Bagrry’s is India’s leading FMCG brand of health foods and breakfast cereals. Aditya joined Bagrry's in 2011 and currently is a Director with the organisation. In his current role, he also looks into Corporate Finance and Business Development for the Bagrry's Group. Previously, he has been a part of the international organisation AIESEC, where he led their Corporate Relations team in Delhi and has also worked with Goldman Sachs in the UK. Aditya is a Statistics Graduate from Hindu College, Delhi University and has also completed a MSc. in Management from the London School of Economics (LSE), where he graduated with a distinction.

@adityabagri

Adwitiya has over a decade of experience across multiple functions including sales, corporate strategy and corporate finance.

Prior to co-founding EM3, Adwitiya served in a number of Regional roles at AXA’s Asia Region Headquarters in Hong Kong. At AXA he was initially the Asia Strategy Manager responsible for developing the corporate strategy for AXA’s 19 businesses across 10 countries. In his later years at AXA, he served as the Strategic Programs Manager and was responsible for driving major multi-country strategic initiatives.

Adwitiya started his career as a front line sales manager with ICICI Prudential, in Delhi and holds an MBA from the Simon School of Business, University of Rochester, where he was inducted into the business school under their “Early Leader” program.

Mr. Anil Choudhary as the founder Managing Director and CEO of National Bulk Handling Corporation Pvt. Ltd. (NBHC), is credited with setting up NBHC from almost its inception. He is credited with envisioning its mission, spearheaded its strategy and driven its growth, eventually positioning it as a unique solutions provider for risk identification, measurement and mitigation for the entire agri commodity eco-system participants. NBHC today has emerged as the leading Warehouse Service Provider and Collateral Manager in the Agri Commodity ecosystem.

Prior to joining NBHC in 2006, he was on deputation from SBI to MCX overseeing banking & collateral lending. During the 24 years in SBI, he has handled a diverse portfolio including credit, domestic  branch banking - rural & semi-urban locations, farm & SME credit  and international banking culminating with his heading the SBI-San Jose (California)  and Fresno office of California. As member of the CII - National Council on Agriculture, he led the CII delegation before the Parliament’s Standing Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs & Public Distribution during discussions and presentations on the Warehousing (Development & Regulation) Bill, 2005. He is also a member of FICCI’s National Committee on Agriculture.

Mr. Anuj Rakyan is the founder and Managing Director at RAW Pressery – India’s first cold-pressed juice company.  RAW Pressery aims to be India’s leading clean-label food & beverage company, by creating honestly healthy products using superior technology and unique distribution methods.

Under the leadership of Anuj Rakyan – RAW Pressery has grown into a national beverage brand over the past 18 months, spanning five cities and available across modern trade, general trade, horeca, institutional and direct-to-home. Recently, it attracted a seed investment from Sequoia Capital and became the first company in India to acquire the unique HPP technology, which increases shelf-life and maintains nutrition in natural products.

Prior to founding RAW Pressery, Anuj spent the past decade building operations and growing brands in the diamond and jewelry industry with Gitanjali Gems and Nirav Modi Jewels. Anuj began his career as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley and moved from the financial world to brand consulting at FutureBrand in New York. He graduated in economics from Duke University in North Carolina and finished his schooling at Cathedral & John Connon School in Mumbai.

@AnujRakyan

Mahendran is a seasoned entrepreneur and the CMD at Global Beverages & Foods Pvt Ltd. Earlier he was MD, Godrej Consumer Products and led the company's internationalization efforts. In his earlier role as the MD of Godrej Sara Lee, Mahendran played a pivotal role and nurtured the Good Knight brand into an acknowledged 'Super Brand'.

Prior to his association with the Godrej Group Mahendran was a partner with M/s RGN Price & Co before joining Transelektra Domestic Products Limited, as an Executive Director in 1987. On Transelektra's takeover by the Godrej Group in 1994, he was nominated as Managing Director of the Company by the Godrej Group and continued in this capacity after Sara Lee Corp. acquired a 51% stake in 1995.

Mahendran is a founder member and President of the Home Insect Control Association (HICA) and an acknowledged authority on household pest control. He is also a Promoter-Director of Harvey Heart Hospitals, Chennai, a super-specialty hospital in cardiac care, and a founder member of the Great Lakes Institute of Management. 

Mahendran served on the board of the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) and is on several industry forums such as FICCI, CII, Crop Care Federation of India and the Pest Control Association of India. 

Mahendran graduated from Madras Loyola College in 1976 and proceeded to complete his Chartered Accountancy in 1979.

Arvind Gangoly is the CEO and co- Founder of Schedulers Logistics which is a niche cold chain logistics and solutions provider in the Food and Pharma space. He has used his experience in  supply chain management to build up an organisation that is providing a reach to over 100 towns in India and neighbouring countries. After taking a pre-mature release from the Army in 2006, he has worked with fairly large grocery retail companies namely TESCO, Aditya Birla Retail and Foodland Retail. He has been instrumental in setting up of a number of control measures during the nascent stage of business of these companies and that was of significant help in containing loss. He was honoured with Global Tesco Values award in the year 2010.

He is a Post graduate in Materials Management  with a degree in Foreign trade and has been a senior logistician with the Ministry of Defence, Govt of India, prior to his joining the retail industry. He also has the distinction of working as a Logistics Head with the United  Nations for their  Operations in East Africa for close to 3 years.

Natureland Organic Foods Pvt. Ltd. is promoted by Mr. Arvind Godara first generation entrepreneur into agriculture and agricultural processing business. Natureland was established in order to bring about organic revolution in the agricultural business which as a family he have been into for decades but have restricted to conventional farming and mostly utilised for captive consumption. Being from the Agricultural background after completion of his education, he forayed into entrepreneurship and took the family business to a new landmark and progressed into an organised business of Organic Foods, Agri processing, Warehousing, Fruits, Seeds and Allied Agri  Businesses, where he has a vision for doing betterment for the Farmer Community and at the same time keeping the ingredients of farming pure and secure.

His vision is to build a robust, sustainable organic produce value chain management, which is commercially viable and ensures the betterment of all the stake holders, maximizing long term returns on investments by being a leader in market with a promise of peace and prosperity for all. He is committed to promote sustainable livelihoods for small and marginal farmers, Follow transparent & fair trade practices with all stakeholders.

Arvind has done his schooling from Birla School, Pilani, has gained his Bachelor Degree from Delhi University. He is young, dynamic, result oriented and have proven records of establishing and successfully running the business. Under his leadership Natureland Organic Foods Pvt. Ltd. has transformed the face of agriculture and rural development in Rajasthan and 7 states of India, He has devised ingeniously simple technology and techniques in Organic agriculture. He firmly believe that more than resources, it is the resource management capabilities of the rural India that needs immediate intervention. From the start up of Natureland, time has brought many a feather to their cap, from a family run business to a Pvt. Ltd. Organisation, Launching of the retail brand of Natureland Organic, exporting Organic Foods and further Investment by SIDBI in Natureland is recent landmark.

Ashmeet is the founder of I Say Organic, a company working towards making organic products in India conveniently available and accessible, with the belief that consumer demand will lead the shift towards ecological agriculture. He started the company after moving back to India from the US and traveling widely across the country, which inspired him to tap into the enormous potential agriculture presents to create prosperity, while addressing the various environmental and economic threats the country faces. He has been focused on developing market driven approaches to fight poverty and previously he was a founding member at an early stage company designing a water purification device for rural communities. He holds a Masters in Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship from Brown University, and Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from University of British Columbia.

@ashmeetkapoor

Shri. ASHISH. O. MANTRI, is an young entrepreneur, Chemical Engineering graduate from UDCT Mumbai is the main driving force behind the Company as Director, crystallized the concept of forming the company to present level, had thorough technical knowledge, innovator for new avenues of technology development at better cost, commercially strong enough and updated both with local and international market trends on various cotton & other related products. During the recent past Govt Of India & OTAI - New Delhi honored him as “Young Entrepreneur award with New Innovative process technology”.

@AshishMantri03

Chirag graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology and worked in the FMCG sector for Deloitte Consulting in the United States. Chirag was also awarded the Georgia Tech leader of the year. In India, Chirag has successful founded AP Guru, an educational institute and Wok in the Box, a popular chain of restaurants in Mumbai. He is the co-founder and currently leading iChef.

iChef is a gourmet meal kit portal that is backed by the Times of India led Springboard Group. Coming quick on the heels of the many new concepts that make up the hot-and-happening food-tech space, doorstep delivered meal-kits seem to be the latest, and iChef.in is leading from the front. Founded by Sneha Arya and Chirag Arya in 2014, iChef.in delivers pre-portioned gourmet meal-kits that make cooking fun and easy. The recipes, which are concocted and curated by master chefs, pan global palates and feature a mix of mains, salads and desserts.  Currently serving Mumbai, the brand will soon make its mark across key markets nationwide.

 Deepak I. Shahdadpuri is the Founder and Managing Director of DSG Consumer Partner and Beacon India Private Equity Fund. Deepak has over 15 years of private equity and venture capital experience and is an active angel investor focusing on consumer businesses with a strong emphasis on food and beverage value chain. Before this, Deepak held senior roles at Gem India, Reuters VC, Bain & Company and Ernst & Young. Deepak is on the board of Baker's Circle, Impresario, Eazy Diner, Exito Gourmet, India Lends, Indostar Capital, Indian Home Gourmet, Mswipe, Saffronart, Saraf Foods, Sula Wines and Veeba Food. Deepak’s investment experience also includes RBL Bank, OYO Rooms, Cleartrip, Redmart, F&B Asia and Furtado’s School of Music.

Deepak serves on the board of Magic Bus, a non-profit organization helping develop underprivileged children through sports, and on the advisory board of Dawn Capital, a UK focused Venture Capital Fund. He has an MBA (Distinction) from INSEAD where he graduated on the Dean’s list, a LLB (Hons) from King's College London and a FCA from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England & Wales.

@dishahdadpuri

Dev Lall is Managing Director & CEO of Bakers Circle (India) Pvt Ltd. The company specializes in reverse manufacturing and R&D that enables clients to reduce costs using the frozen route.

It currently serves 1200 outlets across the country with expansion plans in the Middle East and North Africa. Prior to founding Bakers Circle, Dev was with Hyatt International, New Delhi where he was in charge of pre-opening operations of Hyatt properties and was also overseeing operations of 8 points of sales at their different properties, service procedures, training and development of man power.Dev completed his Bsc. Institutional management & MBA in International Business from Johnson & Wales University, USA

Dr. G.N.S.Reddy is Managing Director for Akshayakalpa Farms and Foods Pvt Ltd, an automated dairy farm specializing in organic milk production. Besides, he is currently incharge of BAIF Programmes in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka where he is additionally holding responsibility of an Executive Vice Chairman of BAIF Institute for Rural Development - Karnataka and BAIF Institute for Rural Development -Andhra Pradesh. He has completed his B.V.SC from Bangalore Veterinary College with Advanced Training in Large Herd Management and Oestrus Synchronization from INRA, France.

He was honoured with best Veterinarian award instituted by the Karnataka Veterinary association in 1998, DesaSnehi Award from India development Foundation in 2008 and has also received Indira Gandhi paryavaran Puraskar from Govt of India on behalf of BAIF Institute for Rural Development-Karnataka.

Gajjender Singh Yadav, 29, is a co-founder of 4S Foods, an initiative to provide organic & healthy food items to all households in Delhi & NCR region.

Gajjender aims to make 4S Foods a one stop solution for one’s all daily kitchen needs. To start off with, he is providing unadulterated & 100% farm fresh milk & other similar dairy products in Delhi & NCR region. His vision expands to developing cluster of organic dairy farms in Haryana and Rajasthan, revolutionizing the dairy cycle by using technology in dairy farming and streamlining the current farm gate price model in the country.

Arguably, 4S Foods is 1st player to introduce 100% farm fresh unprocessed milk, in glass bottle packaging and with a subscription model in India. Academically, Gajjender is a management graduate from Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi. Post qualification, he served french market research firm Ipsos for over 4 years. He has been actively involved in his family’s business operations from his early days, dealing in petroleum retail trade initially to maintaining orchards. With an inclination of providing quality food to the households, he started 4S Foods in January-2013, which is now one the leading premium milk brands in NCR region, serving more than 400 families daily.

Girish Nadkarni - Girish Nadkarni has over twenty two years of experience across private equity, M&A, managing large companies, corporate finance, treasury and risk management, business strategy and setting up of businesses.

Mr. Nadkarni primarily focuses on originating and evaluating investment opportunities, over-seeing the portfolio and creating exit opportunities. He has strong consumer, agri-business, rural infrastructure and telecom sector expertise. He has led investments in Parag Milk Foods, Staragri Warehousing and Collateral Management and NCDEX. He also actively manages investments in Green Infra and DARCL.

Prior to joining IDFC Alternatives, he worked for Rallis India Limited (a Tata Group Agri company). Previous to this, he was with Tata Chemicals and played a key role in the acquisitions of General Chemicals, USA and controlling stake in Rallis (2007-09). He has played key role in more than a dozen M&A and buyout transactions such as VSNL, Hughes Telecom, Escotel Mobile, Nagarjuna Oil and divestments such as Idea, Tata Honeywell, Tata Telecom (Avaya) and Information Tech Park.

Greg grew up in a country inn nestled in the mountains of Vermont USA. The boutique hotel run by his parents catered to tourists and skiers with rooms, restaurant and a quaint pub. Little did he know that this upbringing would be a training ground for opening a brewpub in Mumbai’s hip entertainment center of Lower Parel. He started the project three years ago aiming to bring fresh craft beer in an American style brewpub to thirsty beer lovers of Mumbai. The result of this labor of love is The Barking Deer. His home brewing passion developed from his father’s brewing experiments over 25 years ago. Now Greg gets to brew on a much bigger stage. Greg’s previous work experience includes Banker at Citibank in NYC. He received his MBA at Olin School of Business at Babson College and BA at Dartmouth College.

@BarkingGreg

Hemendra Mathur work as Managing Director for SEAF India Investment Advisors. Hemendra has about 19 years of experience in private equity, management consulting and investment banking.

For last five years, Hemendra is an active investor in the food and agribusiness sector. He has invested in eight companies so far from the existing fund in sectors such as food ingredients, animal feed, fertilisers, seeds, organic foods, spices, wheat milling and restaurants. Hemendra is also associated with many mentoring and incubator networks advising start-ups across a range of sectors.

Prior to that, he has worked extensively in providing strategic investment advice to Indian companies, international enterprises and government and multilateral organizations in the sectors pertaining to food, agribusiness, consumer goods and retail. He has extensive experience working in India, USA, Europe and South Asia.

Prior to working for SEAF, Hemendra has worked with Yes Bank, Rabo India Finance, KSA Technopak, and ORG MARG (now Nielsen).

Hemendra has studied management at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Engineering from Rajasthan Agricultural University, India.

Hitin Suri is the Joint Managing Director of the company and also the Sr. Vice-President of All India Cold Storage Association. He joined the Suri family business after graduating in commerce from Delhi University in 1985 and has more than 20 years of experience in the fresh produce business, and as a third generation member of the company, he has gleaned significant knowledge from his father and family. He is responsible for the infrastructural development of the company and has successfully run the cold storage and packhouse operations for the company for the last 17 years.

Ireena Vittal, a former partner with McKinsey & Co, is a recognized thought partner to companies looking to scale profitable businesses in emerging markets. After 24 years in the corporate world, she now works with governments and public institutions to design and implement solutions core to Indias’ development such as inclusive urban development and sustainable rural and Agri growth. She is also an Independent Director on the board ofselect Indian companies (including among others Wipro, Godrej, Titan, Tata Industries and Zomato) and on the global board of Compass and PATH.

She also serves on the boards of NGOs including Janaagraha (urban), Vidhi Legal (rewriting Indian laws) and ideo.org (design to solve poverty. She is co-author of the McKinsey Global Institute report on Indian urbanization (India’s Urban Awakening: Building Inclusive Cities, Sustaining Economic Growth), the first integrated report on Indian agriculture (FAIDA) and on building rural infrastructure & services (Bharat Nirman).

Jinesh Shah is the co-founder of Omnivore Partners, a venture fund investing in early stage Indian start-ups developing breakthrough technologies for food, agriculture and rural livelihoods.

Omnivore invests in the following domains:
1) Agriculture Technology
    - Digital platform, big data solutions
    - Precision agriculture, Internet of Things
    - Remote Sensing, UAVs, farm automation
    - Sustainable inputs
2) Innovative Food
    - Branded products, novel ingredients
    - New food processing technologies
    - Value chains linked to farmers
    - Traceability, food safety and nutrition solutions
3) Rural Livelihoods
    - Water management
    - Fintech for farmers
    - Efficient energy tech
    - Supply chain tech
Jinesh is a Director for multiple Omnivore-backed startups, including Stellapps Technologies, Barrix Agro Sciences, Retigence Technologies and FR8. Previously, Jinesh was the Vice President and CFO at Nexus Venture Partners, one of India’s leading early stage venture capital funds, where he lead the finance organization and also few select portfolio investments. He earlier served in Finance roles with Datamatics (leading Treasury/M&A), Patni Computers (initiating the IPO process), and HCL Technologies (founding the BPO business).

He is a Chartered Accountant with B.Com from R. A. Poddar College and an MMS (Finance) from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS).

Mechanical Engineer with 13 years of entrepreneurship experience in Aerospace Engineering and retail, now working on what he believes is a fundamental requirement for  farmers in our country - Making agriculture sustainable and profitable. Surya Power Magic , co founded with Abhilash is building technology based platform for agri products and services called GOLD FARM. Starting with Solar based irrigation and on-demand mechanisation for paddy harvesting from scratch. He has been the pivotal force in getting our solutions to work in exactly the way that the end customer - the farmer, would want it to work. As we speak SPM is the No 1 company in the retail solar pump space in India. 

Mr. Krishna Kumar, Founder & CEO at CropIn Technology Solutions has a strong technical background and has worked extensively with technology all through his illustrious career in the corporate world. He has had a distinguished graph of growth while working with GE where he began with a profile in technology and went to take a role of leadership in Information Management Leadership Program. This tech whiz had an epiphany when he saw the plight the farmers have been facing due to lack of information and changing climatic conditions. It is this conscientious effort that led him to cut short his remarkable corporate career at GE and embark on a startup journey of his own.

A natural ability to lead, a sensitivity and sense of responsibility towards the society directed him to venture into a startup where he used his technical prowess and people skills to develop CropIn.

At CropIn, Mr. Krishna Kumar has made it possible to help the farmers connect to technology in one of the simplest ways and monitor their farms with data collected through this platform. His six sigma green belt certification only fortifies his efforts in this direction.

In his moments of leisure, he enjoys reading, travelling and interacting with people from different fields.

@Krishna2581

Kushal is the CFO of Aspada Investment Advisors which advises Aspada Investments and the SONG Fund - both early stage venture funds focused on agricultural supply chains and technology, healthcare and financial services businesses in India backed by investors such as Soros Economic Development Fund, Omidyar Network and Google. Kushal is closely involved with portfolio companies in their strategic and financial planning, process implementation, performance management and risk management. He currently serves on the Boards of Schedulers Logistics and Allfresh Supply Management. His previous engagements include Financial Controller at Zovi.com and significant stints at ITC Ltd and PWC. Kushal is a meritorious Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and a graduate in commerce from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata.

Murali Krishnan is currently the CEO of Nilgiris Dairy Farm Pvt Ltd. part of Rs 32000 Future group. Besides the Nilgiris Brand Buisness he is also overseeing the convenience format expansion in Delhi and Mumbai for the Future Group.

Nilgiris is a Heritage Food Brand , since 1905. With strong Manufacturing capabilities in Bakery and Dairy products the company has been focused on innovation led growth. It has a network of 155 Food and grocery convenience stores across Southern states operated through a Franchisee network. Murali and his team have been instrumental in the turnaround of the group making it one of the very few Retail chains to have turned profit able`. He has been instrumental in rejuvenating the brand and making it relevant to changing Indian consumer. Under his leadership the chain has achieved highest sales per sq ft in the industry and continues to grow at a healthy pace with a very strong Private label brand portfolio. The convenience format in Delhi and Mumbai has a network of 125 company owned stores and his team has been given the responsibility of building a strong convenience footprint.

Future Group acquired Nilgiris in November , 2014.  Murali was CEO for 5 years , with PE fund  Actis and saw through a successful transition as business got sold to Future Group.. Prior to that he was President of Subhiksha trading services in North India for a brief period of about 18 months handling all the verticals - Supermarket, Pharmacy and Telecom. A seasoned FMCG professional he has worked across geographies in India with some leading brands - Wipro Lighting, Gillette and Perfetti.

Murali completed his BE (Mechanical Engineering) from Birla Institute of technology and went to do his Masters in Marketing Management from NMIMS Mumbai - batch of 1994.

Palat Vijayaraghavan founded Lawrencedale Agro Processing during March 2009 after being witness to the numerous troubles which the farmers go through in managing the life-cycle of their harvest.

The farmers, especially those with land-holding of less than 5 acres, are at the mercy of numerous intermediaries, when they (farmer) want to sell the produce. Vijayaraghavan, along with three partners, innovated to walk with the farmer in the entire life-cycle of the harvest and get them beneficial forward market linkages, besides offering a host of farmer services to improve the quality of the yield while reducing dependency on chemical pesticides.

With this foundation, Vijayaraghavan refined the fresh produce post-harvest management processes to drastically reduce the supply chain losses along the farm-to-fork link which enabled the retailers to increase their focus on the front-end. Innovating further, He has put in place a series of technology processes to drastically reduce the contaminants from the fresh produce and make them Safe To Consume.

An Automobile Engineer by education, Vijayaraghavan is a long-time resident of Ooty, and has been active in preserving the natural environs of the ecological biosphere of Ooty through eco-friendly landscaping and improving the town's infrastructure.

Vijay, a passionate and hands-on manager at Lawrencedale Agro, is also active in various facets of society development in Ooty and is actively involved in Road Safety Awareness.

Pawan Raj Kumar is Founder of SUPA STAR FOODS, a very young company focusing on bringing healthy and yet very tasty F&B options to the consumer. This 6 months old company is already selling its products at more than 1000 retail outlets in various parts of the country and is expanding very fast. Currently the company is selling SUPACORN branded sweet corn products but will soon be  launching more products and categories under the umbrella brand SUPA.

Pawan is a strong believer that route to health and fitness is through sustainable lifestyle changes without any sharp turns or flights. SUPA carries this philosophy by bringing healthy food options that not only give joy to the body but also to the soul.

Apart from running SUPAFOODS, Pawan also leads a very successful business in commercial food service equipment called Continental Equipment. This company supplies to some of the biggest foodservice names in the country including various hotels and QSR chains.

Over the years, Pawan has set up and run other businesses including another fitness and nutrition based venture called ACTIVEKARMA. He has extensive experience in operations management and deep understanding of real life situations in operations and business management. He has led large-scale service operations and business development with large multinational clients in India.

Pawan is an Engineering Graduate and an MBA.

@pawanrajk

Prasoon Gupta, Founder and Director, Sattviko,is a serial entrepreneur and graduate in technology from IIT Roorkee.

Recognized as the youngest “Distinguished Alumni” from IIT Roorkee and one of the youngest charter member of TiE Delhi, he has to his credit an extensive experience in entrepreneurship. Prior to venturing into food and hospitality in 2014, Prasoon founded his education venture „Techbuddy Consulting Pvt Ltd? in 2009 while he was still a student at IIT. During his 4 years at Techbuddy, he not only trained more than 15,000 students across the country but also earned the „Pioneer of Tomorrow? and „India’s hottest startups? awards from reputed publication houses.

His second venture in food, Sattviko restaurants is one of the fastest growing vegetarian food chain of India and has won „India's Best Debutante Restaurant Chain of the Year 2014?. After creating a strong presence in Delhi/NCR,Sattviko is now expanding outside Delhi to Jaipur,IIT Roorkee and Ahmedabad. Apart from Sattviko, Prasoon is also involved as a founding member in a soon to be launched online healthcare venture called „Sawasth?

Prasoon is the founder of a non-profit organization called Swarajneeti, an NGO which dedicated to democratic reforms in India through technological innovations.
He is a travel enthusiast who loves making new acquaintances, particularly with entrepreneurs. As a firm believer in Karma, he has been helping a number of startups and has also invested in couple of them.

@prasoongupta

51 years young, Pradeep Gidwani is chasing his dreams to set up the “ Starbucks of beer”. Pradeep is setting up a chain of beer cafes across the country. Pradeep conceptualized and set up The Beer Café in Dec 2010 before selling the business to his former partner. In Apr 2012, Pradeep launched a new chain of beer cafes under the brand name – The Pint Room. Today The Pint Room has 4 outlets across India and is a casual neighbourhood meet up space over great beer.

His last Corporate job was as Managing Director of Carlsberg’s India operations. He was responsible for developing the India entry strategy, setting up and building Carlsberg’s brewing business in India. In a short span of 2 ½ years Carlsberg has established a strong foundation in India under Pradeep Gidwani’s leadership with 5 top quality breweries spanning the North, East, South and West of India, presence of its brands across the Indian sub continent. 3 brands Carlsberg, Tuborg and Palone have delighted quality conscious consumers and have established a place in the mind and hearts of Indian consumers. Carlsberg has been one of the most successful consumer goods companies to setup business from scratch in India and achieve revenues of USD 50 million in its 2nd full year of operations in 2009. Carlsberg is the 3rd largest brewer in India currently.

Pradeep Gidwani started working in 1986 and in 25 years has held various senior positions across some of the finest corporations in the world. Prior to Carlsberg, Pradeep lived in Dubai and worked with Red Bull as Managing Director of its Asia Business and was responsible for the development of the Red Bull brand across Asia. Before this he was part of the team that built Foster’s into one of the most successful beer/ consumer goods brand that was ever launched in India. His prior experience covers almost every category in the beverage business starting from tea/ coffee with Unilever’s Brooke Bond where Pradeep started as a Management Trainee, experience in spirits with UB Group, launch and development of the Scotch whisky segment in India with brands like Johnnie Walker, Black Dog, Black and White, Vat 69, introducing India to the fine world of grapes with champagne – Dom Perignon, Moet Hennessy, cognacs – Hennessy and a portfolio of wines.

Pradeep Gidwani is recognized across the Food and Beverage world for concept selling, creating brands, start ups each of them highly successful. In Sep 2002
Business Today ranked Pradeep as one of India’s Hottest Young Executives in its First ever listing of 25 of India Inc’s rising stars. Almost every Business Media has featured Pradeep as one of the best known entrepreneurs in the beverage segment.

Pradeep, 51, is one of the few whose passion at work spills into his hobby. He is an avid collector of the finest beverage products from across the world, has studied each of these categories in an in depth manner, has visited some of the finest maltings, distilleries, wineries, breweries, bottle/can manufacturing units - anything to do with beverages. His knowledge and passion about adult beverages is unrivalled. Pradeep has also been invited to share his experience in building successful start ups, experiential marketing at various Brand Marketing and Business Forums across the country. Pradeep is also an avid traveler taking unique holidays including personally captaining and steering a boat in France for a week, driving holidays in Scotland, France, Germany, Wales, Australia and New Zealand.

Pradeep is a graduate of the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management and has been recognized as one of its best known Alma matar. He loves numbers and completed his BSc in Mathematics from Wadia College, Pune. His schooling was across the country - as Pradeep says “ ten schools in ten years, tons of friends in every part”.
Maybe it is this early trait that has given Pradeep an amicable, social and down to earth approach where meeting people in a bar is something he truly enjoys.

@pradeepgidwani

Rajat is the Founder CEO at TESSOL, a VC backed Cold chain technology startup in Mumbai. He is passionate about building solutions for a farm to fork affordable and sustainable cold supply chain in the country. He has worked across continents with a large conglomerate like Robert Bosch and several early stage startups like 3Tier, Flodesign, Promethean Power. Avid reader and a music enthusiast, he holds a mechanical engineering from IIT Delhi and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

@ragupta13

Raghav is co-founder of Chaayos, a chain of chai cafes in Delhi NCR and Mumbai, that is changing the way the country consumes chai. Lack of options to get a great cup of chai outside of home, led co-founder Nitin Saluja and Raghav, to start Chaayos in 2012. With recent backing of $5MM by American investor Tiger Global, Chaayos stands at 10 cafes and is rapidly expanding with a target of 50 cafes by May 2016.

With the tagline “experiments with chai” Chaayos offers over 12,000 varieties of chai- including trademark options like the Hari Mirch Chai and Aam Papad Chai. The cafes offer a contemporary yet rustic ambience, elevating the often taken-for-granted beverage, from a local tapri setting to an experiential offering. And it doesn't stop at cafes for the team; they want to be a part of every chai occasion for their customers. The latest innovation is an app based ordering solution through innovative disposable kettles, that they are using to deliver chai all over Delhi and Gurgaon.

An IIT Delhi graduate of Chemical Engineering (2010), Raghav had previously co-founded online education startup PrepSquare, where the team had created a video-based product for the Indian entrance examination ecosystem. Prior to that, he was working with US based big-data analytics firm Opera Solutions, consulting global credit card and private equity firms on both revenue enhancement and cost optimization.

Raghav is also a professional bass player and pianist and has released an album with his band Antariksh, a progressive rock outfit. His love for food, and baking in particular, is what drew him to the F&B space. His speciality is cheesecakes, and he loves to innovate on many of the food menu offerings at Chaayos.

@rag_ver

Rajesh Srivastava is the Chairman & Managing Director of Rabo Equity Advisors, managing 2 Rabobank sponsored private equity funds of US$120mln and US$150mln, both focused on food and agribusiness. The new Fund has Rabobank, CDC Group, UK; Asian Development Bank; Generali Insurance, Italy; FMO, The Netherlands; Proparco, France; IFU, Denmark as its investors. He has so far closed 12 investments, all in different sub-sectors.

Before setting up the private equity business, he was Managing Director (Corporate & Commercial Banking) of Rabobank India. Concurrently, he was Regional Head, Asia for food and agribusiness for over 5 years based in Singapore. In Rabobank, he is credited with setting up several new products such as Strategic Advisory, Renewable Energy, Carbon Credits and Micro Finance. Before Rabobank, he was with Lazard Brothers’ Venture Capital arm where he set up the largest VC Fund of the time for SMEs. Starting his career with Bank of Baroda, he has over 36 years of experience in corporate and investment banking.

Rajesh is regarded as a pioneer in establishing a private equity market for food and agribusiness sector and for advocacy on policies on agriculture/food processing. Amongst others, he sits on the CII National Committees on Agriculture, Food Processing and Innovation, Chairs CII Northern Regional Committee on Agriculture and Food Processing, and the Board of Sasakawa India Leprosy Foundation.

He is an Economics and Law graduate and a post graduate in Western History.

Rakesh is Director at the Private Equity arm of Black River Asset Management. The PE funds currently manage close to $2.0 billion across the food, agriculture, metals & mining sectors.

Black River Food Fund makes growth equity investments in three food industry sectors: protein production, value-added food processing and supply chain management. We believe that the continued urbanization of emerging markets, an expanding middle class, shifting dietary preferences toward protein consumption, and the increased importance of safe, high-quality food are trends that will drive long-term growth in these sectors. We invest in leading producers/processors with forward-thinking managers who can scale rapidly and efficiently, implement food safety/quality systems, and manage risk throughout the value chain. Our geographic mandate is global emerging markets with a focus on emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

Rakesh has over 15 years of experience. Prior to Blackriver, he was the partner at Motilal Oswal PE, a sector agnostic mid market fund. At Motilal, Rakesh has made multiple investments in the food sector including Parag Milk Food and Mrs Bectors Food Limited.

Momos were not new to India, but what Sagar & his friend Binod did with them, certainly was. Wow! Momo is a young & vibrant brand started by 2 young Entrepreneurs from Kolkata at the age of 21, six years ago. They have literally played with momos to have grown rapidly to become the country's largest momo chain with over 60 outlets in 6 cities. Their Menu caters to 11 different flavors of momos available in Steamed, Fried & Pan Fried formats largely in white & brown flour variants. They have smartly Innovated & Invented to create Sizzler Momos, Mogurg ( a Momo Burgers), Baked Momo Au'gratin, Tandoori Momos etc. And to top it all, even their dessert is a 'Chocolate momo.

Begun with an initial Investment of only Rs.30,000, these young guns have ‘Boot Strapped’ & ploughed back profits to currently clock a turnover of  over 3 crores a month, recruiting over 500 employees. Very recently Wow! Momo raised its Series A funding from The Indian Angel Network at a 100 Crore Valuation.

The Brand has won many accolades : this January, Wow! Momo won the Best QSR Chain - Indian Origin at the Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards 2015 in Mumbai, Conferred SME of the Year at the ET Now Leaders of tomorrow Regional Awards - East India.

Sagar is an enthusiast who is highly passionate about Brand building. He idolizes Sachin Tendulkar and intends to emulate the same diligence in his profession as practiced by the Little Master. Sagar dreams of an India where employment is at its 100%. He has mentored start-up's in the F&B space and a few of them are already in operationally profitable mode. Sagar keenly looks into marketing, branding, expansion, growth, retail operations & logistics.

Sagar was conferred with the ‘50 Most Talented Retail Professionals of India Award’ in 2014. He also won the Entrepreneur of the year award at The Telegraph Infocom SME awards in 2014.

Mr. Salil Gupta is the Chief Executive Officer of Khyati Foods Pvt. Ltd. a leading global organic products supplier from India. He is a competent professional with over 15 years of experience in Sales & Marketing/ Business Development/ Supply Chain Management/ Team Management & Operations and also a proactive leader and planner with expertise in strategic planning, market plan execution, new product development, account management and pre-sales efforts. He has more than 10 years of experience in heading the management of entire value chain of Organic Products at Khyati. At present Due to his efforts and leadership Khyati Foods has initiated organic farming and has strengthened thousands of farmers in central part of India to produce organic crops and supply processed products to European and American destinations. The company is also involved in value addition activities of organic agriculture especially in Soya with a 36,000 MT per annum soy processing unit based on extrusion expelling process to produce organic soya cakes, soya oil, value added products and graded beans. Prior to joining Khyati in 2006 he has worked with Sonata Software, RS Traders, Almighty Foods and JVS Foods (UNWFP ancillary).

Salil has done B.Tech. in Food Engineering, M.Tech. in Energy and Electrical Engineering from MANIT Bhopal, PGDBA - Marketing & Operations from K.J. Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research Mumbai a leading business school in India.

Senthil Natarajan joined the Family Business “Kovai Pazhamudir Nilayam” in 2005 after completing M.Sc Software Engineering. Kovai Pazhamudir Nilayam, which had 6 branches spread in 3 cities in 2005 has now grown into a 50 outlet brand spread across 10 cities employing close to 1000 employees and is now expanding rapidly.

Kovai Pazhamudir Nilayam has not only extended its footprint in retail but also strengthened its backend by establishing itself into a strong sourcing and distribution company with state of the art warehouses. By now establishing a holding company, KPN Farm Fresh Private Limited to handle multiple arms of Imports, distribution and retailing, Senthil Natarajan aims at bringing global standards and more varieties to Indian consumers’ doorsteps.

@senthilsmiles

Vigyan Gadodia let his corporate job as a Corporate Banker to become a fulltime Rural Entrepreneur in 2006. Since then, Vigyan has experimented with multiple rural business models promoting grass root entrepreneurship, organic farming to improving Primary education. In 2012-13, Vigyan consolidated his learning and now the Sahaj group is working on a “Ecosystem” approach to rural Development. Our key focus is to improve farmer income through a better planned (and scaled) dairy farming operation at farmer level, and create “Clean Milk System” to produce the “Best Quality Milk in the World in India”.

At Sahaj, we treat Rural India as a “Horizontal” which merits multiple profitable interventions. Sahaj has active interest in Education, Rural Tourism, Dairy and Agri business, and is eager to enable other businesses (Healthcare, Sanitation, Water) to also come and participate in the rural growth story.

Vijaya's passion lies in developing community based, pro-poor approaches for environmentally sustainable economic development in India. Before establishing UTMT, she worked as a development professional with the World Bank, KFW, European Commission, DFID, and the Aga Khan Foundation primarily on livelihood and natural resource management. Vijaya's competencies include community-based livelihood and poverty analysis and enhancement programming, strategic development analysis, capacity strengthening and communication.

She has a Bachelor's in International Relations and Women's Studies from Mount Holyoke College, USA and a Masters in Regional planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Besides helming UTMT, Vijaya tries to be the best possible mom to her twelve-year-old and catch up on her reading. She is also a foodie and tries the local fare wherever she is.

@vijayapastala

VT Bharadwaj is a managing director with Sequoia Capital, and is on the boards of Vasan, Prataap Snacks, Lovable, Celon Labs and Genesis Colors. At Sequoia Capital, he spearheads investments in Consumer, Retail and Healthcare sectors. He was previously associated with McKinsey & Company where he advised senior management in energy, consumer, retail and manufacturing companies on key strategic and operational issues.

He is an alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad where he was awarded the Presidents Gold Medal and an alumnus of BITS Pilani.

@vtbharadwaj