Our speakers

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.

Varghese Thomas, Partner, JSA Advocates & Solicitors

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.

Varun Alagh, Founder & CEO, MamaEarth

The idea of a 100% toxin-free baby products brand MamaEarth came to Varun and his partner & Co-Founder Ghazal when they became parents and had a difficult time finding chemical-free products for their son.

Varun Alagh comes with over 10+ years of leadership experience in sales and marketing roles with world-renowned FMCG brands. Varun started his career with Hindustan Unilever and has, twice been listed amongst the top managers in HUL. He then went on to become the Senior Brand Manager at Diageo. As a part of this assignment, Varun managed the ATL, BTL, Digital & Trade activations for Smirnoff across India. Varun has also completed a four-year stint with Coca-Cola as the Senior Brand Manager and has been instrumental in launching Coke Zero in India. During his corporate stint, he has won multiple recognitions including Business Unit Presidents Award, Above and Beyond Award and I am Diageo Award. Varun leverages his understanding of the FMCG market to develop, distribute and market MamaEarth's 100% toxin-free products.

He holds a Masters in Finance and Marketing from XLRI, Jamshedpur, and Bachelors in Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering (DCE).

Varun Chopra, Co-Founder & CEO, EDUVANZ FINANCING PRIVATE LIMITED