Our speakers

Deval Sanghavi, Partner & Co-Founder, Dasra

Deval has provided philanthropists with intelligent investment strategies directing over USD 40 million into the Indian social sector over the past 14 years. He incubated the Indian Philanthropy Forum mobilizing over 500 members who are driving the philanthropy agenda in India. He also initiated India’s largest collaborative giving platform, Dasra Giving Circles, which combines in-depth research, funding and managerial support enabling 15 – 30x scale.

He has written articles for esteemed publications such as Business India and Alliance Magazine and has been quoted in media channels like Times of India, The Economic Times, Hindustan Times, Mint, Bloomberg TV and NDTV.

Before founding Dasra, he was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. His background as an investment banker has equipped him to develop a unique philanthropic investment model that brings rigor and discipline to the sector. His experience in the social sector enabled him to play a vital role in the inception of the Times of India Social-Impact Awards 2011. He is engaged with both philanthropists and social entrepreneurs and has spoken about this unique investment model at leading events such as the Global Philanthropy Forum, Unconvention, Maidan Summit, SOCAP, CSR-CSO Bridge, ICICI Fellows Programme and Mint Conclave. He has been instrumental in building partnerships with top leaders from the sector such as Omidyar Network (ON), Vodafone Foundation and ICICI Foundation to name a few. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, completing his Bachelor of Business Administration with a dual Honors degree in Business and Finance and a minor in Asian Studies.

Devdutt Marathe, Vice President, Apax Partners

Devdutt Marathe is a vice president based in the Mumbai office. He joined Apax in 2009 and has focused on transactions in the Consumer, Tech & Telco and Services sectors, including AssuredPartners, Chola, Shriram City Union Finance and Zensar Technologies.

Prior to joining Apax, Devdutt was a Senior Software Engineer at OnMobile Global, India's largest mobile VAS Company, where he helped build their Mobile Advertising product. Devdutt holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, and BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras and Caltech.

Devdutt Marathe, Principal, Apax Partners

Deven Dharamdasani, Co-founder, Seventynine (SVG Media Pvt. Ltd.) | @79mobi

Deven Dharamdasani, co-founder of Seventynine, is a high achieving digital industry leader who has developed and executed strategy across varied portfolios and myriad business streams. His strong brand knowledge combined with his natural instinct to thrive in fluid and challenging environment has governed his 15 year stint in the digital eco-system.

Deven's entrepreneurial journey kicked-off at Quasar Media, where he was part of the founding team, followed by Blazar media which he co-founded and all through the span he was highly effective developing and cultivating deep relationships with top-level executives (CXOs) but also capable to interact and contribute at grass-root level (campaign managers, analysts). Both Blazar and Quazar were acquired by WPP group eventually.

He aces at new business creation; from business plan development, hiring and mentoring talent, revenue, to market leadership. For the past decade or so, he has been deeply involved with efforts to drive digital marketing growth in the region through advocacy, education, and innovation.

Devendra Chawla, CEO - Future Consumer Ltd & Group President - Food FMCG, Brands - Future Group

Mr. Devendra Chawla started his career working five years each for Asian Paints and Coca Cola before joining the retail industry in 2006. Subsequently, Mr. Chawla joined Coca Cola, India and served the company in various capacities as General Manager with P&L responsibility for a business unit turnaround role, Director - Area Operations with P&L responsibilities for one of its largest markets in India. He was promoted to a national role as Director - Route to Market, working with an international bottler. In 2006, he joined Reliance Retail as Concept Head - Super Markets, before moving on to become Vice President and Head of Merchandising & Format Marketing at Reliance Fresh. In early 2009, Mr. Chawla joined Future Group as Business Head - Private Brands with end-to-end responsibilities ranging from product development to launch. He was then promoted to President - Food and FMCG Category in 2011. In June 2013, Mr. Chawla became the CEO of Food Bazaar, managing the chain’s private label business. Then in January 2015, he was made Group President of Future Group’s food and FMCG businesses. Mr. Chawla was awarded the Most Admired Food & Grocery Retail Professional of the Year - Private Label at The Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards at 5th Edition of FGFI 2012. Under his leadership, Big Bazaar won the Most Admired Retailer of the Year - Private Label category at the above-mentioned awards for three consecutive years. Mr. Devndra Chawla is an engineer and an MBA, graduated from the Harvard Business School via its “Advanced Management Program” course.

Devendra Surana, MD, Bhagyanagar India Limited (President, FAPCCI)

Mr Devendra Surana, a renowned Industrialist, Managing Director, Bhagyanagar India Limited and Director – Surana Ventures Limited and Surana Group of Companies. Surana Group of Companies, having a 350 Crore Turnover, manufactures Solar Photovoltaic Panels, Auto Electricals, Wind Power and Copper Products.

Mr Devendra Surana is completed B.E. (Mechanical) from Osmania University (EMCET Entrance Rank – 28) and MBA (PGDM) from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (Chosen as the Brain of the Batch). He has presented papers and lectures at various colleges and institutes of repute like Institute of Public Enterprise, Osmania University, FAPCCI etc.

Mr Devendra Surana travelled extensively all over the world including US, Canada, Europe both east and west, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, entire South East Asia, China and Japan to participate several international fairs & attended Hanover Fair and Wire and also participated in Europa Telecom Exhibition, Budapest, Hungary; Telecom Asia-9; Asian Copper Forum at Singapore; Wire Singapore; World Trade Fair at Singapore, Intersolar Munich 2009.

Mr Devendra Surana adopted Bolarum town for community activity - started a library, Community Hall, Charitable Clinic in Bolarum and constructed and donated Surana Auditorium to Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce & Industry. Mr Devendra Surana also donated a Guest House with 12 rooms in Rajasthan. Gulab Chand Rotary Hall being donated by the Surana Group.

He is a Founder President for Young Entrepreneurs Organization (YEO) and Past President for Rotary Club of Moulali/Rotary Club of Hyderabad Deccan. He is also an a sports person and he served as a Captain for Management Games, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, Captain for Chess Team, Mechanical Engineering, Osmania University,Hyderabad and Captain for Chess Team at School.

Mr Devendra Surana is unanimously elected as President of FAPCCI for 2012-2013 at its 95th Annual General Meeting held on June 15, 2012.

Devika Nayyar, Country Manager BFSI- India, HPE

Devinjit Singh, Managing Director, The Carlyle Group | @OneCarlyle

Devinjit Singh is a Managing Director focused on significant sized growth capital and buyout opportunities across sectors in India. He is based in Mumbai.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Singh was Managing Director and Head of Citigroup's Mergers & Acquisitions business in India. In this role, he led several landscape changing transactions including Tata's acquisition of Jaguar Landrover from Ford, Wipro's acquisition of Infocrossing, the sale of Larsen and Toubro's RMC business to Lafarge and the sale of Punjab Tractors to Mahindra and Mahindra. In previous assignments over ~20 years at Citigroup, Mr. Singh advised and led several capital raisings for India's leading corporates.

Since joining Carlyle in 2008, Mr. Singh has been involved with investments in HDFC (NSE: HDFC) and India Infoline (NSE: IIFL). He is a member of the India Advisory Board of The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. He received his MBA from The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, and has a B.A. (Honors) in Mathematics from the University of Delhi.

Devki Nandan, SVP & Head - M&A, JSW Infrastructure Ltd.

Dewang Neralla, MD & CEO, Atom Technologies Limited

Dewang Neralla is the MD & CEO of atom technologies, one of India’s leading payments service providers focused on creating an end-to-end payments ecosystem over Internet, IVR, mobile and point-of-sale. He is also the co-founder of Financial Technologies. Today, atom has emerged one of the largest payment processing companies in India with processing over 3 million transactions per month and having processed more than USD 3 billion dollars (annualized) worth transactions.

Dewang Neralla is constantly focused on innovation through creation of distinctive payment solutions and services that are modern, secure and consumer centric along with atom’s technology team. His passion for excellence has led to atom being certified for ISO 9001:2008 for its operations and technology. He is passionate about electronic payments and its power to bring about huge social transformation in a growth economy like India and reduce the overall costs associated. He is actively involved in the payments industry being a co-chair of the Merchant Aggregators Committee in Payment Council of India (PCI) as well as a member of Executive Council of PCI.

Dewang Neralla holds a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Computer Science and has been a featured speaker at several national and international academic, business, and technology forums as well as at industry events.