Our speakers

Ashutosh Phatak, Co-founder & Sr. MD, The True School of Music

Ashu, as he is better known, is an award-winning multi-instrumental music composer and producer, who has released over 15 contemporary music albums in the past two decades. He is one of the most sought-after composers in advertising and films, having composed music for over 3,000 television commercials and the soundtracks for 10 feature films.

He recently composed the music for the acclaimed documentary, Fire in the Blood, released in the US in 2012, and nominated in the World Cinema category at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival 2013.

Besides being a popular live musician and a regular on the festival circuit, Ashu is also one of the co-founders of India's premier live music venue chain, Blue Frog.

Ashutosh Singh, CEO, NSDL Payments Bank

Ashutosh Singh is C.A. and M.B.A. with invaluable experience of starting new businesses and taking them to industry leading positions, setting up processes and optimizing costs through innovation and digital initiatives. Over the years, he has built a successful track record of delivering on key business metrics of Market Share Growth and Profitability, always in the process enhancing the Customer journey through all touch points.

Channel Management and Team management have been a forte as evidenced by a successful career in collaborating and creating symbiotic partnerships with PSU banks such as SBI and private sector banks such as Axis.

He has been scratch building and scaling Digital and Offline businesses, with efficient designing and implementation of robust processes and team building.

Working with regulators, external vendors, Channel Partners, internal IT , Operations and Compliance teams to deliver on new business opportunities. This spans the stages from identifying the opportunity, all the way through to Go Live.

Some of his notable achievements are:-

• Led the sales efforts in making Axis Securities the Pan India Market Leader in FY'17 and FY'18 in incremental Client Acquisition.
• Bagged a hat-trick of awards over 3 consecutive years (FY’13 to FY’15) by Dun and Bradstreet for being the Best Growing Broking House in India.
• Led the efforts in making Axis Securities the first bank led broker to offer a completely digital customer onboarding journey.
• Part of the core team that launched the disruptive Trade@20 product in India.
• Led the efforts in making SBI and MOSL the most successful tie up in India between a PSU bank and a broking entity.
• Consistent Top Rater over the years across multiple organisations.

Ashwani Khare, Partner Corporate Finance, KPMG in India

Ashwani Khare, Partner Corporate Finance, KPMG India Pvt Ltd with qualification in BE (Electrical & Electronics) and Master in Business Administration (Finance) has over 12 years of experience in Investment Banking and Financial Services Consulting.  

Mr. Ashwani has worked extensively with the PE players in India and has successfully closed several PE transactions. He has been instrumental in successful closure of Polycab transaction which involved close to USD 100 mn equity funding from IFC Washington.Some of his other successfully completed PE deals include Electrotherm, Gini Jony, Maxwell, Salzer , EMI Transmission. He has also completed one of the cross border M&A deals involving the sale promoters’ stake in Indotech Transformers to General Electric USA as one of the marquee deals in the transformer sector in India. He has also carried out valuations in the cement, power and metals sector including key valuations for  CESC, Neelanchal Ispat, Essar, Ultratech, Rallis and Suzlon.He currently focuses on Merger & Acquisitions, Valuations and Private Equity transactions in the Industrial Markets space for KPMG.

Ashwanth M.P, Chief Executive Officer, Kinemach Engineering and Machines Pvt Ltd

Kinemach Engineering and Machines Pvt Ltd is a product and service company which is involved in R&D and Sales of Agro Machines by which they sell their own patented products and as a service provide R&D services such as Reverse Engineering, New Product Development, Design validation etc.

Ashwanth is a Mechanical Engineer and has done his B.Tech ME from Cochin University. He has grassroots level knowledge about the Indian Agriculture and rural community and holds patent for his innovations in the area of Agricultural Machines. He has a good understanding about the jugaad or frugal innovation techniques of Research & Development at small and medium scale industries of India with limited resources to adapt Indian conditions where he was also involved in several projects of product innovation and reverse engineering.

He is presently the CEO of Kinemach Engineering and Machines Pvt Ltd which was founded by him along with his friend Jerish John in 2014. The IIM Ahmadabad and Mahindra Group have invested in his venture.

Ashwin Damera, CEO, Eruditus & Emeritus

Ashwin Moduga , Head - Research, Mosaic Digital

Ashwin Moduga, Head - Research, Mosaic Digital

Ashwin Ramanathan, Partner, AZB & Partners

Ashwin Ramanthan is a partner at AZB & Partners, Mumbai. He graduated with a B.A. LLB. (Hons.) degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore in 2000. He is registered as an advocate with the Bar Council of Maharashtra & Goa.

He began his career with ICICI Limited (the development finance institution that later merged into ICICI Bank) and joined AZB & Partners in 2004. He has been a partner at the Firm since 2007. Although he initial focus at the Firm was on banking and finance and structured finance transactions, his practice areas now include mergers and acquisitions, fund formation and private equity transactions as well. He is also active in the derivatives and aviation finance space. In recent times, he has advised Fairfax in its acquisition of Thomas Cook in India, The Royal Bank of Scotland in its sale of its mortgage and credit card businesses to Ratnakar Bank and PSP (the Canadian pension fund) in its acquisition of hydro power assets from the Jaypee Group, besides acting on a number of private equity growth investments in both publicly listed and privately held companies. He is also a part of the regulatory advisory practice at the Firm and regularly advises clients on banking and securities laws and regulations.

He has been recognized as a leading individual by Asia Pacific Legal 500 for Banking & Finance  since 2012, by Chambers & Partners for Aviation since 2013 and Banking & Finance since 2014 and by Who’s Who Legal for Mergers & Acquisitions since 2013.

Ashwini Asokan, Founder and CEO, Mad Street Den

Ashwini Kumar, Chief Operating Officer, Nitesh Estates Ltd

Mr. Ashwini Kumar, joined the Company on 2nd November, 2009 as the Chief Operating Officer and is responsible for the business operations of the Company. He was elevated to Board as Executive Director and Chief Operating officer effective April 19, 2012.

Most recently, prior to joining Nitesh Estates Limited, he was the Managing Director of Lineage Power India Pvt. Ltd. a leading US based MNC in the area of Power Electronics and responsible for their business in India and South East Asia. Prior to this he worked as Director with Tyco Electronics and Lucent Technologies and was responsible for their telecom power electronics business in India.

In all he has an experience of 29 years starting with functional roles, in sales, project management, manufacturing, performance improvement and culminating in business leadership roles.

He is a Mechanical Engineer from NIT, Rourkela (1981) and post graduate in Business Management from XLRI, Jamshedpur (1983).