Our speakers
Rajnish Kumar, Head Digital and Direct to Consumer, ITC Limited
With over 20 years’ experience in the business of International Sourcing, Retail Merchandising, Business Consulting and Digital Transformation of large enterprises, Rajnish has a knack for delivering profit oriented results in a short span of time. Being in leadership roles for two decades, Rajnish has started businesses from the scratch, built winning global teams, and added profit lines successfully across many different industry segments. His varied experience from sourcing products internationally to setting up retail businesses in rural India to consulting the worlds biggest brands on Tech transformation and finally driving the digital and direct to consumer strategy for India's most admired company, enables Rajnish to have a unique perspective, unbound by traditional thought and ways of working.
Rajnish is a published author and loves to pen down short stories in his free time.
Rajshekhar Joshi, Head (Digital Technologies and Transformation), Group IT, Aditya Birla Group
Rajshree Bakshi, Global Vice President - Marketing , Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces
Rajshree is an experienced hospitality professional with over 18 years of hospitality insights. She has a master’s in marketing and finance and joined the Taj in 1997. Overseeing the company’s worldwide marketing, brand communication, advertising and Loyalty-CRM, Rajshree plays a role in balancing the structured, analytical thinking of science, plus the creative processes of communications, with a bottom-line focus of finance.
Her career highlights include setting up the first online customer feedback system for Taj Hotels Palaces Resorts Safaris, the first Sales force automation system and also the first enterprise level data warehouse system as a stepping stone to customer analysis.
During her tenure, she has contributed to the organization by working on various strategic initiatives including the new brand architecture, and the earlier one. She has also been involved in development of several key award winning global advertising campaigns, creating new products including Taj Weddings, Kids@Taj, Taj Safaris, Vogue Wedding Shows, Taj Wedding Studio and anchoring many customer research and focus groups. Actively involved in brand standards and brand frameworks. Rajshree and her team work closely with hotels to ensure authentic and on brand customer experiences. Her recent milestones has been the unveiling of Tajness philosophy across all Hotels.
Actively involved in community development in India, Rajshree has been championing the cause of education for girls over the last few years.
Raju Narisetti, Senior Vice President, Strategy, News Corp
Raju Narisetti is Senior Vice President, Strategy, for News Corp. He is primarily involved in new ventures and acquisitions that help drive digital growth and ongoing reshaping of News Corp., through new companies or by expanding existing operating units.
Mr Narisetti directly oversees News Corp’s India businesses, which include a significant stake in PropTiger.com, a digital real-estate business; The VCCircle Network, India’s oldest and largest startup/private equity/venture capital focused information, data, events and training company; and BigDecisions.com, a startup that demystifies personal financial decision-making. He Chairs the Board of Singapore-based Elara Corp., which owns PropTiger, and also NWS Digital Asia Pte Ltd., the News Corp Asia investment vehicle.
Previously, Mr. Narisetti served as a Deputy Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal and Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. In this role, he headed editorial teams and content strategy for WSJ.com, MarketWatch.com, WSJ Live video platforms, and Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch Radio Networks.
Mr. Narisetti also served as Managing Editor of Washington Post Co. 2009-2011, overseeing digital content, news products and new businesses, as well as its editing, design, photo, video, engagement and social media teams. Teams he oversaw won three Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure.
Prior to joining the Post, Mr. Narisetti served as Founder/Editor of India's Mint newspaper, which is now India's second-largest business newspaper, by circulation.
During his previous journalism tenure with WSJ, starting as a Summer Intern in 1991, Mr. Narisetti held multiple roles, eventually becoming Editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe in 2006, where he led the re-launch of the European and Asian multi-platform editions of the Journal. He began his journalism career at The Economic Times in New Delhi, India, and later worked as a Staff Writer at The Dayton Daily News, Dayton, Ohio.
Mr Narisetti was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2007, where is on the Alumni governance board. He is a trustee of the International Institute of Education (IIE), which administers the Fulbright fellowships and the Scholar Rescue Fund, and a Vice Chairman on the board of ICFJ.org, the International Center for Journalists.
Mr. Narisetti holds a BA degree from Osmania University in Hyderabad and an MBA from the Institute of Rural Management in Anand; a Post Graduate diploma from The Times School of Journalism in New Delhi; and an MA in Journalism from Indiana University.
He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his author wife Kim Narisetti and two daughters Leila and Zola.
He is often found @raju.
Raju Vegesna, Chairman & Managing Director, Sify Technologies Ltd.
Raju Vegesna’s vision and accomplishments serve as aspirations for an entire generation in the middle of India’s technological advancement.
Raju’s academic excellence in India led him to Wayne State University, Detroit, USA, where he earned a Master's degree in Computer Engineering and was recruited by Motorola where he played a pivotal role in writing the microcode for their microprocessors.
Raju is a highly successful serial entrepreneur. He co-founded and served as Chief Architect of Ross Technology Inc. and his expertise is reflected in multiple patents and publications on microprocessor technologies. He built and exited two multi-billion-dollar enterprises; ServerWorks, which significantly contributed to Internet penetration, and ServerEngines, which advanced cloud technology.
Raju’s investment in Sify Technologies is focused on positioning India’s digital infrastructure to global standards. Under his leadership, Sify has become India’s most comprehensive ICT player, pioneering India’s first Made-in-India cloud platform and a full stack of managed services. A world-class network infrastructure, state-of-the-art data centers, and AI cloud solutions today make Sify the first choice for enterprises undergoing digital transformation.
Raju’s venture capital fund, Sify Ventures, empowers global entrepreneurs who are building cutting-edge technologies.
Raju’s philanthropic initiatives through RV Foundation focus on providing drinking water, supporting the elderly and marginalized children, and promoting sports at grassroots level, all aimed at creating lasting societal impact.
Rajul Bohra, Partner, JSA
Rajul specializes in General Corporate Commercial, Mergers & Acquisitions, Domestic & Cross Border Investments, Corporate Restructuring and Compliance, Employment and Anti-Corruption & Investigation. She has extensive experience in FDI investments, outbound investments, joint ventures, setting of business operations in India across various industry sectors such as FMCG, healthcare, infrastructure, ecommerce, energy, media, real estate and construction, technology, medical devices, IT/ITes, manufacturing, retail.
She has also advised clients on commercial contracts such as MOUs, supply agreements, distribution and supply agreements, toll manufacturing agreements, non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements, lease deeds, sale deeds, license agreements and service agreements. She regularly advises on Companies Act, 2013, foreign investment and exchange control laws, anti-bribery, contract law, information technology, data privacy & consumer laws.
As part of the employment practice, she is actively advising on labor laws and employment contracts. She has been involved in investigations relating to misconduct of employees.
Rajul also has worked actively on anti-corruption and white collar crime investigations, has conducted trainings and has advised clients on establishing effective compliance mechanisms.
Rakesh Anand, Ex-Chairman & MD, Mazagon Dock
Rakesh Bhardwaj, Group CIO, & SVP, Ola
In his role, Rakesh works closely with businesses, corporate functions and partners, providing strategic direction to the Group's IT initiatives. These initiatives cover the broad spectrum of Information Systems, Tools, Security, IT infrastructure & assets across the group. In today’s connected and tech-led world of mobility, we are building not just a global talent organization but a world class business processes enabled by IT, which will serve as the backbone to help our businesses deliver higher growth and superior customer experiences.
Rakesh has over two decades of experience with expertise in Global IT software outsourcing, vendor management and Lean Six Sigma. In his last role at Cognizant as SVP & Global CIO, Rakesh played an instrumental role in keeping the company at the forefront of innovations by enabling digital capabilities further allowing the organization to be more flexible and resilient. Under his leadership, Cognizant rapidly developed new analytics tools to respond to COVID-19 at various levels of businesses. He has also worked in leading companies such as Microland Limited, GE Healthcare and GE Aviation & Transportation.
Following his graduation in Computer Science engineering, he did his Business Administration and Management from GE Management Development Institute - Crotonville. He has received an accolade for Digital leadership by Dataquest in 2018.
In his spare time, Rakesh loves to listen to music, exercise and play volleyball. He is happily married to Sangeeta and has a daughter and a son.
Rakesh Jain, Chief Executive Officer, Reliance General Insurance Company Limited
A Chartered Accountant and Cost Accountant, Rakesh Jain is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Reliance General Insurance Company Limited.
Since the past 8years, Rakesh has been instrumental in driving Reliance General Insurance's continuous growth, innovation and expansion and the company today is ranked amongst the leading private general insurance companies in India. In addition, under his leadership, Reliance General Insurance has been recognized at various prestigious forums and received several accolades.
He strongly believes in cultivating Pure Relationship and Risk based approach towards sustainable growth with Technology playing the role of an operating integrator in the evolving General Insurance industry in India.
Rakesh has a rich and varied work experience of over 20 years in leadership role in business development, corporate accounting, risk management, etc. Rakesh has been conferred with prestigious accolades like 'Best CFO award in the Financial Services Sector' by the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAI).
Rakesh Jain is an avid reader and is a technology enthusiast. His futuristic outlook and technology bend has helped in propelling the success of Reliance General Insurance
Rakesh Kalra, Founder & CEO, UrbanPro.com
Rakesh has over 15 years of experience in working with different Internet startups in US and India. Prior to founding UrbanPro.com in 2011, Rakesh was the Vice President of Technology at Care.com.
Rakesh holds a BE degree from PEC, Chandigarh, and a Masters degree in Computer Science from Boston University. When not working, Rakesh loves to play badminton and spend time with his 8-year old son and 5-year old daughter.