Our speakers

Dr. Arjun Rao, Founder & CEO, Syncremedies Healthcare Pvt Ltd | @arjuncrao

Dr. Rao studied medicine in Davangere, followed by surgical training at St John's Hospital (Bangalore) and Apollo Hospital (Chennai). After getting his MBA in Boston, he led initiatives to improve the quality of care and clinical effectiveness at pioneer institutions like Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Stanford Hospital in California. Syncremedies is his earnest effort to find all the knowledge that is out there and bring it to the patient.

Dr. Arun Anand, COO, Immuneel Therapeutics

Physician Business Leader with experience in strategic roles across the value chain in biotech drug development and business on a background in translational oncology from Harvard. Passionate about “accessible medicine for all”.

Currently, Chief Operating Officer at Immuneel Therapeutics - a young Indian organisation driven by the purpose of developing and delivering cutting edge yet affordable cell and gene therapies for cancer in India.

Previously, served leadership roles in Industry and academia as Senior Director & Head, Global Portfolio Management, Biologics @ Dr. Reddy’s, Head, Clinical Development @ Biocon, and Assistant Director, Translational Research for Oncology at MGH/Harvard, Boston.

Dr. Ashita Aggarwal, Professor and Head Marketing, SPJIMR

Dr. Ashita is an economics graduate from Delhi University, an MBA (gold medalist) and holds a Master’s degree with specialization in marketing. She is a doctorate in the area of marketing. Her research topic was "Communication for Brand Building- A case of Indian Business Schools", which was one of the pioneering works done in India.

She has also attended an Executive Management Program on Branding- Creating, building and rejuvenating your brands at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, USA

Her teaching areas are brand management and marketing communications and her research interest is in the domain of consumer-brand relationships. She is also a key team member and the initiator of SPJIMR rebranding process.

Dr. Ashita has over 16 years of corporate and academic experience. She has worked in Business & Marketing Strategy at Reliance Communications, Branding and Communications area in education sector and has consulted education institutions and consumer brands in the area of consumer insight and brand relationship management. She has 6 years of industry experience and approx. 11 years of teaching and research experience. Dr. Ashita has conducted several training programs for government and non-governmental organizations in branding and communications.

Consulted FMCG companies like Me & Mom, Cargill (among many others) on consumer understanding, product innovations, Socio cultural interventions that affect marketing strategy.

Consulted Rahat Marketing Services Pvt. Ltd. on their branding strategy. Prepared marketing material, brand logo and other promotional material for R's World- a shopping mall under Rahat Marketing Services Pvt. Ltd. In Ghaziabad, UP

Consulted NGOs like Sahaara, ICMH and United Way on Brand Building and Communication

Dr. Ashita Aggarwal has written many award-winning case studies, which are circulated through Harvard Business Publishing. Some are even the best sellers in their respective areas. She has researched and presented papers on branding of education and building consumer-brand relationships.

Dr. Ashita is extensively quoted by business and brand publications and is a regular writer in these publications.

Dr. Ashwin Naik, Founder & Director, Vaatsalya Healthcare

Ashwin Naik is the Founder & Director of Vaatsalya Healthcare, an award winning social enterprise, focused on building a network of hospitals in Tier II and Tier III towns in India. While 70% of India’s population lives in semi-urban and rural areas, majority of the healthcare facilities are in Urban areas and not accessible to these families. Vaatsalya is bridging this gap by building primary and secondary care hospitals in semi-urban and rural areas. Vaatsalya currently has eight hospitals in Karnataka and one in Andhra Pradesh, totaling 600 + beds and is the largest hospital network of its kind in India.

Winner of the Inaugural Porter Prize in India for value based healthcare, Vaatsalya has been recognized as the Most Innovative Healthcare Company by VCCircle in 2014 and by Fast Company in 2013, Winner of the BiD Challenge India 2007 for the best business in development in India, LRAMP Award for Innovation 2008, Sankalp Award for Social Enterprise 2009 and Frost & Sullivan Healthcare Excellence Award 2010 for its innovative business model.

He is also a Resident Fellow at Ashoka, a pioneering network of social entrepreneurs worldwide and Chairs the National Association of Social Enterprises, India.

Ashwin is a trained physician and has written and spoken about leadership, entrepreneurship, rural health and social entrepreneurship at various forums around the world, including World Health Congress, NHS Alliance, Ashoka Future Forum, Global Philanthropy Forum, and Africa Health summit (KPMG).

Ashwin has been recognized as a Economic Times Leaders under 40, Young Global Leader (YGL) 2012 By World Economic Forum, Young Leader by Asia Society Asia21 in 2011, Senior Ashoka Fellow in 2010, Finalist for the India Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2010 by Schwab Foundation, Ted India fellow for 2009. Dare Magazine India in its April 2011 edition profiled Ashwin as 50 inspiring Entrepreneurs of India.

Ashwin has a medical degree from Karnatak Medical College, Hubli and a Masters from University of Houston, Texas.

Previously, he was the Vice President of Business Development and Informatics at Triesta Sciences, a clinical genomics company. Ashwin has been part of the human and mouse genome projects at Celera Genomics. He was instrumental in coordinating multidisciplinary teams to compile and analyze human and mouse genomes, leading to two publications in the journal Science. He holds three patents and has contributed a book chapter on Origin of Life.

Dr. Atul Kapoor, Managing Director, Regency Hospital Ltd.

Dr. Kapoor is the Founder and Managing Director of Regency Hospital Ltd and a qualified Surgeon having done his Masters in General Surgery from GSVM Medical
College, Kanpur. He had an excellent academic career having held numerous positions in MBBS and was awarded honors virtually in every subject with Gold Medals in Physiology, Medicines, Surgery, Obs. & Gynecology, and Ophthalmology. Having special interest in surgery, he joined the Department of Surgery at GSVM Medical College to do his Masters in the subject.

He worked as a Resident Surgeon and demonstrator in the department of Surgery till 1984 and after completing his MS Surgery, left Kanpur to join the prestigious Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital at New Delhi as a Senior Registrar in Surgery. He worked in this hospital for approximately one year and during this period gained wide surgical experience. During his brief stay at Delhi, he decided to establish a multi specialty corporate hospital in Kanpur. An objective of bringing international standard of healthcare within the reach of common man in Uttar Pradesh was achieved with commissioning of Regency Hospital Ltd. in the state industrial capital, Kanpur a few years back. Ever since its establishment, the super specialty corporate hospital never looked back in bringing high quality medical services here.

Dr. Avadhut Parab, Chief Information Officer, Parle Agro

Dr. Avadhut Parab, CIO, Parle Agro Ltd.

Dr. B. S. Ajai Kumar, Founder, Chairman & CEO, HealthCare Global Enterprises Ltd

Dr. Ajai is the founder and Chairman of HCG. He completed his M.B.B.S from St. John's Medical College, Bangalore and left for the United States to pursue higher education. He joined the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and did his Residency in Oncology. He did his Fellowship in Radiation Oncology & Medical Oncology from the world renowned M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston.

 

With over 35 years of experience in the field of oncology at some of the reputed cancer centers in US., Dr. Ajaikumar had a vision to start a world class cancer care center with the latest technology and best of expertise in India. He joined a group of specialists at Bangalore in 1989 and started the 'Bangalore Institute of Oncology' the only private cancer hospital at that point in time in Bangalore.

 

Today as chairman of HCG he manages 20 Cancer Care Centers across Asia with dedicated cancer care centers in tier 2 & 3 cities. Under his leadership HCG changed the landscape in oncology by introducing whole body radio-surgery system - CyberKnife in India and also advanced imaging, 128 slice HD- PET, 3 Tesla MRI- Skyra, digital mammogram etc

Dr. Bhaskar Dasgupta, Financial Centre Development Associate Director - Financial Services Regulatory Authority, Abu Dhabi Global Market

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta is the Associate Director of Business Development at ADGM focusing on financial services across emerging markets and Europe.  Dr Dasgupta is responsible for overseeing the development of the banking, asset management, private banking sectors including key areas such as Crypto Assets, FinTech, Sustainable Finance, Digital Banking and Digital Investment Management in ADG.

Prior to joining ADGM in 2019, Dr Dasgupta was the Chief Operating Officer of UK Export Finance at the Department of International Trade in the UK Government.  His 25 year career included senior level business development and transformation roles in investment banking, transaction banking, technology and consulting in firms such as HSBC, ABN AMRO, Citigroup and PwC.

Dr Dasgupta holds a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Bhopal, an MBA in Finance from Indore University, a PhD in Financial Modelling & AI from the University of Manchester, and a PhD in Politics from Kings College London.  He is currently completing a PhD in Food History from Brunel University.

Dr. Bhaskar Ghosh, Chief Strategy Officer, Accenture

Dr. Bhaskar Ghosh is Accenture’s chief strategy officer, with responsibility for all aspects of the company's strategy and investments, including ventures and acquisitions and Accenture Research. He also oversees the development of all assets and offerings across Accenture’s Services. In addition, Bhaskar has management responsibility for Industry X (digital manufacturing and intelligent products and platforms) and driving responsible business and sustainability services. He is a member of Accenture’s Global Management Committee.

Before being named to his current position in 2020, Bhaskar was advisor to the CEO on important topics, including growth and investment strategy, business performance, organizational effectiveness and restructuring. Prior to that, he was the group chief executive of Accenture Technology Services with overall responsibility for the Accenture Application and Infrastructure Services business, directing strategy and investments, and leading platforms, products and global technology delivery. In this role, he focused on enabling enterprises to drive growth through innovative technology services designed to reinvent their application strategy and portfolio.

Accenture Technology Services made outstanding progress to rapidly rotate to the New and enable clients to lead in the New under Bhaskar’s leadership. More than 200,000 Accenture Technology people were trained around the world in New IT, including automation, Agile development and intelligent platforms, and Accenture strengthened New IT offerings around data, cloud, security and Liquid Application Management. In the same period, Accenture opened a ground-breaking Innovation Hub in Bengaluru with a focus on driving innovation at scale, and a network of more than 18 Liquid Studios around the world. He has personally provided leadership to develop cutting-edge technology solutions, including the technology automation platform myWizard, Accenture’s cloud assessment and migration platform, MyNav, and the value-led ERP implementation platform of Accenture myConcerto. As an innovator, Bhaskar has been awarded six patents in the area of software engineering and platform development.

Bhaskar is co-author of Automation Advantage, a guide for technology and business leaders detailing how to drive intelligent enterprise automation at scale while weaving AI into the fabric of the organization.

Bhaskar serves as an Independent Director on the Board of Directors of Housing Development Finance Corporation Limited (HDFC) and is Chairman of its IT Strategy committee and a member of its Risk, Audit & Governance committee.

Before joining Accenture in 2003, Bhaskar was vice president and global head of IT infrastructure management services at Infosys. Earlier in his career, he held several senior positions with Philips in India, where he worked extensively with the consumer electronics industry.

Bhaskar holds a bachelor of science degree and a master’s degree in business administration from Calcutta University and a Ph.D. in business management from Utkal University in India.