Speakers

Anisha Singh – Founder and CEO , mydala.com

Anisha is Founder and CEO of mydala.com, the pioneer and leader in the social commerce/group buying space in India. Prior to that, she was Founder and CEO of Kinis (Software) Solutions, providing customized e-learning solutions to clients across United States and India. Anisha´s career began on Capitol Hill where she worked closely with National Women´s Business Association in Washington D.C and then Cenra Software in Boston . Apart from successfully planning and directing initiatives for mydala, Anisha is also an active participant in various conferences across US and India. Anisha has been featured on CNBC – TV 18´s ´Young Turks´ and ET Now´s Starting Up. Anisha has a Masters degree in political communication, as well as an MBA in Information Systems from American University in Washington DC.

Kashyap Deorah – President , Futurebazaar.com

After returning to India in Nov 2007, Kashyap founded Chaupaati Bazaar – phone pe deal – to enable Indian consumers to purchase products and services by phone. Prior to Chaupaati, Kashyap started the US office of Geodesic (NSE: 503699) in the capacity of VP, Business Development doing online affiliate sales in North America and mobile OEM sales in Taiwan & China. Kashyap was an early employee at Jasper Design Automation. While a final year student at IIT Bombay, Kashyap co-founded Righthalf, the first campus start-up as part of the IIT Bombay Business Incubator.He moved to the Silicon Valley in late 2000. Since then, he has worked with high-tech startups doing sales, business development and product management. Kashyap graduated from IIT Bombay in 2000 with a B. Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering.

Muralikrishnan B – Country Manager, eBay India

Muralikrishnan B. is the 36 year old dynamic Country Manager of eBay India. Murali is responsible for leading the eBay business in India, the Philippines & Malaysia & is an active evangelist of eCommerce’s transformational potential for both Indian online shoppers & entrepreneurs. He joined eBay in 2005 and has held a variety of leadership roles in eBay India, most recently as Sr. Director – Marketing & Product Management. Murali is a Mechanical Engineer from Osmania University, Hyderabad and an alumnus of IIM Calcutta. An enthusiastic sports fan especially passionate about Cricket & Squash, he is also a photography buff spending his spare time behind the camera capturing nature, landscapes and architecture.

Ashutosh Lawania – Co-founder and Head of Sales, Myntra.com

Ashutosh Lawania, co-founded Myntra.com in 2007 with a vision of making it India’s largest online fashion and lifestyle products retailer with the widest catalog. He successfully managed the complete product engineering and development of the brand and is currently the head of Sales and Digital Marketing. Ashutosh has over 10 years of experience in building software products and digital marketing and has been instrumental in driving the overall growth for the Myntra brand. Prior to Myntra, he co-founded Bytedge Solutions which is in the product engineering domain.He has also worked extensively in the area of designing and developing enterprise software products.He holds a bachelor degree from Indian Institute Technology, Kanpur.

Siddharth Puri – Business Head, Tyroo Direct

Siddharth holds more than 10 Years experience in setting up and operating Internet as profitable delivery channel for businesses. Siddharth’s been part of Tyroo Core founding team since inception presently responsible for overall Business and Strategic Leadership for Tyroo Direct including Sales, Operations, Product development, Marketing and Business Development. Siddharth previously founded and ran Admissionhelp.com India’s Leading Online Admission Management Service for Universities. Siddharth is B.S in Software Engineering from Australia.

Vikas Tandon – Managing Director , Indigo Systems & Technology Consulting (I) Pvt.Ltd.

Vikas Tandon is the Founder & MD of Indigo Consulting, India’s leading full-service digital marketing agency which provides digital and mobile marketing services to clients like HUL, Asian Paints, HDFC Bank, Kolkata Knight Riders, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.Vikas is a post-graduate in Business Management from IIM Ahmedabad, and has over 17 years of experience in Interactive Media, Sales and Marketing. Prior to starting Indigo Consulting, he set-up and led Mudra Interactive, Mudra Communications’ Interactive and New Media division. He has been a Jury Member for the Digital Creative Abbys since 2008 at Goafest – India’s biggest and most prestigious advertising and marketing festival. He also runs Cashcow.in, India’s first blog on Financial Services marketing.

Karan Gupta – Managing Director , Affinity

Karan Gupta a young digital advertising innovator par excellence. Ever since the advent of Internet in India, Karan has been serving on the front-lines, Spearheading strategic efforts in various capacities that have shaped his internet business acumen to cover the spectrum of Innovative Internet Technology,Award Winning Creative Advertising & Next Generation Online Media consumption. In early 2000’s, Karan co-founded an Internet technology & web services company that catered to over 1500 clients over a span of five years.He Setup and Managed a full services digital agency after merging with Law& Kenneth in 2008 – Digital Law & Kenneth till 2011.In early 2011 – founded Venturist as a Chief Evangelist to partner businesses growth in the digital space.

Rammohan Sundaram – Founder, CEO & Managing Director , NetworkPlay Media

Rammohan Sundaram, 35, runs India’s fastest growing media company, NetworkPlay Media Pvt Ltd as its Founder, CEO and Managing Director. Ram has worked in leadership roles with Fortune 500s before turning into an entrepreneur. Companies he worked with includes Yahoo India, Tribal DDB, Madison Communications, Jobsahead.com (Monster World Wide Company), Encore Events and Indian Express Group. Ram has won many an award for his outstanding leadership including Digital Entrepreneur Of The Year 2011 by CMO Asia & WATawards, CMO Council’s Star Youth Achiever Of The Year, Innovative Startup Of The Year by CMO Asia in Singapore, Cannes Cyber Lion, Gold & Silver at Asia Pacific Advertising Festival to name a few. Ram is Engineering Graduate with a MBA from International American University, California and is an Alumnus of Harvard Business School having completed his Strategic Marketing Management Program. He is focussed only on the growth of the ecosystem now!

Sudha Natrajan – Chief Executive Officer, Lintas Media Group

Sudha Natrajan is currently the Dy. CEO, with the Lintas Media Group, a media agency, which is a part of the IPG Worldwide Communications Group. Her role encompasses business and financial responsibility for the media agency, she has played a key role in taking the agency from its ‘C’ rating in the span of 4 years to its present ‘A+’ ranking, with a cumulative score that puts Lintas at the top of the list.Before she joined Lintas, she was a product manager at Parle products .She has an unbroken track record of successful brand launches, several industry awards for innovative and best strategic work, retained 100% of her clients through the years and was voted as a ‘Woman Icon’, of the advertising industry. She appears on shows, writes articles for leading business dailies and magazines and is a favourite speaker at various industry forums.

Debadutta Upadhyaya – Vice President – APAC, Vdopia Inc.

As Vdopia’s Vice President for APAC, Debadutta Upadhyaya’s responsibilities include assisting the company to scale up its ad monetization operations – both in mobile and online – as well as helping maintain its leadership position in next generation ad technologies and formats. Before joining Vdopia, Debadutta was the Head of Sales Strategy at Yahoo! India. Prior to Yahoo!, Debadutta was with Times Group for nearly eight years, where her successes include bringing advertisers such as Coke to the print-medium. Debadutta is a gold medalist in Literature, Journalism and Mass Communication. She was awarded the Yahoo! Ratna award in 2006 and was recently awarded the Indira Super Achievers’ Award for the year 2011.

Beerud Sheth – Co-founder & CEO , SMS Gupshup

Beerud Sheth is co-founder and CEO of SMS GupShup, India’s largest social network with over 50million users. The SMS GupShup platform enables large groups of users to communicate using Mobile Communities and small groups to do so via Reply-All Chat. Prior to Webaroo, Beerud founded Elance, the pioneer of the world’s largest online services marketplace. He played multiple leadership roles and remains on the board of directors. Prior to founding Elance, Beerud worked in the financial services industry; modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and before that at Citicorp Securities. Beerud earned an M.S. in computer science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology & a B.Tech in Computer Science IIT Bombay, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal.

Neel Chowdhury- Vice President & CMO , Obopay Inc

Neel is Vice President & CMO at Obopay Inc since early 2010.In the past, he has held leadership roles in the Telecom Domain for Airtel as the Marketing Head (Mumbai) and as Chief Operating Officer, West Bengal, for Tata Teleservices.He is an expert in the media domain.He brings with him over 16+ years of extensive experience in brand-building, integrated marketing, Business Development, Operations & Revenue management, having worked for organizations like PepsiCo, Federated Department stores & Nabisco Inc. in the US as well.An alumnus of St. Xavier’s Collegiate School in Kolkata, Neel pursued economics and marketing at the College of Wooster in Ohio for his Bachelors degree. He has also completed executive programmes from the University of California, Berkeley and the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Badri Sanjeevi – Chief Operating Officer , Mauj Mobile

Badri Sanjeevi is the Chief Operating Officer at Mauj Mobile and Mobango – a part of People Group. As COO, he leads the Mauj Mobile and Mobango teams on their strategic growth path.With an experience of over 17 years, advising leading media and telecom companies on corporate strategy and deep functional experience in finance. His experience spans developing corporate strategy, driving business performance and operational excellence and functional experience in finance makes him an important asset to the organization.Badri has acquired his bachelor’s degree from Madras University in 1994.He has also completed his MBA from the reputed INSEAD Business School in Fontainbleau, France. An ardent traveler, he loves to scout varied destinations for his weekend getaways.

Lavina Tauro – Sr. Vice President, Voice Products , Interactive – UTV

Lavina Tauro, Sr. Vice President, Voice Products, Interactive – UTV has to her credit a massive experience of above 12 years in the media business and has been a part of the New Media industry for over four years. Before joining UTV Interactive she held the position of Senior Manager in Disney, where she was for 7 years. Now that UTV Interactive has established itself as a prominent player in the new media segment, Lavina’s responsibility as the Sr. Vice President, Voice Products will primarily be to exploiting content in innovative ways on the Voice Platform and driving it to even greater heights.

Rajneel Kumar – Business Head – India, SAARC & Middle East , Jump Games

He has an overall experience of about 11 years that has been spread across several start-ups and large organizations like being VP for New Media at Balaji Telefilms Ltd. to Head – Products & Content at Mobile2win Pvt Ltd. He brings with him strategic thinking, leadership and a comprehensive Marketing & Digital knowledge to the team with over 5 years in the VAS industry alone. Jump Games is at the forefront of mobile gaming with associations such as the International Cricket Council, Cartoon Network, Formula 1, etc. and Rajneel seems to be thoroughly enjoying the ride.

Narayanan Madhavan – Associate Editor at Hindustan Times

Madhavan,a senior journalist, columnist and editor, has more than 25 years of experience in journalism. He is currently Associate Editor at Hindustan Times, and writes a weekly column on technology, Internet and digital media issues, Tech-IT-Easy.He earlier worked for The Economic Times and Business Standard.He has also covered or written on other issues including politics, diplomacy, cinema, culture, cricket and social issues.He has chronicled India’s economic reforms and the information technology boom from the frontlines in Delhi and Bangalore during their crucial years and also covered leading events including general elections, nuclear tests and India-Pakistan conflict.Madhavan has an honours degree in economics and a master’s degree in political science from the University of Delhi.

Rajiv Dingra – Founder and CEO , WATMedia

Rajiv Dingra is the Founder and CEO of WATConsult,India’s leading social media agency. A prolific tech blogger, Rajiv is the face of the best digital media technology blog in India called WATBlog.com.He is an active promoter of the entrepreneurship culture in India and his proficiency lies in topics related to Social Media in India. Rajiv was on the jury of The First international Social Media Awards (Bees Awards – San Francisco) granting recognition to the best of the Social Media practices of the year 2009. Recently, he was one of the speakers in Global Youth Marketing Forum, Click Asia Summit 2011, Social Media Enterprise Forum 2011, Dubai, Afri-Tech 2011, Nairobi and World Blogger Summit 2011, Kuala Lumpur.Rajiv has graduated in Management Studies from Jai Hind College and has a MBA degree in Marketing Management from Welingkars Institute of Management.

Socialization of the web

Sanjay Mehta – Founder & Joint CEO , Social Wavelength

Sanjay is Founder and Joint CEO of Social Wavelength, one of India’s leading pure-play.Social Media Agency. Prior to Social Wavelength, Sanjay has been in the space of Internet businesses, and in fact, was one of India’s earlier Internet entrepreneurs, when he started Homeindia.com, in 1998.After divesting the stake in Homeindia.com, Sanjay took up the position of COO at an 800-person team, at Compare Infobase Ltd., another Internet company. With this rich experience of 20+ years now, Sanjay launched his new entrepreneurial venture in the space of Social Media management services, Social Wavelength.

Pradeep Chopra – CEO , Digital Vidya

Among the pioneers of Digital Marketing in India, Pradeep has been part of the Internet Industry since 1999. He is a Co-founder and CEO of Digital Vidya, India’s premier Digital Marketing training company and co-founder of dvBytes, a leading Social Media Marketing agency. As a Digital Marketing evangelizer, Pradeep empowers & enables CXOs, Sales & Marketing Professionals, and Digital Marketing professionals to leverage Digital Marketing for their organizations. Pradeep is an international speaker & an author on Digital Marketing & Entrepreneurship. His previous speaking assignments include speaking at Search Engine Strategies (USA), Global Entrepolis @ Singapore, NASSCOM India Leadership Forum, TiE and Web Innovation conferences. He writes on Entrepreneurship and Digital Marketing for Wall Street Journal and Inc magazine. A graduate of IIT Delhi. His obsession for the digital medium has led him to believe that the Internet connectivity is more important than the water supply

Rachana Dharia – Head of Digital , Rediffusion Y&R

Rachana Dharia is a digital specialist, with a career spanning over 15 years that has allowed her the opportunities to work for some of the largest and the most respected digital agencies and brands throughout the world. Rachana has a rich experience in strategic planning and management of integrated marketing communications across industries; she has worked in advertising, information technology, management consulting and user experience consulting. Her experience ranges in varied domains; digital marketing, marketing 3.0, social marketing, social CRM, customer experience management, user experience design and research methodologies, web portals and web interfaces, CRM digital experience and mobile applications. Rachana’s previous experience includes working with Tribal DDB, Tech Mahindra, Razorfish, Human Factors International, Infosys Technologies Ltd., and The National Stock Exchange of India.

Nikhil Rungta – Country Marketing Head , Google India

Nikhil is recognized as one of the few marketing leaders in the country who has a deep understanding of both traditional (offline) and the new age (digital) marketing.He joined Google in 2009 as the Country Head for Marketing. He is responsible for the marketing of all Google products including Search, Youtube, Chrome, Google+, Android. Some of his recents efforts include – taking Chrome to the No.1 position in India.Prior to Google he was the Head of Marketing for Yatra.com – India’s leading travel portal. His impressive 15-year career in Sales and Marketing includes work across various categories like FMCG, Consumer Durables, Finance, IT and Travel Services. He started his career with Shaw Wallace & Co. and has also worked with global advertising agencies like Contract and McCann Erickson.

Clicks Vs Conversations – The Real Measurement for Digital Advertising/Campaigns

Rajesh Lalwani, Founder & Principal , Blogworks

Rajesh is the Founder and Principal of Blogworks, a consulting firm, which provides strategic social media solutions to brands and corporates. He is also the Principal Coordinator of IndiaSocial, a knowledge focused community around social media. A marketing and communication professional, with over 16 years of relevant experience, he has crafted marketing, public relations and digital media strategies for prominent global brands. Besides writing a popular marketing blog focused on bringing out insights, Rajesh’s regularly writes for prestigious publications. His views on the future of marketing and social media are regularly featured in the media and often sought by organisations like Nokia and Microsoft, among others, for their global insights programmes.

Mahesh Murthy- Founder, Pinstorm & Managing Partner, Seedfund

Mahesh Murthy is one of India’s recognised experts in youth marketing – having helped launch MTV India, run Channel V and managed offline and online marketing efforts for brands like Pepsi, Nike, Idea Cellular, Lipton and The Economist.Mahesh has spent over 25 years in marketing and advertising, of which the last 15 have been in digital marketing. ”. Mahesh played the investor in Business Baazigar, a game show similar to The Apprentice, involving entrepreneurs and business plans. Mahesh writes a column in the Wall Street Journal and speaks regularly at conferences around the world like AdTech, 140conf and Search Engine Strategies. He tweets regularly at @maheshmurthy

Vivek Bhargava – Managing Director , Communicate2

Vivek Bhargava is the Founder and Managing Director of Communicate2, which has evolved into one of the largest Search and Social Media Specialist organization in India. Vivek has spent the last 10 years guiding the Digital Advertising Strategies of companies such as MTV, Merrill Lynch, ICICI Bank, Reliance in both Indian and Global Markets. Vivek regularly speaks at global events such as Ad-tech, SES, SMX, I-com and the Apex Internet conferences in India. He is a keen Chess Player and an Amateur Paragliding Pilot. Vivek is the Co-Chair for SEMPO Apaq. Vivek is passionately committed to Communicate2’s mission of being the Biggest Contextual Advertising Firm in the Emerging Markets and Leading Offshore Contextual Advertising.

Amar Goel – Founder, Chairman , Komli Media

Amar Goel is the Chairman and Founder of Komli Media, Asia Pacific and India’s leading integrated media technology platform. Amar is also the Founder and Chairman of PubMatic, the leading independent supply side digital advertising platform in the United States, with offices across the US, Europe, and India. Amar graduated from Harvard University with a Master’s degree in Computer Science and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics.Prior to founding Komli Media he led a digital advertising business for Microsoft in the US. Amar also founded Chipshot.com, at the age of 19 with $350.During his career, Amar’s companies have hired over 1,000 people, generated more than $100M in revenues annually, and raised over $100M in capital.

Karthik Srinivasan – Head of Digital Strategy , Edelman

Karthik Srinivasan is a communications specialist with over 13 years of experience in creating, building and managing perceptions of brands across client and agency environments. At Edelman, Karthik heads the digital practice for India with digital mandates for clients like General Motors India, BlackBerry and LinkedIn, among others. Karthik is one of the leading voices in the digital/social media space and his blog on social media and PR (http://www.beastoftraal.com/) is one of the most-read blogs on the subject. He is also among the top 5 online music influencers in India with two popular music-centered blogs.

Search for Creative Brillance in Digital Media

Carlton D’Silva – Chief Creative Officer, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd

Carlton D’Silva is the Chief Creative Officer, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. Carlton joined Hungama in 1999 and since then has won innumerable accolades for thecompany, such as the PMAA’s, Abby’s and The Globes. With an agile and dynamic team of visualizers, designers, and copywriters, he has been responsible for creating over 3500 websites and games for domestic andinternational clients. He is also on the jury of the Abby Awards (Ad Club of Bombay) andYahoo Big Idea Chair Awards and was part of the jury in the New York Ad festival in 2010 andthe Adfest Asia in 2011.

Tarana Mehta – Vice President – Strategy and Business Development – Webchutney.

Armed with 9 years of experience in Client Servicing, she started her career at McCann Erickson, and then moved across CRM Metrix, Nurun, RMG Connect and Lowe Lintas before finally settling at Webchutney. Her diverse national and international experience has lent tremendous character to her leadership skills, innovative solutions, and her ability to manage multiple teams and tasks under severe deadlines. Her passion for communication, strategic management abilities, and expert client relations have bolstered new market opportunities while forging stronger ties with existing and prospective brands and clients like Marico, Procter & Gamble, Titan among several others.

Start up Vs Venture Capitalist Perspective

Sasha Mirchandani – Managing Partner & Founder , Kae Capital and Co-founder , Mumbai Angels

Sasha Mirchandani is Managing Partner and Founder of Kae Capital and Co-founder Mumbai Angels, India’s first Angel Investment Group. Kae Capital is a sector agnostic early stage venture capital firm. Prior to this Sasha was at Blue Run Ventures as Managing Director for the India operations where he focused on consumer, internet, mobile, media, entertainment and knowledge process outsourcing Earlier, he was at Mirc Electronics (Onida) where he was Head of Corporate Affairs and new business. Prior to that he was the CEO and Founder of Imercius Technologies, a BPO focused on the telecom space. Sasha sits on the Board of Hathway Cable and Datacom Limited, Fractal Analytics, Algorhythm Tech, Akasaka Electronics Limited and Mumbai Angels Venture Mentors.

Rahul Khanna – Managing Director, Canaan India

Rahul Khanna has over fifteen years of investing and operating experience in ICT across India and the U.S. Having returned from Silicon Valley in 2005, Rahul has played a key role in the development of the venture ecosystem in India and is well recognized as an active investor in several high growth companies. Prior to joining Canaan India in early 2011, Rahul was the founding director of Clearstone Venture Advisors, a firm that manages investments in India for Clearstone Venture Partners. At Clearstone, Rahul was responsible for building the platform that would focus on early stage investments in verticals like financial services, telecom, media and education. While at Clearstone, he served on the Boards of Billdesk and Games2Win.

Sudhir Syal – Editor & Co-Anchor – Starting Up

Sudhir Syal is the Editor and Co-Anchor of Starting Up, the only business television show which covers the passion and energy of the Indian start-up community. As part of the show, Sudhir has profiled over 200 early stage start-ups in the country across sectors like Clean Technology, Web, Software and Mobile. He is also the Chief Organizer of Proto.in, India’s largest start-up event which showcases 15 of India’s hottest start-ups to an audience of Venture Capitalists, corporates and entrepreneurs. Proto.in has had 8 successful editions in Chennai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai. Sudhir has been invited to share his views on the Indian start-up world at prestigious institutions like the Wharton Business School, the Indian School of Business and the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Alok Kejriwal – Co-Founder & CEO , Games2win India

Alok Kejriwal Digital Entrepreneur likes to create companies to sell them later. Last Company sold to Disney. Has a love and more love relationship with VC’s. Lives on an airplane. Currently builds games for a living. Aspires to own a Billion $ Company. Avid art of living follower. Blogs vigorously and has made Rodinhood is second name. Talks to Yoda in his sleep. A kind a nice guy to know. Virtual address is rodinhood.com.

Karan Mohla – Investment Professional – Senior Associate , IDG Ventures India

Karan has over eight years of experience across investing and finance in India and the US. At IDG Ventures, he serves on the Board of Vserv and Kreeda Games. Karan previously worked in the investment banking at Jefferies & Co in Silicon Valley, where he advised emerging technology companies in capital raising, M&A as well as strategic partnerships. He was also a founding member of the Jefferies India office in 2006. Karan later worked with QVT Finance, a US hedge fund and was a founding member of their Asia-Pacific practice. He has successfully completed over 20 transactions covering M&A and capital raising. Karan holds a BBA from the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and an MBA from INSEAD.