Our speakers

Rajesh Khanna, Business Head, Lupin Digital Health

Rajesh Krishnan, MD & CEO, Brick Eagle Group

Rajesh Krishnan is the founder of Brick Eagle, a pioneer in the Indian Affordable Housing market. Started in 2011, Brick Eagle has been amongst the first to identify, understand and deliver on the needs of sustainable housing solutions for the urban poor in the country.

The Company is passionately focused on ‘Housing for All’ and also runs an Incubator to support entrepreneurs serving the Affordable Housing Sector.

Under Rajesh’s leadership, Brick Eagle has incubated 6 developers and 7 service providers focused on the Affordable Housing sector. Brick Eagle is now collaborating with Niti Aayog to set up an Atal Incubation Center to promote businesses that address the challenges of urbanisation. Notably, Brick Eagle is also part of the consortium that has been shortlisted for the redevelopment of Dharavi, one of the largest informal settlements in the world.

Prior to Brick Eagle, Rajesh was an investment banker with Lehman Brothers, Nomura and Standard Chartered Bank. Rajesh holds a B.Tech degree from IIT Delhi and an M.BA from the Wharton School.

Rajesh Kumar S A, CEO, Phronetic.AI (Infibeam Avenues)

Rajesh Mani, Senior Vice President and Head, Asia Pacific Tech Hubs, Mastercard

Rajesh Mokashi, Deputy MD, Credit Analysis & Research Limited

Mr. Rajesh Mokashi serves as the Deputy Managing Director at Credit Analysis and Research Limited (CARE). He is instrumental in criteria development for ratings and improvement in policies and procedures at CARE. In addition, he is actively involved in international forays of CARE from time to time. Over the years, he has been associated with rating assignments covering a wide range of sectors. He has over 19 years of experience in finance, commerce and credit risk sectors.

He was associated with OTIS Elevators Company (India) Limited. He served as Analyst of Credit Analysis and Research Limited. Prior to joining CARE, he held key positions in Otis Elevator Company India Ltd., DSP Financial Consultants Ltd. and Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd. He serves as Director of Kalypto Risk Technologies Pvt. Ltd. He has been a Non Executive Independent Director at Credit Analysis and Research Limited since August 22, 2009. He has also Chartered Financial Analyst charter holder both from the CFA Institute, USA and ICFAI Hyderabad. He has obtained a Diploma in Import and Export Management from Indian Institute of Materials Management. He has a Masters Degree in Management from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management studies; Mumbai University. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical engineering from VJTI; Mumbai University.

Rajesh Nair, Director - Head Kochi Location, E&Y, President - TiEGlobal - Kerala Chapter

Rajesh Nair has done his Production Engg from Regional Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur (now NIT) and joined Tata Motors as a Graduate Engineering Trainee. During his stint in Tata Motors, Rajesh also got the ‘BEST GRADUATE ENGG TRAINEE’ Award from Ratan Tata in 1996. Post his stint here, he joined SP Jain Institute of Management and did an MBA program specializing in Finance and Operations.

During his last 17 plus years in the management consulting domain, he has been with Ernst & Young for the last seven years. His area of expertise is Organization structuring, operational and people strategy.

Rajesh currently heads the Kochi office of EY and leads all service lines of Ernst & Young. Rajesh has spoken at various industry forums and is visiting faculty in several leading management institutes across India. He is the President of TiE Kerala Chapter. He reads and writes in his spare time, including a business column and devotes pro-bono time for helping start up organizations, MSMEs, and young entrepreneurs.

Rajesh was conferred the KMA - Kerala Management Association - Manager of the year award in 2013.

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Rajesh Padmanabhan, Director, Member - Group Council & Group CHRO, Welspun Group

Mr. Rajesh Padmanabhan is with Welspun Group - a three and half billion dollar business conglomerate having presence in pipes, plates, coils, steel, infrastructure energy and home textiles sector- as Director and Group CHRO. He is a member of the Group Council. Prior to this, Mr. Padmanabhan was President and Group CHRO, Vedanta. He has post graduated in HR as well as finance, from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, started his career with the ICICI group, handling systems on mainframes, and went on to become a corporate banker for wholesale banking. In 1997, he took the big plunge into HR and managed HR start-ups within the group. In 1999, he was elevated as vice president-HR, at ICICI Infotech, where he drove the convergence of business and HR. At Essel Propack, his next destination, he drove global HR. Mr. Padmanabhan was one of the early movers in India to globalise HR and managed to take it to locations, such as the US, Latin America, UK, Germany, Egypt, China, South East Asia, Russia and Nepal. In 2004, he took over as EVP - Group HR & Head - (OCLD), at the Oberoi group. From The Oberoi Group, he moved to Patni Computer Services as Global Management Board member in the role of EVP & CHRO. In the three years that Mr. Padmanabhan spent there, he created customer–centric global HR models across geographies with learning skills. Between 2010 and 2014, he worked with Capgemini, as Group Corporate Vice President & CHRO. He was responsible for scaling up size in India and ramped upto over 54000 people by end of 2014. He drove considerable people synergies across businesses and established new centres of expertise and global shared services out of India. He won the prestigious UN Award for building diversity and inclusive practice in Capgemini. At Welspun, Mr. Padmanabhan focuses on culture building across the group, leadership effectiveness and help create people processes and excellence. Mr. Rajesh Padmanabhan is building up people excellence through centres of expertise and business embedded HR and is keen driver of digital and innovation practices to create new age HR function.

Rajesh Puri, CEO, Meru Cab Company

Rajesh Puri is the CEO of Meru Cab Company. Prior to Meru Cabs, Rajesh was the President - Operations at Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd. After completion of his mechanical engineering, he post graduated in management from S P Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai. He has a wealth of experience across sales, marketing, operations and distribution. Over the last 22 years, he has worked with some of India's finest blue chip companies across industries. Post his initial years at ONGC in oil exploration; he has led growth efforts at Godrej GE, Whirpool, Electrolux & Airtel. In each of his endeavors he has led his brands from start-up to unassailable leadership.

Rajesh Raju, Managing Director, Kalaari Capital

Rajesh is a pioneer in investing in direct-to-consumer companies in India. His investment interests span consumer categories in retail, education and mobile. Rajesh returned from the US in 2006, drawn by the immense potential that India presents for entrepreneurs in reshaping the country. He has been a part of the startup ecosystem ever since.

In a career spanning over 20 years, Rajesh has had a broad set of experiences in the technology industry across product development, sales, M&A, equity research and private equity. He currently serves on the boards of several companies. Rajesh has an MBA (Hons) from the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, a Master’s in engineering from Marquette University and Bachelor’s in Engineering from BITS, Pilani.

Portfolio: Cashkaro.com, Simplilearn, Magzter, Ovenfresh, Truweight, Embibe, Swipe Telecom, Superprofs, Truebil and Shopalyst.

Rajesh Ramaiah, Director & CFO, Premji Invest

Rajesh is a Director and CFO of Premji Invest. Premji Invest is a investment office of Mr Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro. Apart from the role of being the CFO for the entire fund, Rajesh is an operating partner for the Private Equity Investments and also manages the fixed income portfolio of the fund. Rajesh represents Premji Invest in the board and committees of its portfolio companies.

Rajesh spent 13 years from 1995 until 2008 in Wipro, a leading IT company in India and carried out various roles with in the finance function. In his last assignment between 2006 and 2008, Rajesh was the treasurer and head of investor relations for Wipro Limited managing over USD 5 bn currency exposures and 2 Bn of investments and borrowing.  This was his most challenging stint with IT facing slowdown as a sector and rupee appreciating significantly.

Post his stint at Wipro, Rajesh joined Reva Electric Car Company Pvt Limited as CFO in Apr 2008. Reva, is a leading electric car manufacturer funded by DFJ and Global Environment fund. Rajesh was instrumental in identifying a strategic partner ( M&M) for Reva and providing exit to the investors.

Rajesh is a complete finance professional with excellent academic qualifications. He has done his CPA from US and is an ACMA from CIMA, London. This was after completing his ICWA, ACS & CA in India.