Samcara

Dr Balachandran K

A PhD from LaSalle University, USA, Balachandran K is the Founder and CEO of Quantilez. He has extensive experience of over two decades in analytics, training and consultation in United States and India. He has worked with The Gallup Organization, Opinion Research Corporation , Information In Resources Inc. Aramark Corp. ,LRN Corp. and Mu Sigma at senior management roles of Director, Vice President and Senior Principal.

Ananth Iyer

An MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, Mr Iyer is currently MD & CEO of MC Craftsman Machinery Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation Japan based at Coimbatore, India. In his earlier profiles with Mitsubishi Corporation India and its other subsidiaries, he been involved in supporting Investments, Planning & Coordination, Business Development, Strategy, and CSR initiatives. He is keen on improving his golfing skills and is an avid runner.

Arpita Pal Agrawal

Arpita is the CEO of M-CRIL, a social enterprise that provides high quality professional services in the functional areas of ratings/assessments, programme evaluations, risk management, training and systems support for programme implementation for the economic enhancement of low-income families. M-CRIL works with Multilaterals, Development Financial Institutions, Impact Investors etc. and has been active for nearly three decades in developing countries of Asia and Africa with offices in India, Myanmar and Cambodia. Prior to M-CRIL, Arpita has been a Partner at PwC and KPMG and has held several leadership positions in nearly 25 years of her career focused on Management and Risk consulting. During her career, she has developed innovative consulting offerings and built strong consulting and service delivery teams wherein she has led projects in 30+ countries in both emerging and developed markets. She is experienced in creating business value through Business Planning, Process Transformation and Risk Management by bringing in data driven business insights through application of strategy, digital technologies and tools. Arpita is a member of the Management Board of Guru Gobind Singh IP University, visiting faculty at MDI and regularly speaks and writes on issues of her expertise areas. Arpita is a PGP from IIM Ahmedabad and B.E (Electronics & Comms.) from Delhi College of Engineering. She is an observer of life and loves to travel to new places and soak in its sights & sounds!

Vishal Mahajan

An MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, coupled with a BTech from NDRI, Vishal is the Chief Operating Officer at Jubilant Consumer and is responsible for business P&L. He has been leading this business since inception and continues to drive the organization's evolution through its different phases of growth and diversification in food and retail businesses. He specializes in General Management, Retail Operations, Corporate Sales, Strategy, Finance, Business Development, Marketing & Supply Chain Management. He has also worked in various capacities and leadership roles at Aditya Birla Group, Times Group and Reliance Communications. In his spare team, Vishal loves to run, read and play tennis.

Sumeet Chander

An MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, Sumeet heads Evalueserve Greater China and Japan and is responsible for overall business in Asia-Pacific region. He has built the business in this region from scratch and managed teams across multiple countries. Evalueserve is a global professional services provider offering research, analytics, and data management services. They're powered by mind+machine - a unique combination of human expertise and best-in-class technologies that use smart algorithms to simplify key tasks. In his over 20+ years of work life, he has helped 3 start-ups grow successfully in Europe, South Asia and APAC. In his spare time, Sumeet likes do vertical runs and indoor rock climbing.

Namrata Rana

Namrata Rana is the author of BALANCE – Responsible business for the digital age. She is Director-Strategy and Brand, at Futurescape and India Ambassador of University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. She is an alumni of IIM Ahmedabad, Cambridge UK and Blekinge Sweden.
Namrata’s work focuses on creating responsible brands through customer journey mapping and leadership workshops. She has worked in the areas of retail, healthcare, mobility, food, hospitality and infrastructure. She is also visiting faculty at IIM Udaipur, and her annual study on India’s top companies for Sustainability and CSR is a pioneering work which is very well regarded by industry and practitioners.

Suresh Ramakrishnan

Suresh Ramakrishnan an alumnus from IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad has lived through his professional career spanning 23 years through start-ups predominantly in the media and content space. While he considers himself a salesman at heart, he has been instrumental in launching several media products in India, creating new business divisions in the content space to serve international markets and heading new companies as well. In the current dispensation, he is part of the core team in an investment firm and handles a portfolio of three companies - two in the learning development sector and one in the printing sector. He is an avid reader, blogger, music fanatic, singer and fitness freak.

Ashish Wadhwani

Ashish Wadhwani is the Managing Partner at IvyCap Ventures. He has over 25 years of experience in Venture Capital, M&A, and Strategy Consulting. IvyCap is a Venture Capital fund build around the alumni of premier institutions of India and manage about 125m USD of Capital. During his career, Ashish has worked with companies across the investment lifecycle, from incubation to exit. Ashish has led and managed investments across technology, consumer and traditional industries. He has also led a NASDAQ listing. In addition, he has also worked on several M&A transactions. Ashish has also found and run his own ventures, and is nd has been a member of the board in several companies across the APAC region. Ashish is also currently serving as a board member of The Indus Entreprenuers (TiE) Singapore. He advised over 40 companies on business strategy, growth, implementing new business models, value creation and monetisation, mergers and acquisitions and new investments across Asia, India and Europe. Ashish was a strategy consultant with Roland Berger, Monitor Group and Deloitte. Ashish was also part of Tata Industries, the holding company of the Tata group where he build strategy for group companies and was involved in several investment and divestment deals. Ashish is a regular speaker and author on thought leadership topics.. He holds a post-graduate diploma in management from the IIM Ahmedabad, and a B.Tech. degree from the IIT Delhi. Ashish was born in Jamshedpur, India in 1968 and has been living out of Singapore and working across Asia since 2000.