Our speakers

Sameer Garde, President, Philips Healthcare, South Asia

Mr. Sameer Garde is President - South Asia- Philips Healthcare. He is a proven business leader with over 24 years of experience in building and managing both small and established businesses in India, Europe, USA and Asia. He has worked in 3 countries and has run global and regional ( Asia) businesses.

Prior to joining Philips, he helped Samsung setup the enterprise business for Samsung India from scratch, and put it on the path to aggressive growths. He served as the President and MD for Dell India where he consolidated and stabilized the consumer and enterprise business for the company. During his 9-year stint with the company in many sales and management leadership roles, he has been instrumental in growing the Dell business in India making it the No.1 Hardware vendor in the country.

He has also been associated with Whirlpool, Pepsi and Nestle. In 2009, the Great CIO social network of Asia rated Sameer as one of the top 10 Technology Leaders in India. He is a Mechanical Engineer from IIT - Delhi and an MBA in Finance and Marketing from IIM - Kolkata. His leadership style is influencing people with new ideas, being infectiously passionate and generating innovative concepts from all levels. He is a sports lover , more playing than watching, and has recently set sights on participating in a half marathon.

Sameer Garde, Independent Director, Capillary Technologies; ex- President Cisco India

Sameer is a seasoned industry veteran with marketing, sales, strategy, general management, and operations experience in leading several billion-dollar businesses across information technology, healthcare, FMCG, and consumer electronics/durables.

With over 30 years of experience, he has held several leadership roles, including the CEO role for the last 12 years, across top-performing organizations. He has a proven track record of transforming operations and cultures to drive growth at scale while focusing on costs and profitability. He has worked in diverse markets across Asia, Europe, and the US and has managed numerous high-performing teams.

Taking an open and honest approach to effective leadership, Sameer leads by example with profound customer focus and detail orientation while continuously emphasizing on improving teams' accountability.

Most recently, he served as President of Cisco's India and SAARC theatre, where he was responsible for strategy, sales, engineering, operations, and strategic investments for long-term growth in the theatre. With his keen understanding of technology and market transitions, he led the Cisco India & SAARC team to high performance and growth while attracting the best talent in the industry.

Sameer believes in balancing passion, purpose, and profit and is deeply committed to wielding technology to shape a more inclusive and equitable future for all at scale. At various stages in his career, he has partnered with many government agencies, industry bodies, non-profits, venture capitalists, and start-ups to catalyze several digital transformation and community initiatives to improve efficiency and access in critical sectors like healthcare, agriculture, education, connectivity, and governance.

Sameer has been an elected member of the NASSCOM Executive Council for the last 2 terms, and has co-chaired the IOT/AI COE with the MEITY secretary , driven the Cyber internship program for 20K students in partnership with AICTE and NASSCOM, been a member of the Governing Council for the Sector Skill Council ( SSC) and a member of the Finance Accounting Council of NASSCOM.

Sameer holds an engineering degree from IIT Delhi and an MBA from IIM Kolkata.

He loves being physically active through long-distance running or riding and is also an amateur birding enthusiast.

Sameer Gautam, Founder & CEO, Rank Junction Pvt. Ltd.

Sameer is an innovative Entrepreneur with 16 years of work experience. Always applying new ideas at work, he has a very successful performance record in Sales and has managed large sales teams. After working with ICICI Prudential Life Insurance as Managing Partner and Jayaswals Neco Ltd. as Regional Manager - Sales, he started his entrepreneurial journey in 2008 as a cofounder and CEO of Anannya eLearning Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (2008-2010). As a result of his efforts, more than 1.5 lac Insurance agents were trained on Anannya's IRDA approved eLearning portal.

Sameer is responsible for Marketing, Sales and Strategy at Rank Junction. He is B.Sc. & MBA from Nagpur University. He is an active member of TiE Nagpur.

Sameer Grover, Founder & CEO, Crownit

Sameer Grover, Founder and CEO of Crown-it, is a graduate from Delhi College of Engineering. The quintessentially ‘product’ person, has to his credit an extensive experience in creating and marketing software products for large enterprises as well as Small & Medium businesses in US and India.

Mr. Grover has worked at leadership positions in well-known organizations like Apollo Health Street (Heritage), MphRx and Knowlarity, prior to which he was working with Epic Systems Corporation in Wisconsin from 1999 to 2005.

With his tremendous industry experience, Sameer aims to create the largest O2O company in India. His vision of the mobile first Indian society drives Crown-it as a product which is transforming the way consumers behave. He believes in a ‘one app fits all’ strategy that is empowering merchants in the hyperlocal space.

With Crown-it’s current growth rate, Sameer would be successful in positioning the company in 25 cities across India by 2018, with an approximate of 20 million users and driving an annual business of $1.2 Bn across various categories of the discretionary spend of the Indian Middle class. According to him, the capable and hardworking employees of Crown-it are its core strength. The team has independence in deciding on product features, marketing campaigns and ideas implementation.

The keen reader loves to spend time with his twin daughters. He also supports various organizations working towards women empowerment. He actively supports Vividha, a
Rajasthan based NGO that works towards women empowerment and the Stop-Acid-Attacks campaign.

Sameer Guglani, Partner, The Morpheus

At The Morpheus Sameer works with portfolio companies on things like – strategy / product / sales / marketing / boot strapping  / plumbing   & what ever else is required to make the startup kick ass.

Sameer co-founded Madhouse Media in 2004, India’s first organized movie rentals company, which was acquired by Seventymm in 2007. Post acquisition he was Vice President – Corporate Strategy, Seventymm.  In his pre-madhouse avatar he was a hacker for startups like Sonim Inc, Telephia and worked across India, US and Europe.

Sameer is also an independent film maker with film festivals movies to his credit. He loves meeting people, traveling and reading.  Sameer managed to get a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Thapar University, India.

Sameer Karulkar, Head - EquitAce Capital, Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd | @EquitaceCapital

Sameer leads the EQUITACE Capital team which now brings the VC/PE engagement perspective for its USD 2.2bn worth Brand Capital portfolio companies to facilitate their growth to the next level and in turn enhance long term value for all stakeholders. EQUITACE manages the full life cycle of the VC fund management process from pre-investment, to nurturing and growing the portfolio and facilitating exits. At the same time EQUITACE integrates the Brand Capital outreach within the ecosystems of Angel/VC/PE funds and also the domestic and global strategic players.

Sameer brings with him over 17 years of rich Investment banking experience in developing and shaping corporate strategies, helping PE funds harvest their investments and grow their portfolios and working on facilitating entrepreneurs shape their dreams globally. Prior to joining Brand Capital, Sameer was a Vice President with SBI Capital Markets Limited where he led the M&A, Private equity team and amongst others was also responsible for developing, building and managing the M&A International network across 40 countries to facilitate growth for Indian corporates and also bring global strategic and financial investors to invest and grow in India. He has also served in the past organisations such as Haribhakti Corporate Finance and Mahindra & Mahindra limited. Sameer is an Production Engineer from Fr. Agnel, Mumbai University and has also completed his Master of Management Studies from Welingkar Institute of Management, Mumbai University.

Sameer Maheshwari, Founder & CEO, 1MG (Healthkart.com) | @Healthkart

Sameer is the Founder & CEO of HealthKart (www.healthkart.com), India’s leading online fitness and nutrition store. Sameer’s vision to make HealthKart the fitness destination of the country, which can help consumers achieve their fitness goals, be it muscle building, weight loss or general immunity.

Prior to founding HealthKart, Sameer worked for 12 years in financial services and technology industries in the US at UBS Investment Bank, MicroStrategy and Deloitte Consulting. Sameer holds a Bachelor of Technology from IIT Delhi and is a graduate of Harvard Business School.

@sameermahesh

Sameer Maheshwary, CFO, Pine Labs

Sameer Maheshwary has over two decades of experience in business leadership and senior finance roles. Before joining Pine Labs, he spent the majority of his career with GE. He has worked extensively in the areas of payments, retail and corporate lending, credit cards, equipment leasing, receivables financing and real estate financing. He also brings international experience ranging across Japan, USA and South East Asia.

Sameer holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from Delhi College of Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration from Manchester Business School, UK. He is an avid reader and likes to play golf in his free time

Sameer Malik, CEO, Southend Fertility & IVF

Sameer is the Chief Executive Officer at Southend Fertility & IVF. He joined the organization in 2012 and is one of the key pillars of Southend Fertility and IVF, Sameer has not only managed, but also exceled in multiple roles and responsibilities. As the CEO at Southend Fertility and IVF, he has always been a bridge between patients, consultants, management and operational staff at the centres. With a forward-looking approach, he has helped Southend become one of the renowned IVF and Fertility centers in North India. Sameer previously worked with Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ division where he managed multiple processes across various regions. He pursued his B Eng. from University of Sussex, UK.

Sameer Mansukhani, Principal, Alteria Capital