Our speakers

Chirag Arya, Founder, iChef.in

Chirag graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology and worked in the FMCG sector for Deloitte Consulting in the United States. Chirag was also awarded the Georgia Tech leader of the year. In India, Chirag has successful founded AP Guru, an educational institute and Wok in the Box, a popular chain of restaurants in Mumbai. He is the co-founder and currently leading iChef.

iChef is a gourmet meal kit portal that is backed by the Times of India led Springboard Group. Coming quick on the heels of the many new concepts that make up the hot-and-happening food-tech space, doorstep delivered meal-kits seem to be the latest, and iChef.in is leading from the front. Founded by Sneha Arya and Chirag Arya in 2014, iChef.in delivers pre-portioned gourmet meal-kits that make cooking fun and easy. The recipes, which are concocted and curated by master chefs, pan global palates and feature a mix of mains, salads and desserts.  Currently serving Mumbai, the brand will soon make its mark across key markets nationwide.

Chirag Desai, Associate Director, Viacom 18

Before he joined Viacom18 as Associate Director  – Digital Media, Chirag was at Playcaso as VP – Products, where he was responsible for setting up and deploying games and applications on smartphones and on online platforms.

He spent a major part of his career as Executive Producer at Jump Games, a Reliance Entertainment Ltd. Venture, where he was an integral part of the design and production of over 30+ games across the IOS, Online, PC and mobile platforms.

With over 15 years of work experience, he started his early years working as a stock broker, a network engineer, a dot com professional and has been a part of the gaming industry for over 10 years.

He has been a hardcore gamer since he started writing games in BASIC on his second-hand Apple II computer during the mid 80s.

Chirag, in his career span has led various teams across QA , Game Design and Operator relationships, though his passion and strengths have been a strong grasp of the design and production process with emphasis on game play and getting an international quality product to the consumer.

Chirag Jain, VP, Technology, MobiKwik

Chirag Patel, CEO, KOOH Sports

Chirag Patel is CEO of KOOH Sports, a new age business operating in the health and fitness space improving outcomes for kids using sports as the primary vehicle for transformation. We do this by targeting the education sector as this is where we have sustainable access to kids from age 2 to 21 years.

He has held senior management positions in both large corporates and start-ups. Until recently, Chirag was Head of Strategy and Mergers & Acquisitions at Serco Global Services and was part of the executive team to scale the business to an international service provider operating in 14 countries with a total workforce of 60,000. Prior to Serco he was with a UK based technology focused consulting firm where he assisted government agencies, telecom and internet companies in developing their policy and products. He has also worked with UK based blue chips' like ABB and Plysu plc.

Chirag has an engineering background with a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters in Polymer Science & Engineering from UK. He has an MBA from Warwick Business School. He is also a Chartered Member of TiE Global network. His interests are cycling and biking.

Chirag Shah, Co-founder, Seventynine (SVG Media Pvt. Ltd.)

Chris Loh, Managing Partner, Axiom Asia Private Capital

Chris Loh is a Managing Partner at Axiom Asia (www.axiomasia.com) which manages US$7 billion focused on private equity and venture capital investments in Asia. Axiom Asia was established in 2006 and has five flagship funds under management. The investment team consists of 18 professionals all based in Asia.

Chris is responsible for Axiom’s venture capital investments and also PE/VC investments in India.

He had nine years of private equity experience with GIC Special Investments and worked for seven years as an engineer at DSO National Laboratories. 

Chris earned his Bachelor of Electronics Engineering from University of Tokyo and completed two master programs at the National University of Singapore. Chris is fluent in English, Mandarin and Japanese.

Chris Thorson, Sr. Director, Solutions Marketing, Poly

Chris Thorson is the Sr. Director of Solutions Marketing for Poly’s $2B enterprise group and personal systems portfolio.  Chris has over 25 years of experience in the communications industry with extensive knowledge in the Voice, Video, Data, Cloud and Wireless segments. While at Poly, he has held various positions responsible for product marketing, product management, alliances, competitive, operations, strategy and channel marketing.  

Prior to joining Poly, he served as the Director of Marketing at Expanets, a national integrator of communications equipment and Netigy, a network infrastructure consulting practice.  He began his career at Nortel where he held various product marketing and ecommerce roles. 

Thorson has an MBA from Santa Clara University in Finance and International Business as well as a bachelor’s degree from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo in Marketing Management. 

Christophe Beelaerts, CFO, Sundaram BNP Paribas Fund Services

A well rounded experienced executive in the securities servicing market, Christophe brings a rich experience of 20 years, having overseen various senior operating roles with large industry players in Europe. In his last European role, Christophe was the Head of Operations for Mutual Fund and Private Equity at the Luxembourg delivery centre for BNP Paribas Securities Services.

For the last three years, Christophe has been involved in the development of the Indian market, working as CFO and head of business development for Sundaram BNP Paribas Fund Services Limited. This JV of BNP Paribas focuses on providing fund accounting and investor servicing solutions for different classes of asset managers including AIF.

He is of the strong conviction that though PE Investments are in a nascent stage in India, there is a great potential in future considering the large investments that are required to meet the aspiration needs of the country.

He is a graduate from Solvay Business School as Commercial Engineer – VUB/ULB - Finance & Marketing and has followed Professional Trainings in Service Excellence Programs at Insead through BNP Paribas Securities Services.

Craig Gifford, Head of South Asia Private Equity Funds, CDC Group

CVL Srinivas, CEO South Asia, GroupM | @GroupMIndia

CVL Srinivas (Srini) is CEO - GroupM, South Asia since January 2013. GroupM is the world’s largest media investment management company and is part of the WPP Group. Srini has championed a transformation program at GroupM India to make it a future ready organisation. Under his leadership GroupM India has won a record number of new businesses, incubated several path breaking initiatives in digital, mobile, content, data analytics and won numerous prestigious awards.

Srini is a media industry veteran of over 20 years. He was part of the startup team at HTA-Fulcrum India's first dedicated media agency that was created for Unilever. After the formation of GroupM, Srini helped set up Maxus across Asia Pacific as its first regional CEO. Srini had a successful stint with Madison Media and played a key role in scaling up this local agency to a leadership position.

He is a Mechanical Engineer from BITS Pilani and Post Graduate in Business Management from XLRI Jamshedpur.

cvlsrinivas