Our speakers

Kanika Mayar, Partner, Vertex Ventures

Kanika Mittal, Head - Marketing and Brand Communications, Reebok India

Kanika Mittal took up the role as Marketing Head of Reebok India at the definitive moment when the brand
positioned itself as the fitness initiators and authenticators of India. With a healthy challenge ahead of her, she undertook her role with a single minded approach to innovate and introduce fresh ideas in every aspect of business. Some of these initiatives included Reebok’s massive brand campaign featuring 3 fitness icons – MS Dhoni, John Abraham and Nargis Fakri to reinforce the fitness positioning , the path-breaking digital innovation ‘Ignite your Fitness Fire’ and more recently a successful global launch for the Reebok ZQuick. Her leadership also led to clutter breaking Retail, OOH concepts with PR & Digital playing a key role in orchestrating the reach and engagement quotient of various marketing programs. The latest addition to her achievements is the undertaking of John Abraham and Nargis Fakhri as the fitness ambassador for Reebok India.

Over the last 7 years as part of the Marketing team at Reebok Kanika has had a range of incredible results across the Communications mandate including Integrated Marketing, Corporate Communications and PR, Research, Product launches and transitioning to a new positioning for the brand. Through marketing innovations, topical digital initiatives and an ability to optimize her budget for best results, Kanika has helped Reebok gain a strong foothold in the consumer mind and heart space while keeping commercial and business objectives at the heart of all strategy.  She has been an integral part of the leadership team and has effectively led the communication of the brand to convey their reinforced fitness positioning.

Kanika has many successful campaigns under her belt including the recent ‘Live with Fire’ campaign featuring MS Dhoni, Nargis Fakhri and John Abraham, the highly innovative ZQuick Campaign, the clutter breaking EasyTone campaign, the campaign which transformed Reebok into a fitness brand - CrossFit and RealFlex and more.

Her work at Reebok has been much awarded in the form of - The ABBYs award, Exchange4Media Award and the Campaign India Digital Award for EasyTone Digital Campaign in 2010, The Exchange4Media ((IODSA) Award and OAC Awards for EasyTone and Zigtech OOH Campaign in 2011, The EMVIES for Reebok’s partnership with the movie GOAL.

As a professional, Kanika is insightful, hands-on, and believes in managing her team by empowering them. Kanika completed her Bachelors in Commerce from Delhi University followed by a 2 year MBA from MICA wherein she majored in Brand Management and ranked in top 10% of her batch.

Kanika Tekriwal, Founder and CEO, JetSetGo Aviation Pvt. Ltd.

A pursuer of optimism, drive, and excellence - Ms. Kanika Tekriwal, CEO & Founder, JetSetGo, first entered the aviation industry at the age of 17, hustling college and a full-time job. Her dream is to enable the fastest possible connectivity from point A to point B.

With over a decade of hands-on experience in the aviation industry, Kanika Tekriwal is redefining what it means to fly through pioneering JetSetGo which currently manages and operates India’s largest private jet and helicopter fleet. Through analysing the market, Kanika identified the two main concerns of jet owners with JetSetGo she went about fixing this.

Kanika is pioneering air taxis with intracity connectivity in India using EvTOL’S. Her focus is on using the third dimension, the sky, as the future of transport.

Her expertise and vision have brought her the National Entrepreneurship Award from the Govt. of India and numerous coveted lists, such as Forbes’ 30 Under 30, BBC’s 100 Most Inspirational Women, Women Transforming India by Niti Aayog, Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum, CNN’s 20 Under 40, Game Changer by Times She Unltd and Leading Wealthy Women under 40 List by Hurun India.

Kanika Tekriwal, Founder, JetSetGo

Meet Kanika Tekriwal, one of the 100 most inspirational women chosen by BBC and 30 entrepreneurs under 30 recognised by Forbes Asia amongst others. An entrepreneur who is a relentless pursuer of hope, positivity and drive. Her energy is infectious. A marathon runner, a painter, a traveler and more, she is redefining her life every day.

JetSetGo
JetSetGo - India’s first and only market place for private jets is an interactive technology driven platform enabling users to search and charter aircrafts and helicopters across India.

Kanika has been working in the aviation industry for almost a decade now since she was 17 years old. She started working in the industry when private jets in the country were far and few! Besides India she has also worked abroad and seen the industry grow (and shrink, of course) and learnt a thing or two about the industry. JetSetGo is the result of this varied experience.

Over the past few years she noticed the frustration of customers while dealing with charter brokers and operators. Customers felt that there was a need for a professional and comprehensive charter service providing a variety of aircrafts with a transparent pricing system. Given that the private aviation industry in India is still nascent, users are generally recommended aircrafts that suit brokers more than the users themselves.

JetSetGo endeavours to change this and make private jet charter very economical and simple.

Kanishk Tyagi, Investor, Alpha Wave Global

Kannan Rahul, Partner, Trilegal

Kannan Rahul is Partner, Trilegal, and is a member of the Banking and Finance team. He has extensive experience in handling financing transactions involving Indian and multinational banks, financial institutions and corporates.

Kannan has been involved in structuring, documentation and negotiation of several types of banking and finance transactions, including bilateral and syndicated credit facilities, term loans as well as working capital facilities, project financing, guaranteed credit facilities to overseas subsidiaries of Indian entities, and trade finance. He has also acted for corporates and investors in issuances of listed and unlisted privately placed debentures.

He has advised various banks in the public and private sector, on restructuring of their debt, including under the different schemes notified by the Reserve Bank of India. He has worked with ICICI Bank Limited (at Mumbai and Hong Kong) as an in-house counsel in the corporate legal group and was the group head for the bank’s South East Asia and North Asia corporate legal team. He has extensively advised the bank on its financing, debt capital market, and inter-bank transactions, during his stint with the bank.

Kannan is an alumnus of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, India. He is a member of the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa.

Kannan Sitaram, CEO, Innovative Foods & Operating Partner, IEP Funds

Kannan Sitaram is Operating Partner at India Equity Partners, a New York based Private Equity firm, with over $ 2 Billion of group assets under management. At IEP he leads the development of their consumer sector portfolio. For the prior four years, from 2006, he was Chief Operating Officer of the Rs. 2,500 crores Consumer Care Division of Dabur India. At Dabur, Mr. Sitaram led the transformation of one of India’s most highly rated consumer products businesses through organic growth and highly successful acquisitions.

From 2002 till 2005, Mr. Sitaram was Vice President Strategy at Unilever’s Global Headquarters in London, where he was responsible for bringing consumer, customer and industry perspectives to shape Unilever’s corporate strategy. Prior to that, Mr. Sitaram had a highly successful 9 year tenure at Hindustan Unilever (HUL), including as Head of Marketing for the Beverages division and National Head of Sales for Detergents and Personal Products. Mr. Sitaram had moved to HUL from Pond’s India Limited, part of Chesebrough Pond’s Inc where he spent the first 12 years of his career.

Mr. Sitaram holds a Bachelors degree in Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and earned his Management degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In addition, Mr. Sitaram has attended an Executive Program at the Carnegie Mellon School of Business and an Advanced Executive Program at the Kellogg School of Business.

Kannan Sitaram, Operating Partner, India Equity Partners

Kannan Sitaram is Operating Partner at India Equity Partners, a New York based Private Equity firm, with over $ 2 Billion of group assets under management. At IEP he leads the development of their consumer sector portfolio. For the prior four years, from 2006, he was Chief Operating Officer of the Rs. 2,500 crores Consumer Care Division of Dabur India. At Dabur, Mr. Sitaram led the transformation of one of India’s most highly rated consumer products businesses through organic growth and highly successful acquisitions.

From 2002 till 2005, Mr. Sitaram was Vice President Strategy at Unilever’s Global Headquarters in London, where he was responsible for bringing consumer, customer and industry perspectives to shape Unilever’s corporate strategy. Prior to that, Mr. Sitaram had a highly successful 9 year tenure at Hindustan Unilever (HUL), including as Head of Marketing for the Beverages division and National Head of Sales for Detergents and Personal Products. Mr. Sitaram had moved to HUL from Pond’s India Limited, part of Chesebrough Pond’s Inc where he spent the first 12 years of his career.

Mr. Sitaram holds a Bachelors degree in Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and earned his Management degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In addition, Mr. Sitaram has attended an Executive Program at the Carnegie Mellon School of Business and an Advanced Executive Program at the Kellogg School of Business.

Kanti Mohan Rustagi, Founder, Patanjali Associates

 Kanti Mohan Rustagi, a corporate Advocate and member of Institute of Company Secretaries of India has nearly twenty (20) years of professional experience.  Prior to founding Patanjali Associates, he was Senior Legal Counsel of Coca-Cola India and a member of the global legal function of The Coca-Cola Company, USA.

He has handled a number of critical assignments for Coca-Cola and amongst others, structure and executed the divestment of equity for Coca-Cola in India and carried out structuring, merger and de-merger of its bottling and concentrate division.

Mr. Rustagi has had speaking assignments at Asia Business Forum, Singapore and Fortress Intelligence, Singapore. Mr. Rustagi is also listed amongst ?Pool of Experts? from India by Embassy of Switzerland and has been a member of the Foreign Investment Committee and Taxation Committee of the PHD Chamber of Commerce in the past.

Mr. Rustagi is serving on the board of many companies and is extensively travelled.

Kanwal Rekhi, Managing Director, Inventus Capital Partners

Kanwal was the first Indo-American Founder & CEO to take a venture-backed company public on the NASDAQ, co-founded and built TiE into the largest global network of Indian entrepreneurs, and co-founded Inventus where he applies his full energy and time building Inventus into a leading early stage venture franchise.

Kanwal came to the United States from India for graduate studies, advanced through the engineering ranks in a number of technology companies, and then co-founded Excelan in Silicon Valley to commercialize ethernet and TCP/IP – standards which became the basis of the Internet. He took Excelan public in 1987, becoming the first Indo-American Founder & CEO to list a venture-backed company on the NASDAQ.
Excelan later merged with Novell, where Kanwal served as EVP, CTO and a Board Director for five years, established Novell’s operations in India, grew the company into the second largest software vendor in the world and returned 100X to his venture investors. Later, Kanwal was CEO of Ensim and also CEO of Cybermedia, both companies in which he was initially a lead venture investor and board member. Kanwal negotiated Cybermedia’s successful acquisition by Network Associates.

Over the 14 years prior to co-founding Inventus, Kanwal was a full-time venture-angel, investing his own capital in more than 50 startups, leading the initial financings for 23 of them and playing an active role on their Boards. These prior venture investments resulted in 21 exits including 6 IPOs to date. Also active in Indian public policy related to venture, Kanwal advised India government policy makers in reforming venture regulations.
This encouraged fund formation in India, and Kanwal was the founding limited partner behind Infinity Capital-India a successful early-stage India venture fund. He also successfully advised the Indian Prime Minister and his government on their aggressive deregulation of telecom, leading to the explosive growth of mobile telephony in India, and laying the foundation for the country’s impressive IT expansion. At Inventus, Kanwal’s been a Board Director at Sierra Atlantic (ACQ: Hitachi), Assured Risk, Espresso Logic, GenWi, and observer at Poshmark.

Kanwal is a well-known figure in the global Indian community and a widely recognized authority on entrepreneurship. He co-founded The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE) to promote Indian entrepreneurship and was TiE President through the late 90′s presiding over its growth into a global organization with over 10,000 members who have been behind Silicon Valley and India start-ups. Kanwal is currently a trustee on the global board of TiE. With Inventus, Kanwal works closely with entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and India, as he has since 1995, to apply his full time and energy helping them accomplish great result.

Kanwal earned a BSEE from IIT-Bombay and a MSEE and Honorary Doctorates in both Business and Engineering from Michigan Tech. Kanwal is a board member on the IIT Bombay Heritage Fund (IITBHF), and also founded the Kanwal Rekhi Schools of Information Technology at both IIT-Bombay and Michigan Tech.