Our speakers

Pawoot Pongvitayapanu, Founder, MD, Tarad.com

As the CEO of Tarad, Pawoot is responsible for managing Thailand’s largest “B2C” e-marketplace with over 101,000 merchants. Since Tarad joined Rakuten Inc. (the biggest eCommerce company in Japan) in 2009, Pawoot is spending more of his time driving the eCommerce ventures in Thailand and advocating the progress of the industry. As the President of the Thailand eCommerce association, He will be sharing his domestic knowledge of Thailand and how he thinks retailers can really capture growth in one of the leading Southeast Asia markets.

Payal Shah, Partner & Head of Investments, Axilor Ventures

Payal leads all the early stage funding activity at Axilor. Prior to Axilor, Payal led Acumen’s business development efforts in India, managing fund raising and Acumen’s India partner network. She was instrumental in launching their corporate partnership program and bringing on board the first corporate donor to support Acumen’s India activities. During her tenure, she also served on the Steering Committee of ANDE India, an industry body aiming to support the SGB ecosystem in the country. Prior to Acumen, she was part of Sequoia Capital’s India team for a five year period, starting with the research team and then as part of the investment team. She began her career at McKinsey’s India Knowledge Centre, supporting studies in the media & entertainment sector. Payal has completed her post-graduation from Symbiosis Centre for Management & HRD, Pune.

Payel Chatterjee, Partner -Dispute Resolution and White-collar Crime practice group, Trilegal

PC Mustafa, CEO, ID Fresh

Peeyush Rai, CTO & Co-Founder, Canvera Digital Technologies Pvt Ltd

Peeyush is Chief Technology Officer at Canvera and is responsible for all technology development to serve the needs of the market and also to enable an efficient operational scale up. In 2013 he along with Canvera's Co-Founder Dhiraj was recognized as amongst the top-10 Most Influential People in Photography in India by Asian Photography magazine. Peeyush has been working in the software industry since 1993. Prior to founding Canvera Peeyush was heading newScale's India software development center.

He also setup and headed Centrata's India operations. Peeyush previously worked in Silicon Valley in various senior management roles in the Enterprise Software space at Oracle, Corio & Euclid. Prior to moving to the US Peeyush had a stint in Jamaica helping build the country's citizen ID system - a system that is in use to this day. Peeyush started his career working as a software engineer with Citicorp. He has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay.

Percy Avari, Country Manager, Aramex

Percy is the Country Manager for Aramex in India, one of the leading global providers of logistics and transportation solutions, currently listed on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM: ARMX).

He holds a post graduation in accountancy qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1991. His business management experience began in 2002 when Aramex was looking for a grooming a local Country manager in India. He has 19 years experience in the logistics industry. He started his career with Aramex – India in 1997 as the financial controller of India. Over the last 13 years he has contributed to Aramex India's growth from a 4 office wholesaler to Middle east to a global logistic service provider providing end to end logistic through a network of 27 office and a network of 950 locations through franchisees.

He is an active member of express and e-commerce industry in India and is on the boards of Express Industry council of India (EICI) and the Internet and Mobile association of India (IAMAI). He has also been honored with the CEO of the year award by the Express logistics and supply chain conclave in 2008.

Peter Frykman, Founder and Director, Driptech

Peter Frykman builds technology and teams to end poverty. As a graduate student at Stanford he developed innovative laser manufacturing technology to make drip irrigation appropriate and affordable for small-plot farmers. He founded and led Driptech to sell over 25,000 acres of affordable irrigation in India, China, and Africa. Today, as Board Director and trusted advisor, Peter guides Driptech and other social enterprises on human-centered design, product development, marketing, fundraising, and team-building. He is based in Pune, India.

Peyush Bansal, Founder & CEO, Lenskart.com | @Lenskart_com

Peyush Bansal has established himself as not just a passionate online entrepreneur with 4 successfully running portals, but also an expert in the eyewear industry. He embarked on his journey with internet-based innovations when he founded India’s first online campus classifieds portal, Searchmycampus.com in 2007. The portal helped college students meet their basic needs of finding affordable accommodation, books, tutorials, food etc.

After attaining sufficient success and profound knowledge in the domain of e-markets, the online enthusiast incepted Valyoo Technologies in 2008. With his unique ability to connect the dots from strategy to tactics, he laid the foundation of Lenskart.com in November 2010. The company, since then, has been driven to success with an aim to provide great value for money and customised eyewear products. After getting a good grip over the eyewear market, he started targeting other verticals like watches, bags and jewellery with his other ventures WatchKart.com, JewelsKart.com and BagsKart.com in 2011.

His deep understanding of human capital, organisation development and finance has brought in a revolutionary transformation in his ventures. Under his dynamic leadership, LensKart has emerged as the industry leader in its category and has been instrumental in the success of the company in a fiercely competitive market.

Phanindra Sama, Co-Founder & CEO, Redbus

Phanindra Sama “Phani” is Co-Founder & CEO of redBus.in, India’s largest bus ticketing company.

Founded in Aug. 2006, redBus today has operations across 25 states and offers services for ~39,000+ routes and has built relationship with about 1500+ bus operators and 40,000+ travel agents.  

redBus is amongst Forbes top 5 startups to watch in 2010. redBus is ranked no#1 amongst the fastest growing companies in India in a survey done by All World Network. And is also awarded India’s best internet startup, 2010 by IMAI.

Phani is ranked no# 3 amongst India’s Most Promising Entrepreneurs by Business World. He has been chosen as a Global Shaper 2011 of the World Economic Forum. He was awarded Entrepreneur of the year award under IT, ITES category by ET NOW, the BITSAA 30 under 30 award and Ranked 4 in ‘Impact digital power 100’ in India in 2013. He is also selected as Endeavor Entrepreneur and TiE Entrepreneur.

He was a State ranker in Intermediate examination, Andhra Pradesh Sr. Secondary Board, graduated with distinction from BITS-Pilani, and worked with Texas Instruments, Bangalore before he co-founded redBus.

Pinak Chakraborty, CIO, Airtel Payments Bank