World Renowned Faculties
Hari Krishnan, Fund Manager, Astarc Ventures
Hari Krishnan leads seed investments at Astarc Ventures as the Fund Manager. He has over 12 years of experience, of which over 6 years as an entrepreneur - co-founded a startup in the education space that raised Angel Investment before getting acquired by a listed education player. Hari has made investments from few lakhs to $1m USD using instruments covering convertible notes, equity and CCPS. He has an integrated Masters in Management degree from BITS Pilani. Recent investments include FOYR.com and TravelKhana.
Harish H V, Partner and Member India Leadership Team, Grant Thornton
Harish has over 22 years experience in Corporate Finance, Consulting, Investment Banking and Industry. He is part of the Leadership Team of the firm and looks after Advisory Practice of the firm, oversees operations of South India Calcutta and is involved in the Mumbai practice. His focus area of work is Corporate Finance and he has built a strong Corporate Finance and advisory practice in Grant Thornton and advised several corporate and Private Equity Firms in Capital raising, M and A, Valuation and related engagements.
Harish has also worked in Management Consulting with A F Ferguson and Co (now member firm of Deloitte), industry as VP, Corporate Affairs with Garware Polyester Limited, Manager, Corporate Finance with Crosby Securities Ltd (now SG Securities) and as Senior Account Manager (Merchant Banking) with HSBC Bank, Mumbai. assisting several companies in capital raising, financial restructuring.
Harminder Chawla, Partner, Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co
Mr. Harry Chawla is a Partner at Amarchand & Mangaldas, based at the New Delhi Office. He has extensive experience in the area of Banking and Finance and has advised and represented clients on issues pertaining to corporate finance both domestic and cross border, debt restructuring and refinancing, securitization, acquisition finance, structured finance, bonds and similar instruments. Mr. Chawla has acted for both lenders and borrowers and been involved in complex transactions involving multiple lenders across jurisdiction.
Hasnain Zaheer, Experienced researcher & trainer in DIGITAL innovation, new venture, entrepreneurial strategy & marketing, Macquarie University, Sydney Australia
Hasnain Zaheer is an experienced innovator & digital strategist, product management practitioner, trainer and researcher with a record of successfully building and launching digital products and services across start-ups and enterprise innovation teams.
As a mid-career higher degree research (HDR) scholar at Macquarie University’s Faculty of Business & Economics (FBE), he has investigated how innovative digital start-ups achieve traction, introducing innovative digital start-ups as a new subject of study. In addition, Hasnain has
• Conducted popular courses in digital strategy and Internet marketing at University of Sydney’s Centre for Continuing Education for more than 5 years.
• Technology and product management experience as Head of Content Solutions at Yahoo! Search Marketing, search engine marketing at Overture, and product management at 24/7 Real Media in Sydney. He has worked in National Stock Exchange, its IT subsidiary NSE.IT in Mumbai, as business journalist at Business Today, Delhi and product manager of digital ventures at TMI Network in Hyderabad.
• Start-up experience in seed stage and VC funded start-ups as well as building innovative web products in a large corporate environment.
• Experience of running a boutique digital agency for 5 years with a client case study featured in Philip Kotler’s textbook on marketing; and
• A Masters in Management (from Macquarie Graduate School of Management) (with focus on Strategic management, New enterprise management and Business performance measurement & management) and Masters in Research (from Macquarie University).
The Facilitator is an acknowledged expert in digital innovation and start-ups and brings insights from work and research both in India and overseas.
Hemal Mehta, Partner, M&A Tax, Deloitte India
Hemal is a Partner in the Tax practice, based in Mumbai, with over 21 years of experience.
Hemal has led and managed projects across various sectors such as Investment Management, Real Estate, Private Equity and Industrial Products & Services. He has worked extensively on the structuring offshore Private Equity Funds and on India based venture capital funds. He has also worked on Mergers & Acquisitions and structuring joint ventures of foreign investors.
He has advised clients on internal restructurings and re-organisations. He leads the Real Estate and Infrastructure Tax Practice in India.
He has authored many articles related to Private Equity, Real Estate and Infrastructure. Hemal is a regular speaker at various seminars and conferences on tax related topics.
He is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and a Commerce graduate from Mumbai University.
Hormuz D. Mehta, Of-Counsel, JSA Law
Hormuz specializes in Dispute Resolution, White Collar crimes and general corporate commercial litigation. He has extensive knowledge in dispute resolution from International Commercial Arbitrations to criminal frauds in local courts. He has extensive experience in litigation matters including corporate frauds, bail and anticipatory bail applications, medical negligence, scams, economic espionage, internet fraud and perjury.
In addition, he has extensive experience in International Commercial Arbitrations under various international institutions such as the ICC, DIAC and LCIA.
He has been practicing law since 2004. Before re-joining JSA, he was for two years counsel in the Bombay High Court with criminal counsel Mr. Aabad Ponda. He was also a Case Manager at the Dubai International Arbitration Centre for 2 years before which he was an Associate at JSA in the Mumbai as well as the Dubai offices.
Huzefa Tavawalla, Head: Disruptive Technologies Practice Group, Nishith Desai Associates
Huzefa Tavawalla leads the Disruptive Technologies Practice of the international law firm Nishith Desai Associates, and is an integral part of the firm’s management. He focuses on matters pertaining to Information Technology, Mergers & Acquisitions, Telecommunication and International Tax.
In addition, he has done extensive research and undertaken various matters in relation to areas of technology such AR/VR, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Driverless Cars, Drones etc. Recently, he was also appointed as a special task force committee member on the drone committee set up by the Indian Government for formulating drone laws in India.
He is a member of the International Bar Association (“IBA”) along with being a member of the Intellectual Property and Technology committee of the IBA. Mr. Tavawalla also holds various diplomas in subjects such as Corporate Laws, European Union Public Law, Cyber Laws and Humanitarian Laws.
Huzeifa Unwala, Sr. Partner, VERITA
Huzeifa is a senior partner of VERITA. He has over 18 years of composite experience in servicing International, large and medium sized clients in the areas of Business Advisory, Fraud Investigations, Internal Audits, IT Advisory, SOX/ Clause 49 implementation assistance and Enterprise wide Risk Management.
Huzeifa leads a multi-skilled team and is involved adding value to clients across sectors. Prior to founding VERITA he was a Partner & National Head of Risk Advisory Services practice of BDO in India. In his role at BDO he was responsible for various leadership initiatives that included re-structuring the practice model, scaling the practice size and talent management. Huzeifa has also worked as a Practice Director, Business Risk Services at Grant Thornton in India.
He has played leadership roles in his career mentoring large teams, serving global clients and developing practice innovations. He has made several notable contributions at IIA, ICAI, BCAS, ISACA, CII, Indian Audit & Accounts (C & AG) and other professional forums.
Indrajit Mishra, Partner, IC LEGAL
Indrajit has worked with reputed law firms like Thakker & Thakker, ARA Law and Finsec Law Advisors in senior positions before joining IC Legal in May, 2013. Indrajit has been quoted by international publications like Legal 500 as one of the top lawyers in India in the transactional advisory and capital markets space.
Indrajit has experience in providing broad range of legal advice to clients on corporate transactional work. He specialises in private equity, M&A, joint ventures and other transactional work. He has been advising domestic and offshore clients on the Indian regulatory regime particularly on RBI and FDI issues, setting up of investment funds, structuring and strategizing domestic and cross border acquisitions, drafting and negotiating transaction documents, India entry and overseas investments. He is an advocate and a qualified company secretary.
Ishan Manaktala, COO, CoreOne Technologies
Ishan began his career in big data analytics in Chicago and moved to Wall Street to work in sales and trading for Deutsche Bank. Ishan is currently COO at CoreOne Technologies, a Markit company where he has gained extensive experience as an agent of change in successfully transforming and exiting global businesses. He was part of the core team that successfully sold CoreOne on behalf of Symphony Technology Group, a strategic PE fund. He has expertise in driving successful business turnarounds by implementing comprehensive financial management and operational structures that are aligned with organizational goals. Ishan is passionate about the Indian entrepreneurial eco-system and he is mentor and board advisor to several start-up firms as well as an active angel investor. Ishan holds MBA degrees from Columbia Business School and London Business School.