Our speakers

Sameer Mehra, Founder and CEO, Suminter India Organics

Sameer Mehra, Founder and CEO, grew up in Mumbai and spent his teenage years working in the family business, Enercon, a leader in the wind energy sector in India. After graduating from Narsee Monjee College in Mumbai with a degree in Commerce, Sameer worked at Enercon and gained experience in clean technology. Sameer received his MBA from Emory University in Atlanta in 1998, and worked for a hedge fund in New York thereafter.

Sameer returned to India and in 2003 started Suminter India Organics. He has grown the company significantly, working directly with over 7,500 farmers in 5 states in India, and establishing a strong customer base in Europe and the United States.

Sameer is responsible for overseeing all operations of the company, including pursuing new business opportunities, expanding Suminter's farm projects, developing new products, and coordinating funding for Suminter's operations.

Sameer Mehta, CIO, Atlas Venturez Family Office

Mr Mehta is the Director of the Atlas Family Office (Atlas Venturez multi-family offices) and Director of Dr Mehta’s Hospitals.  Sam participates on various national healthcare, education and investment association committees.  He sits on the board of a number of companies in Technology, Chemicals, Healthcare, Education and Media and is an advisor to a few funds. He is on the Executive Committee of the Chennai Angels.

Mr Mehta brings over 2 decades of enterprise leadership, multi-national operating, project management, governance, strategic consulting, investment management and entrepreneurial experience within leading organizations like McKinsey & Company, Shell and Fortune 10 and Family Business companies across multiple sectors (healthcare, education, energy, chemicals, technology and retail) across Asia, Europe, Latin and North America. He was a former venture advisor with TVS Capital and election observer with the OSCE/UN.

Mr Mehta has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, a Masters in Manufacturing Engineering Management and Masters in Chemical Engineering.  Mr Mehta is a Chartered Chemical Engineer (CEng) with the Institute of Chemical Engineers, a Professional European Engineer (EUR ING) with FEANI, a Chartered Scientist (CSci) with the Science Council, a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) with the Society for the Environment and a Sainsbury Management Fellow (SMF) with the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK.

Sameer Nagar, Head - Non Stop, Mission Critical Systems, HPE India

Sameer Nagar, Country Manager - NonStop Enterprise, HPE

Sameer Narula, Managing Partner, August Capital Partners

Sameer's professional experience spans entrepreneurship, management consulting and operational roles in the TMT, engineering and design industries in the US, Europe, Japan and India. Prior to founding August Capital Partners, he was most recently the founder and CEO of an architecture, planning, construction and design firm, Indigo Design & Engineering Associates, in India.

Sameer's previous experience includes management consulting positions at PRTM in India and the US and at Accenture, UK. His primary focus was on M&A and strategy projects within the Media, High Tech and Telecom industries. He has contributed to various white papers and knowledge reports in the TMT and emerging market space, including Accenture's PoV report on Media & Entertainment and the 'India beyond the call-centers' report.

He was the manager of strategic planning at MCI WorldCom, Japan from 2000 till 2002 where he was part of the senior team responsible for the post-merger integration of the UUNet business (specifically SME) into MCI.

Sameer has advised and invested in multiple start-ups in the past, including Pyramid Technologies Ltd., Rent-a-Keg(F&B distribution) and Etable.in (social networks based analytics platform for F&B).

Sameer holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia and attended HEC, Paris and Columbia Business School in New York for his MBA. 

Sameer Nath, Managing Partner, Iron Pillar Fund

Prior to co founding Iron Pillar in January 2016, Sameer was an investment banker for 15 years, all with Citigroup. Iron Pillar is a venture capital fund focused on filling the gap for "mid stage" technology investments in India. It backs proven and visionary technology companies in the consumer and enterprise space post Series A. It actively partners with entrepreneurs and early stage investors to help companies by leveraging extensive experience in India, the US, China and SE Asia. The 6 person Iron Pillar team has 17 years of average experience and complementary skill sets in venture investing, M&A, operations and technology.

Sameer’s investment banking experience spans a wide spectrum of transactions across M&A, Equity / Debt Capital Markets and Private Equity Advisory. He was a Managing Director at Citi since 2010 and helped build market-leading franchises in M&A in India and Technology in India and globally. For the last 2 years, Sameer was responsible for leading Citi’s investment banking coverage for Private Equity and Industrials/Conglomerate clients throughout Southeast Asia. Prior to relocating to Singapore in January 2014, Sameer was Head of Mergers & Acquisitions for Citi in India, based in Mumbai. In that role, Sameer provided M&A leadership for Citi’s banking franchise in India. He was involved in the origination and execution of advisory transactions across all sectors, with a focus on large, cross-border deals including several Technology deals. Sameer led many landmark transactions in his 5.5 years in Mumbai, during which Citi was a consistent leader in the Indian M&A market.

Previously, Sameer spent 6 years in Technology investment banking in New York. He visited India regularly and worked on several market-shaping M&A deals, IPOs and Leveraged Buyouts in the US-India corridor. Sameer was also selected to spend a year working with the Co-Heads and COO of Citi Global Investment Banking on management and strategic initiatives. Sameer joined Salomon Smith Barney in New York in 2001.  His prior experience from 1996 to 1999 was in strategy consulting at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, based in Washington, DC. Sameer has a MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BA from Middlebury College (Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude).

Sameer Nayar, Founder & CEO, BuildSupply

Mr. Nayar is an experienced real estate investment and finance professional with a twenty five year track record in the industry. He is the Founder and CEO at BuildSupply, a technology company focused on solving intractable problems in the construction and real estate sectors. Prior to this, he was Managing Director at Credit Suisse (CS) and the Head of Real Estate Finance for the Asia Pacific region. In this role he has deployed over USD 7.5 BN of debt and equity capital across Asia. Previously, he was the head of large loan structuring and pricing in the United States and handled over USD 75 BN of loan originations during his tenure.

Prior to joining Credit Suisse First Boston in 2001, Mr. Nayar was a Senior Vice President at Moody's Investors Service in New York where he was responsible for CMBS ratings and served as a member of the Global Ratings consistency committee.

He is a founding Managing Trustee of the Special Child Trust that raises awareness and funds for children with special needs.

He is the co-Founder of The Autism Centre for Excellence, India’s first school based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) for children on the Autism Spectrum located in Gurgaon, NCR, India.

He is a co-sponsor and a member of the Board of Directors of Children First, India’s first fully integrated institute for child and adolescent mental health.

Mr. Nayar is a member of the Young President's Organization (YPO) and holds an MS in Real Estate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, 1996), a master's in building engineering from the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA, 1994-95), India and is a graduate of the Manipal Institute of Technology, India (1993).

Sameer Parwani, CEO & Founder, CouponDunia

Sameer Parwani is the founder and CEO of CouponDunia, India's largest couponing website. A techie at heart, Sameer has been at the fore - front of the start-up revolution, working on his own Facebook - like product targeted at the Asian community during his college days.

Sameer founded CouponDunia in 2010 while in Boston where he is originally from. He moved to India in 2012 to devote his full energies to the company. CouponDunia partners with more than 1800 online brands and 3000 restaurants across the country driving sales worth 500 crores in 2014 for its partners. While its traffic has increased to about 4 million unique visitors per month, CouponDunia has also grown in size itself, adding more than 80 people to its family and bringing the 2014 year - end total to about 120 employees across the country. In May, 2014, CouponDunia was acquired by Times Internet Limited.

Sameer Pitalwalla, Director - Video & Celebrity, Disney UTV

Sameer Pitalwalla has been a part of the media and internet domain for over 9 years now. He is currently responsible for spear-heading Disney UTV’s digital video & celebrity division.  

 

Along with building a strong internet presence for UTV and its channels across social media, Sameer has also devised and launched Celebrity Audio Chats and Audio Blogs in the mobile space.

 

Prior to joining UTV, Sameer worked with the Times Group, where he created and built the Times Audience Network (TAN), the digital video arm of the Times Group. In addition to his role in TAN, Sameer was also the Business Head of Follo, the Group's foray into digital distribution of celebrity content. 

Sameer Pitalwalla, CEO, Culture Machine | @TweetToCM

Sameer Pitalwalla, co-founded Culture Machine in early 2013 along with Venkat Prasad with a vision to start a digital video company that creates entertainment for the internet generation. In his previous roles, he has headed the digital media business at Disney UTV, as well as built the digital video division at the Times Group.

@SameerPit