Rebuilding with Grit
A signature event where India’s Thought Leaders, Change Makers and Innovators share, inspire and celebrate their entrepreneurial journey.
Wednesday - Saturday
25-28 November 2020
5:00 PM to 7:30 PM
The ASCENT Conclave, in the past four years, has witnessed over 85 Speakers, Thought Leaders, Change Makers, and Innovators engaging with over 2000 entrepreneurs as part of a day-long curated knowledge and motivational sessions. The Keynote speakers at the ASCENT Conclave have been 2016: Uday Kotak (Kotak Mahindra Bank); 2017: Sajjan Jindal (JSW Group); 2018: Rajiv Bajaj (Bajaj Auto); 2019: Naveen Tewari (InMobi Group).
Theme for the past Conclaves: Growth. Disruption. Entrepreneur. (2016), Journey of an Entrepreneur (2017), Beyond the Conversation (2018) Rewiring for Resilience (2019)
Theme for ASCENT eConclave 2020 – Rebuilding with Grit
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Ex-RBI Governor
Dr. Raghuram Rajan is the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He was the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India between September 2013 and September 2016. Prior to that, he was the Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund from 2003 to 2006, the youngest person ever to hold the position. His research is broadly on the role of institutions, especially financial institutions, in fostering economic development. He is an electrical engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. He earned his M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and his Ph.D. from MIT.
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 Chairperson, Biocon Limited
Dr. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is a pioneering biotech entrepreneur, a healthcare visionary, a global influencer, and a passionate philanthropist. As a leading woman in science, she is a role model to millions. She is steadfast in her pursuit of innovative technologies that enable affordable access to healthcare, and is committed to making a difference to billions of lives globally. She has scripted a hugely successful entrepreneurial story by building Biocon, an innovation-led global biopharmaceuticals enterprise, which has made outstanding contributions to life sciences AND research, and generated global respect for India. Kiran has received several coveted awards, honours and titles, both national and international, in recognition of her inspiring achievements.
Chairman, HDFC Ltd
Deepak Parekh spearheads India’s premier housing finance company HDFC Ltd., which has turned the dream of owning a home into a reality for millions across the country. Deepak’s astute business acumen and farsightedness has not only made HDFC the leader in mortgages, but has also transformed it into India’s leading financial services conglomerate with presence in banking, asset management, life insurance, general insurance, real estate venture fund, education loans and education. Deepak is also the chairman of HDFC Asset Management, HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co and HDFC Ergo General Insurance Co. The Government of India honoured Deepak with one of the highest civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan in 2006. Deepak is on the board of several leading corporations across diverse sectors. He is the non-executive chairman in India of Siemens Ltd, Glaxo Smithkline Pharmaceuticals Ltd and BAE Systems India (Services) Pvt Ltd. He is also on the boards of Indian Hotels Company Ltd and Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL). Deepak is on the international boards of DP World – UAE, Vedanta Resources plc and Fairfax Financial Holdings Corporation - Canada. He is on the Indian advisory boards of Coca Cola India, Boston Consulting Group and Accenture India. He is also on the international advisory boards of Standard Life Asia, Nomura Holdings Inc, Lafarge International, Warburg Pincus LLC.
Managing Director, Kalaari Capital
Vani is the Managing Director at Kalaari Capital, an early stage venture capital firm based in Bangalore. She is a renowned investor and a visionary known for identifying emerging markets. Her leadership at Kalaari centers around her commitment to the development of entrepreneurs and her conviction that Indian companies are poised to become global players. Having been a successful entrepreneur in Silicon Valley for 22 years, Vani now works with first-time entrepreneurs to build strong global companies. She focuses on technology companies, leveraging India’s domestic growth to create high growth enterprises. Vani is profiled in numerous books and has been identified as one of the Fortune Most Powerful Women in Business. She is involved in various organizations focused on fostering entrepreneurship and women leadership.
President, Board of Control for Cricket in India
Sourav Chandidas Ganguly (born 8 July 1972), affectionately known as Dada, is an Indian cricket administrator, commentator and former national cricket team captain who is the 39th and current president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. During his playing career, Ganguly established himself as one of the world's leading batsmen and also one of the most successful captains of the Indian national cricket team. While batting, he was especially prolific through the off side, earning himself the nickname God of the Off Side for his elegant stroke play square of the wicket and through the covers.
As a cricketer he played as a left-handed opening batsman and was captain of the Indian national team. He was elected as a president of the BCCI in 2019. and President of the Editorial Board with Wisden India. Before being elected as the President of BCCI, he was the President of Cricket Association of Bengal, governing body for cricket in West Bengal, India.
Founder, House of Masaba
Masaba Gupta, an Indo-Caribbean fashion designer started her eponymous label, House of Masaba in 2009 after graduating from SNDT Women’s University. An icon for fashion aspirants of this generation, the 31-year-old designer is credited for transforming the face of the fashion industry ever since her promising debut at the Lakme Fashion Week at the age of 19. With decade long experience, designer Masaba Gupta is revered globally as the ‘Queen of Prints’ and has also won the spot on the Forbes 30 under 30 list in the year 2017. Manifesting her roots of vivid cultural identity inherited from mother Neena Gupta, an Indian actress and her father, Sir Viv Richards, a West Indies Cricketer, Masaba Gupta is distinguished for mastering the fusion trend. Notably, House of Masaba, her homegrown, India proud label with a Caribbean heart blends two varied cultures and thoughts to transform everyday mundane items into unconventional motifs and prints. The label has made a broad portfolio with destination wedding collections, festive wear, party collections and resort wear, all rendered in the brand’s signature colours, motifs and aesthetics.
Founder and Executive Vice-Chairman, Info Edge
Sanjeev’s work experience includes an advertising position at Lintas India Limited, a marketing position at HMM Limited (now known as GlaxoSmithKline), and a senior management position at CMYK Printech Private Limited (owner of The Pioneer newspaper). Along with his partner, Mr. Hitesh Oberoi, he won the Ernst and Young – Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2008 for Business Transformation. He also won the Dataquest Pathbreaker Award and the Teacher’s Achievement Award for Business in 2008. He is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship at conferences and at business schools. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from St. Stephen College, Delhi University in 1984 and a PGDM from IIM-Ahmedabad in 1989.
Founder, CEO, Zerodha
Nithin bootstrapped and founded Zerodha in 2010 to overcome the hurdles he faced during his decade long stint as a trader. Today, Zerodha has changed the landscape of the Indian broking industry. He was named one of the “Top 10 Businessmen to Watch Out for in 2016 in India” by The Economic Times for pioneering and scaling discount broking in India. Kamath started trading stock markets at the age of 17, when he started managing his father's trading account. After spending considerable time as a professional trader, he worked at a call centre for three years due to the lack of trading capital, before becoming a sub-broker for Reliance Money and finally founding Zerodha in 2010 with his younger brother, Nikhil Kamath. Playing basketball is his zen.
Founder, MD & CEO, IIFL Wealth & Asset Management
Karan joined IIFL Holdings Ltd. (formerly India Infoline) to set up IIFL Investment Managers in 2008. He is responsible for driving the organization’s philosophy, mission, vision and its strategic goals and objectives. He has built a team of experienced and talented professionals from within and outside the industry, who manage some of the most distinguished families in India and abroad. Under his able leadership, IIFL Investment Managers has grown from its humble beginnings to one of the leading wealth management companies in India managing over USD20 billion in client assets. Karan has two decades of experience in the financial services industry. He featured in Fortune India’s ‘40 under 40’ list in 2016 and 2017 and The Economic Times ‘40 under Forty’ list in 2017. He has received the URS Asia One Global Indian of the Year award in 2018. Karan holds an MBA in Finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and acquired his Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.
Founder, CRED
Kunal Shah is an Indian entrepreneur, founder of CRED, founder and ex-CEO of FreeCharge. He graduated with Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Wilson College, Mumbai and briefly pursued MBA from SVKM's NMIMS before dropping out. He started his career as a junior programmer at a business process outsourcing startup. His first startup venture was a company named Paisaback, which provided cash-back promotions for organized retailers.
Kunal made a cameo appearance in the 4th episode of TVF Pitchers where he played the role of a startup event judge. He founded FreeCharge in 2010, along with Sandeep Tandon, seeing the potential of online recharging in a growing market. In April 2015, FreeCharge was acquired by Snapdeal for an estimated amount of $400 million. Kunal was appointed as the new CEO of the company. Kunal also led the acquisitions of Wishberg and Preburn in 2014. He is an active angel investor in a number of startups such as Innov8, Spinny, Zepo, Unacademy, and Bharat Bazaar.
CEO and Co-Founder, Dream11
A lifelong Manchester United, Mumbai Indians, and Indian Cricket Team fan, Harsh completed his engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from Columbia Business School. Bringing together his love for sports, gaming, and technology, Harsh pioneered freemium fantasy sports in India in 2008 with Dream11 and is now focused on making sports better for every sports fan. Dream11 is India’s biggest Fantasy Sports platform with 8 Crore+ users playing Fantasy Cricket, Football, Kabaddi, Basketball, Hockey, Volleyball, Handball & Baseball. Dream11 helps Indian sports fans actively engage with and showcase knowledge of the sports they love. Fans can create their own team of real-life players from upcoming matches, score points based on their on-field performance, and compete with other fans. We have partnerships with national and international sports leagues & bodies and also with reputed Indian and international cricketers.
Co-Founder, Urban Company
Abhiraj is responsible for marketing and product growth at Urban Company. When not busy at Urban Company, Abhiraj enjoys immersing himself in interesting experiences be it running marathons, skydiving in Spain, scuba diving in the Andamans or cooking his wife Urvi’s favourite dishes. Abhiraj was a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group,advising Fortune 500 companies across India, Germany and South East Asia before he quit to begin his entrepreneurial journey with Urbanclap. Abhiraj holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur, where he was on the Dean's list, and a Masters in Business Administration from IIM Ahmedabad, where he was an industrial scholar.
Chairman, TeamLease Services Limited
Manish is Chairman and co-founder of Teamlease Services, one of India’s leading staffing and human capital firm. Teamlease is also implementing India’s first vocational university and national PPP apprenticeship program. The company has hired 1.8 million employees over the last 15 years.
In 1996 he co-founded India Life, an HR outsourcing company that was acquired in 2002 by a listed US company called Hewitt Associates. Consequently, he was CEO of Hewitt Outsourcing (Asia) based in Singapore for two years.
Manish is a member of the National Skill Mission, Central Advisory Board of Education and has served on various policy committees for education, employment and employability. He serves as an Independent Director on the Board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and is an Member of Advisory Board of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). He is also Managing Trustee of the New India Foundation that offers fellowships for writing books about post-1947 India and is a columnist for Indian Express. He got his MBA from The Wharton School and is an alumnus of Shriram College, Delhi and Mayo College, Ajmer.
Head, KKR Capstone India at KKR & Co. Inc.
Ananya Tripathi (Mumbai) joined KKR Capstone in 2019 as a Director. She leads the team’s value-creation efforts across KKR’s private equity portfolio companies in industries that include education, healthcare and industrials. Prior to joining KKR Capstone, Ms. Tripathi headed the category business at Myntra and was also chief strategy officer. She was previously an associate partner at McKinsey & Company for seven years. Ms. Tripathi is a gold medalist across both her M.B.A. from Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, and her engineering degree from Pune University.
Managing Director India, Skillsoft and SumTotal
Kamal Dutta is the Managing Director India of Skillsoft and SumTotal.Prior to Skillsoft and SumTotal, Dutta was Managing Director of Asia Growth Countries for HPE Software, which included India, SEA, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea. Dutta also served HPE as Vice President of the IT Management Business Unit. He has held many other leadership roles, including Country General Manager of Hewlett Packard Software in India. Dutta earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering with specialization in artificial intelligence. He has written books on IT landscape and numerous articles on digital transformation, DevOpsSec and technology trends.
Director, daCunha Communications
began his theatre career in 1984, directing Tom Topor’s courtroom drama Nuts. In 1991, his production of Gurcharan Das’s Larins Sahib, was the first Indian play to be staged at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival. In 1996, he Indianised and adapted Herb Gardner’s I’m Not Rappaport – calling it I’m Not Bajirao, he cast Boman Irani and Sudhir Joshi, directing it to over 200 performances, ushering a new language called Hinglish into the Indian English theatre. In 2000, he directed the magnum opus Jesus Christ Superstar. In 2002, he started writing his own plays – his Class Of ‘84 (2003), traces his years at St. Xaviers College; his Pune Highway (2004) challenges the bonds of friendship in a severe crisis prompting The Independent, London’s writer Yasmin Alibhai Brown to say ‘The crude pared down English lacks compassion and becomes a metaphor for a India’s thoughtless globalisation – it is as powerful and challenging as Pinter’s early work or Look Back In Anger must have been in 1956″; his Me, Kash & Cruise (2008), reflects on 22 years of a changing Bombay. He is currently working on an original musical titled #SingIndiaSing. His advertising agency daCunha Communications creates the famed Amul topical campaign.
Founder and Mentor, FABRIC
A renowned Vedic scholar, trusted advisor and coach, Sri Tatwamasi Dixit, is a leading family business expert with over two decades of rich experience working with large, diverse, multi-generational family business conglomerates globally. He has mastered the integration of Vedic principles with Contemporary Psychology and Business Management. Equipped with his domain expertise, wealth of knowledge and insights, he helps families navigate through every imaginable family business challenge and guides them to manage growth, disruptive change and transitions. Sri Dixit believes that ‘The foundation of any successful family business is a successful family’. He founded FABRIC, a boutique family business consulting firm, offering advisory and coaching services to family business entrepreneurs and nextgen leaders.
Senior Managing Partner and Head, IIFL Wealth & Asset Management
Sandeep is Senior Managing Partner and Head of Advisory at IIFL Investment Managers. His team advises and manages key clients at the firm on overall portfolio structuring. Sandeep has more than 12 years of experience in direct client and team management with regional responsibilities including setting up of new branches. As a part of the founding team at IIFL Investment Managers, Sandeep led the setup of offices in various locations including Mumbai, Pune, Goa and Gujarat. Sandeep is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore and VJTI Mumbai.
Independent consultant, Author, Strategist
Rama Bijapurkar is a recognised thought leader on market strategy and consumer behaviour as well as a keen commentator on social and cultural change in India. She has an independent management consulting practice and describes her work as bringing market and customer focus to business strategy. She is also co-founder of think tank and fact tank People Research on India's Consumer Economy and Citizen Environment whose mission it is to provide a people level view of India for use in public policy and business strategy. She is also Professor of Management Practice at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
Rama is one of India's most experienced and prominent independent directors having served on the boards of several of India's blue chip companies such as Infosys, Axis Bank, Bharat Petroleum, National Payment Corporation of India, CRISIL etc. Present boards include Nestle India, ICICI Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Ltd.
Founder, Graviky Labs
Anirudh Sharma is the MIT Technology Review 35 under 35 Innovator, Forbes 30 under 30, Awardee, and the Founder of Graviky Labs. His company Graviky, is addressing the air-pollution problem by treating it as a waste-management problem and developing novel materials and leading industry-shift around them.He loves problem-solving and builds novel technology which has a large social-economic-protest impact and narratives. He uses Augmented/ Mixed Reality, art, cybernetics, wearables, and materials to create new impactful concepts that question the conventional way of solving problems.After having spent multiple years at MIT his passion for design-led innovation brought him back to India, where he led the MIT Media Lab India Initiative with the goal of remodeling and perpetuating self-organized design-led innovation into the country’s grassroots.
Host, ENQUIRY and Former Managing Editor and Co-Founder, Tehelka
In 2011, Newsweek picked her as one of 150 power women "who shake the world”. In 2018, she was invited to deliver the Gandhi Oration in Sydney. She has been awarded the prestigious Ernest Hemingway Award for Political Journalism, the Mumbai Press Club award for political journalism, the Ramnath Goenka award and the Chameli Devi Award for Best Woman Journalist for, in the words of the citation, "going where angels fear to tread”.
She co-founded and was director of Algebra - the Arts and Ideas Club (www.algebratheclub.com), a unique forum for conversation across 4 cities, where she hosted over 100 live stage events and more than 200 topnotch speakers.
Earlier, Shoma has been the managing editor and one of the founders of Tehelka, an investigative and public interest newsmagazine, where she wrote extensively on issues of justice, equity, human rights, the media, law, and the economy. Several of her stories, in defence of human rights workers falsely accused by the State, were instrumental in getting people out of jail. She also founded and was the editor-in-chief of CatchNews, a digital news platform.
Shoma also co-founded and was director of THiNK, a cutting-edge conference of ideas, where she hosted people like Robert De Niro, Tom Friedman, Gary Kasparov, Aamir Khan, Shahrukh Khan, former chiefs of the CIA and Mossad and the Taliban on the same platform along with politicians, artists, inventors, entrepreneurs, and activists from India, Africa, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan, China, Russia, Pakistan and Europe and America.
Co-Founder, Bold Echo LLC and Lecturer, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Matt Abrahams is a passionate, collaborative and innovative educator and coach. He has published research articles on cognitive planning, persuasion, and interpersonal communication. Matt recently published the third edition of his book Speaking Up Without Freaking Out, a book written to help the millions of people who suffer from anxiety around speaking in public. Additionally, Matt developed a software package that provides instant, proscriptive feedback to presenters. Prior to teaching, Matt held senior leadership positions in several leading software companies, where he created and ran global training and development organizations. Matt is also Co-Founder and Principal at Bold Echo Communications Solutions, a presentation and communication skills company based in Silicon Valley that helps people improve their presentation skills. Matt has worked with executives to help prepare and present keynote addresses and IPO road shows, conduct media interviews, and deliver TED talks.
Co-Founder, Business Sherpa
Akshay Cherian is the Co-Founder of Business Sherpa, which focuses on scaling up business by solving their top growth barriers. They have collaborated with over 53 ventures in the last 3 years on launching new products, creative marketing and building teams for scale.
As the co-founder of Metaresults, he has co-led over 50 innovation projects for mid-sized and Fortune 1000 companies like Nike, Siemens, Oracle, Dell, IBM and more with over $10 million in results.
He Co-founded Alchemy Career Solution, a social enterprise that led to the employment of 850+ people. It was a Dasra Fellowship Awardee in 2010-2011. He has led sessions on entrepreneurship and innovation sessions at ISB and IIT Bombay. Founded People First in 2005 which was a student movement involving 17,000 people across 6 cities.
Innovation partner for Youth Co:lab India with UNDP and Atal Innovation Mission under Niti Ayog with over 400+ teams applying all over India. Akshay has also co-authored a book, Great Work Hack – quick read focused on the question: how can I do great work today?
Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company
Noshir is the global leader of the McKinsey Analytics Practice and coleads the firm’s Technology, Media, & Telecommunications Practice globally. Prior to this he led the firm’s India office as managing director from 2011 to 2016 and founded McKinsey’s global Outsourcing and Offshoring Practice and the Business Technology Office in India. He has been a member of McKinsey’s Shareholders Council (our global governance board) and sits on the advisory board of the McKinsey Knowledge Center. Based out of the firm’s Mumbai office, Noshir is a leader with 25 years of experience in strategy development, organization restructuring, and performance improvement. He has shaped the digital, analytics, and technology journeys of several global enterprises and providers. He has also served governments in India and around the world on policy development, transformation of public services, and delivery of institutional capabilities.
Founder, Ladies Who Lead and AB Network Pvt Ltd
Aabha is a career business journalist, news anchor, editor, writer and producer. She has worked for major networks like NDTV Profit, ET NOW & Bloomberg TV India. She was the lead anchor for Bloomberg TV India, where she anchored the morning market news, and created the highly rated shows on entrepreneurship ‘E-Inc’ & ‘Rising Stars’. She is known for being one of the most versatile television anchors having also anchored and produced signature shows like Boss’s Day Out and Gadget Guru at NDTV, to Zigwheels on ET NOW. Over her 15 years in news television, she has interviewed business stalwarts, market mavericks, regulators and celebrities.
Based out of India’s financial capital, Aabha has lived and studied overseas. She has also travelled extensively for lifestyle shows and news coverage, from Dubai to San Francisco and Shanghai, and has hosted special finance and economy related shows from the Bloomberg studios in London and New York.
She turned entrepreneur by setting up her own company - AB Network. The content studio creates innovative properties that appeal to the modern, aspirational Indian across touch points in their lives. AB Network caters to an ever-evolving new media consumer, giving them information they can use, relate to and engage with, across various media formats. The platform covers a spectrum of topics from Entrepreneurship, Business & Markets, Luxury & Lifestyle, amongst others.
One of these properties is 'Ladies Who Lead' which started as a network of like-minded, successful women coming together to support and empower one another. Initially a series of regularly held events, Ladies who Lead has now evolved into a full-fledged community with contributors from around the world, multiple video series and its own digital hub. All with the aim to pay it forward.
Independent Advisor, RIL Sports (Formerly CEO of Sports, RIL, COO, IPL and MD, Mindshare, WPP Plc)
Sundar Raman is an Indian sports business professional. He is currently working with Reliance Industries Limited as its CEO - Sports. He was working for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and was the Chief Operating Officer of the highly-successful Indian Premier League (IPL) from its inception in 2008 to 2015. Raman was appointed as the IPL COO by former IPL Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi in January 2008. He assumed a more powerful position within the BCCI after Modi's ouster in 2010. In November 2015, Raman stepped down as COO of the Indian Premier League.
Founder, SheThePeople.TV and Golfing Indian
Shaili Chopra is the founder of SheThePeople.TV, India's biggest platform focused on real women with real stories. She is an award winning journalist whose work has been recognised in India and globally and has covered key events like Davos, G20 and the 2012 American Election. Putting her television strengths to setting up India's first dedicated online channel for women, she has filled an important gap in media, that of creating a focussed space putting spotlight on women and their needs.
SheThePeople.TV is India’s biggest digital storytelling for women, dedicated to passionately championing and promoting their journeys. We Empower, Engage and Elevate, connecting them to an amazing network that inspires and grows each others' efforts.
Curated virtual networking sessions with Thought Leaders and Domain Experts exclusively for ASCENT Members at the ASCENT eConclave 2020 from 7 PM to 7:30 PM on all 4 days.
Country Head, Softbank India
Manoj is a passionate leader who truly loves the challenge of shaping industry transformations. Always with a positive energy and a star team to create world leading businesses with a profound societal impact.
From January 2020, he is the Country Head - SoftBank India responsible for supporting one of the largest investors in India - SoftBank Group, SoftBank Vision Fund and their over 20 digital/AI focused portfolio companies. He works closely with the portfolio company founders and CEOs to address the government issues and secure timely approvals for the new portfolio companies to enable their businesses to run smoothly and to achieve their full potential.
Earlier he was the Executive Chairman - SB Energy which started its business in India in 2015. It has achieved 7GW of renewable energy - solar, wind and hybrid - capacity pipelines in India. It is also pursuing Corporate PPAs with MNCs for large scale RE plants for steel, aluminium, cement, mining, data centres etc. with storage batteries.
Previously he was the Managing Director and CEO, Bharti Airtel, for operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa till 2015. I joined Bharti Airtel in 2002 as President - Mobile Services business and led operations to grow from 2m to the third largest telco in the world with 400m customers. I led the formation of Indus/Infratel, the largest tower company in the world for achieving major infrastructural synergies.
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.
Chief Executive Officer, IITB-Monash Research Academy
Mr. Unnikrishnan began his career with Thermax after graduating in Mechanical engineering from VNIT, Nagpur in 1982. He is a graduate in the Advanced Management Programme from the Harvard Business School, USA. He worked with the EID-Parry group for 5 years as the Head of its Engineering business and with Terrazzo Inc, U.A.E from 1992 to 1997 as its Assistant General Manager.
He re-joined Thermax as General Manager in 1997. Since then, he has headed the Waste Management and Absorption Cooling divisions of Thermax. In 2000, he became a member of the newly formed Executive Council. He has also led the human resources function of the Company and spearheaded the transformation initiative of the Company.
Under Mr. Unnikrishnan’s leadership, Thermax grew to be a billion dollar company in 2010-11. During the period, Thermax extended its reach through two acquisitions in Europe. It also positioned itself as a leading supplier of power systems and equipment through two joint ventures, one of them for the niche area of supercritical boilers.
Founder and CEO, Arka Leadership
Ashu, Founder & CEO of Arka Leadership, has an experience of over 28 years, as entrepreneur, leadership coach, author, speaker and chartered accountant. Highly perceptive and fearless, she embraces the joie de vivre of life. She has successfully partnered with many CXO's to reimagine possibilities and feel empowered to design a life of success and joy. Ranked #29 amongst the 100 Emerging Voices in India by YourStory; received award for 101 Fabulous Coaches in India by World Coaching Congress.
Psychologist and Psychotherapist
Dr Aparna Joshi is a practising psychologist and a psychotherapist. She has completed her PhD from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). Dr Aparna has been providing consultation in the areas of mental health, counselling, gender and sexuality, to several national and international organisations over 25 years. At present she heads two field action projects in TISS- 1) iCALL which is a multilingual, free of cost and professionally run national level technology assisted psycho-social counselling service and 2) Sukoon, which provides counselling services to individuals and couples who present with matrimonial conflicts in legal structures.
Founder, MD & CEO, IIFL Wealth & Asset Management
Karan joined IIFL Holdings Ltd. (formerly India Infoline) to set up IIFL Investment Managers in 2008. He is responsible for driving the organization’s philosophy, mission, vision and its strategic goals and objectives. He has built a team of experienced and talented professionals from within and outside the industry, who manage some of the most distinguished families in India and abroad. Under his able leadership, IIFL Investment Managers has grown from its humble beginnings to one of the leading wealth management companies in India managing over USD20 billion in client assets. Karan has two decades of experience in the financial services industry. He featured in Fortune India’s ‘40 under 40’ list in 2016 and 2017 and The Economic Times ‘40 under Forty’ list in 2017. He has received the URS Asia One Global Indian of the Year award in 2018. Karan holds an MBA in Finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and acquired his Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.
Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Marcellus Investment Managers
Saurabh Mukherjea is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Marcellus Investment Managers. Marcellus Investment Managers was incorporated in August 2018 and the firm’s application to conduct Portfolio Management Services was approved by SEBI in October 2018 and provides portfolio management service. He is the former CEO of Ambit Capital and played a key role in Ambit’s rise as a broker and a wealth manager. When Saurabh left Ambit in June 2018, assets under advisory were $800mn. Saurabh was educated at the London School of Economics where he earned a BSc in Economics (with First Class Honours) and MSc in Economics (with distinction in Macro & Microeconomics).
In London, Saurabh was the co-founder of Clear Capital and in 2007 he was rated by the Extel Survey as one of the top small cap analysts in the UK. In India, Saurabh was rated as the leading equity strategist in 2015, 2016 and 2017 by the Asiamoney polls. Saurabh is a CFA charter holder and a SEBI registered investment advisor. In 2017, upon SEBI’s invitation, he joined SEBI’s Asset Management Advisory Committee.In 2019, Saurabh was part of the Expert Committee constituted by SEBI to update and upgrade the PMS regulations. Saurabh has written three bestselling books: Gurus of Chaos (2014), The Unusual Billionaires (2016) and “Coffee Can Investing: The low risk route to stupendous wealth” (2018)
Director, Enrich Hair and Skin Solutions Pvt Ltd
Sachidanand (Sachin) Kamat, has been a keen student of consumer behavior across multiple categories, brands and geographies for three decades. His hands-on exposure to advertising, research, consulting and retail have resulted in a deep understanding of how and why people buy products and services. A long and abiding interest in technology has made him an early adopter in all things tech and resulted in an understanding of the world that's fast going digital.
Sachin has been teaching for the longest time and he says, that's because teaching ensures that he puts in the time to study and prepare. And keeps him humble as it means matching wits with the young and the restless. He serves on the Academic Council of multiple educational institutions. He is also a sought-after speaker at industry events and knowledge seminars.
As Director, Employee and Customer Engagement, at Enrich Hair & Skin Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Sachin is charged with creating and articulating the pitch & tone of the Enrich brand personality, as well as its expression addressing all stakeholders. He is also a member of the Management Board
Chief People Officer, True North Co
Ashutosh joined True North in November 2017 as its Chief People Officer and is based in Mumbai. He guides the portfolio companies to build culture and leadership capability to help turn into admired institutions. He brings with him a rich experience of 23 years across Consumer Products and Pharma Industry. Prior to joining True North, Ashutosh was the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at Marico Limited, where he spent 18 years working across various domains of Human Resources (HR) and Organization Development (OD). He institutionalized various business impacting initiatives in HR, strengthened values & culture, set up talent development processes and successfully integrated different cultures as a result of various acquisitions. Ashutosh is a Bachelor of Science (Statistics) and a Masters in Labour Studies from Mumbai University.
