Ajit Rangnekar

Ex-Dean, ISB

Ajit Rangnekar was the Dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB) from January 2009 to December 2015. Prior to that, he held the position of Deputy Dean at the School from March 2003 to December 2008. Before joining the ISB, he was the Country Head, first for Price Waterhouse Consulting and then for PwC Consulting, in Hong Kong and the Philippines. Ajit holds an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and completed his post graduation in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Ananthapadmanabhan Gurusamy

CEO, Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives

G. Ananthapadmanabhan is the Chief Executive Officer of Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives (APPI), founded by Mr Azim Premji. He brings with him three decades of experience in the development sector during which time he was the Chief Executive of Amnesty International India and Greenpeace India. Ananth graduated in 1988 from IIT Madras with a B Tech in Electrical Engineering.

Arun Maira

ex-Chairman, Boston Consulting Group, India

Arun Maira was a former member of Planning Commission of India and India Chairman of Boston Consulting Group. He was part of Tata Administrative Services for 25 years and worked at various important positions in Tata Group till 1989. He was a board member of Tata Motors from 1981 to 1989. He played a key part in Tata Motors successful entry into the LCV segment. After this he worked with Arthur D. Little for 10 years where he was Leader of Global Organisation Practice and Managing Director of Innovation Associates, a subsidiary of Arthur D. Little. In 2000 Arun Maira returned to India and had held the position of chairman of Boston Consulting Group in India till April 2008. After coming back to India in 2000 and prior to joining Planning Commission of India, Arun Maira has been on the boards of several companies.

Devi Shetty

Chairman, Narayana Health

Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, ""The Henry ford of heart surgery"" as coined by The Wallstreet Journal, is the Chairman and Founder of Narayana Health. A cardiac surgeon with 33 years of experience, he is also the initiator of micro health insurance scheme that led to Yeshasvini scheme, world's cheapest comprehensive health insurance scheme, setup by the Government of Karnataka which benefits millions of farmers in Karnataka. Dr. Shetty is a recipient of Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awards in 2003 and 2012 respectively. He also received Schwab Foundation's award in 2005, Dr. B C Roy award in 2003, Sir M. Visvesvaraya Memorial Award in 2003 and Ernst & Young – Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2003 among other accolades. He is also the recipient of Rajyotsava award and Karnataka Ratna from the Karnatak Government. Dr. Shetty completed his MBBS and Masters in Surgery from University of Mysore.

Kiran Karnik

ex-President, Nasscom

Kiran Karnik was the President of NASSCOM till January 2008. Prior to joining NASSCOM in 2001, he was the Managing Director and CEO of Discovery Networks in India. He worked for over 20 years at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), where he held various positions including that of Founder-Director of ISRO’s Development and Educational Communicational Unit. He has served as Special Assistant to the Secretary-General of UNISPACE 82 in the United Nations. He has done consulting assignments for WHO, The World Bank, UN Institute for Disarmament Research, Ford Foundation, and an extended one for UNESCO in Afghanistan. He has been a member of many key government committees. Kiran has been awarded the Padma Shri in 2007. Business Week named him as one of the ‘Stars of Asia’ in 2004 and he was selected as Forbes magazine’s ‘Face of the Year 2003’. In 1998, International Astronautical Federation awarded him with the Frank Malina medal for Space Education. He is also the recipient of the first UNESCO-IPDC Prize for Rural Communication. A post-graduate from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Kiran holds an Honours degree in Physics from Bombay University.

Manish Dugar

Chief Financial Officer, Mphasis

Manish Dugar currently is the Chief Financial Officer at Mphasis. As an established finance leader for ~25 years’, Manish has extensive global leadership experience including shareholder value creation, mergers and acquisitions, financial and strategic planning and budgeting corporate governance across multiple industries including Information Technology, BPO, FMCG, diversified conglomerate, new-age digital and health-tech. In his most recent role, Manish Dugar served as Managing Partner at Agnus Capital LLP (and board member of QuadGen Wireless Solutions and Clairvolex) where he was responsible for investment, growth, exit in the portfolio companies of the fund.Before Practo, Manish was the CFO of Practo and prior to that, InMobi. Before InMobi, Manish has worked in leadership roles at at Wipro, Coke, L&T and Reckitt. He has served on various committees of NASSCOM, ASSOCHAM and IMA. Manish holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta. He is also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI) and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI).

Manish Sabharwal

Co-founder & Executive Chairman, TeamLease

Manish Sabharwal is the Chairman of TeamLease. Prior to co-founding Teamlease, he co-founded India Life, a human resource outsourcing company in 1996 that was acquired by Hewitt associates in 2002. Consequently, he was chief executive officer of Hewitt Outsourcing (Asia) based in Singapore. Manish also serves on various state and central government committees on education, employment and employability and is a columnist for Indian Express. Manish is an alumnus of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Shriram College Delhi and Mayo ‎College, Ajmer.

Meena Ganesh

CEO, Portea

Meena has nearly 30 years of experience in industries including healthcare, consulting, technology, outsourcing, education and e-commerce. She currently serves as the co-founder and CEO of Portea Medical, India’s largest and fastest growing home healthcare company. Prior to founding Portea, Meena was a board member of TutorVista, and CEO and MD of Pearson Education Services. She is also co-promoter of nearly a dozen, new-age internet/technology enabled start-ups including Bigbasket.com and Bluestone.com. Meena has also held leadership positions at the Tesco Hindustan Service Center, Customer Asset (which she sold to ICICI OneSource) and Microsoft India. During the initial 11 years of her career, Meena was with PricewaterhouseCoopers and NIIT. Meena is a PGDM holder from IIM Calcutta has a graduate degree in Physics from the Madras University.

Mekin Maheshwari

Founder, Udhyam

Mekin is the founder of Udhyam. Udhyam enables learning for grassroots entrepreneurship. He was the Chief People Officer for two consecutive years at Flipkart. Mekin has been the Advisor of Flipkart since October 2015. He has also served as President of Technology at Flipkart. He was responsible for overseeing Flipkart's technological operations. He started his career with Yahoo! and then went on to join Ugenie where he created weRead, a successful social network around books. He holds a degree in Information Science from PESIT.

Naveen Tewari

Founder & CEO, InMobi

Naveen is the founder of InMobi and responsible for the overall vision, strategy and execution of InMobi. His view of the growth of the mobile ecosystem and leveraging InMobi as a key tenet in developing that mobile ecosystem was the foundation stone on which InMobi was built. Naveen's journey started with McKinsey & Company where he worked on developing the go-to-market strategy for a large Indian conglomerate, as it entered the telecom sector. He has also worked with the top management of technology companies on various issues. Later, he joined Charles River Ventures (CRV), a top tier VC firm focusing on early stage investing in software and communications. Naveen worked with CRV on developing its India investment strategy. He also worked briefly with a mobile VoIP startup in Silicon Valley. Naveen is the Founder and Chairman of a US based non-profit organization, India School Fund (ISF), which has been formed to set up schools in rural India. ISF started in 2006 with only a few Harvard Business School friends and has now grown to have over 50 people across India and US. Naveen obtained his Bachelor’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT) and has a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School (HBS). At HBS, Naveen was the recipient of the "Dean's Award", the highest honor for his exceptional leadership and contribution.

Pramath Sinha

Founding Dean, ISB

Pramath helped set up and served as the founding dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB). He is also the Managing Director and co-founder of 9.9 Media. Prior to this, he spent 12 years with McKinsey as a partner where he led McKinsey India’s telecom, IT, and media practices as well as its organisation practice. Pramath holds a B Tech degree from IIT Kanpur and an MSE and Ph D from the University of Pennsylvania.

Praveen Tripathi

ex-Chief Secretary, Govt. of Delhi

Praveen K Tripathi joined the Indian Administrative Services in 1977. He was the Chief Secretary of Delhi since 2011. He served as the Chief Minister's principal secretary between 2006-11 and also served the Delhi Jal Board as CEO, besides being the Commissioner of Sales Tax in Delhi Government. Other positions he held were as Joint Secretary in Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Ravi Venkatesan

Founder, GAME

Ravi is the founder of the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) , a coalition which aims to create 10m local entrepreneurs in India and Africa by 2030. Ravi was previously the former Chairman of Bank of Baroda, Board Member at Rockefeller Foundation, Founder of Social Venture Partners India, a pan-India network of engaged philanthropists, Partner at Unitus Ventures, Former Chairman of Microsoft India and Cummins India, Former Board member and Co-Chairman of Infosys Ltd., and also served on the Boards of AB Volvo, Thermax Ltd. and Harvard Business School. He is the author of besteller "Conquering the Chaos- Win In India, Win Everywhere" published 2013 by Harvard Business Review Ravi has completed his bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, a Masters in Engineering from Purdue University and a MBA from Harvard Business School.

Sindhushree Khullar

ex-CEO, Niti Aayog

Ms. Sindhushree Khullar joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1975. She has 40 years of administrative experience in various capacities in Government of India. She is the first CEO of NITI Aayog. She holds Masters’ degrees in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (1991), Development Economics from Boston University (1985) and Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University (1974). She was also a Fellow at the Asian Institute of Management, Manila, Philippines between 1995-1999. Prior to this, she was Secretary in the erstwhile Planning Commission, Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports, Special Secretary, Ministry of Finance (Department of Economic Affairs) and Chairperson, New Delhi Municipal Council, Government of National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi. As Secretary Youth Affairs and Sports, she successfully steered the prestigious 2010 Commonwealth Games held in Delhi.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Founder & CEO, Paytm

Vijay is the founder & CEO of One97 and Paytm - one of India’s largest growing mobile internet & mobile commerce company. He also invests in early stage mobile internet startups from his company’s One97 Mobility Fund. An avid admirer of great design, Vijay believes his ultimate moment is yet to arrive. He says, and that too with a straight face, if not in his current job, he would have been singing along with Bono.

Vani Kola

Managing Director, Kalaari Capital

Vani Kola is the Founder and Managing Director of Kalaari Capital, one of India’s leading early-stage venture capital firms. She is a proponent for India’s digital opportunity to create next-gen large scale companies, which will scale globally. Having been a 2x entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, Vani's investment philosophy is derived from her successful entrepreneurial experiences. This includes recognizing young, first-time entrepreneurs with passion and perseverance. Vani values integrity in interactions as the key to building deep relationships. She enjoys mentoring entrepreneurs and guiding them into becoming seasoned business leaders. Vani has successfully led more than 30 investments at Kalaari in e-commerce, gaming, digital content, healthcare and more. Some of her successes include: Dream11, Myntra, Cure.fit, and Snapdeal. Vani currently serves on the board of several companies that are redefining the landscape of Indian business.

Manoj Kohli

Country Head - Softbank India

Manoj is a passionate leader who truly loves the challenge of shaping the industry transformations. Always with a positive energy and a star team so as to create world leading businesses with a profound societal impact. Manoj is the Country Head - SoftBank India, responsible for supporting SoftBank, SoftBank Vision Fund, and their over 20 portfolio companies’ in India. He works closely with portfolio company founders and CEOs to address government issues and secure timely approvals to enable their businesses to run smoothly and to achieve their full potential. Earlier he was the Executive Chairman of SB Energy which started its business in India in 2015. It achieved over 5GW of renewable energy capacity pipeline in India and is on its way to achieve SoftBank’s vision of 20GW capacity. It is also pursuing Corporate PPAs with MNCs for large scale RE plants for steel, aluminium, cement, mining, data centres etc. Earlier he was the Managing Director and CEO, Bharti Airtel, for operations across Asia and Africa in 20 countries till 2015. He joined Bharti Airtel in 2002 as President of Mobile Services business and led operations to grow from 2m to the third largest telco in the world with 400m customers. He led the formation of Indus/Infratel, the second largest tower company in the world for infrastructural synergies.