Head of Marketing, Indian Subcontinent, SAP India Pvt. Limited
Krishnan Chatterjee is a core member and trusted advisor to the India Senior Executive Leadership team, responsible for driving business results across the Indian Subcontinent comprising India, Srilanka & Bangladesh markets. He is accountable for overall marketing strategy, thought leadership, awareness, demand generation, reputation & loyalty management and end to end pipeline acceleration.
Krishnan is a multi-disciplinary business and marketing leader with over two decades of experience across B2C and B2B industries. He incubated zCMO™ – a thought-leading offering for CMOs to improve marketing performance in digital transformation era. He was the architect behind the HCL-Manchester United deal, now poised to enhance the experience of 650+ Mn global followers .While at HCL– he created and led the Strategic Marketing function and in his last stint, was a founder member of the organization’s Beyondigital™ business unit.
During a decade long stint at ITC Ltd he was responsible for some distinguished brand launches, including 555, Wills Lifestyle, Wills Sport and the John Players apparel brand which he also led as a business.
Sandipan Chattopadhyay
Founder, Xelpmoc
Sandipan Chattopadhyay is the CEO of Xelpmoc a leading incubator for start-ups. Mr. Chattopadhyay served as the Chief Technology Officer of Just Dial Limited until December 31, 2015. Mr. Chattopadhyay has 15 years of experience in the field of technology. He was associated at E Dot Solutions India Private Limited. Mr. Chattopadhyay holds a Bachelor's degree in Statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata and Post-Graduate Diploma in Computer Aided Management from Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata.
Hemant Jain
Sr. Executive VP & Business Head Digital, Lokmat Media PVT. Ltd.
Hemant is a veteran in digital media, mobile entertainment, and online publishing space with proven track record of taking many businesses from inception to leadership stage by building operations ground up and expanding in quick time.
Hemant is a thorough professional with 22 years of hands-on operating experience in various startups. He has been actively involved in developing growth strategies for brands (B2C& B2B) in the digital media space, built early stage businesses in the mobile entertainment, consumer broadband, marketing services & online publishing space from definition to growth stage with his expertise in strategic planning, content management, content acquisition & distribution globally across multi-media platforms with rapid scale up monetization model. During this process he has been instrumental in building world-class products (web & mobile) by bringing about a perfect confluence of great consumer insights, media & emerging technologies. Hemant is an out of box thinker and has extensive knowledge on various facets of retail, social, online, and mobile marketing including the science of Customer Experience Management.
Hemant currently leads ClickStart, the digital startup of Lokmat Media Group, an exciting journey of creating the largest hyperlocal media hub of regional news, entertainment content and information services.
Outside of work, Hemant mentors early stage start-ups on business traction and growth acceleration strategies.
Vivek Lath
Investor & MD, GoQuest Media Ventures
Vivek Lath is Angel Investor and Managing Director at GoQuest Media Ventures.
A general management profile with experience in Business Consulting, Retail, Media/Entertainment & FMCG/CPG industry. I am passionate about developing new ventures/businesses, evaluating businesses and strategy and building partnerships. Current interests are in Digital Media and Internet of things.
Running Goquest Media Ventures, a content syndication and distribution company from Mumbai, India. This is my second stint with entrepreneurship. Goquest is now the largest independent distributor of Indian content to international television channels.
Set up the distribution and syndication operations for Cinergy Pictures, a film production and distribution venture. Worked closely with content buyers and sellers from across the world. Expertise in licensing feature films across all platforms.
Went through the sweet experience of starting a venture. Took care of everything from raising capital, business development, marketing and sales . Ran a successful pilot and signed up some of the largest companies for the pilot.
Worked in a mid management role, developed new businesses and sourced content for Tata Sky, a satellite television platform in India. This engagement involved building relations and negotiations with pay channel broadcasters, movie distributors, movie producers and other content providers.
Prior to Tata Sky, I was with Cannondale Associates, a business consulting firm based in CT, USA . Here, I assisted Retail and FMCG/CPG clients with their various growth plans, marketing plans, sales programs and new to market strategies. List of clients included fortune 50 Retail and FMCG/CPG companies in US. Analytics, presentation and leadership were my key skills in this engagement.
Specialties: Marketing in Retail/FMCG, Media and Entertainment, Digital Media, Business Development, Deal structuring and Negotiations, Business Evaluation, Analytics & Modeling.
Shabir Momin
MD & CTO, ZengaTV.com
Started at the age of 16 and became the youngest CTO at the age of 21, he was also awarded as the Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013 by TIE. Shabir has had a successful track record in various technology and business positions at a CXO level for few years before he became an entrepreneur. His current ventures that he has founded and cofounded includes ZengaTV, OneDigital, OneAxcess, Desiredwings, Raastey, Leap 10, and few others.
His ventures like ZengaTV.com being the largest OTT player in India with 30+ Million users, OneDigital being the largest YouTube MCN and Digital production house with 40 Billion watch minutes in YouTube alone and with the largest number of web shows and original digital videos produced so far. OneAxcess.com a unique self-serve, multi-platform distribution and monetization video eco system with over few thousands of content owners, creators and brand advertisers on board, making these ventures the leaders of their respective space.
He has keen interest in scalable and consumer facing business with some of his new ventures, in Cab industry, experiential marketing (using VR, AI, 360, Robotics, AR), Start-up incubation labs, renewable power, data mining, and bots to count few.
Prashant Puri
Co-founder & CEO, AdLift
Prashant Puri is the co-founder & CEO of AdLift, a Digital Marketing Solutions company headquartered SF Bay Area with offices in Gurgaon, India. He has recently joined as advisory board member of ad:tech 2017 and serving as advisory board member of PHD chamber of commerce since long.
An alumnus from Columbia University, Prashant is a digital marketing expert having an extensive 13 years of industry experience. With his ability of building websites into multi-million dollar enterprises, he played an instrumental role in setting up the company and taking it to a high growth trajectory.
Recently, Prashant has also founded a new venture, Yral (pronounced ÔViral') which is a joint venture between cricketer Yuvraj Singh's YouWeCan and AdLift. Yral is a platform that connects advertisers with celebrities by leveraging their social media network.
Prior to founding AdLift, Prashant played the Head of Global Marketing at eBay's comparison-shopping arm - Shopping.com, where he established footprints of the company worldwide. Before that, Prashant's leadership role at Yahoo! revolved around cutting edge technologies that focused on driving synergies between search and display.
In 2005, he successfully nurtured A&T Interactive into the second largest local search player by leading their foray into the digital marketing world.
Vetted as an industry expert and veteran, Prashant is being invited to speak at numerous digital marketing conferences and conventions around the world, including SMX, SES and Pubcon; and has contributed to several search marketing journals including
Search Engine Journal and Marketing Pilgrim. Today, AdLift is one of the country's top search-marketing firms, focused on delivering digital marketing ROI. To keep company's elevations high, Prashant works closely with a number of Fortune 500 companies including PayPal, eBay, Overstock & Barnes & Noble, helping them increase their search market share.
Prashant is an avid skier and loves hitting the slopes every chance he gets! In summer, he enjoys the occasional rafting and kayaking.
INVESTORS
Harshad Lahoti
Founding Partner & CEO, ah! Ventures
Currently at the helm of four companies in the Financial Services & Consultancy space, creating and growing businesses is not new for Harshad. He made his beginnings as a Management Executive with Larsen & Toubro, where he was assessed to be a high level performer and selected for their esteemed Management Leadership Program. His passion for finance, however, called him to move on to creating his own investment advisory and wealth management company Intercontinental Investments (2005), followed by Excelman India (2006). Further, with his interest in investment banking and desire to help early-stage ventures, Harshad founded ah! Ventures (2009) and CLUB ah! network (2012). In the past 10 years, Harshad has grown his ventures into reputed, self-sufficient businesses that fuel their own growth.
While his investment banking knowledge gives him an edge in evaluating businesses and investment opportunities, it is his extensive experience in creating super specialised, highly motivated teams and lean, optimised workflows and processes that Harshad is known best for. Harshad is known to be an astute problem solver and brilliant negotiator with the ability to think on his feet, while being meticulous and detailed in everything he undertakes. Among other things, he brings to the table the ability to create and build brands and bring about winning partnerships capable of handling whatever curveball the market throws at them.
Besides his interest in finance & investments, Harshad is also deeply involved as a director with the Ajit Lahoti Charitable Foundation, one of Pune's leading charitable institutions helping Chronic Renal Failure patients minimize their hardships by better kidney disease management. He is a Fellow Member of Aspen's India Leadership Initiative, a unique values-based leadership program designed to help leaders move from success to significance'. He has invested in over 40+ startups till date and is a regular speaker at many startup events in India & abroad.
Harshad travels extensively, loves yoga & salsa dancing and lives in Mumbai & Pune.
Jaison Jose
Director & COO, Xelpmoc Design & Tech
Jaison is currently the Director and Chief Operating Officer at Xelpmoc Design & Tech, a unique incubator and technology partner for startups. A veteran of the HR services industry, he has partnered with entrepreneurs, family business owners, the investing community and large enterprises, to develop leadership augmentation strategies and stellar teams. Operations, deep customer engagements, collaboration and relationship management are at the core of his experiences.
He was a founding team member at Quess Corp Limited (NSE: QUESS), India's leading business services company. As a key leader in their marquee executive search business, he built several successful practice groups and led go-to-market strategies. Previously with Adecco India, he built the portfolio services offering focused on the start-up ecosystem.
Jaison graduated from Narsee Monjee College and earned his MBA from NMIMS, Mumbai.
Shalini Prakash
Principal, 500Startups
Shalini believes in the magic that happens at the intersection of entrepreneurship and technology. Her interests lie in understanding how these intersections can be empowered to create transformational solutions for different ecosystems. Her vast knowledge and experience gives her the unique perspective ability to operate in cross- disciplinary roles and industries, create inter-relations and develop creative solutions.
Currently, the Principal at 500Startups, a global venture capital firm and accelerator based in Silicon Valley with US$250M under management, Shalini takes pride in being at the helm of affairs at the world's most active early-stage investors with a portfolio of over 1,500 companies across 50 countries. Currently, she is responsible for 500's India investments, portfolio and operations. Her focus is to scale 500's investments, expertise and operations across India and help invest in the region's most talented founders and promising startups.
Prior to joining 500, she was working with INKtalks (previously in association with TED) where her roles involved promoting INK's platform through collaborative programs and partner networks. Apart from these engagements, she was an "Entrepreneur in Residence" at GSF Global Accelerator Program, Mentor in Residence for IDEX Accelerator Program and a Program Manager at Kyron Accelerator Program.
She holds Master of Science (MS) from London School of Economics (LSE), MBA from Liverpool Business School and an Engineering Graduate from RVCE Bangalore.
Dr. Apoorv Sharma
Co-Founder, Venture Catalysts
A doyenne in the field of early stage investment and start-up incubation, Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma is the Co-Founder of Venture Catalysts, India's first Seed Investment & Innovation platform.
In his role, he is responsible for driving the strategic planning and overseeing the overall functioning of the organisation. Dr. Sharma holds a PhD in Incubation with an MBA, B. Tech. from reputed institutions. He also holds credit of a Diploma in Mentoring Studies from UC Berkeley offered by Intel-DST Scholarship.
Having been involved in early stage investment since 2002 and established almost 10 Incubators & accelerators including Somaiya Incubator, IAN Incubator, VentureNursery, Amity Innovation Incubator, JSS TBI ( Best Incubator Award,2005), EDII, Mata Vaishno University, Jammu to name a few.
He was also actively associated in establishing Angel Networks- IAN Mumbai and Pune, and Venture Nursery Angels as a key catalyst. Prior to this, he has played a vital role in establishing JSS Seed Fund, Amity Family office fund, IAN Seed fund and more.
Overall, Mr. Sharma led and mentored more than 50 early stage investments with high success track record including OYO Rooms, Invenzone, Talview Apnacircle.com, Circuit Sutra, Jigsee, Birdseye, Webkliper, confirmtkt, siftr, DSYH, LendenClub, Beardo and many more
Raghav Nagarajan
Associate, Matrix Partners
As an entrepreneur turned VC, Raghav is excited about working with passionate and committed entrepreneurs who look to build scalable businesses. His sectors of interest are SaaS, Healthcare and HR, and his current investments include Zarget and Marya.
Raghav holds a dual degree in Mathematics and Computing from IIT Kharagpur and has cleared all three levels of the CFA charter.After graduating, Raghav started his career with Barclays Capital in Singapore as an analyst. He then joined Edelweiss Financial to work on a post-merger integration project where he streamlined proce- sses and built efficient technology systems.Later, he moved into the investment management division where he co-managed an equity fund and advised high net worth individuals on investment strategies.
As an investment advisor, Raghav noticed that credible financial services in India are largely aimed at the wealthy leaving the retail investors hapless.This inspired him to start RupeeVest, an online self-help investment platform that helps middle class Indians invest their money efficiently and effectively.His stint at entrepreneurship taught him the nuances of building a good team, understanding the consumer and most importantly executing till the last mile.
With an experience spanning across technology, operations and entrepreneurship, Raghav looks to leverage his skills and knowledge sets to partner with upcoming entrepreneurs in navigating challenges and becoming success stories.When not engaging with startups, Raghav blogs on personal finance topics. Raghav was a national level debater in school and college and has won several championships.
Shreyansh Singhal
Investment Professional, Ankur Capital
Shreyansh works on early stage deals at Ankur Capital, handling the Bangalore office. He has prior experience in consulting, market research and product development.
Nainesh Kapadia
co-founder, ScaleMinds
Nainesh is an entrepreneur, investors and deal maker and has expertise in working, leading and managing industries across packaging, banking, dairy, automation, e-com and technology.
He is a co founder at ScaleMinds which is an early stage seed funding, mentorship and business development driven accelerator for high growth startups. ScaleMinds, is committed to help scale businesses and create successful entrepreneurs. ScaleMinds provide selected startups with seed funding, personalised mentorship and monitor the outcome.
He is an active participant in various initiatives for an NGO and has a deep focus on rural and economic development.. Nainesh also holds an MBA in Trade Finance.
Vijay Nanjundaswamy
Senior Architect/Technical Director, Oracle India Pvt Ltd
Vijay Nanjundaswamy is a senior product engineering Leader and Architect, with proven track record driving technology & delivering high quality middleware/SOA products and PaaS services. He has more than 25 years experience working with Product MNCs and has broad technical domain knowledge in SOA/middleware, Distributed Computing & Cloud services. He has filed multiple US Patents, co-authored IETF RFC's and a strategic thinker with emphasis on product differentiation and innovation.
He is a member of ah! Ventures and is involved with multiple Startup initiatives like CIIE Power Of Ideas and PayTM MindBatteries, as a jury member for screening startup pitches and mentoring startups.
Devendra Agrawal
Founder, Dexter Capital & Co-Founder, InstaOffice
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Devendra founded Dexter Capital in early 2013 with a mission to help entrepreneurs scale up smoothly by simplifying investor search, term sheet negotiation and the overall fund raise process. Before Dexter, he served as the CFO of Resonance, a leading education company and led the whole process to raise private equity funding of Rs 100 Cr from a choice of marquee investor groups. He has also worked with a private equity firm, Olympus Capital as an investment professional.
He also co-founded InstaOffice in late 2015, a leading chain of business centres and co-working spaces.
He is a 2005 batch graduate from IIT Bombay and has cleared all three levels of CFA from CFA Institute, USA, AIMR