Our speakers

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Vice - Chancellor, Ashoka University

Pratap Bhanu Mehta is Vice-Chancellor, Ashoka University. He was previously President, Center for Policy Research. He has been a Professor at Harvard, JNU, the Global Faculty Program at NYU Law School. He has published widely in political theory, constitutional law, society and politics in India, governance and political economy, and international affairs.

His most recent publications include The Oxford Handbook to the Indian Constitution (co-edited with Madhav Khosla and Sujit Choudhary); Rethinking India's Public Institutions (with Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav); Non-Alignment 2.0 (with Srinath Raghavan, Sunil Khilnani et al), The Oxford Companion to Politics in India (with Niraja Jayal); India and Multilateralism (with Bruce Jones and WPS Sidhu) and the Burden of Democracy.

Mehta has also served in a number of policy roles including, Member Convenor of the Prime Minister of India's National Knowledge Comission, Member of the the National Security Advisory Board, Member of the Lyngdoh Committee. He Chairs the Jury for the Holberg Prize.

Mehta has a prolific engagement with public affairs. He is editorial consultant to Indian Express, where he writes a regular column. In addition he has written for the Financial Times, and a number of leading national and international publications. He is on the Editorial Board of American Political Science Review and Journal of Democracy.

Dr Mehta holds a BA (first class) in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford and a PhD in politics from Princeton. He received the 2010 Malcom S. Adishehshiah Award and the 2011 Infosys Prize for Social Sciences - Political Science.

Pratap T P, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Qwikcilver

Pratap has been associated with driving and pioneering the Closed Loop Prepaid & Gift Card category in Indian Organised retail categories Via Qwikcilver. These efforts have seen the Gift Card segment powered by Qwikcilver grow by over 250% year on year for the last 5+ years, across 400+ leading corporates, brands & retailers across 450+ towns & cities of India & international markets.

Pratap has also been a part of transnational corporates across segments and categories - setting up consumer adoption initiatives through marketing campaigns, new channels of distribution, product development and growing retail networks in India and overseas. He has a passion for new age Startups, technology marketing for evangelizing innovative ways of reaching out to consumers. Pratap has a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Electrical Engineering from BITS Pilani and an MBA from IIM Calcutta.

Prateek Agarwal, Co - founder, Bite Club

Prateek Kapadia, CTO, Flytxt

Prateek manages Flytxt’s technology roadmap, with a special strategic focus on R&D and IP creation and protection. Prateek’s 15 years experience pans across mobile network and application innovation, wireless data network management, and cryptography applications. In his last appointment, with the Center for Excellence in Telecom at IIT-Bombay, Prateek contributed to the IEEE 802.16m standard and co-invented a mobile social network application platform. Previously Prateek held technology lead position for the packet data services at Reliance Communications and developed cryptographic software at Algorithmic Research Ltd (Israel).

Prateek Pashine, President-Enterprise Business, Reliance Jio

Mr. Pashine joined the Reliance family in 2018 and has been working on building the new-age Enterprise business. Prior to Jio, he has spent over two decades with the Tata Group in the Tata Administrative Service starting in 1995 and managed roles in diverse industries which includes hospitality, software, real estate and telecom equipment & services. Mr. Pashine has been recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship and attended Fulbright-CII Fellowship programme for Leadership in Management at the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, in 2006. He has been the Chairman and Board Member on the board of WBA (Wireless Broadband Alliance), a global organization having leading telecom operators from across the world as its members. He has served on the Board of WiMAX Forum, an industry-led, not-for-profit organization formed to certify and promote the compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless products. He has been on the Board of Tata Communications Sri Lanka business, and part of the several joint CII-government initiatives. He was also a member of Intel’s global communication industry board of advisors. Mr. Pashine has an MBA from IIM, Bangalore in Corporate Strategy and Marketing with an Engineering degree in Electronics. He loves to spend time on adventure sports and playing squash, table tennis and cricket. He is a recipient of many sporting awards at Club level and inter-corporate level.

Prateek Verma, Head- Epharmacy, Tata 1mg

Pratibha Jain, Partner, Nishith Desai Associates

Ms. Pratibha Jain is a Partner and Head of the New Delhi Office of Nishith Desai Associates, an Indian firm with a global outlook. Ms. Jain's also heads the Regulatory practice at Nishith Desai Associates. Her areas of practice include banking and finance, mergers and acquisitions, private equity investments and structured finance.

She was till recently the Vice President and Counsel for Goldman Sachs in Mumbai, India. She has earlier worked with Sullivan & Cromwell, LLP in their New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong offices and with Skadden Arps Slate Meagher and Flom, LLP in their Hong Kong office.

Ms. Jain's educational qualifications are Bachelor of Economics (B.A.) and Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degrees from the University of Delhi; a Bachelor of Civil Law (B.C.L.) degree from the University of Oxford, where she was a St. Catherine's College Bursary holder; and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree from the Harvard Law School, where she was a Samuel Morse Lane Fellow.

She is admitted to the Bar of the State of New York in the USA and the Bar Council of Delhi in India. She has keen academic interests and was a Visiting Lecturer at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research article on “Multiculturalism and its Impact on Women’s Rights in India” was published in the Berkeley Journal of International Law. 

Pratik Agarwal, CEO, Sterlite Power

Pratik Agarwal is the Chief Executive Officer of Sterlite Power. He has held this position since June 2016; previously he was the vice-chairman of Sterlite Grid, and also director of the Infrastructure business for the Vedanta Group.

A Wharton graduate and an MBA from London Business School, Pratik has over 10 years of experience in building core infrastructure assets in India. He founded the Vedanta Group’s infrastructure business in 2009 and built it up to levels where it now has significant investments in ports, power transmission and broadband networks, with total assets under management worth US$ 2.5 billion.

The boundless potential of power transmission and bringing light to the remotest corners of the country are the cornerstones of Pratik’s abiding interests - which is why he invests his time in devising strategies, implementing new policies and developing cutting-edge technologies like the Helicrane Construction and Energy Storage that are setting new standards in the power transmission industry.

Pratik Agarwal is not only the CEO of Sterlite Power, but also the Chairman of the Electric Power Transmission Association (EPTA) and FICCI Transmission Task Force.

Pratik Jain, Director, Actis

Pratik is responsible for originating and executing transactions in the financial services sector for Actis in South Asia. He focuses on both Balance Sheet and Non Balance Sheet driven businesses and most recently led Actis’ investments in Pine Labs, India’s largest digital retail payments platform and Profectus Capital, an SME focused NBFC lender set up by Actis. He was also responsible for leading Actis’ exits in Anthelio, a healthcare technology company and Integreon, an LPO business. Pratik has over 11 years’ experience in Private Equity investing having started his career at General Atlantic, where he focused on investments in the financial services, media and telecom sectors. Prior to that, he worked at JP Morgan as an equity research analyst covering the IT services sector. Pratik is an alumnus of IMT, Ghaziabad, from where he completed his MBA in Finance.

Pratima Divgi, Investment Director, Squadron Capital

Pratima Divgi is an Investment Director.

Prior to joining Squadron Capital in February 2008, Pratima worked for four years with Capvent, a fund of private equity funds manager, based in Bangalore and Goa, India. Prior to her work with Capvent, she was a senior officer with ICICI Bank, one of India's largest financial institutions, based in Goa.

Pratima holds a Master of Financial Services and a Bachelor of Commerce in Financial Accounting, Auditing and Taxation from Goa University.

In addition to Hindi, Pratima speaks Konkani and Marathi.