Our speakers

Atul Phadnis, Founder & CEO, What's-On-India

Atul Phadnis is a Technology Entrepreneur and a domain expert in Digital Television. He is currently CEO of What’s-ON (a company he had founded) and GM (Asia Pacific), Gracenote.

As a start-up, Atul led What’s-ON to raise its Series-A and Series-B funding rounds from Silicon Valley funds – Sequoia Capital, Nexus Venture Partners and Intel Capital and successfully create a model specializing in TV Search, Recommendations and Analytics across Asia spanning 16 countries including India, Jordan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc with some of the largest Cable, Telecom and Satellite TV operators as its customers. In 2010, Forbes adjudged What's-ON to be one of the 5 hottest “New Ventures to look out for” while CNBC-TV18 named Atul as one of the Top 10 Young Turks of 2010. In 2012, he led What’s-ON to make 2 critical acquisitions including one in Jordan, Middle East.

In 2014, What’s-ON was acquired by Gracenote/ Tribune Media - who are the Global leaders in TV, Movies and Music metadata technology. Atul’s role in the merged entity is to spearhead initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region.

Atul Sharma, Co-Founder & CTO, Ozonetel

Atul Sharma, Co-Founder & CEO, Ozonetel

Atul Sharma, Cofounder & CTO, Ozonetel

Atul Tewari, COO, Quikr

Atul is COO at Quikr. He has over 17 years of strong operating experience in scaling organizations through talent acquisition, process & financial control and infrastructure. At Quikr, his responsibilities include Content-Operations, HR and Infrastructure. Prior to Quikr, Atul was working as CEO-India for Helix Advisors, which was acquired by BlackRock (NASDAQ BLK). As MD/COO for BlackRock, India, he was instrumental in growth of the organization from 100 to 700 people within a span of two years.  Before joining BlackRock, Atul set-up a global shared services center in India for CalibratedGroup, a private equity fund based out of Los Angeles.  The operation, scaled to 500 employees within a span of 3+years, before being acquired by one of the anchor clients. Prior to that, Atul was based in USA and worked in Sales/Business Development role in Media and Software Firms.

 

Atul has an MBA from Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve Univerity, Cleveland Ohio. He did his BTech from IIT Delhi.

Avani Davda, Managing Director, Godrej Nature's Basket

Avani Davda is the Managing Director of Godrej Nature’s Basket, India’s foremost retail destination for fine foods from across the world. She is a results driven, selfmotivated and resourceful leader. Her strengths lie in developing business strategy and ability to execute with a sharp focus on business sustainability – focusing on growth and profitability.

Avani was nominated as a Young Global Leader in 2014 by the World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland. Also featured in Fortune US’s annual global list of “40 under 40 leaders” in 2013 and Fortune and Food & Wine’s list of “25 Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink” in 2014 – the only Indian woman on the list. Prior to her current role, she worked as Chief Executive Officer of Tata Starbucks Private Ltd., the 50/50 joint venture between Starbucks Coffee Company and Tata Global Beverages Limited (TGBL). In a span of 3 years she has successfully led aggressive expansion of over 80 Starbucks stores across six key metros of India.

Before Tata Starbucks Private Ltd., she worked as Vice president in the office of Director, Tata Sons who oversaw consumer companies of the Tata Group: Tata Global Beverages, Taj Hotels, Infiniti Retail, Tata Housing and Tata Infrastructure and Realty. She worked closely on the strategic initiatives for TGBL and Infiniti Retail. She also played a pivotal role in the development of two joint ventures namely TGBL and PepsiCo India and also between Starbucks and TGBL in preparation for entry into the India market. She started her career with Tata Group as a recruit into the Group’s flagship leadership program ‘TAS’ (Tata Administrative Services). Following her training period in 2003 she joined The Indian Hotels Company Ltd (Taj Hotels), as Manager in the Business Development team. In 2006, she moved to Sales and Marketing, with the key responsibility of Taj Luxury Hotels in India and was promoted to General Manager-Marketing in 2007.

Avani holds a Masters degree in Management Studies from NMIMS and a Bachelors degree in Commerce with Honors (Advertising & Media) from H.R. College, University of Mumbai. Avani is based in Mumbai, India, and is married to Vishal Davda. They are proud parents of their nine year old son, Param. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and theatre.

Avani Saglani Davda, Managing Director, Godrej Nature’s Basket

Ms. Avani Davda is the Managing Director of Godrej Nature’s Basket. Ms. Davda was nominated as a Young Global Leader in 2014 by the World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland. Also featured in Fortune US’s annual global list of ‘40 under 40 leaders’ in 2013 and Fortune and Food & Wine’s list of ‘25 Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink’ in 2014 – the only Indian woman on the list. Prior to her current role, she worked as Chief Executive Officer of Tata Starbucks Private Ltd. In a span of 3 years she has successfully led aggressive expansion of over 80 Starbucks stores across six key metros of India. Before Tata Starbucks Private Ltd., she worked as Vice president in the office of Director, Tata Sons who oversaw consumer companies of the Tata Group: Tata Global Beverages, Taj Hotels, Infiniti Retail, Tata Housing and Tata Infrastructure and Realty. Ms. Davda has worked closely on the strategic initiatives for TGBL and Infiniti Retail. She also played a pivotal role in the development of two joint ventures namely TGBL and PepsiCo India and also between Starbucks and TGBL in preparation for entry into the India market. Ms. Davda started her career with Tata Group as a recruit into the Group’s flagship leadership program ‘TAS’. Ms. Davda holds a Master’s degree in Management Studies from NMIMS and a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce with Honors (Advertising & Media) from H.R. College, University of Mumbai.

Avani Saglani Davda, CEO, Tata Starbucks Ltd

Avani Saglani Davda is the Chief Executive Officer of Tata Starbucks Limited, the 50/50 joint venture between Starbucks Coffee Company and Tata Global Beverages Limited. In this role, Avani will provide overall strategic direction and leadership to the joint venture in India.

Avani, who has worked for the Tata companies for more than ten years, joined the Tata Group as a TAS (Tata Administrative Service) probationer in 2002. Most recently, she worked in the Vice Chairman’s office for Tata Global Beverages, where she was responsible for driving and facilitating key strategies and initiatives for the company as well as Marketing and Business Development assignments. She also played a pivotal role in the development of the joint venture relationship between the two companies in preparation for entry into the India market.

Avani holds a Masters degree in Management Studies from NMIMS, University of Mumbai and Bachelor degree in Commerce with Honors in Advertising & Media from H.R. College, University of Mumbai.

Avani is based in Mumbai, India, and is married with a son. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling and cruises.

Avanish Tripathi, CISO, Pay with Ring

Avijit Nanda, CEO, TimesofMoney

Avijit Nanda is the Chief Executive Officer - TimesofMoney, which is the leading digital payment service provider catering to a diverse base of clients, individuals and companies across the globe. It provides a wide spectrum of offerings including retail online remittances, specialized NRI services, a managed white-label remittance platform & ecommerce payment solutions. Avijit heads the company operations with a prime focus to build and scale the business globally.

In November 2012, he was instrumental in leading the strategic divestment of TimesofMoney to Network International, the largest acquirer and one of the leading payment solutions providers in the Middle East.

With over 17 years of experience, prior to TimesofMoney he has worked with HSBC & ICICI Bank in their Wholesale, Consumer Banking & International Banking divisions respectively. While at HSBC he was responsible for scaling up the bank’s consumer assets and payment business. At ICICI he was responsible for setting up the Assets Origination franchise across key global markets along with key alliances to drive cross border payments and remittances.

Avijit is on the Advisory Board of IAMTN (International Association of Money Transfer Networks), an active member of PIF (Prepaid International Forum) India and has been a global representative of the World Bank and G8's Private Public Partnership Steering Group. An MBA by qualification, he spends his leisure time playing cricket. An ardent lover of music, he also loves traveling and exploring new destinations.