Our speakers

Priyanka Dutt, Country Director, BBC Media Action (India)

Priyanka Dutt is the India Country Director for BBC Media Action, the BBC’s international NGO that uses the power of media and communication to inform, empower and connect people around the world. With two decades of experience in media and communications across both private and development sectors, Priyanka specializes in communication for social impact. She has worked on a range of media platforms and formats, including television, radio, mobile, and outreach. Her work has won several Indian and international awards including a GSMA Global Mobile Award, a Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Award, a Global Health award and a Vodafone Mobile for Good award, among others. She holds a Master’s degree in Film and Television Studies from the University of Warwick, UK.

Priyanka Gill, Founder & CEO, POPxo

Combining her experience in lifestyle journalism with a flair for fashion, Priyanka Gill created POPxo in 2014 as a digital content platform for engaging content lifestyle content for young Indian women. In 2015, 1.2 billion people saw POPxo posts on Facebook, with 212,000 daily fan interactions. The website got 19 million unique views and over 3.5 million video views. It is available English, engaging audience via both video and text. She keeps the brand ahead of the curve with initiatives such as the POPxo Style Council, the POPxo Blog Network and The POPxo Campus Ambassador Programme.

After graduating with honours from Lady Sri Ram College in Delhi, Priyanka went on to contribute to Vogue India, The Guardian, Travel + Leisure and Grazia.in. She is a Contributing Editor to Harper’s Bazaar India and guest-edited the India special issue of the Mayfair Times magazine in June 2013.

As an investor, Priyanka works with early stage tech startups and food concepts, such as Bea’s of Bloomsbury, Campanja, SoundOut, Yieldify and Raptor Supplies, as an investor, board member or advisor. She extends time and support to several charities. She co-chaired the Pratham UK gala in 2009-2010, raising over GBP 2 million for the charity. She also advises Akshayapatra UK, and the Savitri Waney trust as an advisory board member.

A busy mother of two young children, Priyanka juggles a demanding family life with her passion for work and travel.  She is a recipient of the FICCI Women’s Achiever's Award 2015 and the Digital Women Awards for Content Creation in 2015.

Priyanka Gill, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, POPxo

Combining her experience in lifestyle journalism with a flair for fashion, Priyanka Gill created POPxo in 2014 as a digital content platform for engaging content lifestyle content for young Indian women. This dynamic startup reaches over 25 lakh women every month. It is available in Hindi and English, engaging audience via both video and text. She keeps the brand ahead of the curve with initiatives such as the POPxo Style Council and the POPxo Blog Network. These influencers and curators at the heart of the POPxo concept are drawn from her wide-reaching network of friends and contacts.

After graduating with honours from Lady Sri Ram College in Delhi, Priyanka went on to contribute to Vogue India, The Guardian, Travel + Leisure and Grazia.in. She is a Contributing Editor to Harper’s Bazaar India and guest-edited the India special issue of the Mayfair Times magazine in June 2013.

As an investor, Priyanka works with early stage tech startups and food concepts, such as Bea’s of Bloomsbury, Campanja, SoundOut, Yieldify and Raptor Supplies, as an investor, board member or advisor. She extends time and support to several charities. She co-chaired the Pratham UK gala in 2009-2010, raising over GBP 2 million for the charity. She also advises Akshayapatra UK, and the Savitri Waney trust as an advisory board member.

A busy mother of two young children, Priyanka juggles a demanding family life with her passion for work and travel. She is a recipient of the FICCI Women’s Achiever's Award 2015.

Priyanka Gulati, Partner Human Capital Consulting, Grant Thornton Bharat

Priyanka Gulati currently a Partner with Grant Thornton in HR Consulting practice comes with 20 years of experience, from leading professional firms (Accenture & Deloitte) and also has experience in running her own consulting firm. She has focused on organizational strategy and transformation, human capital strategy and leadership development performance management, and learning and development for leading organizations.

Priyanka is also on Boards of SGS Teknik’s, Krishna Maruti Ishizaki Limited and Talbros as Independent Director. She also heads the National level FICCI Flo Angel Investing and has invested in 15+ startups.

She is passionate about bridge.

Priyanka Srivastava, VP- Family office, Vikas Poddar Family Office

Priyavrata Mafatlal, Vice-Chairman, Arvind Mafatlal Group

Probir Roy Chowdhury, Partner, JSA Advocates & Solicitors

Prof. Anil D. Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)

Prof. Anil Dattatraya Sahasrabudhe, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati is currently Chairman of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

Prof. Anil D. Sahasrabudhe has held several important Academic, Research and Administrative positions at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Tata Consulting Engineers, North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology (NERIST), Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh), IIT Guwahati and College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP) prior to joining as AICTE Chairman. As an academician and researcher in NERIST and IIT Guwahati, and as Director, CoEP, he has taken up several new initiatives for Academic, Curricular & Co-curricular activities, Entrepreneurship, Research and Good Governance. He has been an architect of reforms in technical education at AICTE, which include mandatory student induction and internship, faculty certification and ATAL faculty development programs, creating first ever India’s MOOC platform SWAYAM, examination reforms, innovation movement, series of hackathons, Indian knowledge systems, new funding schemes for supporting students, faculty and institutes.

He is Chairman, Basic Scientific Research (BSR), Empowered Committee of UGC & SWAYAM Board. He is a Fellow of ISTE, IET, Institution of Engineers (IE), and INAE.

He has been bestowed with several awards which include "Maha-Intrapreneur Award-2011" of Praj Industries, Jeevan Gaurav Puraskar (Life Time Achievement Award) from MIT World Peace University, Pune in 2019, Mahatma Gandhi Leadership award from Indian Achievers Forum and CSR Times (2019). He has also been conferred Ravi J Matthai National Fellow Award by AIMS (2021).

Prof. Anup Basu, Professor at QUT, Greater Brisbane Area

Prof. GS Bhalla, CEO & founder, Cocoberry

A born entrepreneur, upon graduation from Delhi University, Mr. Bhalla opted to forego studies at a business school and set up his own business venture in 1994—a corporate gifting company. He has always been a pioneer in every business he has started. In 2000 he started one of India’s first KPO company focusing on the healthcare vertical for the US, which has now grown to over a 1000 employees globally.

In 2007 he completed the “Owners Management Program” and “Launching New Ventures” management programs from Harvard Business School. When he thought of entering into the fast growing food-and-beverage industry, he thought of introducing something for the young, health conscious urban Indians and create a brand that is not only associated with health and wellness, but is also a socially and environmentally responsible brand.

Keeping the extreme hot weather in mind, he thought of this cold treat as a viable business option that offered guilt-free indulgence and launched Cocoberry, India’s first frozen yogurt chain. The first store was opened at the posh South Delhi locality of Defense Colony in 2009. There also were a lot of innovations and transformations along the way. Today with its outlets across the NCR, Mumbai, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Pune, Ahmedabad & Goa, Cocoberry is a national brand in less than a span of 2 years with over 30 outlets. Cocoberry will also be opening in international markets very soon.

Cocoberry has received several awards and recognitions in the two short years since it started including “ Top 100 Brands That Rocked India in 2010”(4P magazine), “Top 100 Retailers 2011”(Retailer magazine), “ Most Innovative Concept”(HT City), “ Best Frozen Dessert” (HT City), “Top Rated Frozen Yogurt” (Burrp) to name just a handful.

Mr. Bhalla has also received a number of awards and recognitions such as “Top Young Turk 2010” by CNBC India and has been profiled and featured numerous times in print and TV such as “CNBC”, “India Today”, “WSJ Mint”, “Outlook Business”, “Economic Times”, “Zee Business”, “ Inc.”, “ET Now” and many more.