Agenda.

Time	Agenda
08:00 am - 09:00 am	Registration
​09:00 am - 09:10 am	Welcome Remarks
09:10 am - 09:50 am ​	​Keynote Speech Gaurav Dalmia, Chairman, Dalmia Group Holdings
09:50 am - 10:30 am	​Keynote Fireside Chat with Francisco D'Souza, CEO, Cognizant Moderated by Prof. M. Suresh Sundaresan
​10:30 am - 10:40 am	​Networking Break
​10:40 am - 12:30 pm	Speaker Series and Panel on Entrepreneurship - Disruptive Business Models with Ananth Narayanan, Meera Vasudevan, Deepak Ohri and PC Musthafa  Moderated by Prof. Sheena Iyengar
​12:30 pm - 02:00 pm	​Networking Lunch
02:00 pm - 02:40 pm	Keynote Fireside Chat with Hikmet Ersek, President, CEO, Director Western Union  Moderated by Prof. Stephen P. Zeldes
02:40 pm - 04:10 pm	​Keynote Series on Current Economic Policy’s Impact on Indian Businesses with Dr. Subramanyam Swamy and Salman Khurshid Moderated by Bill Foster ​
04:10 pm - 04:20 pm	Networking Break
04:20 pm - 04:50 pm	Keynote Speech  Prof. Arvind Panagariya, Former Vice Chairman, Niti Aayog
04:50 pm - 05:50 pm	Panel on Investment Landscape in India  with Sanjay Nath, Anjali Bansal, Kshitij Bhatia, Ashwini Tewari and Himadri Chatterjee
05:50 pm - 06:00 pm	​Closing Remarks
​06:00 pm - 07:30 pm	Cocktail Reception

Videos.

Speakers.

 

Salman Khurshid
Former Minister of External Affairs (2012-2014)

Mr. Salman Khurshid is an Indian politician, designated senior advocate, eminent author and a law teacher. He was the Cabinet Minister of the Ministry of External Affairs. He belongs to the Indian National Congress.

He started his political career as an Officer on Special Duty in the Prime Minister's Office, during the Prime Ministership of Indira Gandhi in the early 1980s. Later he became the Deputy Minister of Commerce in the Government of India, and then Minister of State for External Affairs in the Government of India from 1991–1996. He is a heir to a great legacy of national service bequeathed by Dr. Zakir Hussain, his grandfather and the late President of India and his father Mr. Khursheed Alam Khan, the former Governor of Karnataka.

An alum of St. Stephen's and Oxford, he is an eminent lawyer of the Supreme court of India. He is also a prolific author and some of his eminent publications include - 'At Home in India', 'If Winter Comes', 'Beyond Terrorism'. He is closely associated with many national and international organizations in spheres of education, humanitarian work and law as Patron and Member. 

 

Francisco D'Souza
CEO, Cognizant

Francisco D’Souza is the Chief Executive Officer of Cognizant and a member of our Board of Directors. Cognizant is a leading professional services company and our mission is to help clients around the world transform their business, operating and technology models in tandem to achieve the promise of digital technology at scale.

In his role as CEO, Francisco sets the strategic direction, promotes Cognizant’s values and client-first culture and focuses on ensuring the company’s sustainable growth and driving long-term stockholder value. He co-founded Cognizant in 1994 and has served as the company’s CEO since 2007, leading revenue growth from $2.1 billion that year to $14.8 billion in 2017. Cognizant is ranked 205 on the Fortune 500 and consistently listed among the most admired companies in the world. In 2017, Fortune named Cognizant to its Fortune Future 50 list, a new ranking of companies best positioned for breakout growth. And in 2018, Cognizant was named to the first-ever Barron's 100 Most Sustainable Companies list, a ranking of the environmental, social and governance practices of large U.S. publicly traded companies.

Francisco serves on GE’s Board of Directors, where he is a member of the Technology & Industrial Risk Committee. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon University and as Co-Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the New York Hall of Science, a center for interactive science that serves half a million students and teachers each year. He is a member of the World Economic Forum and a member of the Science Visiting Council for the science program NOVA. Fortune magazine named Francisco a “Fortune Businessperson of the Year” for 2017, highlighting his mission to prioritize services that help clients adapt and keep pace with the digital revolution.

​Born in Kenya and the son of an Indian diplomat, Francisco is a global citizen who has lived in nine countries and traveled extensively to many more. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of Macau and an MBA degree from Carnegie Mellon University.

 

Hikmet Ersek
President, CEO, Director
Western Union

Hikmet Ersek is President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of The Western Union Company, a Fortune 500 global leader in digital and retail cross-border money transfer and payments services. 
 
With more than 30 years of executive experience in financial services, Ersek joined Western Union in 1999 and became CEO in 2010. Under his leadership, Western Union has successfully diversified and evolved its business to become a global payments company.
 
Significant accomplishments include: growing the company’s digital and mobile offerings; expanding the company’s portfolio into the B2B payments sector; growing its retail money transfer business to more than 550,000 worldwide Agent locations and more than 150,000 ATMS and kiosks; implementing a new technology platform; and significantly upgrading the company’s global compliance programs.
 
Based in Denver, CO, and a citizen of both Austria and Turkey, Ersek draws on his international background to speak out publicly for the rights of migrants and refugees worldwide. He has been publicly recognized for his commitment to community and corporate responsibility, including as Corporate Responsibility (CR) Magazine’s Responsible CEO of the Year.
 
Ersek holds a Master's (Magister) degree in Economics and Business Administration from the Wirtschaftsuniversität (University of Economics) in Vienna, Austria.

 

Anjali Bansal
Former MD, TPG Private Equity

Anjali Bansal is a former global Partner and MD with TPG Private Equity and a former strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company in New York and Mumbai. She founded and ran Spencer Stuart's India practice successfully growing it to a highly reputed pan-India platform. She was also a global partner and co-led their Asia Pacific Board & CEO practice as part of the Asia Pacific leadership team.

She serves as an independent, non-executive director on the public boards of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Pharmaceuticals India, Bata India Limited, Tata Power and Voltas--a Tata Enterprise. She is on the Advisory Board of the Columbia University Global Centers, South Asia. An active contributor to the dialogue on corporate governance and diversity, Anjali co-founded and chaired the FICCI Center for Corporate Governance program for Women on Corporate Boards. She serves on the managing committee of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry and is part of the CII Directors Guild. She is a member of the Young Presidents' Organization.

She has been listed as one of the “Most Powerful Women in Indian Business” by India’s leading publication, Business Today, and as one of the “Most Powerful Women in Business” by Fortune India. She has a Bachelors in Computer Engineering and a Masters in International Finance and Business from Columbia University.

 

Gaurav Dalmia ('90)
Chairman, Dalmia Group Holdings

Gaurav Dalmia is the Chairman of Dalmia Group Holdings, a holding company for business and financial assets. It invests in private equity, real estate, public markets, structured debt and fixed income.

He is an early investor in and a Board member of True North (formerly India Value Fund), a leading Indian private equity fund, which manages approximately $3.5billion. He is also the founder and Chairman of Landmark Holdings, a real estate investment firm, which has invested in more than 40 housing projects. He co founded GTI, a long term investment vehicle for India focused investments.

He is a Board member of Brookings India. He was selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in 2000. Gaurav Dalmia received an MBA with Beta Gamma Sigma honors from Columbia Business School.

 

Prof. Sheena Iyengar
S.T. Lee Professor of Business

Professor Iyengar has taught courses in leadership and entrepreneurial creativity. Her research addresses the implications of offering people, whether they be employees or consumers, choices.

​She has examined choice in a multitude of contexts ranging from employee motivation and performance in a global organization, Citigroup, to chocolate displays at Godiva, to the magazine aisles of supermarkets, and to mutual fund options in retirement benefit plans.

​Professor Iyengar received the Presidential Early Career Award for her ongoing work in examining cultural, individual, and situational factors that influence people''s choice-making preferences and behaviors.

 

Subramanian Swamy
Former Minister of Law, 
Justice and Commerce​

Dr. Subramanian Swamy is an Indian economist, statistician and politician who serves as a Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament. He was the President of the Janata Party until it merged with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Dr. Swamy completed his Masters in Mathematics from University of Delhi and went on to do Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. Dr. Swamy has served as a member of the Planning Commission of India and was a Cabinet Minister in the Chandra Shekhar government. Earlier in November 1978, Swamy was member of the Group of Eminent persons and was called to Geneva, Switzerland to prepare a report of the United Nations (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)) on Economic Co-operation between Developing countries (ECDC). In 1994, the then Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao appointed him as the Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade.

Swamy also simplified trade procedures and formulated a new export strategy which became the forerunner of trade reform adopted subsequently. In 1994, Swamy was Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade by former Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao.

 

Ananth Narayanan
​CEO, Myntra & Jabong (India’s largest online platform for fashion and lifestyle)

Ananth Narayanan is the Chief Executive Officer at Myntra and Jabong, the country’s largest online platform for fashion and lifestyle products. He leads the team with a dedicated mission to disrupt and transform the way fashion is sold and consumed in the country. His aim is to make Myntra the first profitable e-commerce company in India. Under his leadership, Myntra has made two strategic acquisitions – Cubeit, a Bangalore based start-up that facilitates content aggregation on mobile devices and Jabong from Global Fashion Group; making it India’s biggest fashion shopping destination.

Featured as one of “India’s Hottest 40 under 40 Business Leaders” in 2014, Ananth has deep expertise in driving performance improvement and product development. He started his career with Mckinsey & Company where he worked for 15 years across four offices (Chicago, Shanghai, Taipei and Chennai). In his most recent role as Director in the company, he was responsible for leading the Product Development practice in Asia and worked with several companies on strategy, operations and organizational models.

Ananth leverages his vast experience and knowledge from years in consultancy and managing operations to mentor start-ups. With his financial acumen and marketing insights, he has helped start ups create systems and processes, build stakeholder communities, effectively reach out to markets and scale up their business. A person with a strong commitment to building an entrepreneurial environment in the country, Ananth has helped shape many a new enterprise from seed stage to commercial success. He is also a speaker at various summits organized by premier institutes such as The Economist, Harvard Business School, University of Michigan among others. 

 

Shankar Narayanan
Former MD, Carlyle Group

Mr. Shankar Narayanan served as the Managing Director and Co-Head of Carlyle Asia Growth Partners at The Carlyle Group LP. He was part of Asia Growth asset class in Corporate Private Equity business segment at the firm. Mr. Narayanan joined Carlyle Group in 2004 and is responsible for leading growth capital investments in India. Prior to joining Carlyle, he spent six years at Hathway Investments and during that time he served as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at the firm. He was also with Deutsche Bank Capital Partners as a Director covering South Asia and India. He served on the Board of Directors of Johnson Tiles, Exide Industries, Hathway Cable, Asianet Satellite Communications, Pushpa Polymers, Tata Infomedia and AFL Limited. Prior to Hathway Investments, Mr. Narayanan worked at Citibank. He serves as on the boards of Elitecore Technologies, Cyient Limited (formerly Infotech Enterprises) and Newgen Knowledge Works. Mr. Narayanan has been in private equity since 1993 with the unique distinction of having run some of the investee companies as a CEO.

​He has on-the-ground work experience across the country. Mr. Narayanan received a Postgraduate Diploma in Management from XLRI Jamshedpur where he was a Gold Medalist and stood first in the graduating class in Finance and Accounting and earned a Bachelor of Technology Degree in Civil Engineering from IIT, New Delhi.

 

Ashwini Tewari
Country Head, US Operations
State Bank of India

Mr. Ashwini Kumar Tewari is the Country Head of the US Operations of State Bank of India since April 2017, which includes its offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington DC. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering (Electrical), is a CFPCM certificant, and ACAMS certified.

He is a career banker with over 25 years’ experience with State Bank of India in India and outside. Having joined as a directly recruited officer in 1991, Mr.Tewari has handled assignments in diverse areas of Credit, International Banking and Retail Banking, including Business Re-engineering and Technology.

Prior to his current assignment, he was Regional Head and General Manager, East Asia of State Bank of India, Hong Kong and oversaw the business development and control of State Bank of India in Hong Kong, China, Japan, Korea and the neighboring region.

​His previous roles include Deputy General Manager, (Operations & Information Systems), International Banking Group, Mumbai, Head of SBI’s Cash Management, Regional Manager, Branch Head etc.

 

Meera Vasudevan
Co-founder, Tasty Bite Eatables

Meera Vasudevan is co-founder of Preferred Brands International (PBI) a Stamford CT based Food Company and its Executive Vice President of Marketing and Product Development.

The company, with operations globally in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia New Zealand and India, manufactures and markets Tasty Bytes, a range of natural, convenient, specialty foods sold in major super markets. The products are manufactured at a state-of-the-art plant in Pune, India. Tasty Bite also has a Food Service and institutional business in India manufacturing sauces, pies and formed frozen products. The company was recently acquired by Mars Foods.

Meera had earlier co-founded ASG-Omni, a Stamford, CT based strategy-consulting firm that designed entry strategies for large US corporations looking to do business in India. Prior to Preferred Brands, Meera spent a decade as a market researcher in India, first at Marketing and Research Group (currently a Nielsen company) and then went on to co-found Quantum Market Research, India's first and now its largest Qualitative Research Company.  During a decade as a qualitative researcher she has pioneered some research techniques and gained deep consumer and market insights in India, Australia and the US.

She has also worked closely on social research projects with the Indian government and UNICEF. She has a Bachelors in English Literature with post-graduate qualifications in Marketing from the University of Madras and INSEAD, France. Meera has also served on non-profit boards including GOPIO and the United Way of Western Connecticut. She manages a personal foundation – the Meera & Ashok Vasudevan Foundation (MAVF) - that is committed to the eradication of hunger and malnourishment in America. She lives in Stamford, CT, with Ashok Vasudevan, her husband and business partner.

 

Prof. Arvind Panagariya
Ex Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog 

Arvind Panagariya holds a PhD from Princeton University and is currently a Professor of Economics and the Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

In the past, he has been the Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank. Professor Panagariya has authored more than a fifteen books. His book, Why Growth Matters, with Jagdish Bhagwati, has been described by The Economist magazine as “a manifesto for policymakers and analysts.”

Professor Panagariya’s scientific papers have appeared in the top economics journals such as the American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics while his policy papers have appeared in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. He writes a monthly column in the Times of India and his guest columns have appeared in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and India Today. The President of India recently honored Professor Panagariya with Padma Bhushan.

 

Sanjay Nath
Co-founder & Managing Partner, Blume Ventures

Sanjay is a Co-founder & Managing Partner at Blume Ventures ( www.blumeventures.com ), which he and Karthik Reddy co founded in 2010. Blume has emerged as one of India's leading early-stage funds, having invested in over 50 startups since its inception.

Blume's portfolio includes Taxiforsure (acquired by Olacabs), Zipdial (acquired by Twitter), Qubecell (acquired by Boku), Grey Orange Pte Lte, Locus, Belong, Mettl, Webengage, Hotelogix, Exotel, and Carbon Clean Solutions amongst others. Many of Blume’s portfolio companies have secured follow-on financing from top tier global VCs including Tiger Global, Accel, Matrix, Bessemer, Cisco Ventures, to name a few.


Prior to Blume, Sanjay was also an active angel investor through Mumbai Angels. His angel investments include Inmobi, Appsdaily (formerly Onward Mobility), LittleEye Labs (acquired by Facebook), Tonbo Imaging and Svasti amongst others.

Sanjay’s experience spans the US and India, and ranges from management consulting (PwC and IBM Global Services), product marketing and operations (Sun Microsystems) and angel investing (thru Mumbai Angels). Most recently, prior to founding Blume, he co founded Loxodrome, a legal outsourcing company with dual-shore operations in San Francisco and Pune, India. Early in his career, Sanjay supported the growth of Kanbay (Nasdaq IPO in ’04), then acquired by Cap Gemini for $1.25BL in ‘06.

Sanjay has earned an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management and also holds an undergraduate major in Information Systems from BITS, Pilani. 

 

William Foster
VP, Moody’s Sovereign Risk Group

William (Bill) Foster is a Vice President-Senior Credit Officer in Moody's Sovereign Risk Group in New York, where he serves as lead analyst on the United States, Canada, India, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka and World Bank Group credits.

Bill joined Moody's in August 2016, following 10 years at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He most recently served as Senior Advisor for International Financial Markets based in New York, where he was the Office of International Affairs' first dedicated liaison to New York's international financial community. From August 2012 to March 2015, he served as the U.S. Financial Attaché to India at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, where he represented the U.S. Government as its primary economic expert and financial diplomat in India. Bill joined Treasury's Office of International Affairs as an international economist in 2006, and covered a wide range of geographies during his tenure, including Latin America, South and East Asia. Prior to joining Treasury, he worked as a management consultant at Accenture.

​Bill holds a Master of International Affairs degree in International Financial and Economic Policy from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and a BA from Wesleyan University. He is a member of The Economic Club of New York and an Industry Advisory Board Member for Columbia Business School's India Business Initiative. 

 

Deepak Ohri
CEO, Lebua Hotels and Resorts

Deepak Ohri is a name that has become synonymous across the globe with the ‘luxury experience’. By drawing on his unique vision of hospitality, which taps into a deeper level of exchange with guests in order to create a lasting emotional connection, Mr. Ohri has made lebua Hotels and Resorts a global luxury brand in just 14 years. He joined lebua at its inception in 2003 and has brought the vision of the brand to reality, expanding it across four continents. Under the lebua banner are several of the world’s finest five-star hotels and restaurants including Two Michelin-starred restaurant in Bangkok.

Before joining lebua, Mr. Ohri held operational roles and was an executive at leading hospitality businesses and hotels in India and Asia. Mr. Ohri, recognized globally as a visionary hospitality industry leader and luxury marketer, is a sought-after speaker at international conferences and top business schools worldwide.

​He is a three-time recipient of the Most Enterprising Entrepreneur Award (2008 to 2010) by the Hospitality Asia Platinum Awards and The Best in Asia: Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2011 to 2013), among others.

 

Kshitij Bhatia ('06)
Former Warburg Pincus

Kshitij Bhatia worked as a private equity investor with at Warburg Pincus in Mumbai from 2010 to 2017 and focused on investment activities in India. At Warburg Pincus, he led the build out of the financial services franchise, and evaluated investments across several sectors, including automotive, logistics and technology services.

Prior to joining Warburg Pincus, he worked as an investment banker at Lazard in New York from 2006 to 2010 where he focused on mergers and acquisitions as well as restructuring transactions in the technology, media and telecommunications sectors. Prior to that, he worked as a consultant with Deloitte Consulting in Cleveland from 1998 to 2004.

Mr. Bhatia holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi (1997) and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School (2006).

 

Musthafa PC
CEO & Co-founder, iD Fresh Food (India) Pvt. Ltd.​

Born in a remote village in Kerala to a coolie dad, Musthafa PC was a school dropout who later did his Engineering in Computer Science from NIT Calicut & MBA from IIM Bangalore.

During his childhood, breakfast was a luxury & three-time meal was a dream. He cofounded iD Fresh Food in 2006 with his cousins and currently employs 1500+ youngsters from rural India and is feeding millions with healthy idli and dosas and other fresh, preservative-free products on a daily basis.

Inspired by traditional Indian values iD promotes authentic Indian foods which are fresh, 100% natural and preservative-free. Today iD is a 1000 cr brand.

PC is driving the passion of all the five co-founders in building a unicorn fresh food company. The company’s latest marvel product, iD Squeeze-and-Fry Vada Batter has been applauded across the globe for its innovation and the video went viral.

PC has been lauded with many prestigious awards like India Today Make in India award, JCI National Award, Vocational Excellence Award, Entrepreneur India Award among others. He was invited to share his success story at Harvard Business School and MIT, Sloan this year. He is part of Indian Philanthropy Initiative & also works very closely with DIAV for the welfare of Army Martyr's kins. PC is also part of Prime Minister's “Champions of Change” team with a vision to build a new India by 2022. His idea of traffic system automation is part of “New India Synopsis”

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