Speaker Bio:  

Sanjeev Bikhchandani
Founder & Vice Chairman, Naukri.com
Sanjeev also runs Jeevansathi.com, 99acres.com, Brijj.com, Allcheckdeals.com, Naukrigulf.com, Shiksha.com, Quadrangle, and Firstnaukri.com. In addition it has made strategic investments in promising web start-ups such as Policybazaar.com, Meritnation.com, Zomato.com, Mydala.com and 99labels.com. Sanjeev completed his MBA from IIM Ahmedabad in 1989 and quit his job quit his job for entrepreneurship eighteen months later. Finally in 1997 Naukri.com was launched and transformed itself into an Internet company. 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. 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. He 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 the same year. Sanjeev – along with a group of like-minded friends is promoting Ashoka University a philanthropic liberal arts and science university near Delhi. Sanjeev is also the President of the Delhi chapter of TiE. He is also a member of the Global Board of Trustees of TiE. Sanjeev is a member of the Board of Chintan - a not for profit organization that works with waste pickers in Delhi.
Harish Bahl
Founder & CEO, The Smile Group
Harish, an engineering graduate in Computer Sciences is a serial entrepreneur. In 1999, he founded Smile. Over the last eight years, he has laid the foundation to Smile Interactive Technologies Group, which has developed leading business ventures like StudioSmile, Quasar, Tyroo, Zoomtra & Zumtra. His previous ventures included, Creons Advertising (amongst top three Indian retail infrastructure companies) and Dial-A-Meal. Harish is considered a thought leader on the subjects of digital technology, interactive advertising, online travel, and entrepreneurship. He is a regular speaker at various forums for the same. He is an active member of NASSCOM and IAMAI.
Jagdish Mitra
CEO, CanvasM
Jagdish leads a team of over 600 associates that are focused on providing solutions that enable customers and enterprises take advantage of the mobile ecosystem. Jagdish has over 20 years of experience in the areas of business development and marketing in the global information services market. Prior to CanvasM, he was actively involved in building several strategic business relationships with key accounts for Tech Mahindra worldwide. Jagdish has led Tech Mahindra’s foray into a series of new businesses including opening up new markets like North America, Middle East and Asia. Jagdish holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Applications from Birla Institute of Technology and Masters in Business Administration from the University of London. Under his leadership, CanvasM has been awarded the “Best Start-Up Company” at the Mobile Content Awards 2008 held in London. CanvasM won a National Telecom Award (2011) for "Excellence in Innovation with Rural Telecom Focus” and has also won honors at Aegis Graham Bell Award ceremony.
Shailesh Vikram Singh
Executive Director, SeedFund India
Shailesh has 16 years of experience as entrepreneur, venture investor and corporate strategy professional. Prior to SeedFund he was the MD with a PE fund for 5 years before moving to venture space. He also Co-founded Zygote Tech in 1999/2000, Successfully scaled up without any external fund infusion. Shailesh was a guest faculty, mentor and jury member at various IITs / IIMs / FMS etc. He is passionate about Environment / Rural Development / Startups / Technology. Shailesh is also a TIE Charter member. He gained his B.tech from GB pant,Pantnagar and MBA from IIM Lucknow.
Danish Ahmed
Founder, Yebhi.com
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Varun Kumar Vummidi
Founding Member, Jabong.com
Varun is a go-to-market specialist with a multi-dimensional role at the Rocket Internet funded website Jabong.com. He was one of the founding members of the Jabong.com team that is currently the fastest growing ecommerce company in India. Varun graduated from the Full-time Honors MBA program, a flagship program of the Zicklin School of Business. During his MBA program he has worked on many business plans and business consulting projects. He brings a rich international background in ecommerce operations, risk management, banking operations, financial planning, client management, project management and business development. Varun specializes in Strategy formulation and implementation, Project Management, finding solutions to persistent business problems, strategic planning, innovation management, new product development, branding, etc.
Rajiv K Vij
MD & CEO, Carzonrent India
Rajiv handled the distribution network and Institutional businesses for Hindustan Motors and later moved to exports of automobiles and auto components for Jumbo Group. He moved to International Travel House an ITC group company to head its car rental business. The entrepreneur in him saw an opportunity to write a success story in Car Rental in India and so he set up Carzonrent (India) Private Limited. The company was appointed Master Licensee for Hertz International within six months of starting operations and also launched Radio Cabs, Operating Lease and Limousine services in addition to car rentals. Having established a strong core team of professional managers, he now spends more time in taking the organization into its next level of expansion. Rajiv has also set up “COR Welfare Trust” to support Drivers and their families in improving their living conditions. Rajiv K Vij is also the president of “CARS”- Confederation of All India Car Rental Service Providers.
Anupama Arya
Co-founder, The Hatch
Anupama is a serial entrepreneur, investor, business executive, technologist, and mentor. As an entrepreneur she founded and led 3 companies in India and Silicon Valley. Prior to which, Anupama led many Software Development and Architecture initiatives. Anupama is National Vice Chairman of CII–YI ; Member of the CII National MSME Council and Chairperson CII MSME Sub Group on Technology and Innovation; Board Member of Angel Investors Consortium; and, Board Member of Athena Foundation – an international organization focused on women leadership. Anupama is Aspen Fellow under the India Leadership Initiative; the recipient of the Athena India Leadership Award; Rotary International Young Achievers Award; “Award for Excellence – Women Entrepreneur” and “All India Outstanding Woman Entrepreneur for the year Award”.
Varun Chawla
Co-Founder, Orios Venture Partners
Varun has extensive early stage experience, since 2005; as an intrapreneur, banker, failed entrepreneur and successful entrepreneur. He founded MyGuestHouse, a budget accommodation technology company that was acquired by MakeMyTrip in 2011. Varun serves as board member of Pennar Industries Limited, a publicly listed company. 2002-2007 he accumulated extensive experience in valuation and financial modeling working in Goldman Sachs equity research, he also covered telecom services companies in the US, South America and Asia. Varun graduated Magna Cum Laude from Cornell University in 2002 with a B.S. degree in Applied Economics and Management, he completed additional coursework in engineering mathematics and electrical engineering.
Ishita Swarup
Co-Founder & CEO, 99Labels.com
With a degree in Economics from Delhi University and an MBA from IMT, Ishita began her career with Cadburys. Consequently, it was a natural progression for her to create and manage Orion Dialog, a pioneer in the ITES sector in India. She exited by selling the company to Aegis BPO part of the Essar Group, where she continued as COO-India. Thereafter she helped set up a social venture - Sakha Consulting Wings Pvt. Ltd. Sakha is a unique social enterprise, launched to provide safe transport solutions for women, by women in urban India. Her role as a CEO at 99labels continues her love for challenges and young setups, and here Ishita has taken her imagination further, and has been instrumental in carving out a space which epitomizes all the fun of shopping for great brands in a secure, responsive and completely reliable way.
Vikas Banga
Co-Founder, LetsGoMo Labs
Vikas is responsible for identifying the new technologies shaping the mobile arena, and identifying their usefulness. Having dabbled in various roles in Appulse Technologies which he co-founded, and HCL Technologies, he employs his broad experience as developer, hacker, and product manager to find innovative solutions to the challenges being faced by LetsGoMo Labs customers in creating and implementing their mobile strategy.
Ishan Gupta
CEO, EduKart.com
Ishan Gupta is a passionate education entrepreneur, investor, speaker and a published author. He is currently leading EduKart.com, that provides high quality and industry relevant certificate courses. Prior to launching EduKart.com, Ishan was managing the One97 Mobility Fund. One97 Mobility Fund happens to be the only mobile sector focused fund in India. He has also worked as a GM at One97 Communications and was responsible for new product creation at One97. Prior to which, Ishan was leading the growth and marketing efforts of Facebook in India as its sole representative in the country. Ishan had earlier founded Appin Knowledge Solutions. Ishan has also worked at Helion Venture Partners. He is a published author - he published the book "Make the Move - Demystifying Entrepreneurship" in 2007. The book has a foreword by Sabeer Bhatia, founder of Hotmail and a message from then President of India, Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam. Ishan has a MBA from Stanford University, California, USA and a Bachelor of Engineering from University of Delhi, India.
Yogesh Bansal
Founder & CEO, ApnaCircle.com
The young entrepreneur and the intellect behind India’s rewarding online professional network, Yogesh, is the visionary who envisaged the requirement of an online local network for professionals in India. Yogesh is a serial entrepreneur who always believed in the concept of networking sites. He founded several startups in USA as well as India. Before becoming an entrepreneur; he worked with McKesson Inc, USA. In the year 2006 he started ApnaCircle.com. Yogesh has been awarded, lauded and appreciated by many industry leaders and various publications for his ability to drive an entrepreneurial culture. He has successfully broadened the social networking culture amongst professionals even in the Tier – II, III & IV cities. Yogesh also has a special interest i.e. working for under privileged. He gives frequent speeches at the top management institutes IIMs, IMT, SRCC etc. He is also a charter member of TIE and an angel at the IAN.
Sunil K. Goyal
CEO, YourNest Angel Fund
Sunil has led angel investments and focuses on building early stage businesses. He is an active member at the Indian Angel Network, Mumbai Angels, a member of The Indus Entrepreneur and on the advisory board of “Ideas Infinite”. Sunil is currently nurturing angel investments in area of telecom, mobile, e-commerce, software, technology, and retail. By qualification, he is A Chartered Financial Analyst, Business Economist and a Cost Accountant. He has constantly led change programs and new projects in FMCG, telecommunication services, and technology products during his 2 decades of blue-chip corporate life with Bharti Airtel Limited, Beetel TeleTech Limited and Dabur India Limited.
Apoorv Ranjan Sharma
EVP, Venture Nursery
In his previous roles in other firms, Apoorv has established many incubators and, grown angel networks and has mentored over 100 start-ups on fund raising techniques, many of whom have gone on to secure angel and VC financing. He recently exited IAN where he led Western Region Investments and Technology Incubator. He was instrumental in establishing many new initiatives at IAN. In the past, he has been responsible for establishing JSS Technology Business Incubator, JSS SEED Fund, Amity Capital Venture and Amity Innovation Incubator. He had spent close to a decade in IT Industry and has worked in an angel funded start-up in Europe. He is a regular speaker on many prestigious fora related to angel investments and incubation and had been visiting faculty at top entrepreneurship institutes such as SP Jain and EDII. Sharma holds an engineering degree from HBTI Kanpur, an M.B.A from Asia Pacific Institute of Management, Delhi
Brij Mohan Mahendru
Co-Founder & Director, mCarbon Tech Innovation
Brij is an entrepreneur with a string of high-impact incubations, a 20 year telecom veteran, drives the cross-company engineering initiatives and collaboration, and oversees mCarbon’s vision and leadership for developing and implementing all technology initiatives. Brij has demonstrated an ability to see opportunities early and generate executive support for initiatives to capitalize on those opportunities. Prior to this, Brij served as VP – Bharti Telesoft, where he spearheaded key telecom solutions, including Switching, Transmission & Network Management in design, development and deployment of large scale VAS services. Earlier he held executive engineering and general management roles at C-Dot, and Punjab Communications.
Sameer Maheshwari
Co-founder & MD, HealthKart.com
Sameer’s vision to make HealthKart the ubiquitous choice for health needs of consumers, across all parts of India. Sameer brings financial and technology domain expertise to the venture. Prior to founding HealthKart, Sameer worked at UBS Investment Bank in San Francisco for two years, where he provided M&A and capital markets advice to internet and digital media companies. Before investment banking, Sameer developed and sold information technology solutions for eight years. He managed technology consulting projects for Fortune 500 clients while working at Deloitte Consulting for three years and subsequently sold enterprise reporting software at MicroStrategy for five years. He holds a Bachelor of Technology from IIT Delhi and is a graduate of Harvard Business School.
Akshay Hunka
Founder & CEO, Hunka Technologies
With over 12 years of experience in telecom, security servillence, insurance and mobile app and game industry, Akshay started his maiden venture in 2007. With his immense will power, leadership skills and strategic decision making abilities, today Hunka Technologies has made its presence world wide. With high quality games and world class apps, Hunka has been featured as 4th most promising moblile app development company in India.
Gaurav Kachru
Founder & Managing Partner, 5ideas Inc.
In his current avatar as Founder 5ideas.in, Gaurav is looking to collaborate with promising seed stage Internet & Mobile startups, helping accelerate their journey to commercial success with financial & human capital. Gaurav has spent over 15 years building young businesses across sectors. Gaurav was the CEO & Co-Founder of dealsandyou.com. He exited the business in 2012 selling his equity to the Smile Group. Under his leadership D&Y was in the top 10 online multi-brand retailers. Over the past decade, he has been part of over 10 successful transactions and has helped raise over USD 70 Million dollars for his businesses in the internet sector. Prior to this, Gaurav was an Asia Pacific Director for the Global Accounts Business for Manpower Inc. Gaurav spent a decade with GE in India. He was a founding member of the GE India Growth Team.
Nitin Gupta
Country Head, PayU India Internet
Nitin holds a bachelors degree (B.Tech) in computer science from IIT Delhi and a Post Graduate diploma in business management from IIM Ahemdabad. He has worked with Lehman Brothers as an Investment Banker in London and also set up a desk for them in Mumbai. Prior to setting up PayU in India, he had founded an internet firm – www.Khojguru.com – which has been a profitable venture since Jan 2010. Nitin is a voracious reader and a comic strips fan.
Anupam Rastogi
Principal, Nokia Growth Partners
Anupam brings over 11 years of product and financial experience in mobile, Internet and media domains. Prior to NGP, he worked with Comcast&rsquot;s media investments division, where he helped assess M&A, international joint ventures and partnership opportunities in the media and Internet spaces. Previously, he was a management consultant to private equity and operating clients on investment due diligence, M&A and growth strategies in the technology and telecom space. Before that he spent several years at Motorola and Verizon in product leadership roles, where he helped bring multiple consumer Internet and telecom products to market. Anupam has co-authored 6 international patents and publications in wireless and embedded systems domains. Anupam holds an MBA from The Wharton School, where he was a William Warne Fellow. He also holds Bachelor&rsquot;s and Master&rsquot;s degrees in Computer Science from IIT Delhi and UT Austin respectively, and studied Innovation at MIT as an Advanced Study Fellow.
Aravind K. S.
Associate Vice President, Tally Solutions
Aravind K.S. is a proven veteran in the accounting software domain with an in-depth understanding of the accounting software product industry, and he is a great proponent of Tally! He is one of the very few to have been mentored by Late ShriS.S.Goenka, himself, the co- founder of Tally. Aravind started his career as a software developer. He later moved on to market facing roles like software support and implementations, product management, partner sales and business development in the same industry. He has worked and led teams on all levels. His work has taken him across the globe, and he has the experience of working in diverse markets & cultures like Asia-Pacific, Middle-East, and the Sub-Saharan & West-African countries apart from many parts of India. Presently, he heads the Operations of Tally Solution’s SME business in Western India. Aravind comes from an Electrical Engineering background. He is also an alumnus of IIM-A where he had undergone the Mid-Level Management Development Program at IIM –Ahmedabad.
Avaneesh Nirjar
Co-Founder & COO, Policybazaar.com
Avaneesh leads the company&rsquot;s business operations and executes Policy Bazaar&rsquot;s business strategy ensuring operational excellence. Prior to his current role, he served as the Global Operations Director with First Europa. He has served with AT&T India, GE, Global Vantage, Hero-ITES, Technovate eSolutions. Avaneesh is a MBA from BIT Ranchi.