Our speakers
Alok Verma, Senior Strategy Leader and Partner, Grant Thornton
- Indian Auto Industry 2.0: Innovation, NPD and Globalization imperatives
- NextGen Automotive Technologies: Imperative India
- Innovation driven growth in India- Assocham Study
- Indo-US Trade: $500 Bn Roadmap- IACC Study
Advisory efforts. Alok focuses on cross-industry solutions, leverages cutting edge thinking on Right to Win, Hypotheses Driven Approach and Design Thinking.
Alok works actively with Industry forums like CII, IDG, IACC, Assocham, FICCI, ET, ACMA and other trade forums/ academia interfaces. Alok is part of CII Future Business Council and is also part of its select committee on Artificial Intelligence.
Prior to Grant Thornton, Alok was Automotive Sector leader at a leading strategy firm. Some of Alok’s recent publications which captures his perspective on Innovation and disruption across Industry segments:
Alok is a Mechanical Engineer from IIT Delhi and an MBA from IIM Bangalore.
Aloke Bajpai, CEO & Co-Founder, Ixigo.com | @ixigo
Aloke is the dynamo who drives ixigo with his passion and eye for detail. He is responsible for providing strategic leadership and direction to the team with his business acumen and consumer-centric thinking. His creativity, intuition and perseverance have had immense impact on ixigo’s growth story.
An IIT Kanpur Electrical Engineering alumnus and an MBA graduate from INSEAD, he loves creative writing, history and gadgets. Prior to launching ixigo, he worked in technology roles at Amadeus SAS, Nice, France, where he was part of the team that built the world’s first web-based cruise-line booking engine for agencies. Since then, his love for Internet products and Croissants has never ebbed.
Aloke has also recently won the Young Achiever Award at Mobby's 2013. He is a TiE charter member and a mentor to several startups, incubators and accelerators.
He is also an advisor to 10+ Startups including: Playcez (acquired by IndiaMart group), Bluegape, Dogspot, Azoi.
@alokebajpai
Alpesh Dalal, Head M&A and Investor Relations, Lupin Limited | @LupinLimited
Alpesh heads the M&A and Investor Relations in India for Lupin. He has experience in handling cross border acquisitions especially in the USA, LATAM and Asia Pacific markets.
Alpesh joined Lupin in 2009 as Commercial and Finance Head for the business unit focusing on Asia Pacific, Africa, Middle-East and Latin America and has been handling the corporate M&A and Investor Relations since past two years. He started his career in 1998 with Haribhakti & Co in the audit practice and subsequently moved to financial services within the same group. He spent the first 5 & half years of his career in the financial advisory / investment banking services. Subsequently, he moved to industry with the M&A team in Wockhardt and then headed the corporate finance function at Thomas Cook (I) Ltd before moving on to his current job with Lupin.
Alpesh has worked on various engagements in the Corporate Finance field including M&A, treasury, capital market fund raising and has also been involved in operations of some of Lupin’s overseas subsidiaries.
Aluri Srinivasa Rao, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley Private Equity
Aluri Rao is a Managing Director of Morgan Stanley. Mr. Rao joined MSPE Asia in 2008 and focuses on the group’s private equity transactions in India. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Mr. Rao was Director of Private Equity at ICICI Venture and one of the senior private equity professionals on the team. He has led numerous landmark private equity investments particularly in the healthcare sector.
At ICICI Venture, Mr. Rao led transactions including the buyout of allied businesses of Ranbaxy Laboratories, the tie-up with Dr Reddy’s, roll ups such as Iven Medicare and Swiss Biosciences as well as growth investments in Avesthagen, Arch Pharma, Malladi, Bharat Biotech, Metropolis and Onconova amongst others. He served as a member of the board on several of these portfolio companies. He brings with him over 20 years of organizational building and corporate experience in India, UK and USA. Mr. Rao is Indian and is based in Hyderabad. He is a graduate of BITS, Pilani, and a Sloan Fellow from the London Business School.
Alvaro Abella, Managing Director, Gulf Capital
Alvaro Abella is a Managing Director in the Private Equity team at Gulf Capital.
With over twenty years of experience across Europe, the Americas and the MENA region and with a strong focus on TMT investments, Mr. Abella has worked across transaction execution, post-acquisition management and advisory roles. Before Gulf Capital, he co-founded BECO Holdings, Dubai-based early-stage investment firm focused on digital businesses in the MENA region, where he led investments into regional leaders such as Careem, Vezeeta and SellAnyCar.
Mr. Abella also held previous positions with Diamond Cluster International, Dubai, Value Partners SpA., Italy and Booz Allen & Hamilton, Europe.
Mr. Abella has a Master in Business Administration from MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts, USA.
Aman Agarwal, Google Business Unit Corporate Head, Persistent Systems
Aman Goel, Founder & CEO, Cogno AI
Aman Goel is the Founder and CEO of Cogno AI, a leading Conversational AI Platform for enterprises. Aman is an IIT Bombay Alum. He led Cogno from inception to 150+ member team.
Amanppreet Singh Bhatia, Group President-HR, Hinduja Group
Amar Goel, Founder & Chairman, Komli Media India
Amar founded Komli Media in October 2006, and since then has been at the heart and head of the operations. Amar is also the Founder and Chairman of PubMatic, the leading independent supply side digital advertising platform in the United States, with offices across the US, Europe, and India.
Amar has led a digital advertising business for Microsoft in the US. He has also worked at McKinsey & Co, and Netscape. As a student in Harvard University, Amar founded Chipshot.com, at the age of 19 with $350. Chipshot.com in 5 years grew to approximately $30M in annual sales and was at point the fastest growing e-commerce website.
Amar Merani, CEO, Xander Finance Pvt. Ltd
Based in Mumbai, Amar heads Xander's credit platform in India. He brings with him over 15 years of investment banking experience and has worked on several marquee M&A and private equity transactions, IPOs and follow on equity offerings, as well as Project and Structured Finance transactions.
From 2007 to 2012, Amar headed the real estate vertical of Kotak Investment Banking which raised over US$1.5 BB of equity for leading real estate developers in their public or private equity offerings to international and domestic institutional investors. He also led corporate restructuring and advisory assignments for leading real estate and infrastructure groups. During his tenure at Kotak, the firm was conferred the "Best in Equity Financing" awards in the Euromoney Poll for Real Estate in 2010 and 2011.
Earlier, from 2004 to 2006, Amar was with Lazard India where he helped revive the firm's M&A franchise by generating and executing several transactions in the Telecom, Media and Technology sectors. Amar has also worked at IL&FS in the Corporate Lending, Project Finance Advisory and Infrastructure Debt Syndication team where he was responsible for the financial closure of one of India’s first BOT toll-road projects, and advised several power and telecom companies on project financing. He started his career with a stint at PwC in their Consulting practice in Mumbai.
Amar is an electrical engineer from VJTI, Mumbai and holds an MBA from NMIMS, Mumbai where he specialized in Finance and Operations.