Our speakers

Vikram Puri, CEO, Mahindra ShubhLabh Services Ltd

Vikram Puri is a post graduate in Agriculture (Plant Breeding & Genetics) from the Punjab Agricultural University, and has done his Executive Management from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (MEP).

With 30 years experience as an agribusiness professional, Vikram has been associated with several Indian companies engaged in the production & marketing of agricultural inputs and output.  He has held senior positions in marketing & business development, operations, Policy, Strategy and other key functions. He has received specialised training in Process technology (Seeds and Horticulture) from Sweden & Holland and has successfully handled technology transfers, Project Management & Commissioning of advanced Agribiotechnology Projects, design & financial restructuring of businesses & projects. He has also initiated Greenfield JVs with Asian & European companies engaged in Horticulture and Plant biotechnology, aimed at product delivery to Indian, European and South East Asian Markets.

Vikram Puri has chaired the CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) Agri Services Showcase in 2008 in Chandigarh, which is India’s premier biennial Agro Technology and Business Fair. Vikram has played a significant role in serving on the Agribusiness Committees of the CII, Chandigarh and Delhi Chapters as well as at the Bombay Chambers of Commerce & Industry. He is presently serving on the CII AgroTech 2014 Steering Committee. He is frequently invited to speak at various seminars on agribusiness around the country and at leading Management Institutes such as at NIAM, IIMA and Harvard Business School to share his rich & varied experience in Agribusiness.

Vikram Puri is Chief Executive Officer at Mahindra Shubhlabh Services Ltd.and also oversees the roll out of developing of a rural marketing network for Agricultural Products (Crop Care & Nutrition) at Mahindra Agribusiness. Over the eight years that Vikram has taken a leadership position at Mahindra Agribusiness, MSSL has emerged as the leading Indian Fresh Grape exporter to Europe and also developed a strong and growing position in the Crop Care  & Seed potato industry in India.

During his career, Vikram has been instrumental in executing India’s first large scale Contract Farming Program for production of Industrial Softwoods (60,000 acres) which is regarded as a showcase initiative that successfully delivered its corporate objectives in the farm forestry area. 

Vikram Raju, Executive Director, Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment

Vikram Raju, Principal Investment Officer - South Asia, IFC

Vikram Raju is a Principal Investment Officer at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and is the Regional Lead in South Asia for IFC’s private equity funds and co-investment program. Vikram previously served as the Acting Regional Lead for East Asia.

 

Vikram has led over 40 investments in venture capital and private equity funds in India, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Poland and Mexico.

 

Prior to the IFC, Vikram spent over 15 years in the private sector in a career that included roles as an emerging markets fund manager with Lazard Frères and as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company.

 

Vikram has a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University where he specialized in International Finance. He also holds a Masters in Management Studies (Finance) from the Bajaj Institute and a BA in Economics St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Vikram is a CFA charter holder.

Vikram Sharma, Director, India Value Fund Advisors

Vikram joined IVFA in 2014 and in based in Mumbai. He is closely involved in supporting and building IVFA companies across different sectors including food services, construction materials and manufacturing.

He has a Bachelor in Industrial Engineering degree with Gold Medal from Thapar University - Patiala, Masters in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and an MBA from Harvard University.

Prior to joining IVFA, Vikram had 15 years of experience, having been the CEO of BP Ergo Ltd and HUSCO Hydraulics India Ltd, with established track record in building a business from scratch as well as leading a turnaround. Before that he worked with McKinsey and Company in the United States and Asea Brown Boveri in India.

Vikram Upadhyaya, CO- Founder, Team India Group of Companies, MERINEWS & TiE Tokyo Chapter

Vikram is a visionary & an entrepreneur, holds 13 years of Indo-Japanese Market Experience. He is a technocrat turned entrepreneur holding a Masters Degree in Computer Science from the University of Tokyo, Japan. An alumnus of the famous TRON laboratory headed by Prof.Ken Sakamura (www.t-engine.org), who is known as the father of Ubiquitous Computing.

Vikram is the co-founder and Group President of Team India Group of Companies, diversified from Information Technology to Internet Media, Human Resourcing, Infrastructure, Consulting& Advisory, Hospitality& Entertainment.
Working closely for almost a decade with Japanese Companies like Sony, NTTDATA, NTTDOCOMO, SEGA, Fujitsu, NEC, Daiwa, Mizuho,Toshiba, Mitsubishi and being instrumental for some of the Fortune 500 Japanese Companies India Market Entry.
He is also a co-founder & promoter of India's first citizens participatory media platform "MERINEWS" (www.merinews.com).

He is the Founding Director and Charter Member of TiE Tokyo Chapter and promoting Indo-Japan cross border entrepreneurs eco-system.

Besides been a nominated member in Indo-Japan ICT Committee (Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications, Japan), he has been associated for a long time with Institutes like, IEEE, ACM, Global Industrial & Social Progress Research Institute (www.gispri.or.jp) and International University of Japan. He is an active angel investor from Indian Angel Network.

Vikram Utamsingh, Co-Head India & MD -Transactions Advisory Group, Alvarez & Marsal | @alvarezmarsal

Vikram Utamsingh is Co-Head of A&M India and a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal’s Transactions Advisory Group in Mumbai. He brings 20 years of experience in Indian mergers and acquisitions. His primary areas of concentration are due diligence services and corporate finance services.

He has worked with clients across a range of industries, including industrial, consumer and private equity. Mr. Utamsingh’s areas of expertise are analyzing quality of earnings, evaluating cash flows in terms of key business drivers, analyzing strengths and weaknesses of balance sheets, identifying related-party and unusual transactions, accounting for mergers and acquisitions, reviewing purchase and sale agreements and assessing compliance with Indian GAAP and IFRS.

Before joining A&M, Mr. Utamsingh spent 15 years with KPMG India Private Ltd., where he held several leadership positions. He established and led the Transactions Due Diligence practice from 2004 to 2009 and the M&A Strategy practice from 2007 to 2009. Most recently, he served as the Head of Transactions and Restructuring overseeing the due diligence business, M&A strategy business, valuations business and the corporate finance business.

Key accomplishments include: achieving a leadership position in M&A transactions, working on 100 PE transactions in 2012; helping KPMG’s corporate finance business to advance in 2012 to a number-two ranking in Thomson Reuters’ Indian M&A league tables; and building the largest M&A strategy business group serving both private equity and corporate clients. In addition, he published a detailed assessment of Returns from Indian Private Equity transactions in 2011, and he has provided transaction services to more than 50 private equity clients.

Mr. Utamsingh earned a bachelor’s degree in commerce and accounting from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics and is a dual Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He is a member of the Institute of Directors in the U.K. and is fluent in English and Hindi.

Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix Partners

Vikram is a Managing Director at Matrix India, an early stage VC firm. He has led over 10 investments as part of the Matrix team.

He partners with founders across sectors including Mobile, Education tech, Video, Local services, SME Tech and SaaS.

He is an MBA from IIM Bangalore and an engineer trained at RVCE Bangalore. Vikram started with a background in embedded systems and wireless technology companies and worked in McKinsey across multiple sectors.

Vikram Vora, CEO, Mydentist | @mydentistindia

Vikram Vora is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mydentist, India's largest chain of dental clinics. Mydentist owns and operates 112 dental clinics across 7 Cities, which are company owned and have a centralized management/ procurement process.  With a mission of making dental treatment affordable and accessible for all, Mydentist has treated more than 600,000 patients in a span of less than five years. Mydentist has total staff strength of over 1400 people, which included over 500 dentists.

Vikram has a Bachelor’s in Production Engineering and a Masters in Management Studies both from the Mumbai University. Among his recognitions and awards, he has been recognized as one of 100 most creative people in the world by Fast Company in 2014;  awarded the TiE Lumis Entrepreneurial Excellence Award 2013; awarded the VCCircle Healthcare Award in  2014  for Emerging Healthcare Company of the Year for Mydentist; featured on list of hottest young entrepreneurs by Business World in 2013 and featured on the list 11 Startups to watch for in 2012 by Forbes India.

@vora_vikram

Vikram Vuppala, Founder and CEO, NephroPlus

Vikram Vuppala is Founder & CEO of India’s largest dialysis network - NephroPlus. After spending 10 years in the US healthcare industry, his passion to redefine healthcare delivery in India prompted him to found NephroPlus in 2010. He has expanded NephroPlus to Asia’s leading dialysis network of 385+ centers in 230 cities across 4 Countries. NephroPlus has rapidly grown under Vikram’s leadership to become 6th largest dialysis network in the world. He had raised more than $100 MM in 5 rounds of Private equity funding over last 10 years from Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), IFC (World Bank VC arm), Investcorp and IIFL.

Vikram’s vision of enabling people on dialysis worldwide lead long, happy and productive lives has enabled NephroPlus to redefine dialysis care across 4 countries and has positioned itself well to disrupt several other regions across the World in the near future.

Prior to founding NephroPlus, Vikram was a strategy consultant at McKinsey in the US. Vikram with over two and half decades of global healthcare experience has helped various healthcare firms on strategic issues such as business development, growth strategy, portfolio rationalization, and M&A. Prior to McKinsey, he worked at Abbott Healthcare and ZS Associates.
 
He has been a speaker at numerous international entrepreneurial, healthcare and investment conferences. Vikram did his B.Tech. from IIT-Kharagpur, M.S. from The University of Illinois, Chicago and an MBA from Chicago Booth.

Vikrant Khorana, VP and Business Head, PayU India

Vikrant Khorana is Vice President & Business Head for Non-Ecommerce Business at PayU India. He is responsible for strategic verticals like Government, Telecom, Insurance, Education, Real estate, Banking & Financial Services and Airlines. His experience includes strategic direction, product and technology solutions, restructuring, entry strategy formulation, cost management and business process reengineering.

Vikrant has global experience and has held key positions in multinational organizations. His experience spans across Telecom, Mobile & Internet and IT industry with reputed brands like Indiatimes, Wipro US, Tencent and Ibibo Group. He headed Business Development & Strategy with Tencent India, where he held a key role in building the product WeChat. Prior to this, he helped grow business for Communication, Media & Telecom vertical at Wipro for 5 years in US.

Vikrant holds an MBA degree in IS & IT from Coventry University, UK and an Engineering degree in Computer Science.