Our speakers

Sameer Varma, Founding Member, Tuscan Ventures Pvt. Ltd

Sameer is part of the founding team at Tuscan. Sameer has over 10 years of experience in the shipping, logistics and transportation infrastructure space spread across Asia. Prior to his role at Tuscan, he worked at the Indian Head Office of Maersk Line – the world’s largest container shipping company – in Mumbai, responsible for the trade between India and the Americas. During 2005-2007, he was the asset flow and Procurement manager for Maersk Line’s activities in the Americas and Asia Pacific Rim based at Maersk Line’s regional head quarters in Singapore Sameer Started his career as part of A. P. Moller – Maersk’s elite Management Training Program.

Samip Barlota, Partner, Price Waterhouse & Co LLP

Samir Kamat, Co-founder & CEO, Splashgain Technology Solutions Pvt Ltd

CEO & Co-Founder of Splashgain Technology Solutions Pvt Ltd. contributing with it’s multiple award winning products  ePravesh® & Eklavvya. ePravesh® is an Online Admission Platform for PG to PG (Play  Group to Post Graduation). Eklavvya is a Knowledge Management & Assessment Engine

70+ Odd institutes including Universities, Government Undergraduate, Post Graduate Schools, Training Institutes, Event & Media companies using Splashgain products for the enrollment as well as for various test preparations, assessment of the candidates etc.

In Yr 2014-15, ePravesh® processed more than quarter million application forms  & Facilitated collection of application fees, tuition fees of around INR 35 Million
In the past, Splashgain has received “Pat on the Back”  at various events at - Top 35 ‘Best Business Idea - ET Power Of Ideas 2010, UTV - Bloomberg’s CXO award jury’s nomination, CNBC -YourStory - Hottest Indian e-commerce startup, PC Quest Magazine’s - National Award

Samir is responsible for Sales, Marketing, Strategic Alliances & Contributing to the strategic thoughts for the product as well as overall growth of the organization. Samir brings in 18+ years of experience varying from Product Engineering, large scale program &  delivery centre operations Management, Pre-sales & Sales. Samir has done his  Mechanical Engineering from Pune University,  M.S. from BITS, Pilani & PG Diploma in Finance Symbiosis.

Samir Kumar, Managing Director, Inventus India

Samir is currently the Managing Director of Inventus Advisory Services India. He has been an early-stage venture investor in India since 2001.
Prior to co-founding Inventus, Samir led the India venture investing team for Acer Technology Ventures, where he made early-stage investments in the technology space.

Prior to his VC career, Samir spent 15+ years in the IT industry in India in Sales, Marketing and Product Management roles, starting with Computer Point, moving onto a 10+ year stint with Wipro Infotech, and finally a 2½ year stint with Planetasia.

Samir is an active Charter Member of Tie Bangalore, and has been a member of the Governing Body. He is also a Member of the Board of Governors of the technology incubator at IIT Bombay, and at Dayanand Sagar University.

Samir earned his B.Tech from IIT-Bombay in 1984 and an MBA from IIM, Bangalore in 1986, where he was awarded the Best All-Round Outgoing student.

Samir Paranjpe, Partner and Forensics Leader, Grant Thornton Bharat LLP

Samir Shah, MD & CEO, NCDEX

Mr. Shah joined NCDEX on 1st March 2013, initially as the Dy. CEO and has been designated as the Managing Director & CEO.

Just before that, Mr. Shah was the Chief Business Officer of the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX). At DGCX he led the growth of the exchange to make it the one of fastest growing exchange in the world, winning several awards, amongst them were Contract of the Year and the Best Commodity Exchange in 2012.

Shah has two decades of experience in building institutions and market infrastructure. Prior to joining DGCX, he was the CEO of Mumbai-based Universal Commodities Exchange (UCX).
Prior to this, he worked at global information company Thomson Reuters for 17 years. In 2010, he was appointed as the Global head of Business Planning and Operations for a new inside-Sales unit at Thomson Reuters called Direct. In 2009, as the Head of Business Operations for Thomson Reuters Asia and a member of the Asian Leadership Team based in Singapore, he successfully transformed the business to focus on customer needs.

In 2006, Shah led Reuters’ India operations as the Managing Director for Reuters in South Asia. In this position, he doubled revenue, integrated the Indian Quotation Systems business and merged the India operations of Thomson into Thomson Reuters. In his previous roles, he led the Treasury and Fixed Income Business for Reuters Asia, and partnered with large global market makers to launch RTFX and RTFI , the dealer-customer FX and Fixed Income Trading Systems in Asia.

Prior to that, as Head of Sales for ASEAN & South Asia for Reuters, Shah developed trusted relationships with several large banking customers helping them in areas of trading systems, Risk Management, and Foreign Exchange pricing. Shah began his career as an investment banker in Mumbai helping companies unlock value through public offerings and buy-out deals. He is an MBA in Finance, a Mechanical Engineer and has completed an Advanced Management Program from Wharton.

Samit Ghosh, CEO & MD, Ujjivan Financial Services Pvt Ltd

Founder & Managing Director of Ujjivan Financial Service ( www.ujjivan.com ), a micro finance institution established in 2005 which provides financial services through a network of 380 branches to over 1.4 million urban, semi-urban & rural customers spread across 21 states & 2 union territories, the widest footprint of a MFI in India. Ujjivan was awarded the Best Large Microfinance Institution in India in 2011 and ranked among the top ten companies to work for in India by the Great Place to Work Institute two years in row: 2013 & 2014. Ujjivan is the fifth largest microfinance institution in India.

He was re-elected the President of Microfinance Institutions Network (MFIN) in June 2014, the leading association of microfinance institutions in India. MFIN has recently been appointed as the SRO by the Reserve Bank of India. He is a board member of Women’s World Banking, New York and also currently the Chairman of Association of Karnataka Microfinance Institution (AKMI). 

He was a career international banker for 30 years prior to establishing Ujjivan. He started his career with Citibank in 1975, where he spent the bulk of his career. The other banks he has worked with are: Arab Bank, Bank Muscat, Standard Chartered Bank, and HDFC Bank. He graduated from Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania in 1974 with Master of Business Administration.

Samonnoi Banerjee, Principal, Bain Capital | @BainCapital

Mr. Banerjee joined Bain Capital in 2008 from McKinsey & Company as part of the founding team of the India office. At Bain Capital, he has led investments in Genpact and Emcure Pharmaceuticals and is actively involved in managing these investments for the firm.

Mr. Banerjee received an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with an MS in Economics and a BS in Chemical Engineering from BITS Pliani, India.

Sampad Swain, Co-founder & CEO, Instamojo

Sampad Swain is the co-founder and CEO of Instamojo.com, a high-growth consumer internet startup that democratises digital payments for individuals, micro-merchants, infopreneurs, freelancers, SMBs etc with its innovative P2P commerce platform where anyone can collect payments by simply sharing a URL/link over SMS, email, blogs or even social networks.

Instamojo.com was a part of 500Startups' batch of Fall-2012 in Silicon Valley, California and serves customers primarily in India and in the US. Previously, he was the co-founder of Wanamo, a marketing platform for hyperlocal SMBs which was later acquired by DealsAndYou. Prior to his startup experience, Sampad had worked at multinationals like ITC, Godrej and BrandPotion (Times Group). Sampad has a degree in electronics engineering and an MBA.

Sampath Manickam, Regional Head - Data Centre, Cloud & Managed Services, Bharti Airtel

M Sampath is a Business Head and Information Communication Technology (ICT) specialist with 19 years of extensive experience in IT and telecom sectors. He is having a rich experience after working with Reuters, IBM and Wipro in multiple roles. He is presently working for Nxtra Data which is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel as a Southern regional head for data center, cloud & managed service practice.

He is an expert in providing complex ICT solutions, consulting, product management, delivery and go-to-market strategy addressing multiple enterprise organizations & telecom customers across the globe. He is also passionate in driving new technology initiatives and a regular speaker in many of the telecom / SMAC technology forums.