Our speakers

Sunish Sharma, Managing Partner, Kedaara Capital Advisors LLP

Sunish Sharma is the Managing Partner of Kedaara Capital Advisors LLP, a private equity investment advisory firm focused on India that he co-founded. Kedaara partners with strong entrepreneurs and management teams to build enduring value in growth-oriented businesses, and supports them to achieve higher levels of performance. Kedaara also actively engages with family owned business to identify and create carve-out plays, with a focused approach to create a win-win situation for promoters and Kedaara. Kedaara offers solution oriented capital combined with deep strategic and operational expertise in focused sectors, leveraging consultative approach and global connectivity to deliver superior returns. The firm has a strategic tie-up with Clayton Dubilier and Rice.

Prior to co-founding Kedaara, Sunish served as a Managing Director at the global private equity firm, General Atlantic, where he was a senior member of the India investment team since the start of 2004 and the second employee hired in the Mumbai office. Over the course of almost eight years at GA, Sunish played a critical lead advisory role in the majority of GA’s investments, and in the latter part of his career with GA played a key role in building GA’s local Indian investment program into a $1 billion portfolio by late 2011. He has extensive private equity investment experience in business services and technology, healthcare, financial services and the energy and resources sectors.  

Prior to GA, he worked as a management consultant at McKinsey in India for over six years. He spent the majority of his time on strategic issues serving several Indian and MNC clients on multiple engagements and M&A transactions. He co-authored the first two NASSCOM-McKinsey reports on the information technology and business process outsourcing sectors. These reports are generally regarded as the authoritative research reports on each respective industry sector.

Sunish is a gold medalist from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta where he did his MBA after graduating with honors from Delhi University. Sunish also holds a cost accounting degree.

Sunish currently serves on the boards of Mahindra Logistics Limited, Manjushree Technopack Limited, Spandana Sphoorty Financial Limited and Vedant Fashion Private Limited (Manyavar). In the past, he has served on several other boards including that of Bill Forge Private Limited, Hexaware Limited, Cyient Limited, and IBS Software Services Limited amongst others. Sunish strongly believes education is the best way to give back to the society, and accordingly is one of the Founders of Ashoka University, a philanthropic initiative to provide a liberal education on par with the best universities around the world. He is also one of the founders of Young India Fellowship, launched in 2011 in collaboration with University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences to develop change agents for India through a multi-disciplinary programme.

In 2011, he was profiled as one of the “25 hottest young executives below 40 in India” by Business Today, the leading business magazine in India.  In December 2011-January 2012, in the 20th anniversary issue of Business Today, he was also profiled as one of the Top 20 professional which represent the future of Indian Business “The Next Big Guns”. He has spoken at various conferences on PE in India and the region.

Sunita Handa, Chief General Manager (IT_Channels & Ops), State Bank of India

State Bank of India’s first lady CGM to head IT_Channels & Ops, Ms Sunita Handa has over 3 decades of insightful experience in various spheres of banking; more than half of it in technology initiatives and implementations, involving inter-alia, TechChannels, Payment Systems, Digital Solutions for Retail, Corporates & Govts and digitalisation of SBI’s overseas offices.  
 
She was posted in Frankfurt (2008 to 2012) as Sr VP to head Bank’s IT operations in Germany. 
An energetic and enthusiastic Team Leader with a proven track record of business & revenue enhancement and stepping up digital transformation through large scale technology projects using her exceptional analytical skills. 
Presently, Ms Handa heads the teams that are responsible for developing and implementing Bank's various technology initiatives in Mobility, e-Commerce, ATMs, UPI, SWIFT, Treasury, Payments Hub, Digital Collections/ Payments/ Cash Management for MSMEs, Corporates and Govts. as also the tech operations in Bank’s offices in 25 countries across the Globe. 
 
Prior to the current assignment, she headed the whole business and operations of 400 + branches of SBI in Central & South Gujarat. 
 
Ms. Sunita Handa holds a Masters degree in Science, specialising in Mathematics, a Course in Computer Applications (CCA) and is a Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB).

Sunita Rebecca Cherian, Chief Culture officer & SVP, Wipro

Sunitha Lal, CHRO, Ather Energy

Suniti Nanda, Fintech Officer, Government of Maharashtra

Sunjay Guleria, Co-Founder and CEO, Sher Singh & Exclusively.in

Sunjay Guleria is the brains behind the exciting new venture Exclusively.In. He launched the website in June 2010, in the hopes of creating a convenient portal to all things Indian. In its first five months, the website pulled in 50,000 new members, offering them luxury fashion, lifestyle and travel products from India. Big-name designers have partnered with Exclusively.In— Manish Arora, Rohit Bal, Ranna Gill and Payal Singhal—as well as a list of up-and-coming designers, making this website the hottest place to shop.

Guleria got his feet wet with an undergraduate degree from New York University's Stern School and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Guleria started his career with Procter & Gamble, spending six years in Italy as a senior brand manager.

He joined the startup company and digital music pioneer Liquid Audio in 1999. Two years later, he co-founded MusiKube, and as the CEO, steered the multi-million dollar business towards new heights of success.

Guleria has also worked as the vice president of marketing for the travel events website Going.com and he helped facilitate the sale of Going.com to AOL in June 2009.

Sunny Sharma, Sr MD, OrbiMed Advisors

Dr. Sunny Sharma is a Senior Managing Director on the Asia team of OrbiMed Advisors. Dr. Sharma has more than 10 years of life sciences experience spanning venture capital, investment banking, and clinical practice.

Dr. Sharma was previously with Investor Growth Capital (IGC), the wholly owned global venture capital arm of Investor AB, and before that he was at Easton Capital, a venture capital fund in New York. While at IGC and Easton Capital, Dr. Sharma led or played a senior role on over a dozen life sciences investments. Earlier in his career, Dr. Sharma was with Lehman Brothers' healthcare investment banking group in London, and before that he practiced medicine in northern India.

Dr. Sharma holds an M.B.A. from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and a medical degree (M.B.B.S.) from Christian Medical College, Ludhiana where he was awarded the Vipin Khanna Memorial Gold Medal for graduating as the best intern.

Sunoor Kaul, Director, Origo Commodities India Pvt Ltd

Sunoor Kaul is a Director of Origo Commodities. Prior to founding Origo Commodities, Sunoor worked in investment banking with Bank of America in New York and with the General Electric Company in Bangalore and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

At Bank of America's Healthcare Investment Banking division in New York, Sunoor executed several multi-billion dollar M&A deals and debt and equity offerings. At General Electric, Sunoor worked in various leadership roles in manufacturing, sourcing, materials management, logistics and finance

Sunoor holds a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (India) and an MBA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (Michigan).

Supam Maheshwari, Co-founder & CEO, FirstCry.com

An IIM Ahmedabad pass out and an Engineer from Delhi College of Engineering, SupamMaheshwari, CEO and Founder of Firstcry.com, started the company in the year 2010. Prior to launching Firstcry.com, he was the co-founder and CEO of Brainvisa Technologies, one of the largest eLearning company, and was associated with the company from 2000 to 2009.

A first generation entrepreneur, the need to do something on his own led him to open his Firstcry.com. During his Brainvisa days, when Supam had just become a father, he used to travel abroad frequently. As choices for baby products in India were quite limited around eight years ago, he used to buy a lot of them during his business trips. Thus he discovered an opportunity and conceptualised FirstCry.com. Today FirstCry is largest online shopping portal for kids, and expecting moms in Asia.

As the CEO of Firstcry.com, Supam leads and oversees the implementation of the company’s long and short term plans in accordance with its strategy. An exemplary leader, Supam believes in leading by example and is always the first one to take the initiative, guiding and directing the team to achieve greater heights.

Supam has a sharp business mind-set and is very details oriented. An unwavering passion for customer service, he believes that one of the biggest features and the most significant competitive edge of a company giving personalized attention to the customers and he strives to achieve that with his employee strength of 700 people.

He loves running and playing squash.

Supam Maheshwari, Co-founder & CEO, FirstCry.com

An IIM Ahmedabad MBA student and a Mechanical Engineer, Supam Maheshwari, CEO and Founder of FirstCry.com, started the company in the year 2010. Prior to launching FirstCry.com, Supam was the co-founder and CEO of Brainvisa Technologies, one of the largest e-Learning company, and was associated with the company from 2000 to 2009.

A first generation entrepreneur, the need to do something on his own led him to open his FirstCry.com. During his Brainvisa days, when Supam had just become a father, he used to travel abroad frequently. As choices for baby products in India were quite limited around eight years ago, he used to buy a lot of them during his business trips. Thus he discovered an opportunity and conceptualised FirstCry.com. Today FirstCry is India’s largest omni-channel shopping destination for babies, kids, and expecting moms.

As the CEO of FirstCry.com, Supam leads and oversees the implementation of the company’s long and short term plans in accordance with its strategy. An exemplary leader, Supam believes in leading by example and is always the first one to take the initiative, guiding and directing the team to set & achieve greater heights.