Speakers
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Bharat Puri
Chairman, CII National Committee on FMCG and Managing Director, Pidilite Industries
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Vivek Gambhir
Co-Chairman, CII National Committee on FMCG and Managing Director & CEO, Godrej Consumer Products
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Suresh Narayanan
Chairman and Managing Director, Nestle India
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Prasun Basu
President - South Asia, Nielsen
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Kanwaljit Singh
Managing Partner, Fireside Ventures
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M. Chandrasekar
Whole-time Director & Executive Vice-President - Sales & Customer Development, Colgate Palmolive India
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Ankur Jain
Founder, Bira India
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Venkatesh Kini
Co-Founder Ubuntoo
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Nikhil Prasad Ojha
Partner, Bain India
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Deepak Iyer
Managing Director, Mondelez India
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Meghna Apparao
Chief Marketing Officer, Godrej Consumer Products
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Richa Arora
COO, Consumer Products Business, Tata Chemicals
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Anil Viswanathan
Director - Marketing (Chocolates) Mondelez India Foods Pvt. Ltd.
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Vipul Mathur
Global Brand Leader - Brooke Bond, Hindustan Unilever
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Madhukar Sabnavis
Vice Chairman & Director – Client Relations, Ogilvy India
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Karthik Ganesan
Principal, Bain & Company
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Ravi Swarup
Partner, Bain & Company
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Salil Dalal
COO - Emerging India, Pidilite Industries
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Shyam Unnikrishnan
Partner, Bain & Co.
Bharat Puri
Chairman, CII National Committee on FMCG and Managing Director, Pidilite Industries
Bharat Puri is currently the Managing Director of Pidilite Industries Ltd, having joined the Board of Pidilite Industries Ltd as an Independent Director in 2008 and being appointed Managing Director in April 2015.Pidilite is India’s leading manufacturer of consumer adhesives, sealants, construction chemicals, art and craft products as well as polymer emulsions.Over the past few years, Pidilite has emerged as one of India’s most respected consumer companies.
Bharat was at school at the Lawrence School Sanawar, graduated in Commerce from Punjab University and completed his Post Graduate Diploma in Management (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
Starting his career with Asian Paints in 1982, he rose to eventually heading Sales and Marketing for the company. He moved to Cadbury India as Director of Sales and Marketing in 1998, and was appointed its Managing Director in 2002. In 2006, he was posted to Singapore in a Regional role. He then held senior leadership positions in Sales, Marketing and General Management, at the regional, and global level, culminating in his becoming Global President, Chocolates, Gum and Candy, for Mondelez International. Bharat has been a successful global business leader who has built, energised and led diverse teams across numerous geographies in both developed and developing markets.
As a person, Bharat can be described as open, curious, fair with a strong bias for action and a strong belief in the power of teams.
Vivek Gambhir
Co-Chairman, CII National Committee on FMCG and Managing Director & CEO, Godrej Consumer Products
Vivek Gambhir is Managing Director and CEO, Godrej Consumer Products Limited
(GCPL).
Vivek was the key architect of GCPL's 3 by 3 strategy and has been instrumental in driving
the company's efforts to become a leading emerging markets FMCG leader.
He joined Godrej Industries in 2009 as Chief Strategy Officer responsible for guiding
overall Group strategy, conducting portfolio analysis and driving special projects. He
helped define the CREATE portfolio approach and the 10X10 objective for the Group.
Prior to joining the Godrej Group, Vivek was a partner at Bain & Company, one of the
world's leading business consulting firms. He worked with Bain in Boston, Singapore and
New Delhi. He was a founding member of Bain's consulting operations in India and led
the firm's FMCG practice in India.
Vivek is an Independent Director on the Boards of Metropolis Healthcare Limited and
Samast Technologies Private Limited. He serves as President of the Harvard Business
School club in India and is an advisor to the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation.
Vivek also writes a weekly blog on leadership called 'Monday-8AM' (http://www.monday-
8am.com).
He has an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS (Computer Science) and
BA (Economics) from Lafayette College.
Vivek is married to Roopika, who is a photographer and a social worker. They have three
children, Janya, Aarav and Imara.
Suresh Narayanan
Chairman and Managing Director, Nestle India
Mr. Suresh Narayanan has over 35 years of rich and exhaustive experience in the FMCG Industry and has held Senior Management and Top Leadership roles in leading global companies. He is on the Board of Directors of Nestlé India Limited from 1st August, 2015. Mr. Narayanan was Chairman and CEO of Nestlé Philippines prior to joining Nestlé India in 2015.
Mr. Narayanan was Managing Director of Nestlé Singapore Pte. Ltd., from 2008 to 2010. During his time, the overall business in Singapore witnessed sustained growth amidst the economic downturn. He was awarded the Medal of Commendation by the Government of Singapore in 2010, for excellence in employee relations during this challenging period. He moved to Nestlé Egypt as Chairman and CEO and Head of NEAR, where his initiatives resulted in significant business growth and investments despite the turbulence and volatility faced by the region at this time.
Mr. Narayanan joined Nestlé in 1999 as Executive Vice President for Sales in India, where he spearheaded major structural and strategic changes in Sales and Customer Management and set up the chilled dairy business. He moved to Nestlé Indochina in 2003, as Executive Director for Sales, Marketing and Food-Services, covering the countries of Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. Two years later in 2005, he returned to Nestlé India as Head of Sales for India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Mr. Narayanan began his career as a Management Trainee with Hindustan Unilever, where he held numerous positions of increasing responsibility in Sales, Marketing and General Management. He has also worked with Colgate Palmolive in India.
Mr. Narayanan holds a Master’s Degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and has a Diploma from the IMD Program for Executive Development. He has participated in the Nestlé Leadership Program of the London Business School. He has delivered talks at NASSCOM forums, various Corporates, NUS School of Business-Singapore, American University–Cairo, Columbia University, Army War College– Mhow, Naval War College-Goa and Business Schools such as IIM’s, ISB etc. in India.
Suresh has been honoured at the Forbes India Leadership Awards 2017 as the Best CEO in the Multinational category.
Prasun Basu
President - South Asia, Nielsen
Prasun Basu is the South Asia Zone President for Nielsen Global Connect and leads the company’s business operations in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Prasun has over two decades’ client consulting experience across global markets. His expertise spans brand and communications, innovation and new product development, and customer loyalty management.
Prior to this, Prasun was Managing Director for South Asia region at Millward Brown, and previously MD for Middle East, North and East Africa. He has also worked with the Gallup Organization in the US, India, and Thailand, heading their consulting division. He has also had a stint at IMRB International as Vice President.
Prasun holds an MBA as well as an MS from University of Rochester, New York and a Masters in Statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute.
Mr Singh holds a Master of Business Administration degree in Marketing and Finance from the Faculty of Management Studies, New Delhi; and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Punjab University.
Kanwaljit Singh
Managing Partner, Fireside Ventures
Kanwal Singh is Founder and Managing Partner of Fireside Ventures. Fireside has
invested $50Mn across 18 investments in the early stage consumer brand companies and
is in the process of closing a $100Mn second fund.
Kanwal has been passionate about mentoring and helping build consumer brands in
India and has been involved as an investor with brands like Paper Boat, ID Fresh,
Epigamia, Yogabar, Licious, Mama Earth, Vahdam Teas, boAt etc. Kanwal has been
investing in the early stage ecosystem in India for the past 19 years, first as a Director of
Carlyle Group, India and later as a Co-Founder and Senior Managing Director of Helion
Venture Partners.
Prior to his investing career, Kanwal spent over 13 years in consumer marketing with
Hindustan Unilever and Intel India. He has over 30 years of experience in venture
investing, marketing, sales and business development across diverse sectors.
Mr Singh holds a Master of Business Administration degree in Marketing and Finance
from the Faculty of Management Studies, New Delhi; and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical
Engineering from Punjab University.
M. Chandrasekar
Whole-time Director & Executive Vice-President - Sales & Customer Development, Colgate Palmolive India
Mr. M. Chandrasekar is the Whole-time Director & Executive Vice President - Customer Development ,he progressed through increasing levels of responsibility in the Customer Development & Sales function in different regional roles of Colgate-Palmolive .In his current role ,MC has strengthened Colgate’s distribution network,enhanced customer engagement and pioneered several future technology enabled improvements to drive business.
He has been appointed as Whole-time Director on the Colgate India Board since 2017.
Ankur Jain
Founder, Bira India
Ankur Jain is the Founder and CEO of B9 Beverages, the maker of Bira 91 beers.
Born in New Delhi to an architect-urban planner father and an author-interior designer mother, Ankur is a serial entrepreneur who moved to the United States in 1998. He completed his Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. After a brief stint at Motorola, Ankur co-founded a healthcare revenue management firm in New York City thatlater sold to a large healthcare provider network in 2007. More importantly, during his time in New York, his start up was down the street from Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg, which is where he spent many-a-Friday-afternoons sampling some of the most ingenious and extreme beers on the planet. He then took a trip to Belgium backpacking to villages and sampling some of the most heavenly beers in local breweries still run by families that had owned them for generations. Inspired by the American entrepreneurship in craft beer and the love of traditional beer in Belgium, he decided that it was time for a craft beer brand “Imagined in India” for the urban, millennial consumer and created Bira 91.
Bira 91 launched in early 2015 with its flavorful portfolio of essential beers and its playful monkey mascot. The brand quickly went viral in India becoming the largest draft brand in the country and gaining leadership in the premium segment in its active markets. In 2017, Bira 91 leaped across to New York City to begin its campaign in the United States.And in 2018, the brand started on its wider expansion in the Asia Pacific market by entering Singapore.
In less than three years, Bira 91 is now in the top 25 craft beer brands worldwide by sales volume and the fastest growing beer brand in the world (growing 5x in 2017). It has a passionate team of over 600+ beer lovers who have only one goal – to change the world of beer and beer for the world!
In late 2015, B9 Beverages raised a round of investment from the legendary Silicon Valley based venture firm Sequoia Capital, making it the fund’s first investment in a beer company globally. In 2018, Belgium’s family office Sofina Capital made an additional investment in Bira 91 bringing the total capital raised by the company to over $100 million. In a world where consumers are seeking more flavor and color, and cities are becoming more vibrant, tech-immersed, and playful, Bira 91 aims to drive the global shift in beertowards more color and flavor.
Ankur is a Fellow of the Disruptor Foundation, New York, and was included in Fortune’s “Top 40 Under 40” in 2016 - 2019, GQ India’s “50 Most Influential Young Indian Innovators” in 2016, as well as Economic Times Hottest Business Leaders 2018. He has been invited to speak at various industry forums including the Milken Institute’s global conference, CII etc.
Ankur is a fan of hip hop (everything around ’91), loves his food hot and spicy and enjoys cooking for his wife on the weekends to make up for all the extra beer he drinks!
Venkatesh Kini
Co-Founder Ubuntoo
Venkatesh Kini is co-founder of Ubuntoo, a global environmental solutions platform focused on the plastics, food & beverages, and fashion industries. Venkatesh holds 30 years of experience in marketing and general management with some of the world’s most reputable brands and corporations.
Prior to founding Ubuntoo, Venkatesh served as President, India and Southwest Asia, for The Coca-Cola Company. In his 19 years with The Coca-Cola Company, Venkatesh led major brand launches and marketing campaigns in India and globally, including Sprite, Thums Up and Minute Maid.
Prior to Coca-Cola, Venkatesh worked for ITC and Asian Paints in India. He has held leadership positions in the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), and the American Chamber of Commerce in India (Amcham India).
Venkatesh is based in Atlanta where he is an active environmentalist, an angel investor, and startup mentor.
Nikhil Prasad Ojha
Partner, Bain India
Nikhil Prasad Ojha is a partner in Bain & Company's Mumbai office. He leads Bain's Strategy capability line in Asia-Pacific.
Nikhil has 25 years of consulting and industry experience in India and abroad. He works with large conglomerates to address corporate and business strategy, innovation, organization development, scenario planning and performance improvement. He has advised clients on a range of issues, including growth strategy, M&A, joint ventures and partnerships, organization design and marketing strategy.
Alongside client service work, Nikhil has led Bain’s intellectual property development in key areas. He is a regular contributor to the business press in India, and has published more than 30 articles across issues of strategy, scenario planning, innovation, customer experience and sales & marketing imperatives in different sectors. His first book “The Liberalization Story”, a retrospective of the first 25 years of economic reforms, was published by Penguin RandomHouse in 2017.
Nikhil has an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad, and a BA (Hons) in Economics from HansRaj College, University of Delhi.
Deepak Iyer
Managing Director, Mondelez India
Deepak Iyer is President of Mondelez India Foods Pvt. Ltd and is responsible for leading the business of Mondelēz International in this dynamic and emerging market. Deepak is also part of the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (AMEA) Leadership Team.
With close to twenty-five years of management experience spanning sales, marketing, franchise management and general management, Deepak has extensive experience in the FMCG space.
Prior to joining Mondelez India, he was the CEO and Managing Director of Bharti AXA General Insurance Company Ltd.
He has also served as CEO and Managing Director, Indian Subcontinent at Wrigley India Pvt. Ltd,
Deepak was earlier with PepsiCo Inc. for 17 years working in different roles in India, South Asia and Africa. He has also worked in Marico Industries, Coats Viyella India and Tata Telecom Ltd.
He holds a Master of Management Studies (MBA), Marketing from SP Jain Institute, Mumbai and a Bachelor of Engineering, Electronics from Sardar Patel University, Gujarat.
Meghna Apparao
Chief Marketing Officer, Godrej Consumer Products
She is an MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi and Chevening Fellow from Oxford University. Meghna joined GCPL in 2019 to lead the marketing organisation for India. She is focussed on leading the marketing organisation to become more world class with sharpened and enhanced capabilities.
Meghna has rich experience in the FMCG industry across marketing and ecommerce. She had a successful 13-year stint at Unilever across various global and India assignments – launching brands. categories and new-to-the-world innovations. Prior to joining GCPL she spent 5 years at Amazon building the FMCG business in India. This included setting up and rapidly scaling the e-grocery business with a customized model for India.
Meghna is a staunch believer that being “consumer obsessed” is the key to success in this dynamic, always on, connected world. And this is key to unleash the ability to experiment constantly, to challenge the status-quo and take bold actions to build differentiated brands and business models.
She loves travelling (43 countries and counting…) and is constantly looking “to do things for the first time”.
Richa Arora
COO, Consumer Products Business, Tata Chemicals
Richa Arora, in her current role as COO of the Consumer Products Business at Tata Chemicals Ltd, is leading the transformation of the unit to a player of significance in the wider foods industry.
Richa has 30 years of wide ranging experience spanning Business operations, Marketing, Strategic Planning and Communications. Prior to Tata Chemicals, Richa had set up Five by Six Consulting - a boutique strategic marketing consulting firm, advising companies like McCain Foods, Britannia and Wipro (Consumer). Before Five by Six, Richa worked as Head of Marketing & Innovation at Britannia, and in leadership positions at Balsara and FCB-Ulka.
Richa’s guiding principle in life is ‘Tathastu’ - when the mind believes, things happen. Besides business, Richa is passionate about photography; she has had mainly solo exhibitions in India and has also exhibited at one of the editions of the India Art Fair.
Richa is an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, and a Chevening scholar from the London School of Economics.
Anil Viswanathan
Director - Marketing (Chocolates) Mondelez India Foods Pvt. Ltd.
Anil Viswanathan is Director - Marketing (Chocolates), Mondelez India and is responsible for spearheading the chocolates category. His role includes delivering the Strategy and landing the overall innovation & communication agenda on these brands and delivering the P&L for this category, in India.
Anil joined Cadbury India in May 2000 as a management trainee and has spent 18 years in the company across a variety of roles including Sales, Brand & Category marketing, Strategy and New Business Development. His journey in the company has taken him into Regional and Global roles and into different categories including Chocolate and Biscuits. In his last role in India, Anil was managing marketing for Chocolates. Most recently, Anil was part of the Global Chocolate Team driving chocolate innovation based out of Zurich, Switzerland. One of his achievements has been the launch of 5 Star globally, which is now present in 3 continents including markets like Brazil and South Africa.
Anil holds a MBA in Marketing & Finance from IIM, Calcutta and a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT, Madras.
Vipul Mathur
Global Brand Leader - Brooke Bond, Hindustan Unilever
Vipul has worked in HUL for the last 16 years, in Sales roles, as well as in Marketing for multiple categories – Skin Cleansing, Laundry and now Tea.
Madhukar Sabnavis
Vice Chairman & Director – Client Relations, Ogilvy India
Madhukar Sabnavis is a Maths Honours Gold Medallist from St Stephen’s College, Delhi and PGDM from IIM, Ahmedabad. He started his advertising career with Clarion Advertising in 1985 and moved to Ogilvy in 1988. He currently partners business leaders in growing large local businesses.
In the last 34 years, he has worked on a wide portfolio of clients including Amazon, Asian Paints, Bajaj, Cadbury, Coke, ITC, Lenovo, Max Life, Pidilite, Star TV, Titan, Unilever and Vodafone. He helped create a new agency brand for Ogilvy India - Brand David - in the Indian advertising market space. He set up Account Planning in Ogilvy India in 2002. Under his leadership, Ogilvy has been a much awarded Indian agency in advertising effectiveness. He has also developed a number of workshop tools like Ogilvy OpenSource, OgilvyVision and OgilvyCombat that help solve business and brand problems – which he has run for many clients. And developed planning tools like Media Ethnography and Semiotics.
He enjoys sharing knowledge. He has contributed columns for many business and industry magazines. He has conducted training programs for clients and industry bodies; taken classes in business schools across India. He was a member of managing committees of many industry bodies like ASCI, AAAI and AdClub. He was also a member of the team that set up the ISDI WPP School of Communication in Mumbai. He is passionate about cricket, Hindi movies, Indian culture and sharing knowledge.
Karthik Ganesan
Principal, Bain & Company
Karthik is a principal in Bain and Company and is based in the Mumbai office. He has over 11 years of consulting and industry experience, having spent a considerable amount of time serving in a FMCG conglomerate. He advises clients in the consumer goods and retails space in growth and transformation, brand building, sales and go to market. On strategic advisory he has worked with clients across marketing and pricing as well advanced analytics led growth.
His recent achievements include working with a Indian brand in personal care, advising them on their core brand growth. He has helped a large Indian FMCG brand with analytics and Core brand growth strategy. Additionally he has driven work on Analytics strategy and roadmap, Strategic cost reduction, Pricing strategy for many Indian FMCG companies and on Sales effectiveness for a large Indian home care player. His expertise also lies in Marketing and Media strategy and Full potential transformation.
Karthik earned an from the Xavier School of Management (XLRI) Jamshedpur and has a degree in electrical engineering from Anna University.
Ravi Swarup
Partner, Bain & Company
Ravi Swarup is a partner in Bain & Company’s New Delhi office. He is a member of the firm’s Consumer Products and Retail practices.
He has nearly 15 years of strategy consulting experience and has led several transformative engagements in frontline topics such as go-to-market transformation, value proposition and brand development, campaign and promotions management, marketing spend optimization and sales and distribution transformation.
Additionally, Ravi has deep interest and experience in driving change management to ensure true value delivery in large and complex programs. Ravi has experience working with clients in FMCG, tobacco, alcobev, apparel, multiple retail formats and telecom industries
Ravi earned an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and a graduate degree in B.E. (Computer Science) from NSIT, University of Delhi.
Salil Dalal
COO - Emerging India, Pidilite Industries
Salil Dalal, Chief operating Officer, leads the “Emerging India” Division in Pidilite, which manages all Pidilite brands in the less than 2 lac population strata.
He has 23 yrs of experience in the Consumer and Bazaar industry, where most of his assignments have seen him working on “new to company” / “New to Industry” initiatives and leading high growth businesses.
He has been Awarded the prestigious "India's Top 40 under 40 Hottest Business Leaders", by Economic Times 2013-14.
Shyam Unnikrishnan
Partner, Bain & Co.
Shyam Unnikrishnan is a partner in Bain & Company's Bangalore office. He is a leader in Bain India's Consumer Products, Retail, Strategy and Digital practices.
Shyam has worked in Bain's Atlanta, Sydney and India offices, advising clients across multiple geographies including India, Americas, Middle East, Southeast Asia and Australia.
His focus areas comprise a broad range of topics, including full potential strategy, new market entry, sales acceleration (offline and online), customer experience enhancement, commercial due diligence and merger integration. Over the last decade, Shyam has worked with companies across the spectrum – startups, digital unicorns, scale local companies and multi-national companies – and helped them deliver profitable growth.
Shyam has co-authored several articles and reports in the national media including a publication on the Indian shopper behavior and the new growth paradigm for marketers.
He received an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and a B.E. (Hons.) in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani.