Our speakers

Cyrus Driver, Director, Helix Investments Advisors Pvt Ltd

Cyrus Driver is a Director and India Head of Helix Investments, an India-focused PE fund. Education is a focus sector for Helix and Helix has investments in MT Educare, India’s largest chain of school tutoring centers, and LearningMate, a leading elearning solutions provider. Prior to joining Helix, Cyrus worked with J.P. Morgan Partners Advisors in Singapore and Mumbai, during which time he invested across varied sectors including manufacturing, food retail, B2B businesses and IT services. Cyrus received his Bachelor of Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology and his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management.

D A Prasanna, Chairman & MD, Ecron Acunova

As a founder, he has mapped the vision and strategy for the organization. He has experience in leveraging Asian competitiveness building successful global business in medical technology for GE and software for Wipro. As Exec Chairman of the Manipal Group, his focus was on developing a research thrust for the Group. Considered a thought leader in Health care and Life Sciences, he has worked in global leadership positions in GE and was Vice Chairman of Wipro. He serves on the board of various Pharma companies and Research institutes.

Prasanna is acknowledged in the healthcare sector as the pioneer in creating a market for high tech. medical equipment and delivering clinical excellence at low patient fees in Asian Hospitals, through innovative strategies. As the startup CEO of GE Medical in India, he also developed a $330 m Global Business in healthcare for GE Medical Systems (GEMS) by leveraging India's competitiveness taking the company from no 5 to No 1. He has also been a founding member of Wipro's team that initiated the company's entry into IT and was Vice Chairman of Wipro Ltd.

He is an independent Director of Take Solutions Ltd. He serves on the Governing Council of Center for Policy Research, India's leading Think Tank and of T A Pai Management Institute, a reputed Business School. He is a Trustee on Shriram Ownership Trust, which shapes the strategy of Shriram group of companies. He has served as Chairman of GEBEL, GEMS IT Ltd and GE X-Ray(South Asia) and Director of GE Yokogawa Medical Systems Ltd, Japan and GE Samsung Ltd, Korea, Wipro GE Medical Systems Ltd, India and Shasun Chemical & Drugs Ltd India. He brings rich experience in pharma and healthcare.

Mr. Prasanna is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad & GE Global Business Leadership Program at Crotonville.

D C S Hariharan, CISO & Director, Cyber Security & IT Risk, HARMAN International

Over two decades of experience in Information Security Strategy, Cloud Security, IT -OT / ICS, IT Security Operations, Application Security Research, and development/Infrastructure Security Management, Information Risk and Governance, Threat Hunting, Cyber Strategic Consulting, SOC implementations, Program Management, IT Security Architecture, Vendor Risk Assessment, IT Security Services Consultation, and Systems Integration -AI. Proven areas of strength include infrastructure Security services, Cloud Security operations, and innovative business Security strategies. A passion for people & team development with demonstrated achievements in creating value by leveraging people, process, technology, Business Continuity, ISO 27001/ 21434,ITIL, HIPPA,Auditing & metrics to build compelling products and services with a focus on supporting business over a multiyear approach.

D K Goel, Chairman, FIITJEE

Mr. Goel is a 1986 B Tech graduate from the IIT Delhi and is a first generation entrepreneur. FIITJEE is the only truly national brand, spread across India and the Middle-East, having 67 centres across 39 cities, its distance education wing catering to students in every nook & corner of the country. Over the last 2 decades, 1 out of every 3 IITians – is a FIITJEEian. Fiitjee students get a major share of ranks in various competitive exams & bag major share of Global Olympiad gold medals. Today Fiitjee is recognised as the most powerful brand in serious education.

Mr. Goel is a serial innovator around educational excellence, societal challenges, emotional maturity and wholesome development of children. His innovations have transformed educational landscape in Test Prep in the country, with several of them becoming Industry leading standards today. Mr. Goel’s focus on holistic development has led to innovation of school Integrated Programs with 83 Associate Schools globally, 6 FIITJEE Schools and 9 FIITJEE Junior Colleges. He inspired engineering graduates, especially IITians to join Fiitjee’s workforce and drive his vision of Education through Innovation & Excellence.

Mr Goel is driving innovation in education through investment & mentoring of EdTech companies. One of the investee company Edfora (empowering every child with personalised, outcome oriented, quality academic development - something good for the nation) is probably the only profitable EdTech company in the world.

D Muthukumaran, CEO, Aditya Birla Private Equity | @AdityaBirlaGrp

Until recently taking over as the CEO of the Aditya Birla Private Equity, Mr. D Muthukumaran was in Group Corporate Finance at the Aditya Birla Group for 12 years, prior to which he was in an international investment bank for a year and in a Big 4 Accounting firm for 8 years.

Muthukumaran has specialized in business strategy, portfolio management, identifying value creating opportunities, fund raising in debt and equity capital markets, structured finance, leverage buy-outs, private equity, regulatory and tax structuring and the full cycle of acquisitions. At the Group Corporate Finance at the Aditya Birla Group, Muthukumaran was driving Mergers and acquisitions and long term capital raising across the businesses, Group investors relations and Chairman MIS.

Aditya Birla Group has successfully executed over two dozen and evaluated many more acquisitions, divestitures and other corporate finance transactions in most of which Muthukumaran has played a key role. Aditya Birla Group is driven by the long term value creating strategy, presence across value chain, market leadership, cost competitiveness, innovation and free cash generation.

Both in the Investment Bank and in the Big 4 firm, he worked in the full cycle of M &A – Ideation, execution, due diligence, negotiations, financing and deal structuring. Muthukumaran holds degree as Chartered Accountant, Cost & Works Accountant and Bacherlors of Commerce from University of Madras.

D.Sundaram, Vice-Chairman & MD, TVS Capital

D.Sundaram experience spans corporate finance, business performance, operations, governance, mergers & acquisitions, talent/people management and strategy. Sundaram served in Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) as Corporate Accountant, Commercial Manager and Treasurer till 1990. He was seconded to Unilever, London as Commercial Officer for Africa and Middle East Group between 1990 and 1993. He has served in various roles, including TOMCO integration, Head of Africa & Middle East among others. In May 1999 he was promoted as Finance & IT Director of HUL.

Sundaram was elevated as Vice Chairman of HUL in April 2008. In all, He has more than 34 years of experience with Hindustan Unilever Limited. He is a two-time winner of the prestigious CFO of the Year for FMCG Sector award by CNBC TV18 (2006 and 2009). Sundaram brings deep financial expertise and significant understanding of consumer related businesses. This combination makes him a unique professional to help build TVS Capital Funds into a successful and durable institution. Sundaram expertise will guide the next-generation of entrepreneurs across India to build world class companies.

Sundaram is a Post Graduate in Management Studies (MMS), Chennai, Fellow of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants, and has attended the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Programme. He is also an independent director on the Board of State Bank of India, and member of the board of governors of Institute of Financial Management and Research, Chennai.

D.V. Manohar, Partner - M&A Tax, Deloitte.

Manohar is a partner in M&A tax practice, based in Bangalore with over 18 years of experience in advising corporates on direct tax matters. He has a wide experience in acquisition structuring, fund structuring, inbound investments, mergers and tax due diligence for various clients including listed entities.

He has advised companies involved in technology, e-commerce, power, and those in infrastructure sectors on tax structuring. Manohar has advised various private equity firms, venture capital firms on their investments in India and on exits from investments in India.

He has presented various papers in conferences/seminars both in India and abroad, and has written articles on various taxation issues in leading international taxation journals.

Manohar is a fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

DA Prasad, CEO & Director, Abhay Cotex Pvt. Ltd

Daljit Mirchandani, Founder, Gyan Prakash Foundation

Daljit L Mirchandani's career has spanned 40 years in the Corporate world covering diversified businesses. During this period he worked with State and National Level Committees to influence policy changes in the field of infrastructure and post-harvest technologies for perishables.

He retired as the Chairman of Ingersoll-Rand Ltd in 2008. At present he is on the Statutory and Advisory Board of various Indian and MNC companies in the field of bio fuels, water, infrastructure development, infrastructure finance , auto components and energy management.

In 2012 in partnership with the Sarva Shikhsha Abhayan, the flagship project of the Government of India, and NGO partners, he embarked on  the development of a replicable and sustainable “Social Change Model" in education to improve Enrollment, Retention and Learning levels in Zilla Parishad schools in Maharashtra  .

Dalveer Singh, Head Experiential Marketing - APAC, Dialogue Factory

His journey from having being born in a small village in Haryana – India; to having worked in major cities of the Indian sub-continent and South East Asia, gives Dalveer Singh an edge when it comes to understanding the dynamics of the emerging markets. The fusion of culture and the contemporary clearly reflects in his ideas and solutions.

It is his extensive travel across the length and breadth of India and other parts of the world that fuels his comprehensive knowledge on emerging markets and drives his ability to come up with deeper consumer insights.

He has been a pioneer in successfully implementing and replicating the Indian model on Rural & Low Income Consumer Marketing in 10 other emerging markets including the sub-continent (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka), Morocco, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines and South America (Brazil, Mexico & Argentina). This makes Dalveer the one single name today that clients identify with to reach the growing segment of consumers in the emerging markets.

After having served at leadership positions across the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia at agencies like Ogilvy Action, 141 Worldwide and at Reliance ADAG, Dalveer channeled his expertise to successfully set up Dialogue Factory – a GroupM experiential marketing agency aimed at breaking market clutter through Talkability, Word-of-Mouth and Brand Advocacy. Here he has been creating memorable brand experiences for consumers and building business for some of the high-profile clients like Unilever, Colgate, L’Oreal, Pepsi, Lenovo, Dell, Citibank, HSBC, American Express, Castrol, Flipkart, Titan, Kellogg’s and Google by helping them create stronger consumer connect across geographies.

By challenging the traditional and breaking conventions over the last two decades, Dalveer has turned many a start-ups into stars across business categories. In his eventful career, of which he has spent 16 years with WPP, Dalveer has garnered glory at various Advertising & Marketing award shows for his strategic acumen and path-breaking work.

Apart from marketing, exploring new places and learning from life is Dalveer’s raison d'etre.

@dalveers