Our speakers

A.P Hota, MD & CEO, National Payments Corporation of India

A.P. Hota, Managing Director & CEO of National Payments Corporation of India since February 2009 was a career central banker for 27 years. A significant part of his career has been in the area of design and implementation of Payment systems in India.

During last three decades, he has played a key role in implementation of MICR technology in Cheque Clearing, Electronic Funds Transfer, Automated Clearing House and Cheque Truncation System in India. His research document titled “RTGS System in USA - Lessons for India” as a part of IIB Diamond Jubilee Overseas Fellowship in 1997, was the starting point of RTGS design and implementation in India. Mr. Hota had headed the Department of Payment and Settlement Systems in Reserve Bank from March 2005 to July 2008 during which the ‘Payment and Settlement Systems Act’ was legislated, NEFT was introduced and there was rapid expansion in the access and usage of electronic payment systems. He also played a key role in widening the use of electronic payments in India.

In August 2010 he joined as the MD & CEO of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which has been set up by banks in India under the aegis of Indian Banks’ Association and support and guidance of Reserve Bank of India to provide central infrastructure for various retail payment systems in the country, including card payments. Within a year of his joining, the next generation remittance service - Interbank Mobile Payment Service was launched where 24*7 real-time money transfer was enabled. Under his leadership, NPCI has launched India’s own card scheme ‘RuPay’ in record three years’ time which is accepted on all three channels, viz. ATM, PoS and eCommerce with an issuance figure of 3 Million cards. NPCI is already processing an average volume in number of 7.5 Million ATM transactions a day. NPCI also plays the role of central infrastructure for UID and mobile based financial inclusion transactions. He was conferred the ‘Aadhaar Excellence Award’ for his contribution to Aadhaar Enabled Payment System by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on the 2nd Anniversary of UIDAI.

Concurrently, he is also a member in various Committees of the Government of India and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and has contributed to policy and decision-making processes in Payment systems in particular.

Aakash Goel, Partner, Trifecta Capital

Aakash Goel is a partner with Trifecta Capital. He has 15 years of overall experience across investing, helping build companies and management consulting. He joined Trifecta from Bessemer Venture Partners, a US based technology focused venture capital fund with $5 billion in AUM. At Bessemer he was Principal, India Investments and played crucial role in the firm’s equity investments in Urbanclap, BigBasket, HomeFirst Finance, Cashify, Perfios, LivSpace, Innoviti, Pharmeasy and Hungama.

Previously he was an Associate, Sequoia Capital India and was closely involved in the firm’s investments in JustDial (NSE: JUSTDIAL), Citrus Payments (Acq: PayU), Zaakpay (Acq: Mobikwik), Altius Healthcare (Acq: Cygnus Medicare), OneAssist, Near (fka AdNear), UnitedLex and I-Yogi. Between Bessemer and Sequoia, Aakash has helped deploy ~$240 million in 20+ companies across early, venture and growth stages. Before Sequoia, Aakash worked for McKinsey and Company as a management consultant advising Technology and Financial Services clients across India, North America and Europe on issues of strategy, operations, go-to-market and post-merger management. Aakash is an MBA from IIM Calcutta and B.Tech. from IIT Roorkee and was college merit holder at both institutions.

Aakrit Vaish, Co-founder & CEO, Haptik Inc

Aakrit Vaish is Co-Founder & CEO of Haptik, one of the world's leading mobile personal assistant platforms. Aakrit started the company from his house in 2013, and as of of November 2016, it employs close to 500 people and has marquee investor partners such as Times Internet and Kalaari Capital. Aakrit has been responsible for pioneering the concept of chat based assistance way before companies like Facebook and Google launched assistants in 2016. Prior to Haptik, Aakrit was an early member of the team at Flurry, one of the world's largest mobile analytics and advertising platforms, acquired by Yahoo in 2014. Aakrit received his BS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign and was named as a contender to the Forbes India 30 under 30 list in 2015.

@aakuvaish

Aamir Jariwala, Co-Founder & Director, Karma Recycling

Aamir is a Co-Founder and Director of Karma Recycling. Prior to founding Karma, Aamir was an M&A investment banker with UBS and Mitsubishi Securities across New York, London and Tokyo and a professional investor in troubled middle market companies in the USA. Leaving a cushy corporate life and choosing India with his feet, Aamir focused his entrepreneurial energies on alleviating the grim electronic waste predicament facing India. Using software applications to design product take-back systems for retailers and consumers, Karma has active consumer facing operations in 24 cities across India and is a go-to provider of exchange programs and trade-in solutions for organized retailers. A big believer in the concept of Karma, Aamir is an Industrial Engineer from Northwestern University where he was Ford Motor Company Dean Scholar.

Aamir Jariwala, Head - Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations, SPML Infra Limited

Aanchal Saini, CEO, Flyrobe

Aarthi Sivanandh, Partner, J. Sagar Associates

Aarthi focusses her practice on the full spectrum of corporate transactional and other matters, including M&A, de-mergers & spin-offs, foreign collaborations - Joint Ventures, strategic alliances & licensing transactions, restructurings, Private Equity and Venture Capital transactions.

She has represented buyers & sellers in acquisitions and divestures; has handled, negotiated & contested situations - including stock sales & purchases, Joint Ventures, advance preparation for prospective targets, asset sales & purchases, recapitalizations, strategic mergers and acquisition through tender offers.

Aarthi has had substantial transactional involvement in numerous industries, including Energy, Financial Institutions, Service industries, Microfinance, Health Care, Information Technology, Knowledge Based industries, Media & Telecommunications, Industrial Products and Retail.

Aarthi started her practice in the US in 2001 as a foreign legal consultant concentrating on the US-India business corridor. In 2004, she moved to India to work for a law firm dealing in a variety of Corporate Commercial work related to the Technology sector. In 2010 she co-founded Vichar Partners in Chennai that merged its law practice with J. Sagar Associates in April 2014.

Aarti Gupta, CIO, DBR Ventures & Family Office of DM Gupta, Jagran Group

Aarti Raghavan, Partner - Transaction Advisory Restructuring, Grant Thornton

Aarti is a Partner at Grant Thornton and leads transaction advisory for Restructuring vertical. In this role, Aarti is responsible for developing and growing the Transactions Advisory vertical in Stressed assets and special situations business.

Aarti was until recently heading Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) at Vedanta Group. At Vedanta, Aarti successfully led the acquisition of four distressed companies by the group including the $800 million acquisition of Electrosteel Steels Limited, $45 million acquisition of Ferro Alloys Corporation (FACOR) and the first group insolvency deal for acquisition of Videocon Group by Twin Star Technologies.

Aarti started her banking career with Citigroup and has nearly two decades of experience spanning banking, capital markets, fund raise and M&A. Aarti brings a unique perspective to deal making having worked in both the US and Indian markets; with both large public and private sector companies; with wide transaction experience of over $11 billion of completed transactions both on the buyside and in an advisory role.

By qualification, Aarti is an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a meritranked Chartered Accountant.

Aarti Singh, Sr. Director IT&DA Center & CIO, Boeing India