Speaker Bio:  

Sanjeev Bikhchandani
Founder and Vice Chairman, Naukri.com
Sanjeev is the founder of Naukri.com, India’s leading job site. The company also runs other businesses - Jeevansathi.com, 99acres.com, Brijj.com, Allcheckdeals.com, Naukrigulf.com, Shiksha.com, Quadrangle, and Firstnaukri.com. Starting off from a servant quarter above a garage, the company grew and attracted investment from leading venture capitalists. It was the first Internet company to list on Indian stock exchanges. The company employs over 1600 people and has revenues of over Rs. 270 crores. Sanjeev is a Board Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs in Delhi. He is also a member of the Global Board of Trustees of The Indus Entrepreneurs. Prior to starting Naukri, Sanjeev had worked in advertising with Lintas and in consumer marketing at Glaxo SmithKline. For a brief period, he was the Consulting Editor of Avenues – the careers supplement of ‘The Pioneer’ newspaper. Sanjeev, along with co promoter of Naukri, Hitesh Oberoi, won the “Ernst and Young – Entrepreneur of the Year” award in 2008 for Business Transformation. He also won the Dataquest Pathbreaker Award & the Teacher’s Achievement Award for Business in 2008. Sanjeev is a member of the Board of Chintan - a not for profit organization that works with waste pickers in Delhi. He studied management at IIM Ahmedabad, and Economics at St. Stephens College.
Bipin Shah
Chairman & CEO , Kovair Software
Bipin Shah has a strong record of accomplishment as a senior executive and as a successful early stage investor in more than a dozen companies. President and CEO of Kovair Software from late 2002, he assumed the role of CEO and Chairman of Kovair in August 2005. After a varied career at Fairchild Semiconductor where he held Engineering, Manufacturing and Business Unit Management responsibility, Bipin joined Altera Corporation, a leading manufacturer of programmable logic devices at its early inception in 1984. As a member of Altera’s executive management team, he held positions of VP, Operations and President of Altera Japan, and was operationally responsible for revenue growth from zero to over $500 million run rate in 1994, and participated in Altera’s IPO in 1989. From 1997 to 1999, Bipin served as President and CEO of a chip startup Invox Technology, whose multi-level Flash memory technology was acquired by SanDisk Corporation. Between the years 2000 and 2005, Bipin was a co-founder and general partner of an early stage venture investment fund, INC3 Ventures based in Silicon Valley. Bipin currently serves on the Boards of three start up companies, and has previously served on the Boards of more than ten venture capital backed companies. Bipin holds a MS degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a BEE (Honors) from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
Hrishikesh Parandekar
CEO, Karvy Private Wealth
Hrishikesh Parandekar is the CEO of Karvy Private Wealth, and is also part of the KARVY Group Leadership team. Prior to Karvy Private Wealth, Parandekar had a distinguished 15 year career working for various organizations such as Morgan Stanley and McKinsey in India and the U.S. Parandekar worked for Morgan Stanley as the Managing Director and Head of the Latin American Private Wealth and the International Retail businesses, sitting on the Global Private Wealth Management Executive and Operating Committees. His responsibility spanned professionals based in the U.S., Latin America, and Switzerland. Before heading the businesses, Mr. Parandekar was responsible for strategic planning for the global private wealth business. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley,Parandekar was a senior consultant with McKinsey. He started with McKinsey in India, joining the Mumbai office as one of its earliest consultants and helped to build a strong practice in serving financial institutions in India. Besides India, he also had stints working out of the firm’s offices in Abu Dhabi, Chicago, Kuala Lumpur, and New York. Mr. Parandekar specialized in serving investment houses, banks, and insurers, on issues related to strategy, investing, and product management. Parandekar earned his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, where he was awarded the President’s Gold Medal for graduating ranked number 1 in his class. He also earned his undergraduate degree in Economics and Accounting from the University of Bombay.
Ganesh Guruswamy
Vice President and Country Manager, Freescale
Ganesh is the Vice President and Country Manager of Freescale Semiconductor India. In his current role, Ganesh is responsible for positioning the India operations as a high end Research & Development hub for Freescale globally. He also drives the development of futuristic and cutting edge technology at Freescale’s design centre in the region. Ganesh was responsible for creating a Centre of Excellence for System on Chip (SoC) and Intellectual Property designs from India. He has over twenty years of combined, design, development and team leadership experience in the semiconductor industry ranging from architecture to design and methodology. Prior to joining Freescale, Ganesh worked for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in the Microprocessor Development Group on the development of X86 processors. Ganesh has been awarded a patent in his name in the area of Real time Calibration using a PowerPC based SoC for embedded applications. He has also worked at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) working on INSAT projects. He holds an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from The University of Idaho, USA. While studying he worked at the Microelectronic Research Labs funded by NASA, developing solutions for different projects including a Reconfigurable Datapath Processor.
Sudhir Agarwal
President (INDIA AND EMEA), Aegis
Sudhir Agarwal joined Aegis from GE Capital International Services (GECIS) after working for seven years at GECIS. GECIS (now known as Genpact) is the largest BPO company in India, with over 25,000 employees globally. He has held various positions in the BPO industry and has handled the migrations, business development and operations aspects of the business. In his last role, Agarwal helped to set up the remote marketing business division for GECIS Global, which operates across India, Hungary and China and focuses on telemarketing and telesales. He has also worked at HCL Comnet, in India. Agarwal holds a master’s degree in business administration from the Manchester Business School in strategy and international business.
Subhash Bana
Vice-President, India (R&D)
Subhash Bana is Vice-President – India Research & Development (R&D) for Carrier and Applications Software Product Groups. Subhash has over 24 years of rich experience in industries such as Telecom, Media and Entertainment having worked across roles with multicultural global teams and Indian customers. Before joining Thomson in 2007, Subhash worked with Alcatel-Lucent in various capacities for 14 years. In his initial professional career, Subhash played leading roles in large software projects in organizations like Tata Electric Companies in Bombay and the prestigious Defense Research & Development Organization (DRDO) in Hyderabad. An avid reader of global business models, Subhash keeps himself abreast of telecom technology, markets and underlying global socio-economic drivers. He is a regular speaker on various industry and educational forums, with special interest in supernormal business returns through strategic value positioning and effective human capital management. He is very passionate towards use of technology for personal and organizational efficiency improvements. Subhash holds a graduate degree from National Institute of Technology, Warangal and is a Post Graduate in Management from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon.
Deep Kalra
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, MakeMyTrip
The pioneer of online travel in India, Deep Kalra founded MakeMyTrip in April, 2000. Drawing on his experience from his years at GE Capital, AMF Bowling Inc. and ABN AMRO Bank, under his stewardship, MakeMyTrip has become the largest online travel company, as well as the largest e-commerce business in India. Deep is a member of the Executive Council of NASSCOM and chairs the NASSCOM Internet Working Group. He is also a Charter Member of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) and serves on the Board of TiE, New Delhi. Deep is also a member of CIIs Tourism sub-committee and a regular speaker at numerous internet and travel conferences across the world. He currently serves as an independent Director for IndiaMart.com, a leading B2B website. Deep is also a founding member of “I am Gurgaon”, an NGO focused on the improving the quality of life in Gurgaon. Deep holds a Bachelors degree in Economics from St. Stephens College, Delhi (1990), and a MBA (PGDM) degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (1992). His interests include adventure sports, swimming, yoga, quizzing and travelling to places off the beaten path.
Shantanu Prakash
Chairman and Managing Director , Educomp
Prakash, MBA (IIM- Ahmedabad) is the Chairman and Managing Director of Educomp Solutions Limited. Shantanu Prakash founded Educomp Solutions Limited in 1994, a few years after acquiring an MBA degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Shantanus vision has been to transform the teaching-learning process through the use of technology and best practices. Shantanu is also the Founder and Managing Trustee of the Learning Leadership Foundation (LLF), an organisation dedicated to bringing best practices in education to under-resourced schools. He is also the Co-founder and Chairman of Lakshya Digital Pvt. Ltd.- a pioneering game development studio, based out of New Delhi, India. Shantanu is a charter member of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs), an organisation that connects entrepreneurs. He is a frequent speaker in education and business conferences worldwide.
Manoj Chugh
President, EMC India & SAARC and Director – Glob, EMC Asia Pacific & Japan
Manoj Chugh is the President of EMC India & SAARC and the Director of Global Accounts, Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ), for EMC Corporation. He is responsible for accelerating EMC’s growth in India and with global customers in APJ, strengthening teams, and enhancing relationships with partners and alliances in India. With 2009 revenues of $14 billion, and approximately 47,000 employees worldwide, EMC is the world’s leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information. An ICT industry veteran with over 29 years of experience, Manoj has managed and led companies to leadership positions across diverse business segments including servers, satellite communications, networking and data storage. Manoj joined EMC in 2003 as the President EMC, India & SAARC. He spearheaded the company’s growth in the information storage and management space and positioned EMC as the market leader in the Indian subcontinent. Under Manoj’s leadership, EMC committed to invest over USD 500 million in that market by 2010. Prior to joining EMC, Manoj was President, India & SAARC of Cisco Systems. Under his leadership, Cisco’s revenues more than tripled and the company was positioned as a market leader across diverse verticals in networking. Manoj has also held several senior positions in business development, sales and general management with other leading corporations including Scientific Atlanta, Wipro Technologies and HCL Group, among others. During his career, Manoj has achieved several industry accolades – Dataquest‘s recognition of him in January 2010 as among the ten people to have shaped the last decade of the Indian IT industry; “Best IT Man of the year 2001” by the National Foundation of Indian Engineers; Honorary Fellowship of the e-Information Systems, Security and Audit Association (eISSA), among others. He is currently the Chairman of SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association) India and has also served on the Executive Board of the American Chambers of Commerce in India (AMCHAM) for six years. Manoj is an Engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur.
Sameer Kaul
Head of Branch Banking, Citibank
Sameer joined Citibank, India in July 1995 as a Management Associate in NR operations. In his 14 years with the bank, he has done varied assignments in investments, mutual funds and product management for the NRI Business. In January 2001, as the Country Insurance Manager he spearheaded the launch of Insurance Business for Citibank in India. He moved as the Mortgage Business Head in August 2005 and after successful completion of the ARR, moved to the Branch Banking business as the Business Manager in July 2007. He runs a network of 42 branches that spans 30 cities and runs a business that provides commercial banking and wealth management solutions to affluent clients in India.
Vishnu R. Dusad
Managing Director, Nucleus Software
Mr. Vishnu R. Dusad is one of the founders of Nucleus Software Exports Ltd. and has served as a Director since the inception of the Company. Mr. Dusad completed his Bachelors Degree in Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi and has been associated with the development of the software industry in India since 1983 as an entrepreneur. He was appointed Managing Director of the Company in January 1997. Mr. Dusad has enriched Nucleus with his technology background and 23 years of valuable professional experience in the exciting space of Information Technology Solutions for the BFSI sector. He has a deep commitment to making a difference in the lives of fellow Nucleites, and through Nucleus, to the world around. His success in concluding business deals for implementing Nucleus Products globally owes much to a deep sensitivity to cross-cultural nuances. His experience encompasses areas of software development, creation of strategic alliances, business development, and strategic planning. Mr. Dusad attributes the success of Nucleus to teamwork, entrepreneurial skills and the ability to leverage opportunities in the marketplace.
Saurabh Srivastava
Chairman, CA
Mr. Saurabh Srivastava, Chairman of CA India, is one of India’s leading IT entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture capitalists. He has worked extensively in the US, UK, India and Singapore and has held senior executive positions with leading international companies such as IBM and Unisys before becoming an entrepreneur and then a VC He founded one of India’s most successful and trend setting software companies, IIS Infotech Ltd. which became India’s 11th largest software company within 4 years of inception and the first to get international quality certification. IIS was publicly listed in India and post merger with Xansa, listed on the London Stock Exchange. Saurabh was Executive Chairman of Xansa India and served on the Xansa plc. Board Mr. Srivastava is one of India’s most respected IT industry leaders and is recognized as one of the architects of the Indian software industry. He is a cofounder and past Chairman of NASSCOM, past Chairman of the Indian government’s Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council. He is very active in promoting entrepreneurship in India, chairs the Indian Venture Capital and Asia Pac Venture Capital Associations, is Chairman Emeritus of TIE Delhi (and served on TIE’s global board), Co Founder and Director of the Indian Angel Network and Chaired Infinity Ventures, India’s first and most successful early stage Venture Fund. He is on Advisory Board of Imperial College Business School, London, Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship of IIT Mumbai, on the Entrepreneurship / Incubation board of IIT Delhi and IITK, and Advisory board of Uttarakhand University. He has a Masters from Harvard , a B Tech from IIT and his awards include Distinguished Alumnus from IITK, Honorary Doctorate from University of Wolverhampton, UK and Lifetime Achievement award from the IT Industry in India.
Hemant Kanakia
IAN Member , CA India
Hemant has been at various times in his life, student, researcher, entrepreneur, venture capitalist and angel investor. After graduating from IIT-Mumbai in 1975, He worked at Tata Consultancy for sometime before going to US for higher studies. After getting MS from Case Western Reserve University and PhD in EE from Stanford University, He joined Bell Laboratories as a researcher working in the field of Computer networking and switching system. After getting bored by the inaction of AT&T in exploiting his research work for commercial gains, He decided to go out on his own to do just that. This effort, building a company in Computer networking space was quite timely and turned out to be a life changer for him. The company he founded, Torrent Networking Systems, built a next generation of fast Internet Routers. Ericsson acquired the company after merely three years of operations for $450M. This made investors and Hemant both happy and Hemant veered more towards helping entrepreneurs as an angel investor. In 2004, he joined Columbia Capital LLC, an east coast of USA based Venture fund managing $2.4B funds focused on telecommunications and technology space. In 2010 and beyond, after retiring from Columbia, he has moved to India and is planning to make investments in India in technology space his own investment fund, Kanakia Ventures LLC. Hemant is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Enpirion, Teranetics and Tilera. He was previously founder and CEO of Torrent Networking Technology (acquired by Ericsson) and co-founder of Photuris (acquired by Meriton), funded privately from Kanakia Ventures. Prior to joining Columbia Capital, Hemant served on the Board of Directors of Photuris, Viagate, Price Hawk, Gemplex (acquired by VSNL), and Torrent Networking Technology. Over the years, he has served on a number of other non-profit boards in USA.
Jaswinder S Ahuja
Corporate Vice President and Managing Director, Cadence
Jaswinder S. Ahuja is Corporate Vice President and Managing Director of Cadence Design Systems in India. Jaswinder leads Cadence’s India Operating Region which includes Sales, Technical Field Operations, Marketing, Services, Global Support, Global IT and R&D. In 2009 he led a corporate transformation task force. From 2003 to 2008 he was responsible for defining the globalization strategy for Cadence and developing R&D centers in Russia, Taiwan and China. From 2002 to 2004 Jaswinder was based at Cadence headquarters in San Jose, California and was responsible for establishing and leading the Strategic R&D partnerships with key customers, the R&D Globalization program and the R&D Central Operations functions for the company. Jaswinder started his career with Cadence in 1988 as a software engineer and has led the India operations since 1996. Under his leadership the India operations have grown from a small R&D site to the largest Corporate Resource Center of Cadence outside the headquarters. He has developed a strong leadership team and a performance based culture resulting in Cadence India featuring on DQ-IDC’s annual best employers Top 20 list from 2002 to 2007. Further, in 2008, Hewitt Associates recognized the Cadence Moscow operation as a Top 10 employer in Russia. Jaswinder has represented Cadence at various internal and external public events being a featured speaker at events like DAC, ASP-DAC, DesignCon, ISLPED, edaCentrum, VLSI Design Conference, ISA Vision Summit, CDNLive!, and Cadence Technology-on-Tour. He is a founding member of the VLSI Society of India (VSI), and has been a member of the board for VSI and member of the VLSI Conference Steering Committee since 2003. Jaswinder serves on the board of advisors of FirstRain, Inc. and Zafesoft, Inc. He was Chairman of the India Semiconductor Association in 2008-09 and has been a member of the Executive Council of the India Semiconductor Association. Jaswinder has a B.Tech in Electronics Engineering from IT-BHU, Varanasi and an MS in Computer Engineering from Northeastern University, Boston, USA. He also holds an Executive MBA from Stanford University, USA.
Naresh Gupta
SVP & Managing Director India(R&D), Adobe
As senior vice president of the Print and Classic Publishing Solutions Business Unit, Naresh Gupta oversees product marketing and development for Adobes standalone print, web publishing and e-learning tools such as Adobe® PostScript®, Macromedia® Contribute™ and Macromedia Captivate™ software.Gupta is also managing director of Adobes India research and development center. He established Adobes Noida campus in 1997, and he later integrated a second campus of operation in Bangalore through Adobes 2005 acquisition of Macromedia. Previously, as a computer scientist in Adobes corporate research group, Gupta conducted research in the area of image processing and understanding. This work led to five technology patents and resulted in key features of Adobe Photoshop® software and other Adobe products.Gupta has been widely published as a computer science expert in the areas of shape, motion and AI research. He received a B. Tech in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, where he was named a Gold Medalist. He holds masters and doctorate degrees in computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park. His Ph.D. thesis, "Recovering Shape and Motion from a Sequence of Images," was nominated for the ACM Distinguished Dissertation award.
Sam Gulve
Joint Managing Director , Spice Mobility
Sam (Samir) Gulve has over 25 years of diverse, global technology industry experience. During his career, Sam has held various senior management positions at world renowned companies such as Amdocs, AT&T Bell Labs, Avaya, Netscape, SSA, CDI Inc. as well as at highly successful startups such as Kiva Software, Calico Commerce, Visual Insights and Shakti Systems. During his career, Sam has held key leadership roles in diverse functional areas including General Management, R&D, Engineering, Sales, Strategy and Operations. With over decades of experience in North America with global responsibilities and last 5 plus years in India. Currently Sam is Joint Managing Director with Spice Mobility with global responsibility for the services vertical and is focused on bringing consumer facing, innovative, value added services to mobile user masses in India, Africa, South East Asia and Middle East. In his previous role as CMD for Avaya India, Sam was responsible for all India Brand, strategy and execution. In an extremely challenging, global economic environment, Sam was able to exceed all key business KPIs while integrating diverse assets and cultures across various business groups. Earlier, as a Sr. Vice President at Amdocs India, Sam was responsible for building and executing on Amdocs’s India strategy. Sam helped grow Amdocs India strength from 50 in to over 3300 in just over 3 years. During this time Sam also sponsored CMMI-L3 certification for Amdocs India and built and ran managed services business for Amdocs, which is now the fastest growing business unit at Amdocs. Prior to Amdocs, Sam has been credited with building worldwide technical sales teams for enterprise markets at Netscape and Calico Commerce, for releasing highly successful enterprise class software products to market at SSA and Consolidated commerce and playing a key role in successful acquisition at Kiva software and Shakti Systems and record breaking IPO at Calico Commerce. Sam has also co-founded two companies. Sam holds a B.Tech. in engineering from Indian Institute of Technology -Bombay, M.S in computer science from Virginia Tech and has done substantial work towards doctorate in computer science from Illinois Institute of Technology. Sam has won several industry recognitions in both continents and was recently named as one of the most influential technology leaders in India.