A signature event where India’s Thought Leaders, Change Makers and Innovators share, inspire and celebrate their entrepreneurial journey.
Thursday
21 November 2019
Grand Hyatt, Santacruz,
Mumbai
9:00 AM to 6:00 PM
ASCENT, a vision of Harsh Mariwala (Chairman, Marico Limited), is fuelled by the power of trust. In the last seven years, we have created a unique and powerful peer-to-peer platform for entrepreneurs to share and exchange experiences, ideas, and insights, which help them grow their enterprises and enrich themselves in a confidential environment. ASCENT believes in the ‘Power of collective’ and enables entrepreneurs through self-facilitated Trust Groups and extended network of enablers.
The ASCENT Conclave aims to achieve the following:
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Founder and CEO, InMobi Group
Naveen Tewari is the founder and CEO of InMobi, a global provider of enterprise platforms for marketers. InMobi is one of the very rare India-based platforms that is defining the mobile-first customer engagement through its list of products ranging from app distribution & monetization to brand advertisements. He is a Board member of Paytm. He also co-founded iSPIRT, which is a change agent with the brain of a think tank and aims to address government policy, creating market catalysts, and grow the maturity of product entrepreneurs. He received several awards and recognitions over the last several years like 'Future Leaders Award’ presented by Narendra Modi, Indian Prime Minister, The ‘Pathbreaker of the Year’ Award, 2014 & Forbes India Leadership Award for ‘Outstanding Start up’.In 2013, his alma mater, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur also honoured him with the esteemed ‘Distinguished Alumnus Award’ for his excellence in entrepreneurship.
Chairman, Marico Ltd. and Founder, ASCENT
Harsh Mariwala leads Marico Limited as its Chairman. He is also Chairman and Managing Director of Kaya Limited. Over the past three decades, Harsh has transformed traditional commodities driven business into a leading consumer products and services company in the Beauty and Wellness space. He was the President of FICCI in 2011. He has held the position of YPO Education, Membership and Chapter Chair for the Bombay Chapter and was a member of the International Forum Board of YPO International.
Executive Director, Piramal Group; Non-Executive Director, Piramal Enterprises Ltd. and Founder, Piramal Realty
Anand Piramal is the Executive Director of Piramal Group and Founder of Piramal Realty. Anand founded Piramal Realty in 2012. He played a pivotal role in the acquisition of prime land parcels across Mumbai, building of a great team and the designing of world-class developments. Anand majored in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and Business Administration from the prestigious Harvard Business School. In 2018, Anand was conferred with the Hurun Real Estate Unicorn of the Year 2017 by Hurun India and Young Business Leader award by Hello! Magazine. Prior to Piramal Realty, Anand founded a rural healthcare start-up called ‘Piramal eSwasthya’. At eSwasthya, he spearheaded the acquisition of HMRI (Health Management Research Institute).
Vice Chairman, Motherson Group
Laksh Vaman Sehgal is a director on the board of the family firm Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd (MSSL)
that oversees the business of group subsidiary Samvardhana Motherson Automotive Systems Group. He
also spearheads research and development initiatives at Motherson Innovations, a company involved in
innovative and technological solutions for the entire group.
Managing Director, Future Consumer Ltd.
Ashni Biyani is Chief Ideator, Future Ideas, insights and design arm of Future Group. Passionate about human behavior, she works on behavioral change and helps make ideas leap into conceptualized final forms. She is also a Director on the board of Future Consumer Enterprises Limited, an integrated Food and FMCG Company which is into building food parks, creating Indian insight inspired FMCG brands and products and also convenience store chains and other distribution models. She has also played a lead role in mentoring and co-founding ‘Holii’ a fashion accessories brand in partnership with ‘Hidesign’ and has spearheaded the large formats like Big Bazaar Family Center stores as its Concept Head. She also takes out time for writing and some of her articles have been published in leading publications, including The Economic Times.
Prosearch Consultants
Anita Bhogale, an alumna of IIT-B and IIM-A, started her career in advertising and then attained the position of Director—Account Planning and Research at FCB-Ulka. Soon after, she set up Prosearch Consultants, a sport-based consultancy along with husband and business partner, Harsha Bhogle. Anita is also a Director (Content) at Bizpunditz, India’s first digital learning content library for managers.
Harsha Bhogle is an Indian cricket commentator and journalist. A dynamic presenter and an internationally acclaimed cricket expert, he has been called “the voice of Indian cricket” for his insightful cricket analysis and compelling personality. Harsha Bhogle has hosted television programs such as Harsha Online, Harsha Unplugged and School Quiz Olympiad for ESPN and Star Sports. He was voted the favorite TV cricket commentator by Cricinfo users based on a worldwide poll and has been named among the 24 commentators for the 2019 ICC World Cup held in England and Wales. Anita and Harsha Bhogle have written a book titled The Winning Way, a management advice book focuses on what comprises a successful athlete and shows how management teams could apply that to their workforce.
CEO, Vue.ai
Ashwini Asokan is the CEO & founder of Mad Street Den, an Artificial Intelligence company, powering the Retail industry with its Image recognition platform, Vue.ai. Ashwini and her team teach machines to see and experience the world like we humans do. Ashwini returned to India from Silicon Valley after more than a decade, to bootstrap her startup which she founded with her husband, Anand Chandrasekaran, a neuroscientist. As a product designer and cultural researcher, she explores how Artificial Intelligence can be brought out of the Science and Tech labs of the world, applied meaningfully and put in the hands of people across the globe. A Carnegie Mellon alumni, Ashwini's work typically sits at the intersection of technology, people and complex organizational systems. Until recently, she led the Mobile Innovation Portfolio as part of Intel Labs in California, driving research and development of cutting edge mobile products.
Founder and CEO, Rivigo
Deepak founded RIVIGO in 2014 with a globally unique idea of relay driving to make logistics faster, safer and more human using technology and data. As a leader and innovator, Deepak is known for complex data-driven problem solving and issue resolution through technology. Deepak’s ability to hire a world class team and build high-performance culture has served as a growth catalyst and infused a sense of purpose at RIVIGO.
Within just 4 years, RIVIGO has emerged as the largest and the fastest growing technology-enabled logistics company in India, owning a fleet of over 3000 trucks. It uses an innovative ‘driver relay’ model that enables trucks to cover 3 times more distance while making the life of truck driver more human. RIVIGO serves firms across all major industries in India with its full-truck load, part-truck (express cargo), cold chain logistics as well as digital freight aggregator services.
Chief Business Officer, Policybazaar.com
Tarun Mathur is the Chief Business Officer- General Insurance at Policybazaar.com. A founding team member, Tarun Mathur was amongst the first few team members to join Policybazaar.com. During his 10 year stint with Policybazaar.com, he has held many coveted assignments, which includes heading the General Insurance unit of the company, Business Development, Analytics, Life Insurance and Strategic Initiatives. He worked with FE Global Technology Services P Ltd. and prior to this, Tarun had been associated with an online travel aggregator, ebookers.com, a leading pan-European online travel agency.
Former Soldier, CEO, An author and Distinguished fellow at ORF
Raghu Raman served eleven years as an officer in the Indian Army. He has also served as a UN peacekeeper, as well as been an instructor teaching leadership and strategy to officers at the prestigious School of Armoured Warfare. Over the next ten years, he led various companies, including First Choice, Mahindra SSG and finally DLSI, a Mahindra joint venture with British Aerospace before being handpicked to create and head the National Intelligence Grid, Ministry of Home Affairs in the Government of India and he also helped set up Mahindra United World College. After his five year stint as the founding CEO of NATGRID, in his last corporate avatar, he was the Group President, Risk, Security & New Ventures for Reliance Industries. He is also the author of “Everyman’s War” - a book published by Random.
Managing Director and Co-Founder, Svenska Design Hotels
Wasim Shiekh is the Managing Director and Co-founder of Svenska Design Hotel, a collection of upscale luxury boutique hotels across India. A graduate from the London School of Economics, Wasim has a Master's degree in Finance from the UK and studied hospitality at Cornell University in the US. Wasim started his career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company after which he set up Stream International one of the first international BPOs in India and did an IPO at the American Stock Exchange. Post that Wasim entered the hospitality industry by setting-up Svenska Design Hotels to bridge the wide gap existing in the industry between the large and very expensive 5-star hotels and the smaller unbranded properties by setting up small scale luxury hotels focused on providing high-end, personalized services at reasonable prices.
Founder, Just Deliveries
Mansi Mahansaria is the founder of Just Deliveries which is a last-mile inventory logistics service servicing the F&B Industry. Mansi is passionate about building a shared infrastructure model that enables efficiencies in this fragmented sector. She is a Polymer Technologist, an MBA and has had an interesting journey from being a PE Investor to a 'Trucker'.
Founder, Papers N Parcels
Tilak Mehta is a 13 year old boy, and the founder of Paper s n Parcels. With the collaboration of Dabbawalas he launched Papers n Parcels to ease the courier services in Mumbai. The primary motto of the company is to ensure the same day delivery of their goods within the Mumbai region. His young mind nurtured this unique idea into the reality with the help of his Uncle Ghanashyam Parekh (Ex-banker), who is the current CEO of the company. He does regular meetings with his colleagues and takes their feedback to improve the services better. He recently wins the "Young entrepreneur title at the India Maritime Awards in 2018".
Cardiovascular Science Researcher
Akash Manoj is a 17 year old Indian cardiology researcher and inventor from Tamil Nadu. He is known for his award-winning research on "silent" heart attacks. Akash is a high school graduate from The Ashok Leyland School, living in Tamil Nadu with his parents, businessman Manoj Prabhakar and housewife Somi, while also studying advanced cardiology and other fields of medicine. He is an avid speaker, reader and tennis player and also enjoys exploring the field of aeronautics.
Founder, Science With Impact
Ritika Kacholia is 16 years old from the American School of Bombay and she is working on Go See Do - Experiential education on India's arts and culture. Ritika Kacholia has launched a new educational business. However, it works more as a non-profit. In essence, she developed a novel STEM curriculum that is focused on teaching “relevant” content (environmental / health issues) through an over-arching game. The technical term for this is to “gamify” a curriculum!
Ritika Kacholia created this curriculum earlier, she taught her own class with it and later made a website to reach out to low-income schools around the world so they can also use her work. The curriculum is completely free to use since her goal was to help schools improve. The main reason why she was able to scale this project was because of what she learned in YEA!
Founder and CEO, Scatter Innovation
Shiv Kampani is 15 years old from Dhirubhai Ambani International School and he is working on SENSAFE - A smart flammable gas detector that detects the levels of flammable gas in the surrounding and informs the user if a gas leak has taken place. In addition to Gas detection, LED Activation and Sound Alarm, it also sends an SMS Notification, email and call notification on a registered number to ensure timely action.
Executive Director, Emcure Pharmaceuticals and India Head, Young Entrepreneurs Academy
Executive Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, and CEO, Incredible Ventures, Master franchisee of YEA. Investing her time and energy into her job in the pharmaceuticals sector, she also mentors young adults on their road to entrepreneurship. She also runs a franchise of Young Entrepreneurs Academy, USA, in India that teaches entrepreneurship to 11-18-year-olds.
Senior Partner and Managing Director, Boston Consulting Group
Abheek Singhi lead BCG’s Consumer and Retail practice in Asia Pacific and in India. Abheek has worked with clients in emerging markets like India, China, South East Asia, and the Middle East in addition to US and Canada for 20 years years. He has experience with clients in the private, public and government sectors on issues related to strategy, operational excellence and organizational improvement. He has been selected by the Aspen Institute to be an India Leadership Initiative Fellow and is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Abheek has co-authored the bestselling book "The $10 Trillion Prize" (published by Harvard Business Review Press).
Anchor, Leaders of Tomorrow on ET NOW
Sunanda Jayaseelan is Anchor, Leaders of Tomorrow on ET NOW, a daily television platform on Times Network dedicated to the cause of small businesses. The show has been on air for 8 years now and connects entrepreneurs with all the stakeholders in the ecosystem whether it is government representatives, larger businesses or their peers to give a holistic view.
Sunanda Jayaseelan has 14 years of experience in television journalism. Professionally her interests range from insights into the aviation and auto industry to the technology space with a specific focus on startups. On the personal front, when not having her nose in a book, you can find her actively involved in working for causes related to animal welfare.
