Harsh Mariwala

Founder, ASCENT and Chairman, Marico Ltd.

Harsh Mariwala leads Marico Limited as its Chairman. He is also Chairman and Managing Director of Kaya Limited. Over the past three decades, Harsh has transformed traditional commodities driven business into a leading consumer products and services company in the Beauty and Wellness space. He was the President of FICCI in 2011. He has held the position of YPO Education, Membership and Chapter Chair for the Bombay Chapter and was a member of the International Forum Board of YPO International.

Ramji Raghavan

Founder and Chairperson, Agastya International Foundation

In 1998, Mr. Raghavan left a career in banking in London to create Agastya (www.agastya.org), a transformative and innovative education charity that has grown to become one of the largest creative hands-on mobile education programs for economically disadvantaged children and government school teachers in the world. Agastya’s five-year goal is to reach 100 million children and 1 million teachers.

Operating with a fleet of 200+ Mobile Science Labs, 95 Science Centers, 80 Lab-on-Bikes, 400 Operation Vasantha night village schools and a 172-acre campus Creativity Lab near Bangalore, Agastya has reached creative hands-on science and art education to over 20 million children and 250,000 teachers across 22 states in India. Agastya’s blended digital/online-hands-on education modules engage over 3 million underprivileged children and teachers every year. Agastya's innovative TechLaBike won the Google 2013 Global Impact Award. Its Mobile Science Lab was featured among the 100 top global innovations by The Rockefeller Foundation’s NextCentury Awards, its Lab-on-a-Bike won the Marico Innovation for India Award 2016 and Agastya was commended for its commitment by Chelsea Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative 2022. Mr. Raghavan was featured in the book 7 Sutras of Innovation – Stories of Scale Ups That Are Transforming India by Nikhil Inamdar.

Mr. Raghavan has served as a member of the Government of India’s Central Advisory Board of Education, the Prime Minister’s National Knowledge Commission (Working Group on attracting children to Science and Math), board member of The Indira Gandhi National Open University, Vigyan Prasar, New Delhi and the Karnataka State Innovation Council. He is a member of the Vision Group on Science and Technology, Government of Karnataka, chaired by Bharat Ratna Prof. CNR Rao. Mr. Raghavan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA) in 2021 and Senior Fellow by Ashoka: Innovators for the public in 2009, and was conferred the People’s Hero Award by the Confederation of Indian Industry (Southern Zone) in 2011.

Mr. Raghavan has written articles on education for Indian and foreign journals and spoken on creativity and leadership to audiences at international and national forums including the Education World Forum, Harvard India Conference, Clinton Global Initiative, Peking University, Global Educator Leaders Program (Helsinki), Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) at Qatar. He has also addressed school and university students, faculty, entrepreneurs and corporate leaders and executives in India.

Namita Thapar

Executive Director, Emcure Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Mrs. Namita Thapar is the Executive Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Pune with a turnover of 6000 crores ($750 million). It has a presence in 70+ countries and an employee strength of over 10,000.

Namita is an MBA graduate from the Fuqua School of Business and a Chartered Accountant from ICAI.
She is a recipient of various prestigious corporate awards such as the 40 under Forty award by Economic Times and Top 50 Most Powerful Women in business by Business Today.

Outside of work, Namita is passionate about improving women’s health in India and promoting entrepreneurship. Namita has launched a unique YouTube talk show on women’s health called Uncondition Yourself with Namita. She leads Thapar Entrepreneurs Academy that teaches entrepreneurship and is part of the global television show Shark Tank India.

Ajith Pai

COO, Delhivery

Ajith Pai is the Chief Operating Officer of Delhivery. He has been associated with Delhivery since April 6, 2013. He holds a bachelor’s degree of engineering in mechanical engineering from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, and a post-graduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. He was previously associated with the Lodha Group as Associate Vice President - Procurement.

Vineeta Singh

Co-founder and CEO, SUGAR Cosmetics

Vineeta Singh is the Co-Founder & CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics – the cult-favourite beauty brand amongst Gen Z and Millennials. With an annualized sales run rate of INR 500+ CR, the company has scaled faster than any other and is now one of the top 4 cosmetics brands in terms of sales contribution in the country. It has a physical presence of over 35,000+ retail touchpoints as of 2021 across 500+ cities and has a digital community of five million beauty enthusiasts across all platforms with its own website and mobile app getting more than a million unique visitors every month.

Over a decade ago, IIM Ahmedabad/IIT Madras alumni, Vineeta Singh had declined a top dollar investment banking placement offer to start her own venture. Having served in leadership positions at various other multi-million-dollar businesses since and successfully building India’s largest beauty subscription service along the way – Vineeta co-founded SUGAR Cosmetics in 2015 with a single-point agenda of creating world-class makeup products with high-pigmentation that specifically catered to the Indian skin tone.

With a vision of building SUGAR as “fast fashion for the face,” Vineeta advocates a fast-paced work culture where speed and experimentation lead the way for rapid innovation and a launch-packed calendar. The women-centric D2C brand, with a focus on core business fundamentals and an innate understanding of the customer and her needs boasts an impressive workforce of 3000+ employees with over 75 percent being women. Under her leadership, the startup clocked a 60% growth in sales during the pandemic and even hit the 1.9+ million mark on Instagram, making it one of the largest digital-first brands in India.

Well-regarded in entrepreneurial circles for her business ventures, Vineeta is one of the investors on Shark Tank India, one of the most successful reality shows in the country in recent times, which witnessed Vineeta investing and mentoring the budding future entrepreneurs of India. As an esteemed voice in the industry, Vineeta has also spoken at multiple business summits and government platforms where she has shared candid details about her journey and the future endeavors in store for the D2C Sector.

She is also a fitness buff with numerous ultra-marathons and triathlons to her credit. Being an avid runner for the last decade, she has completed the Comrades Ultra-marathon which is 89 km long, thrice from 2012-14. Apart from that, Vineeta and her husband Kaushik, are also the first Indian couple to finish the grueling long-distance Ironman triathlon in Austria (3.8km swim, 180km cycle, 42.2km run) – which is widely regarded as the toughest single-day sporting event in the world.

Natarajan Chandrasekaran

Chairperson, Tata Group

Natarajan Chandrasekaran is the Chairman of the Board of Tata Sons and several other Tata companies. His appointment as Chairman followed a 30-year business career at TCS. Under his leadership, TCS consolidated its position as the largest private sector employer in India and the country’s most valuable company.

Chandra is also a Director on the Board of the Reserve Bank of India, India’s central/federal bank, and on the International Advisory Council of Singapore’s Economic Development Board (EDB).

Chandra is an avid photographer and long-distance runner, he has completed the Abbott World Marathon Majors.

Ajit Mohan

Former VP and Managing Director, India, Meta

As the Vice President and Managing Director of India for Meta for four years, Ajit spearheaded the company's charter in India across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. His tenure saw the return of growth to the family of apps, in particular the massive success of Instagram and Reels. He was instrumental in the company's strategic investment in Jio Platforms and the rollout of shopping on WhatsApp through JioMart. Ajit's leadership of the company saw revenues in India grow from 2,254 crores in financial year 2019 to 16,189 crores in 2022.

Previously, Ajit was the founding CEO at Hotstar, where he launched and built Hotstar into India's leading premium video streaming platform. Ajit spent five years at McKinsey & Company, first in New York in its media practice, where he worked with media companies in North America, Europe, and Latin America, and two years as a Fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute, where he co-authored India's Urban Awakening, a 2010 report that outlined a new policy approach to India's rapid urbanization.

He is a graduate of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns HopkinsUniversity and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Boman Irani

Actor, Photographer and Voice Artist

Boman Irani is an actor, co-founder of Irani MovieTone, photographer and screenwriter. He is the recipient of numerous awards from institutions like Filmfare, Zee Cinema, Star Screen, Stardust and IIFA. He is known for playing both comedic and villainous roles in Bollywood films - Munna Bhai MBBS, 3 Idiots , Khosla Ka Ghosla, Well Done Abba and Don to name a few.

His passion for cinema led him to set up Irani Movietone, his own production house. He has completed his first screenplay and is on the threshold of directing his maiden venture for his company

Aman Gupta

Co-founder and CMO, boAt

Aman Gupta is Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Imagine Marketing Services Pvt. Ltd., doing business as BoAt. Prior to co-founding Imagine Marketing Services (BoAt), Gupta was the director of sales at Harman International, where he oversaw a portfolio of consumer electronics brands including JBL, Harman Kardon, and AKG which Harman International distributes in India. Aman Gupta studied for a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Kellogg School of Management in 2011 with a concentration in general management and marketing. His graduate business education also took place at the Indian School of Business.

Angad Daryani

Founder and CEO, Praan

Inventor and Social Entrepreneur with a background in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He spent most of his time working on entrepreneurial projects in the clean tech and AI space such as his newest venture Praan. Passionate about clean tech, future food sources, education, public health, and AI. Trying to solve problems for the current 7Bn people and the next 5Bn people. Previously associated with MIT Media Lab India Initiative.

Radhika Chaudhary

Director and CFO, Ricron Panels

Radhika graduated from The Ohio State University in BA Economics and Finance. Through Deeya Panel Products Private Limited, Radhika Chaudhary is pioneering the way towards a more sustainable future with Ricron Panels.

S.V. Nathan

Partner and Chief Talent Officer, Deloitte India

Nathan is a Partner and Chief Talent Officer of Deloitte India. He is a member of the India leadership team and serves on the Talent Executive Leadership of Deloitte Asia Pacific.

Nathan has over 35 years of experience in HR management, across diverse industries including Manufacturing, Services, Telecom, IT and Professional Services. He has vast experience in building and leading high-performance teams in both multinational and Indian organizations.

A respected voice of the HR profession in India, Nathan speaks regularly at several national and global forums on contemporary HR matters. He has been recognized as a ‘Distinguished Alumnus’ by XLRI by his Alma Mater where he was a topper of his batch. Nathan has been acknowledged as one of the top Voices of LinkedIn 2020. He has also been conferred several awards and honors throughout his career. He has been awarded a ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ 2021 by Economic Times and Business People’.

He currently serves as the National President of National Human Resources Development Network, the largest body of HR Professionals in the country.

He served as the Chairman of Sumedhas, a not-for-profit education and research body devoted to organization development. He is an author and loves to write.

Nathan is a regular blogger and has an active presence on social media and is well known for his ‘#OfficeTruths’ posts on LinkedIn.

Meena Ganesh

Co-founder and Chairperson, Portea Medical

As the Co-founder & Chairperson, Meena leads Portea Medical (www.portea.com), India’s leading and fastest growing home healthcare company, which she co-founded in July 2013. The company, has 4000+ employees and operations across 40+ cities in India, and brings in-home to patients, the full range of geriatric, chronic, post-operative care as well as allied healthcare services. As a partner of the platform, Growthstory.in, one of India’s largest entrepreneurship platforms, she is also co- promoter of nearly a dozen, new-age Internet/ Technology enabled start-ups namely bigbasket, Bluestone, HomeLane, and Verloop.io.

Meena’s career spans across organisations such as TutorVista, Pearson Education Services, Tesco Hindustan Service Centre, CustomerAsset, Microsoft India, PWC and NIIT. Meena is a PGDM holder from IIM Calcutta and has a graduate degree in Physics from the Madras University. Meena serves on the board of Pfizer India, P&G Health & Hygiene Limited and Axis Bank. She is the founder president of Home Healthcare Association and has also been part of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta. Through her non-profit Bahaar Foundation, Meena focuses on creating micro entrepreneurs in Healthcare and Agriculture sectors.
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Meena has recently been recognized by Forbes Asia – 50 Over 50 (2022) for shattering age and gender norms all over the globe and also featured in the list of Top 20 Outstanding Female Business Leaders by Forbes Asia 2021. She has been part of Fortune India’s 50 'Most Powerful Women in Business' for seven consecutive years (2015 - 2021). She has also been featured on IFC WeRise: Insights from Women Business Leaders on Managing through Crisis, Resilience and Recovery in 2021, also recognized by Business Today as Most Powerful Women in Business (2019-2021) and on W PowerTrailblazer by Forbes India in 2017 to acknowledge the significant achievements being made by women across diverse sectors. She won Acharya /Business Mentor of the Year by Entrepreneur India (2019), Pride of Karnataka Awards by Round Table India and Ladies Circle India (2017) and the ET Start-up Award in the Women Ahead category in 2016 and was chosen as Health Entrepreneur of the Year (2016) at the India Health Summit & Awards. She was awarded the Kempegowda Award by BBMP for contribution to the city of Bengaluru.

'Good is not good enough' is a dictum that lies at the core of Peyush Bansal's entrepreneurial journey since the beginning. Within eleven years of Lenskart's inception, Peyush has pivoted the brand to become the most recognizable and geographically diverse omnichannel marketplace brand for eyewear in Asia.

Peyush's entrepreneurship journey started in 2010 with the launch of Lenskart along with few more business lines catering to different product markets. However, he was strongly inclined towards the glaring yet unaddressed problem of Vision correction in India and the world. More than 600 Million Indians and 4.2 Billion people globally are affected by poor vision and need eyeglasses. However, only 170 Million Indians and 1.7 Billion people globally have any form of vision correction. Fired by the passion to solve this problem, Peyush joined hands with his co-founders with a vision to enable people to do more & be more using technology.

As an avid investor in upcoming startups, Peyush focuses on three core areas- Tech for Good, Sustainability & Large scale Solutions. He envisions powering up India's startup ecosystem through innovators who create, collaborate and help transform the world.

With a unique click and mortar business, Lenskart is revolutionizing the eyewear industry by offering disruptive services like Free Home Eye check-up, 3D Try On, Free Home Trial and First Frame Free among others. Through innovative technology and a deep focus on consumer satisfaction, Lenskart has grown more than 200% year on year in the last 2 years, to become Asia's largest omnichannel retailer and manufacturer of premium quality and contemporary eyewear.

Ananth Narayanan

Founder, Mensa Brands

Ananth Narayanan is an Investor and an Entrepreneur in the consumer internet space in India.
He is the founder of Mensa Brands. Mensa brands looks to invest into and work with founders
of digital first brands and scale them globally.

Most recently he was the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Medlife, one of the
largest ehealth company in India, with business verticals including pharmacy, diagnostics, and
e- consultation.

After scaling the business, he successfully merged it with Pharmeasy creating a billion plus
dollar business which is a clear market leader in the healthcare technology space.

Prior to this he served as the CEO of Myntra, the country’s largest platform for fashion and
lifestyle products and part of Flipkart/Walmart. Under his leadership, the company witnessed
6x growth in a span of 3.5 years, while improving profitability, with the right foundation for
long term success. Hewas also instrumental in buying Jabong and consolidating Myntra’s
market leadership. Featured as one of “India’s Hottest 40 under 40 Business Leaders” in 2014,
Ananth has deep expertise in driving performance improvement and digital transformation.

Prior to joining Myntra, Ananth was a Director at Mckinsey & Company for 15 years and has
worked across four offices (Chicago, Shanghai, Taipei, and Chennai). He serves as an
Independent Director on the Board of Marico and is an active member of YPO, the Global
Community of Young Leaders and Chief Executives. He is a part of the Champions of Change,
Transformation Conclave set up by NitiAayog, under the aegis of Narendra Modi, Prime
Minister of India. He is also on the Board of Arghyam, a foundation set up by Rohini Nilekani
to improve access to safe water. He also is passionate about the topic of Mental Health and
Serves as a Trustee for Deepika Padukone’s Live Love Laugh foundation. He is an active
member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and is also on the Industry Advisory Board
of the University of Michigan.

Nivruti Rai

A global leader with 20+ years of technical and business leadership experience in the US and India. Varied roles across engineering & research, innovation, and organizational management. Focused on building strong teams and grooming leaders who can deliver on the global stage. Passionate about Indian technology ecosystem and how we can usher in the next technology revolution for India and the world.

Bhavish Aggarwal

Co-founder and CEO, Ola Cabs

An IIT graduate, Bhavish Aggarwal worked at Microsoft Research India for two years prior to establishing his own company. He received the 'Innovation in Transportation Award' from Frost and Sullivan in 2014. In 2015, Ola was named 'Startup of the Year' by 'The Economic Times' and received the 'Leadership Award for Outstanding Startup' from 'Forbes India'. He was listed among '30 under 30′ by 'Hindustan Times' and 'Forbes', and was named 'Entrepreneur of the Year' by 'The Economic Times'.

Divyashikha Gupta

Managing Director and CEO, Stalwart World

A First Generation Serial Entrepreneur, Divyashikha Gupta _ Managing Director and CEO of Stalwart World, has built & scaled 4 businesses in 13 years. Her signature business _ Stalwart Business Consortium LLP, happens to be India’s First and Only Route to Market & Plug N Play Sales organization where they partner with emerging FMCG brands to take them to the retail market. So while the brand focusses on production, Stalwart builds, operates and manages the entire market for them through an asset light Plug n Play infrastructure combined with offline S&D & people excellence.

Her ability to strike the right balance between having a bird’s eye vision and an ant’s eye execution, propelled with a unique business model, has won her multiple awards during her entrepreneurial journey.

A management graduate from one of the best colleges in the country, and a passionate entrepreneur, Divyashikha has been very defiant about her “give back to society” values. She champions Gurukul Academy – Stalwart’s in-house outreach initiative which extends educational and social support to the underprivileged and poverty stricken masses of our society. She is also extremely involved with WOW- Stalwart. WOW literally means Women of Worth and this is Stalwart’s signature campaign to encourage and promote gender inclusion at the workplace.

At Stalwart World (Group Companies), her responsibilities are client management, strategic planning, evaluation of operational capabilities, risk assessment along with monitoring and assuring profitability of the group. With an unmatched attention to detail and excellent analytical abilities, Divya has always been a pioneer in her field who dares to dream and achieve the impossible.

Zaiba Sarang

Co-founder, iThink Logistics

With a determination to make a significant contribution to the male-dominated logistics industry, she has been fighting tooth and nail to combat a lot of logistics dysfunctions. Advancing through a series of ideas, Miss Zaiba Sarang’s leadership has expanded beyond boundaries and has positively affected multiple business arenas. Not only that, but the idea has also driven down cost, increased revenue and reduced return and refund rates of e-commerce to almost 5 to 10%.

Hadi Badri

CEO, Economic Development, Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism

Hadi has held various management roles at Emaar Properties, including as CEO of Emaar International ($1.5bn Revenue, $0.4bn EBITDA), Group Chief Strategy Officer at Emaar and Chairman of Namshi ($0.4bn Net Revenue). Prior to joining Emaar, Hadi was a Principal at Bain & Company, where he led a range of complex strategy and organization projects across industries.

He was also an investment professional at The Carlyle Group and Dubai International Capital. Hadi has served as a Board Director for Emaar Properties in 15 companies across Real Estate, E-commerce and Hospitality, including Emaar’s real estate development businesses in India, Turkey, Pakistan, Morocco and Jordan, Namshi (Fashion E-commerce) and Rove Hotels (Hospitality).

Hadi has also served as a Board Director at Sandooq Al Watan (Private Sector Not-for-profit) and Rivoli Group (Retail) and as a Member of Investment Advisory Committees at Middle East Venture Partners (Venture Capital) and Carlyle MENA Partners (Private Equity).

Hadi is an honors graduate in Economics from Tufts University in Massachusetts, USA.

Sandip Singh

CEO, Ishitva Robotic Systems

Sandip Singh is driven to solve one of the most pressing global challenges of dry waste using Industry 4.0 automation tools. He strongly believes that AI and computer vision can bring affordable and scalable solutions to enable the circular economy of plastic. Prior to Ishitva, Sandip worked as a private equity investor into the environmental and sustainable investments space and his core focus areas were waste recycling and clean energy. Over the years, he has built a very strong understanding of challenges and problems faced by the sector. With Ishitva, he aims to provide commercially viable solutions for these challenges using new age technologies.

Sandip has more than 15 years of experience of working with startups from early stage to growth stage. Earlier, he conceptualized and founded an ecommerce business in India and also was part of the early team of India’s first Legal Process Outsourcing business. He has done B. Tech. from IIT Kanpur and MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

About Ishitva’s Solutions:
Ishitva aims at solving real-world problems of Plastic and other Dry Waste by building automation solutions based on industry 4.0 tools, including Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and IoT. Effective sorting of the waste is currently the weakest link in creating a circular value chain. Therefore, to avoid dumping and burning of the dry waste, we particularly focus on creating an effective and efficient sorting system to improve both quantity as well as quality of recycling activities. Our solutions use computer vision to make sorting more efficient at different stages of the waste value chain. With a futuristic vision of revolutionizing the recycling industry, today we provide solutions for automated picking, sorting, and segregation of plastics based on composition, color, brands etc. Our current solutions include SUKA AI-powered Air Sorting, YUTA AI-powered Robotic Sorting, Netra Machine Vision system, and Sanjivani Fully Automated MRF plant for decentralized sorting applications.

Sunanda Jayaseelan

Anchor and Deputy News Editor, Times Network

Sunanda Jayaseelan is Anchor and Deputy News Editor at Times Network. In her role here, she is the editorial lead for Leaders of Tomorrow, a daily show on entrepreneurs which is presently in its tenth edition.

She has over 17 years of journalism experience having worked previously with Bloomberg, CNBC and NDTV. She is passionate about telling stories on India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and technology. She has covered both the stock markets as well as sectors ranging from healthcare to technology previously.

In her personal time, she works closely with causes related to animal welfare.