare.

Previously, he was the Executive Director of IL&FS Investment Managers Limited, where he played an active role in managing and supporting Private Equity Investments in Infrastructure Projects. Before that, he had been the Executive Director and COO at IL&FS Education & Technology Services Limited.

He holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Textile Technology from IIT Delhi and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Ahmedabad

Anita P Belani, ACC
CPO, Gaja Capital Partners
Experience: 30 years in Human Resources.

Anita P Belani is a seasoned professional with 30 years of rich post MBA experience as a senior business & human capital leader. She is currently the Chief People Office of Gaja Capital and is an independent director on the board of Eternis Fine Chemicals, SportzVillage Pvt. Ltd & Eurokids International. She has previously held the independent director positions on the boards of Wanbury Ltd and Laxmi Organic Chemicals Ltd.

Anita is an ICF Accredited Executive Coach and has 15 years of coaching experience under her belt having coached several C-suite level executives across various sectors. She also specializes in on boarding coaching to help CEO/CXO level leaders adapt to new roles, cultures & environments.

Prior to joining Gaja Capital, Anita was a Partner with BMR Advisors. In her previous role as Managing Director India for Russell Reynolds Associates, she specialized in assignments across sectors, leveraging her extensive human capital and consulting background to provide strategic leadership solutions for her clients. She was also responsible for CEO / Board advisory assignments and specialized in the Private Equity / Venture Capital area in addition to focusing on diversified industrials.

Prior to joining Russell Reynolds Associates, Anita was with Right Management as the Country Head for India. Her areas of expertise included helping clients solve their business issues through human capital solutions in such areas as change management, restructuring, organizational effectiveness, succession planning, leadership development. Coaching and talent management. Prior to joining Right Management, she was Country Head for Watson Wyatt India and was responsible for building a successful consulting brand for the organization. In all these roles she was responsible for P&L management, business strategy & implementation to build successful franchises in India.

Anita has previously worked with Sun Microsystems in San Francisco as a Senior HR Business Partner in charge of strategic global HR. Prior to that, she was in a senior business partner role with KPMG in the USA and was instrumental in building the India operations of Jardine Fleming. She has also worked with American Express TRS in the early part of her career.

Anita takes keen interest in mentoring startups and is a key member of the Lead Angels network which focuses on investing in early stage companies. She has been on the advisory board of Crederity Inc. and Unitus Seed Fund. Anita did her M.B.A. from XLRI, Jamshedpur and B.A.(Hons) in Economics from Miranda House, University of Delhi.

Anurag Hasija
Independent Consultant
Experience: 30 years in Banking
Prior Companies:: Eicher, HSBC & Mu Sigma

Currently based in Bangalore, Anurag is a seasoned banker with three decades of experience in India & overseas. He joined HSBC India in 1986 and worked across Corporate, Retail, Technology & Operations functions over a 15 year period. During this time he drove the implementation of a core banking platform across the country and led a bank wide Operations transformation initiative.

He then moved to HSBC, Hong Kong to drive large strategic programs across Asia Pacific. This included development & implementation of Digital platforms for Retail and Corporate bank, establishing a Channel strategy to leverage Digital for business growth and leading a Data Analytics program to grow the SME business across Asia Pacific.

In 2011, he moved to a global role with HSBC Commercial Bank. Initially, in this role, he focused on restructuring distribution channels particularly Branches to reflect the changing customer behavior and to drive down costs. Around this time, HSBC recognized the emerging revolution in data technologies and created an organization to transform its data management practices & infrastructure. Anurag was appointed as the first Chief Data Officer (CDO) for the Commercial Bank in 2012. In this role he established the data organization, developed the data strategy and led the execution of programs across governance, infrastructure, compliance and business analytics.

On returning to India, he joined Mu Sigma - a decision sciences company with over 140 Fortune 500 clients. Working as a consultant, he provided domain knowledge & mentoring to decision scientists leading data science programs for large, global banking & insurance companies.

He holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Delhi College of Engineering and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Ahmedabad.

Arunkumar BS
Independent Financial Advisor
Experience: over 25 years in professional services(M&A, Audit, Governance)
Prior Companies: PricewaterhouseCoopers, A.F.Ferguson & Co.(now part of Deloitte)

Currently based in Bengaluru, Arun has been a practioner of professional services through his career. He was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd.(PwC) for over 10 years before deciding to start on his own in 2018.

At PwC, Arun specialised in mergers and acquisitions with a focus on business plans and due diligences, in addition to advising on strategy, fund raise, structuring, negotiations and related M&A activities. Over the years, he has advised many well known and large domestic/foreign companies, private equity funds and has extensive experience in both domestic and international transactions. In about 17 years with PwC, Arun has the experience of working on 500 plus transactions across industry sectors.

In the last few years at PwC, Arun has worked with several startups, either directly or on behalf of venture capital/private equity funds and often led multi-disciplinary teams advising startups on several aspects ranging from growth strategy, technology, structuring, governance to fund raise. He has deep understanding of how the potential investors evaluate startups and what do they typically expect before and after making the investment.

Arun also founded and managed a fashion boutique for a few years before exiting recently.

Arun graduated in Commerce and is a Chartered Accountant by qualification. He has also attended leadership programmes at Indian School of Business and INSEAD.

Ashish Vora
Director & Founding Partner, Pragmatix Services
Experience: 23 years in Banking,
Analytics & Advisory / Consulting
Prior Companies: Kotak Mahindra Bank, Citibank

Currently based in Mumbai, is a Director and founding partner at Pragmatix Services Private Ltd, an upcoming and rapidly growing enterprise, engaged in Business Intelligence & Analytics, and Advisory / Consulting & Implementation Services across diverse functional areas. Ashish is currently engaged in several assignments, in the Business Strategy, Product Management and Process Consulting space.

Until August 2010, Ashish was the EVP and Head of Transaction Services for Kotak Mahindra Bank. In this role, he was responsible for setting up the Transaction Services business for the group. During this stint, he set up the entire infrastructure of the business including the operations & technology platform, a highly motivated sales team and the entire product development function. Prior to joining Kotak, he was a Director at Citibank responsible for all Global Relationship Banking clients in India. He has over 19 years of experience in the banking industry. He holds an MBA from the University of New Mexico.
Ashok Kapoor
Vice President, Human Resources, Emerging Markets Group, Stanley Black & Decker
Experience: 30 years in Human Resources
Prior Companies: Stanley Black & Decker, BAT Industries (ITC Limited), American Express, HSBC India

With over 3 decades of rich industry experience, Ashok is a commercially oriented business manager with a track record of shaping HR strategy in growth markets across diverse sectors and driving change in challenging geographies. Over the course of his career he held various senior leadership roles in global companies in India, Dubai, Shanghai and Singapore. During the last 12 years of his career he has been responsible for expanding Stanley Black & Decker's geographic footprint in Emerging Markets, developing leadership teams and leading several M&A initiatives.

After graduating with a Masters in Human Resource Management from XLRI, Jamshedpur, Ashok started his career with the Indian subsidiary of BAT Industries (ITC Limited), followed by stints in American Express & HSBC India. He then relocated to Dubai as Head of HR, Middle East & Africa for Black Decker followed by a subsequent stint with MMI, a subsidiary of Inchcape plc and later Emirates Airlines.

Ashok rejoined Black & Decker in 2005 as Head of HR for Asia Pacific based out of Shanghai, China. He led the HR integration for Black and Decker with Stanley Tools in 2010 and then moved to Singapore as the HR Leader for Emerging Markets. Most recently, Ashok has returned to Dubai effective June 2016 and led the relocation of Stanley Black & Decker's Emerging Markets HQ from Singapore to Dubai.

**Ashok's last day at Stanley Black & Decker is 31st July 2017.

Ashutosh Banerjee
Global General Manager, Diagnostic Cardiology GE Healthcare
Experience: 18 years of diverse experience across consumer durables, IT devices and healthcare in sales, marketing and product management. Worked across South Asia and the United States and now globally
Prior Companies: Johnson & Johnson, Dell, Asian Paints

Ashutosh leads Diagnostic Cardiology, which is a global business in GE Healthcare. The Diagnostic Cardiology business offers a broad range of solutions that use the Electrocardiograph (ECG) of the heart to detect and diagnose various abnormalities of the heart. Early diagnosis and detection of heart problems can help save lives. He leads a global team that listens to customers, designs, manufactures and sells products and solutions for resting, stress and ambulatory ECG throughout the world.

Prior to this role, Ashutosh led a marketing team and also a region within GE Healthcare. Before GE Healthcare he worked across consumer durables, IT and healthcare and built successful sales channels and businesses across industries. Ashutosh has a degree in Electronics Engineering from the Engineering College at Aligarh Muslim University and a Master's degree in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata. He loves to spend his free time with his family and indulging in his passions - running, music, and travel.

Atul Sashittal
Head, Information Technology, Angel Broking
Experience: 25 years in Information Technology
Prior Companies: CLSA, Birla Sun Life, DHL Worldwide Express

Currently based in Mumbai, has over 25 years of experience in the field of Information Technology. He has worked with companies like DHL Worldwide Express, Birla Sunlife, CLSA and Angel Broking in different roles leading large teams spread across different geographies through vision, strategy, innovation and execution excellence. A strong technology leader, with expertise across the technology eco-system, he has contributed in building and managing big data centres, disaster recovery sites with global load balancing and is well versed in the latest trends in IT infrastructure. Atul has built some of the world’s most scalable, performing and reliable platforms and systems. He has keen interest in information security, IS audit and process improvement.

He is a bachelor of technology in aeronautics with several professional certifications to his credit. Atul works with Angel Broking as Head of IT and is also mentoring a few start-ups.
A.G. Rao
Group Managing Director, ManpowerGroup India
Experience: 24 years in Telecom Industry
Prior Companies: Tata Group, Alcatel

Based in Mumbai, A.G. Rao is the Group Managing Director of ManpowerGroup India, a world leader in innovative workforce solutions. He has spearheaded significant business growth ManpowerGroup in the last couple of years in India, and is passionate about creating a valuable and happy workforce of tomorrow.

Prior to joining ManpowerGroup, A.G. Rao was CTO and Executive President - Enterprise Business at Tata Teleservices, India. In his role at Tata Teleservices, he was responsible for the Enterprise Business Unit and all technology related functions.

In his career spanning 24 years, he has had several noteworthy achievements to his credit, which include leading one of the highest growth businesses in the telecom industry, creating one of India's finest Enterprise Business teams alongside a profitable business model, and producing one of the world's most cost effective telecom networks and best-in-class IT functions.

He has extensive experience in the areas of Sales, Marketing, Customer Service Delivery, Project Management, Commercials and Contracts Management, Telecom Technology Management and IT, Business Turnarounds, and People Management. He has travelled widely and was also the CTO & CIO at Bakrie Telecom, Indonesia.

A.G. Rao holds a bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering from Bangalore University, India.

Bidhan Chaudhuri
Former President & COO of Jana Small Finance Bank
Experience: 30 years of experience Banking and Global Business Process Management
Prior Companies: Jana Small Finance Bank, Emirates NBD, Genpact, IBM and HSBC

Bidhan brings over 30 years' experience in Banking and Global Business Process Management having held leadership positions with Jana Small Finance Bank, Emirates NBD, Genpact, IBM and HSBC.

Bidhan was the President & Chief Operating Officer of Jana Small Finance Bank (JSFB) which had over 600 storefronts and 15,000 employees across India. Bidhan played a critical role in the conversion of Janalakshmi Financial Services to a Small Finance Bank and instrumental in the Agile Transformation and Infrastructure creation to support the growth of the organization.

Prior to JSFB, Bidhan, was the Chief Operating Officer, Emirates NBD - Tanfeeth, in UAE. Bidhan was instrumental and led the Integration, Change Management and Service delivery in establishing Tanfeeth as the leading Shared Services provider in the region. Bidhan was earlier the Global Operating Leader at Genpact where he helped to establish a Virtual captive outsourcing platform for a large US bank. This unique model created capabilities for supporting the bank across all its business and support units from India, Philippines, Mexico and USA.

Earlier, Bidhan was General Manager and CRM Delivery Leader for IBM's Business Transformation Outsourcing organization in India. He helped to rapidly grow the business by managing critical activities related to its banking, credit risk, insurance and healthcare sectors.

Bidhan started his career with HSBC where he spent 13 years and held senior positions across its Retail and Wholesale banking units. He was instrumental in setting up of the banking business in new locations as well as establishing new Product Lines. His last role was as the Head of the Trade Finance, Factoring and Precious Metals business in India.

Bidhan has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India and a Bachelor's degree in Economics.

George Zacharias
Independent Director, Matrimony.com
Experience: 30 years in Strategy, Marketing & Sales
Prior Companies: Mindtree, 7Strata, Yahoo! India, Madura Coats / Garments, Grindwell Norton
Currently based in Bangalore, has over 30 years of diverse and successful work experience. George graduated from Nagpur University with a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering in 1980, and a PGDBM from XLRI Jamshedpur in 1982. He has worked in Grindwell Norton (Marketing Officer), in Madura Coats Threads (several Sales, Branch, Distribution, Product, Export, General Management roles), in Madura Garments (President), in Sify Ltd (President and COO), in Yahoo! India (Managing Director), in 7Strata (co-founder and CEO) and, after the sale of 7Strata to Mindtree, as Chief Strategy Officer, Mindtree. He has also been involved with turning around CricInfo and is an Independent Director on the Board of Matrimony.com.
Kalyan Mohan
Executive Vice President at Cognizant Technology
Experience: 30 years of experience in the IT industry
Prior Companies: TCS

Kalyan Mohan has more than 30 years (1986 - 2017) of experience in the IT industry. Mohan started his career with Tata Consultancy Services. AOer 11 successful years with TCS, he then moved to Cognizant where he was part of an executive management team which grew Cognizant to one of the top IT ?rms in the world.

Mohan spent 20 years with Cognizant. In the early years, Mohan was instrumental in formulating a go to market strategy and o?ering around Application Maintenance. This was instrumental in converting all the customers acquired via the Y2K migration into long-term customers for Cognizant which has formed the basis for the industry leading growth that Cognizant has enjoyed since then. In 2000, Mohan moved to Bangalore to build a delivery center. With a strong focus on emerging technologies, Bangalore represents the second largest delivery center for Cognizant.

Mohan spent 20 years with Cognizant. Mohan joined Cognizant to help steer Cognizant's growth from a captive offshore delivery center to a full service third party service provider. He was involved in creating market offerings (Application Maintenance, eBusiness, Y2K, etc.) that spurred the rapid acquisition of customers during this period. In 2000, Mohan moved to Bangalore to build a delivery center. With a strong focus on emerging technologies, Bangalore represented the second largest delivery center for Cognizant in 2017.

In 2011, when Cognizant evolved its three-horizon strategy Mohan was one of the senior leaders hand-picked by the CEO to be an integral part of the transformation journey. His proven track record of success, ability to spot newer opportunies, incubate them and commercialize them made Mohan a natural choice for the newly formed Emerging Business Accelerator (EBA) unit. As part of this role, Mohan created the Digital Business offering - covering the gamut of Social, Mobile & Data Analytics. Today Cognizant's digital business is built on this backbone.

Kapil Bardeja
Co-Founder, KritiKal SecureScan | Co-Founder, Nanosniff Technologies
Experience: 11 years in IT & Nanotechnology
Prior Companies: McKinsey & Co.

Currently based in Mumbai/Noida, is a serial entrepreneur and an angel investor. Kapil juggles ventures at the cusp of biology and information technology. He started his career with a short stint at McKinsey & Co. before co-founding KritiKal Solutions (an IIT Delhi incubated company) as one of the partners. Founded in 2005, KritiKal SecureScan (KSS) works on computer vision based security, surveillance and traffic enforcement products. KSS received the NASSCOM Emerge Award in 2014. In 2011, he co-founded a fabless MEMS company, Nanosniff Technologies, along with two senior faculty at IIT Bombay. Nanosniff has done extensive work on nanoelectronic sensor based products for gaseous sensing and Bio-MEMS devices.

Kapil is a member of the National Innovation Council on Nanoelectronics formed by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (Government of India). He also runs a not-for-profit enterprise, Peopleyo Training and Research Institute, focused on skill development for rural women and vocational education for underprivileged children. He is an avid technology reader and an angel investor primarily in technology product startups in India and Israel. Kapil has been featured in technology and entrepreneurship television programs including CNBC "Young Turks Innovators" and Times Now "Power of Shunya".

Kapil holds a bachelor's degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Delhi University and an MBA in Technology Management from IIT Delhi.

Krishnakumar Natarajan
Executive Chairman , Mindtree Ltd
Experience: 35 years in Information Technology
Prior Companies: Wipro

A leading authority in the global IT sector, Krishnakumar Natarajan co-founded Mindtree in 1999 and has played key roles in building the company’s innovative approach to delivering IT services and solutions to global 2000 enterprises. Krishnakumar was instrumental in setting up Mindtree's U.S. operations, driving expansion in Europe and Asia Pacific regions, and transforming Mindtree's IT services business. Today, his mission as Executive Chairman is to focus on leadership development and ensure a high quality of governance. He also actively mentors different business groups within the company and works closely with the start-up ecosystem to bring in innovative models of business transformation for clients. In his prior role as CEO and Managing Director, Krishnakumar was responsible for making Mindtree a global IT player. Krishnakumar's efforts as a business leader have been recognized worldwide, winning him several laurels. He was ranked amongst the most valuable CEOs in India by Business world & Forbes in 2016. He won Bloomberg UTV's award as the CEO of the Year in 2010, Business Today CEO of the year award in 2014 and was recognized by Chief Executive Magazine's as one of the twelve global leaders of tomorrow. EY honored him with Entrepreneur of the year 2015 in Services. A 35-year IT industry veteran, Natarajan held several key positions at Wipro before co-founding Mindtree. During this time, he launched and grew the ecommerce division of Wipro, served as Group Vice President of human resources, and was Chief Marketing Officer for Wipro's IT business. In 2013, Natarajan served as Chairman of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), where he worked to strengthen the Indian IT industry to be a globally competitive ecosystem comprised of both established and emerging companies. Krishnakumar is an active member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). He is also a regular speaker at international IT industry conferences and a faculty member at management schools around the world.

He has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the College of Engineering, Chennai, India, and a master’s degree in Business Administration from the Xavier Institute, Jamshedpur, India.

Madhav Sivaram
Director at Fiddelis, Independent Speaker and Learning Specialist
Experience: 20+ years in Banking, Investments, Educational Services, Business Planning
Prior Companies: ABN AMRO, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Julius Bar

Currently based in Bangalore, Madhav's professional background spans two decades in financial services - across activities involving strategy and operations, client management and business development - in particular within the Institutional Banking and Investment Management businesses in Asia, UK and Europe. He is also involved with the operational establishment of a 'greenfield' privately held Investment Office with investment and philanthropic interests, which he continues to advise.

He is a director in Fiddelis, a GCC and Africa-focused market-entry and advisory firm, and is also a speaker and training specialist to a number of global banks, financial ratings groups, sovereign wealth funds and investment offices in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. The interplay of finance, technology and psychology are his areas of particular interest.

Over the years, he has been variously involved as an investor and advisor to start-ups in the financial analytics, gaming and social travel sector, and continues to build upon these interests as well as his other - most notably, musical - pursuits.

Madhav received his MBA from INSEAD (France) and his MMS from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute (India).

Mahesh Uberoi
President & CEO, MphRx (USA)
Experience: 39 years in Marketing & Entrepreneurship
Prior Companies: AT&T, Xerox
Mahesh Uberoi, currently based in the US, is the President and CEO of My Personal Health Record Express (MphRx), a healthcare IT firm he founded in 2008. He brings over 25 years of experience in the areas of business management, international marketing, product marketing and sales, having worked for Fortune 100 and startup companies. Mahesh was the founder and CEO of Uii Corp., a software development and consultancy company based in Princeton, NJ with an offshore software center in Mumbai, India and branch offices across the US, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Dubai. Uii was one of the first offshore software companies in the US having serviced several Fortune 500 companies and the US Federal/State/Local government agencies. Uii was sold in 2001 to Cognicase (NASDAQ:COGI). Mahesh then launched Webify Solutions, a sister company of Webify Services in 2003 to develop a software product/solution to ease the communication between insurance companies, employers and healthcare providers, which was then acquired by IBM in 2006. Mahesh is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, India, and holds a Masters degree in Operations Research from Syracuse University, NY.
Manohar Rajan
Executive Coach, Senior Management Consultant
Experience: 30 years in Financial Technology, Banking and Entrepreneurship
Prior Companies: Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Swiss Banking Corporation, Morgan Stanley

Manohar Rajan is an executive coach, and senior management consultant with over 30 years of financial technology experience, 25 years of which were with Wall Street investment banks.

Manohar has a diverse professional history, with a mixture of senior corporate leadership roles, as an entrepreneur, a management consultant and in people management. The locations are also diverse with the first 25 years the U.S. and Europe and the last 10 in South Asia. The passion for people development started soon after returning to India and recognizing the need and desire of young aspiring leaders for guidance and mentoring, decided that this was now his life's purpose.

He started his career in in financial services as a systems programmer, and grew into senior leadership roles in Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Swiss Banking Corporation. In 2000, he started a technology consulting firm specializing in data analytics and predictive modeling, which was acquired in 2003 by a large IT services company.

He was also Country Manager, India - Technology for Lehman Brothers, helping them set up their own technology subsidiary in India and later managing Operations Technology for Lehman Brothers, APAC.

Manohar is active in the Pan IIT alumni community where he anchors a Financial Technology Round Table which aims to create an environment where academia, industry, start-ups can come together and share ideas and work on understanding and using latest technologies in the industry.

He is certified from the Coaching Foundation of India and in addition brings a toolbox of techniques that are customized for each situation.

He is an IIT & XLRI graduate who has lived and worked in New York for the first 25 years of his career and later moved to Chennai India.

Narendra Nayak
Former Managing Director BlackBerry India
Experience: Extensive experience in understanding and running technology business's for over 30 years. Has worked with IT and Telecom companies like Motorola, IBM, CSC and Digital Equipment. Worked with a software product start up Linguanext Technologies.

Currently based in Gurgaon. His experience is in seeding businesses, building teams and growing markets especially in the B2B area.

He was instrumental in the entry of Motorola into the telecom market in India where he first worked on setting up the paging business and subsequently revitalized and established the cellular business. He has a very diverse experience in the IT and IT services industry across hardware, software products and services - both infrastructure and BPO.

He has attended several leadership development programs including the prestigious Global Institute for Leadership Development (GILD) at Palms Springs, California and the GOLD program at Motorola.

He was recognised as a Distinguished Alumnus by National Institute of Technology Trichy for Excellence in Corporate /Industry.

He is a founder member of the Indian Cellular Association (ICA) an industry body that is behind the spectacular growth of the handset industry in India.

Narendra holds an engineering degree from NIT Trichy and an MBA from IIM Bangalore.

Dr. Narendra Shyamsukha
Chairperson at ICA Edu Skills
Experience: Over 24 years in Education

Based in Kolkata, Dr. Narendra Shyamsukha is a serial entrepreneur, visionary, mentor and investor, whose focus has been education and skill development. He has more than 24 years of experience in the education industry spread across India.

He is the founder and chairman of ICA Edu Skills, which is into providing training in accounts, banking, finance, taxation and computer applications leading to a guaranteed job. ICA Edu Skills trains close to 40,000 students every year through their paid and government sponsored programs contributing to the mission of "skilling India".

He also founded EduLift, which manages a network of associates which in turn connects Edtech products to schools, colleges, tutorials, institutions and universities across India. He also runs incubation centers focusing on EdTech products.

He is a Co-Founder of STEM world school - a chain of world class K12 schools which implements experiential learning and practical training methodologies. He is an active member in many forums that promote entrepreneurship and also extremely passionate about mentoring young Indians through scalable and sustainable business models. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Nikhil Barshikar
Managing Director, Imarticus Learning
Experience: 15 years in Banking
Prior Companies: Nomura / Lehman Brothers
Currently based in Mumbai, is the Founder & Managing Director of Imarticus Learning. His fifteen-year career spans a smorgasbord of roles within Investment Banking, all of which culminated in the founding of Imarticus Learning, a leading player in Investment Banking & Data Analytics education. He began his career in the Corporate Finance division of the erstwhile Lehman Brothers at New York, following which he moved to Mumbai to set up Lehman's India operations. He has successfully managed large Operations, Technology, and Consulting teams during his tenure. In his last assignment with Nomura, he was responsible for Strategy and Change Management across IB, Capital Markets and Support services. He holds a joint Executive MBA from Columbia University and London Business School.
Dr. Nirupa Bareja
Director, India Operations - Vicus Therapeutics
Experience: 30+ years in Biotechnology
Prior Companies: Biocon

Dr. Nirupa Bareja has had a brilliant academic career along with rich corporate experience. A PhD in Biological sciences, she received a CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) fellowship for her doctoral work. She was the batch topper in Marine Biology in the MSc. programme at Bangalore University. She was also offered the prestigious 'Rhode Scholarship' from the University of Oxford, UK, given to young women scientists for post doctoral research in the field of Biology.

She worked for the Biocon group for over 15 years, during which she helped introduce and build systems in multiple divisions of the company. She was instrumental in working with a team to get a number of Quality system accreditations for the company - ISO, FDA, CAP, Kosher, to name a few. Her unique skills lie in seamlessly transitioning multiple roles in her professional life. After successfully leading the Quality and Manufacturing functions, she introduced HR systems and processes for the company. In recognition of her significant contribution across several areas, she has been conferred several prestigious awards.

Another dimension to her persona, is her passion to serve the community from a social angle. When at Biocon, she has been responsible for education, healthcare and child welfare programs for village school children. She has also led missions in the field of Biotech and HR systems and practices. She has also contributed as a speaker at various technical conferences, institutes of management. As a scientist, she has publications in noted national and international journals. A unique amalgamation of technology and management, Dr. Nirupa Bareja after her tenure at Biocon, has decided to contribute to the community in an individual capacity. She also enjoys guiding students by way of career counselling, facilitating internships etc.

Presently, she heads the Indian operations for Vicus Therapeutics, a US headquartered biotechnology and therapeutics company. She is also a Chief Advisor at the Mazumdar Shaw Medical Foundation, Bangalore and is on the scientific & technical advisory board of two innovative start-up companies - SigTuple & Aten Porous.

Nitin Chopra
Former Head of Retail & Consumer Banking at RBL Bank

Nitin brings over 34 years of experience of which 26 years have been spent working in the financial services industry. He has been instrumental in the introduction of several 'firsts' in the Indian retail banking industry, including '365 extended banking' & 'doorstep banking'.

Nitin was an integral part of the core team leading transformation at RBL Bank and responsible for expanding the bank's footprint across the country. Nitin in his role with the bank oversaw Business Banking, Retail Branch Banking, Retail Assets and Liabilities including Credit Cards and HNI businesses as well as the Marketing function of the Bank.

Nitin's career began with a stint at Unilever Group, followed by a 9-year period working with Bank of America NT & SA which saw him don various hats for the bank. Post the regional sale of Bank of America's retail business to ABN AMRO Bank, he went on to head the consumer banking business at ABN AMRO Bank from July 1999 to May 2006.

Post his stint with ABN AMRO Bank, Nitin joined Bharti AXA Life Insurance, a private life joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and AXA as CEO. He steered BAL through a rapid phase of growth (CAGR of over 100%) at a time when the industry was seeing a period of sluggish growth.

Nitin holds an engineering degree from IIT, Kanpur and is a PGDM from IIM, Ahmedabad. Nitin retired from RBL Bank in 2015 and now pursues personal interests including getting associated with the education sector. He serves as an advisor as well as in independent Director on a few Boards.

Pankaj Vaish
Former Managing Director, Accenture India
Experience: 31 years in Consulting / Professional Services / B2B sales
Prior Companies: Accenture, Lakshmi Vilas Bank (Independent Director)

Pankaj Vaish is currently based in Bangalore, and has over 31 years of experience in consulting, professional services and B2B sales. He started his career in 1985 with Accenture and was with the company for over 28 years. He was part of the founding team for Accenture's India operations. He has wide ranging experience across professional services, including consulting, technology, BPO, outsourcing, offshoring, P&L management, large / complex deals, M&A etc. He has built businesses from scratch and scaled them to global proportions.

When he left as MD of Accenture, he was a member of the global leadership team of the Communications, Media and Technology (CMT) business, where he held various roles, including Asia Pacific MD and Global MD of CMT Management Consulting.

Previously he was MD of Accenture's Delivery Center Network for BPO, before which he founded Accenture's BPO operations in India. His contributions to Accenture's HR function and the BPO industry in India earned him the prestigious "CEO with HR Orientation" Award by ACCOR Services.

Pankaj was center stage in the transformation of Accenture India into a global powerhouse, starting as a founding member of its India consulting practice in 1987-88. He also contributed to the Accenture strategic agenda such as Horizon 2012, Human Capital Strategy and Leadership Careers Framework.

Pankaj was an Independent Director on the board of Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) for 3 years until July 2017. LVB is a rapidly growing, publicly listed private bank in India. During his tenure at LVB, he was a member of many key Board Committees, including the Audit, Management, HR and IT Strategy Committees. He was closely involved with its transformation, of which technology is a key focus. LVB is now ranked amongst the 500 best companies in India and is included in the MSCI India Small Cap Fund.

Pankaj is active in India's startup ecosystem. He is advising 3 startups - a company with an automation suite for Employee Cooperative Credit Societies (ECCS) and Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS), an on-demand micro information services provider to companies and a social media platform that enables brands to directly connect with consumers. He is a member of Keiretsu, a global angel investor network, and of IvyCamp, India's first Unified Innovation and Entrepreneurship Platform, leveraging the global alumni network of leading educational institutions in India.

Pankaj has an MBA from Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA and a B. Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT-BHU (Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University). He was a Gold Medalist at IIT-BHU, and he has been awarded the Distinguished Alumni award by IIT-BHU.

PK Gopalakrishnan
Former CEO and MD of Web Solutions Ltd
Experience: 30 years and above in Leadership / Professional Services
Prior Companies: ITC Paper, Wipro Infotech, and Mindtree

PK Gopalakrishnan (PKG) is an experienced corporate leader having worked over three decades in leadership positions in ITC Paper, Wipro Infotech, and Mindtree, in leadership positions till 2016. He had multiple roles in Wipro viz, factory and global supply chain head, Regional business head for India southern region, Industry head for Government and Defense and was in the top leadership team of Wipro Infotech covering the domestic market for IT software solutions, infrastructure services, and high-end hardware. In Mindtree, he was responsible for the entire India regional business for Mindtree's solutions and services. His last stint in the corporate world was as CEO and MD of Web Solutions Ltd, a digital and retail solutions-focused organization (also BSE listed and a Wipro spin-off).

He is associated with CII (Confederation of Indian Industries) for their assessment framework of large and SMB corporations for Business Excellence and Customer Obsession, based on European Foundation for Quality Management and Malcolm Baldrige framework for Process Excellence. He has assessed more than 10 large corporations in different sectors in the last four years. He is a certified Independent Director by Institute of Directors. He believes in building institutions of integrity and excellence.

He is closely associated with KSUM (Kerala Startup Mission) for promoting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Kerala. He is also the founding Director of Malabar Innovation Entrepreneurship Zone (Mizone), Kerala's first incubator in PPP Model, set up in Kannur. He is a founding member of the Malabar angel network to promote Kerala based startups.

PKG is a mechanical engineer from University College of Engineering, Hyderabad and a PGP alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. He is based in Bangalore.

Prabhakar Jain
CEO, International Business, Pidilite Industries
Experience: 34 years in Strategy & Marketing
Prior Companies: Goodyear India, Akzo Nobel / ICI Paints, Asian Paints, Madura Coats
Based in Mumbai, is currently the CEO of International Business for Pidilite Industries Ltd ("PIL") since April 2014. Prior to this role, he was the CEO for the Fevicol Division, the largest division of PIL. He also worked with Goodyear India as its Chairman & Managing Director. He has great exposure to the emerging markets of Asia, having spent over 15 years with ICI Plc in different roles including the Managing director for ICI Paints Thailand & Singapore and General Manager for ICI Paints Indonesia. His key areas of strength include general management, strategy and planning. His international experience also includes 5 years spent in Europe as General Manager for strategy and planning for the European decorative paints business and also as Vice President Procurement for the specialty chemical business of ICI Plc. Prabhakar Jain is a postgraduate in Marketing from XLRI Jamshedpur.
Pramod Krishnamurthy
Independent Consultant
Experience: 25 years in Technology & Financial Services
Prior Companies: Birla Sun Life Insurance, Fullerton India Credit Corporation, Citigroup

Currently based in Mumbai, Pramod has around 25 years of rich experience in the field of Technology & Financial Services. He has worked in Consumer Banking, Investments, Retail and SME Lending, and Life Insurance. He has helped to provide the crucial technology edge to enable companies to differentiate themselves positively in the marketplace.

He has held several senior leadership positions in the IT and Financial Services Industry, and has been an entrepreneur himself running a software company early in his career. Pramod has been recognized through multiple awards and accolades, including the pan-Asia Celent IT Leadership Award.

Pramod is now an industry consultant, part-time academic and exploring business options in the sports technology area. He has done his B-Tech from IIT Chennai and received his MBA from IIM Kolkata.

Rahul Balyan
EVP & Head, Digital Initiatives, Radio Mirchi
Experience: 16 years in Marketing & Strategy across Digital, Media & FMCG sectors
Prior Companies: Coca-Cola, Asian Paints
Currently based in Mumbai, is an MBA from IIM Calcutta (1999) and a BE (Chemical) from Punjab University (1997). He has 16 years of experience across Digital, Media & Entertainment, and FMCG sectors. For the last 8.5 years he has been with ENIL (Radio Mirchi) and has handled marketing, led the traditional media business, and currently leads the digital media business. Prior to this he has worked with Coca-Cola and Asian Paints handling diverse roles across sales, distribution, marketing, business strategy, new market entry strategies and international business expansion. He is a technology enthusiast, an amateur photographer, an avid blogger (www.rahulbalyan.com) and a runner.
Rahul Verghese
Founder & CEO, Running & Living Infotainment
Experience: 33 years in Marketing, Branding, Strategy & Entrepreneurship
Prior Companies: Motorola, Nestle, Unilever
Currently based in Delhi, is a marketer who switched gears from a corporate to an entrepreneurial role. He worked for 25 years with Unilever, Nestle, a garment firm and Motorola in varied national, regional, and global marketing as well as business management roles, before starting his own venture - Running and Living Infotainment. His company is focused on being a 360 degree marketing platform (online/ offline/ relationship builds / social media and community connects) for companies and brands. They have organised 20 runs across 10 States of the Country, with the content on running reaching more than 3 million households regularly. Building communities, and fueling passion in peoples' lives is what he is believes in. Recently, he published a book titled - Running and Living. He holds an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. In his spare time, Rahul plays the guitar, goes skiing and trekking, and long distance running, having run 51 marathons in different parts of the world.
Rajiv Sawhney
Former CEO of Hutchison Telecom Indonesia
Experience: Diverse experience in Consumer/Durables/Telecom, with 15 years of experience in the Telecom industry.
Worked in StartUps in Hutchison Telecom on three different occasions.
Prior Companies: Hutchison 3 Indonesia, Mahindra Holidays and Resorts India Ltd., Telecom Business Group of Essar, PT Hutchison CP Telecommunications, Hutchison CAT Wireless Multimedia, Hutchison Essar Ltd., Blow Plast India Ltd.

Currently based in Bangalore, Mr. Sawhney brings with him a wealth of experience having worked in India, Thailand and Indonesia primarily in the telecom industry. His last stint was as President Director of Hutchison 3 Indonesia, in Jakarta. He has also been the Chief Executive Officer of the Telecom Business Group of Essar, prior to which he served as Co-Chief Executive Officer of Hutchison CAT Wireless Multimedia Ltd. in Thailand, a subsidiary of CAT Telecom Public Company Limited. Mr. Sawhney's association with Hutchison and Essar goes back to 1999 when he joined Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. and served as Executive Director of Hutchison Essar Ltd. (now Vodafone Essar).

In addition to his experience in the telecom industry, Mr. Sawhney has been Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at Mahindra Holidays and Resorts India Ltd. and served as a Member of the Group Executive Board at Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. He has also spent 9 years with Blow Plast India Ltd.

Mr. Sawhney holds a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) degree from Punjab University and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Dr. Rakesh Sinha
Laparoscopic and robotic surgeon, Founder of Womens Hospital
Experience: Over 25 years in Gynecology

Dr. Rakesh Sinha is based in Mumbai and is a laparoscopic and robotic surgeon. He is the founder of Womens Hospital. His endoscopy career spans over two decades. In the recent past, he's been President of Indian Association of Gynecological Endoscopists (IAGE) and was a board member of the International society of gynaecological endoscopists. He earned his Masters in Gynaecology from the Bombay University, and a diploma in gynecological endoscopy from the Christian Albrechts University of Kiel, Germany. Later he was awarded the Post Doctorate Clinical Fellowship in Endoscopy at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

He holds two Guinness World Records for having removed the largest fibroid and heaviest uterus, laparoscopically.

He is a pioneer in 3 dimensional training in laparoscopy, and has trained over 600 gynaecological endoscopic surgeons globally. He has conducted several workshops, training programmes and is a highly sought after speaker at professional events and seminars globally. He has innumerable scientific publications to his credit in international index journals and has contributed several chapters in many books.

He is a motivational speaker and a mind management expert. His background in medicine has helped him give a new dimension to the science of success. He is the only Indian featured in the Success Profiles by Jack Canfield (co-creator of Chicken Soup of the Souls series) and was interviewed on the Anatomy of Success. He is a licentiate practitioner for Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). He is a very popular speaker at corporate events, the Mumbai Police and educational institutions.

He has wide ranging interests outside of his area of professional expertise. He's been a past president of the Rotary Club of Bombay, Bandra, is a Paul Harris Fellow and has been the District Chairman of Rotary International. He is a long distance runner, with 4 marathons to his credit.

Ravi Virmani
Founder & Managing Director, Credihealth
Experience: Over 25 years of extensive experience in human resources, management consulting and healthcare
Prior Companies: Max HealthCare, Aventus Consultants, Trust Associates, Hewitt Associates, Escorts Limited

A successful business leader, Ravi had co-founded Noble House in his New Delhi garage which was acquired by Hewitt with Ravi at the helm of Hewitt Associates India as its co- founding Managing Director. After successfully stints as MD at Hewitt South Asia and CEO Aventus Consulting in Singapore, he returned to India as COO of Max Healthcare immediately before founding Credihealth. Ravi has a successful entrepreneurial track record and comes with a deep understanding of the healthcare market. Under his guidance and leadership, Credihealth has emerged as the market leader in the online hospitalization space. He won the award for Entrepreneur of the Year in 'Service Business - Healthcare' presented at the 5th edition of Entrepreneur India Awards. He was also the jury member at the 2016 DMA CMO Choice Awards and an invited speaker at IAMAI's 10th India Digital Summit 2016.

Ravi holds an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur.

Ravikant Sabnavis
Executive Vice President at Star TV
Experience: 28 years across advertising, foods, beer, aviation, motorsport, publishing, media & entertainment
Prior Companies: Agro Tech Foods (an associate company of ConAgra Foods), Heinz India, The UB Group (United Breweries, Kingfisher Airlines, Force India Formula 1 Team, Blitz Multimedia), Lintas India

In his career spanning 28 years, Ravikant Sabnavis has built brands across diverse sectors and businesses including start-ups, legacy businesses and turn-arounds.

At Star TV, Ravi has been heading the regional entertainment channel Star Pravah since 2015 and led a successful turnaround for the channel using a deep understanding of the viewer base to develop content that resonates with them and by building a talented team.

Prior to this, Ravi has had an eight-year tenure with the UB Group in leadership roles across the group including beer, aviation, motorsport and media publishing. At his last assignment with the group as Managing Director of Blitz Multimedia, the publisher of iconic movie magazine Cine Blitz, Ravi successfully led a turnaround of the media house over a 2-year period.

At Kingfisher Airlines, as Head of Marketing, Ravi led the effort to build the best guest experience on-air and on-ground to create an unrivalled product defined by outstanding service delivery and commanded a price premium for it. He concurrently led Global Marketing & sub-continent sponsorships for the Force India Formula One Team, a "start-up" team in the world of F1 and built consumer engagement across continents.

Ravi headed Marketing for United Breweries, and defined strategy for Kingfisher and the rest of the beer and wine portfolio and grew share during a period that witnessed the entry of a host of international brands.

At Heinz India, Ravi successfully developed a strategy to drive growth for their legacy brand Glucon-D across urban and rural markets and led the effort to strengthen presence for the Heinz portfolio of brands in Modern Trade.

At Agro Tech Foods (an associate company of ConAgra Foods), Ravi launched the ACT II snackfood brand and rapidly scaled it up to a pan-India presence. Ravi began his career at advertising agency Lintas, building brands for clients such as Hindustan Unilever and Bajaj Auto.

Ravi is currently based in Mumbai. He is a computer engineer from Andhra University, Vizag and has a management degree from the SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai.

Renzo Viegas
Adviser to the Group CEO at CIMB | Board of Directors - Sun Life Malaysia Assurance Berhad and Sun Life Malaysia Takaful Berhad | Angel Investor | Mentor & Advisor
Experience: 32+ years in Banking
Prior Companies: Citibank, RHB

Based in Malaysia, Renzo Viegas, is the Adviser to the Group CEO at CIMB. He has extensive experience in the banking industry and started his working career with Citibank in 1985 where he progressively held senior positions and headed various aspects of banking operations in India, Singapore, Malaysia and the United States of America over a 23-year period. Thereafter he held several leadership roles in RHB bank where he rose to the position of Deputy Managing Director before joining CIMB Group in April 2012 as Deputy Chief Executive Officer.

Renzo was also CEO of Group Consumer Banking, CIMB Bank and an executive director for CIMB Bank before his current role. He also sits on the Boards of Sun Life Malaysia Assurance Berhad and Sun Life Malaysia Takaful Berhad.

Renzo holds a Bachelor Degree in Commerce from University of Mumbai and is a Chartered Accountant and Fellow Member of ICAI. He is an alumni of Michigan State University where he completed the Advanced Management Programme in Strategic Marketing Planning.

Sachin Haritash
Founder, Mavyn

Sachin Haritash is the Founder of Mavyn. He is in-charge of expanding the organisation's footprint in India by steering the conceptualization and execution of key strategies related to management and operational needs of the company. Sachin has been an active proponent in bringing significant expansion of Mavyn and is therefore responsible for planning strategic growth of the company.

Assiduous in nature, he has worked his way through all levels in the parent company - Chetak Logistics, where he joined as an executive. His knowledge of transportation and logistics industry, coupled with his perseverance and innovative approach enabled him to set higher standards for Mavyn.

With his multi-faceted skill set, Sachin strives to establish Mavyn as a complete digitized trucking platform providing a reliable and cost effective solution to transport goods in India.

Before being Founder of Mavyn, Sachin was Director of Chetak Logistics and was responsible for establishing Chetak Logistics presence in the country, by setting benchmarks for Chetak Logistics and transportation industry.

Sachin is a graduate in Bachelors of Commerce from Venketeshwara College, Delhi University, Delhi,India. Post which he did his masters in Business Administration from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies. Outside of work, his interests include traveling, technology, global politics, & reading.

Sameer Nandwani
Director, Gravitational Network Advisors Pvt Ltd & Weft Waft Consultancy Solutions Pvt Ltd
Experience: 30 years in Consulting, Investment Banking & Corporate experience

Sameer brings 30 years of experience in the consulting and corporate sector. He grew up in the UK , graduating from Manchester University in Management Science, going on to do his accountancy at Deloittes, before relocating to India in the mid 1990s. Sameer has spent time in industry, investment banking and consulting thereafter and based on his practical hands on knowledge of the Indian and Western culture now concentrates on cross border transactions assisting companies from inception to launch to set up ventures in India taking care of all legal, commercial, structuring, financial and identification of JV partner issues.

He has in-depth working knowledge in domestic and International sports and gaming related sector and to this end has been part of the FICCI working group on "Legalization of Sports Betting within India". Within industry Sameer has significant experience in the agricultural & plantation sectors. He has also advised a number of organisations on their internal systems and corporate structure.

Sameer specialises in advising international clients on entry strategies and procedures into India as well as providing his significant negotiation skills for Indian companies tying up with partners abroad. Sameer's skills lie particularly in financial and commercial planning and bringing together management styles of the West with Asia.

Sandeep Suri
Partner, Positive Momentum
CEO, MyDigitalCube
Experience: 31 years, largely in Financial Services
Prior Companies: Fidelity Investments, Dell, GE, ANZ Grindlays Bank

Sandeep is a seasoned professional with over 30 years of rich corporate experience in leading MNCs like Fidelity Investments, Dell, Mphasis (a Blackstone group company), General Electric, and ANZ Grindlays Bank. Over the course of his career, Sandeep had various senior leadership roles in global companies in India and abroad. An MBA by profession, Sandeep's most recent role as Country Head, General Manager and Board member, Ireland with Fidelity Investments was largely around leading a big diverse workforce of Operations, Technology, and Analytics. Sandeep was actively engaged in Digital efforts of Fidelity Investments and led RPA initiative at the Enterprise level. Some of his earlier roles spanned across multiple locations like Ireland, Poland, Philippines, UK, Australia and the US. Having worked and lived in multiple countries, managing cross border large diverse teams, Sandeep brings a global and unique perspective to the table.

With proven track record and extensive experience in working with large corporations, managing big teams, having his own start-up with experiential learning approach, Sandeep's focus is to help the organizations in building a 'skilful leadership'-a leadership that is committed, purposeful so as to unleash the true potential of individuals and the organization at large. To manage this aspiration, Sandeep is actively engaged as a Partner with Positive Momentum, a UK based consulting firm.

Sandeep has been of part of many industry trade bodies, he was the board member in AMCHAM, Ireland. He was also an active member of NASSCOM, Bangalore chapter and currently a member of European Mentoring and Coaching Council.

Sandeep has been an active speaker in various leadership forums on topics like Robotics and Fintech in Ireland, UK and India. Sandeep has recently repatriated to India and currently based in Bangalore.

Sanjay Guha
Advisor
Experience: 30 years in Consumer Goods
Prior Companies: DKSH, Coca-Cola, Unilever
Currently based in Bangkok, has over 30 years of global consumer goods experience in India, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He started his career with Unilever, India and was responsible for a number of innovative, high profile marketing campaigns in the shampoo and toothpaste categories. He then moved to Coca‐Cola International and held various responsibilities including President of Coca-Cola for UK & Ireland, Nordics and Indonesia. More recently, he ran an Asia focused USD 5 billion consumer goods business for a leading Swiss public company. He is currently providing advisory services to select clients. Besides successfully leading large operations, Sanjay has during his career been deeply involved in incubating and nurturing new business initiatives. Sanjay is an Economics graduate from Delhi University and received his MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad.
Satyajit Karmakar
Independent Consultant
Experience: 30 years in Marketing
Prior Companies: HDFC Bank, Triton, Result McCann, McCann Erickson

Currently based in Mumbai, Satyajit Karmakar has over 30 years of diverse work experience in the field of marketing. He supervised FMCG product launches and also handled the Unit Trust of India account, marketing mutual funds after which he decided to explore Direct Marketing and Experiential Marketing at Result McCann as their Mumbai head. He also had a short stint at another media agency before joining HDFC Bank as AVP, Marketing in the year 2000.

During his tenure at HDFC, he has led some successful marketing campaigns, including analytics driven campaigns. He was also responsible for Marketing Communications with additional charge of Regional Marketing for over 2000 branches.

He moved on to become Senior VP of Marketing Communications and Digital Marketing within HDFC Bank after which in 2015 he decided to start his own venture in the education technology space.

He has done his post-graduation diploma in Mass Communications and also a diploma in Marketing.

Shankar Dey
Independent Financial Consultant
Experience: 40 years in Banking and Finance
Prior Companies: EFG Wealth Management India, Essar, Tata Sky, N.M. Rothschild & Sons (India), Peregrine Capital, Citibank

Based in Mumbai, Shankar Dey has over 40 years of experience in the Indian banking and finance industry. He began his career with the ICI Group of companies in India and subsequently moved into banking.

After a long career with Citibank in India and overseas, he joined Peregrine Capital India in 1994 as a Deputy Managing Director where he was responsible for setting up and managing the corporate finance, advisory, mergers and acquisitions and capital markets businesses. After which, in early 1997, he was appointed Managing Director and CEO, both of which positions he held until mid-1998. Post this, he moved to N.M. Rothschild & Sons (India) to set up its India operations, where he was CEO for almost 3 years. Here his primary focus was on mergers and acquisitions and providing advisory services to leading international and local corporate and government departments/companies mainly in the telecommunications, power, oil and gas, transport and financial services sectors.

From 2001 to 2004, he was a consultant providing independent services which involved fund raising, corporate valuation, restructuring and mergers and acquisitions.

Early 2004, he was appointed CFO with Tata Sky Limited, where he was involved in the setting up & structuring of a joint venture between the Tata Group of India and Newscorp for direct-to-home television in India. Subsequently, he worked for Essar, a leading diversified Indian business group, in the area of business development for a year. In Nov 2006, he joined EFG International as CEO in India and was responsible for setting up their India operations. He left EFG in Mar 2012 and is now an independent financial consultant. He received his MBA from IIM Kolkata.

Shashaank Awasthi
India Advisor, Gray Ghost Ventures | Co-founder, v-shesh
Experience: 20 years of extensive experience in the banking and financial services industry, including impact investing, and in entrepreneurship
Prior Companies: ABN Amro, IDBI Bank, Tata Group

Shashaank is India Advisor to Gray Ghost Ventures (www.grayghostventures.com) which is a pioneer in impact investing. Gray Ghost Ventures (GGV) makes early stage investments in businesses and its portfolio companies seek to improve the lives of underserved people around world through sustainable business models. GGV makes investments as the first institutional investors in innovative start-ups and has investments in India, Bangladesh and sub-Saharan Africa. As India Advisor, Shashaank works on pipeline development, pre investment support including due diligence and post investment support to investee companies. Shashaank has been member of board of directors of impact businesses in sectors like education, remote data capture financial inclusion et al.

Shashaank has prior experience with start-ups and in financial services. He was member of the start-up team that built ABN Amro Bank's Commercial Banking Business in India for and was Head of the Commercial Bank for North & East and South India before. He also worked with IDBI Bank and Tata Group prior to ABN Amro Bank.

Shashaank is also co-founder of v-shesh (www.v-shesh.com) which is an award winning impact enterprise he co-founded with P Rajasekharan (Raja). Listed on the Global Diversity List (supported by The Economist) and empanelled with Accessible India Campaign, v-shesh assists People with Disabilities in education, training and jobs and organisations with disability inclusion. v-shesh is a United Way Chennai Champion and its work has been recognized with Shell-NCPEDP Helen Keller Award as well as an award for work in financial inclusion of People with Disabilities from low income communities.

Shashaank holds an MBA from the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies.

Sherif Fikry
Global Corporate Director, a Leading Pharmaceutical and Biotech Enterprise
Experience: 15 years in Strategy & Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry
Prior Companies: Aventis Pharma, Allergan Pharmaceuticals, JULPHAR (Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries)

Currently based in Paris, is a highly effective global commercial operations leader with 15 years of experience in leading commercial activities for healthcare products. He is currently Global Corporate Director in a Leading Pharmaceutical and Biotech Enterprise, leading the corporate strategies for Patient Centricity deployments across its operations from R&D to Commercial Operations with special focus on the future launches and the internal culture.

He has deep business insights in the pharmaceutical industry from local to global levels with a successful record of increasing revenue and bottom line, launching global brands, as well as managing teams and P&L.

His areas of expertise include general management, global commercial operations, strategic marketing and leadership & organizational management. He has a bachelor's degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences and also an MBA from Strathclyde University, UK. He has a High Potential Leadership (HPLP) and General Management Program (GMP) degree from Harvard Business School.

Shreya Pandit
Independent Consultant
Experience: 23 years in Human Resources
Prior Companies: Nestle India, Diageo India, Boyden Consulting India, Positive Moves Consulting, Hong Kong.
Currently based in Hong Kong, is an experienced Human Resources Executive. She is currently an independent consultant. She has around 23 years of experience across various areas of HR expertise including Recruitment, Training, Compensation and Benefits, Organization Structuring and Talent Management. She has held senior positions in companies like Nestle India, Diageo India, Boyden Consulting India and Positive Moves Consulting, Hong Kong. Shreya graduated from University of Delhi in 1990 with an Honours Degree in Psychology and has a Post Graduate Diploma from XLRI Jamshedpur in Human Resources Management.
Sonya Hooja
Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Imarticus
Experience: 10+ years in Management Consulting and Financial Services
Prior Companies: Accenture
Sonya Hooja is the Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Imarticus. She has 10+ years of work experience at Accenture (Management Consulting), Goldman Sachs and the erstwhile Lehman Brothers across United States, Singapore and India. She is responsible for strategy at inception and delivery as well as project management across various verticals across diverse industries such as financial services, education, public sector and pharmaceuticals. Sonya holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Srinivasan Sridhar
Senior Advisor, Oliver Wyman
Experience: 30 years in Financial Services
Prior Companies: Citigroup

Currently based in Mumbai, Sridhar is a financial services expert with over 30 years of experience gained internationally and in India. He was with Citigroup for 28 years and has worked in 6 countries across Asia, Africa and Europe. Some of the leadership positions he held with Citi included being CEO for three countries, Corporate Bank Head for India, Transaction Services Head for Africa and Bank Services Group Head for Central, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. Sridhar brings deep emerging markets experience from around the globe.

Sridhar is currently a Senior Advisor with Oliver Wyman, a leading global management consulting firm. He joined Oliver Wyman in early 2013 as a Partner and India Head. He works with CEOs, Boards of Directors and other senior leaders of top Financial Services companies in the region on topics such as Management Strategy, Risk Management, Client Coverage models, Product and Distribution strategies, Cost Optimisation, Governance and Regulatory Compliance.

Sridhar is a graduate of Delhi University and is also a Chartered Accountant.

Sumeet Srivastava
Partner at Spocto, Active Investor and Mentor
Experience: 20 years in technology and life sciences
Prior Companies: Monsanto, GE Consumer & Industrial, Genpact InfoSolutions - R&D

Based in Mumbai, Sumeet Srivastava has over 20 years of experience and is currently the Chief Executive Officer and partner of Spocto. He is an active investor and mentors several existing and future entrepreneurs. He is interested in investments that can have a societal benefit and where companies can deliver results with a focus on broader good.

Sumeet is a business technologist, converting business problems into usable products via consistent engagement of customers. He firmly believes and has demonstrated that Digital Reach to the semi-urban and rural world could have profound societal benefits. In the age of scarce information, digital medium can have the most personalized and measurable impact.

Prior to his entrepreneurial venture Spocto, Sumeet was the CIO-Asia for Monsanto Company, a sustainable agriculture company. During his stint, in 2013, he was featured in CIO 100, CIO Asia magazine's gathering of CIOs. He has developed a strong understanding of the rural and semi-urban markets across developing countries. He has spent several years setting up digital businesses serving farmers and developing multi-channel retail solutions.

Sumeet strongly supports the conservation of the environment and participated in United Way of America since 1999. He is also a certified Six Sigma Black Belt and has completed several leadership courses offered by renowned Universities. He has completed MDP in Rural Marketing from IIM, Ahmedabad and is a Master in Computer Science from Birla Institute of Technology.

Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula
Faculty, IIM Bangalore
Experience: Member of Advisory Committee & Member of Screening Committee, N S Raghavan Center for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL), IIM Bangalore

Currently based in Bangalore, is an Assistant Professor at IIM Bangalore. Dr. Suresh Bhagavatula is affiliated to the N S Raghavan Center for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) at IIM Bangalore and is a member of its Advisory Committee and Screening Committee. In addition to a host of activities towards promoting entrepreneurship, NSRCEL also runs an incubator cell on campus for startup and early stage companies.

Dr. Suresh Bhagavatula's research interests are in two partly overlapping domains - entrepreneurship and social networks. In entrepreneurship, his interests are in both low and high technology firms in India. Within the social network domain, he is interested in understanding the influence of social capital on performance of entrepreneurs and teams. His research work has been published in Journal of Business Venturing (JBV), Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP), Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal (SEJ), and IIMB Management Review (IMR).

In the past, he worked at TRDDC (Tata Research Design and Development Centre), within their mineral processing division, as a process engineer and in KVK (Krishi Vigyan Kendra) Visakhapatnam as a Microenterprise coordinator.

He holds a Ph.D. from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam and an MS from University of Flensburg, Germany.

Suresh Rangarajan
CEO & MD, ArthaGroup
Experience: 21 years in Banking, Payments & Internet Businesses
Prior Companies: TimesofMoney, Remit2India, Citibank
Suresh Rangarajan K (SRK) has been a passionate & intense start-up professional. One of the early adopters to the internet world, SRK was part of the founding team of Citi-Times JV TimesofMoney.com. Under his enterprising leadership, remit2india went on to become World's No.1 Online Money Transfer portal & one of the most successful internet businesses. SRK founded Artha Money - an online broking platform & established Artha Group, as a leading real estate company. SRK was conferred with the prestigious Udyog Rattan award in recognition for his strategic & innovative thinking & success in incubating new age businesses.
Swaminathan Subramaniam
Co-founder - Nutrea
Experience: More than 25 years of experience in healthcare and life science
Prior Companies: Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Aurigene Discover Technologies, Sanmar Specialty Chemicals, Rheoscience, Merck and Co., Abbott.

Dr. Swaminathan Subramaniam is a physician-scientist-corporate executive turned entrepreneur. He engages with companies on technology evaluation and development, business development, as well as customer facing issues such as branding, customer experience, and customer acquisition. His current interests span the healthcare and life science industries, particularly those businesses and services that have a consumer healthcare/wellness, tech enablement component.

He completed his degrees in Medicine (M.B., B.S. Madras University) and Clinical Pharmacology (M.D. Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh) before moving to the University of Pennsylvania where he studied for a Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology. He then worked at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda where he carried out electrophysiological studies of NMDA receptors in hippocampal slices in the context of epilepsy.

Swami returned to India in 1995 to take up a position at Dr. Reddy's Research Foundation as Head of Clinical Research and DMPK. He led the team that filed the first IND from Dr. Reddy's for a new molecule. He subsequently moved through different roles including marketing and strategy during which he set up Dr. Reddy's Contract Chemistry services business and then an independent subsidiary company - Aurigene Discovery Technologies. He then moved to Bangalore as the first MD and COO of Aurigene. He led the team responsible for the construction of a greenfield drug discovery facility occupying over 200000 sqft of space - as the first India based drug discovery services CRO.

Subsequently, he has held leadership roles at Sanmar (Chief Executive - Research Businesses), Rheoscience A/S (Head - India operations and Business Development), Merck and Co., Inc. (Head, Licensing - India, and SE Asia) and Abbott Nutrition (Head - R&D, India). He has recently founded Nutrea a start-up nutrition company based in Bangalore, India.

He has published and presented extensively in the areas of neuropharmacology, drug discovery, DMPK, entrepreneurship, and innovation strategy. He was awarded a research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania and was a Chevening scholar of the British Foreign Commonwealth office at the London School of Economics in 1999. He has attended executive programs at Stanford, Indian School of Business and Indian Institute of Management.

Tej Pochiraju
Jaaga Startup
Experience: 14 years in Entrepreneurship
Prior Companies: Aristos Labs, micrograce

Based in Bangalore, Tej runs Jaaga Startup with a fantastic group of people. Jaaga Startup helps derisk early stages of building need-driven startups by sharing knowledge and infrastructure within a community of exceptional entrepreneurs.

Previously, Tej ran two consulting startups, micrograce in Bangalore/Leicester and Aristos Labs in Belfast. In between the two, he led wireless/microwave product development at Pera Technology. Most recently, he failed at trying to build beyon:labs - a hardware product startup. During his relatively nascent career, he has worked with over 150 SMEs across the globe and helped build over 30 hardware products.

He holds a PhD from Queen's University of Belfast, a Master's degree from IIT Kharagpur and a Bachelor's degree from Mumbai University.

Umang Moondra
Financial Services Consulting | Angel Investor | Startup Mentor
Experience: Over 20 years of experience in the banking and financial services industry across Asia Pacific
Prior Companies: Citigroup

Umang is a transformation leader with over 20 years of business management, operations & technology, client delivery and sales experience in banking, across Asia Pacific. He is passionate about crafting and leading change driven by strategy, culture, digitization and automation, aimed at quantum leaps in bottom line, revenues, client delivery and risk mitigation. His cross functional experience provides him with a unique perspective on the end to end connectivity in banks.

Umang's enthusiasm and zest for startups comes from this same passion for change, particularly given the momentous changes being driven by FinTech.

Given his vast experience and interests, today, Umang advises financial services organizations on transformation related to Operations & Technology, Transaction Services and Wealth Management in addition to being on the mentor panel for the accelerator, Startupbootcamp FinTech.

Venkat Raju
Angel Investor | Mentor & Advisor | Board Director | Strategy Consultant
Experience: 30 years in Technology, Strategy, Management Consulting
Prior Companies: ACI Worldwide Inc., Startups backed by Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark Capital etc. in Silicon Valley, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, VerticalNet, British Telcom Company, Cloud Computing & Saas Company

Mr. Venkat Raju currently serves as a Strategy Consultant for the ANSR-Kyron group. He is an active angel investor and serves as a mentor & advisor to several companies (and also as a Director in some). His current portfolio covers a wide spectrum - spanning Cloud Computing & SaaS, Big Data & Analytics, Mobility & Payments, E-Commerce, IoT, Social Media & related Consumer Internet.

Mr. Raju is an accomplished entrepreneur & seasoned executive with strong business, technology and general management credentials. Most recently, he served as the India Country Head & Managing Director for ACI Worldwide Inc., a leading global payments solutions provider. He has held several roles including as - an Entrepreneur (CEO & Founder of startups backed by Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark Capital etc. in Silicon Valley); an IT Executive (Managing Director & VP positions at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank) in Wall St; a Product Executive (GM & SVP Products at VerticalNet in San Francisco), Chief Technologist (Chief Architect for British Telecom in London); a Management/Strategy Consultant (Principal of a boutique firm focused on Cloud Computing & Saas in New York); and a Product & Services Delivery Head for APAC.

Mr. Raju has deep domain expertise in several verticals including Financial Services, Technology, and Telecom. He has lived and worked in three continents and has run global teams. He is an alum of Boston University (Management & Business) and Indian Institute of Science (Electrical & Electronics Engineering).

As a past Fortune 500 Operational Executive, a Silicon Valley Technology Entrepreneur, an active Angel Investor in technology companies, a contributor to the startup ecosystem and advisor to Venture Capital firms & Accelerators, he has been on both sides of the fence and brings a lot to the table.

Vikram Kshettry
Head of Small Business Products, Asia Pacific, Visa
Experience: 24 years in Banking and Payment Services
Prior Companies: ABN AMRO
Currently based in Singapore, has more than 24 years of experience in banking, including 17 years in ABN AMRO. His last role was the Regional Head of Multinational Client Relationships for Asia. He has spent more than 7 years with Visa and is currently the Head of Small Business Products for Asia Pacific for Visa. His expertise lies in guiding businesses in commercialization of their business ideas. He has spent significant time working with technology partners to create solutions to help businesses make payments or collect payments conveniently and with cost savings. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
Vikrant Patil
CEO & MD, Vinsys IT Services
Experience: 25 years in Information Technology & Entrepreneurship
Prior Companies: Aptech

Currently based in Pune, founded Vinsys IT Services in 1999 as a one-stop training provider that caters to the growing demand of corporate training and workforce development. Under his dynamic leadership, the company has diversified into corporate training and consulting across the learning and development spectrum with a strong presence across technology training, IT service management, IT governance, project management training and consulting, foreign languages, and behavioural and management solutions. With his relentless efforts, a passionate and focused outlook towards customer satisfaction and employee growth, and an uncompromising commitment to quality and service, the company has established long term symbiotic associations with most of its customers, including Fortune 500 MNCs.

Prior to founding Vinsys, Vikrant was with Aptech, having started his career with a MNC in Dubai. He is an engineering graduate from Pune, India with a post-graduate Diploma in Business Administration from Melbourne, Australia.
Vishal Tulsian
Director, Tunaiku, Indonesia
Experience: 18 years as a Financial Expert and Intrapreneur
Prior Companies: Tolaram Group, Standard & Poor's, A.V. Birla Group

Based in Indonesia, Vishal has over eighteen years of experience as a financial expert and intrapreneur, having worked in several executive functions in large corporations within diverse multinational environments.

In 2013, he founded the the FinTech Startup - Tunaiku (now part of Bank Amar) in the space of online lending based on predictive and big data analytics, where he is responsible for the conception of the idea and its execution.

Vishal has spent more than a decade with the Tolaram Group where he has several achievements to his credit including turnaround of loss making manufacturing units into one of their most desirable assets (as CEO), successful handling of the liquidation of a bankrupt textile company without being declared bankrupt (as CFO), and creation of deep banking relationships throughout Estonia which enabled multiple fundraisings and restructurings.

He specializes in spotting of business opportunities, execution of plans, business strategy development, financial & marketing planning, sales & operations management, and team building.

Vishal is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Company Secretaries, and Costs and Works Accountants in India. He holds a master's degree from University of Liverpool, UK and has completed the Executive Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Vivek Jetley
CEO & MD of Urbana Health, Singapore
Experience: More than 20 years in Healthcare
Prior Companies: Max India, Parkway Health (now IHH Healthcare), Avenue Capital Group

Vivek is the CEO & MD of Urbana Health, a Singapore incorporated company which provides Business Advisory Services in Asia and India, focused on strategic and financial issues in the area of Healthcare. Urbana offers solutions for market entry, expansion and diversification, facilitating investments and raising capital. He has had a long and successful track record in several leadership roles - CFO, Managing Director & CEO of Max India Ltd., a multi business conglomerate; Head of Business Development at Parkway Health (now IHH Healthcare), Asia's largest healthcare group and Country Manager at Avenue Capital Group, a large Private Equity Fund in Asia.

Vivek is a Business and Investment Manager with a record of success and achievement in developing, leading and investing in successful business ventures across several industry domains - Private Healthcare Services, Pharmaceuticals Manufacturing & Distribution, Contract & Clinical Research, IT Services, Business Process Outsourcing, Life Insurance and Telecommunications. He has worked and developed business in India, Asia (Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Brunei) China, Middle East and the United States. Actively involved with Business/Industry Forums and Trade bodies, in India and Singapore, he has also been a Speaker at several forums and Panel Discussions on Healthcare.

Currently, he works with leading healthcare players, strategic and private equity Investors and corporations in developing investment opportunities, project management and revenue enhancement. He also leads investments into early stage and exceptional business opportunities by partnering with reputed investors and healthcare operators.

He holds a Master's Degree in Business Management (with a Specialization in Finance) and is a Fellow Member of The Institute of Management Accountants of India. He is also a qualified Company Secretary.

V Sreenivasan
Former President, ITC Infotech
Experience: Over 30 years of experience in Consumer Goods, Agriculture, IT and Financial Services
Prior Companies: ITC Limited, ITC Infotech(UK and India)

Currently based in Bangalore, V Sreenivasan (Sreeni), retired as President of the IT Business of ITC group. He has over three and half decades of experience in Consumer Goods, Agriculture, IT and Financial Services businesses.

In his early career, Sreeni has been a Robotic and Automation engineer and also built products & solutions for Indian farming communities, manufacturers, hoteliers, and wholesale distributors.

From the year 2000, Sreeni has been working extensively for two decades with large European and North American customers to enhance their Global Delivery model and transform their businesses with the help of digital technologies.

All through his career, Sreeni has actively supported the startup ecosystem through business partnerships, startup showcases and hackathon events, and is now keen to mentor young companies to realize their vision.

Sreeni is a graduate engineer in Electronics and Communication from Madras University and an alumnus of Kellogg Management School, North Western University.

Zubair Ahmed
Vice President & Head, IT & Business Innovation, Emirates Islamic Bank (UAE)
Experience: 22 years in Finance Technology
Prior Companies: Dubai Bank, Mashreq Bank

Currently based in UAE, is the Vice President, Head of IT & Business Innovation at Emirates Islamic, reporting to the CEO. Prior to this role, he spent 2 decades at the heart of the finance technology industry, in several leadership roles. With a proven background in IT leadership and management, Zubair has been involved in development & execution of IT strategy encompassing implementations of new core systems, direct channels, infrastructure solutions and process institutionalization. In several organizations, he has architected cultural transformations, using corporate value frameworks.

More recently, Zubair has successfully led transformations in several areas of Islamic Banking. He is the author of the book "Power To Kids" which serves as a guide in 'applying quality & management principles to parenting'. He is also actively involved with a number of non-profit causes across the region. As an ardent speaker / panelist, Zubair is regularly featured in numerous conferences around the world.
Chandrashekar Kupperi
Founder, ANOVA Corporate Services Private Limited
Experience: Almost 20 years in FMCG, Life Insurance, Audit & Assurance and Oil & Gas sectors
Prior Companies: Lornamead Group (UK), AMP, KPMG and ExxonMobil

Currently based in Chennai, Shekar has almost two decades of experience in renowned multinationals across diversified sectors - FMCG (Lornamead Group), Life Insurance (AMP), Audit & Assurance (KPMG) and Oil & Gas (ExxonMobil) sectors. He is an active Angel Investor and serves as non-executive director in mid-size companies, both in India and abroad.

Shekar has a rich experience in the FMCG - M&A space, having lead / been part of over 11 Acquisitions and 4 Divestments, including 100% divestment of UK headquartered Lornamead Group to Hong Kong-based consumer goods group Li & Fung. He has handled many acquisitions as well as divestments, besides re-structuring and re-financing transactions in North America and Europe. In India, he was involved with divestment of Yardley brand to Wipro Consumer Care, and Tura Brand to Godrej Consumer Care.

His deep knowledge and expertise in M&A lead him to establish his own Investment Banking and Advisory Firm - ANOVA Corporate Services Pvt. Ltd. As an advisor having an optimum mix of professionalism and rich experience, he also closely works with Start-ups, bringing in a fresh perspective to the business with his in-depth process knowledge and a focused, methodical approach. ANOVA's recent M&A deals include OYO Rooms' acquisition of Novascotia Boutique Homes (now OYO SilverKey), and Megadyne Group acquiring majority stake in Helicord.

Shekar is a Chartered Accountant (ICAI), Cost Accountant (ICMAI) and a Company Secretary (ICSI) by qualification besides Senior Management Program from IIM-C. He is also a Fellow Member of Institute of Public Accountants, Australia (FIPA), Certified Management Accountant from The Institute of Certified Management Accountants, USA (CMA) and Member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment, UK (MCSI).

Dr. Chinmaya P Chigateri
Director & CEO, Healthminds
Experience: 16+ years experience in Medical industry
Prior Companies: AllizHealth, iLogy Healthcare Solutions, Yos Technologies Private Limited,Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences.

Currently based in Bangalore, Chinmaya P Chigateri is the Director and CEO of HealthMinds Consulting Pvt. Ltd, a public health consulting and healthcare communications company.

Prior to founding HealthMinds, he has consulted with various organisations in areas of medical publishing, healthcare IT and research advisory. He also worked with the Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences as its Scientific Project Coordinator for its US Government Funded HIV/AIDS program, where he consulted with the Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society, under the Government of Karnataka. He has the distinction of being a student of, and working with, Prof. Barry Marshall, the Nobel Prize winner for Medicine and Physiology for the year 2005. He is 2014 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in Bangalore.

He is a Bachelor of Dentistry from India and holds a Masters of Infectious Diseases from the University of Western Australia, Perth.

Chitra Talwar
Independent Consultant
Experience: Over 30 years in FMCG
Prior Companies: Britannia and PepsiCo

Currently based in Bangalore, Chitra has over thirty-three years of Corporate experience in leading consumer products companies, working both in India and extensively in International markets, based out of New York. Held several leadership roles with functional expertise in sales, marketing, strategy and general management.

Started career with a 3 year stint in Advertising post MBA, then spent next 17 years at Britannia and gained strong functional skills as Product Manager, Marketing & Commercial head and led the Western Region Profit Centre as General Manager. Working closely with parent company Danone on product innovation, built brands, built teams and developed strong operational skills. Together with an excellent team, iconic brands like Good Day, Fifty Fifty were launched to name a couple.

At PepsiCo, her roles were beyond the traditional organisation structure, given the fast track phase that company was in and given an interesting matrix organization and its varied cultural milieu of a young company. Joined PepsiCo, India as an Executive Director, leading the Customer Development Agenda to drive sales strategy and build an emerging market model for the category. Post a three-year stint in India, moved to PepsiCo, New York to lead a global team to develop, implement and sustain global sales best practices across international markets. Areas such as Go to market, Sales Structure & Capability Built, Pricing Architecture, Retail Evolution, Customer Management, and Sales Productivity were big focus subjects across markets. Worked across several global task forces to solve key business issues.

One other key experience included working with Insights & Strategy team to build North America Customer (Retailers) Insights. This was a critical deliverable and competitive differentiation given the evolution of large, hard negotiating retail chains.

Building teams, understanding sales, leveraging insights for strategy with sharp focus on deliverables and performance has been the mantra.

Post retirement, actively engaged in non-profit areas on education, women & child safety and civic issues.

Angel investor and mentor in Retail, Consumer Goods start ups and Skill Development space.

Chitra has completed graduation from Madras University and MBA from XLRI.

Nitish Agrawal
Managing Director at Indium Capital
Experience: 15 years in Investment Banking (M&A & fund raising)
Prior Companies: Allegro Capital, GE Capital & Genpact

Currently based in Bangalore, Nitish has extensive experience advising clients on domestic & cross border M&A as well as equity fund raising transactions across sectors. Prior to Indium, Nitish held leadership roles in Allegro Capital, GE Capital & Genpact for over 15 years.

He has cross-industry experience in Investment Banking (M&A & fund raising) across the entire deal life cycle from sourcing mandates, valuation, modelling, IM/Business plan, negotiations, transaction structuring and execution. Nitish is experienced in moderating and advising on M&A and capital raising strategies at Board/CXO level and has experience in leading and executing deals across sectors: Healthcare, consumer, industrial and technology sectors.

Nitish is a Mechanical Engineer from IIT, BHU and holds an MBA from IIM Calcutta.

Suneel Aiyer
Chief Executive Officer Writer Safeguard
Experience: 24 years in Retail Assets, Cards & Electronic Payments Processing, Managed Services, Secure Logistics & Cash Management
Prior Companies: Standard Chartered, ANZ Grindlays, American Express, Citibank, Euronet Worldwide

Currently based in Mumbai, Suneel Aiyer has 24 years of cross-functional experience in Retail Banking, Cards, Managed Services, Payments Processing and the Cash Logistics industry with verifiable year after year success in achieving revenue, profit and business growth objectives. He has successfully built sustainable businesses and led large teams of diverse employees across India, Asia Pacific and the Middle East markets.

His work experience spans leadership roles at Standard Chartered Bank, ANZ Grindlays Bank, American Express, Citibank, Euronet Worldwide and Writer Safeguard across Sales & Product Management, Operations, Debt Management & Risk Control, Technology and Finance. In addition to his current role as CEO, he has managed a multi-country operations function, been in a country service & product management role and in a country sales role. He has been Chief Executive Officer of Writer Safeguard (WSG) since June 2010.

He was previously Director Operations - Asia Pacific at Euronet (Nasdaq EEFT). He was also on the Board of Euronet India. Between 2003-2007, Suneel was Vice President and business head for the Remote Banking (ATM and the Kiosk banking channel) at Citibank N.A.

Prior to this, at American Express, he led the largest in-house sales team in the Asia region, responsible for selling premium card products to the affluent and emerging affluent in India. He has also built large Sales and Distribution (DSA) Netorks for Consumer Cards and Loan products at Amex and ANZ Grindlays. He was part of the start-up team at Standard Chartered Bank that launched Credit cards in India in 1993-94.

Suneel is the founder of the Cash Logistics Association, India, an Executive Committee Member of FICCI - Maharashtra State Council, Executive Committee Member of FICCI - Private Security Industry (National Committee), Executive Committee Member & PE Series Co- Chair at the Wharton Alumni Association of India . He is a regular speaker at Industry forums in India and abroad.

Suneel is an alumnus of The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania where he attended the Advanced Management Program, has a Diploma in Information and Systems Management and a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Kerala.

Suneel is a fitness enthusiast, a timed half marathoner and an avid motorcyclist.

V. Niranjan, MD
Founder and CEO of RxMD
Experience: Physician, Scientist, Biopharma Consultant
Prior Companies: University of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark, New Jersey

V. Niranjan is founder and CEO of RxMD (www.rxmd.com), a drug development consulting company. An internationally (India, Australia and USA) trained pediatrician, critical care physician and scientist (molecular biologist), he has been a highly sought after consultant to the biopharma sector in the US and EU for close to two decades. His expertise is in identifying gaps in drug development and crafting novel strategies to address them, thereby taking drugs from discovery through to commercialization. His critical inputs have been pivotal to the development and commercialization of drugs for several indications (e.g. hepatitis, influenza, HIV). He has served as due-diligence team leader for several US, EU companies, enabling them to identify and in-license assets and commercialize them. Lately, he has also been mentoring life science startups based in India.

Prior to RxMD, Niranjan was Director, Pediatric Intensive Care and Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark, New Jersey, USA.

Niranjan is US Board certified in Pediatrics and Critical Care. He has also received postdoctoral training in Molecular Biology (translational medicine) at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, USA, and fellowship training at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.

Niranjan graduated in Medicine from the University of Bombay, India. He lives in Chennai, India.

Murali Rajagopalachari
Investment Banker & Adviser to growth-stage firms
Experience: 20+ years in the financial services sector
Prior Companies: Unifi Capital

Currently based in Chennai, Murali is an experienced Investment banker with extensive business experience. Over the years he has developed an in-depth understanding in identifying value-accretive businesses both from a strategic and operational perspective. During the last 20+ years he has reviewed and evaluated businesses across a variety of industries ranging from automotive, hospitality, healthcare, real-estate, technology & ecommerce both from a risk and growth perspective and has raised capital (debt & equity) for growth stage companies across these industries. He has extensive negotiating experience with specialist Corporate Lawyers, Accountants and Institutional investors. He is also in the mentor list of India's largest entrepreneurship network.

Murali holds a Masters in Management with concentration in general management and finance from the Asian institute of Management, Philippines and a Bachelor of Commerce from Vivekananda College. He has also completed an executive program on the implications of Artificial Intelligence on Business Strategy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School Of Management.

Sudhir Nair
Former Director, CRISIL Institutional SME Ratings
Experience: 24+ years in SME / Energy / Infrastructure / Real Estate / Construction
Prior Companies: CRISIL

Based in Mumbai, Sudhir Nair is an experienced business leader with more than 24 years of experience across sectors such as SME, Energy, Infrastructure, Real Estate & Construction. His last role was with CRISIL as a Director, Institutional SME Ratings.

His key skills include providing be-spoke information/data/research based solutions for strategic business growth or decision making. He is a strong communicator and leader with absolute integrity and high standards of business ethics. Experienced speaker at both national & international conferences/seminars. More than ten years of experience in successfully overseeing forays into emerging business ideas, projects and products. More than twelve years of experience in handling analytical teams of 15+ members and in active coaching / mentoring roles. Immense experience in assessing credit, management, governance and financial risks of corporate India, with special expertise in assessing the risks pertaining to the small & medium enterprises. Goal-oriented, profit driven, pragmatic and conscientious, a natural communicator with passion and enthusiasm in business transformation and change. He is a bachelor of commerce, post graduate diploma in systems management, cost & works accountant (Inter) and MBA in finance from IGNOU.

Some of his achievements include:

  • Helped grow CRISIL's institutional SME business by over 30% CAGR over the past 3 years by introducing many new products in the area of counter party due diligences
  • Successfully led business development activities pertaining to research based consulting business & more than doubled that business over a short 2 year period.
  • Established and guided research initiatives into emerging areas of research such as the SME Cluster studies and various new reports such as Renewable energy business in India, Paints sector, Fertiliser industry, City-specific Real Estate markets, Infrastructure businesses, Cement Industry in India.
  • Was a key member of India's first IPO grading and Independent Equity Research business. Fully responsible for the analytical frameworks, research processes and client communication activities for the division.
  • Headed the team which prepared the 'Urban India Construction Reports' in collaboration with McGraw-Hill Construction.
Prasana Pahade
Chief Strategy Officer, Mahindra Logistics
Experience: 21 years across strategy, marketing, operations and performance improvement
Prior Companies: Tata Strategic Management, Voltas, Making Champs, Tata Motors

Based out of Mumbai, is currently the CSO of Mahindra Logistics Ltd, since October 2017.His responsibilities include strategy, marketing and corporate communications. Prior to this role, he was the Co-founder of Making Champs, a startup in children education. He has also worked with Voltas as their Head of Corporate Planning and Head of Water Treatment SBU. He has great exposure to the consumer durables, education, EPC, Water and waste water treatment and logistics sector. In terms of geographies, in addition to India he understands HVAC / MEP markets in the Middle East.

His key areas of strength include general management, strategy, marketing and performance improvement.

Prasanna Pahade is a postgraduate from IIM Calcutta and is also qualified leadership coach.

Akshaya Gaur
Founder, Aayan
Experience: More than 39 years in the Banking Industry
Prior Companies: Mashreq Bank,Standard Chartered Bank and few others

Akshaya Gaur has over 39 years' experience in the Banking industry and has a track record of leadership in Banking Technology with a strong customer, business and delivery focus. He possesses in-depth expertise in a wide spectrum of traditional and emerging technologies in the Banking sector. Akshaya has a proven track record of delivering major transformation programs in international environments across the UK, Singapore, UAE, Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe and India.

Akshaya is, currently, the Founder of Aayan, a consulting and advisory company in the FinTech, Digital Transformation, Payments and Banking Technology space. He has advised and conducted strategic training for Banks to help them evolve their strategic agenda for Digital Transformation and leveraging emerging technologies. Akshaya is on the Advisory Board of start-ups and in the Banking and emerging technology space:

Mashreq Bank - Successfully delivered Mashreq Bank's strategic agenda of creating a culture of innovation with a focus on Digital Transformation - mobility, cloud, big data, robotic process automations and straight-through processing

Wipro, India & Middle East - Advised the company in transforming their Banking practice to adopt and provide Digital Transformation services to their clients

CRDB Bank Burundi - Digital Transformation offsite workshop for the Board

Canadian Credit Unions CXO Delegation - Advisory on the 'Indian Digital & Payments Journey - Banking the unbanked'

Conference speaker - Digital Transformation & Disruption in Banking - At many international events including UAE, Hanoi, Singapore, Malaysia and India

FixNix.co - a Medici Global Top 21 RegTech company delivering Governance, Risk and Compliance solutions

SDTech.io - an Artificial Intelligence company registered and operating out of India with an international client base

iCubeConsortium.com - Chief Technology Officer for an international HRTech company based out of Singapore

CR2 - An Irish retail banking omni-channel solutions company - Strategic outsourcing advisor and culture-change execution for CR2's Indian subsidiary

Prior to this, Akshaya was the Chief Information Officer, Mashreq Bank, UAE & Chief Executive Officer of the subsidiary, Mindscape IT. He was a member of Mashreq Bank's Executive Leadership Forum and a member of the Board of Directors of Mashreq Global Services, Mashreq's fully-owned subsidiary in Bangalore, India.

Ravi Ananth
(Former) Senior Corporate Finance executive in Reliance Industries
Experience: Over 30 years of experience in corporate finance and large project Management
Prior Companies: RIL, Reliance Jio Infocomm, HCC, Canbank Financial Services

Ravi has over 3 decades of experience in leading corporates, viz., Canbank Financial Services Limited (1986 -1992 - Advisory Services), GE Shipping (1992-1995- General Manager, Finance), HCC (1995-1997 - VP, Finance), RIL (1997- 2010 - President, Corporate Finance), GTL Infra (Dec 2010 - July 2011, CEO & Whole time Director) and Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (July 2011 to January 2018).

He initiated the setting up of the 4G telecom project of Reliance Jio Infocomm in the State of Karnataka and was the State Sponsor until January 2018.

Ravi spearheaded mega financial closures for a wide array of businesses, ranging from Construction, Infrastructure (Shipping, Power, Ports, SEZ's) to Petroleum Refinery, Gas Transportation to Telecom. He also acquired considerable expertise in legal aspects of Project Financing.

He headed as Project and State Head for three Greenfield projects in the State of Karnataka from start to completion viz., Reliance Communications Limited a CDMA telecom project, Reliance Petroleum Retail Outlets and Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited. This includes Government liaison, approvals, real estate acquisition, legal, construction, contract management and overall project coordination.

As a recognition to his contribution, the Government of Karnataka appointed him, on two occasions, as a Member of "Vision Group of Industries" constituted under the chairmanship of Hon'ble Chief Minister of Karnataka.

Suresh Reddy
Independent Mangement Consultant
Experience: Telecom
Prior Companies: CK Hutchison, Bharti Airtel & Axiata

Suresh is a board level International CxO with specific experience in the TMT sector gained in blue chip telecom brands, managing large-scale budgets & teams. He has a proven track record of aggressively growing revenues and transforming challenged or underperforming businesses in hyper-competitive & complex markets across Asia & Sub-Saharan Africa.

The major portion of his experience has been in growth and turnaround environments, building and commercialising insight based customer propositions. The breadth of this experience has provided a balance of strategic and operational expertise across operations management, marketing, sales & distribution, digital strategies including strategic partnership development, segmentation, product & pricing strategy.

Suresh has held various C-Level operational & head office roles with the CK Hutchison, Bharti Airtel & Axiata group across South Asia, South East Asia & Sub Saharan Africa.

He has lived and/or worked extensively across South Asia (India, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka), South East Asia (Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia & Cambodia), Sub Saharan Africa (Zambia) & Europe (Finland), holding key executive positions across:

  • A large group of operations across South & South East Asia (Axiata Group, Malaysia). Head of Group Marketing (Member of the senior leadership team) - managing group wide Strategic Marketing. Running a dominant incumbent (Airtel Zambia Networks plc, 65% Market Share) - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Director on the board. Also served as the Acting Managing Director.
  • A very successful turnaround / re-launch of a late entrant in a fully penetrated market (U Mobile-Malaysia) - Chief Commercial Officer
  • A large greenfield start up (Hutchison Indonesia, US$ 1Billion greenfield project that acquired a million subscribers within 3 months of commercial operations launch in a 10 player market.~16 Million subscribers as of February '11) - Chief Commercial Officer
  • A turnaround business (Hutchison Telecom,Thailand (Now True Move), ~ 1 Million subscribers-'06) - Sr. Vice President & Head of Marketing.
  • A large dominant incumbent business (Hutchison India (Now Vodafone India), Over 25 Million subscribers, US$ 2 Billion-'05) - General Manager-Marketing

Suresh is currently based out of Bangalore and actively mentors / advices early stage businesses to scale up, both domestically & Internationally. He also works with a range of top tier strategy consulting & Investment firms on areas that include Strategic & Operational consulting.