Our speakers

Gaurav Nagar, Co-Founder & CEO, Evren

Gaurav Ranjan, Vice President, Prime Ventures

Gaurav Sachdeva, Managing Partner, JSW Ventures

Gaurav Sachdeva is Managing Partner at JSW Ventures - an early-stage technology-focused fund. Set up in 2015, JSW Ventures partners with passionate entrepreneurs focussed on leveraging technology to build capital efficient businesses.

In a career spanning more than 17 years, Gaurav has passionately built businesses across banking, technology and investing. Gaurav was a founding member of Corporate Finance teams at Citibank, N.A. & Bank of America and led sales for Infosys in Continental Europe. Gaurav is extremely passionate about the role of technology in transforming business models and building consumer experience. At JSW Ventures, he actively manages Purplle, Indus OS, LimeTray & Homelane.

Gaurav is an MBA from Indian School of Business.

Gaurav Saraf, Director, Epiphany Ventures

Gaurav launched Epiphany Ventures, focused on investing in early stage companies in 2008.
He started his career as a management consultant at Diamond Technology Partners Inc. (DTPI), a strategy consulting company, headquartered in Chicago. At DTPI, Gaurav advised fortune 500 clients on leveraging technology to further their business objectives and enhance efficiencies. There, he gained tremendous experience in a wide range of disciplines and sectors, including Retail, e-commerce, Knowledge Management, Merger Integrations, etc.

 

After his return to India, in 2004, Gaurav founded a business in the mining sector, to supply iron ore to steel manufacturers in India and abroad. He has also served as the Vice-President, M&A for the $250 million Facor Group. He sits on the boards of his portfolio companies, MXC Solutions (Cartrade.com), Brattle Foods, iLevel Solutions and Vserv.

 

Gaurav has a B.Sc in Electrical Engineering from University of Pennsylvania, and M.Sc in Finance from City University, London. He is passionate about helping entrepreneurs and mentors them actively through his association with TiE as Charter Member. He is also a member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization, which brings together the best young entrepreneurial talent across the globe, and a dynamic angel investor through his participation in Indian Angel Network and Mumbai Angels.

Gaurav Sekhri, MD, Tinna Viterra Trade Pvt. Ltd

GV started his career with his family promoted Tinna Group of companies in 1993.

GV is 39 years old and promoter of M/s Tinna Group. In 2009, GV was instrumental in formation of the joint venture with M/s Viterra Inc., of Canada in 2009. Viterra is one of the largest Agri businesses in the World.  Prior to this venture, GV was actively involved in the groups trading business dealing in procurement of various dry bulk commodities like Rice, Wheat, SBM and sugar.

In 1998, GV played a key role in identifying ADM as a partner and actively participated in formation and promotion of the joint venture with M/s Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). Until 2009, he oversaw running of all business verticals, including cargo handling operations, oil seed processing, branding and marketing of edible oils and marketing of  oil ingredients for the joint venture.  

Since 2009, GV is heading Tinna Viterra operations in India as its Managing Director. Based in Delhi, he works closely with Viterra in building Viterra's business in India.

GV is served as a trustee of Visakhapatman Port Trust Board during 2002-2010 and headed various council's in The Solvent Extractors Association. GV is also a member of the Delhi chapter of Young President's Organization.

Gaurav Sharma, Partner, Mckinsey

Gaurav coleads our Private Equity & Principal Investors Practice in India, serving the world’s leading investors on investment strategy, origination, portfolio value creation, and exits. Gaurav also leads our work for investments related with technology services as well as M&A and post-merger management in Asia. Gaurav’s current research focuses on capital-led value creation and returns maximization through M&A.

Examples of Gaurav’s recent work include the following:

• developing investable themes for private equity and strategic clients in the technology services and business process outsourcing space
• driving a post-merger management program—including value protection and synergy estimation—for a leading Indian IT services company
• developing the strategic transformation and sales acceleration blueprint for a digital service company based in Silicon Valley
• driving a comprehensive strategic and growth transformation program for a leading Indian IT services company

Gaurav joined McKinsey in New Delhi, where he was elected a partner. He has served clients across North America, Europe, Japan, and India. Prior to joining McKinsey, Gaurav was a consultant with PwC for three years.

Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, Founder & CEO, BlueStone.com | @bluestone_com

Gaurav is a Computer Science graduate from IIT Delhi and brings almost 10 years of experience in the fields of Technology, E-Commerce and Internet Marketing.

A well known figure in the realm of start-ups, he has been an entrepreneur for almost half a decade. Before BlueStone, he served as the CEO of Chakpak, an online entertainment portal, which he co-founded in 2007. He grew Chakpak.com to over 3 Million unique users a month in less than 2 years and successfully raised two rounds of funding from Accel and Canaan Partners respectively.

Using his experience to his advantage, in this short span of time, he has advised many start-ups in the fields of SEO, SEM and Product Strategies. Gaurav started his career with Tavant Technologies, a global IT services & solutions provider and subsequently worked with Amazon for around 4 years. At Amazon, he was responsible for building web products for the US E-Commerce market.

Gaurav is the Chief Executive Officer of BlueStone.com, an ecommerce jewellery house that was founded with the intent of providing exquisite gold and diamond jewellery to the Indian consumers at affordable rates.

Gaurav believes that dreams can be easily fulfilled and his indomitable spirit is a source of inspiration for the team.

Gaurav Sood, Managing Director & Head, Equity Capital Markets, Avendus Capital

Gaurav Zutshi, EVP & Chief Digital Officer, Aditya Birla Financial Services | @AdityaBirlaGrp

Gaurav Zutshi is EVP & Chief Digital officer at Aditya Birla Financial Services group, leading direct to customer business across the portfolio of products - life insurance, mutual funds, digital lending, health & general insurance Broking. India's largest PFM (personal financial management) platform, MyUniverse is also part of his digital portfolio. Prior to this he has worked at Citibank, Visa, ANZ Bank, IBM, First Data and an entrepreneurial stint at Obopay & Money on Mobile. He was APAC Head of Product & Innovation at First Data serving banks & merchants across region with digital solutions in payments & mobility. At Citibank, Gaurav was SVP in Asia Pacific Innovation Lab, where he developed product prototypes & new business models around international payments, corporate cards and Forex optimization.

Gaurav is an investor & mentor to  few startups in FinTech, mobility & SaaS platform space.

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@gzutshi

Gautam Bhardwaj, Co-founder & Managing Director, Invest India Micro Pension Services Private Limited

Gautam has extensive experience in pension system design, reform and implementation and has advised the Indian government, PFRDA, the Government of Nepal, Asian Development Bank and The World Bank in this area. He co-authored the Project OASIS report that provided the basis for the NPS and India’s pension reform more generally. As founder of IIEF (1990), he also has extensive experience in institutional capacity building, financial literacy and policy advocacy in the areas of financial sector and postal reforms.