Our speakers

Juhi Agarwal, Founder and CIO, Scan Holdings Group Family Office

Ms. Juhi Agarwal is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of the Family Office of Scan Holdings Group. She specializes in strategic wealth management and investment planning.

With a Masters in Management from ESSEC Business School in France, Juhi has studied and worked in three of the top global economies: India, France, and the USA. Her professional journey includes significant roles with multinationals such as Pepsi in India and Nestle in France, and successfully running and exiting her own ‘online’ profitable venture at an early age of 18. She has had prominent engagements in the start-up world with Carolina Angel Networks and TAP in North Carolina, USA.

Her travel exposure in over 42 countries across the globe has given her a deep understanding of business, culture, global economies and geopolitics. Additionally, she had the privilege of learning business in her early years at home from her first-generation entrepreneur parents running an international business. This made Juhi well-versed at identifying opportunities and mitigating risks in the dynamic investments landscape. She is known for her foresight to integrate global affairs with an Indian context for more effective decision making.

At Scan, she is committed to leading her team to create specialised investment strategies and comprehensive financial planning to secure and grow wealth across generations. Juhi measures her success on two fronts – the alpha generated over the markets alongwith risk control from a monetary aspect; and the lives impacted with our social efforts from a humanitarian aspect. She strongly advocates for women's empowerment and education, directing the family office’s CSR projects to these causes in rural areas of India.

Jyotsna Jayaram, Partner, Trilegal

Jyotsna Pattabiraman, CEO, Grow Fit

Jyotsna is the founder and CEO of Grow Fit (www.getgrowfit.com), a healthtech and wellness company that helps customers achieve peak wellness by using a combination of data science, medical science and behavioural insights. Jyotsna is a Melton Fellow and has served on the Board of Directors of the Melton Foundation, twice.

Jyotsna is an all-star internet and mobile maven, having spent her career on the frontlines of internet businesses. Starting her career at payments pioneer Cybercash (later acquired by Paypal), Jyotsna has played leadership roles at marquee companies like Oracle, eBay and Yahoo in Silicon Valley during their growth phases .She went on the play key roles at venture-funded companies backed by the likes of Kleiner Perkins and Menlo Ventures before moving back to India in 2008.

Back home in Bangalore, Jyotsna has helped build businesses at scale, such as OnMobile and Knowlarity (Sequoia-funded) as well as advise smaller companies intent on making a dent in the universe.

Jyotsna is an active participant and speaker at mobile events across India. Her work has been covered at the Wall Street Journal, Femina, CNBC, Outlook and other prominent publications.

Jürgen Rigterink, Chief Risk and Finance Officer, FMO | @FMO_development

Jurgen Rigterink joined FMO’s Management Board as Chief Investment Officer in 2008. He was appointed to Chief Risk & Finance Officer in 2014. He started his career at Bank Brussels Lambert working in  Brussels, Chicago and New York before joining ABN AMRO in 1997. He has since served in a variety of senior positions including Sector Head for Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. In 2005, he was appointed Chairman of the Management Board and Country Executive at ABN AMRO Bank Kazakhstan. Jurgen has a Masters degree in Economics from Rijks Universiteit Groningen, the Netherlands, and is also a Member of the Board of Directors of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT).

@JRigterink

K Balasubramanian, Vice President, and Global Head - Corporate Taxation, Wipro

K Ganesh, Serial Entrepreneur & Partner, GrowthStory & Promoter, Portea Medical

Ganesh is a successful serial entrepreneur with four successful green field ventures and exits.

His last venture, TutorVista was acquired by US and UK listed education leader Pearson for $ 213 MM. He was among the top 5 nominees for the Economic Times Entrepreneur of the year 2012 Award.

His current venture, Portea Medical, provides technlogy-led home health care to the Indian consumer.

He actively mentors, incubates and funds start-ups and is promoter of several Indian consumer Internet and ecommerce companies including Bigbasket.com - India’s largest eGrocery company, Bluestone.com - leading online jewelry company, Avagmah.com - India’s fastest growing online education company and HomeLane -  India’s leading end to end, vertically integrated interior design and manufacturing provider which delivered more than 1000 projects delivered across the country. In addition, his angel investments include little eye labs (acquired by Facebook in Jan 2014), mustseeIndia.com, overcart.com delyver.com, onlineprasad.com, Pokkt, SilverPush and Oximity.

Previously, Ganesh founded of the data analytics BPO firm Marketics until March 2007, when the company was acquired by NYSE listed WNS for $ 63 MM.

His previous venture, CustomerAsset was started in mid-2000 and later acquired by ICICI (NYSE listed, India’s largest bank) and is now publicly listed in India as First Source Solutions.

In 1990, he founded his first company - IT&T, one of India’s top multi-vendor IT service and support company. The business was acquired by iGate (a listed company) in 2003.

Ganesh has also worked as the CEO of Wipro/Bharti British Telecom – a British Telecom JV in India, and held a senior management position in HCL Ltd.

He is also a popular speaker in entrepreneurship, start-up and technology events. He has been recognized as one of the "Iconic Entrepreneurs of India" in a document published by National Knowledge Commission, Government of India.

He serves as a member of Board of Governors of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Krishnan is a post-graduate from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi University.

K Ganesh, Founder, GrowthStory.in

K Paul Thomas, Managing Director & CEO, ESAF Small Finance Bank

Sri. K Paul Thomas, the Founder of ESAF Group including ESAF Microfinance and ESAF Small Finance Bank has played an instrumental role in facilitating visionary leadership and has thus successfully established various social businesses with the primary motive of ‘creating opportunities’ in a way that these entities are able to provide valuable services to poor people on a sustainable basis. From a small credit of INR 3000 each to 10 women in 1992 ESAF is reaching out to more than 1.6 million women with an outstanding of INR 2500 Crores as on September 2016. He dreams of a society where everyone has equal opportunities to work and participate in the very fabric of our economy without the discrimination of gender, ethnicity or geographical barriers. He has thus set up ESAF group of companies which includes Evangelical Social Action Forum, ESAF Microfinance and Investments (P) Ltd., ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd., ESAF Swasraya Multi State Agro Co-operative Society Ltd., ESAF Retail (P) Ltd., ESAF Healthcare Services (P) Ltd., ESAF Swasraya Producers Company Ltd., ESAF Staff Welfare Trust, ESAF Homes & Infrastructure (P) Ltd., ESAF Publications Trust, Lahanti Business  Services (P) Ltd., Lahanti Lastmile Services (P) Ltd., Rhema Milk Producer Company Ltd., Rhema Dairy Products India (P) Ltd., Prachodhan Development Services, Cedar Agri Solutions (P) Ltd., Sanma Garments (P) Ltd. etc.

Sri. Paul’s consultancy is sought by various social investors, debt investors, networks, technical providers in the Microfinance sector. He has strongly given his opinion through leading national dailies about the positive impact MFIs have been making and that state Governments should refrain from bringing MFIs under the purview of State laws.. Sri. Paul has been invited by National and International Academic and Research Institutions and Business Schools such as IIM, Kozhikkode, ILO-Geneva, European Microfinance Platform, Harvard Business School, Asian Development Bank etc. to share the lessons learnt on innovative inclusive finance model. He is bestowed with several awards including the Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2014 by The Indus Enterpreneurs, CEO Excellence of the Year Award 2015 by DC Media, Dhanam Marketing Man of the Year Award 2015, SKOCH Order of Merit Award 2016, Indywood CSR Excellence Award 2016, Inclusive Finance India Award 2016 by ACCESS ASSIST, Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2016 by TIE Kerala and Banking Excellence Award 2017 by Chamber of Indian Micro Small and Medium Enterprises apart from various other awards being received by ESAF. He is also selected for Isow Mar Themotheous Award 2017 for the year 2017.

Sri. Paul strongly believes that ESAF’s integrated approach beyond just business motives might be a reason for getting the in-principle license from RBI to set up Small Finance Bank and shall continue to work with the same values and ethos with which he had set up ESAF in the beginning. ESAF Microfinance is the only NBFC in Kerala to start the Small Finance Bank.

K Radhakrishnan, Chief Mentor, Freshkins Foods India Pvt. Ltd

K Radhakrishnan,“Radha” as he is popularly known, has been a corporate citizen for 32 years, with an impressive track record, in a variety of industries. Radha is the Chief Mentor, of Freshkins Foods India Pvt  Limited, which is a franchise chain of stores selling Fruits Vegetables, and other daily needs groceries. It endeavors to take fresh produce to the door steps of the consumer, and create synergies between the deep knowledge of back end sourcing & processes and the entrepreneurial spirit and resourcefulness of the Indian kiranas. The ambition is 500 selling points in Mumbai in the next 3 years.

Radha in his earlier assignment was the  President and CEO of the retail chain in India- Kb’s FairPrice. it is Future Group’s neighbourhood chain of food stores, with presence in 3 cities with 175 stores). He was also the President of Future Freshfoods Limited(FFL), entrusted with  setting up a national wide business in Fruits and Vegetables. It runs 6 distribution centres and 25 farmer collection centers.

He was the start up team member of the first supermarket chain in India Foodworld Supermarkets Limited, started in 1996, where he was till 2006, before moving over as the CEO of Reliance Fresh and Hypermarkets till 2009. His experience in retail covers all aspects of the business. His career earlier covered Tea tasting, Aqua Culture and setting up a noodles collaboration with Unilever and a Japanese company company Nissin Japan. He is also an Entrepreneur and runs his consulting company Aligned Business Partners (ABP) (www.alignedbp.com). They work in the area of supply Chain Solutions, and Food Retailing, and work extensively with Private Equity firms as thought leaders in food, retail, FMCG and supply chain.

He is the Govt Nominee to the National Skill Devp Council (NSDC) Radha. Is also a trustee in a Not for profit school Sankalp- working with Dyslexic and Autistic Children.

K S Narayanan, CEO, Pan India Foods

K S Narayanan is the CEO of Pan India Food Solutions Private Limited, and he plays a key role in shaping long-term growth strategies for the company, besides building various restaurant brands in India.

Narayanan, an alumnus of IIT (Madras) and IIM (Calcutta), brings with him 25 years of rich and varied experience from the corporate world with leading companies. He comes with an insightful understanding of customers and brands in the Food and Beverage space.

He is also a fitness enthusiast and is a regular at the Mumbai and Delhi marathons.