speakers

Business Today Mind Rush 2019 SPEAKERS

Mike Walsh CEO of Tomorrow

Mike is the CEO of Tomorrow, a global consultancy on designing companies for the 21st century. He advises leaders on how to thrive in the current era of disruptive technological change. More[+]

A true global nomad, Mike travels over 300 days a year worldwide, researching trends,collecting innovation case studies and presenting on the future of business. Mike’s clients include many of the global Fortune 500, and as a sought-after keynote speaker he regularly shares the stage with world leaders and business icons alike.

Mike previously founded Jupiter Research in Australia, and has also held senior strategy roles at News Corporation in the Asia Pacific Region. Mike’s latest book is The Algorithmic Leader: How to be smart when machines are smarter than you . His other books include the best-selling book Futuretainment, published by Phaidon and The Dictionary Of Dangerous Ideas. Each week he interviews provocative thinkers, innovators and troublemakers on his weekly podcast, Between Worlds. Less[-]
David WoodCoach & Trainer on Enhancing Productivity

Crazy, Rebel, Misfit, troublemaker, are a few of the adjectives that have been used to describe David T.S. Wood, some others are, humanitarian, pinnacle leader, multi-millionaire, adventurer, master educator and goofball. More[+]

David is as comfortable leading a team to the 19,000ft summit of Kilimanjaro, ‘The Roof of Africa’, as he is brainstorming with billionaires about changing the world.

He has trained over “One Million” students from all corners of the world, and regardless of the venue, the language they speak or the duration of his program, his students ALWAYS describe him the same way: Fearless, transparent, authentic, hilariously funny, effective and life changing.

His radical, non-apologetic approach is not for everyone; it’s definitely not for the faint of heart, or for the person who is not ready for change, the person who is content to sit on the sidelines and watch the game of life being played out in front of them by others who are tired of the status quo or playing by the rules.

David continues to work all over the world helping his students break through their fears, create freedom and design extraordinary lives. He likes to say however that his greatest accomplishment is being the proud father of his two son's Calvin and Ben. Less[-]
Janmejaya SinhaChairman (India), Boston Consulting Group

Janmejaya Sinha is the Chairman for India and a member of The Boston Consulting Group's Henderson Institute Innovation Sounding Board, which is dedicated to supporting, inspiring, and guiding upstream innovation at BCG. Between 2009 and 2018, Janmejaya was Chairman of the Asia-Pacific region, and from 2006 to 2018, was a member of the firm's Executive Committee. More[+]

Since joining BCG in 1998, Janmejaya has worked extensively with clients across the globe on issues including large-scale organization, transformation, strategy, governance, family business issues, and operations turnaround. Janmejaya has been a member of various committees set up by the government of India, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), and he serves as chair of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Committee on Financial Inclusion & Digitalisation. He has also been a member of the Indian government’s committee for the expansion of a digital payment platform across the country.

He was named one of the top 25 most influential consultants in the world by Consulting Magazine in 2010, and is the co-author of Your Strategy Needs a Strategy. In addition, Janmejaya is a regular speaker at the World Economic Forum, CII, IBA, FICCI, RBI, and other media events. Prior to joining BCG, he worked with the Reserve Bank of India. Less[-]
Montek Singh Ahluwalia Economist, Former Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission of India

Montek Singh Ahluwalia is among the men who have changed the face of India. His ‘M-document’, written in 1990, provided the blueprint for the economic liberalisation of the economy that began the following year under then Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao More[+]

and Finance Minister Manmohan Singh. He also played a stellar role in implementing the economic reforms – as Secretary, Commerce (1990-91), Secretary, Economic Affairs (1991-93) and Finance Secretary (1993-98). He went on to become a member of the Planning Commission (1998-2001) and subsequently, when Manmohan Singh was Prime Minister, its Deputy Chairman for 10 long years (2004-14), when he supervised both the 11th and the 12th Five Year Plans. In between, he was also Director, International Monetary Fund (2001-04).

Mr. Ahluwalia, a student of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and Oxford University, began his career with the World Bank in 1968. He returned to India in 1979 as Economic Adviser in the Finance Ministry. He was Additional Secretary and later Special Secretary in Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s office (1985-89), and held the same position under Prime Minister V. P. Singh. He has published papers in several international journals. His numerous awards include the Padma Vibhushan (2011) and ‘Doctor in Civil Law’ from Oxford University (2008). Less[-]
Sanjeev Sanyal Economist, author, urban theorist Principal Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance

Sanjeev Sanyal wears two hats exceptionally well – he is an acclaimed economist as well as a highly successful writer. Since February 2017, he has been Principal Economic Advisor to the Government of India. More[+]

decades in finance behind him, primarily with Deutsche Bank, where he was Global Strategist and Managing Director. He is an environmentalist and specialist in the economics of cities. In 2007, he was awarded the Eisenhower Fellowship for his work on urban dynamics. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University, Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore, and Senior Fellow with the World Wide Fund for Nature. Mr Sanyal was named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2010.

Separately, he is also a best-selling author, his books including Land of the Seven Rivers, The Indian Renaissance and The Ocean of Churn. He attended Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi, and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar (1992-95). His best-selling books include Land of the Seven Rivers, The Indian Renaissance and The Ocean of Churn. He was given the inaugural International Indian Achievers Award for contributions to Literature in 2014. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, London, and a Visiting Fellow at IDFC Institute, Mumbai. Less[-]
C. P. Gurnani Managing director and CEO Tech Mahindra

C. P. Gurnani, CEO and Managing Director of Tech Mahindra, is a towering figure of the Indian IT industry. Among his many achievements is the turnaround of the scam-scarred Satyam Computers, after Tech Mahindra took it over in 2009More[+]

and its successful merger with the parent company. The merger put Tech Mahindra among the five largest IT companies in India, with around 1,00,000 employees and clients in 51 countries. Mr. Gurnani, who joined Tech Mahindra as President of its global operations in 2004 and has been heading the company since June 2009, has extensive experience in international business development, start-ups and turnarounds, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions. He was Chairman of NASSCOM in 2016-17.

A chemical engineering graduate from National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, he has been with the IT industry since 1986 when he joined HCL, where he rose steadily, playing a vital role in the setting of HCL-Perot Systems, and after the two separated, becoming CEO of Perot Systems India. He has received numerous awards, including ‘Gold’ at the CEO World Awards in 2018 and EY’s ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ award in 2013. Aside from work, his passion is the education of underprivileged children, for which he and his wife Anita run the NGO ‘Titliyan’. He is also an active member of the Tech Mahindra Foundation. Less[-]
Peter Betzel CEO, IKEA India

Peter Betzel is IKEA India’s new CEO. Peter joined IKEA in 1993 because of its vision, culture and values, which are the driving forces behind his passion for growth. In his last assignment, he was the Country Manager for IKEA Germany for 6 years and during this time, it became the best performing IKEA market. Prior to that, he was the Country Manager, IKEA Spain. More[+]

During his tenure, he has had extensive store experience, which he believes is the best platform to understand the core of the IKEA business. Peter now has ambitious plans to lead the India story to success and both people and business growth are high on his agenda. Less[-]
Lula MohantyManaging-Global Business Services, IBM India/South Asia

Lula Mohanty is General Manager, GBS Asia Pacific, IBM. Lula is responsible for the financial performance of GBS, in addition to setting and delivering on business strategy.More[+]

In her 20+ years at IBM, Lula has undertaken a number of domestic and international responsibilities, led engagements with marquee clients and established successful practices for Global Business Services. She has been at the forefront of the hi-tech industry for IBM, setting up Application Innovation services and IBM’s outsourcing business in the Philippines. Lula is a member of the IBM Chairman's exclusive leadership community responsible for strategy, growth and transformation for the IBM Corporation. Less[-]
Dr Rajat Kathuria Director and Chief Executive, Indian Council For Research on International Economic Relations

Renowned economist, professor, author and former national level table tennis player, Dr Rajat Kathuria is Director and Chief Executive at India’s leading economic think tank, the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations. He has been a teacher for over 20 years More[+]

University of Maryland, US, and subsequently at the International Management Institute, Delhi. He has carried out research projects for a host of international agencies, including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, International Labour Organisation, LIRNEasia and the UN Conference on Trade and Development. He has been an adviser to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, and is a founder-member of the Broadband Society for Universal Access.

He is a director on the Microfinance Institutions Network, a member of the advisory board of the State Bank of India, and several other government committees. He is co-author of six books including Global Economic Cooperation: Views from G-20 Countries and Low Carbon Pathways for Growth in India. He studied at St. Stephen’s College and Delhi School of Economics, before completing his Ph. D. at the University of Maryland. At one time in the 1980s, he ranked No. 3 among India’s table tennis players. Less[-]
Bhaskar BhatManaging Director, Titan Ltd

Mr. Bhaskar Bhat, B.Tech, PGDM has been the Managing Director of Titan Company Limited since April 1, 2002 and also serves as its Chief Executive Officer. At Titan, Mr. Bhat has been involved in Sales & Marketing, HR, International Business and various general managerial assignments. Since 1983, he has been associated with the Tata Watch Project, now Titan Company Limited. He started his career as a Management Trainee at Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing in 1978. More[+]

After spending five years at Godrej, he joined the Titan Company Limited initiated by Tata Press in 1983. He has been the Chairman at Tata Ceramics Ltd. since March 5, 2012. He has been Chairman of the Board at Rallis India Limited since December 25, 2015 and has been its Non-Independent & Non-Executive Director since October 8, 2015. He serves as a Member of Advisory Board at Incube Ventures Pvt Ltd. He serves as a Director of Virgin Mobile India Limited; Titan International Holdings BV; Titan Watches & Jewellery International (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd; Titan Holdings Ltd; Titan Properties Ltd. and Titan International Marketing Ltd. He has been a Non Independent Non Executive Director at Trent Ltd. since September 27, 2010.

He has been an Independent Director of Bosch Ltd since January 1, 2013. He is a Member of the Governing Council of the T.A. Pai Management Institute, Manipal and the SDM Institute of Management and Development, Mysore. He has been a Non-Executive Director of Tata Chemicals Limited since December 23, 2016. He served as a Non-Independent & Non-Executive Director of Tata Chemicals Limited since October 20, 2015 until November 10, 2016. He has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award in IIT Madras in 2008. He serves as Executive Non Independent Director of Titan Company Limited. Mr. Bhat has completed his Post Graduate Diploma (PGDM) in Management from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad in 1978 and has received a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras in 1976.c Less[-]
Patu KeswaniChairman and Managing Director of Lemon Tree Hotels

Patu Keswani virtually discovered the mid-market segment in India’s hospitality industry with Lemon Tree Hotels, whose tariff he consciously set at 40 per cent of what five star hotels charged. More[+]

Before the first Lemon Tree hotel began in Delhi in 2004, there largely existed only five star hotels or the unhygienic dumps that sprout around railway stations – there was no hotel chain in the middle.

Today, Lemon Tree Hotels has 52 hotels in 31 cities across three brands – Lemon Tree Premier, an upscale brand, Lemon Tree Resorts, a leisure segment brand, and Red Fox, which is now the budget brand. Mr. Keswani and Lemon Tree have been honoured with a host of awards over the years, including the Asian Human Capital Award in 2015, and inclusion in the Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Association of India’s ‘Hall of Fame’ in 2010. He has also been recognised by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and other organisations for his focus on employing disabled people in his hotels.

Mr. Keswani, alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Calcutta, began his entrepreneurial career in 2002, before which he worked with the Tata Group for 15 years, which included running some of its marquee hotels. He also had a short stint with consulting firm A. T. Kearney. His hobbies include reading – history and science fiction in particular – yoga and playing with his dogs. Less[-]
Kovid KapoorCEO and Co-Founder, Holidify

After graduating in 2012 from IIT Bombay with a Computer Science degree, Kovid worked as a data scientist with Opera Solutions, helping US healthcare clients recover lost revenue by using data science. However, his entrepreneurial drive soon took over, and he started Holidify in 2014, with the aim of creating an exhaustive travel-planning product. More[+]

Currently Holidify is one of the largest trip planning products in India, helping over 5 Million monthly users plan their trips. Less[-]
Sandeep Aggarwal Founder & CEO Droom

Sandeep is the founder of two marketplaces in India - Droom, India’s first automobile marketplace and ShopClues, India’s first and largest managed marketplace. More[+]

Sandeep is an angel investor, serial entrepreneur, philanthropist and Internet visionary and has successfully managed to build ShopClues as one of the top 5 Unicorns in Consumer Internet in India. Having worked in Silicon Valley and Seattle for about 12 years prior to ShopClues & Droom, Sandeep has rich experience in the global Internet and E-commerce industry.

In April 2014, Sandeep started Droom, an online transactional marketplace for buying and selling of used and new automobiles. Droom is a completely disruptive business which has created an unparalleled trust and pricing advantage for buyers.

Prior to Droom in October 2010, Sandeep founded ShopClues.com at his house in California and moved to India in August 2011 to launch the brand as India’s first managed marketplace to empower 15Mn SME sellers in various unstructured categories such as fashion, household, electronic and many more.

Sandeep is one of the masters in MTV Dropout, a reality TV show on entrepreneurship. He has an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis and holds a US patent. Less[-]
Ajith Mohan Karimpana Founder & CEO, Furlenco

Ajith Karimpana, the Founder-CEO of Furlenco, used to work as vice president at Goldman Sachs. Seeing an opportunity in the market for home rental furniture, in 2011, he founded Rent Ur Duniya, re-branded as Furlenco in 2012. More[+]

Karimpana is a graduate from NIT-Jalandhar and has done his MS, Computer and Information Science, from Temple University, Philadelphia. In his free time, Karimpana likes to read, watch TV and spend quality time with his family. Less[-]
Rajesh Magow Co-Founder and CEO (India), MakeMyTrip.com

When MakeMyTrip bagged over $4 billion in gross bookings in 2018 (meaning at least 15 million customers served), it was Rajesh Magow, co-founder and CEO-India, who was steering the company’s business strategy and operations. Mr Magow is credited with consolidating the company’s position as a market leader in India’s online travel sector; even his rivals concede he was the man behind MakeMyTrip’s 15-fold revenue growth since its 2010 IPO. More[+]

A qualified Chartered Accountant, Mr Magow - the recipient of several awards including the Bloomberg Award for the Best CFO in India – was key to MakeMyTrip’s successful merger with the Ibibo Group. An independent director on the board of Flipkart, Mr Magow is a passionate badminton player. Less[-]
Devendra Chawla CEO Spencers Retail

Devendra Chawla has held many varied roles. Until recently the Chief Operating Officer of Walmart India, he is a seasoned professional with over two decades of cross-industry experience. He has done everything from setting up business units and sales and marketing to brand management. As CEO of Food Bazaar, he steered it to becoming India’s largest grocery chain and went on to become the CEO of Future Consumer Limited.More[+]

An alumnus of the Harvard Business School ‘DK’ (as he is known in the industry) has served as Concept Head – Super Market for Reliance Retail. In addition to a degree in Production Engineering, he holds an MBA from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune. His early career choices included working at Coca Cola in customer service, as well as the company’s market and area operations. Less[-]
Raghav Gupta Coursera's Director of India & APAC

Raghav leads India and APAC business of Coursera. He is responsible for growing Coursera’s consumer and enterprise business in the region, and thereby bringing the world’s best education to learners. In this role, Raghav is responsible for driving impactful partnerships with leading corporate and government institutions.More[+]

Raghav has 20 years of experience across consumer, internet, and management consulting industries in India, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Previously, Raghav was India Country Manager at BlaBlaCar, an inter-city carpooling service. By partnering with the company’s founders, Raghav successfully launched BlaBlaCar in India in early 2015. As a management consultant for 15 years, Raghav led the Retail Practice of Strategy& (erstwhile Booz & Co.) in India, and served as President of Technopak Advisors (a leading consulting firm in consumer facing industries).

Raghav holds an MBA from INSEAD in France, and is a recipient of the INSEAD Syngenta Scholarship for Emerging Country Leadership. Less[-]
Bani Paintal Dhawan Head of Education, India and South Asia Google Cloud India Pvt Ltd.

Bani Paintal Dhawan heads Google for Education in India. She has been Google for over 8 years and has held leadership positions in marketing and sales before leading the education group at Google in India. Google's mission is to provide quality education to everyone in the world by organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful. Through it's products and platforms specifically designed for students and educators, Google would like to enable a large ecosystem to impact learning outcomes. More[+]

With over 17 years of experience, Bani has spearheaded many program at Google impacting student learning and teacher professional development. Prior to Google, Bani was heading global communication at Infosys where she led her team to achieve milestones like the remote opening of NASDAQ by Infosys and India Everywhere campaign at World Economic Forum at Davos. Less[-]
Sharad BansalCo-founder and CEO, SRJNA

Sharad Bansal, Co-founder and CEO of Jaipur-based start-up SRJNA, graduated from IIT-Delhi. He joined hands with Om Prakash, Kapil Arya and Vivek Pathak and set up SRJNA. More[+]

He heads the marketing, finance and investor relations functions at the start-up, which aims at making learning fun and get students interested in STEM programmes. They realised the importance that practical sessions had during their college studies and felt the same should be available at schools too. This led them to set up Innovation Labs for schools and later Tinkering Labs to facilitate relevant training in IoT, AI, 3D printing and robotics. They have set up about 100 Tinkering Labs and 30 Innovation Labs in 120-plus private and government schools across India. Less[-]
Dr. Rajeev Shorey Principal Scientist with TCS Research and Innovation

He is heading the Standards Cell in TCS. He also serves as an adjunct faculty in the Computer Science & Engineering department at IIT Delhi. More[+]

Dr. Shorey received his Ph.D and MS (Engg) in Electrical Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India in 1997 and 1991 respectively. He received his B.E degree in Computer Science and Engineering from IISc, Bangalore in 1987. Dr. Shorey’s career spans several reputed research labs – General Motors (GM) India Science Laboratory (ISL), IBM India Research Laboratory and SASKEN Technologies. Dr. Shorey served as the first President of NIIT University from 2009 to 2013 before joining the TCS Research Labs in 2014.

Dr. Shorey’s work has resulted in more than 60 publications in international journals and conferences and several US patents, all in the area of wireless, wired networks, including wireless security. He has 12 issued US patents and several pending US patents to his credit. His areas of interest are Wireless Networks, Internet, Telecommunications, Telematics, Data Security and Data Analytics.

For his contributions in the area of Communication Networks, Dr. Shorey was elected a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering in 2007. Dr. Shorey was recognized by ACM as a Distinguished Scientist in December 2014. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, India and a Senior Member of IEEE. Less[-]
Dr. Sandeep SanchetiVice Chancellor at the SRM Institute of Science and Technology

Dr. Sandeep Sancheti has been deeply involved with education for many years. Over the years he has held pivotal roles at many educational institutes such as Manipal University, Jaipur; NIT Delhi; NIT Tiruchirapally; NIT Calicut; School of Planning & Architecture Delhi; and Mentor Director at NIT Goa, NIT Puducherry and NIT Sikkim. More[+]

His main interest is telecommunication, and he has published around 75 research papers. He holds a B. Tech degree, an M.Sc. in Engineering from what was the Delhi College of Engineering, and a Ph.D. from Queens University of Belfast, UK. Less[-]
Neha KantCo-Founder and Director, Clovia

Neha Kant is the Founder of Purple Panda Fashions Pvt Ltd (formerly Clovia) and has been its Chief Revenue Officer and Director since June 30, 2015. Neha Kant also served as the Chief Executive Officer of Purple Panda Fashions Pvt Ltd. More[+]

She is responsible for driving sales and operations across channels and geographies. Less[-]
Sujeet KumarCo-Founder, Udaan

An Indian Institute of Technology Delhi graduate, Sujeet Kumar founded Udaan in 2016 along with Amod Malviya and Vaibhav Gupta . The three had met at Flipkart where they used to work. Run and operated by Hiveloop Technologies Pvt. Ltd. More[+]

Udaan is a network-centric B2B trade platform that brings traders, wholesalers, retailers and manufacturers in India on to a single platform. Before starting Udaan, Sujeet served as president of operations at Flipkart till 2012; he was also on the board of WS Retail . Till date, Udaan has received over $250million in funding . He also supports the start-up ecosystem as an angel investor Less[-]