Our speakers

Shashwat Sharma, Partner, KPMG in India

Shashwat has a Bachelor of Technology degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and MBA from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He is a partner with the Management Consulting function of KPMG and has over 21 years of experience in Business Consulting with a focus on Financial Services sector. In his role, he works primarily with clients on their business strategy formulation and specializes in working with mid-sized organizations on their future roadmaps.

He regularly participates at industry forums including CII, AIP, ASSOCHAM, FICCI and has authored a number of thought leadership reports.

Shaswat Kumar, Senior VP of Global Customer Success and Delivery, Darwinbox

Sheetal Bahl, Partner, Merak Ventures

Sheetal Bahl is one of the founding Partners of Merak Ventures, a sector agonistic venture capital firm based in India. Drawing on more than a decade of experience in the Indian startup ecosystem, combined with seven years focused on B2B and emerging technologies, Sheetal has honed his ability to spot emerging tech companies with the potential to transform the game.

As the driving force behind deal sourcing at Merak Ventures, Sheetal evaluates investment opportunities in a wide range of sectors, from ClimateTech, AgriTech, SpaceTech, to cutting-edge artificial intelligence and ubiquitous technology. Sheetal is known for his bold and audacious approach to investing.

Together with his fellow founding Partner, Manu Rikhye, Sheetal launched Merak Ventures with a target corpus of $100 million. The goal is to support passionate founders with ideas that matter, ideas that can make a positive impact on the world.

Sheetal is also a founding General Partner at growX Ventures. At growX, Sheetal played a key role in establishing an angel syndicate that made a number of successful investments such as Locus, Mad Street Den, and Quandl. Thereafter, he was instrumental in setting up growX Fund I, a $25 million fund that built upon the same investment thesis. His investments from the fund include Pixxel, Cynlr, and Cosmofeed among others. As a board member, Sheetal remains deeply involved in these ventures, providing strategic guidance and support to their founding teams.

Before venturing into the world of venture capital, Sheetal played a significant role in setting up the Everest Research Institute where he led the analysis of the offshoring industry. He also spent several years in management consulting with Andersen Consulting/Accenture and was part of the founding team of the credit cards business at ICICI where he managed the technology front.

Sheetal earned his B.Tech. in Elec. Engineering from IIT Bombay, and his extensive experience and unique perspective have made him a respected figure in the world of venture capital. He continues to drive innovation and support the next generation of startups with his visionary leadership and strategic investments.

Shekhar Kirani, Partner, Accel Partners

At Accel India, Shekhar focuses on Internet, mobile, and technology-enabled businesses. Shekhar has been an active angel investor in Bangalore since 2007 and has advised several early stage startups in and around Bangalore. Before joining Accel, Shekhar headed VeriSign India as Country Manager.

Shekhar serves on the boards of FreshDesk, HotelLogix, Mobstac and SureWaves.

Before VeriSign India, Shekhar worked as Vice President at VeriSign in Mountain View in their mobile division. Before VeriSign, Shekhar worked closely with Philippe Kahn in creating LightSurf Technologies, which was acquired by VeriSign in 2005. Before LightSurf, Shekhar worked as part of the management team at Starfish Software, which was acquired by Motorola in 1998. Shekhar started his career at Texas Instruments in Bangalore and then worked for Wipro Technologies. Post his studies, he worked at Qwest (U.S. West Technologies) in Boulder, Colorado.

Sheshadri Savalgi, CFO/Finance Director, General Mills, India

Shilpa Kulkarni, MD, Zodius Capital

Shilpa leads the development of our Digital Services companies. She also manages our investor relationships and corporate transactions. Shilpa has previously managed corporate development and Investments function at WNS, prior to which she was a venture investor at eVentures India where her investments included Mentorix (sold to Lionbridge), Intigma (sold to Emptoris). Shilpa began her career as an Investment Banker with JP Morgan Chase.

Shilpa Kulkarni, Managing Director, Zodius

Shilpa Kumar, Partner, Omidyar

Shilpa is a Partner at Omidyar Network India, a social impact investment fund

Shilpa provides overall leadership, including strategy and investments, across the areas of Digital Society, Urban Governance, Access to Justice and Property Rights initiatives. She also leads policy work in Financial Inclusion and in development of the Non Profit sector strategy.

Shilpa has spent more than three decades with the ICICI Bank group (India’s largest private sector bank). A key part of her career was in financial markets, building and shaping what is today the bank’s treasury/global markets business. She served as MD & CEO of ICICI Securities, India’s largest retail broker & a leading investment bank in the country. Shilpa has held board positions in several organisations: ICICI Securities, ICICI Securities Prime Dealership, ICICI Home Finance, Clearing Corporation of India and National Investment and Infrastructure Fund.

She has also served on regulatory committees including SEBI’s Secondary Markets Advisory Committee, RBI’s Technical Advisory Committee and RBI’s Mohanty Committee on Monetary Policy. She has also held positions in industry bodies like FIMMDA (as Chairperson), FICCI / CII (Capital Markets Committee) besides serving on the Advisory Committees of the National Stock Exchange, Bombay Stock Exchange and National Securities Depository Ltd.

Shilpa is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata.
 

Shilpa Mankar Ahluwalia, Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co.

Ms. Shilpa Mankar Ahluwalia is a Partner in the corporate advisory group of the Firm and focuses on the banking & finance, mergers & acquisitions, and foreign investment practice areas.

Ms. Ahluwalia advises various companies, banks and financial institutions in connection with their financing activities (plain vanilla and structured financings, loan syndication and guarantee structures, securitization structures, equipment financing and issue of non-convertible debentures). Her clients include the International Finance Corporation (The World Bank), Investec Bank, Barclays Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Chartered Bank, State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, India Infrastructure Finance Company Limited, Deutsche Bank and GE Money. She has also advised several payment services companies such as the American Express Banking Corporation, Microsoft, Paytm, GoIbibo, Flipkart, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Oxygen in respect of their payment products and services. She has advised several factoring companies on their factoring products and strategies in India.

Shilpi Pandey, Chief People Officer, BlackBuck