Shantanu Rastogi

Shantanu Rastogi is a Managing Director at General Atlantic’s Mumbai office and focuses on investments in the Financial Services, Healthcare, and Retail & Consumer sectors in India & Asia-Pacific.

Prior to joining General Atlantic, Shantanu was a Principal at Apax Partners. Previously Shantanu was a consultant at McKinsey & Company in Mumbai. He is on the Board of ‘House of Anita Dongre’, ‘IIIFL Wealth & Asset Mgmt’ and Absolute Barbecue Pvt. Ltd.

Shantanu graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay) and completed his M.B.A. at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Deepak I. Shahdadpuri

Deepak I. Shahdadpuri is the Founder and Managing Director of DSG Consumer Partners (“DSGCP”) and has over 15 years of private equity experience. Before DSGCP, he co-founded and managed the Beacon India Private Equity Fund and GEM India. Prior to that, Deepak worked with Reuters Venture Capital, Bain & Company and Ernst & Young.

Deepak currently serves on multiple boards including that of Baker's Circle, Eazydiner, Impresario Hospitality, IndoStar Capital, India Lends, Mswipe Technologies, Saffronart, and Sula Wines. His investment experience also includes RBL Bank, India’s National Stock Exchange, OYO Rooms, Cleartrip, GOQii, Redmart, Chope, F&B Asia and Hostmaker.

Deepak has an MBA with Distinction from INSEAD where he graduated on the Dean’s list, an LLB (Hons) from King's College London and a FCA from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England & Wales.

Deepak serves on the Advisory Board of INSEAD’s Global Private Equity Initiative (GPEI). GPEI aims to work hand in hand with private equity firms to create relevant, timely and thought provoking output. Deepak is the co-founder of InseadAlum Ventures, a venture fund leveraging capital from INSEAD alumni focused on investing in early stage businesses founded by INSEAD alumni.

Deepak also serves on board of Magic Bus Singapore, a non-profit organization helping develop underprivileged children through sports in India.

 

Imran Jafar

Imran is a General Partner at Gaja Capital (www.gajacapital.com). Gaja is India’s leading mid-market growth capital firm. Gaja’s aim is to help create India’s next generation of market leaders in sectors such as Education, Consumer, Financial Services and Healthcare.

Imran has 19 years of experience in Private Equity, Pharmaceuticals and Technology services. Prior to Gaja, Imran worked in a variety of roles of increasing responsibility at Dr. Reddy’s and Wipro Technologies.

At Gaja, Imran leads investments in the Education and Consumer clusters. He has been closely involved with Gaja’s investments in Kangaroo Kids (Pre-K and K-12), SportzVillage (Sports management), EuroKids (Pre-K and K12), John Distilleries (AlcoBev), CL Educate (Supplemental Education), Indus World Schools (K12), Educomp (Education- diversified) and Millennium Schools (K12). Imran has post graduate degrees in software engineering from BITS-Pilani and an MBA from IIM-Bangalore.

Nandini Chopra

Sean Sovak

Sean is a Partner at Lighthouse, having co-founded the business in the mid-2000s. He is responsible for all aspects of sourcing, underwriting and managing portfolio investments, as well as team and organizational development. Previously, Sean was a Managing Director at W. P. Carey & Co., a NYSE-listed finance company, where he served in various capacities since 1994, lastly as Managing Director and Chief Acquisitions Officer. Sean serves as a Director to Kama Ayurveda, one of India’s leading luxury personal care brands, as well as Fabindia, India’s leading ethnic wear retailer and purveyor of other home and personal care products which celebrate India’s uniqueness. In his personal time, Sean is an Advisory Board Member to the Muktangan Education Resource Center, which provides world-class education solutions for students of low income households; he has also served on the Board of the New York Philharmonic and The American School of Bombay in past years.

Sean earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics (summa cum laude) from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Rakesh Sony

Rakesh is Global Head- Strategy and M&A at TGB, responsible for development and deployment of strategies for the Organization, delivery of new businesses/acquisitions/ alliances to drive the sustainable, profitable growth agenda of our Company.

Rakesh joined Tata Global Beverages in 2017 and is based out of Mumbai. Rakesh with over 20 years of experience, has held key leadership roles in the Financial Services industry such as the Director & India head of Proterra Investment Partners and Partner at Motilal Oswal PE Fund. He has led over a dozen successful investments in the food and consumer space in India and has assisted Companies in their strategic transformation process.

He is a Chartered Accountant and a graduate from St Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Rohan Mirchandani

Rohan Mirchandani is Co-Founder and CEO at Drums Food, makers of India’s first Greek yogurt – Epigamia. At Epigamia, Rohan’s role is to develop the company vision and strategy and lead the company’s effort in establishing a unique brand that will spur the next wave within the FMCG sector.

Rohan grew up in the United States and moved to Mumbai in 2013. Before moving to India, and becoming one of the youngest leaders in the FMCG space, Rohan led a career in the finance sector with S&P's Corporate Valuation Group (now a division of Duff & Phelps Investment Bank) where he spent time in Tokyo working on on of the largest M&A transactions in history. He then joined his family owned company, the Ross Group, where he was responsible for re-branding the logistics business and supply chain based solutions.

Rohan holds a Bachelor's degree in Finance and International Business from NYU's Stern School of Business and an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is a foodie and a student of gastronomy, which is closely linked to his passion for travel, loves playing and watching basketball and is an art aficionado.

Sid Talwar

Sid is a co-founder and partner at Lightbox. He moved to India in 2001 to found Evolv, a vocational training company funded by Singapore Technologies – their first early stage investment in the sub-continent. Over the next 6 years, Sid grew Evolv to 300 employees training and assessing over 20,000 people a year across 200 cities in South Asia, East Asia and the Middle East. In 2007, he sold Evolv to NIIT - Asia's largest training company. Sid worked with NIIT for the next 3 years, heading Evolv, as well as Litmus and Uniqua (NIIT's foray into assessments and JV with Genpact). Over ten years, Sid became a master in edtech, especially in the context of India, SE Asia and emerging markets.

An entrepreneur at heart, Sid left NIIT to get back in to the startup game. Over the next few years leading up to Lightbox, he has advised several startups, angel funds, and a very special NGO called Magic Bus.

At Lightbox Sid’s role is as much about building companies as it is about bringing people together to make new things happen. He writes regularly and passionately on the dynamics of the new economy and is an influential mentor and voice on entrepreneurship in India.

As enterprising at play as he is at work, Sid recently teamed up with restaurateurs and investors to launch a series of award–winning restaurants in Delhi.

Kabir Thakur

Sahil Dalal

Sahil Dalal joined Advent in 2009. Prior to business school, he was an associate with JLL Partners, a New York-based private equity firm where he focused on buyout and growth equity transactions. Prior to JLL Partners, Sahil spent three years with Bear Stearns in New York as an analyst in its Investment Banking Division.

Sahil has a BBA with High Distinction from The Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Sahil has worked on Advent's investments in ASK Investment Managers Private Limited, CAMS, Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Limited, Dixcy Textiles Private Limited and QuEST Global.

Nikhil Vora

Nikhil Vora is the Founder and CEO of Sixth Sense Ventures; India’s first domestic consumer centric venture fund. Nikhil was earlier the Managing Director and Head of Research at IDFC Securities, and has been regarded as one of the strongest analytical minds in the country. The core of Sixth Sense lies in the belief that the next big wave of dysfunctional growth will be led by players who are going to be driven by completely different skill sets / capabilities and not necessarily capital. Sixth Sense has invested in ETHOS (India’s largest luxury retail watch chain) and CROSSROADS (India’s largest Road Side Assistance Company).  Sixth Sense philosophy lies in investing in the Consumer of Tomorrow…Today!!!

Nikhil has been invited by the “Nestle Global Consumer Board” and the “Regional CFO forum” to give a presentation on the potential roadmap for Nestle India. He has also evolved a strategic road-map for Hindustan Unilever, Aditya Birla Group, Marico, Godrej etc. His research has been accredited by some of the largest global funds like Capital, Fidelity, Alliance Bernstein, Putnam, Schroder’s etc. Nikhil has been rated by Asia Money / Institutional Investors consistently for being amongst the best analytical minds in the country. In the Asia Money polls 2012, Nikhil was voted as India’s No.1 analyst. He also has the rare distinction of being voted Asia’s Best Analyst by the Wall Street Journal in the same year.  Along with advising clients, he also has been a venture capital investor and on the board of a few of his investee companies. Some of the earlier Venture Investments made by Nikhil Vora in his personal capacity includes - Bewakoof India, BVG India, Cloudseed Legal (www.Rainmaker.co.in), Parag Milk (Go Cheese), Infinite Analytics, Intellisys Technologies, Kangaroo Kids, One97 (PayTm), Mannash Lifestyle (www.purplle.com), Reznext Solutions, Rooms Tonight, Technology Frontiers, Tarnea Technologies and Vini Cosmetics (Fogg Deo). A post-graduate in Management, Mr. Vora was a member participant at the Future Leaders Program at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, London. He was also bestowed with the ‘Thought Leadership’ award by IDFC Ltd.

Priyanka Gill

Combining her experience in lifestyle journalism with a flair for fashion, Priyanka Gill created POPxo in 2014 as a digital content platform for engaging content lifestyle content for young Indian women. In 2015, 1.2 billion people saw POPxo posts on Facebook, with 212,000 daily fan interactions. The website got 19 million unique views and over 3.5 million video views. It is available English, engaging audience via both video and text. She keeps the brand ahead of the curve with initiatives such as the POPxo Style Council, the POPxo Blog Network and The POPxo Campus Ambassador Programme.

After graduating with honours from Lady Sri Ram College in Delhi, Priyanka went on to contribute to Vogue India, The Guardian, Travel + Leisure and Grazia.in. She is a Contributing Editor to Harper’s Bazaar India and guest-edited the India special issue of the Mayfair Times magazine in June 2013.

As an investor, Priyanka works with early stage tech startups and food concepts, such as Bea’s of Bloomsbury, Campanja, SoundOut, Yieldify and Raptor Supplies, as an investor, board member or advisor. She extends time and support to several charities. She co-chaired the Pratham UK gala in 2009-2010, raising over GBP 2 million for the charity. She also advises Akshayapatra UK, and the Savitri Waney trust as an advisory board member.

A busy mother of two young children, Priyanka juggles a demanding family life with her passion for work and travel.  She is a recipient of the FICCI Women’s Achiever's Award 2015 and the Digital Women Awards for Content Creation in 2015.

Revant Bhate

Nihir Parikh

Mr. Nihir Parikh is the Chief Business Officer at Nykaa.com, an e-commerce store that is focused on beauty and wellness products. He is armed with a degree of MBA from INSEAD, MS from Stanford University and BE from Mumbai University.

He began his career as an engineer at Genentech Inc, USA. After his stint at Genentech Inc Mr. Parikh moved to GE as a Business Development manager wherein his key expertise was focusing on strategy. He also launched a new business vertical called Enterprise Solutions. He has also advised startups in India including FitPermit, Giftery and Aurality.

At Nykaa, he leads the ecommerce business directing brand relations, product, technology, marketing teams and ensures their smooth functioning whilst making sure they meet the revenue target every month. His leadership skills and team building qualities ensure the teams are functioning towards the company’s vision and achieve the desired targets thereby driving the company’s growth and success.

Arumugham Mahendran

A Mahendran is an Indian entrepreneur and the Chairman and Managing Director of Global Consumer Products Private Limited, a ‘‘'synthetic startup’’' in the consumer goods sector. He is the former Managing Director of Godrej Consumer Products Limited.

Mahendran began his career as a partner with Chartered Accountancy firm RNG Price & Associates in 1980. In 1987, he partnered with R Mohan in Transelektra Domestic Products Limited to launch a brand of household insecticide called GoodKnight and Hit in India. He drove the business from a start-up to a Rs. 500 million brand in sales in a short span of seven years after which he sold the business to the Godrej Group in 1994 for Rs. 1 Billion.

Mahendran then became the Managing Director of Godrej Hicare Limited. Within a year he sold a 51% stake in Godrej Hicare Limited to the Sara Lee Corporation, USA, valuing the company at Rs. 3.8 Billion. In 2010, he acquired Sara Lee’s 51% for the Godrej Group and integrated the business with Godrej Consumer Products Limited. As Managing Director, Mahendran steered the merger and acquisition cell at Godrej Consumer Products Limited. Over a period of 3 years from 2010 to 2013, he also spearheaded Godrej Group’s inorganic growth around the globe through merger & acquisition. Some of the acquisitions concluded were Tura brands (Nigeria), Megasari (Indonesia), Issue Group (Argentina) and Darling Group (South Africa).

In 1996, Mahendran promoted a beverage company, GoodLife Industries Limited, focusing on South India and producing beverages under the brand name CheriO. This brand was subsequently bought by Global Consumer Products Private Limited.

In 2014, Mahendran created a synthetic start up, ‘’Global Consumer Products Private Limited’’ in the FMCG space. This joint venture along with private equity players Goldman Sachs (US) and Mitsui & Co. (Japan) was started on 1 February 2014. Mahendran is the promoter, shareholder, Chairman and Managing Director. The company has set up two offices (Bangalore and Mumbai) and developed and launched the chocolate brand, LuvIt, in the southern states of India.

Ritesh Chandra

Ritesh heads the Consumer, FIG and Business Services Group. He has over 20 years of experience in executing M&A, PE and structured financing transactions. Ritesh has extensive experience on transactions in consumer products, financial services and media. He worked with Credit Suisse prior to joining Avendus. Ritesh holds an MBA from FMS, Delhi and a BE from the University of Delhi.

Supam Maheshwari

An IIM Ahmedabad MBA student and a Mechanical Engineer, Supam Maheshwari, CEO and Founder of FirstCry.com, started the company in the year 2010. Prior to launching FirstCry.com, Supam was the co-founder and CEO of Brainvisa Technologies, one of the largest e-Learning company, and was associated with the company from 2000 to 2009.

A first generation entrepreneur, the need to do something on his own led him to open his FirstCry.com. During his Brainvisa days, when Supam had just become a father, he used to travel abroad frequently. As choices for baby products in India were quite limited around eight years ago, he used to buy a lot of them during his business trips. Thus he discovered an opportunity and conceptualised FirstCry.com. Today FirstCry is India’s largest omni-channel shopping destination for babies, kids, and expecting moms.

As the CEO of FirstCry.com, Supam leads and oversees the implementation of the company’s long and short term plans in accordance with its strategy. An exemplary leader, Supam believes in leading by example and is always the first one to take the initiative, guiding and directing the team to set & achieve greater heights.

Sandeep Barasia

Sandeep Barasia is a co-MD of Delhivery.com and responsible for overall revenue, strategy & business development and organization building for the company. He also works closely with the Founder/CEO of Delhivery on Investor relations and fund raising for the company. He has over 20 years of experience across consulting, industry and entrepreneurship in India and abroad.

Just prior to joining Delhivery, Sandeep was a Senior Partner at Bain & Company and a leader of the firm’s consumer products practice in India. He was also part of the team that spearheaded Bain’s entry into India. Sandeep also servers as an Independent Director on the Boards of Godrej Nature’s Basket (premium grocery retailer) and the holding company of the Oberoi Amarvillas (part of the Oberoi Luxury Hotels chain). He also sits on the Advisory Board of Global Consumer Products Pvt. Ltd (a synthetic startup promoted by industry veteran A.Mahendran, Goldman Sachs and Mitsui). Sandeep has an MBA from London Business School (distinction) and BCOM in International Business and Economics from Bond University, Australia

Sandeep Reddy

Sandeep Reddy is a Founder and Managing Director of Peepul Capital, an India-centric Private Equity investor with investments focused on execution-risk. He has been one of the early participants in the rapidly evolving Indian Private Equity industry having been active for close to two decades. He takes overall responsibility in defining and executing Peepul’s strategy. In that role, he has spawned and built a number of entities as well as driven migration through their lifecycles. Peepul Capital has been involved in sponsoring over 38 companies.

Kausshal Dugarr

Kausshal is the Founder/CEO of Teabox, world’s first vertically integrated tea brand that is disrupting a $50 billion industry with its innovations in technology/supply chain. It has raised over $15 mn in external funding and has been widely chronicled as a disruptive idea in a 200-year old industry.

Started in 2013, Teabox has shipped over 40mn cups of tea to customers in 110 countries. Kausshal has also been featured in publications such as New York Times, CNN, Forbes and The Economic Times. Most recently he was selected as one of the 40 Under 40 by Fortune magazine.

Kausshal graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor’s of Business Management from the Singapore Management University (SMU).
 

Avani Davda

Avani Davda is the Managing Director of Godrej Nature’s Basket, India’s foremost retail destination for fine foods from across the world. She is a results driven, selfmotivated and resourceful leader. Her strengths lie in developing business strategy and ability to execute with a sharp focus on business sustainability – focusing on growth and profitability.

Avani was nominated as a Young Global Leader in 2014 by the World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland. Also featured in Fortune US’s annual global list of “40 under 40 leaders” in 2013 and Fortune and Food & Wine’s list of “25 Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink” in 2014 – the only Indian woman on the list. Prior to her current role, she worked as Chief Executive Officer of Tata Starbucks Private Ltd., the 50/50 joint venture between Starbucks Coffee Company and Tata Global Beverages Limited (TGBL). In a span of 3 years she has successfully led aggressive expansion of over 80 Starbucks stores across six key metros of India.

Before Tata Starbucks Private Ltd., she worked as Vice president in the office of Director, Tata Sons who oversaw consumer companies of the Tata Group: Tata Global Beverages, Taj Hotels, Infiniti Retail, Tata Housing and Tata Infrastructure and Realty. She worked closely on the strategic initiatives for TGBL and Infiniti Retail. She also played a pivotal role in the development of two joint ventures namely TGBL and PepsiCo India and also between Starbucks and TGBL in preparation for entry into the India market. She started her career with Tata Group as a recruit into the Group’s flagship leadership program ‘TAS’ (Tata Administrative Services). Following her training period in 2003 she joined The Indian Hotels Company Ltd (Taj Hotels), as Manager in the Business Development team. In 2006, she moved to Sales and Marketing, with the key responsibility of Taj Luxury Hotels in India and was promoted to General Manager-Marketing in 2007.

Avani holds a Masters degree in Management Studies from NMIMS and a Bachelors degree in Commerce with Honors (Advertising & Media) from H.R. College, University of Mumbai. Avani is based in Mumbai, India, and is married to Vishal Davda. They are proud parents of their nine year old son, Param. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and theatre.

Ankit Agarwal

Ankit is a Director at InnoVen Capital India where he is responsible for leading venture debt deals as well as managing the portfolio. He has successfully led numerous Venture Debt transactions across sectors like logistics, technology, financial services, travel, healthcare, and retail. In addition to his lending role, Ankit has led the firm’s initiative to work with seed and angel backed companies and position them for success by providing guidance on funding raising alternatives and connecting with investors, key business partners and peers.

Prior to joining InnoVen India in 2011, Ankit worked with the central Credit Risk Management team at YES Bank in Mumbai and was responsible for due diligence and credit risk evaluation of early stage companies. He started his career as a credit analyst with ICICI Bank.

Ankit holds a PGDM from IMT Ghaziabad and a Bachelor's in Commerce from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. Ankit is a qualified Chartered Accountant (ICAI) and Company Secretary (ICSI). He is an avid backpacker and a music junkie, loves photography and is always up to debate new ideas.

Manan Gupta

Manan currently manages a team of Display marketing experts at Google. He is responsible for the overall strategy to increase ROI on display spends for top advertisers globally, through product improvement, automation and efficient servicing. Before joining Google, Manan was leading the App acquisition and Social Media performance marketing teams at Quikr.

In a career spanning more than 11 years, Manan has worked in multiple industries and functions, online marketing being one of them. Manan is also passionate about growth of sports in India, and was a co-founder of a sports marketing and consulting start-up. Manan is an IIT Kharagpur and IIM Indore graduate.

Vaseem Edroos

Sanjay Tripathy

Sanjay Tripathy is a Stanford alumni and a renowned marketing and Digital expert with  26 years of industry experience. After hugely successful stints in organisations like Amul, Pepsico, Mattel, Reliance Infocom and HDFC Life, he has recently shifted gears and moved to the entrepreneurial space. This digital evangelist, highly regarded Design thinking expert is a guru at leveraging data insights to drive complex organisational transformations. He has set up Agilio, India’s first Digital Transformation consultancy, that guides businesses in the quest to become future-ready. Apart from this, he also advises a variety of established businesses, startups and institutions, ranging from Internet & Mobile Association of India, SHEROS, Laqshya Media Group  to name a few.

A recognised thought leader in the Marketing space in India and a regular speaker/mentor in CMO forums, industry meets and digital marketers’ forums, Sanjay is one of the most-awarded marketers.

Giriraj Bagri

Kamal Khushlani

Amith Karan

Rishav Jain

Shilpa Kulkarni