Abhishek Mohan

Abhishek Gupta

Ajay Mahipal

Arpit Agarwal

Ishpreet Gandhi

Ishpreet is the founder and managing partner at Stride Ventures. At Stride, Ishpreet’s all-encompassing role at the fund involves sourcing proprietary investment opportunities, fundraising, managing the portfolio by working with and supporting portfolio companies, including attending board meetings and monitoring performance to ensure returns and strategic objectives of the fund are achieved. As the fund manager, Ishpreet has built a well-diversified portfolio sanctioning over INR 1300Cr across 55+ companies across Consumer, FinTech, Logistics, AgriTech, B2B Commerce, HealthTech, B2B SaaS etc. Additionally, he has successfully pioneered tailor-made short term solutions for growth stage businesses and has created banking alliances for Stride’s portfolio company’s by leveraging his banking experience and network. Stride has been the most active venture debt fund in India in terms of deals executed, completing 50 deals in the calendar year 2021. Ishpreet currently operates across two funds, with the second fund gaining significant momentum, targeting above INR 1000 Crore with a greenshoe option of INR 75 Cr.

Prior to founding Stride Ventures, Ishpreet Gandhi started his career with Standard Chartered Bank in the SME banking division. This was followed by a term in Citibank commercial banking and thereafter, he managed MNC business for the northern region for Kotak group. He was the team leader at Yes Bank managing MNC and VC relationships in 2014, where he started sourcing growth-stage startups. Ishpreet managed relationships with Venture Capital funds like Omnivore, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, Mayfield Advisors & Bertelsmann during his term at YES Bank and IDFC. He closed his first VC-backed transaction as a first lender to BIRA (Alcoholic beverages) in late 2015, when the company attracted Series A investment from Sequoia Capital. The second company Ishpreet identified was Lendingkart, (Series A in 2016). The company was amongst the earliest fintech companies in India. Similar companies which Ishpreet successfully onboarded amongst startups were Leap India backed by Mayfield Advisors, Sixth Sense Ventures & TVS Capital (2016), Rivigo backed by SAIF Partners & Warburg Pincus (2018), Securens backed by Mayfield Advisors (2017), Ofbusiness backed by Matrix Partners and Norwest Venture Partners (2017). All these companies have witnessed significant increase in valuations with no delays in principal repayments or servicing of coupons.

Karan Mohla

Kunal Khattar

Nupur Garg

Nupur Garg is a leading investor in private equity and venture capital and an expert advisor to large institutional investors. She is the founder of WinPE (https://winpeforum.com), a not-for-profit initiative to enhance gender diversity in the investing ecosystem. Nupur serves as an independent director on the boards of companies including Indigo Paints Limited, Kerala Infrastructure Fund Management Limited, and SIDBI, the Indian development finance institution. She is an independent member of the investment committee at the Fund of Funds managed by the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), the quasi-sovereign wealth fund sponsored by the government of India, and an advisor to and a member of the investment committee for the Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF) investment funds mandate given by the Dutch government for investments in SMEs in frontier markets across 75 countries. She served for 3 years as an external expert on the investment committee for the INR 10,000 crore Fund of Fund for Start-ups for investing in the Indian start-up ecosystem. Nupur advises select fund managers on a confidential basis on matters related to institutionalization, best practices, and governance. She also mentors female entrepreneurs across various platforms. Nupur was listed in the Forbes W-Power list of Self Made Women in 2020, among India’s top 100 Women Leaders in Finance (AIWMI 2019), awarded the Women Empowerment Entrepreneur Award 2019-20 and the Business Excellence and Innovative Best Practices - Academia Award 2019. In her last and most recent full-time role, Nupur led the private equity and venture capital funds business in the region for IFC and is widely credited with establishing IFC’s brand and credibility as one of the most respected institutional investors in this space. Under her stewardship, the portfolio doubled in size and returns, moving from a negative IRR to delivering gains for the first time in its history. Nupur is a CA and an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, with executive education from Harvard Business School. Nupur loves to spend time with her mother, husband, and 6-year-old son, travel to new places, read and do 1000-piece puzzles.

Padmaja Ruparel

Padmaja Ruparel is the Founding Partner of the IAN Fund, a uniquely differentiated Rs. 450 crores (~$70mn) Fund which along with IAN, is set to create the largest horizontal platform in India for investing in seed and early stage ventures. She is also the Co-Founder & President of IAN, India's first & one of the world’s largest group of business angels, comprising the who's who of successful entrepreneurs and dynamic CEOs from India and overseas.

Padmaja is a Co-Chair of Global Business Angel Network. She also operationalised TiE Delhi, which has been ranked as the number one chapter globally for the last 4 consecutive years. She played a key role as Executive Director in building the Indian Venture Capital Association, India's oldest and largest association of VC and PE firms. In addition, she helped the creation of Lankan Angel Network in Sri Lanka. She contributed actively in the Planning Commission’s Committee on “Angel & Early Stage Investing in India” which resulted in a seminal report: “Creating a Vibrant Entrepreneurial Eco system in India”. She is on the Committee of Telecom Centre of Excellence, Selection Committee of MSME and is actively engaged with the various committees of Ministry of Finance, SEBI, etc.

Padmaja is nationally recognised as a key player in the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem and has helped co-found many of the relevant institutions, besides being an active Angel investor herself. Her operating experience spans large corporates, M&A, and start-ups/early stage companies. She has been awarded as one of the 'Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Business' by Fortune India and has been listed in Forbes India’s W-Power Trailblazers and ‘30 Most Powerful Women in India’ by Business Today.

Sanjeev Aggarwal

Sateesh Andra

Sateesh Andra loves entrepreneurs with grit, clarity, and focus on execution. Technology start-ups with clear value proposition drive Sateesh. His investing, co-founding, leadership and engineering experience, for the past twenty-plus years in U.S/India, all veer around technology.

As the Managing Director at Endiya Partners, Sateesh serves on boards of AlphaICs, Darwinbox, and Kissht. Some of his past investments include Seclore, Little Eye Labs (Facebook) and mGinger (ValueFirst). Prior to Endiya, he was a Partner at Ventureast and DFJ.

Prior to DFJ, Sateesh was Founder/CEO of Euclid (Synnex), a Silicon Valley start-up, in the IT Management Software space and was instrumental in raising VC funding ($35 M+), besides acquiring and managing marquee customers and partners. He has also served in product marketing and engineering leadership roles at Tsqware (Synaptics), LSI Logic (Broadcom), and VLSI Technology (NXP).

Besides helping evolve ideas into real businesses, Sateesh is involved with the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy with the objective of popularizing sports and promoting awareness of chronic diseases in the corporate world. Sateesh was a top-ranked Table Tennis player representing A.P State in Nationals.

Sateesh holds a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering.

Shraeyansh Thakur

Sunil Kumar Goyal

Abheek Singhi

Abheek Singhi leads The Boston Consulting Group’s Consumer and Retail practice in Asia-Pacific. He was named a BCG Fellow in 2015; his fellowship is examining how digital and other technologies can provide leapfrog opportunities in emerging markets.

Abheek has nearly 25 years of experience with clients in emerging markets such as India, China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. In addition, he has worked in BCG San Francisco with clients in the US and Canada.

He has worked with leading consumer packaged, consumer durable, and retail companies on a wide variety of projects related to strategy, operational excellence, and organizational improvement. In those assignments, he has led teams delivering significant top-line and bottom-line impact for clients.

Abheek has been a member of the National FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) Committee and the National Retail Committee of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for several years. In that role, he has worked to monitor the industry trends and to shape industrywide responses. Abheek has also been selected by the Aspen Institute as part of the India Leadership Initiative program and is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Abheek is a coauthor of the bestselling BCG book The $10 Trillion Prize (published by Harvard Business Review Press). He has also written several seminal reports on the Indian agriculture, consumer, and retail sectors, and he is a frequent contributor to national newspapers and a speaker at leading business conferences and seminars.

Amitabh Kant

Mr. Amitabh Kant serves as the Chief Executive Officer of NITI Aayog. He is a member of the Indian Administrative Service, Kerala Cadre, 1980 batch. He has authored Branding India: An Incredible Story (2009) and Incredible India 2.0: Synergies of Growth and Governance (2019), and edited The Path Ahead: Transformative Ideas for India (2018).

Mr Kant has been a key driver of award-winning initiatives, such as ‘Make in India’, ‘Startup India’, ‘Incredible India’, and ‘God’s Own Country’, that have positioned India and the state of Kerala as leading manufacturing and tourist destinations. He has conceptualized the ‘Atithi Devo Bhavah’ (or the Guest is God) campaign to train taxi drivers, guides, and immigration officials as stakeholders in the tourism development process. In his capacity as Secretary of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India, Mr Kant drove the Ease-of-Doing Business initiative, which led to the emergence of state specific rankings. What started as a national level exercise, is today being emulated by some states to rank their own districts. Mr Kant has previously worked as CMD, ITDC; Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Tourism; Secretary (Tourism), Government of Kerala; Managing Director, Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation; District Collector, Kozhikode; and Managing Director, Matsyafed. During his tenure in Kerala, he structured the Calicut Airport as a private sector project and developed the BSES Power Project and Mattancherry Bridge under private-public partnership. He also introduced new technology (fiberglass crafts and outboard motor) in the fisheries sector and launched beach-level auctions that substantially enhanced returns to traditional fishermen.

At NITI Aayog, Mr. Kant is driving the Aspirational Districts Program, which has succeeded in improving the socio-economic outcomes in some of the most backward districts of the country through a mix of data-based governance, competitive federalism and collaborations. Mr Kant is the Chairman of Empowered Group 3, one of the 11 such groups constituted by the Government of India to tackle the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The group worked with the private sector, NGOs, and international for pandemic management activities, including the management of international aid. He has been at the helm of driving various other national level initiatives such as Asset Monetization, National Mission for Transformative Mobility besides others. A proponent of competitive federalism, Mr. Kant has driven exercises for state and district level ranks across a variety of indicators.

Mr Kant is the recipient of the Economic Times Policy Change Agent of the Year Award, the Bloomberg TV Personality of the Year Award, the NDTV Administrator of the Year Award, the One Globe Award, 2016, for Leadership in Transforming Governance in the 21st century, and the Golden Peacock Award for Leadership in Economic Transformation, 2017. He was also awarded the Distinguished Fellowship of the Institute of Directors. India Today, in its 45th Anniversary special issue, featured Mr. Kant as one of the 45 celebrated Indians. He was listed as one of the world's 50 most influential people revolutionizing governance by Apolitical, a global government learning platform. He is a Member of the Steering Board of “Shaping the Future of Production Systems” of World Economic Forum (WEF) and is a Champion of the EDISON Alliance of WEF.

Mr Kant has done his schooling from Modern School, New Delhi; graduation in Economics (Hons) from St Stephen’s College, Delhi University; and MA from Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is a Chevening Scholar. He is the recipient of the Sir Edmund Hillary Fellowship by the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Arjun Mohan

Arjun is the CEO - India, at the Asia’s higher EdTech major - upGrad, which within 7 years of its inception, has impacted over 2 million total registered learners over 100 countries.

Arjun started his career with the Think & Learn Pvt Ltd, commonly known as Byju’s, as a teacher and moved up the ranks into a leadership role. He ran most of the Sales and Marketing in the company’s early years and was until recently running its International Business. He held several leadership positions throughout his tenure including Vice President - Marketing and most recently, Chief Business Officer (CBO).

Prior to Byju’s, Arjun drove Sales and Operations at Titan Industries and did his stints with Tata Motors, Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd. (TRIL) and Sir Dorabji Tata and Allied Trusts. He started his career as a Tata Administrative Services Manager after passing out from IIM Kozhikode with Gold Medal.

Bhawna Agarwal

Bipin Preet Singh

Gautam Kapoor

With a keen insight of the SMB market and an ex-SMB himself, Gautam Kapoor is the Co-founder at Shiprocket, a leading tech-driven logistics aggregation platform with global reach. At Shiprocket, Gautam is at the helm of running logistics execution, operations and end to end strategy. As the Co-founder of the company, he helps define the culture and vision of the company.

Post his BS in Business from Western International University (USA), Gautam was part of his family business in industrial products import and distribution and worked with several renowned German engineering brands such as Bosch and Sick. He was instrumental in scaling the business and played key roles in several functions such as business development, logistics and enterprise sales.

His entrepreneurial journey began by Co-founding KartRocket and initially he was appointed as COO as well. At KartRocket, Gautam delivered superior results by developing and leading the business development, marketing, and sales. He also played a pivotal role in building the vendor management team and conceptualized the company’s strategic alliance and partner development program. Kartrocket has now been merged with Shiprocket as its e-commerce and omnichannel retail solutions arm, and Gautam is one of the efficacious Co-founder for the combined entity Shiprocket.

Jaideep Mehta

Jaideep joined the company in October 2017 to set the company on a new, accelerated growth path. He is an advisor to CEOs and business leaders of investment and tech ecosystem. From macro-economic trends to technology disruptions, and market and industry analysis, he has blogged, written and presented on a wide range of topics.
 
Prior to his current role, he was Managing Director - IDC India and South Asia. Under his leadership, IDC India was conferred the CIO Choice Award for “IT Advisor of the Year” three years consecutively in 2014, 2015 & 2016. Jaideep has been awarded the “Patrick J McGovern IDC Entrepreneur of the Year 2015” for consistent excellence in leading the South Asia team to success and “Leadership Award for Contribution to Market Research” by the World Marketing Congress in 2014.
 
Before IDC, he was based in London, UK and worked at Gartner for over 5 years where he was Regional VP, Sales & Business Development – EMEA and prior to that, he spent more than 2 and a half years in the Indian outsourcing sector, most notably at Zensar Technologies where he spearheaded the set up to their Financial Services practice in Europe. During the late nineties, he was in the software sector.
 
Jaideep is a graduate from the Shriram College of Commerce, Delhi University and holds an MBA degree from the Manchester Business School, UK. He enjoys reading, the occasional game of tennis and driving to remote parts of Indi

Kamal Kashyap

Leslie D'Monte

Nupur Garg

Nupur Garg is a leading investor in private equity and venture capital and an expert advisor to large institutional investors. She is the founder of WinPE (https://winpeforum.com), a not-for-profit initiative to enhance gender diversity in the investing ecosystem. Nupur serves as an independent director on the boards of companies including Indigo Paints Limited, Kerala Infrastructure Fund Management Limited, and SIDBI, the Indian development finance institution. She is an independent member of the investment committee at the Fund of Funds managed by the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), the quasi-sovereign wealth fund sponsored by the government of India, and an advisor to and a member of the investment committee for the Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF) investment funds mandate given by the Dutch government for investments in SMEs in frontier markets across 75 countries. She served for 3 years as an external expert on the investment committee for the INR 10,000 crore Fund of Fund for Start-ups for investing in the Indian start-up ecosystem. Nupur advises select fund managers on a confidential basis on matters related to institutionalization, best practices, and governance. She also mentors female entrepreneurs across various platforms. Nupur was listed in the Forbes W-Power list of Self Made Women in 2020, among India’s top 100 Women Leaders in Finance (AIWMI 2019), awarded the Women Empowerment Entrepreneur Award 2019-20 and the Business Excellence and Innovative Best Practices - Academia Award 2019. In her last and most recent full-time role, Nupur led the private equity and venture capital funds business in the region for IFC and is widely credited with establishing IFC’s brand and credibility as one of the most respected institutional investors in this space. Under her stewardship, the portfolio doubled in size and returns, moving from a negative IRR to delivering gains for the first time in its history. Nupur is a CA and an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, with executive education from Harvard Business School. Nupur loves to spend time with her mother, husband, and 6-year-old son, travel to new places, read and do 1000-piece puzzles.

Padmaja Ruparel

Padmaja Ruparel is the Founding Partner of the IAN Fund, a uniquely differentiated Rs. 450 crores (~$70mn) Fund which along with IAN, is set to create the largest horizontal platform in India for investing in seed and early stage ventures. She is also the Co-Founder & President of IAN, India's first & one of the world’s largest group of business angels, comprising the who's who of successful entrepreneurs and dynamic CEOs from India and overseas.

Padmaja is a Co-Chair of Global Business Angel Network. She also operationalised TiE Delhi, which has been ranked as the number one chapter globally for the last 4 consecutive years. She played a key role as Executive Director in building the Indian Venture Capital Association, India's oldest and largest association of VC and PE firms. In addition, she helped the creation of Lankan Angel Network in Sri Lanka. She contributed actively in the Planning Commission’s Committee on “Angel & Early Stage Investing in India” which resulted in a seminal report: “Creating a Vibrant Entrepreneurial Eco system in India”. She is on the Committee of Telecom Centre of Excellence, Selection Committee of MSME and is actively engaged with the various committees of Ministry of Finance, SEBI, etc.

Padmaja is nationally recognised as a key player in the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem and has helped co-found many of the relevant institutions, besides being an active Angel investor herself. Her operating experience spans large corporates, M&A, and start-ups/early stage companies. She has been awarded as one of the 'Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Business' by Fortune India and has been listed in Forbes India’s W-Power Trailblazers and ‘30 Most Powerful Women in India’ by Business Today.

Rajan Singla

Ranjani Raghavan

Shalil Gupta

Shalil is responsible for research, events and training business that assists clients in improving their capabilities in key process areas. Before this, Shalil was ‘AVP, Research and Consulting’ at IDC India. He has an extensive senior level experience in the ICT industry that enriches his strategic engagements with companies. A much-sought-after speaker at international forums, Shalil also invests his time in leading innumerable focused group discussions in India. With his specialization in the BFSI sector, he covers an array of topics including emerging technologies, digital enterprises, industries and IT sourcing and servicing in his speaking engagements.

Shalil's role extends beyond delivering qualitative research content, and includes preparing forward-looking assessment and analysis and sharing market insights and predictions with senior management teams. He has worked in India, London, Edinburgh, Ireland, Western Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan. During his time in these organizations, he has driven the development of enterprise level technology strategies, managed large transformation and IT programs, and played a leading role in a post-merger IT integration of two banks in the United Kingdom.

A graduate of Computer Science, Shalil holds a postgraduate (MBA) degree from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), a leading business school in India.

Shruti Singh

Ms. Shruti Singh, a 2004-batch IAS officer of Punjab Cadre, has completed her Bachelor’s degree in History, followed by a Master's in Public Administration. She was Ludhiana’s first woman Municipal Corporation (MC) Commissioner. She was also appointed as the Chairman of Ludhiana Improvement Trust in addition to being the MC Commissioner and Chief Administrator of the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA).

Born in 1982, Ms. Shruti Singh has served as the Deputy Commissioner in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar and Jalandhar. She has worked in various capacities in the Department of Finance, Industries, Revenue, etc. She is currently deputed as Joint Secretary at Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and is driving the Startup India initiative. Throughout her tenure, she has been instrumental in supporting various regulatory reforms and initiatives for strengthening the startup and innovation ecosystem in India.
 

Sumedha Bose

Sumedha is the Product Lead of Sales Edge, India’s only Growth Acceleration Platform. She is also responsible for c-suite research programs such as CFO research, CEO Research, and other CXO research conducted to understand the technology landscape of India. She is well established as a sought-out advisor to many industry technology provider leaders across multiple functions such as marketing, sales and product solution development helping them understand the nuances and deal with the dynamism of the market at large.