Our speakers

Vandana Bhatnagar, Chief Program Officer, NSDC

Ms. Vandana is the Chief Program Officer of National Skill Development Corporation. She is responsible for managing NSDC's funding strategy and portfolio. She also leads NSDC's technical engagements related to research, analytics, occupational standards and learning content. Vandana has over 25 years of professional experience in banking, development finance institutions and applied research. Prior to joining NSDC, Vandana was associated with World Bank as Senior Institutional Development Specialist, Water Department Global Practice. She has done her MBA from IIM Calcutta and is an alumnus of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

Vandana Suri, Founder, Taxshe

Vandana Suri, Founder of TAXSHE - an organisation which aims at bringing in safety for women and kids through creation of professional women drivers, whether as chauffeurs, cabbies or trainers.

An ex-investment banker by profession, she has taken the plunge into a totally new and male dominated territory and decided that change had to begin with her.  She started her Company becoming a driver herself, and through her deeds, inspired more women to join in.  She realized that the key to more women cabs was to develop the women driver model.

She has now trained women from lower economic segments to become professional drivers, thereby giving them a new source of income and keep a whole lot of families safe in the bargain.  By catering to the needs of society - safety of women and children on one hand and the financial needs of working women on the other, she has achieved a simple yet unique balance through women empowerment.

She envisions that this symbiotic respectful co-existence structured between the Demand & Supply will soon assume National & international  proportions - thereby making the world a harmonious place. She knows that this is no easy task to achieve, yet she is guided by the smiles she is able to generate each and every day.

Each day she discovers a new avenue of demand for safety while commuting for women and kids & She is driven & determined to "Start up - And do something about it".

@VandanaSuri

Vani Garg Dixit, Vice President- Head Loyalty, Axis Bank

Passionate direct marketer and CRM professional. Specialist for building CRM / loyalty framework, analytics framework and customer driven marketing. Experience in launching and managing program for fuel, coalition loyalty programs, grocery, lifestyle retail and Banking. Direct to customer marketing frameworks for banking products and services. Building campaign strategy and implementing IT solutions for marketing – campaign management tool.

Specialties: Brand Management, Data analytics, Loyalty program strategy development, loyalty program implementation, Promotions, Direct marketing, Campaign Management, Multi channel Marketing , CRM strategy and implementation Customer experience.

Vani Kola, MD - India, Kalaari Capital Advisors P Ltd

Vani Kola is a pioneer in India's venture capital industry. Her passion for supporting entrepreneurs drew her from Silicon Valley to Bangalore in 2006. Since then, she has been involved in enabling funding in more than 35 companies and also serves on the boards of HushBabies, Mettl, Urban Ladder and Zivame among others. Vani has the risk capacity to identify visionary ideas at an early stage, and is deeply committed to the success of entrepreneurs in Kalaari Capital's portfolio as well.

 

After completing her engineering degree, she went to the United States for a master's degree and worked in the technology sector, founding two successful companies in Silicon Valley. She spent 22 years in the U.S., but it took her only two months to decide to come back to India in 2006.

Vani Vangala, Product Business Manager, Infosys Finacle

Varad Pande, Sr. Partner, Dalberg Consulting

Varad is a Partner at Dalberg Advisors, where he leads of the Financial Services Practice area. Varad has held diverse roles across private sector and government, working on issues of financial inclusion, sustainable development and base-of-pyramid (BOP) business models.

Varad has done extensive work in financial inclusion and fintech in the last few years, and writes a column in MINT (http://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Author/Varad%20Pande).

Varad sits on the Technology Sub-Committee of the Reserve Bank of India’s Committee on Household Finances, and as part of this, is specifically looking at regulatory issues in household finance, including the concept of a fintech regulatory sandbox.
 
Varad recently led the design of a go-to-market strategy for a national payments app targeted at the mass market / low income segments. He also recently led a project to assess the future of digital finance in India—the Study used human-centred design methods to develop a deep consumer-centric, demand side perspective.
Varad has also led a long-term multiple stakeholder project with USAID, the Government of India, and private sector players for digital payments acceptance in India to facilitate and coordinate a Partnership of 35+ organizations with a common mission of expanding access to digital financial services for low-income communities in India. In addition, he led a global landscape study on P2G payments.

Before Dalberg, Varad was Special Advisor to India's Minister for Rural Development and Environment and Forests, where he drove the agenda on sustainable livelihoods, sanitation, environment and climate change. He was also a member of the Government of India’s Low Carbon Expert Group, a Principal Advisor to Abhijit Banerjee on the UN-SG’s Panel on the Post-2015 Agenda, and a Sherpa on the UN-SG’s Global Sustainability Panel. Varad led the implementation of the Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellowship, which is connecting India’s youth with grassroots development.

Previously, Varad was a Team Leader at the Monitor Group where he led the set up a national economic development agency and led a project to scale-up market-based business models that create social impact.

Varad holds an MPA in International Development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School, an MA in Economics from University of Cambridge, and a BA Honours in Economics from St. Stephens College, Delhi, and sits on the board of Lok Capital, a major impact investor.

 

Vardan Gandhi, Co-founder, Exampur

Vardan Gandhi (B.Tech) is the co-founder of Exampur. He has more than 5 years of entrepreneurial experience in the Ed-tech space. His entrepreneurial journey started from his college years. He has won many awards for his technological contribution to the startup ecosystem.Vardan is committed to continue providing best quality online training and education to not-so-privileged youth from remote areas. Exampur , which is led by Vivek Kumar and Vardan Gandhi is becoming a great example for social disruption in the affordable test preparation space.

Varoon Chandra, Partner, AZB & Partners

Varoon Chandra, Partner at AZB & Partners, earned his Bachelor of Law from the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research University of Law, Hyderabad, in 2004. He is a member of the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa. He has been a partner of the Firm since 2011.

The focal areas of his practice include Capital Markets, Securities Laws, Mergers & Acquisitions and Private Equity. He has been involved in a number of international and domestic capital market transactions, including issuances of FCCBs, ADRs and and GDRs as well as Indian initial public offers, rights issues and qualified institutions placements. He has also advised on a number of FCCB restructuring transactions undertaken by Indian issuers, including consent solicitations and exchange offers. He has advised on securities regulations issued by the Securities and Exchange Board of India pertaining to matters such as takeover regulations, the investment/acquisition of shares in Indian listed companies, insider trading in the context of investment/ acquisition of shares in Indian listed companies and the listing of companies on an Indian stock exchange. He has also advised on the structuring of joint venture companies and private equity investments and has assisted in drafting and negotiating documentation for such transactions.

Varsha Jhawar, Head - M&A and Investment Banking, Alantra India

Varsha Jhawar heads the India of Office of Alantra - a leading global investment bank, focusing on the mid-market, with offices across Europe, the US, Latin America and Asia. Alantra has more than 500 professionals across the globe providing independent advice on Mergers & Acquisitions, Debt Advisory, Financial Restructuring, Credit Portfolio and Capital Markets Transactions.

Varsha has over 13 years of experience across services in investment banking - M&A, private equity fund raising, debt capital raising, valuations and due diligence. She has been with Alantra since 2012 (as part of C.W.Downer & Co) and prior to that was working with BDO Consulting. She has worked on transactions across industries like Packaging, BPO, IT Services, Industrials, Logistics, Food and food Ingredients, Automotive and Aerospace Components, Consumer Products and Services, etc. She is a Chartered Accountant by profession.

Varsha Tagare, Director, Qualcomm Ventures

Varsha Tagare is a Director at Qualcomm Ventures India based in Mumbai. She has extensive operating and venture capital experience in Silicon Valley and India.

Varsha manages investments in AppsDaily, Apalya, Birds Eye Systems and Reverie Technologies for Qualcomm Ventures. Qualcomm ventures is a stage agnostic investor focused on mobile and internet sector.

Prior to her current role Varsha was at Intel Capital investing in US and Indian companies. Some of her investments include companies such as JAMDAT (IPO on NASDAQ), Mobile365 (acquired by Sybase), MontaVista, Pollex (acquired by Mediatek), PacketVideo (acquired by NTT), Canesta, MCX (IPO on BSE), enStage and Allied Digital.

Varsha has a MS (Electrical Engineering) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a BE (Electrical Engineering) from VJTI, University of Bombay.