Our speakers

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.

Kanwaljit Singh, Sr. MD, Helion Venture Fund

Kanwal Singh is a co-founder of Helion and has over 23 years of experience in the areas of venture investing, marketing and business development across multiple sectors in India. In addition to his role at Helion, he serves on the boards of NGPay, Hurix, Amba Research, HummingBird, YLG Salons, Qwikcilver, Mast Kalandar, Yepme, Attano and LifeCell.

 

Prior to Helion, Kanwal spent four years as a director and co-head of The Carlyle Group's India venture operations. Before this, he worked as Head of Marketing for Intel South Asia. He joined Intel from Hindustan Unilever Ltd. where he spent over 10 years in various functions including sales, marketing and product innovation.

 

Kanwal has a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Punjab University and an MBA in marketing and finance from the Faculty of Management Studies, New Delhi.

Kapil Bharati, Co-Founder, Delhivery

Kapil Kapoor, Chief Product & Technology Officer | Board Member, CredAble

Kapil Kapoor, CPTO, CredAble

Kapil Khandelwal, Co-Founder, El-Toro

Kapil is the co-founder of El-Toro, an investment firm that is looking to create a REIT related to the healthcare industry. Prior to Toro, he ran his own investment banking and advisory services company, EquNev Capital.

He has served as a senior executive with Groupe Danone, Britannia Industries, KPMG, Wipro Technologies, Jubliant Organics Group, and Cisco Systems and is also a director on the board of Pfizer Ltd (India). He has done Bachelors in Commerce from Jai Hind College, Masters in Commerce from Sydenham College and MBA in Marketing & Finance from Sydenham Institute of Management.

Kapil Mahajan, Group CIO, Safexpress Private Limited

CIO known for his sharp technical and business acumen with expertise in building and executing strategic visions and technology roadmaps that work in alignment with business goals. He is a true Digital platform leader and early adopter of CAMSS (Cloud, Analytics, Mobile, Social and Security) across global clients and in Safexpress.

Has expertise in management of complex IT setups and new age technologies (IoT, AI/ML, RPA etc) and has been instrumental in setting up of digital practices across verticals for big global clients. Prior to joining Safexpress, Kapil worked with IBM Global Services for 14 years which comprised of over 7 years of experience abroad including USA, Europe and South East Asia. He enjoys generating new ideas and has setup successful innovation labs and centres using Design Thinking as the underlying approach.