Our speakers

Rajesh Sawhney, Founder, GSF India

Rajesh Sawhney is the founder of GSF Superangels of India network and the host of Global Superangels Forum (GSF). He is also the co-host and curator of Founders Forum India. Rajesh is building the vital pieces of a nascent ecosystem for the early stage investing in India. Rajesh has made over a dozen angel investments so far. He is launching India’s first multi-city accelerator programme (GSF Accelerator) in October, 2012. Earlier as the President of Reliance Entertainment, Rajesh led Reliance Group’s foray into media & entertainment spanning movie eco-system, broadcasting, and New Media. Previously with the Times Group in India, Rajesh launched a number of successful ventures across different domains: Publishing, Radio & TV, Retailing, online classifieds, MVAS, e-commerce and e-travel.

Rajesh Sawhney, President, Reliance Entertainment Group

Rajesh Sawhney is a key member of the Reliance ADAG Apex leadership team. He is responsible for the Group’s entry strategy and game-plan for entertainment, media and online verticals: spanning movie eco-system, Radio and TV broadcasting, Internet and New Media ventures, broadband and mobile content and services.

Sawhney comes to Reliance Entertainment from The Times of India Group where he was Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Times Internet Limited. During 14 years with The Times of India Group, he created successful businesses across several areas: Publishing, Radio & TV, Retailing, Internet, E-commerce, Travel and Mobile value added services.

Sawhney is an Engineer and MBA, with a fellowship in Globalisation and Leadership from the London School of Economics and Social Sciences.

Rajesh Sehgal, Managing Partner, Equanimity Investments

Rajesh is the Founder and Managing Partner of Equanimity Investments. He has been a prolific angel investor for over a decade and has developed a deep understanding of the Indian entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem.

He is an active member of Mumbai Angels and is also the Founding and current Chair of the Corporate Reporting Users’ Forum. He is a TiE Mumbai Board Member and Co-Chairs TiE’s FinTech Special Interest Group. He is a member of  the  Steering Committeeof NASSCOM 10,000 Startups.Rajesh has been an active secondary market investor for the last 24 years, 17 years of which, he worked with the emerging markets group of Franklin Templeton. He was also managing Templeton’s emerging markets private equity investments over these 17 years.

A Wharton alumnus, Rajesh has earlier obtained a management degree from XLRI specialising in Finance and Marketing. He is a CFA charter holder and has also earned a post graduate diploma in securities law from Mumbai.

Rajesh Sharma, National Head - MarketDevelopment, Brand Capital

Specialist at starting & building new, innovative & high growth ventures across sectors!

As a Private Equity professional, Rajesh  has helped entrepreneurs build exponential growth, scalable businesses, using a unique combination of Business growth, Capital Markets & Brand Creation tools.

He started his career as an entrepreneur, setting up own ventures in Media & Advertising, Education, Textiles & Tea.  Over the last 17 years he has worked  across industries ranging from Media, Private Equity, Consulting, Research and Analytics, E-Commerce,  IT/ITES helping companies like Times Group, Crisil (S&P), Kotak Mahindra, NIIT etc to set up new, innovative and high growth businesses.

He was instrumental in building up India’s first Online Information Services & Internet business, www.indiainformer.com (Matrix Information Services Ltd) in 1998, much before the dotcom boom.

At Brand Capital, he currently heads Market Development, the team responsible for incubating and funding, entrepreneurs to create new, path breaking, innovative businesses of the future.

Rajesh Shrivastava, CMD, Rabo Equity Advisors

Rajesh is a designated General Partner in the Fund, along with Rabobank. He had 28 years of professional experience prior to moving to the Fund, including 10 years in Rabo India Finance where his last assignment was as the Managing Director in charge of corporate and commercial banking.

 

He had also worked in agri business consulting for 2 years and with the South Asian Regional Apex Fund (sponsored by Lazard India) for 3 years. He started his career with the Bank of Baroda, where he worked for 12 years in Credit, 9 years in Regional/Zonal Offices in Merchant Banking and Business Development and for 2 years as a Branch Manager.

 

Rajesh is an Economics graduate and has a professional Law degree.

Rajesh Singhal, Partner, Tata Opportunities Fund

Rajesh has over 17 years of investing experience including 12 years in private equity, a track record of over 25 PE investments and numerous exits.

Rajesh previously led the management of Milestone Religare Private Equity, a JV between Milestone and Religare, as its founding Managing Partner.  This fund was focused on providing growth capital to companies in Healthcare and Education sectors. Some of the representative investments include Resonance, HCG, Care ratings, KIMS Hospitals.

Earlier, Rajesh spent over 8 years with Intel Capital in India where he was responsible for 20 investments and has had full life cycle experience of private equity across different sectors and stages. Some of the representative investments include India Infoline, NIIT, Persistent Systems, FINO, Subex and Nipuna.

Rajesh started his career with ICICI where he spent 5 years across project finance, corporate finance and distressed debt restructuring. Rajesh is an MBA from IIM, Lucknow and B.Tech. from IIT, Bombay.

Rajesh Srivastava, Chairman & Managing Director, Rabo Equity Advisors Pvt Ltd

Rajesh Srivastava is the Chairman & Managing Director of Rabo Equity Advisors, managing 2 Rabobank sponsored private equity funds of US$120mln and US$150mln, both focused on food and agribusiness. The new Fund has Rabobank, CDC Group, UK; Asian Development Bank; Generali Insurance, Italy; FMO, The Netherlands; Proparco, France; IFU, Denmark as its investors. He has so far closed 12 investments, all in different sub-sectors.

Before setting up the private equity business, he was Managing Director (Corporate & Commercial Banking) of Rabobank India. Concurrently, he was Regional Head, Asia for food and agribusiness for over 5 years based in Singapore. In Rabobank, he is credited with setting up several new products such as Strategic Advisory, Renewable Energy, Carbon Credits and Micro Finance. Before Rabobank, he was with Lazard Brothers’ Venture Capital arm where he set up the largest VC Fund of the time for SMEs. Starting his career with Bank of Baroda, he has over 36 years of experience in corporate and investment banking.

Rajesh is regarded as a pioneer in establishing a private equity market for food and agribusiness sector and for advocacy on policies on agriculture/food processing. Amongst others, he sits on the CII National Committees on Agriculture, Food Processing and Innovation, Chairs CII Northern Regional Committee on Agriculture and Food Processing, and the Board of Sasakawa India Leprosy Foundation.

He is an Economics and Law graduate and a post graduate in Western History.

Rajesh Subramaniam, Managing Director, Walden International

Rajesh recently joined Walden International to spearhead the investment in India. In addition to previous employment in the venture industry, Rajesh was most recently the CFO and EVP for First Source Solutions, a publicly listed BPO company in India. After joining the start up in 2002, Rajesh was instrumental in building the company to its IPO and oversaw several strategic acquisitions on their behalf.

Rajesh holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Madras University and an MBA from Richmond College in London.

Rajesh Uppal, Sr Executive Director (HR & IT), Maruti Suzuki India Ltd

Rajesh Yabaji, Co-founder & CEO, BlackBuck

Rajesh is the Co-Founder of BlackBuck. BlackBuck is an online marketplace for logistics transactions, bridging the demand and supply facets in the road-freight space. The freight market has long been lacking efficiency, reliability and transparency. Keeping technology at its core, BlackBuck has endeavored to revolutionize this space by making the overall transportation process simple and effective, thereby bringing in a seamless transactional experience for both its customers and truckers. Blackbuck has created impact in this ecosystem through its proprietary products and processes, that enable online indenting, real-time access demand visibility, shipment tracking, pricing and performance analytics, fleet management, fair and competitive pricing etc. available both on web-based and mobile-based platforms.

Rajesh graduated from IIT Kharagpur in the year 2010. He started his professional career as a Supply Chain Manager in the Leaf Tobacco Business of ITC Ltd, where he led the supply chain transformation to streamline operations. Post this, he moved into the capacity of Business Manager in the ITC’s Foods business, responsible for building a new FMCG Business Category.