Our speakers

Ankita Vashistha, CEO, Saha Fund

The SAHA Fund is run by CEO & Founder, Ankita Vashistha,  who has over 8 years of experience in private equity and venture capital across UK, US and Asia. Ankita is an electronics and communication engineering graduate from VTU and Masters in Finance and Management from UK's top business school, Cranfield school of Management, UK. Ankita works very actively in the start-up ecosystem in India, Philippines, Singapore, UK, USA to source, evaluate, mentor and invest in start-up companies. Ankita works closely with portfolio companies to help them create value, scale and expand leveraging technology. Previously she worked at Tholons capital, Aureos Capital and Abraaj Group. At Aureos Capital, Ankita was part of the global investor relations and portfolio management team based in London and was part of the team to raise 700M USD from cornerstone investors like CDC, Norfund, FMO, ADB for the group's regional funds. Ankita has experience working with a diverse investor set across Institutional investors, Development Finance Instituions, Banks, Fund of Funds, Family Offices and HNI's. She is an active member of the ecosystem and is part of the Indian Angel Network, NASSCOM and Google Campus.

Ankur Goel, Senior Director for Hybrid Work Solutions, HP India

Ankur Goel, Managing Director, India & SAARC, Poly

In his current role at Poly, Ankur is responsible for leading the company’s growth and revenue share in India.
With 23+ years of experience in general management, sales, and channel development in the UC industry, Ankur has a proven track record in transforming business and leading teams to new levels of growth and profitability.

In the past, Ankur has held Executive and Sales positions with several prominent organizations, including Qlik and Cisco. In addition, he has been instrumental in building Poly India team and business over the past six years.

Ankur Goel, Managing Director, Poly India & SAARC

In his current role at Poly, Ankur is responsible for leading the company’s growth and revenue share in India & SAARC.

With 21+ years of experience in general management, sales and channel development in the UC industry, Ankur has a proven track record in transforming business and leading teams to new levels of growth and profitability.

In the past, Ankur has held Executive and Sales positions with several major organizations including Qlik and Cisco. He has been instrumental in building Poly India team and business over the past six years.

Ankur Goyal, Founder & CEO, &Me

Ankur is a recent MBA graduate from Stanford. He is passionate about Indian Consumer market and recently moved to India to start his food & beverage company. He is an Industrial engineer from IIT Delhi.

He has extensive experience in food & beverage world in India. He worked for 3 years with Nestle - setting up a Noodle R&D Center, transferring technology from Nestle Singapore and working on Product Development (Noodles). He also played instrumental role as Innovation Officer at PaperBoatDrinks - setting up a factory in Mysore, handling new product innovation and introducing new production technologies.

He is the founder of Merhaki Foods, that owns the brand &Me - Women's Health Drinks.

Ankur Gupta, Managing Partner, Real Estate, Brookfield Asset Management

Ankur Gupta is a Managing Partner in Brookfield’s Real Estate Group, Country Head for Brookfield in India, and Head of Real Estate for India and the Middle East. In these roles, he oversees all of Brookfield’s activities in India, and Brookfield’s real estate business in India and the Middle East.

Prior to joining Brookfield in 2012, Mr. Gupta worked for a leading real estate development firm.

Mr. Gupta holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Ankur Jain, Founder, Cerana Beverages Pvt. Ltd.

Ankur Panchbudhe, Co-founder and CTO, Vaultize

Ankur drives strategy and R & D efforts at Vaultize. He brings more than 13 years of product research, development and strategy experience in data protection and security, content management and storage software.

Earlier, through acquisition of Reconnex, Ankur was a Software Architect for the market-leading Data Loss Prevention (DLP) product at McAfee. Before Reconnex, Ankur worked for Symantec in their Data Protection and Archiving groups. He also worked with VERITAS Software in their Volume Manager group and at the CTO office.

Ankur holds 30 US patents and has more pending in the fields of data protection, information security, electronic discovery, archiving, content management, compliance software and storage software.

Ankur did his Masters in computer science and engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay (Mumbai). He did his Bachelors in computer science and engineering from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), Nagpur.

Ankur Shah, Head of Sector - Strategies & Education Portfolio Lead, Acumen Fund

Ankur leads overall sector strategy for our investments and has direct responsibility for the Education portfolio. Prior to this, Ankur has played multiple roles at Acumen, including Interim India Director and global Business Development Manager. Before he joined Acumen, Ankur worked for several years with leading private investors focused on financial access, energy and clean water for low-income markets in India. He also helped set up WaterHealth India, which now serves ~600 villages with drinking water; and managed a project for Robin Hood Foundation to build libraries in 25+ New York City public schools, now serving ~20,000 students. Ankur started his career with McKinsey & Company advising Fortune 100 companies in the US and Europe on M&A and growth opportunities.

Ankur has an Architecture degree from Cornell University, and a Masters in International Development from Harvard's Kennedy School, where he was a Reynolds and a Soros Fellow. Ankur is also an Advisory Board member for the Centre for Civil Society, an independent non-profit research and education organization in Delhi. 

Ankur Singla, Founder & CEO, Akosha

Ankur is the founder and CEO of Akosha. He left his cushy job as a corporate legal advisor at Linklaters LLP, London to start Akosha in 2010. Akosha helps consumers and brands in resolving customer service issues. He has built Akosha from scratch to a 100+ organization. A graduate of National Law School of India, Bangalore, Ankur is a classic-film buff, and loves reading biographies.