Our speakers

Paras Kaushik, CHRO, HT Media

Before joining HT Media, Paras was Head, Group HR at Motherson Group. He was responsible for managing the Human Resources function for the Group’s 1,35,000 employees across 41 countries.

Prior to this he worked for 17 years at Aditya Birla Group. His repertoire of experiences range from working for global to local, start-up to mature, manufacturing to retail, listed to not-for-profit organizations of the Group. He worked in various HR leadership roles at Hindalco, Group HR, Minacs Philippines, Madura Fashion & Lifestyle, Pantaloons, BITS Pilani, Columbian Chemicals and the Fashion & Retail Business of Aditya Birla Group.

Postgraduate from Symbiosis International University, Paras is passionate about telling stories and sharing his experiences in variety of conferences, webinars, B-School events and social media.

Paresh Patel, CEO, Sandstone Capital LLC

Paresh Patel is the Managing Director of Sandstone Capital, an India-focused hedge fund. Sandstone is a value-oriented investment partnership focused on long-term opportunities in India, with a preference for deep value, special situations, midcaps and complex opportunities. Sandstone Capital has offices in Mumbai and Boston. Prior to Sandstone Paresh Patel was Managing Director of Sparta Group, the private investment office of Gururaj Deshpande, founder of Sycamore Networks. At Sparta, Paresh invested with Desh in early-stage ventures in the US and India - including A123 Systems, Indian Lotus, Relicore and Tejas Networks. Paresh Patel is a director of Tejas Networks (Indian telecom equipment company). Paresh is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Boston College.

Paresh Rajde, Founder & Chairman, Suvidhaa Infoserve

Paresh is the Founder of Suvidhaa Infoserve, India’s largest & fastest growing S-Commerce® company engaged in digital distribution of customer-centric services and payments. Paresh founded Suvidhaa in 2007 and raised an angel investment from Mr Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry, Chairperson of one of India’s largest construction conglomerate. Paresh led from the front in successfully build the company as CEO for first 5 years and securing 3 Series of funding for Suvidhaa from globally acclaimed investors viz., Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), Reliance Capital (ADA Group), IFC, the World Bank Group and Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Suvidhaa today has a footprint of over 65,000 small retail touch points across 2800+ towns in India and services over 15mn unique customers. Suvidhaa was ranked by Red Herring Inc., amongst Asia’s Top 100 Start-ups in 2009 & nominated for Global 200 Start-ups in 2010 and more recently, as per The Brand Trust Report - India Study 2013, Suvidhaa has been acknowledged & recognized as the “Most Trusted Retail Services Brand”. He was elevated as Chairman last year and leads Suvidhaa’s innovative & strategic initiatives envisioning the Company’s growth path.

Prior to starting Suvidhaa, Paresh founded Forbes Infotainment Limited and as CEO of Forbes Infotainment, Paresh launched “DhanDhanaDhan” Online lottery, a brand that achieved Rs.3000 mn turnover in its inaugural years. He successfully exited from the business and sold the venture to Shapoorji Pallonji Group.

A qualified Chartered Accountant, Paresh began with his own Firm in 1991 & later became an Advisor to several State Govts., for online lotteries. Paresh then joined the Board of Turbo Technologies & as an exclusive IT Consultant to Indo-French Chamber of Commerce & Industries promoted IT Projects in France & other European Countries. Paresh pioneered his small ventures like www.taxationindia.com and www.yellowpagesmumbai.com in initial career.

Paresh has received several Indian & International Awards & accolades. The “Best Business Achiever (SME) Award 2009” by Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), the Girnar Award (2007), the SKOCH Awards for Digital Inclusion in 2010 & Financial Inclusion in 2011, to name a few. Acknowledging Paresh’s vision of an inclusive growth & livelihood promotion of rural & urban poor, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) honoured Paresh with its “Inclusive Business Leader” Award in 2011 and in October 2012 featured him as “Inclusive Business Pioneer” in its Report “Being the Change: Inspiring the Next Generation of Inclusive Business Entrepreneurs impacting the Base of the Pyramid”.

Paresh is a member of several Committees of various Industry Bodies & Institutions like FICCI, IAMAI & ICAI; has addressed several prestigious Government & Industry Forums worldwide and the IFC’s Inclusive Business Leaders Forum at Washington, USA (2011) & Tokyo (2012), the GSMA NFC Mobile Money Summit at Milan (2012 & Oct 2013), the Money2020 Conference in Las Vegas are but to name a few.

Paresh Thakker, Managing Partner, ValueQuest Capital

Paresh is the Founder and Managing Partner of ValueQuest Capital LLP. ValueQuest Capital is a boutique investment management firm specializing in identifying listed businesses with strong competitive advantage (“Moats”) run by able and honest managers.

Paresh has over 21 years of experience in investment management and has been involved in many transactions both in private equity and public equities including majority interest transactions and minority interest transactions.

Prior to ValueQuest, Paresh was the Head of Religare Global Asset Management (a multi boutique asset management firm with AUM of USD 19.6 billion). During his tenure he led the majority interest transactions with both Landmark Partners (Pioneers and leaders in the private equity and real estate secondary space, with the AUM of USD 12.5 billion), and Northgate Capital (leading private equity and venture capital firm with global presence). He was also the founder Managing Director of Evolvence Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd. and was also an Investment Principal with Infinity Ventures.

Over the course of his career he has been on investment committees and boards of various portfolio companies. Earlier, he was on the investment committee of IL&FS Private Equity – Leverage India Fund, Ascent India Fund, JM Financial India Fund, and the advisory board of IL&FS Private Equity – Leverage India Fund, NYLIM Jacob Ballas II & III, and Baring India Fund II. He has also served on the operating committee of Landmark Partners and Northgate Capital.

He is a qualified CFA (AIMR, USA), Chartered Accountant (India), Cost Accountant (India), Company Secretary (India) and Bachelor of Commerce from Mumbai University.

Parimal Pandya, Senior Director, Emerging Customer Group, Akamai

Parimal runs the Emerging Customer's Group at Akamai where he is responsible for sales, marketing and services for global mid-market customers. Previously, he helped start Akamai's application acceleration business and led product management, business strategy and operations.

Prior to Akamai, he cofounded two start-ups in consumer media software and ecommerce sectors in New York City. He later served as an investment associate at a New York City based venture fund where he assessed and advised early stage venture capital investments in mobile, media and cloud infrastructure sectors.

Parimal earned an MS in Electrical Engineering and Management from Columbia University in New York. He lives in Bangalore now and  is an active participant in the Bangalore start up community.

Parinita Gohil, Partner, Learning Delight

With a strong education in Biotechnology and a Masters in Business Laws, Parinita, saw Learning Delight as a natural next step for her career. Joining forces with Harshal and Vandan as the marketing force for the team, Parinita was able to quickly help bring life to the vision for the company, the small team of three started not only implanting solutions across rural schools in Gujarat but also managing services for them. Coming from a tier 3 city herself, Parinita felt a strong connect with some of the challenges many schools from the rural areas face, and was able to tackle them not only from an operational perspective but also build strong relationships with most of the schools that Learning Delight worked with in a short span of time.

Parmi Doshi, Associate Vice President, Inflexor Ventures

Parna Ghosh, President and Group CIO, Uno Minda

Paromesh Chatterjee, Head IT, IDFC First Bharat Limited

Paromesh has about 18+ years of rich technical leadership experience in various technology domains viz. Enterprise IT; Service Delivery; Program/Project management; IT Transformation; Presales & Consulting; Solution Architecture and Customer Advocacy & Support;

He is currently deputed as Head of IT for IDFC First Bharat Limited, which is a subsidiary of IDFC First Bank.

Previous and notable assignments have been:-
1. DVP and Functional Head of IT Infrastructure, ATM & Switch Operations, IT Projects, Application Support.
2. Senior Project Manager heading Enterprise Platform Engineering portfolio for Royal Bank of Scotland in India.
3. Microsoft - In Technology Consulting space
4. Hewlett-Packard - In Presales and Solution Architecture/Capacity Planning space

Parth Gandhi, Senior Partner and Managing Director, AION Capital

Parth Gandhi is Senior Partner and Managing Director at AION India Investment Advisors Private Limited. Prior to that he was President of Private Equity at ICICI Venture Funds Management Company Limited. At ICICI Venture he was responsible for establishing the strategic partnership with Apollo and in developing AION Investment strategy. He brings nearly two decades of investing experience in India. Over the course of his career, he has invested in multiple Indian as well as international companies. His investments have been in listed and unlisted companies in the form of equity, mezzanine and senior debt. He currently serves on the board of Aion Capital Partners, Aion Capital Management, Clix Capital and Clix Finance.