Our speakers

Raghubir Menon, Corporate, M&A and PE Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co

Raghubir advises numerous corporates, sovereign wealth funds and private equity funds, MNCs, and strategic corporate clients on a variety of domestic and cross-border transactions. He has also represented clients in a large number of complex public M&A acquisitions for listed Indian companies.

Raghubir actively represents large corporate clients such as the National Stock Exchange, One97 Communications Limited, Walmart, Flipkart, Vodafone, Sembcorp, and blue-chip PE and SWF clients such as Blackstone, KKR, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, General Atlantic, GIC, Temasek, ADIA, Vista Equity Partners, Silver Lake Capital, and the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund.

Prior to joining Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co., Raghubir has worked with White & Case LLP, in London and Singapore, for five years.

Raghubir Menon, Regional Practice Head - Mumbai, M&A and Private Equity, General Corporate, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas

Raghubir Menon is a Corporate, M&A and PE Partner at the Firm. He is an expert on matters pertaining to Mergers and Acquisitions and Private Equity.

Raghubir advises numerous corporates, sovereign wealth funds and private equity finds across the full range of their operations and activities. He has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions,restructurings, onshore & offshore structuring and has represented MNCs, corporates, investment and commercial banks, private equity funds, sovereign wealth funds, multilateral agencies and strategic corporate clients on a variety of domestic and cross-border transactions.. He has also represented clients in a large number of complex public M&A acquisitions in listed Indian companies.

Raghubir actively represents large corporate clients such as the National Stock Exchange, One97 Communications Limited, Vodafone, Urbaser, Sembcorp and blue chip PE and SWF clients such as Blackstone (for whom he has undertaken every transaction that they have undertaken in South Asia in the past four years), KKR, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, General Atlantic, GIC and Temasek (for whom he has closed five transactions in the last 24 month period). For a client such as One97, he has undertaken all of their work for the past 5 years, including their joint venture with Alibaba and Ali Pay for an approximate investment of US$680 million, as well as the creation of their Payment Bank and the hive off of the payments business into One97 Payment Bank. He also advised them on creation of their new marketplace e-commerce vehicle, a multi staged and structured transaction including the hive-off of their e-commerce business, the investments into the new vehicle by Alibaba and the business cooperation and transitional services arrangements entered into with One97. Some of his notable transactions include advising Blackstone in relation to the 100% buy-out of the two sea-plane operating companies in the Republic of Maldives, which was nominated as “Private Equity Deal of the Year” by IFLR Asia Awards 2014. He has also advised Blackstone in relation to the acquisition of a controlling stake in Mphasis Limited, a listed Indian company from Hewlett Packard Enterprises under a controlled auction scenario and the subsequent open offer under the Indian takeover regulations. This year he acted for Blackstone on the acquisition of 100% of the Comstar Automotive Limited as well as on the acquisition of the Thompson Reuters business (a US$ 18 billion acquisition). Other significant representations include advising Temasek in relation to its investments in Devyani International Limited, a company engaged in the QSR business; MXC Solutions, an e- commerce platform trading in the style of CarTrade; Zomato, the food app provider and the urban integration platform set up between Temasek and Ascendas, UST Holdings, an IT and ITES company and Ola, a cab aggregator. In another major deal, he represented Walmart in relation to its acquisition of Flipkart, which transaction closed in August 2018 (a US$ 17 billion multi staged acquisition).

Raghubir was awarded ‘Partner of the Year’ by IDEX Legal Awards 2017. He won the M&A Lawyer of the Year: Private Equity for Asia Pacific at the Asian Lawyer Emerging Markets Awards 2015 for the work undertaken over 2015. As “one of the few lawyers that has the combination of both commercial and legal skills,“ Raghubir Menon enjoys a formidable reputation in the private equity market. “He would always be available and meet the deadlines without compromising on quality. We were morem than impressed,“ explains one client, as quoted by Chambers and Partners. He was also ranked as Asia’s busiest lawyer by MergerMarket for the calendar year 2017, in terms of closed transactions.

Prior to joining Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, Raghubir has worked with White & Case LLP, in London and Singapore for five years. Raghubir is an LLB from the prestigious National Law School of mIndia University, Bangalore. He enrolled at the Bar Council of Delhi in 2004 and is a qualified Solicitor (England & Wales).

Raghunandan G, Co-founder, TaxiForSure.com

Raghunandan G is Founder and Director at www.TaxiForSure.com. He has degrees from IIM Ahmedabad and NITK Surathkal. After a successful 3-year stint with Feedback Ventures as a Consultant; he decided to follow his heart to become an entrepreneur. He is an avid reader and an encyclopedia in his own rights and hasn’t lost touch of the technology prowess from his days back in Texas Instruments.

Raghunatha Reddy, Executive Vice President & Head IT, UTI Mutual Fund

Mr. Reddy joined Unit Trust of India (UTI) in April 1991 and since then has played a critical role in driving numerous initiatives at https://www.utimf.com. In his capacity as EVP and Head IT, he makes technology decisions and works closely with the UTI Senior Management for new initiatives. As a Technology provider in the organization, he carries mandate to improving productivity, increasing process efficiency, driving down costs, carry out digital transformation initiatives and undertake innovation projects.

Currently, leading the digital transformation effort at UTI by working with Accenture team . He is a post graduate from Sri Venkateswara University and Master in Business Administration from Ambedkar University. He takes an active interest in synthesizing technology with business outcomes. His passions include reading, exploring new gadgets and playing badminton with fellow CIO’s. One day he wishes to start his own technology company.

He has been honoured with several awards and accolades in the information technology and information security areas by leading Media and organizations in India.

UTI AMC, India’s most trusted Wealth creators and always has the interest of its investors in its heart. UTI AMC group has three wholly owned subsidiaries UTI International Ltd, UTI Retirement Solutions Ltd and UTI Capital Private Ltd. The institution has shown great resilience and has grown from strength to strength overcoming economic turbulence and global turnarounds.

UTI has Asset Under Management (AAUM) at Rs.1,54,939 crore and has four public sector financial institutions (State Bank of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India, Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank) as shareholders (74% stake) and T Rowe Price , a leading US Asset Manager holding 26 % stake . UTI AMC group will now embark on a hybrid cloud journey to digitally transform themselves.

Ragini Bajaj Chaudhary, CEO, Gray Matters Capital (India)

Ragini Bajaj Chaudhary is the CEO of the India arm of Atlanta headquartered impact investment firm Gray Matters Capital. With more than 16 years of experience in microfinance, impact investment and development finance, Ragini is leading the team in India to improve the access and quality of affordable private school (APS) education through pre-school, K12 curriculum, 21st century skills and non-academic infrastructure building solutions.

Ragini is on the Board of Gray Matters Capital’s investees - Indian School Finance Company and Address Health.

Prior to joining Gray Matters Capital, Ragini provided strategic and operational direction to the Poorest State Inclusive Growth (PSIG) Programme, a financial inclusion project of the Department of International Development, UK which focused on 12 million low income households in 4 states across India.

Ragini also served as the Chief Investment Officer heading operations at Mi India Capital Consultants (Dia Vikas Capital) and as a Project Co-ordinator at CARE India managing a portfolio of diverse activities ranging from capacity building, setting up micro-enterprises and co-ordinating livelihood restoration projects. For seven years, she worked in the capacity of Director – Training at EDA Rural Systems Pvt. Ltd.

Ragini is a management graduate from Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) and has qualified as a Management Accountant from Chartered Institute of Management Accounting (CIMA), UK.

Rahoul Jain, MD, Capricorn Food Products India Ltd

Rahoul Jain, Managing Director of Capricorn Food Products India Ltd., is a Chemical Engineer by qualification and hails from punjab settled in chennai for the last 35 years. He is from a business family who identified the potentials of Food Industry and promoted Capricorn Food Products India Limited and Shuchi Beverages Ltd., with the objective of manufacturing and selling of fruit pulps and concentrates, frozen fruit dices and vegetable etc., by setting up multiple state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Andhra Pradesh,  Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Over the years, he has acquired vast knowledge in the field of Food Processing and has been successfully running his enterprise over the last 15 years. His extensive growth in such short span has also had him nominated twice in the elite league of India’s Emerging Entrepreneurs at the Emerging India Awards held by CNBC TV-18, CRISIL and ICICI Bank. He further has elaborate plans to establish to further bring about both Vertical and Horizontal growth in his enterprise by setting up many more factories across India and overseas in the years to come. 

Rahul Ambegaoker, Vice President and Sales Head, NTT

Rahul Anand, Founder & CEO, Hopscotch

Rahul Anand is the CEO and Founder of Hopscotch.in, a leading discovery-based e-Commerce destination for Indian moms. Launched in 2012, Hopscotch is transforming the Indian shopping experience and offers a wide range of curated children’s merchandise at affordable prices. The online destination has featured over 2,500 local and international brands across multiple product categories including clothes, shoes, toys, accessories and home. Given the breadth of exciting offerings, Hopscotch.in has developed a community of passionate customers from all over India and has established unique relationships with vendors who value the opportunity to be featured on its platform. Prior to Hopscotch, Rahul was a director at Diapers.com, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Rahul Baunthiyal, Group Vice President-HR, Hinduja Group

Rahul Bhalchandra, Co-Founder & CEO, YLG Salon

Rahul, CEO and Co-Founder YLG, founded India's fastest growing salon and spa in May 2008. He brings 17 years of experience in diverse industries such as Retail, dot.com and Manufacturing. He has proven expertise in turning around retail business (He spearheaded Health & Glow's growth into India's No.1 Health & beauty Chain) and brings high level domain expertise in the Health, Beauty & Wellness sector. He has exposure to best practices from International Retailers.

Prior to founding YLG, Rahul was Head - Wellness business for the Future Group. He built the Health & Beauty Category, set up the beauty salon chain "Star & Sitara" for the company. He was instrumental in setting up India's first Gym Chain in Malls in a JV with Talwalkars for the Future group. He has played a key role in bringing about the Sachin Tendulkar - Future Group initiative "Sach". Before Pantaloon, Rahul headed the retail business for Arvind brands where he managed brands such as Arrow, Lee, Wrangler and Excalibur. His entry in retail began as the Business Head of Health & Glow, which even today continues to be the most successful format of its kind in India. Rahul has also dabbled with dot.com as Business Head for e-RPG Cricket Portal. Rahul started his career with the RPG Group, working at RPG Cables and Ceat Ltd, in various marketing & sales responsibilities.

He is a Post Graduate from IIM Calcutta and has a B.Tech (hons) from IIT Kharagpur.