Select Past Speakers

Amitabh Kant
CEO, Niti Aayog

Mr. Amitabh Kant is presently CEO of National Institution for Transforming India (NITI). He is a member of the Indian Administrative Service, IAS (Kerala Cadre: 1980 batch). He is the author of Branding India - An Incredible Story. Mr. Kant has been a key driver of the “Make in India”, Startup India, “Incredible India” and God’s Own Country” initiatives that positioned India and Kerala State as leading manufacturing and tourism destinations. In his capacity as Secretary (Industries) Govt. of India, Mr. Kant drove the Ease of Doing Business initiative and ranking of States on outcome parameters. He is the Chairman of the Committee to implement Digital Payment in India. Mr. Kant has been the recipient of Economic Time Policy Change Agent of the Year Award, the Bloomberg TV Personality of the year Award, the NDTV Administrator of the year Award and the Distinguished Fellowship of the Institute of Directors.  He is the recipient of One Globe Award-2016 for leadership in Transforming Governance for the 21st Century.  He is a Member of the Steering Board of “Shaping the Future of Production Systems” of World Economic Forum. He is also the recipient of Sir Edmund Hillary Fellowship award by the Prime Minister of New Zealand. He is also the recipient of Golden Peacock Award for leadership in Economic Transformation - 2017. Mr. Amitabh Kant did his schooling from Modern School, Delhi, graduation in Economics (Hons) from St. Stephens, Delhi University and M.A from Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is a Chevening Scholar. ​

 

Keki Mistry
Vice Chairman and CEO, HDFC

Keki Mistry is the Vice Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of HDFC Ltd. He is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). Besides being on the board of several HDFC Group companies including HDFC Bank, Mr. Mistry is also on the Board of other companies including Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, The Great Eastern Shipping Company Ltd., Torrent Power Ltd. and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
Some of Mr. Mistry’s recent recognitions include, being awarded the CFO India Hall of Fame by the CFO India magazine in 2012, being honoured with the ‘CA Business Achiever of the year’ award in the Financial Sector by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) in 2011, declared as the Best CFO in the Financial Services category by the ICAI for 2008, CNBC TV18’s Award for the ‘Best Performing CFO in the Financial Services Sector’ for three 2 consecutive year – 2006, 2007 & 2008 and CFO of the Year for 2008, selection as the ‘Best Investor Relations Officer’ in the Corporate Governance poll by Asiamoney (2008).

 

Sanjeev Bikhchandani
Founder, Indfo edge

Sanjeev is the Co-Founder of Naukri.com, 99acres.com, Jeevansathi.com, and an investor in promising start-ups like zomato, policybazaar.com, meritnation.com, etc. He along with his partner won the “Ernst and Young – Entrepreneur of the Year” award in 2008 for Business Transformation. He also won the Dataquest Pathbreaker Award & the Teacher’s Achievement Award for Business in the same year. Sanjeev has served as the President of the Delhi chapter of TiE [The Indus Entrepreneurs]. He has also served as a member of the Global Board of Trustees of TiE. He has served on the National Executive of FICCI and on the National Council of AIMA. He is the Chair of the Internet Council of NASSCOM. Sanjeev is also a founding trustee of Ashoka University and a member of the Board of Chintan - a not for profit organization that works with waste pickers in Delhi.
​​

 

 

Sumant Sinha
Chairman and Managing Director, ReNew Power

Sumant Sinha is the Chairman and Managing Director of ReNew Power – India’s largest clean energy company. After being in leadership roles with large global corporations, Sumant quit a successful corporate career to follow his desire of being an entrepreneur and making a contribution to climate change mitigation. Sumant is a passionate advocate for solutions related to climate change through the intersection of business and public policy. As an expert on economic policy & climate change, Sumant speaks extensively at global platforms, such as the World Economic Forum at Davos and thought leadership events organized by FT, Goldman Sachs, Fortune, Boao, Observer Research Foundation and top global universities. Sumant is a sought after columnist and commentator. He has authored more than 100 articles and has been featured in leading global and Indian publications.

​Starting his career as an investment banker in the US and UK with leading global banks such as Citibank and ING Barings, Sumant returned to India in 2002 and has held senior leadership positions in large companies, such as the Group Chief Financial Officer of the Aditya Birla Group, one of India’s largest business groups; Founder & CEO of Aditya Birla Retail; and Chief Operating Officer of Suzlon, India’s leading wind turbine company.

 

 

Dr. Viral V. Acharya 
Former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI)​

Dr. Viral V. Acharya is the former Deputy Governor at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in charge of Monetary Policy, Financial Stability, Financial Markets Operations and Regulation, Research and Statistics, and Human Resource Management.

Prior to joining the RBI, he was the C V Starr Professor of Economics at the Department of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business. His primary research interest is in theoretical and empirical analysis of systemic risk of the financial sector, its regulation and its genesis in government-induced distortions.

He has co-edited the books Restoring Financial Stability: How to Repair a Failed System, John Wiley & Sons, March 2009, Regulating Wall Street: The Dodd-Frank Act and the New Architecture of Global Finance, John Wiley & Sons, November 2010, and Dodd-Frank: One Year On, NYU-Stern and CEPR (released on voxeu.org), July 2011. He is also the co-author of the book Guaranteed to Fail: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Debacle of Mortgage Finance, Princeton University Press, March 2011 and Harper Collins (India), June 2011.

He is the recipient of the inaugural Banque de France – Toulouse School of Economics Junior Prize in Monetary Economics and Finance in 2011, and the 2017 Alexandre Lamfalussy Senior Research Fellowship of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

 

 

Sanjeev Sanyal 
Principal Economic Advisor, Government of India ​

Sanjeev Sanyal is the Principal Economic Advisor to the Government of India.  An internationally acclaimed economist and best-selling author, he spent two decades in the financial sector and was Global Strategist & Managing Director at Deutsche Bank till 2015. He was named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2010. He is also a well-known environmentalist and urban theorist. In 2007, he was awarded the Eisenhower Fellowship for his work on urban dynamics. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University, Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore and a Senior Fellow of the World Wide Fund for Nature. He has also served on the Future City Sub-Committee of the Singapore government tasked with building a long-term vision for the city-state. 

Sanjeev attended Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi and Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar (1992-95). His best-selling books include Land of the Seven Rivers, The Indian Renaissance and The Ocean of Churn, all published by Penguin. In addition, he had published around 200 articles, columns and reports in leading national/international publications. He was given the inaugural International Indian Achievers Award for contributions to Literature in 2014. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, London and a Visiting Fellow of IDFC Institute, Mumbai.

 

 

Ram Madhav
National General Secretary, BJP​

Mr. Ram Madhav is the National General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Director of the India Foundation. India Foundation is an independent think tank focused on the issues, challenges, and opportunities of the Indian polity. Mr. Madhav has also held the positions of being the national executive member and the spokesperson of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS); in this capacity, he held the interface between the RSS, media and the intelligentsia. 

Mr. Madhav has been a journalist for more than 30 years and is the author of several books. In view of the 50 years of the 1962 war between India & China, Mr. Madhav authored and brought out 'Uneasy Neighbours.' He has also extensively traveled to more than 29 countries to interact with the leadership, academia and important think tanks.​

 

Doug Peterson
President & CEO, S&P Global

Douglas L. Peterson was elected President and Chief Executive Officer of S&P Global, effective November 2013, and he joined the Company in September 2011 as President of Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. Previously, Mr. Peterson was the Chief Operating Officer of Citibank, N.A., Citigroup’s principal banking entity that operates in more than 100 countries.

S&P Global is a leading provider of transparent and independent ratings, benchmarks, analytics and data to the capital and commodity markets worldwide. The Company’s divisions include S&P Global Ratings, S&P Global Market Intelligence, S&P Dow Jones Indices and S&P Global Platts.

Mr. Peterson was with Citigroup for 26 years, during which time he led diversified businesses in investment and corporate banking, brokerage, asset management, private equity and retail banking. His prior roles include CEO of Citigroup Japan, Chief Auditor of Citigroup, and Country Manager for Costa Rica and Uruguay.

Mr. Peterson is a Steward of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Shaping the Future of Long-Term Investing, Infrastructure and Development System and a member of WEF’s Financial Services Governors Community. He serves on the Advisory Boards of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee, the US-China Business Council, the Partnership for New York City and the Kravis Leadership Institute, and the Boards of Trustees of Claremont McKenna College and the Paul Taylor Dance Company.

Mr. Peterson received an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an undergraduate degree in mathematics and history from Claremont McKenna College.

 

Anupam Kher
Actor and Former Chairman of Film and Television Institute​

Anupam Kher is an Indian actor and the former Chairman of Film and Television Institute of India. He passed out from the National School of Drama with a Gold Medal in Acting and has acted in over 500 films and 100 plays in under 35 years.

Mr. Kher started his glorious career on the silver screen with National award-winning roles in films such as Saaransh and Daddy. He carried forward his golden streak in blockbuster films like Karma, Lamhe, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Maine Gandhi Ko Nahi Maara, Hum Aapke Hai Kaun, Khosla Ka Ghosla, A Wednesday, Special 26, Baby, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo and M.S. Dhoni – The Untold Story to name a few.

Mr. Kher has featured in mainstream Hollywood films such as Silver Linings Playbook, Hotel Mumbai, The Big Sick, and The Family Man and has worked with directors such as Ang Lee, David O Russell, Woody Allen, Gurinder Chaddha and The Wachowskis. He has also been nominated for the prestigious BAFTA Awards for his role in the BBC TV Film “The Boy with the Top Knot.” He has featured in both the seasons of the hit TV show Sense 8 and is one of the lead actors on the recently premiered hit TV show New Amsterdam on NBC Entertainment Channel.

Mr. Kher was chairman of the Film Certification Board and National School of Drama and is the current chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). He was conferred with the Padma Shree and Padma Bhushan National awards for his contribution to Cinema. 

Mr. Kher established one of the world’s finest acting schools ACTOR PREPARES in 2005 and ANUPAM KHER FOUNDATION in 2008 to spread education to less privileged children. Mr. Kher was appointed UN Ambassador for HeForShe campaign in 2015 which strives for gender equality. He also authored a best-selling inspirational  book The Best Thing About You Is You which has been translated in 6 languages and is in its 20th edition.

 

Vivek Pandit
Global Private Equity Lead, McKinsey​

Vivek currently co-leads McKinsey’s Private Equity & Principal Investor Practice globally, Serving the world’s leading investors and shareholders on investment strategy, operations, origination, transformations, and exits. Among shareholders, Vivek serves family-owned businesses, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and private equity funds. Prior Vivek led our Telecommunications, Media and Technology Practice.

Vivek’s recent research focuses on the role of private equity in economic development, sustainability and social impact investing, and private equity strategies that improve shareholder return and persistence.

Vivek serves as a trustee of the Aspen Institute India, St. Jude’s Cancer Care Centres, the Board of Governors of The Doon School and an Advisor to Social Finance India (India Education Opportunities Fund).

Vivek joined McKinsey in New York in 2000, where he was elected a Partner. He has worked in offices across North America, Europe, Japan, and India.

 

Melissa Frakman
Founder & Managing Partner, Emphasis Ventures (EMVC)

Melissa Frakman is founder & managing partner of Emphasis Ventures (EMVC), a venture capital fund investing in early-stage “leapfrog” fintech in India and other high-growth markets. She brings 15 years of experience participating in India’s digital revolution to bridge worlds for entrepreneurs and companies.

Named on the “Global Fintech PowerList” by Innovate Finance, Frakman has led Asia early stage investments, supported new market strategy, and built partnerships worth over $1 billion for 15 of the Fortune 100 companies and 2 pension funds, including in digital payments, capital markets, blockchain, and retail asset management.

She has been an advisor to companies including Amazon and Remitly as well as a guest lecturer on India’s financial sector at Harvard Business School, Cornell Johnson School of Management, New York University Stern School of Business, and Copenhagen Business School. Frakman’s additional prior roles include Vice President of Operations for ecommerce unicorn Zomato, India Senior Director at Albright Stonebridge Group, International Business Lead for Sabre Systems Inc., microfinance lending in New Delhi, and Financial Services Director of the US-India Business Council where she founded and led the Electronic Payments and Asset Management Working Groups to convene stakeholders—including collaborating with private sectors and both governments—toward what’s now India’s operational digital finance policy.

Frakman studied at Columbia University, Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad, and City University of New York where she received the Ward Medal for economics. She has received leadership fellowships from the Colin Powell Center, Legatum Institute, and Oxfam International. Frakman serves as a mentor to accelerators including Techstars India, Zone Startups, Village Capital, and 1776. In her spare time, she is involved in supporting music and performing arts organizations. She is based in Washington, DC and Mumbai.

 

Sanjay Jha
National Spokesperson, Indian National Congress​

Sanjay Jha is the Executive Director of the world-famous Dale Carnegie Training operations in India, which has a global experience of having worked with over 400 of the Top Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Jha is also the National Spokesperson of the Indian National Congress Party since 2013 and represents his political party in TV debates and panel discussions. He is the President of All India Professionals Congress, Maharashtra.

Sanjay has been a TEDx Speaker and has addressed enlightened audiences at Dell, ICICI Pru, IBM, Axis Bank, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Oracle, British Gas, Brookings, The Doon School, Toastmaster, St. Xavier’s College, Dainik Bhaskar, Crompton Greaves, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Bajaj Electricals, SHRM, United Nations Young Achiever’s Conclave, SRCC, IIT, Standard Chartered, Tata Motors, CII, IMC, Venture Capital Association, NHRD, Apple, Bharat Petroleum, Citibank, Mahindra & Mahindra etc. He is also a regular contributor to the Huffington Post, National Herald and the Daily O of the India Today Group.  He is one of India’s top influencers on social media like Twitter.

He has founded one of the world’s leading internet portals called CricketNext.Com which is now part of the Network 18 media Group, owned by Reliance Industries.

Prior to starting Dale Carnegie, Sanjay worked with ITC Threadneedle Asset Management (part of BAT plc, UK), Alliance Capital (New York, USA), Bank of America and ANZ Grindlays Bank.

Jha completed his MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur and his Master’s in Economics from Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, University of Pune. He graduated with distinction in Economics from Fergusson College, Pune.

Sanjay has also written a cricket anthology titled 11—Triumphs, Trials and Turbulence in Indian cricket.  Jha has recently authored a book on leadership called The Superstar Syndrome (The Making Of A Champion), co-authored with Dr. Myra White, who is a Professor at the Harvard Medical School. This book was launched in August 2013 and featured in the Crossword Bestseller list.

 

Prof. Raju Narisetti
Founder, Mint and Former CEO, Gizmodo Media

Raju Narisetti is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University's School of Journalism, and also the Director of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowships in Economics and Business Journalism.

Previously, he was CEO of Gizmodo Media Group, a group  of digital journalism sites that included Gizmodo, Jezebel, Deadspin, Lifehacker, and The Root. A media executive with a track record in creating, rethinking and managing major media organizations  in North America, Europe and Asia, Raju was previously Senior Vice-President of Strategy at News Corp. Prior to that, he was Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, where he is responsible for WSJ's digital / mobile content strategy and execution;  the Managing Editor of The Washington Post, where he led the integration of its digital and print businesses;  the Editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe; and the Founder of Mint, the second-largest business newspaper in India.

​Raju is a Board Trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation, which manages Wikipedia; on the National Advisory Council of The Democracy Fund; and a board member of EdSurge. His home is in New York City though he is often found, rather plainspoken, @raju

 

Ronit Avni
CEO & Founder, Localized

Born in Montreal, Ronit Avni is a tech and media entrepreneur and Peabody award-winning producer. She is the founder and CEO of Localized, a platform that connects students and recent graduates from emerging markets to global professionals who share language, culture and roots –drawing on diaspora networks--as well as to employers looking to hire talent in growth markets. Localized serves business and engineering students from Tunis to Bangalore. Localized was a finalist for the 2018 Next Billion Prize at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, overseen by the Editor-at-Large of TechCrunch. Ronit was named a “2018 Power Woman in Tech” by DCA Live.

Previously, Ronit founded and led the media organization Just Vision, which creates documentary films, news analysis and public education campaigns in the Middle East and North America. She has won dozens of media prizes globally, including the Puma Creative Impact Award, and her team’s work was featured in nearly every major news outlet and viewed by tens of millions of people on TV, online and in influential settings from TED to the United Nations.

Named a Young Global Leader through the World Economic Forum in 2009, a 2018 Halcyon Fellow and a Trailblazer Award recipient from the National Council for Research on Women, Ronit sits on the jury of the MacArthur Foundation’s 100 & Change Competition and the Global Teacher Prize.

Ronit began her career at WITNESS.org, which advises activists and technology companies on the ethical and strategic uses of video and digital technology for social impact. She now sits on the WITNESS Advisory Council.​​

 

Ritija Gupta
Nationally-Renowned Storyteller & Performer​​

Ritija Gupta is a nationally-renowned storyteller and performer who has toured with the Peabody-award winning storytelling organization, the Moth, and has performed at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem, the Avalon Theater in LA, and the Lincoln Theater in DC among many others. Her work has also appeared at the Second City in Chicago, as well as on Upworthy and the Risk! podcast, which receives over 2 million downloads a month. Most recently, she has been awarded multiple fellowships and grants from institutions such as the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for her artistic contributions, and has expanded her work into print, with a recent feature in Slate. 

In 2018, after nearly two decades as a strategy and innovation consultant where she was most recently a Vice President of Client Solutions at digital healthcare company Babyscripts, she started performing and working as a communications consultant full time. In the past year, she's coached nearly 100 people from American Express, CNN, Google, Refinery29, the WWE, various private equity and asset management firms, and startups.

Ms. Gupta received her MBA from Columbia Business School, her MPP from Georgetown University, and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago. She sits on the board of Columbia University in Washington DC.​

 

William Foster
VP, Moody’s Sovereign Risk Group & Former Financial Diplomat, India​

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, and World Bank Group credits. He is also member of the Moody’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Cyber Risk working groups. 

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. ​

 

Mayuri Ghosh
Head of Strategic Initiatives, World Economic Forum​​

Mayuri has a diverse work experience of over 15 years across private and public sectors in different leadership roles across geographies. Mayuri started her career in India at Computer Sciences Corporation (now DXC Technology), in the Information Technology industry. Given her commitment to social causes, she was also the Chairperson of the employee-lead Corporate Social Responsibility division – this being the first time the company had stepped into the CSR space. After her MBA, Mayuri worked at India’s diversified conglomerate, ITC Ltd. managing their Children’s Education and Stationery Products business in different states of India, with responsibilities for both urban and rural markets (in Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Karnataka). She also led the division’s triple bottom-line effort on “Wealth out of Waste” to move towards recycling for paper products.

Moving to the USA in 2009, during and after her Master in International Affairs, to gain experience Mayuri did a variety of consulting assignments with the UNDP, UNICEF, an education-focused NGO in Turkey, and the Governments of Suriname on ICT for development of health and education, and Government of Kazakhstan on the national innovation policy framework for the country. She then worked at Columbia University’s Earth Institute focusing on sustainable development issues. Mayuri joined the World Economic Forum in 2012, and has been contributing strongly and driving the work of the Consumer, Retail and E-Commerce Industries. The crux of her work at the Forum is to develop long-term thought leadership in strategic areas - such as fast-growth consumer markets (India, China), digital transformation, new business models, sustainability, and future of jobs and skills – and create both business and social impact. In the last 7 years at the Forum, she has been a strong partner to key constituents from businesses across sectors and countries as well as to non-business constituents, and led flagship initiatives which deliver strong strategic foresight and content.

​Mayuri holds four degrees: Bachelor of Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology Mesra, MBA from Symbiosis International University and a Master in International Affairs from Columbia University in New York. She also holds a Master of Global Leadership having graduated from the Fellows program of the World Economic Forum undergoing executive education modules at Harvard, Wharton, INSEAD, London Business School and China-Europe International Business School.

 

Venktesh Shukla
General Partner, Monta Vista Capital & Former Chairman, TiE Global​

As past President of TiE Silicon Valley and Chairman of TiE Global, Shukla presided over one of the most powerful networks focused on technology, innovation and entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley and beyond. TiE, with 61 chapters across 18 countries, exists to promote wealth creation through entrepreneurship, and its membership includes the entire ecosystem of entrepreneurship – VCs, successful entrepreneurs, senior executives in public companies as well as budding entrepreneurs.  

Shukla hosted Prime Minister Modi during his visit to Silicon Valley for Digital India Dinner as well as for Indo US Start UpKonnect. He also worked closely with Mr Amitabh Kant, then Secretary, DIPP to provide critical inputs for Prime Minister’s Start Up India initiative. He was invited as a special guest of the government at the launch ceremony of Start Up India by the PM. He has also worked with a number of state governments in India to help craft their policies on start ups as well as to host them during their visits to Silicon Valley. 

Shukla is currently General Partner of an early stage venture fund called Monta Vista Capital that invests in companies that  leverage AI/ML, block chain and self driving systems to transform industries. Portfolio of previous fund included companies solving problems in big data, hybrid cloud, cyber security for preventing data theft and bot attacks, digital marketing, power consumption in mobile and IOT devices, automated support through AI bots, etc.

Shukla is currently trustee of Foundation for Excellence India Trust (www.ffe.org). He was its founding President for the first 18 years of this organization that has provided scholarship to over 17,000 talented but needy students and enabled them to become engineers and doctors in India. FFE is consistently rated among the top NGOs in India by rating organizations.

He holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and a B.E in Electronics Engineering from NIT Bhopal

 

B. Amrish Rau
CEO, PayU India & Co-founder, Citrus Payments

As the CEO of PayU India, India’s leading digital payment solution providers, B. Amrish Rau is at the forefront of driving digital transformations in the Indian financial services space.

Amrish was the co-promoter and Managing Director of Citrus Pay, a leading consumer payments company, working to simplify payments for online merchants and consumers. Upon Citrus Pay’s acquisition by PayU, Amrish came on board as the CEO and reported directly to Global CEO, Laurent ​le Moal. Amrish has played a pivotal role in leveraging technology to disrupt the fast evolving payments industry and provide differentiated, contextual and experiential solutions.

Holding Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Amrish has previously essayed leadership roles at several noteworthy organizations, extending top-notch payment solutions.  Working as the General Manager of ASEAN Region in NCR Corporation, Rau went on to serve as the Vice President and Country Manager of First Data Corporation, one amongst the largest electronic payment services companies in India. Owing to his grit and professional expertise, Rau grew to become CEO of the organization, overlooking First Data Merchant Solutions in Asia.

With his deep knowledge of internet payments and products, he worked to enable secure payments anytime, anywhere and any way for thousands of online businesses. He founded and led as the MD for ICICI Merchant Services (a JV between FDC and ICICI Bank).

He brings a wealth of experience, having worked with large banks to implement payments and delivery channel strategies and improve their customer acquisition practices. Rau has worked closely with Indian telecom service providers to improve their business intelligence infrastructure and drive higher ROI through pro-active churn management and reduced revenue leakages.

 

Maninder Gulati
Chief Strategy Officer, OYO

Maninder Gulati is the Chief Strategy Officer at OYO, world’s fastest growing hospitality chain with presence in India, China and several other international markets.

Maninder has been a part of OYO since 2013 when OYO was in its cradle with just 1 hotel in Gurgaon. OYO was Maninder's first investment when he was a part of Lightspeed Venture Partners. After playing an investor’s role for 2 years and helping Ritesh build the OYO leadership team, Maninder joined OYO full time in 2015.

Prior to OYO, Maninder was Principal at Lightspeed Venture Partners, a globally renowned venture capital firm. Earlier in his career, he worked with McKinsey & Company on several growth strategy and implementation engagements across sectors including financial services, organized retail, digital music and data centers.

He started his career in June 2003 with ITC Limited, India’s largest FMCG company, and worked across tobacco and personal care businesses.
Maninder also co-founded Lifeinlines.com, a voice-based platform that allows users to create a digital diary of their life.Maninder actively invests in early stage start-ups and his portfolio includes Meesho, Shuttl, Bombay shaving company, Baby chakra, Kapiva among others. Maninder is an MBA in Strategy & Leadership from ISB, and a graduate from IIT Bombay.

 

BV Jagadeesh
Managing Partner, KAAJ Ventures & Former CEO, NetScaler​

BV Jagadeesh is Managing Partner at KAAJ Ventures. He has successfully invested and guided companies such as Nutanix (IPO), Yodlee (IPO), Arkin (acqd: VMWare), NetMagic Solutions - India (acqd: NTT ) to name a few.

Before founding KAAJ, BV Jagadeesh served as a founding investor and CEO of NetScaler. NetScaler pioneered the concept of Application Delivery and was successfully sold to Citrix for $325M and served as Group VP and GM for Citrix's Application Networking division. Prior to Netscaler, he co-founded and served as CTO of Exodus communications in 1993 that pioneered the concept of Internet data centers. He was instrumental in the successful IPO of Exodus in 1998.

Currently Jagadeesh is an active investor and serves on the board of several SiliconValley and India based StartUPs. He is also an adjunct faculty at the Leavey School of Business, SCU and teaches at IIT Gandhinagar, India.

Jagadeesh is also very actively involved with several non profits for the betterment of the world such as UVCE Foundation - providing scholarships to deserving students, One School At A Time - Constructs School buildings for the under privileged, Akshaya Patra - providing mid day meals to 1.7 Million children everyday and few others. 

 

Mukul Gulati '05
Managing Partner, ​Zephyr Peacock India​

Mukul is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Zephyr Peacock India and is responsible for the overall leadership of the Zephyr Peacock Funds. Mukul has over 20 years of experience in the investment business including private equity, investment research and general management.

Previously, Mukul worked at Multex where he was involved in setting up and managing the firm’s quantitative equity research business. Mukul is a member of Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) and serves on the Asia Council of Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA).

Mukul has an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and is a cum laude graduate from University of Maryland with a degree in economics.

 

Ankur Jain
Founder & CEO, Bira 91​

Ankur Jain is the Founder and CEO of B9 Beverages, the maker of Bira 91 beers. Born in New Delhi to an architect-urban planner father and an author-interior designer mother, Ankur is a serial entrepreneur who moved to the United States in 1998. He completed his Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. After a brief stint at Motorola, Ankur co-founded a healthcare revenue management firm in New York City that later sold to a large healthcare provider network in 2007. More importantly, during his time in New York, his start up was down the street from Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg, which is where he spent many-a-Friday-afternoons sampling some of the most ingenious and extreme beers on the planet. He then took a trip to Belgium backpacking to villages and sampling some of the most heavenly beers in local breweries still run by families that had owned them for generations. Inspired by the American entrepreneurship in craft beer and the love of traditional beer in Belgium, he decided that it was time for a craft beer brand “Imagined in India” for the urban, millennial consumer and created Bira 91.

Bira 91 launched in early 2015 with its flavorful portfolio of essential beers and its playful monkey mascot. The brand quickly went viral in India becoming the largest draft brand in the country and gaining leadership in the premium segment in its active markets. In 2017, Bira 91 leaped across to New York City to begin its campaign in the United States. And in 2018, the brand started on its wider expansion in the Asia Pacific market by entering Singapore. In less than three years, Bira 91 is now in the top 25 craft beer brands worldwide by sales volume and the fastest growing beer brand in the world (growing 5x in 2017). 

Ankur is a Fellow of the Disruptive Innovation Foundation, New York, and was included in Fortune’s “Top 40 Under 40” in 2016, 2017 and 2018, as well as GQ India’s “50 Most Influential Young Indian Innovators” in 2016. Ankur is a fan of hip hop (everything around ’91), loves his food hot and spicy and enjoys cooking for his wife on the weekends to make up for all the extra beer he drinks!

 

Sashi Reddi
Founder and Managing Partner, SRI Capital

Sashi Reddi is a successful technology entrepreneur, business leader, and early stage investor. Sashi runs an early stage venture capital fund, SRI Capital, that is typically the first institutional investor in various technology start-ups in both the US and in India.

Previously, Sashi was the founder and CEO of AppLabs, the world’s largest independent software testing company with over 2,500 QA professionals in India, the US, and the UK. AppLabs was funded by Westbridge Capital (Sequoia Capital India). CSC acquired AppLabs in September 2011. Post the acquisition of AppLabs by CSC, Sashi served as the VP & GM, Big Data and Analytics at CSC, reporting directly to the CEO.

A serial entrepreneur, Sashi has started three other companies prior to AppLabs.  These were EZPower Systems (web content management pioneer acquired by DocuCorp, and eventually a part of Oracle), iCoop (group purchasing dotcom), and FXLabs (leading Indian game developer acquired by Foundation 9 Entertainment).

Sashi received his BTech in Computer Science from the IIT Delhi, an MS in Computer Science from NYU, and later a PhD from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Sashi is the founding president of TiE Philadelphia. He also serves on the advisory board of Wharton Entrepreneurship, as well as on the board of T-Hub, India’s largest incubator for start-ups. Sashi was appointed by the US State Department to the board of US India Science and Technology Endowment Fund (USISTEF) that grants money to social impact startups. Sashi runs a charitable organization, SRI Trust, that supports the educational and overall development needs of 650 children in 3 schools in Hyderabad, India.

 

Arun Malhotra
Former MD, Nissan India

Arun Malhotra has done MBA from IIM-Kolkatta in 1983 and since then has managed numerous assignments and roles in leading automobile companies the last being MD of Nissan India. Presently, he is an industry consultant, board member, corporate speaker and visiting faculty in prominent business schools.

He became a part of the automotive industry when it was at a very nascent stage in India. Over the past 3 decades, he has contributed to the establishment and growth of the Indian automotive industry. He has worked with Bajaj Auto, Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra in the past.

During the last three decades, he has traveled through the length and breadth of the country and has an in-depth knowledge of the Indian market. He has been deeply involved in areas such as sales & after sales, brand building, strategic marketing, customer-centric initiatives, retail network expansion and development, rural marketing as well as formulating strategies for growth.

He was a member of the Executive Committee of SIAM (Society of Automobile Manufacturers)  the apex body of the auto industry in India and was Chairman of Auto Expo 2018 (one of the top 5 Motor Shows internationally). He is also an independent director in the board of a reputed auto ancillary company Lumax Auto Technologies.

 

Saurabh Arora '12
CEO & Founder, Lybrate

Saurabh Arora is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lybrate, India’s first and largest online doctor consultation platform. With Lybrate, Saurabh is striving to make healthcare accessible in India and bridge the demand-supply gap of healthcare experts by seamlessly connecting doctors and patients with the help of technology and letting them communicate using mobile phones.

Saurabh brings huge entrepreneurial product experience to the venture. Prior to founding Lybrate, Saurabh worked with Facebook Inc in the United States where he connected SMEs and large advertisers to their customers using Facebook Ads

While working with Facebook, Saurabh decided to come back to India and fix the fundamental issue that plagued the Indian healthcare, which is inaccessibility of doctors. He noticed that people were blindly relying on chemists, who were not even qualified to prescribe medicines, for fixing their health problems. The thought of the situation being much grave in tier 2 and 3 cities, and the conviction to find out a solution, prompted Saurabh to incorporate Lybrate, where he connected patients to doctors much in the same way he connected SMEs and large advertisers to their customers using Facebook Ads in Facebook.

Lybrate provides people the opportunity to consult doctors from anywhere, anytime and bridges effectively the yawning demand-supply gap of healthcare experts in the country. With a strong network of more than 100,000 doctors from across India, Lybrate acts as the world’s largest online Out Patient Department (OPD).

Saurabh is an MBA from Columbia Business School. He pursued his Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from the country’s premier Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi.

 

Ashwini Tewari
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, Washington DC and Sao Paulo (Brazil). He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering (Electrical), is a CFPCM ​certificant, and ACAMS certified.

He is a career banker with over 27 years’ experience with State Bank of India in India and outside. Having joined as a directly recruited officer in 1991, Mr. Tewari has expertise in driving business, administration and HR. He has handled assignments in diverse areas of Credit, International Banking and Retail Banking, including Business Process Re-engineering. He was involved in the Bank technology upgrades in Core Banking and Internet Banking platforms and acquisitions of a new Trade platform.

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.

 

Prof. M Suresh Sundaresan
Director, India Business Initiative (IBI)

Suresh Sundaresan is the Chase Manhattan Bank Foundation Professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia University. He has published in the areas of Treasury auctions, bidding, default risk, habit formation, term structure of interest rates, asset pricing, investment theory, pension asset allocation, swaps, options, forwards, futures, fixed-income securities markets and risk management. His research papers have appeared in major journals such as the Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Business, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, European Economic Review, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Political Economy, etc. He has also contributed articles in Financial Times, and World Bank Conferences. 

His current research focus is on default risk and how its affects asset pricing and sovereign debt securities. He has worked as a senior strategist at Lehman Brothers in their Fixed Income Division during 1986-1987. He has consulted full time for Morgan Stanley Asset Management during 2000-2001. His consulting work focuses on term structure models, swap pricing models, credit risk models, valuation, and risk management. He has conducted training programs for leading investment banks including, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, CSFB and Lehman Brothers. He is the author of the text "Fixed-Income Markets and Their Derivatives." 

He has served on the Treasury Bond Markets Advisory Committee. He was the resident scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York during 2006. Suresh Sundaresan has testified before the United States Congress on the transparency of Corporate Bond Markets. His current research work focuses on corporate bankruptcy, design of bankruptcy code, the role of collateral in interest rate swaps, and the role of central bank in providing liquidity to private capital markets. 

 

Jaideep Ghosh '18
Partner and COO, KPMG Management Consulting, India 

Jaideep Ghosh is a Partner with KPMG in India, wherein he has held multiple senior roles such as National Industry Sector head and Chief Operating Officer.

He has significant consulting experience for clients from India, Africa, Australia, Europe, Middle East, North Asia and South East Asia over last two decades. Jaideep is widely covered in Indian and international electronic and print media.

​Jaideep is an alumni of Columbia Business School, New York. He has done Advanced Operations Strategy Program at the Harvard Business School. Further, he is a Post Graduate in Management from Indian Institute of Management Lucknow and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering.

 

Ted Pulling
Advisor, Kora Capital & Former CIO, JP Morgan Asia​

Ted is the Senior Advisor at Kora Management, a global emerging markets investment fund.

Kora invests with leading entrepreneurs and businesses in emerging markets, making concentrated, long-term equity investments in five key clusters: Niche Financials, Emerging Internet, Connectivity, Brands & Retail, and Industrials. Headquartered in New York with local research teams in São Paulo, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Moscow, Kora conducts extensive primary-source research on its companies and clusters. 

Prior to joining Kora in 2017, Ted spent 26 years living in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand. He was a fund manager with J.P. Morgan Asset Management in Hong Kong, where he led the India business before becoming the chief investment officer of J.P. Morgan Asset Management Asia-Pacific.

Prior to that, Ted spent a year as vice president of institutional sales with Goldman Sachs in Singapore, focusing on the Thai, Indonesian and Indian markets. Before joining Goldman Sachs he spent five years at W.I. Carr.

Ted graduated from Princeton University in 1989 with a BA in History.