Our speakers

Arnika Dixit, Vice President-Marketing, Head of Central Marketing Organization, American Express

Arnika Dixit -Vice President-Marketing, Head of Central Marketing Organization, Ameri-can Express, India. Arnika currently leads the integrated marketing organization for American Express in India and is part of India Business Leadership Team. She leads a team of marketers working across all Lines of Business of American Express in India: Consumer Services, Global Corporate Payments, Merchant Services and Global Prepaid. Functionally, she is responsible for Customer Marketing, Brand and Marketing communi-cations, Loyalty, Digital Capabilities such as Online and Cross Border commerce, Social & events. Arnika has held multiple roles within American Express starting from Member-ship Rewards, Customer Engagement to Product Management, Lending and Insurance. Arnika  is a post graduate in Management and is a bachelor in Honors in Economics.

Arpan Sheth, Partner, Bain & Company

Arpan Sheth is a partner in Bain & Company. He leads Bain’s Asia Pacific Information Technology and Digital practice as well as Bain India’s Private Equity practice. Arpan has been a part of the leadership team in Bain’s New York, Sydney and India offices over his career at Bain. He serves as office head for the firm’s Bengaluru office.

Arpan has nearly 25 years of consulting experience in the IT industry working with both CIOs and providers of enterprise technology products and services. Arpan has led large-scale transformation efforts in the IT organizations of leading companies across financial services, technology and telecommunications. He has also led strategy and customer-focused engagements with leading tech and IT enterprises across the US and India as well as focused-growth efforts with providers of enterprise software and hardware.

Prior to joining Bain in 2003, Arpan was a vice president of a systems integrator where he led large-scale SI programs. He was also a manager in the Strategic Information Technology practice of A.T. Kearney, where he focused on IT strategy and business technology issues in financial services.

Arpan received an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia and has a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia.

Arpinder Singh, EY India and Emerging Markets Leader, Forensic & Integrity Services

Arpinder has 25 years of experience in multi-jurisdiction investigations, forensic accounting and dispute advisory. He is the practice’s Global Managed Services Leader and a member of the Global Leadership Team. He has worked with corporates, regulators and law enforcement officials on many high profile and global investigations across sectors. Having acted as an expert forensic accountant in a number of disputes, he is consistently recognized as one of the foremost legal practitioners in the Who’s Who Legal

Arpit Agarwal, Director, Investment Team, Blume Ventures

Arpit Agrawal, Partner, Blume Ventures

Arpit Badjatya, CEO and MD, Serosoft Solutions

Arpit is an education technology thinker and innovator. He consults many leading educational institutions across India, Middle-east, Africa and APAC on using technology as a strategic tool for efficiency and success.

An ambitious edupreneur, Arpit has founded two education focussed ventures -

Serosoft Solutions: An award-winning educational technology company focussed on ERP solutions for education (Academia ERP)

CampusMall: A multi-channel brand licensing company focussed on school and college merchandise (www.campusmall.in)

He believes that the education sector in India, Middle East and APAC needs to transform to ensure big strides in overall development in these countries, and technology will prove to be the biggest enabler of such a transformation in the coming years. An avid speaker on education technology, he has also authored the ERP policy brief for Association of African Universities, which serves as a guideline for institutions to adopt automation.

Arpit is an MBA from the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and holds and engineering degree from the renowned Purdue University, USA. Prior to focussing on the ed tech sector, he worked with JP Morgan London as an investment banker and at Accenture Consulting as a strategy consultant.

Arpit Maheshwari, Vice President, Stellaris Venture Partners

Arpit believes that startups will use technology to solve uniquely Indian problems and create large world-class companies as a result. As a VC, he is looking forward to working with, and learning from, great entrepreneurs from the early stage of their journey. Prior to VC, Arpit donned many hats - he was a management consultant with BCG, ran product management for automotive and education startups, and corporate innovation for a large manufacturing house.

Arshdeep Singh Makker, Senior Director, Technology, Kapiva

Arumugham Mahendran, Chairman and Managing Director, Global Consumer Products

A Mahendran is an Indian entrepreneur and the Chairman and Managing Director of Global Consumer Products Private Limited, a ‘‘'synthetic startup’’' in the consumer goods sector. He is the former Managing Director of Godrej Consumer Products Limited.

Mahendran began his career as a partner with Chartered Accountancy firm RNG Price & Associates in 1980. In 1987, he partnered with R Mohan in Transelektra Domestic Products Limited to launch a brand of household insecticide called GoodKnight and Hit in India. He drove the business from a start-up to a Rs. 500 million brand in sales in a short span of seven years after which he sold the business to the Godrej Group in 1994 for Rs. 1 Billion.

Mahendran then became the Managing Director of Godrej Hicare Limited. Within a year he sold a 51% stake in Godrej Hicare Limited to the Sara Lee Corporation, USA, valuing the company at Rs. 3.8 Billion. In 2010, he acquired Sara Lee’s 51% for the Godrej Group and integrated the business with Godrej Consumer Products Limited. As Managing Director, Mahendran steered the merger and acquisition cell at Godrej Consumer Products Limited. Over a period of 3 years from 2010 to 2013, he also spearheaded Godrej Group’s inorganic growth around the globe through merger & acquisition. Some of the acquisitions concluded were Tura brands (Nigeria), Megasari (Indonesia), Issue Group (Argentina) and Darling Group (South Africa).

In 1996, Mahendran promoted a beverage company, GoodLife Industries Limited, focusing on South India and producing beverages under the brand name CheriO. This brand was subsequently bought by Global Consumer Products Private Limited.

In 2014, Mahendran created a synthetic start up, ‘’Global Consumer Products Private Limited’’ in the FMCG space. This joint venture along with private equity players Goldman Sachs (US) and Mitsui & Co. (Japan) was started on 1 February 2014. Mahendran is the promoter, shareholder, Chairman and Managing Director. The company has set up two offices (Bangalore and Mumbai) and developed and launched the chocolate brand, LuvIt, in the southern states of India.

Arun Duggal, Chairman, Shriram Capital Ltd

    

Arun Duggal is Chairman of Board of Directors of Shriram Capital, Shriram Transport Finance Company, Shriram Properties, Shriram City Union Finance, and Shriram EPC. He is also Chairman of Bellwether Microfinance Fund, which provides equity capital to promising Micro Finance organizations and helps them in capacity building.

Mr. Duggal is also a Senior Advisor to TPG Capital, a major Private Equity firm headquartered in San Francisco and Credit Asia Capital, Singapore. He is an experienced international Banker and has advised companies and financial institutions on Financial Strategy, M&A and Capital Raising. He is the Vice Chairman of International Asset Reconstruction Company and Indian Venture Capital Association. He was erstwhile Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce, India and was also on the Board of Governors of the National Institute of Bank Management.

He is on the Board of Directors of Jubilant Energy. Netherlands (Chairman Audit Committee), Patni Computers (Chairman, Audit Committee), Fidelity Fund Management, Manipal Acunova, Zuari Industries, Info Edge (Chairman Audit Committee), Dish TV, Mundra Port & SEZ, Hertz (India), Mortice Limited (Singapore) (Chairman of Audit Committee) and Bank of Bhutan. He is a member of the Investment Committee of Axis Private Equity.

Prior to joining Shriram Group, Mr. Duggal had a 26 years career with Bank of America, mostly in the U.S., Hong Kong and Japan. He spent ten years with the New York Corporate Office of Bank of America handling multinational relationships. He has also worked with BA Asia Limited, Hong Kong and HCL Technologies, India. Mr. Duggal is involved in several initiatives in social and education sectors. He is a Trustee of Centre for Civil Society, New Delhi, which focuses on improving the quality and access of education to students especially for the poor. He teaches a course on Venture Capital & Private Equity at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad as a visiting Professor.

Mr. Duggal holds an Mechanical Engineering degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi and holds a post graduate degree in management from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad.