Our speakers

Abinash Verma, Director General, Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA)

Abinash Verma is the Director General of Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), an apex body of private and public sectors sugar mills in India, which looks after sugar industry interests.

Mr Verma undertook post graduate studies in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. A bureaucrat with the Indian Government from 1989 to 2010, he was deeply involved in sugarcane, sugar and ethanol policy making for five years before joining ISMA.

Mr Verma is the alternate Chief Executive of the Indian Sugar Exim Corporation, an organization jointly sponsored by ISMA and the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Ltd. which is also responsible for import and export of sugar to and from the country.

Abizer Diwanji, Partner & National Leader - Financial Services and Restructuring & Turnaround Services, Ernst & Young LLP

Abraham Alapatt, Head, Marketing & Service Quality, Thomas Cook (India) Ltd

Abraham Alapatt is a Marketing & Customer Service professional with over 18 years of professional experience at senior-strategic levels spanning across: Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, an international Internet Solution Provider start-up, Reliance Capital, DCB Bank & Future Generali Life & General Insurance companies.

During this period, he has led the Advertising, Marketing, E Commerce & Customer Service teams across these enterprises.
He currently leads the Marketing and Customer Service functions of India’s largest and respected integrated travel services company – Thomas Cook (India) Limited.

Abraham’s strengths are in the areas of marketing/brand strategy formulation, implementation and management; integrated brand and corporate communication; advertising; PR/media relations; market research, customer service and customer-centric marketing from ideation to process engineering.

Abraham’s articles, opinions and interviews feature in various Brand & Marketing forums, portals and publications such as Campaign India, agencyfaqs, exchange4media, mxmindia, Brand Equity, 4Ps etc.

He was a speaker at the World Brand Congress, Mumbai in 2010 and the Great Indian Marketing Summit in 2012 and been on various Marketing and Customer Experience forums.

He has judged the “Effies” in India for 3 years in a row as well as been on the jury for Pitch Magazine’s Golden Mikes Radio Awards, Campaign India’s Digital Crest Awards 2013 and EEMA 2013 among others.
Abraham was also one of only eight “Futurist CMO” Hall of Fame inductees from across India for 2011-12 and in October 2013 was voted among the "50 Most Talented CMOs of India" by the Asian CMO Council and World Brand Congress 

Achal Ghai, Group Managing Director, Legacy Emirates Group

Legacy Emirates Group has been in business since 2003 in the UAE. The Management and Execution team at Legacy Emirates Group has extensive experience in Smart Investing & Services Businesses. At the group level, the Legacy Emirates Group has been investing and building a broad spectrum of businesses in the Services segment.

Achal is the founder and MD of Legacy Emirates Group based in Dubai, UAE which has diversified businesses including Tech Investing, HR Outsourcing and Smart Digital businesses viz., Legacy Smart Capital, Legacy Smart Employment Services, Legacy Marketing & Art as well as Venture Guardian.

Achal has business interests in the UAE, India and Canada. He brings in a lot of expertise in Deal Structuring, Financing and Complex M&A as well as JV transactions across a broad spectrum of industries.

Achal Ghai, Founder & Managing Partner, Avigo Capital Partners

Achal is the Founder and Managing Partner of Avigo Capital Partners (Avigo), a Private Equity Firm based in India. He started the firm in 2003 after having spent 20 years in Corporate & Investment Banking across India, Dubai & Canada with International banks like American Express, HSBC, SCB, EBIL and more recently six years as Director-Western Canada/USA, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, specializing in Corporate Finance, Equity Investing and Investment banking.
 
Achal serves as a director on several company boards and advises conglomerates in Canada, UK, Malaysia, Dubai & India.

He has extensive experience in structuring capital market listing & private equity transactions. He has the proven ability to add value through corporate governance & liquidity enhancing measures. His in depth involvement in PE investments beginning from deal initiation, investment (negotiation, deal structuring, term sheet, legal documentation, funding) to the IPO provides the competitive edge in terms of being the ‘PE Investor’ of choice.
 
Achal is a Bachelor of Commerce and MBA by education.

Achal Kataria, VP & Global Head of Technology, EXL Service

Achyuta Ghosh, Senior Director and Head - Insights, Nasscom

Adam Davies, Chairman, Ledmac Ltd

Adam Davies, Chairman is a London Business School Sloan Fellow (2009, Strategy and Leadership), and has been advising companies and institutions for over 20 years.

He was the founder and CEO of the leading Higher Education strategy film, QS Consulting, during which time he led several multi-faceted projects for some of the world’s leading universities. QS Consulting (now fully owned by the QS media and intelligence group) focussed on delivering performance improvement to an international client base of HE Institutions.

Adarsh Das, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, SunSource Energy

Adarsh Das is the CEO & Co-Founder of SunSource Energy, where he leads overall day-to-day management, strategy and project finance. SunSource under his leadership has built more than 140 plants for commercial and industrial clients in 24+ states in India, and significant international experience. Most recently, Adarsh led investment from SBI’s Neev private equity fund into SunSource, and won a ground-breaking tender for a solar+storage “mini grid“ power plant in Leh.

Adarsh’s solar experience extends over 20+ years, with well known solar companies such as SELCO, Bangalore and Solectria, in Massachusetts, U.S.A., prior to SunSource. During ten years in the U.S., Adarsh also had stints at GE Wind and Booz Allen Hamilton, in addition to DTE Energy, where he helped launch utility-scale solar project development with a capital commitment of $200 Million.

Adarsh has an MBA from University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MS in Solar Engineering from University of Massachusetts and B. Tech in Energy Engineering from IIT Kharagpur.

Adarsh Gupta, Head - Music Business, Saregama Ltd

Adarsh heads the Music Business & is currently orchestrating a strategy to re-position Saregama's catalogue to be able to connect with consumers & customers across age and geographies by making it more contemporary & upbeat.

Adarsh who has last working with Times Music had joined them in 2006 & It was under his stewardship, Times Music had launched its Bollywood arm Junglee Music in 2007, to capitalize on the raging popularity of commercial film music. He also spearheaded the Digital Music Initiative and Ace Times Wellness venture which is based on Music Therapy in the field of medicine that uses sound frequencies to cure diseases. Prior to Times, Adarsh has rich international experience in categories like FMCG products, Consumer Electronics & Entertainment (Music) gained in Russia, India, England, Poland & Fiji Islands.

He is characterized by his capability of fusing a wide commercial acumen with both a highly refined strategic planning ability and comprehensive 'hands on' practical expertise.