Our speakers

Chandra Sekhar, Founder & CEO, Sports365

Sekhar is the Founder & CEO of Sports365, one of India's leading multi-channel Sports & Fitness company. Sports365 operates both in B2C (e-commerce) & B2B space and has been invested in & endorsed by India's leading sporting icons like Mahesh Bhupathi, Yuvraj Singh, Dipika Pallikal etc. Sports365 has been the fastest growing company in this space and has managed to claim leadership position in multiple business segments it operates in within the first 2 years.  

Prior to starting Sports365, Sekhar had successful professional stints in companies like P&G and Mckinsey & Co for over 8 years. He is a management graduate from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. Needless to say, he is a sports addict.

Chandra Sekhar, President, Apollo Hospitals Group

Chandra Sekhar has an extensive work experience of over 24 years and has played a significant role in the Health Care and Health Insurance Industry in India for over 15 years. He currently holds the position of President - Corporate and International of the Apollo Hospitals Group and is responsible for spearheading the Group’s new business initiatives, new and international markets and provide strategic support to the various businesses of the Group. Besides, he also holds the position of Executive Director and a member of the board of HealthNet Global, the technology initiative incubated for Telehealth and Remote monitoring Devices by the group and its promoters.

For 5 years, before his current position with the Apollo Hospitals Group, he held the positions of Executive Director-Marketing & Strategy of the Global Hospitals Group and Consultant- Healthcare Investments with ICICI Venture.

Prior to this, in his first stint, he had a successful tenure of nearly 10 years with the Apollo Hospitals Group. He last held the position of the Group President-Marketing with the group. During that period of nearly 10 years with the group he led the formation and business launch of a Standalone Health Insurance company in JV with the Munich Re group, besides heading the business development, marketing and brand portfolios for the hospital division, playing a key role in the growth and development of a Third Party Administration (TPA) Company. He has a deep understanding of various other spaces in healthcare such as hospital projects, Primary care Clinics, Pharmacy chain, Wellness, Disease Management, health care information technology and the healthcare BPO space. He is also the Founding Member of the CII Working Group on Health Insurance.

He has travelled widely for business development, JV projects and strategic partnerships across India, SAARC, Far East, MEA, Europe and USA.

He also has a strong academic background with an MBA from Hyderabad, India and Advanced Management Programs from the Indian School of Business and the Kellogg’s School of Management, Chicago, USA.

Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, MD & CEO, Bandhan Bank

Chandrasekar Kandasamy, Managing Partner, ePlanet Ventures

Chandrasekar Kandasamy is the Managing Partner in the Bangalore office where he focuses on the Fund’s activities in India/South Asia and the MENA region.Mr. Kandasamy brings over 21 years of U.S and India based private equity/venture capital experience to the ePlanet team with over 15 years of investment experience in the technology and healthcare sectors.

Mr. Kandasamy has a distinguished investment track record, as more than 30 of the transactions he has led, have been successfully exited through secondary acquisitions or initial public offerings. Since he joined ePlanet in January 2006, he has been responsible for ePlanet's investments in India including Manthan Systems, Trivitron Healthcare, Sree Ramcides Chemicals, Continental Warehousing Corporation, Delex Cargo and Medfort Hospitals where he sits on the Boards of these Companies.

Previously, he worked for five years with The Carlyle Group as a Director and Vice President. In this capacity, Mr. Kandasamy was instrumental in setting up Carlyle’s India operations and responsible for sourcing, evaluating and executing transactions in the technology, healthcare, education, auto ancillaries, logistics, consumer and infrastructure sectors. Mr. Kandasamy co-led investments and held board seats in a range of successful India-based growth and venture capital investments including Educomp Solutions, Financial Software and Systems, Quest , Newgen, and Learningmate.

Prior to Carlyle, Mr. Kandasamy worked for Intel Capital, where he was the Manager of Strategic Investments in India and assisted in the deployment of approximately $60 million in less than two years. Mr. Kandasamy began his career at ICICI Ventures where he worked for ten years. As an Assistant Vice President at ICICI Ventures, Mr. Kandasamy managed a team of four investment professionals and monitored 80 portfolio investments.

Mr. Kandasamy was a World Bank sponsored intern at Poly Ventures in New York, holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Anna University in Chennai, India, and an M.B.A from the Bharathidasan Institute of Management, India.

Chandru Chawla, Head - Corporate Strategy, M&A and New Ventures at Cipla, Cipla

Chandru has over 25 years of experience in leading and managing bio pharmaceutical businesses across diverse geographies and segments. He has a proven track record having managed P&Ls and Strategy and Business Development globally. His varied experience straddles start-ups, acquired companies and multiple product segments. In his last role as Senior Vice President – International for Lupin, he headed business operations spread across emerging markets in Asia, Latin America and Africa with directorial responsibility in multiple subsidiaries. Prior to this, Chandru has worked with Wockhardt as General Manager for emerging markets.

At Cipla, he has played a leadership role in its transformation from a “partner led” business model to a business that stands on innovation and meaningful commercial presence in key markets driving initiatives across emerging markets, biotechnology, specialty and consumer health. Chandru championed the creation of a business and innovation incubator called Cipla New Ventures (CNV), where it is nurturing in venture style, businesses that require unique entrepreneurial and start up like eco systems. This included investments in Consumer health, regenerative medicine, drug repurposing and Bio-similar drugs. Cipla Health was recently spun out as a FMCG style consumer health company with a Series A investment from a marquee investor, Fidelity. Its investments in Chase Pharma, an Alzheimer’s company, saw a successful.

His current focus is to build a Branded Specialty business in the US Chandru is an alumnus of IIT Mumbai and IIFT New Delhi.

Chandru Chawla, Head - Corporate Strategy and New Ventures, Cipla Ltd | @Cipla_Global

Chandru has over 25 years of experience in leading and managing bio pharmaceutical businesses across diverse geographies and segments. An alumnus of IIT Mumbai and IIFT New Delhi, he has a proven track record having managed P&Ls and Strategy and Business Development globally. His varied experience straddles start-ups, acquired companies and multiple product segments. In his last role as SVP – International for Lupin, he headed business operations spread across emerging markets in Asia, Latin America and Africa with directorial responsibility in 5 subsidiaries. Prior to this, Chandru has worked with Wockhardt as General Manager for emerging markets.

Chandru championed the creation of a business and innovation incubator called Cipla New Ventures (CNV), where it is nurturing in venture style, businesses that require unique entrepreneurial and start up like eco systems. Cipla Health was recently spun out as a FMCG style consumer health company with a Series A investment from a marquee investor, Fidelity. CNV is actively exploring the digital health space and looking to support start-ups that can bring true disruption in the areas of bridging the health infrastructure gap, empowering the patient and making physician and patient lives simpler.

Chetan Kulkarni, Co-founder & CEO, Vizury Interactive Private Limited

Chetan Kulkarni is the co-founder and CEO at Vizury, a leader in personalized targeting and retargeting solutions. He co-founded Vizury in 2008 after realising the opportunity to dramatically improve performance of display advertising based on user behaviour. Kulkarni’s leadership, industry insight and product expertise have strengthened Vizury’s culture of innovation, expanded its product portfolio and global reach. Prior to co-founding Vizury, he was a part of the Business Value Group in Trilogy Inc. where he worked with Fortune 500 companies to establish business value from Trilogy’s solutions. Earlier, he worked in Philips’ research and development arm. He holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, India and a Bachelors of Engineering in Computer Science from National Institute of Technology, Surathkal, India.

Chetan Maini, Founder, Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicles Pvt Ltd

Motivated by a desire to combat climate change, Chetan co-founded the REVA Electric Car Company, India's first electric car manufacturer, in 1994.

With a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering (University of Michigan) where he focused on solar electric vehicles, and a Master's in Mechanical Engineering (Stanford University) where he worked on hybrid electric vehicles, Chetan has over 20 years of experience in the development of solar, hybrid and electric vehicles in the U.S. and India. Prior to REVA, he worked for Amerigon Inc. (USA) and General Motors (USA). As a program manager at Amerigon, he was responsible for all electric vehicle programs and initiated the REVA project.

In 2009, Chetan was named by Business Week magazine as one of the top 50 most influential people in India, and at the 2010 AIMA Managing India Awards, he was named "Entrepreneur of the Year." He has also been amongst the select few to have been adjudged as a Young Global Leader (YGLs) for 2011 by The World Economic Forum, and in 2011, he received the India Business Icon Award from Entrepreneur CNBC TV18. At The Economist's annual event in London, in October 2011, the publication conferred Chetan Maini its 2011 'Innovation Award in Energy and the Environment' for his work on affordable electric vehicles.

Chetan also serves as a member of India's National Board on Electric Mobility (NBEM) formed by the Government of India's Ministry of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises. He is also the Chairman of the Personal Transporation Council, World Economic Forum. He currently holds patents in energy management systems for electric vehicles and has presented technical and keynote papers on electric vehicles globally. His papers have been published in several international journals.

Chetan Shah, Business Head - Online, Ecommerce & Mobile Advertising, Aircel Limited

Chetan Shah is currently leading the Online, E-Commerce and Mobile Advertising verticals at Aircel as a Business Head. Previously he was the National Head for VAS function in the company and was responsible for meeting revenue targets, leading national VAS portfolio and launching new and innovative VAS products and services to drive growth.

Chetan is an established industry veteran with over 18 years of extensive work experience in P&L Management, Product Management, Business Development, Brand Management, Sales and in heading Strategic Business Units. He joined Aircel in 2009 to lead New Product Development.

Prior to joining Aircel, he served as Vice President - Business Development & Alliances (South East Asia) for Tanla Mobile Asia Pacific Pte. Chetan also had successful stints with IMImobile as Vice President and Arab Media Group as Chief Operating Officer. He has also worked with a number of reputed organizations like Bharti Airtel, Standard Chartered Bank etc.

A graduate in Electronics and Communications from Nagarjuna University, Chetan also holds a post graduate degree in Marketing from the prestigious Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Ghaziabad.

Chetan Shah, CEO, Xpress