Our speakers

Vijay Vasudevan, Head of Business Solutions Group (BSG), Suryoday Bank

CIO Certified professional having 22+ years of experience across banking and driving transformations at various Banks and non-Banking financial firms in India Has strong experience in defining business & IT strategy, executing digital transformations and delivering value at several process areas across lending value chain and delivered core applications like CRM, LOS and Portfolio Management Platforms. Has expertise in various functional areas in Banking like sales & origination, fulfilment, operations, product management, customer experience, credit underwriting, risk management, collections & recoveries, analytics, business intelligence and regulatory compliance. Has proficiency in managing current state assessment, target state design, gap analysis, requirement gathering, project management and implementation of multiple Banking applications.

Vijaya Pastala, Founder & CEO, Under The Mango Tree

Vijaya's passion lies in developing community based, pro-poor approaches for environmentally sustainable economic development in India. Before establishing UTMT, she worked as a development professional with the World Bank, KFW, European Commission, DFID, and the Aga Khan Foundation primarily on livelihood and natural resource management. Vijaya's competencies include community-based livelihood and poverty analysis and enhancement programming, strategic development analysis, capacity strengthening and communication.

She has a Bachelor's in International Relations and Women's Studies from Mount Holyoke College, USA and a Masters in Regional planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Besides helming UTMT, Vijaya tries to be the best possible mom to her twelve-year-old and catch up on her reading. She is also a foodie and tries the local fare wherever she is.

@vijayapastala

Vijender Singh, CEO, Metropolis Healthcare Ltd.

Mr. Vijender Singh is the Chief Executive Officer of Metropolis Healthcare Ltd. Mr. Singh joined Metropolis Healthcare Ltd in 2016 and is responsible for driving the overall growth of the organization. His key role is to lead strategic initiatives and execution with best practices, innovation and drive the management team.

Mr. Singh kick-started his career with Blow Plast Ltd, with Leo-Mattel toys and worked there for six years in sales and distribution function and moved on to Bausch & Lomb and had a stint of almost six years in sales, customer relationship management and helped in setting up after sales service. He then ventured into the Consumer Healthcare segment with Ranbaxy. At Ranbaxy, he had set up the Sales & Development model for India and worked on product development along with marketing Team. He then moved on to Dr Lal Path Labs wherein he was instrumental in strategic initiatives and rolled out an aggressive growth path for the company and helped built a culture of Meritocracy apart from shaping careers and development plan for people. He was also responsible for Indian and International expansion and is credited with turning around the company’s top line & bottom line over a period of decade. He was also part of the team which lead the company to a successful IPO. In each of his assignment and throughout the course of his career, he has grown strength to strength as a professional and has worked his way up the corporate ladder.

A seasoned and effective communicator, Mr. Singh is driven to perform, succeed and excel. He firmly believes in adopting innovative strategies and solutions to sales and marketing challenges. A people’s leader, his expertise lies in business models, operations and P&L management.

Mr. Singh is a Science Graduate and did an Executive Education Programme from ISB. In addition, he has also completed UCLA programme for Disruptive Innovation from Haas School of Management, California, organized by AIMA.

Vik Mehrotra, CEO & CIO, Venus Capital

Vik is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Venus Capital Management, Inc, Boston, MA, USA. Vik has been actively investing in Asia since 1989 and Venus focusses on low risk, alpha generating strategies from India. Venus recently started an NBFC in India, funded by US and European pension and sovereign wealth plans. Venus has offices in Boston, London and Delhi.

Prior to founding Venus, Vik worked at UBS. Vik has a Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneur (www.tie.org), Boston chapter, and a member of the Young Presidents Organization (www.ypo.org), New England chapter.

Vikaas Gutgutia, MD, Ferns N Petals

Vikaas Gutgutia, is the master mind behind Ferns N Petals, he established in 1994. With an objective to serve world class facility to Indian customers and the highest quality along with widest varieties of domestic & exotic flowers, FNP has diversified into various other flower related fields, the biggest being wedding décor; in less than a decade under his leadership.

FNP Group encompassing , FNP Events & Weddings, Ferns N Petals Retail (Franchising & E-commerce), FNP Marketing, FNP Rentals and the latest venture ‘FNP Tahiliani’. Today top celebs, entrepreneurs, key industrialists, designers and politicos of the entire country constitute FNP’s clientele, the list is ever growing.

Vikas Agarwal, General Manager, India, OnePlus | @OnePlus_IN

Vikas Agarwal is the General Manager - India at OnePlus. At OnePlus, he is responsible for driving strategic partnerships and the fully localized service operations in India.

Overall, Vikas has close to 12 years of cross-functional experience across private equity, real estate and e-commerce domains. Prior to joining OnePlus, Vikas served as a Director of Corporate Excellence at IBIBO (part of MIH-Naspers Group) where he led the business operations of their marketplace vertical.

Earlier, he was part of the founding team and part of the investment team at Ivanhoe Cambridge India (real estate vertical of La Caisse, one of the biggest pension fund in North America).

In 2004, Vikas graduated from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi with B.Tech and M.Tech degrees in Chemical Engineering. Later, he received his Masters in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad in 2007. Vikas currently lives in Bengaluru, along with his wife and son.

@Vikas_AGL

Vikas Chimakurthy, Director, Kotak Reality Fund

Vikas Chimakurthy is a part of the leadership team at Kotak Realty Fund that manages over US$ 1 billion of funds under management. He joined the Kotak Mahindra group in 1999 and has approximately 17 years of work experience.

Prior to joining the Fund in 2007, Vikas worked with Kotak Investment Banking where he headed the real estate and energy sectors. Vikas set up real estate coverage for Kotak Investment Banking. Vikas successfully led M&A transactions across sectors such as energy, telecom, technology, media and chemicals.

Vikas received an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T.-Delhi) and completed his MBA from Faculty of Management Studies (Delhi University).

Vikas Choudhury, Managing Director, Aimia Inc

Vikas Choudhury is currently Managing Director of Aimia India, and part of the Global Leadership Team of the world’s largest loyalty marketing company (TSX: AIM).  For Aimia, he has also lead a JV with the Tata Group and a strategic PE investment in Fractal Analytics.  He has over 15 years of experience in executive management roles in consulting, venture capital, retail, technology and analytics.

He is a board member / advisor and an active angel investor with successful investments in over 20 consumer and technology businesses like Myntra, InMobi, Zipdial, Hotelogix and AppsDaily.  He is a co-founding investor in Mumbai Angels.  He has also run a luxury home store retailer, founded and sold a Red Herring Top Asia 100 enterprise performance management and data analytics business, and led a surveillance systems company managing security solutions.  He started his career with Arthur Andersen and CSC in USA.

He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and an MBA from University of Pittsburgh, USA.  He has been named Asia's Top 50 Retail Professionals, and is a national award winning photographer.

Vikas Choudhury, CEO, AIMIA

Vikas Choudhury is currently COO & CFO of Aimia India. Vikas has over 15 years of experience in executive management roles in retail, analytics, technology, venture capital and consulting. 

Prior to Aimia India, he has founded and sold a Red Herring Top Asia 100 enterprise performance management and data analytics business, run a luxury home store retailer and led a surveillance systems company managing security solutions. Vikas has been a co-founding angel investor in Mumbai Angels. Vikas started his career with Arthur Andersen and CSC in USA. 

Vikas is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and University of Pittsburgh.

Vikas Dawra, Managing Director - Investment Banking, YES Bank Ltd

Vikas Dawra is Managing Director - Investment Banking at YES BANK. He has extensive experience in the Investment Banking industry across a range of industries and geographies. At YES BANK, Vikas has led cross-border M&A, private equity placements, IPO and FCCB issues. His team focuses on E-Commerce, Information Technology, life sciences, natural resources, metals, FMCG and food & agri among other industries. Besides India, he has led successful transactions in US, Netherlands, France, Israel, Greece and Africa.

Prior to joining YES BANK, he was Associate Director, M&A at Rabo India Finance, Mumbai. Vikas also spent 5 years with Arthur Andersen both in Delhi and Mumbai, where he worked in the M&A division and focused on the life sciences and telecommunications sector.

Vikas holds a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from PEC, Chandigarh and an MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi.