Our speakers

Ramaswamy Gopalkrishnan, VP & Head - East Region, Brand Capital

Ramaswamy Gopalkrishnan (Rama) is a certified Chartered Accountant and also a Company Secretary.

Rama has over 25 years of experience in M&As as well as Investment Banking in companies like J M Financial & Investment Consultancy Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank, Aditya Birla Group and now investment experience at Brand Capital.

Amongst his diverse and vast set of achievements, the notable are advising a leading group in South India on their hugely successful hostile take-over of a listed abrasive company and executing the listing of shares of Birla Global Finance.  He was also a pivotal member at Standard Chartered Bank of M&A and Takeovers division.

During his current stint at the Times Group he was part of the core team that put into operation the path breaking venture – Brand Capital, which now has investment of over Rs. 6000 cr..

Ever since, he has been a key member of Senior Management team wearing several hats including being one of longest serving member of the Investment Committee. Currently he spearheads the innovative structuring and legal team while also heading the business operation for the Brand Capital - Eastern Region.

Rama takes his inherent fostering qualities into his relaxation time too by nurturing the little garden that he has put out for himself, a privilege of a lucky few in a city like Mumbai.

Ramesh Byrapaneni, MD, Endiya Partners

Dr. Ramesh Byrapaneni is a cardiologist who turned into a venture capitalist, to be a part of the healthcare innovation story.

His current focus on investments in the healthcare world, mainly digital health and medical devices. Prior to Endiya, at Ventureast, he invested in companies like OneBreath which is into mechanical ventilation and SmartRx, an innovator in mobile engagement platforms for healthcare. Dr. Ramesh is also an angel investor with Nephroplus, India’s largest chain of dialysis clinics.

In his early years, Dr. Ramesh was Chief of Cardiology and Founder of Medwin Hospital. He did his post-graduation in Internal Medicine, postdoctoral fellowship in Cardiology from PGI, Chandigarh, and Interventional Cardiology Fellowship from University of Alabama, Birmingham, USA. He was also adjudged the Best Outgoing Student from the University of Alabama.

Entrepreneurship and innovation always spurred Dr. Ramesh, leading him to be the President of TiE Hyderabad for four years. He is also the Founding Director of Hyderabad Angels.

When he is not mentoring, coaching and guiding entrepreneurs, Dr. Ramesh spends his available time in social ventures. He is a Founding Chairperson of the Hyderabad 10k run and a Board Member of United Way Hyderabad.

Ramesh Iyer, MD, Mahindra Finance

Mr. Ramesh Iyer is the Managing Director of Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Limited (MMFSL) and is the President - Financial Services Sector and a member of the Group Executive Board of Mahindra & Mahindra Limited.

MMFSL has above Rs. 36,500 Crores Assets under Management (around 5.9 billion US$) with 1,124 branches spread across the country. MMFSL extensively works in Rural India extending credit for Farm Equipments, Commercial Vehicles, other automobiles including Small Business Loans for the past 2 decades.  MMFSL has cumulatively extended credit to 4 million customers. MMFSL has subsidiaries for Rural Housing, Insurance, Asset Management & International Operations.

Mr. Iyer is a Finance Professional with an experience of over 35 years. He completed his graduation in Commerce and is a M.B.A. He has attended various training programmes like Relationship Management Programme & Management by Result Programme conducted by Homi Mullah, break through programme for Senior Executives conducted by IMD, Switzerland.

Mr. Iyer is also a Director of 9 companies in the Mahindra Group including 2 international Companies. He serves as a member in various committees in the industry like CII (Confederation of Indian Industry), FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry), BCCI (Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and FIDC (Finance Industry Development Council) & Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

Mr. Iyer has been regularly participating as Keynote Speaker, Panel Discussion Member in various programmes conducted by CII, FICCI, BCCI, PMI, Welingkar Institute, Universal Business School, Bombay Management Association.

Ramesh Nair, CEO & Country Head, India, JLL

Ramesh is the CEO & Country Head of JLL India. He is responsible for the overall direction, strategy and growth of the Firm in India. Prior to taking over the role of CEO & Country Head in 2017, Ramesh held positions such as COO – India, MD – West India, India Head of Land, South India Markets Head, MD – Chennai, MD – Hyderabad and MD – Industrial. With estimated revenue for FY 2018-19 expected to be approx INR 4,000 crores, the Firm is growing from strength to strength in India for the past 2 decades.

JLL is also the market leader in terms of market share, revenues, profitability and team size for all the business lines in India. JLL India was rated as one of the Best Places to Work in India by the Great Place to Work® and The Economic Times in 2017 & 2018. JLL is a Fortune 500 company, creating value for owners, investors and users of real estate. Globally, JLL operates in 1,000 locations across 80 countries.

Experience

Having joined JLL in 1999, Ramesh has over 20 years of diversified and hands-on professional expertise in most facets of the real estate business. He has worked across diverse asset classes such as office, retail, land, residential, warehousing and industrial advising leading domestic and multinational owners, investors and occupiers in India. Throughout his career, Ramesh has helped his clients define and deliver successful real estate projects of the highest quality. Ramesh is a member of the Asia Pacific Board, the J8, a group of JLL’s 8 largest countries in terms of profit and revenue globally. Ramesh also chairs the India Leadership Council of JLL India. He is also the Chairman of CII – Western Region Real Estate and Infrastructure Conclave. As one of the pioneers of professional real estate consulting services in India, Ramesh has been instrumental in introducing many new concepts into the Indian real estate sector. Ramesh has also served as a Non-executive Director on the Global RICS Regulatory Board for 3 years. He has written numerous thought leaership articles for some of India’s leading publications such as The Economic Times, The Times of India, The Hindu, The Indian Express and many others.

Ramesh Ramachandran, Senior Vice President - Strategy and Precision Farming, Mahindra & Mahindra

Ramesh Ramachandran is Senior Vice President - Strategy and Precision Farming at Mahindra and Mahindra’s Farm Equipment Business. His role encompasses both strategy development as well as identifying and incubating new revenue opportunities, both organically and inorganically. With agriculture poised for great change, Ramesh is closely involved in leveraging emerging digital technologies to deliver new product and service solutions to farmers. He strongly believes in the transformative power of technology in addressing business and social challenges.

Ramesh has close to 25 years of experience in innovation, marketing, strategy and P&L management. This includes 9 years with Unilever’s ice cream and Frozen Foods business in a variety of UK and European roles as well as 6 years in the London office of a boutique innovation and venturing consultancy where he helped Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 clients identify, prototype and incubate new ventures. In the early part of his career Ramesh worked with Shell in India where as part of the India start up team he worked across sales, marketing and business development to set up some of their initial businesses reporting eventually to the MD.

Ramesh has an MBA with distinction from INSEAD, an MMS from S.P Jain Institute of Management and Research and a B.Sc (Hon) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

He is a long distance runner with a passion for Indian percussion.

Ramesh Swaminathan, Executive Director- CFO and Head- Corporate Affairs, Lupin Ltd.

Ramesh Swaminathan, Executive Director, Global CFO & Head Corporate Affairs, Lupin Ltd.

With over two decades of experience in leadership positions in the Finance domain, Ramesh is the Executive Director, Global CFO and Head-Corporate Affairs of Lupin Limited.  His areas of responsibilities include the entire gamut of Finance & Accounting, Legal and Information Technology, responsible for the Corporate Strategic Planning Departments and Corporate Communications for the company.

Ramesh commenced his second stint at Lupin about a couple of months ago. For the previous year and a half, he was the Head- Corporate Centre at L&T handling a diverse portfolio which included M&A, Divestitures, Running an innovation fund, Central Procurement and Logistics, Operational Excellence and Corporate Legal.  Prior to that he was with Lupin as a key member of the company’s core strategy think-tank and a member of the Board of Directors.  He has guided the company through numerous Mergers & Acquisitions and enabled the company’s successful entry into some of the largest pharmaceutical markets globally. Before Lupin, he was with Henkel, Germany where he held corporate responsibilities as the Regional Financial Controller for several countries across the Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East.  He has also worked with companies such as VST Industries, the SPIC group and the Standard Chartered Bank and has a successful track record of building finance as a key business enabler and fostering collaboration in a culturally diverse, global and matrixed workplace.

Ramesh has been the recipient of several awards from various forums including Best CFO Awards in the Healthcare Sector and theme based Awards from Institutions like CNBC, ICAI, Yes Bank-Business Today, Institutional Investors, CFO Asia etc.,

Ramesh Venkat, Chief Executive Officer, Reliance Private Equity

Ramesh is the Chief Executive Officer of the Advisory Team. He has a total experience of 27 years.

 

Ramesh was earlier part of the senior management of the Reliance Group since its formation with primary responsibility for finance, treasury and M & A across the various group companies, and active involvement across a range of other strategic and operational initiatives in the group. Prior to this, he was Group CFO and a member of the Executive Committee of Vedanta Resources plc, a FTSE 100 company. Ramesh started his career with Unilever in India, and thereafter also worked in corporate and investment banking for several years.

 

Ramesh has a PhD degree from the University of Mumbai in Management Studies, and is also a Chartered Accountant, Cost Accountant and Company Secretary having secured all India merit positions in all.

Ramez Helou, CEO and Founder, The Academy for Sales Excellence

Sales Professor Ramez Helou is the CEO and Founder of The Academy for Sales Excellence with more than 33+ years of experience in sales leadership and sales capability building.  He has trained more than 100,000 sales professionals in more 38+ countries.  His clients are among the top fortune 500 companies such as Unilever Foodsolutions,  Nestle Professional, Proctor & Gamble, Emerson, Trane Technologies, Nissan, The World Bank and many more. In 1994 he started his own multi-million-dollar company in Puerto Rico and Costa Rica where he built a revolving sales force of more than 400 sales professionals and expanded into over 10 locations in Central America and Caribbean.

Today Ramez runs his sales academy and focuses on Sales & Sales Leadership Development programs. Since 2014, he accepted an adjunct role as professor of Sales & Leadership at Hult International Business School.  In 2019, he was awarded professor of the year for teaching the Masters in International Business (MIB) cohort in the Dubai Campus.

Ramganesh Iyer, Partner, Bain & Company (Moderator)

Ramganesh Iyer is a partner in Bain & Company’s Mumbai office. He is a member of the firm’s Financial Services, Digital, Strategy and Performance Improvement practices.

With more than 15 years of management consulting experience, Ramganesh has advised and led multiple engagements with banks, insurers, NBFCs and micro-finance institutions in India across strategy, operating model and value creation levers, example- credit scoring, credit operating model, product profitability, due diligence etc.

He has an extensive experience in customer experience and customer journey redesign. He is also a co-founder of a Fintech company specializing in digital wealth management and life/health insurance. Ramganesh hold an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where he earned the Gold Medalist award. He also received a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology (Mumbai), India.