Speakers

Driven by purpose and passion, Varun Alagh Co-Founded Honasa Consumer Pvt. Ltd. in 2016. With over 10+ years of leadership experience in sales and marketing roles with world-renowned FMCG brands, Varun has mastered the art of building a brand and making it profitable. Varun started his career with Hindustan Unilever and has, twice been listed amongst the top managers in HUL. He then went on to become the Senior Brand Manager at Diageo followed by a 4 years stint at Coca Cola wherein he managed the ATL, BTL, Digital & Trade activations for Smirnoff and has been instrumental in launching Coke Zero in India. During his corporate stint, he has won multiple recognitions including Business Unit Presidents Award, Above and Beyond Award and I am Diageo Award. Varun leverages his understanding of the FMCG market to build MamaEarth's and its 100% toxin-free products portfolio.

He holds a Masters in Finance and Marketing from XLRI, Jamshedpur, and Bachelors in Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering (DCE)

Shashi is a passionate business leader with extensive experience in scaling up businesses, developing winning teams and building purpose driven business institutions in India & globally.

An alumnus of INSEAD France, Shashi has led large billion dollar P&L as well as built businesses from scratch. Prior to Sebamed, he had long stints with large process driven organisations including Johnson & Johnson, IBM Consulting and Govt of India.

Shashi has an affinity for blue ocean approach with a track record of creating new paradigms across industries. He has an avid interest in mentoring start-ups and sits on the advisory committee of leading Venture Capital firms.

Mahesh Shetty joined Viacom18 in April 2019 and leads the media & entertainment network’s revenue function. An industry veteran, Shetty has over 23years of experience in Media and FMCG sectors, managing varied P&L and functional leadership roles.

Since joining Viacom18, Shetty has taken the charge of streamlining revenue generation within the organisation. He has helped the network forge strong relationships with clients across industry segments through enriching the value proposition. In addition to leading the network sales mandate, Shetty has also been overseeing the Consumer Products and Integrated Network Solutions business units.

In his 12.5 years long tenure at Radio Mirchi, he was one of the chief architects of driving Mirchi’s growth in the cluttered private FM space and building Mirchi as a dominant market leader. Mahesh joined Mirchi as VP and cluster head of Tamil nadu when it a 7-station network in India and in his decade plus stint he donned multiple roles finally exiting as the Chief Operating officer running a 76-station network. He also served as the Chief Strategy office where he is credited with starting Mirchi’s international business, leading Mirchi’s Phase 3 expansion and scaling up the IP properties business with large format multi lingual properties such as Mirchi Music Awards.

Prior to joining Radio Mirchi he had a long stint of over 10 years with PepsiCo International. In PepsiCo he worked across multiple markets in various sales and marketing roles. In his last role as General Manager – On Premise Sales, he was responsible for managing and building the On Premise & Modern Trade sales channels for India along with managing Key national customer relationships.

Mahesh is an avid sports and movies buff, always ready for a game of cricket or banter on Bollywood trivia. He loves the outdoors and heads to Rishikesh for rafting whenever he gets a chance.Mahesh holds a Bachelors’ Degree in Commerce from Mumbai University and an MBA from Institute for Technology & Management, Mumbai.

Sushant is currently Director, Marketing at Amazon Prime Video for India. This includes leading brand development, customer acquisition, and engagement initiatives for the organization. Over a span of more than 16 years and many cities, Sushant has operated across industries including Consumer Goods, eCommerce, Travel & Tourism, and has been an entrepreneur as well. Prior to joining Amazon, Sushant led marketing for Xiaomi in India, helping propel the company into one of the top smartphone brands in the country. Sushant is a graduate of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and can still be seen sometimes, buried in books trying to understand engineering concepts that eluded him in college. .

MBA from NITIE in 2015, Center of Industrial Excellence, Gold Medallist in ECE Engg. from JNTU. Founded SciMine (Typeform for Rural Audience) startup and worked previously as lead consultancy for ITC, GE, and Infosys and bagged Best Employee Awards for extraordinary performance in each firm.

Rathi Gangappa is the Chief Executive Officer of Starcom India, one of the fastest growing agencies in India.

She is a Media and Brand Communications specialist, with a rich experience of over 20 years across Client, Publisher and Agency ecosystems. Her previous stints include GroupM and Vodafone among others.

Rathi has helmed high-profile brand campaigns on the client’s side and headed country-wide operations for media agencies. She has been in leadership roles, requiring an execution focus in complex cross-cultural environments, driving transformation programs, building capability, and nurturing talent.

She has always enjoyed celebrating creativity within media and has been an integral part of award-winning campaign

Ritu has been with Dell Technologies since 2011 and has been instrumental in establishing Dell’s consumer PC brand presence in India. Under her leadership, Dell has grown into a brand of choice across its consumer PC portfolio including sub brands of Inspiron, XPS and Alienware; targeted at a broad spectrum of consumer segments.

In her current capacity as Country Marketing Head, Ritu is responsible to drive both brand, customer engagement & marketing driven business growth across Consumer, Small Business, Commercial & Enterprise segments for Dell Technologies’ range of end to end products & solutions for both personal consumers & business customers.

A strong believer in gender equality and diversity holding a keen interest in mentoring women at workplaces, Ritu also leads the Dell Women Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) India Chapter.

Under her leadership, Dell has emerged as the Most Trusted Brand in India for 2 consecutive years in addition to featuring as a “Superbrand” in 2018. During her tenure at Dell Technologies Ritu was featured in the “LinkedIn Power Profile 2015” in the field of Marketing & Advertising & was named among Top 100 Marketing leaders listed by Impact Digital, 2020.

She has held numerous leadership roles over her ~25 year career in marketing at reputed companies including AC Nielson, Whirlpool, Dabur and ICICI Bank in the past. Her interests include insight & data driven marketing and studying consumer psychology & behavior especially in an evolving digital commerce environment.

Ritu has a Post Graduate master’s in management studies from Mumbai University & is an Economics Graduate from Delhi University.

She is based in Bangalore.

Pankaj Sharma is an FMCG marketing enthusiast with over 18 years of experience in both brand and sales management. He has been with L’Oréal since 2004.

In February 2020, he took over as Director of L’Oréal India’s Consumer Products Division (CPD), which includes brands L’Oréal Paris, Garnier, Maybelline New York & NYX Professional Make Up. In this role, he focuses on building the consumer business of L’Oréal by driving penetration of all brands across all commercial channels and by building consumer engagement across all touch points, especially the fastest growing segment of digital and e-commerce.

Previously, Pankaj was the head of the Garnier and Maybelline New York brands for L’Oréal India where he worked across the sales and marketing functions. He has also worked with L’Oréal Singapore from 2012 to 2015, where he was responsible for driving the growth story for Garnier in South Asia.

Prior to his stint in Singapore, Pankaj has worked in various roles in sales and marketing in L’Oréal India. Pankaj is a Major in Marketing Management from MICA and holds a master’s degree in Computer Science from University of Madras.

Responsible for the development of the global branding, marketing and communications initiatives at the Jaquar Group, Sandeep Shukla has been a crucial player in the establishment of the Jaquar Group as a leading global brand in the complete bathing and lighting solutions space.

Sandeep is a sharp and astute strategist with over 23 years track record of creating and delivering innovative marketing activities that have helped accelerate business growth. He has been responsible for, and successful in lending distinct identities to the various brands under the Jaquar Group – Artize, Jaquar, ESSCO and Jaquar Lighting.

Having worked with the Group for the last 9 years, Sandeep is instrumental in leading and establishing the presence of the homegrown Indian brand at various global platforms. He is credited with ensuring the participation of the Jaquar Group, the only Indian company, at the prestigious ISH Frankfurt in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019. Under his vision and guidance, the Jaquar Lighting brand brought actress Deepika Padukone on-board as part of its successful 360-degree marketing campaign. Sandeep steered the global operations such that IF Awards, Plus X, Good Design and the Elle Décor International Design Awards, among others, recognized the company’s initiatives in the design space.

Known for his eloquence as a public speaker and progressive thinking on strategic marketing, brand management and digital intervention in the B2B industry, Sandeep has a post-graduate degree in business studies. He has worked with reputed brands such as Hindware, Pepsi, Nestle, Asahi, Barista and Evok prior to joining the Jaquar Group.

Besides scaling the ladder of corporate excellence and keeping a keen eye out on the latest in the world of marketing, he is an avid fitness enthusiast who especially displays superior dexterity at yoga.

For more details on the Sandeep’s expertise and work experience, please click here to visit his LinkedIn profile - https://tinyurl.com/qnpe3qp

Bidisha has over 25 years of cross-industry experience in Marketing. A thought leader and a strategic marketing expert, she has spent a significant time of her career in Technology, Retail and Entrepreneurship.

Bidisha started in the year 2016 as CMO of Schneider Electric India and runs the Marketing function for the company

Her assignment portfolio has a well-rounded mix of Fortune 500 companies as well as Indian Early stage Start-Ups. Bidisha’s experience includes assignments in India as well as Asia Pacific regions.

Starting off her career in Advertising with Lowe Lintas, on the Unilever business, she moved to Compaq Computers spearheading the launch of Compaq Presario in India. From here on she moved onto an illustrious stint with Intel Corporation in India and APAC region overseeing Consumer Marketing as well as Retail Programs. Moving on she joined Google India in the early days when the Internet giant was setting up operations in India responsible for Marketing of Search and Mobile products.

From Technology, she then switched categories to move into Retail taking on the mandate of President Marketing for India’s largest Coffee Chain -Coffee Day Group. She spearheaded their growth and distribution and was part of the team that took the Company public.

She also has a strong stint in advising early stage start-ups and became an Independent Marketing Advisor for companies in the areas of Education, Mobile Commerce, Radio Taxi Service, Food and Beverage and the Internet Talent Platform.

Bidisha is a Post Graduate in Mass Communications and has been focused in the Marketing function all through her career

Amitabh Pande is Marketing Head, IKEA India, for IKEA India, with functional responsibility for Strategy, Planning and Insights. He joined IKEA 2 years ago and has worked closely with the team to launch IKEA in India, helping create the communication strategy, the communication idea and plan for launch, the affordability strategy for the range, the long-term brand direction, the setting up insights processes for measuring and tracking brand performance, and overall being the Indian consumer’s voice in ongoing decision-making.

Prior to joining IKEA, he practiced as an independent consultant for 2 years and before that, he led the Consumer Insights and Strategy vertical for Pepsico for over 14 years, across different businesses of Pepsico, in both India and UK.

When not at work, Amitabh spends time with his family, especially his energetic 11-year-old son. He loves to read, is a huge content and movie buff and regularly reviews the movies that are playing in cinema, on his blog and on his social media handles.

Over 12 years of experience in building global and domestic brands as a marketer and entrepreneur. Expertise in brand strategy, sports marketing, fashion, advertising, digital marketing, retail marketing and social media management. Most recently, launched the American sportswear brand - Under Armour, in India. Curated and conceptualized 'India's First Sneaker and Street Festival - Soledition'. Led Adidas in positioning itself as the digital brand in India. In-depth understanding and appreciation of consumers, distribution channels – e-commerce, retail, fashion and Technology

Starting her career at Unilever and going on to JWT and Worldwide Media (WWM), Pooja has entrenched herself in every function that makes up what they do at the Glitch. She has built a repertoire of lethal skill sets across a range of domains, including business growth, strategic planning, content, and media. As the CEO at the Glitch, Pooja has built a method to the madness, streamlining the goals and approach, read ownership of every brand they take on. The testament of her success lies in the growth of the Glitch for the past 5 years to now being considered one of India’s top 10 agencies.

Esha Nagar leads the country hat for Nepa India. She is based in Mumbai and overseas Nepa research and client development efforts across a range of vertical industries. Esha brings in vast experience through her multiple stints at Kantar & Nielsen prior to Nepa, where she led the West Region Media and Digital practices, among other roles. Over her career, Esha has worked in both the research focused consulting side and business development space in the industry. Her work cuts across multiple verticals like Consumer - Retail panels, Digital focused solutions, Path-to-Purchase Understanding & Media Effectiveness. All things around content, campaigns and marketing come from a place of personal passion for Esha. She is also responsible for shaping the culture of Nepa in India. Nepa is a Stockholm Headquartered leading consumer science firm with a mantra of delivering insights that matter. The India team is young, unconventional and is creating fluid solutions in digital consumer science for their clients in content & beyond.

Mr. Supratik Sengupta is presently the Head Marketing of Consumer Healthcare at Lupin Limited. He has more than 2 decades of experience in brand marketing of Consumer healthcare, FMCG and Food.

In his last assignment, Supratik served at LT Food Limited. Prior to that, he worked at organisations like Piramal Enterprises, Dabur India Limited and Emami. In his career span, he worked on Brands like Dawaat, Saridon, i-pill, Borplus, Pudin Hara and many more. Few of his consumer campaigns got recognized by both internal and external industry bodies like Effies and Emvies.

Supratik is B-Sc. in Physics from Presidency College, Kolkata and holds a Post Grad degree in Business Management from University of Kolkata.

Samir Sethi heads Marketing for Policybazaar.com. He has an extensive experience in leading the brand and consumer marketing, digital marketing, media planning and investments, market research and social media initiatives.

Samir started his career in advertising, working in leading advertising agency- Ogilvy & Mather. Samir is Post Graduate in Marketing Management from MICA and a graduate in Business Economics from Delhi University.

Gaurav Dhawan is the Executive Vice President & Network Sales Head at Times Network. In his current role, Gaurav leads Times Network’s revenue team and is responsible for driving lucrative monetisation strategy and overall business growth of the Network’s bouquet of channels. He interacts closely with distribution, marketing and other enabling functions of the company to ensure the smooth running of the business and meeting sales objectives.

Gaurav comes with over 25 years of extensive experience and demonstrated history of driving businesses to profitability, ad revenue generation and sustained growth for businesses across Television, Print and Web. Armed with strong leadership skills, people management abilities and operational expertise along with deep understanding on the M&E space, Gaurav leverages his strong client relationships, impact solutions and innovation to deliver aggressive revenue expectations. He was also part of the core team that launched TIMES NOW and helped take the brand to a position of leadership and has been passionately involved in scaling up the revenue and new opportunities for the network.

Manoj Agarwal is an MBA from IIM Kozhikode and a Computer Science Engineer from PEC Chandigarh. He comes with over 14 years of experience in building companies, technology, product, marketing, and business excellence. He has worked with companies like Yahoo, Manipal Education, and Flipkart in various roles. Manoj has been active with various industry and technology forums like IAMAI, CII, IGCC, Nasscom, IIMs, and more. He is a regular speaker in various international forums.

Manoj is a yoga & sports enthusiast. He is a voracious reader and writes on various topics around entrepreneurship, products, culture, spirituality, and more. More details about him are at https://www.linkedin.com/in/manojagarwal3/