Ex-CFO, Infosys

TV Mohandas Pai

Mr. Pai is a Padma Shri Awardee and former CFO and Board Member at Infosys. He works actively with government and regulators on policy recommendations and guidelines. He has emerged as one of India’s most prolific angel investors. He also runs a private fund Aarin Capital along with Manipal group CEO Ranjan Pai.

Founder Chairman & Managing Director IDG Ventures India

Sudhir Sethi

Industry Director, Google India

Vikas Agnihotri

Vikas Agnihotri is the Industry Director for Auto, BFSI, CPG, Telecom, Travel, Media & Entertainment verticals for Google India. In this role, Vikas has been leading high performing teams in consultative sales skills and partnering clients to understand their needs and deliver measurable solutions through the web. He has been with Google since June 2011.

With over 20 years of experience across banking, financial services and advertising, Vikas has held several leadership positions at Religare Macquarie Wealth Management, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and ANZ Grindlays.

Vikas currently resides in Mumbai and during his free time, Vikas enjoys reading, cycling and traveling.

Co-founder and Governing Council Member iSPIRT Foundation

Sharad Sharma

Sharad Sharma started his career in software 30 years back. Ever since, he has held various positions in several companies and has emerged as an evangelist for technology based startups. At present he is an orbit change catalyst who helps big and small companies grow by finding out key areas where they need to improve. He is co-founder of Tetlier, (part of Cisco) iSpirit Foundation and BrandSigma inc. He is passionate about the software product ecosystem in India. As an angel investor he has invested in more than 20 companies and therefore is a common name in the startup world. In fact, iSpirit was born as a thinktank for the software product industry.

Secretary IT&C and Planning, Govt Of Rajasthan

Akhil Arora

Working as Secretary to Government of Rajasthan as Secretary IT&C and Planning since December 2013. Is an IAS Officer of 1993 Batch.

CEO & Promoter Director, Everest Flavours Ltd.

Anand Ladsariya

A first generation entrepreneur,Anand Ladsariya, is the CEO and promoter director of Everest Flavours Ltd., a privately owned company, manufacturer and exporter of Menthol, Peppermint Oil, flavours and fragrances. He is ex-Chairman of CHEMEXCIL, a premium export promotion organisation established by Ministry of Commerce, Govt. of India, for promotion of exports. He is also an active Angel Investor with both Mumbai Angels and Indian Angel Network. He has invested in over 50+ startups and actively mentors and guides the founders. He was also part of the Planning Commission’s “Committee on Angel Investment and Early Stage Venture Capital”, guided by the Vice Chairman of Planning Commission.

Senior Associate Dean, Professor

Al Osborne Jr.

Alfred E. Osborne, Jr. is Senior Associate Dean of UCLA Anderson. In this role, he oversees a variety of key areas and initiatives within the school, including resource development, alumni relations, corporate initiatives, marketing and communications and executive education. He is also Professor of Global Economics, Management and Entrepreneurship and founder and faculty director of the Harold and Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at UCLA Anderson School of Management. The Price Center serves to organize faculty research, curricula and student activities related to the study of entrepreneurship and new business development at UCLA Anderson.

A corporate governance expert, Dr. Osborne formed a Director Education and Certification Program designed to help officers and directors of public, private and not-for-profit organizations prepare for the fiduciary duties and legal responsibilities of governance. Dr. Osborne currently serves as a director of Kaiser Aluminum and Nuverra Environmental Solutions, Inc., Wedbush, Inc., and First Pacific Advisors (FPA) Family of Mutual Funds. Dr. Osborne’s current non-profit affiliations include serving as the trustee of Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, the Harvard Westlake School, and the Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation. He has served many years on the corporate boards of Times Mirror Company, US Filter Corporation, Greyhound Lines, Inc., First Interstate Bank of California, Nordstrom, Inc. and K2, Inc., among others. He has served as an economic fellow at the Brookings Institution and directed studies at the SEC that contributed to changes in Rule 144, Regulation D, and other exemptive requirements to the securities laws designed to lower costs and improve liquidity and capital market access to venture capitalists and emerging growth firms alike.
Dr. Osborne’s research interests include venture capital and private equity, family and closely-held business, and the role of the board of directors in private, public and not-for-profit organizations. He remains active in the entrepreneurial and venture development community, has served on the editorial boards of several journals, and consults with growing companies and non-profit organizations on business and economic matters.

MD and Partner, Sistema Asia Fund

Kirill (Kyril) Kozhevnikov

Kirill is a Managing Director and Partner in Sistema Asia Fund (SAF), a proprietary fund of a Russian conglomerate Sistema. Kirill has co-developed the idea of the fund, launched SAF’s operations in late 2015, and led 2 first deals – Seclore and Qwikcilver – in 2016. Prior to Sistema for 5 years he was managing multiple VC deals in Russia as a Venture Partner in European fund and as a Chief Investment Officer in sovereign nanotechnology fund. Kirill started his career with 2 years in PwC, and moved to investment banking where he was doing M&A deals and corporate finance advisory for 7 years. Kirill has a Master degree in Engineering and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He also serves as Board Member in Seclore and Qwikcilver.

Head of Innovation at Telia Company

Rickard Damm

Rickard Damm is a highly talented and accomplished management expert. He is currently Head of Innovation at Telia Company. His is an Eisenhower Fellow, one of Sweden’s 101 Top Supertalents, author and tech geek. He loves learning new technologies and leads product development. His core work and interest areas are Strategic Business Development, Product Development and Product Management, Strategic Investment analysis, leading technical and commercial due diligence, organizational design, innovation management, financial modelling and strategic planning. He has helped conceptualise and launch new products in the domains of Digital Identities, Digital Payments, Cloud, Mobile Advertising, Streaming Music, Mobile TV, CDN, Location Based Services, Managed Services, Hosting etc. He is a sought-after speaker and opportunities advisor for start-ups. He co-authored the book, ”Death on the Blue Ocean” with Matt Doerner-Miller. Rickard holds a degree in management from the Stockholm School of Economics. Prior to his engagement with Telia, he has held various positions with Ericsson and was Head of Business Development, Cloud at Ericsson when he left the company.

Group CEO, Zee Media

Dr. Bhaskar Das

Dr. Bhaskar Das, Group CEO of Zee Media Corporation have over 3 decades of experience in managing some of the top companies in the country. At Zee, he is responsible for the News section across TV, print and digital. Before he started working for Zee Media, he served as the President of The Times Of India Group ( Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd.). During his tenure at BCCL, the advertising revenue augmented from Rs 1560 cr. to Rs 4200 cr. Having held such prestigious positions for several years, he uses his experience to educate others. Dr. Das is a certified speaker and tutor who has spoken at Harvard Business School, Wharton School, MIT, IIM, IIAS, MICA, ISB etc.

Founder, FreeCharge & Chairman, IAMAI

Kunal Shah

Kunal Shah is the founder and chairman of Freecharge which was acquired by Snapdeal in 2015. He is also the Chairman of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). His first venture was Paisaback, which provided cash-back promotions for organised retailers. Shah graduated with Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Wilson College in Mumbai and briefly pursued MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies before dropping out.

Founder, People Group

Anupam Mittal

Anupam Mittal is the founder and CEO of People Group, which includes Shaadi.com, Makaan.com and Mauj Mobile. He is also an active angel investor with over 50 investments such as Ola, Druva, Sapience. He is also an advisor and LP in several venture capital firms in India. He is a founding member and past chairman of the Internet and Mobile Association of India of India (IAMAI) and the founding Co-chair of H2 India.

MD, Hive Technologies & IdeaSpring Capital

Arihant Patni

Arihant Patni is Managing Director of the Hive and Ideaspring Capital. He is also Managing Director of Patni Financial Advisors, a wealth management company that advises high net worth families on a wide range of investment options. He is also Co-Founder/Director of Nirvana Venture Advisors, a venture capital fund focused on the Internet space. Arihant’s foray in the venture capital space came about when his family business, Patni Computer Systems, was acquired in 2011 at a valuation of $1.5 Bn. Arihant later worked with Fidelity Investments and Raay Software Inc. in Boston and was co-founder and CEO of Bodhi Global Services, a legal support services company set up in collaboration with AZB & Partners.

Founder, FusionCharts

Pallav Nadhani

Pallav is the founder of FusionCharts – charting solution in JavaScript, and Collation – helps make more out of Microsoft’s SharePoint. He contributes to the Indian product ecosystem through angel investing and mentoring. He is currently the Founder Circle Member of iSpirt Foundation where he helps other entrepreneurs through RoundTables. He was earlier the Chief Gardener/Partner at Seeders Venture Capital (P) Ltd, a seed funding company for technology companies in India. Also, he was associated with The Morpheus as an investor where he invested as an LP, and also in follow-on rounds. He is a The University of Edinburgh alumni.

Co-Founder, Seedfund

Mahesh Murthy

Investor, marketeer, board director, corporate speaker, writer and traveler – Mahesh Murthy has many avatars and he excels in each of them. Managing Partner in Seedfund, Mahesh is also the Founder of Pinstorm, world’s first pay-for-performance firm. Be it creative thinking, copywriting, SEO/ SEM he has perfected them all. Small wonder that he has won India’s Best VC Fund award and India’s Best Digital Marketing Award several times. Very few people understand the online market like he does. He is not only a great speaker but he has several videos and articles as well that can come handy if you are planning to build your own business.

Founder, ShopClues & Droom

Sandeep Aggarwal

Sandeep is the founder of two marketplaces in India – Droom, India’s first automobile marketplace and ShopClues, India’s first and largest managed marketplace. Sandeep has successfully managed to build ShopClues as one of the top 5 Unicorns in Consumer Internet in India. Having worked in Silicon Valley and Seattle for about 12 years, he holds rich experience in the ecommerce industry. He is an MBA from Washington University in St. Louise and holds a US patent. He is also an angel investor in a couple of startups.

Sequoia Capital India Advisors

GV Ravishankar

Ravishankar G V is the Managing Director with Sequoia Capital in India and focuses on investing in Consumer tech, Consumer, Education and Healthcare opportunities. He currently serves on the board of HomeLane, Grabhouse, Faasos, India among others. Prior to Sequoia, he has worked at McKinsey & Company and Wipro Technologies.

MD, Norwest Venture Partners

Niren Shah

Niren is Managing Director of the India arm of Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). NVP is a $3.74-billion global venture capital and growth equity investment firm. Niren is an all rounder with expertise in operations, finance, investment banking and entrepreneurship.

He has spearheaded Norwest Venture Partners’ investments in Cholamandalam Finance, DealsandYou.com, FashionandYou.com, IndusInd Bank, ING Vysya Bank, Jain Irrigation, Komli Media, Pepperfry, Quikr, Ratnakar Bank, Shriram City Union Finance, Suvidhaa and Yes Bank.

Prior to NVP, Niren has been  Senior Director of Strategy and Ventures at eBay Inc. Niren is a gold medallist from the University of Mumbai and also a rank-holder Chartered Accountant from Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

CGO, Mistletoe Inc

Atsushi Taira

Representative Director and Chief Growth Officer of Mistletoe Inc., San Francisco, Atsushi Taira has over 27 years of valuable experience working at some of the top organisations in the world. Coca-Cola, AOL, MySpace Japan, Yahoo are some of them. He is known to be a strategic business leader among his co-workers. At present, he works for Mistletoe where his job entitles him to help startups and entrepreneurs grow and transform their challenges into stepping blocks.

CEO, Times Internet

Gautam Sinha

Gautam is a global executive with  30 years of rich experience including a wealth of startup and industry expertise. He is currently the CEO of Times Internet Ltd., the digital arm of The Times of India Group, where he drives the strategy, vision and execution for all the internet, mobile and telecommunication properties of the group.

Prior to Times Internet Ltd., Gautam was the Chief Operating Officer of CashEdge Inc,  a company based out of New York and California working in payments and wealth management, where he worked since 2001 building and leading the company from startup to profitability.  Prior to CashEdge, he held senior management positions at Sevant, Aspect Communications, at the Neural Applications Corporation, and at the Ministry of Defense in India (DRDO).

Gautam is passionate about building high-performance teams with a culture where people enjoy what they do. He believes in the Indian startup ecosystem and is an active early stage investor.

Founder, MissMalini Media

Malini Agarwal

Founder and chief blogger of MissMalini.com, Malini Agarwal has over 15 years of experience in the world of media and entertainment. She started her career as a professional dancer and then moved on to play several interesting roles – content head of MTV and Channel V, Bollywood correspondent for BBC, Radio Jockey and columnist for Mid Day.

Miss Malini.com  was launched in 2008 and has over 4 million organic monthly visitors today. The platform posts articles on celebrity lifestyle, fashion and gossip and Malini Agarwal has been named as the most famous blogger in India by The Huffington Post and Forbes. She was declared the no 1 digital influencer in the world in SERMO’s Digital Influencer Index 2016. She has been featured on CNBC’s Young Turks and is nominated for the Young Business Women Awards 2016 by CNBC-TV18.

Founder, 1mg

Prashant Tandon

Prashant Tandon is the founder of 1mg which was previously HealthKart. 1mg is an integrated platform that solves all kinds of healthcare related problems. Precise information on medicines, online pharmacy, eDiagnostic Center, Doctor Discovery Platform, even Pill reminders are available on 1mg. 1mg aims to disrupt the healthcare  industry in India and become the number one app in the country.  Before 1mg, Prashant worked for Hindustan Unilever, Mckinsey & company and MapmyIndia. He obtained his Btech degree from IIT, Delhi and MBA from the prestigious Stanford University, USA.

Founder, PopXO

Priyanka Gill

Angel Investor, journalist, lifestyle blogger, writer,  Founder of Popxo.com – Priyanka Gill has many avtaars. Popxo.com is a lifestyle website for women. It was started as eStylista – a blog. Priyanka used to write and still writes for several international publications, like Travel and Leisure, Hello Pakistan, Vogue India, Harper’s Bazaar India etc. The website was launched in London in 2014. At present, it is in 3 cities London, Mumbai and Delhi. Priyanka is an avid art collector. She hosts art soirees and helps support Indian art.

Managing Partner at BEENEXT & Founder Alps Ventures

Dirk Van Quaquebeke

Dirk Van Quaquebeke is the Founding Partner at BEENEXT, a venture capital firm from Singapore. BEENEXT invests in early stage startups located in India, Southeast Asia, Japan and the US. Some of the well-known startups they have funded so far are Grey Orange, Robotics, Trusting Social, Dekoruma and Gozefo. Dirk has done his Master’s in Applied Finance and Economics from Copenhagen Business School and later obtained a degree from ESADE as well. He has invested in 50 companies so far for BEENEXT . Dirk is also the Founding Partner of Alps Ventures GmbH and had co-founded India Ventures Pvt Ltd. He is known to be an amazing investor with outstanding entrepreneurial skills.

Founder & Director, m&s partners

Hiro Mashita

Hiro Mashita is Founder and Director of m&s partners Pte. Ltd., incorporated in Singapore, providing advisory services for finance, IPO, M&A, operations, marketing, business development, and global business expansion. He gives advices to newly-setup and growing-stage companies in Japan, China, Singapore, US, and other Asian countries. He invests in venture companies of any stage under his investment vehicle. He was previously with Hikari Tsushin Inc., a leading IT/Mobile giant, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (First Section) for 14 years. He played different roles as Head of Startups, Business Development, Venture Capital, Internet Businesses, Corporate Planning, Distribution Channel of big corporations in Japan, including overseas operations in NY. During that period, he also served as CEO for bestcreate corp., smartphone media and the biggest Real Affiliate retail-shop network in Japan.

He was also the CEO of e-machi town Co., Ltd., IT Media and mobile advertisement agency business, which was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange(Mothers Section). By being CEO of Hikari Private Equity, he closed almost hundreds of venture capital deals in Japan/Asia and in the US over 10 years. After IT bubble collapsed, he was appointed as CFO in 2000, and restructured Hikari Tsushin Group. Before joining Hikari Tsushin in 1999, Mr. Mashita worked as a VP at the Investment Banking Department of Nomura Securities NYC with responsibility for Securitization and Private Equity. He served on the board of directors of several Hikari Tsushin and Hikari Private Equity portfolio companies, including Euglena, Fishing Vision, Beauty Holdings, and SBI-HIKARI P.E. in Japan, as well as Yicha Online, and 56.com in China. He received an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a BA from Keio University in Japan. He holds a CMA(Securities Analyst in Japan). In 2008, 2009 and 2010, he was invited to Harvard Business School Asia Conference as a panel guest speaker.

Founder, SAR Group

Rakesh Malhotra

Rakesh is known for many things in the Indian business scape. He is known to have founded Oak Power Systems which attempted the manufacture of the first offline UPS in India. He is also the man behind India’s only indigenously developed and integrated electric two-wheeler technology through his company, Lectrix Motors Ltd.

A serial entrepreneur and early stage investor, Rakesh is now founder and chairman of Luminous Power Technologies. He is also founder of the SAR Group which comprises of Livpure, Livguard and Ncubate Capital. He has started and invested in over 15 start-up ventures. His interest areas range from power to energy storage, renewable energy, electric vehicles, engineering services, KPO, telecommunications and energy efficiency. He is a co-founder at Wynn Telecom Ltd. and also a member of the Indian Angels Network. An engineer from Jadavpur University, he also holds degrees from Yale University – Yale School of Management and Harvard Business School.

Co-founder, Funderbeam

Urmas Peiker

Urmas Peiker is co-founder at Funderbeam, a primary and secondary market for early-stage startup investments. His interests are in the function and evolution of global capital markets. Prior to Funderbeam, he was Head of Compliance at AS LHV Pank. He was also Founder and Board Member at Pioneer Engineering Group, Investment Manager and Supervisory Board Member at GA Fund Management, Supervisory Board Member at Emerging Nordic Research. At Funderbeam, Urmas leads marketplace creation and development where the company can fund and trade growth companies across borders. He is a law graduate from Duke University School of Law. Urmas is an accomplished endurance sports athlete his accomplishments include several running and cross-country skiing marathons, cycling events, and finishing two IRONMAN competitions.

Partner and Head, Management Consulting

Ambarish Dasgupta

Head of Management Consulting at KPMG, Ambarish Dasgupta has almost three decades of experience in management, business strategy, IT strategy, business processes etc. He is the Eastern Region Managing Partner for KPMG as well. He, also, happens to be the president of Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industries. Before he joined KPMG he was the Executive Director of PWC. He worked for Price Waterhouse Cooper for more than 20 years and was part of the firm’s India Leadership Team.

CEO, Hotstar

Ajit Mohan

As the CEO of Hotstar, Ajit launched and built India’s leading OTT platform which still remains one of the few video services in the world that bring together TV shows, movies and live sports. The app has crossed 130 million downloads and is used by 50 million users every month.

Ajit is a graduate of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an alumni of McKinsey and Company’s New York office and a Fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute. He is a member of the Mobile Marketing Association’s India board.

Founder, Qyuki

Samir Bangara

Managing Director and Co-founder of Qyuki Samir Bangara started his career as a venture capitalist with IL & FS Venture Corporation. After a stint in Ernst & Young, he joined Indiagames in 2005. As the COO of Indiagames he helped the company grow from $3 million in gross sales to $60 million by 2012. In 2012 Walt Disney Company bought Indiagames for a whopping $80-100 million in cash. After a short tenure with Disney India, he left and spent his time being an Angel Investor and pursuing his passion for motorcycling and technology. He partnered with legends like Shekhar Kapur and A. R Rahman to build Qyuki. It is  a social media platform that has cool and engaging content.