Our speakers

Mahendra Swarup, Founder, Venture Gurukool & Ankurit Capital

Mr. Mahendra Swarup is a highly accomplished industry leader with 35 years of professional experience, including more than 20 years in Private Equity and Venture Capital. As the Founder and Managing Partner of Ankurit Capital, he has positioned it as one of India’s premier early-stage investment Venture Capital Fund . His vision centers on the belief that the next generation of entrepreneurs will drive significant GDP growth and create wealth leveraging the Digital Public infrastructure in emerging economies specially in South Asia , Middle East and Africa.

Mr. Swarup’s deep industry involvement extends beyond Ankurit Capital. He is a key figure on various government committees and serves on the boards of several ventures. He was the Founding President of the Indian Venture Capital Association (IVCA), a role he held for over a decade, and co-founded the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), where he served as Vice President.

His distinguished career also includes serving as Senior Investment Advisor to Siguler Guff, a global private equity fund managing over $10 billion in assets, where he provided strategic guidance on portfolio exits. Mr. Swarup has also managed a growth and buyout SME fund in India, overseeing $365 million across three funds.

He has been at the forefront of pioneering efforts in the digital media and e-commerce space, founding Smile Interactive Technologies. Under his leadership, Smile became one of the first incubators for early-stage ventures in India, facilitating successful exits to companies like WPP, Yahoo, and Dentsu, and attracting investments from leading firms such as Sequoia Capital and DST Global.

Mr. Swarup has sperheaded over 150 investments across various sectors, including pharma, manufacturing, media, and consumer-facing businesses, backed by his comprehensive understanding of the Global regulatory and financial landscape. His work has consistently centered around fostering growth and expansion for businesses, aligning with his core belief in entrepreneurship as a driving force for economic growth.

Maher Al-Kaabi, Advisor to Alserkal Group Chairman, UAE Circular Economy Council Member & UAEIIC Executive Committee Member

Mahesh Chhabria, Partner, Actis

Mahesh has a firm belief in the emerging market growth story and corporate India’s push to go global. He decided to to act on this belief by joining Actis which is recognised as a long-standing investor in India with an emerging market sector-based approach to investing both in minority and control deals.

Mahesh previously worked at 3i India, where he was a partner in the firm’s Growth Capital Group and the lead partner globally for the Healthcare sector, heading up and contributing to 3i investments in India and international markets. Before making the move to private equity in 2006, Mahesh was co-head of investment banking at Enam, one of the leading domestic investment banks in India. Mahesh holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Mumbai, and is an Associate Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Since joining Actis in 2010, Mahesh has plunged himself into the business: forging new contacts, and calling upon his existing network to help build value in Actis’s India-based portfolio.

Mahesh Deshmukh, CMD, Chetas Control Systems Private Ltd

Mr Mahesh Deshmukh has 25 years experience in corporate. Well rounded Engineering expertise in developing Embedded technology. Currently he serves as a managing director of Chetas Control Systems Pvt. Ltd.

With Good professional record Mehesh deshmukh has done B.E. (Electronics & Telecommunication) and Diploma in Business Management. Some of his professional achievements are G.S. Parkhe Industrial Merit Award by Mahratta Camber of Commerce Industries & Agriculture for the manufacturing product Ultrasonic Flow Meters in India. Initiated manufacturing unit at Parwanoo-Himachal Pradesh for Battery Powered Ultrasonic Water Meters. Bagged largest order for Multipath Ultrasonic Flow Meters of Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board, Bangalore. Bagged largest order for AMR water metering projects of Municipal Corporation of  Greater Mumbai.

Mahesh Kanchan, CEO, Del Monte Foods India

Mahesh Khaitan, Director, Salarpuria Sattva Group

A well-known leader in the real estate business, Mr. Mahesh Khaitan, is a Director in Salarpuria Sattva Group. With two and a half decades of expertise, he has a credit of executing over 110 projects across the country. A maestro in every aspect of the project from planning to design, construction, coordination, execution and administration, he leaves no stone unturned to ensure that every customer, be it residential or corporate, gets a perfect living or working space.

He is responsible for crafting the Group’s foray into Hyderabad with over 18 million sq. ft. of commercial development in the city, setting up IT Tech parks of global standards. Knowledge City a flagship project of the group is the testimony to his ardent project engineering and development skills.

Well-versed in legal matters and sanctions, Mr. Mahesh Khaitan keeps abreast of the latest technologies and innovations in the business. A people’s person, his relationship with customers and civic agencies have won him a loyal base of admirers, who vouch for his professionalism and humane qualities.

A committed family man, he is also interested in crunching cricket numbers and strategy while off the construction pitch.

Mahesh Kolli, Founder, President & Joint MD, Greenko Wind Project Pvt. Ltd

Mahesh started his career in the energy sector and went on to build his entrepreneurial interests in Information Technology and Environmental space.

He is experienced in the Emissions trading markets and was co-founder, with Anil Chalamalasetty, of Lytag Asia, an environmental solutions company focused on Coal Gasification and transforming waste from thermal power plants into light weight building products. Within Greenko, he is responsible for driving the vision, business development and new project initiatives of the Group.

Mahesh is a regular speaker at Carbon Market & Clean Energy conferences around the world and is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Karnataka, India.

Mahesh Krishnan, Angel Investor, Inflection Point Ventures

Mahesh Murthy, Partner, Seedfund

Mahesh Murthy is a founding partner at Seedfund, and has over 26 years of marketing and communications experience, of which 15 years are in online marketing. Mahesh has worked with Grey in India and Ogilvy in Hong Kong, where he won notoriety and awards as a creative director on HP, The Economist, Pepsi and MTV.

He moved to a Silicon Valley firm, CKS Partners (later, USWeb/CKS) as Creative Director, GM and Partner – where he helped launch the first commercial version of Yahoo in 1995 and the Earth’s Biggest Bookstore campaign for Amazon.com in 1997. Mahesh then returned to India to run Channel V, till its sale to Newscorp in 2000 and then founded Passionfund to invest in startups. He also set up Pinstorm in Bombay which is today among the world's leading digital marketing firms.

Mahesh has a passion for early-stage investing and teamed up with Pravin Gandhi and Bharati Jacob (ex-Infinity) in 2006 to set up Seedfund, today a leading early-stage venture capital fund in India.

Mahesh Narayanan, Global Chief Operating Officer, Saavn

Mahesh Narayanan is the Global Chief Operating Officer at Saavn. Based out of India’s Mumbai office, he oversees numerous functions of the company to encourage growth and support Saavn’s expansion. Narayanan is one of India’s top digital business leaders with over 15 years of experience across businesses in the mobile, ad-tech and consumer Internet spaces. He has been featured as one of the Top 99 Tech Indians twice (2012 and 2014), by Exhibit - a leading tech publication. Mahesh has held various senior leadership positions across global technology media companies such as Google, AdMob and Sociomantic. He has been a part of three companies that exited successfully through an acquisition. He spent 7 years at Google India across various functions and was awarded the Google Hero for his outstanding contribution to the organization. He joined AdMob as the Country Manager for India in 2009, and moved back to Google after the acquisition of AdMob.

Mahesh was named the Mobile Marketing Person of the Year at the Indira Marketing Excellence awards in 2011. He has also been featured in the Digital Power 100 list as one of the icons of India’s Digital ecosystem in 2012 by Impact, a leading advertising, media and marketing publication.