Our speakers

Rajheev Agrawal, Director & CEO, Nilon's Enterprises Private Limited

Started career with Unilever Group in India as Management Trainee in 1987. Worked as part of Finance & Animal Feeds Division for 5 years in the covenanted management category. Was listed as an outstanding performer.

Joined Hong Kong based textiles & garments group in their Indonesian operations as G.M. (Operations) in 1992. Worked with them for 7 years in Indonesia & USA. Credited with huge cost saving initiatives and diversifying the customer base of the company.

Joined as Senior Vice President (New Initiatives and Finance) with Lalbhai group in Ahmedabad in 1999. Reduced leverage and reduced cost in RM by 300 basis points.

Joined Nilons Group as Director & CEO in March 2004. Have grown the company by a factor of 33x in 10 years, making it the fastest growing processed food company in India. Shareholders wealth grew by 35x in 10 years.

Rajinder Balaraman, Vice President, Matrix Partners | @matrixindiavc

Rajinder is an early stage investor with Matrix Partners India. Matrix has invested in several market leading companies in India such as Ola (local transportation), Mswipe (mobile POS), Quikr (online classifieds), Practo (digital health platform), Dailyhunt (mobile local language platform), Five Star Finance (SME lending), Limeroad (mobile social commerce marketplace), Razorpay (payments), Treebo (digital hotel chain) and OfBusiness (SME lending and B2B marketplace) among others.

Rajinder has had the privilege of working with some of these fantastic founders who have built fast growing marketplaces and is looking to partner with more founders across B2B and B2C sectors that target “Real India”. Rajinder has an MBA from Harvard Business School and did his undergrad at the University of Madras.

@rbalaraman

Rajit Mehta, Managing Director & CEO, Max Healthcare Institute Limited

Rajit Mehta is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Max Healthcare, a leading private healthcare company in India and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Company.
He is also a Non-Executive Director at Max Life Insurance and is a trustee of the Max India Foundation – the CSR arm for the Max Group of Companies.

As the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Max Healthcare, Rajit provides strong leadership in helping Max Healthcare in achieving its vision of being the most admired healthcare company in India known for clinical and service excellence. Besides leading the operations of the company, he is also currently engaged in leading an important transformation journey at Max Healthcare, including critical growth projects, enabling Max Healthcare to become a preferred Nursing employer, optimization of processes and establishing a strong culture of clinical excellence and patient centricity.

Rajit was a founder member of Max Life Insurance, since October 2000 and has been instrumental in helping Max Life become an admired, profitable and well run Company. During his tenure in Max Life, he undertook additional responsibilities as the Chief Transformation Officer which provided oversight on execution of key initiatives; designing and implementing new work systems; aligning key stakeholders; rationalising the cost structure to improve profitability; and laying down a comprehensive change management agenda. During this period, Max Life not only doubled its market share but also seamlessly transited to a new brand identity. Rajit was also instrumental in building a strong cadre and ethos of Human Capital as the founder HR Director of Max Life by recruiting and retaining a strong management team, creating a positive work environment and culture and ushering “best-in-class” HR practices.

Under his leadership, Max Life also progressed it’s Quality & Service Excellence journey. This included putting a Service Blueprint in place, implementing a comprehensive outsourcing strategy to impact customer experience and cost and embedding the MPEF framework in the business. As per the latest customer experience survey, Max Life is now ranked no. 2 in terms of overall customer loyalty, amongst all insurance companies. Rajit has also mentored the setting up of the Learning & Development Centre of Excellence.

Rajit has played a strategic role in helping Max Life expand its distribution footprint across India including facilitating a project to “Revamp Sales processes”. The project culminated in Rajit co-authoring a book titled “Growth Leadership Practices at Max Life”.

Prior to Max Life Insurance, he was the Director - Personnel at Bank of America and has also worked with HCL. His total experience spans nearly 3 decades. Rajit is a graduate in Commerce, post graduate in Human Resources and has also attended an Advanced Management Program at INSEAD - France. He is the recipient of the Chairman’s Award for Excellence at Max Life Insurance.

Rajit Mehta, CEO & Managing Director, Antara Senior Living

Rajiv Agarwal, CEO and Managing Director, Essar Ports Ltd

Mr. Rajiv Agarwal is the CEO and Managing Director of Essar Ports Ltd, one of the largest private port companies in the country. Mr. Agarwal is a Chartered Accountant with over 30 years of experience and has held leadership position in industries like Ports, Shipping, Telecom, Retail and Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO).

He became MD and CEO of Essar Shipping, Ports & Logistics Limited in 2010.  He Joined Essar Group in 1997 as Chief Operating Officer in Essar Telecom and was the Executive Director of Essar Shipping Limited (ESL) from 1998-2002. He has been instrumental in setting up several startup companies as CEO like The MobileStore Limited, Telecom Towers and Infrastructure Limited and Aegis Communications.  He has been key member of several industry committees like Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), Federation of Indian Commerce Industries (FICCI), The Associated Chamber of Commerce & Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) and SUPERBRANDS for several years.

He is recipient of Maritime Personality of the Year’ 17 at Gujarat Star Awards and Port Personality of the Year’ 17 at Maritime & Logistics Awards.  He has also been conferred with Maritime Standard Excellence Award’ 16 in Dubai for his contributions to maritime Sector.  In the past he has also won the CEO of the Year Award in 2009 at Asia Retail Congress and was among the finalists for Asia Business Leadership Awards, 2015 by CNBC.

Rajiv Bajaj, Chairman & Managing Director, Bajaj Capital Limited

Rajiv Bajaj is the Chairman & Managing Director of Bajaj Capital Ltd. He is also the Founding Chairman of Financial Planning Standards Board, India and has been one of the key people involved with bringing the globally recognized Certified Financial Planner tm professional designation to India.

He has over 25 years of strategic management experience in the fields of Investment Banking, Investment Advisory, Insurance Brokerage and Financial Planning. He had spent his initial years in setting up of the investment banking business for Bajaj Capital. He also played an important role in expanding the distribution reach of Bajaj Capital from 20 offices in 1990 to around 230 now.

In the last few years, Rajiv has spent a lot of time in upgrading the operating system and processes of the company. Under his leadership, the company has won various category awards and recognition nationally like Great Places to Work (2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011) and ‘Best Financial Advisor – Retail’ Award for 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016 & 2017 by CNBC TV18.

Rajiv has done his MBA (International Wealth Management) from University of Geneva, Switzerland and an Executive MBA (International Wealth Management) from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. He holds an 'International Certificate for Financial Advisors' from the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), London, UK. He is also amongst the first batch of 25 Certified Financial Planner (CFPtm) designation holders in India.

He is a member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (Delhi Chapter). He is also a member of Young Presidents’ Organization (Delhi Chapter). An active speaker and writer on Investment Strategy and Financial Planning in leading print and electronic media, Rajiv is extremely passionate about spreading financial literacy among the masses. His interests include Golf, Yoga, fitness training and Meditation.

 

Rajiv Chandak, Partner-Restructuring, Deloitte India

Rajiv Maliwal, Founder & Managing Partner, Sabre Capital

Over 23 years of experience in managing large businesses in the financial services industry. Invested and created liquidity for over US$ 500 m of investments.

Led the US$ 229 m recapitalization and restructuring by Sabre Group of Centurion Bank and set up an asset management business - Lotus India, as a JV with Temasek Holdings.

Led businesses in Asia with Citibank, Goldman Sachs & JP Morgan. Former Global Head of Private Equity, & E-commerce for Standard Chartered Bank.

MBA from IIM, Bangalore and Bachelor of Engineering from BITS, Pilani.

Rajiv Mehta, MD, PUMA South Asia

A foodie at heart, an engineer by profession and a retailer by passion – meet Rajiv Mehta, the young and multi-faceted Managing Director of PUMA South Asia. A chemical engineer from ICT in Mumbai, Rajiv then completed his MS at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked for three years at BOC in New Jersey where he was responsible for driving research, design and development, before the academic bug hit once more – resulting in an MBA from the prestigious INSEAD University in Singapore. Upon graduating, Rajiv was identified by the global SportLifestyle brand PUMA to head their Indian operations at the young age of 27.

Today, after 7 years at the helm, Rajiv’s contribution is recognized as instrumental in establishing PUMA as the creative leader of SportLifestyle in the country. With a singular vision to aesthetically blend sport, fashion and lifestyle, Rajiv is credited with the transformation of PUMA from being a new entrant to becoming the 2nd largest sports brand in India. He strategically spearheaded the marketing and distribution of PUMA in India with the establishment of the first retail store in Chennai in 2006. Today, PUMA has a brand presence across more than 60 cities in India with a retail presence of over 200 stores. Under his stellar leadership, the company in India has grown to a 180 people strong team operating out of 4 offices and headquartered in Bangalore.

Rajiv has played a pivotal role in spreading the brand ethos of fun and joy. This is strongly reflected in the young and vibrant work culture at PUMA India wherein the ‘PUMA Way” of doing things with a generous measure of cool quotient is the norm. Rajiv is an adventure sports enthusiast and is a P2 level certified pilot for paragliding. Water sports, particularly white water rafting, bungee jumping and skydiving are amongst his adventure sports passions.

Rajiv Prakash, Advisor, Digital Businesses, Future Group

Rajiv has twenty years experience spanning retail, technology, outsourcing, investment banking and business consulting and has established successful ventures in these areas. He is presently an adviser to the Future Group (India’s largest retailer) on their digital businesses. In his previous assignment, he headed Future Group’s Digital Commerce business which includes futurebazaar.com and the digital retail arms of Big Bazaar, Pantaloons and eZone. The mandate for this business is to democratise shopping via digital channels and deliver 10% of the Group’s retail revenue. Rajiv was earlier the co-founder of Future Knowledge Services (FKS), Future Group's specialised retail business and technology solutions venture.

Prior to Future Group, he has worked at Cisco, KPMG, Andersen and Bank of America in consulting, strategic planning and investment banking roles  and also co-founded a merchant banking start-up. He is a commerce graduate from the Bombay University and a MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad.

Rajiv also works closely with start-ups as a mentor/adviser. These include ventures in food services, location based  marketing services, solar lighting and distribution, multi-lingual technologies, ecommerce platforms and digital marketing services.