Our speakers

K. L. Mukesh, Venture Partner, Unitus Ventures

KL Mukesh Mukesh brings an excellent balance of large scale global corporate experience across the television and healthcare business combined with rich entrepreneurial experience both as a successful entrepreneur and as a Mentor and advisor to a host of startups and investors. Mukesh ran the Japan and LATAM operations for DIRECTV and was also involved in their successful bankruptcy turnaround. Subsequently, he founded Akeso Healthcare, a fast growing healthcare startup which got acquired by the Apollo Hospitals Group. Mukesh holds an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and a Masters in Statistics from Indian Statistical Institute (ISI).

K. Pandia Rajan, Founder, Ma Foi Group

K Pandiarajan (KPR) is one of the most well respected business leaders in India with over 28 years of experience in Management and Human Resources.  As the founder of Ma Foi Management Consultants, he was at the forefront of the transformational changes that swept the HR landscape over the last two decades and pioneered the HR outsourcing concept in India.

After his pioneering role in defining HR industry, he moved to Consulting, Analytics and Education businesses  with the incorporation of Ma Foi Strategic Consultants P Ltd as a holding Company in the year 2012. The new venture focuses on providing high end consulting solutions to Indian Industries with the special focus on SMEs.

KPR keenly believes in the fundamental principle of empowerment at all levels and is actively involved in the CSR activities that focuses on empowering children, women and youth through education, healthcare and livelihood support. He is also a Member of Legislative Assembly of the State of Tamil Nadu in India.

K. Ravindranath, Chairman & Managing Director, Global Hospitals Group

While working in some of UK's top medical institutions, witnessing the hardships of Liver transplant patients and their painstaking ordeal, spending huge amounts of money, Dr. Kancherla Ravindranath realized the urgent need for a Liver transplant facility in India.

Deeply touched by the plight of hundreds of patients' and inspired by his late Father's advice to come back to serve India, Dr. Ravindranath relinquished his very successful practice in UK and returned to India to establish Global Hospitals.

Dr. Kancherla Ravindranath, is a world-renowned expert in Surgical Gastroenterology, and the founder of Global Hospitals Group acknowledged as India's fastest growing chain of tertiary care multi super specialty hospitals. Under Dr. Ravindranath's visionary leadership and guidance, Global Hospitals Group has become the premier and niche healthcare center that is in to performing high-end surgeries, such as the first ever liver, heart, twin kidney and bone marrow transplants in Andhra Pradesh and multiple such cutting edge and pioneering surgeries in India. Currently, with eight world class tertiary care Hospitals in Chennai, Bengaluru & Hyderabad, and soon Mumbai centre opening up, today Global Hospitals has grown to be acknowledged as the world's most comprehensive centre for Liver & Pancreas Diseases and Transplantation.

K. Vaitheeswaran, CEO, IndiaPlaza

K Vaitheeswaran is a successful, serial entrepreneur in the Indian retail industry. He is also an internet industry veteran and is seen as the pioneer for e-commerce in India.

In 2001, he co-founded the Fabmall chain of grocery stores which went on to become a leading brand in the Indian organized retail industry and was subsequently acquired by the Aditya Birla Group for approximately US $ 100 million and later re-branded as the More chain of stores.

He also co-founded www.fabmall.com, the company which pioneered internet retailing in India in 1999. K Vaitheeswaran is the founder, CEO and currently runs www.indiaplaza.in - India’s largest online shopping destination.

K Vaitheeswaran is a veteran in the Indian internet and digital media industry and is seen as the pioneer of the Indian e-commerce industry. In November 2006, the Pitch magazine listed him among the Top 20 people in the Indian Internet industry.

Since 1999, he has spent all his time and efforts in not only building his company into a position of industry leadership but has also been engaged in evangelizing the cause of e-commerce in India.

Vaitheeswaran holds an electronics engineering graduate from Government College of Engineering, Tirunelveli affiliated to the Madurai-Kamaraj University.

He began his career in 1985 with Murugappa Electronics (part of the Murugappa & Parry Group) wherein he was responsible for sales and later product management of Test & Measuring Instruments.

He then spent 10 years in Wipro Infotech (1989-99) where he held various positions in sales, marketing and business planning of Computers & Peripherals. His last assignment in Wipro was as the Marketing Communications Manager in the Computers & System Integration division where he was responsible for Wipro’s brand development for computers.

Vaitheeswaran is a regular speaker on internet & e-commerce related subjects at various industry forums and management institutes across India.

His other interests include reading and passionately following the fortunes of the Indian cricket team and till some time back he was a registered cricket umpire in the Karnataka State Cricket Association. He can be reached on vaithee@indiaplaza.in.

K. Vijayakumar, General Manager, Department of Payments, RBI

K.Chandrasekhar, Founder & CEO, Forus Health Pvt. Ltd.

K.Chandrasekhar (KC) is the Founder & CEO of Forus Health Pvt. Ltd. Forus is  an innovation-driven technology enterprise managed by very experienced professionals. Forus strongly believes that healthcare solutions for emerging countries have to be different both in terms of development as well as deployment. Forus develops innovative products combine with comprehensive software solutions to enable not only screening at the patient's doorstep but facilitate treatment as well. Forus develops affordable technology solutions that can easily be used by a minimally trained technician, thereby making health service accessible and scalable.

The Forus name means, “For us” - me and my community. Forus strongly believes that by "Democratizing Wellness,” they can play an active role in addressing healthcare issues in India and around the world.

Forus flagship product 3nethra, a screening device for common eye problems like cataract, diabetic retina, refractive problems, corneal infections and glaucoma is already being field deployed in more than 350 locations across 14 countries . Its digital imaging and cloud based portal enables easy interface to Telemedicine, remote diagnostics/ work flows and easy access to historical data. More details can be found on www.forushealth.com.

Prior to founding Forus Health, KC was the Director of Strategy & Software Partnerships at NXP (Philips) Semiconductors. KC has 23+ years of experience in Business Strategy, Business Development, Product Management, Sales Management in leading Semiconductor and Software Companies.

KC is an alumnus of BITS Pilani and IIM C

K.Ganesh, Serial Entrepreneur, Chairman, Portea Medical, ( Founder and ex CEO- TutorVista)

Ganesh is a successful serial entrepreneur with four successful green field ventures and exits. His last venture, TutorVista which was acquired by US and UK listed education leader Pearson for $ 213 MM. He was among the top 5 nominee for the Economic Times Entrepreneur of the year 2012 award .

His current venture, Portea Medical aims at providing technology led home health care services to the Indian consumer. Forbes magazine rated Portea as the top 5 start-ups to watch out for in 2014. With  Rs 48 crores ( $ 8 MM ) from Accel partners and Ventureast. Portea is currently operational in 7 cities across India .

He is actively involved in incubating start-ups and is strategic investor / promoter of India based consumer Internet and ecommerce companies – Bluestone.com ( online jewelry), Bigbasket.com ( egrocery), MustseeIndia.com(travel packages and content), bookadda.com ( academic focused online books) and delyver.com ( hyper local delivery), onlineprasad.com ( online religion ).

Ganesh was founder of the data analytics BPO firm Marketics until March 2007, when the company was acquired by NYSE listed WNS for $ 63 MM. His earlier 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, as his first entrepreneurial venture, he promoted 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. Aside from founding and successfully growing four ventures, Krishnan has 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 a popular speaker in entrepreneurship, start-up and Technology events. He has been Recognized as one of the Iconic Entrepreneurs of India 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.I.Mani, Sr. Advisor, TVS Capital Funds

More than three decades in the banking space (a decade with Indian Bank and more than two decades with SIDBI) covering various facets including Credit functions especially lending to MSMEs. At the time of taking voluntary retirement from SIDBI in 2019 as CGM, was heading treasury. Having handled fund of funds operations along with risk capital for nearly four years, including Fund of funds for Startups [FFS] a flagship programme under the Startup India, have deep engagement with the start-up and venture capital eco system in India. Currently associated with TVS Capital Funds as Sr. Advisor and active in policy advocacy through IVCA platform.

K.L Bansal, MD, Dee Development Engineers Limited

After successfully completing Mechanical engineering degree from Punjab Engineering college, Mr. Bansal joined Engineers India Limited. In 1983, he left the cushioned corporate job to fulfill his long envisaged dreams.

His first venture started with providing Design consultancy followed by EPC for Sugar plants. Innovation and R&D are the two critical attributes Mr. Bansal has inculcated in the employees and has made them DNA of the group. Later the company ventured into Pre-Fabrication business for Piping, started its own fitting manufacturing capacity and is now one of the leading international engineering enterprises offering a single source solution for piping systems.

Under the supreme guidance and management of Mr. Bansal for last 27 years, the company grew by leaps & bounds and have achieved new heights. But if you take his words it’s just the starting and there is lot to be achieved and to be given back to the society.

The company ventured into Biomass space way back in 2003, when it was just a beginning of green power/ cleantech era. With the years of industry experience and passion to do something new, Mr. Bansal along with the team erected and commissioned 2 biomass plants in the record time of 9 months from the date of starting the civil works.

The vision of setting up these plants was beyond corporate profits & accounts. It was to give back something to the society, something to the farmers, to rural people and something to the State of Punjab where his roots are from.

K.S.Narayanan, CEO, Pan India Foodsolutions Pvt Ltd

K S Narayanan is the CEO at Pan India Foodsolutions Private Limited and in this capacity is playing a key role in shaping the long-term growth strategies for the company besides building the various Restaurant brands in India.

Narayanan brings with himself about 22 years of rich and varied experience in Business Responsibility, Strategic Planning, Sales & Marketing, Retail Network Development, Operations, Supply Chain and Exports. Prior to joining Pan India Foodsolutions, Narayanan has held key positions in India and Europe in reputed organizations like McCain Foods, Hindustan Unilever Limited and Asian Paints.

His 2.5 years of experience in McCain Foods India as Managing Director saw McCain emerge as one of the largest Frozen Foods business in India spanning across Retail, Foodservice with a nationwide footprint and Exports. His 17 years of experience in Hindustan Unilever Limited has been with the various Food categories covering Beverages, Oils and Dairy Products, Culinary products, Ice Creams and Frozen Foods. He possesses wide expertise across categories in FMCG, Impulse and service oriented businesses with Ambient, Chilled and Frozen distribution. Narayanan brings with him an intimate understanding of Supply Chain, B2B and B2C, Retail / Modern Trade, Customer and Business development and New Channel development.

Narayanan has graduated from IIT Madras and IIM Calcutta. He has a passion for food which is reflected in his writings on Convenience Foods in the various Hospitality Magazines and is well known amongst the Chef Community. He is also an excellent cook and never spares an occasion to try his hand at cooking. His latest passion is in the area of Nutrition Management. He is also a fitness enthusiast and is a regular at the Mumbai and Delhi marathons.