Atul Raja
Executive Vice President, Global Marketing, Wadhwani Foundation

About Atul Raja, EVP Global Marketing, Wadhwani Foundation
Atul Raj heads the marketing activities of the Wadhwani Foundation and its Initiatives, globally. He is Instrumental in launching and managing leading FMCG brands like Airtel, Royal Challenge, Daewoo Matiz, Tata Indicom, Videocon, Sansui and Kenwood. He comes with 25+ years of cross-industrial marketing experience across leading organizations like Bharti Airtel, Tata Teleservices, Shaw Wallace, Videocon, Bennett & Coleman, Biocon, and Daewoo Motors. He is an avid writer in leading publications

He was extensively awarded for marketing initiatives. Equipped with a Management degree, he has honed his marketing & branding skills at Marcus Evans, London, and Indian School of Business (ISB), Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) and Tata Management Training Centre (TMTC).

About Wadhwani Foundation
Wadhwani Foundation, founded by Dr. Romesh Wadhwani has always been at the forefront of working towards accelerating economic development in emerging economies by driving large-scale job creation through entrepreneurship, innovation and skills development. Founded in 2000 by Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, today the Foundation is scaling impact in 25 countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America through the following Initiatives.

Prasanna Kotian
Head - Corporate Communications India & South Asia. Visa

Prasanna Kotian leads Visa’s Corporate Communications team across India & South Asia. He joined Visa in early 2017 to help reinforce Visa as India’s leading digital payment network.

Prasanna joined Visa from Edelman, where he helped corporate clients including those the Tata group with their reputation management mandates. Prior to joining Edelman, Prasanna headed the Corporate Affairs function for South & South East Asia at Western Union® Money Transfer. His responsibilities at Western Union included regulatory affairs and CSR outreach for the organization across the region.

Prasanna began his career as a Journalist with the Indian Express Group of Newspapers before moving on to join his first PR agency - leading the IT practice with Sampark Ketchum. He subsequently moved on to head Marketing & Communication roles in the corporate world, which saw him lead the marketing team at Essar Steel, followed by a stint at D-Link Corporation to lead the Marketing, Corporate Communications & IR function.

Dr. Rajiv Chhibber
PHD, Vice President - External Affairs, Sahajanand Medical Technologies Pvt Ltd.

Dr Rajiv Chhibber is a Senior Corporate Affairs, Policy, Communications and Media Strategist with experience across Pharmaceuticals/Medical Devices Industry, Healthcare, Environment, Power and the Development Sector.

He is a member of various government committees / sub-committees in areas of Public Health advocacy, Pharma & Medical Devices, Nutrition, Tobacco Control, NCDs, and Climate Change in addition to being on various Industry lead committees of CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, AIMED, PHD Chambers of Commerce, USIBC and American Chambers of Commerce (AmCham). He is a Member of Asia-Pacific Association of Communication Directors (APACD), Hong Kong, the International Society for Disease Surveillance, CDC Atlanta, USA and the on the Advisory Board of the International Human Rights Council representing India on issues related to Environmental Health and Rehabilitation and Relocation due to Climate Change. He is a Founding Member of Public Relations Society of India, a national body of communications and PR experts. He is also on the Advisory Board of Climate Action Network, South Asia (CANSA), and Greenthusiast Foundation, leading civil society NGOs that advocate issues on sustainable development, climate change, energy, power and environmental healthcare matters.

Dr Chhibber holds a Master’s Degree in Journalism and Mass Communication and a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from Delhi University. He has a post-graduate diploma in Newspaper and Feature writing (Montgomery College, University of Maryland, USA) and pursued a Public Health Leadership in-professional course in NCDs from Emory University, Atlanta USA (2014-15) and a Communications Development Programme in Public Health Engagement by Wellcome Trust, UK at the London School of Hygiene and Topical Medicine (LSHTM), UK, (March 2016). He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Aztec’s University (UNESCO), Mexico in the year June 2019 the field of " Global Public Health Communication and Policy".

Rakhee Lalvani
VP, Public Relations and Corporate Communications, IHCL

Rakhee heads PR and Corporate Communications for IHCL on a global scale. She has over twenty years of expertise within the hospitality industry and has held several roles in the realm of Sales & Marketing at IHCL. She currently looks after global PR and Corporate communications for over 200 hotels and is in charge of enhancing & protecting the global image of the company. In her free time, Rakhee enjoys reading and traveling to explore different cultures, history and cuisine.

Vani Gupta Dandia
Founder, CherryPeachPlum Growth Partners

Vani started as an advertising girl, with accounts like: Coca-cola, Cosmopolitan and Adidas. She went on to chase different experiences in marketing across Global brands with Henkel, Reckitt Benckiser, Unilever and PepsiCo. She has worked with cross cultural teams across Asia and Europe, led innovation for several markets, and held full P&L responsibility. In her last stint at PepsiCo she was the category leader for Indian Snacks. She led the turnaround of a massive $250mn+ brand from double digit negative growth to a double digit positive growth in 2 years.

She won several accolades at PepsiCo including : The ‘India Region Above and Beyond 2014 Chairman’s Award’ from PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi for successfully building a new platform of growth for Pepsi Foods, the ‘Innovation Excellence Award’ and the ‘AMEA PwP Sustained Performance Award’ for Kurkure. Vani has also been listed as the 2015 'BT Hottest Young Executive under 40', in a nationwide survey.

After a long stint in the corporate world of more than 20 years, Vani has started her own venture called CherryPeachPlum Growth Partners. CherryPeachPlum Growth Partners is a marketing led business consultancy that works with corporates and start ups to deliver all marketing strategies for launch of new products, architecture, communication, design, brand identity, including execution via partners agencies.

Varsha Chainani
Sr. Vice President Group Communications, Mahindra Group

Varsha Chainani is Sr. Vice President Group Communications at the Mahindra Group and is responsible for building their reputation, globally.
She is a Communications and Marketing strategist with over 30 years of experience across various facets of Communications – Reputation Management, Public Affairs, Media Relations, Employee Communications and Content Management, Crisis Management, Brand Building, Marketing, and Corporate Social Responsibility.
She has helped industry-leading global organizations like Abbott, IBM and Indian Hotels Company Ltd work through change and achieve growth, enhance & protect reputation and build brand image.
Apart from being a speaker and jury at various national and international communications forums, Varsha is an active member of the prestigious Arthur W Page Society. She is a Life and Leadership Professional Coach who works with mid-career women supporting them to accelerate their leadership journey and excel in their careers.