43rd Annual Meeting INDIA IDEAS
TSUMMIThe United States & India: Connecting our Futures
September 5-6, 2018 | Mumbai, India
ABOUT US
Formed in 1975 at the request of the U.S. and Indian governments, the U.S.-India Business Council is a premier business advocacy organization representing 300 top-tier global companies advancing U.S.-India commercial ties. As part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, USIBC is the largest bilateral trade association in the United States, with offices in Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, Mumbai, and New Delhi.
U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
A Note from our President
Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to the U.S.-India Business Council’s India Ideas Summit and 43rd Annual Meeting.
USIBC has been a part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for over forty years, and is a cornerstone of the Chamber’s international focus and commitment. While the USIBC has grown, both in terms of its membership and stature, the Chamber wanted to recognize the important shift that our companies are making by bringing our annual meeting to India. Mumbai, the “city of dreams” and a vibrant capital of commerce and entertainment, is the perfect location for an ideas-focused summit.
The summit will bring together leaders from business, government and society for an exchange of ideas on the future of U.S.-India connectivity. We look forward to hearing these leaders share their vision for the future of investment, technology and collaboration that will help to create a bright future for people in the United States, India, and across the Asia-Pacific. Most importantly, we hope solutions are reached and deals are made in the process.
India and the United States are the world’s oldest and largest democracies, and share a commitment to upholding the values that allow for free and open commercial exchange in the region. These shared values allow businesses in both countries to thrive, achieving not only their financial goals, but contributing to local communities in the cities and states where they operate. As we look forward, the incredible work of USIBC members makes it clear that the milestone and shared goal of $500 billion in two-way trade between the United States and India is well within our reach – but we must continue to work together to get there.
We could not be more excited to kick off this dynamic summit, and I personally look forward to hearing ideas with the power to transform the U.S.-India relationship.
Sincerely,
Nisha Biswal
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India CONFERENCE SPEAKERS U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Vijay Advani
CEO, Nuveen
Vijay Advani is chief executive officer of Nuveen, the investment management arm of TIAA. He is responsible for Nuveen’s strategy, distribution and operations, as well as the investment affiliates that comprise Nuveen's multi-boutique structure. Before joining the firm in 2017, Mr. Advani was co-president of Franklin Templeton Investments, where in a career of more than 20 years he was responsible for long-term strategic initiatives and the firm’s investment management, trading and global retail and institutional channels.
Prior to joining Franklin Templeton, Mr. Advani spent 11 years at the World Bank advising governments on developing their financial markets and arranging equity, quasi-equity and debt financing. He worked in several emerging economies in the former Soviet Union, Asia, Middle East and Africa.
Mr. Advani is a member of the Board of Governors of the Investment Company Institute (ICI), board member at Jumpstart and the U.S. - India Business Council (USIBC). He is also an advisory board member for The Hive Incubator in Palo Alto, advisory council member of DocuSign in San Francisco, charter member of TiE Silicon Valley and past board member of the U.S. - India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) and the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Advani is a committee member of the San Francisco-Bangalore Sister City Initiative, member of the Investment Committee at the Santa Clara University (SCU) and former board member of Lok Foundation. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mumbai and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Banmali Agrawala
President, Infrastructure and Defence & Aerospace, Tata Sons Limited
Banmali Agrawala is the President, Infrastructure and Defence & Aerospace, Tata Sons Limited. In his earlier role, he was President and CEO of GE, South Asia, where he was responsible for all of GE’s operations in the South Asia region. Prior to GE, he was Executive Director (BD & Strategy) and a member of the Board of Tata Power.
A veteran in the energy domain, Mr. Agrawala has over 30 years of global experience. He started his career with the Wartsila Group where he spent over 20 years, both in India and in Finland. At the time of leaving the Wartsila Group, he was the Managing Director of Wartsila India Ltd, the Global head of the Bio Power Industries and a member of the Global Power Plant Management Board.
An active member of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), Mr. Agrawala has held several official positions within CII such as Chairman of the Western Regional Council, and currently is also a Member of CII’s National Council.
Mr. Agrawala is a Mechanical Engineering graduate from Mangalore University and an alumnus of the Advanced Management Programme of Harvard Business School.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Kamal Ahluwalia
President, Eightfold.ai
Kamal Ahluwalia is the President of Eightfold.ai. He brings extensive experience in creating software categories, scaling businesses and ensuring that customer and partner success drives business success.
As Chief Revenue Officer at Apttus, Mr. Ahluwalia led the company to market leadership in multiple product categories ahead of Salesforce, Oracle, SAP, IBM, etc. with active endorsements from Global 2000 companies that relied on Apttus solutions.
Prior to his role at Apttus, Mr. Ahluwalia held various leadership positions at Selectica, Model N, Oracle and Apple.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Eric Allison
Global CEO, Uber Aviation Programs
Eric Allison is the CEO of Aviation Programs at Uber. Previously, Mr. Allison spent eight years at Zee Aero leading the development of the Cora vehicle, a two-place self-piloted air taxi. He was part of the founding team at Zee, and served as CEO from 2015 to 2018.
Mr. Allison received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Milwaukee School of Engineering and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, studying under a Stanford Graduate Fellowship.
Mr. Allison lives with his wife and young daughter in Mountain View, CA and enjoys hiking and re-discovering the area through the eyes of his child.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Dinesh Arora
Deputy Chief Executive Officer, National Health Agency (NHA)
Dinesh Arora is an officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), 2002 Kerala cadre. Immediately prior to his appointment as Deputy CEO, National Health Agency, he worked as Director (Health & Voluntary Action) at NITI Aayog. He has contributed to shaping the Ayushman Bharat – National Health Protection Mission since its inception.
In a career spanning 15 years, Dr. Arora has served as Executive Director, Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) and CEO RECPDCL to expedite India’s rural electrification drive to provide universal electricity access to all households. He played an instrumental role in formulating the 'Garv App', an award winning innovative monitoring and evaluation system. As Private Secretary to Former Indian Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology and Shipping, he was actively involved in drafting and implementing polices in the Communications Department.
Dr. Arora is passionate about health sector and social issues. His educational training in medicine coupled with management acumen and experience of being a civil servant helped him contribute unique insights to the National Health Mission, Kerala where he served as Joint Secretary (Health), State Mission Director – Arogyakeralam and Director Social Welfare in early part of his professional career. Dr Arora has held administrative position as District Collector and District Magistrate where his work against illegal sand mining was recognized widely.
Dr. Arora has been recipient of several awards, notably the National E-Governance award for Mission Village Electrification, 2017.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Deepak Bagla
Managing Director & CEO, Invest India
Deepak Bagla has a professional career of over 28 years, starting with the World Bank in Washington, DC before moving back to India to join the Corporate Projects team of RPG Enterprises. In 1989 he joined Citibank’s Global Corporate and Investment Banking team and for the next 18 years held several responsibilities across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.
In 2007 he joined 3i Private Equity to start an India dedicated fund for core infrastructure. Mr. Bagla is a special invitee to the Government of India’s “High Level Committee on Financing Infrastructure” (2011-2013). He was a member of the Banking & Finance Committee of the Bureau of Indian Standards (ISO affiliate 2005-06) and was also a member of the committee established by the Government to recommend corporate governance norms for independent directors (2006). He was elected President of Delhi Management Association (2008-09).
Mr. Bagla is currently Managing Director & CEO of Invest India, the national investment promotion and facilitation agency for India. Invest India is a joint venture between DIPP (Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India), FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry), and State governments of India. The primary mandate of Invest India is to promote and facilitate investments into India and the agency has been supporting Government of India in the “Make in India” initiative.
Mr. Bagla has a Bachelor’s degree with Honors in Economics from St Stephens College, New Delhi and a dual Masters in International Diplomacy and International Trade and Finance from The School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington DC.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Chandrajit Banerjee
Director General, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)
Chandrajit Banerjee is Director General of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Mr. Banerjee has been with CII for over 26 years and has been Director General since May 2008.
Mr. Banerjee is a Post-Graduate (MS) in Economics with specialisation in Economics of Planning and Econometrics from the University of Calcutta. Earlier, he did his Graduation from St. Xavier's College (Calcutta) in Economics (Hons).
As Director General, he is responsible for overall operations of CII. Prior to his appointment as Director General, he held several senior positions in CII. Mr. Banerjee has been responsible for important areas of work including the Sectoral Verticals - Manufacturing, Services, Agriculture and Life Sciences Sectors and the SMEs. He has led key policy work for CII in the areas of economic policy, financial services and corporate governance. He was also the First Executive Director of the National Foundation of Corporate Governance (NFCG), an organization set up by the Ministry of Company Affairs, Government of India. He continues to be in the Board of Trustees and Governing Council of NFCG as a member.
Earlier Mr. Banerjee served as Head of CII’s regional operations in the Northern, Southern and Western Regions. Mr. Banerjee has been based in CII’s New Delhi headquarters, as well as Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad. He was also in Bangalore to initiate the Centre of Excellence of the Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers Association (IMTMA), a state-of-the-art centre for training, conventions and trade fairs.
Mr. Banerjee is in various advisory committees of the Government of India. He is the Vice Chairman of the Asia Pacific Chapter of UFI, The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry. He is the Co-chairman of the Governing Council, Overseas Indian Facilitation Centre (OIFC), a not for profit public private initiative of Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) and CII, established in 2007. He is a Member of the World Economic Forum s Global Agenda Council on India. Mr. Banerjee is also a Member of the Board of Governors of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ranchi.
Mr. Banerjee has been honored with the China-India Friendship Award by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao for his contributions towards the development of bilateral ties between India and China.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Rukmini Banerji
Chief Executive Officer, Pratham Education Foundation
Rukmini Banerji has extensive experience in program design and delivery and has played key roles in developing and implementing Pratham’s partnership programs with governments. Over the years, Ms. Banerji has led assessment activities of Pratham including setting up an internal measurement, monitoring and evaluation unit. For ten years, from 2005 to 2014, she was the Director of ASER Centre, Pratham’s autonomous research and assessment unit, which conducts the well-known, nation-wide Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) survey. Rukmini has been with Pratham since 1996 and took over as CEO in 2015.
Initially trained as an economist in India, Ms. Banerji did her B.A. at St. Stephen’s College and attended the Delhi School of Economics. She was a Rhodes Scholar at the Oxford University and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1991, after which she also did post-doctoral research at the Population Research Centre at the same university. Rukmini worked as a program officer at the Spencer Foundation in Chicago for several years before returning to India in 1996.
Rukmini writes frequently on education in both English and Hindi and enjoys telling and writing stories for children. Originally from Bihar, she now lives in New Delhi.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Samir Behl
President for Europe, Africa, and India at Amway
Samir Behl joined Amway in 2011 as the regional president for Europe, Africa and India. Most recently, he was president of General Mills in the Asia Pacific region, with direct responsibility for all of the company’s brands and businesses.
Mr. Behl works closely with Amway affiliate leaders to drive continued strategic growth and business performance in the region. He is a member of Amway’s executive staff, the company’s top advisory team to the Office of the Chief Executive, Amway Chairman Steve Van Andel and President Doug DeVos.
Before joining Amway, Mr. Behl spent 30 years in leading top-tier consumer packaged goods companies, including General Mills/Pillsbury, Kellogg and Unilever. His experience includes regional and corporate roles in sales and marketing in Asia and North America.
At General Mills, Mr. Behl also served as vice president of international marketing, developing marketing strategies for the General Mills global brands in international markets. He joined General Mills in 1995 as president of Godrej Pillsbury, India. Mr. Behl previously served on the board of directors of Häagen-Dazs Japan, a joint venture of General Mills with Suntory. Previously, he worked at Kellogg Australia and India as director of marketing and sales, as well as at Unilever in marketing and sales positions.
Born and raised in India, Mr. Behl attended the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, where he earned his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering. He also earned a Master of Business Administration with a major in consumer marketing from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. Mr. Behl is based in Germany.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Nisha Biswal
President of the U.S.-India Business Council at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Nisha Biswal is president of the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC) at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Ms. Biswal provides strategic guidance and leads advocacy efforts on behalf of USIBC’s more than 300 member companies, promoting long-term commercial partnerships to advance the bilateral trade relationship between the U.S. and India.
Ms. Biswal served as assistant secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 2013 to 2017. There she oversaw the U.S.-India strategic partnership during a period of unprecedented cooperation, including the launch of an annual U.S.-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue. During Ms. Biswal’s tenure, bilateral commercial trade between the U.S. and India nearly doubled, reaching $115 billion in 2016. In recognition of her efforts, Ms. Biswal was awarded the prestigious Samman Award by the president of India in January 2017.
Most recently, Ms. Biswal was a senior adviser at the Albright Stonebridge Group, where she helped expand the firm’s India and South Asia practice. Previously, Ms. Biswal was assistant administrator for Asia at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), directing and supervising overseas operations across South and Southeast Asia. She also spent over a decade on Capitol Hill, working as staff director on the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee and the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives.
Ms. Biswal served on the board of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition and is a member of the U.S. Institute of Peace International Advisory Council and the Institute for Sustainable Communities board of directors. She received a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from the University of Virginia.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Pedro Esteban Borda
President, Southeast Asia & India at Principal International (South Asia)
Pedro Esteban Borda is the President of Southeast Asia & India, Principal International (South Asia) Sdn Bhd (“PISA”) based in Malaysia. Mr. Borda leads Principal International operations in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and India.
Mr. Borda is also a Director of CIMB-Principal and Vice President of Principal Financial Group. Prior to joining PISA, he was Chief Executive Officer, ASEAN Region of CIMB-Principal Asset Management. In addition, he was the County Head – Mexico from 2004 to February 2013 and also a member of the Board of Directors of Principal Financial Group, Chile.
Mr. Borda holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration (Agriculture) and a Master Degree in Finance, both from Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (U.A.D.E), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Sujoy Bose
Managing Director & CEO, National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) Ltd.
Sujoy Bose is Managing Director & CEO of the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) of India. NIIF is a public-private partnership anchored by a significant minority investment from the Government of India, which will leverage commercial institutional capital for investments in Indian infrastructure.
Prior to this, Mr. Bose spent 25 years at IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, most recently as Global Co-Head and Director of Infrastructure and Natural Resources, where he oversaw IFC’s US$12.6 billion portfolio in transport, utilities, power, oil and gas and mining.
Mr. Bose has held several senior positions at IFC, including Chief Investment Officer and Head of the $1 billion IFC African Latin American and Caribbean Fund and as the Head of IFC’s Mumbai office.
Mr. Bose has over 20 years of experience in emerging markets private equity and debt investments with IFC, where he has been responsible for several major emerging markets transactions, covering both debt and equity in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and MENA.
Mr. Bose holds an MBA from Rice University and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from St Xavier's College, Kolkata, India.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Dan Bryant
Senior Vice President Global Public Policy and Government Affairs at Walmart
Dan Bryant is Senior Vice President for Global Public Policy and Government Affairs at Walmart, leading the company’s global public policy efforts and its government affairs activities in Washington, D.C. and internationally.
From 2012-2015, Mr. Bryant was a partner at Covington & Burling where he chaired the Public Policy and Government Affairs Practice Group. Mr. Bryant served from 2005 - 2012 as Senior Vice President for Global Public Policy and Government Affairs at PepsiCo, where he led the company’s worldwide government affairs team and oversaw its global public policy efforts.
Previously, Mr. Bryant served as Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy and Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs at the U.S. Department of Justice, having been unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate for both positions. In these posts, he was responsible for planning and coordinating implementation of major legal policy initiatives and advising the Attorney General on legal and policy matters. He also served as Counselor to the Attorney General. Mr. Bryant received the Edmund Randolph Award, the highest award the U.S. Department of Justice confers on attorneys.
Prior to his service at the U.S. Justice Department, Mr. Bryant was Majority Chief Counsel on the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee and also served on the U.S. Senate Government Affairs Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Mr. Bryant has taught law at George Washington University’s School of Law, Washington, D.C., and Columbia Law School, New York. He received bachelor’s and juris doctor degrees from American University, Washington, D.C., and his master’s degree from Oxford University (Keble College), England. Mr. Bryant also attended La Universidad de Sevilla, in Spain. He serves on a variety of education-related non-profit boards. Mr. Bryant and his wife Aerin live in the Washington, D.C. area and have four children.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
William J. Burns
President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Ambassador William J. Burns is president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the oldest international affairs think tank in the United States. Ambassador Burns retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014 after a thirty-three-year diplomatic career. He holds the highest rank in the Foreign Service, career ambassador, and is only the second serving career diplomat in history to become deputy secretary of state.
Prior to his tenure as deputy secretary, Ambassador Burns served from 2008 to 2011 as under secretary for political affairs. He was ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from 2001 to 2005, and ambassador to Jordan from 1998 to 2001. His other posts in the Foreign Service include: executive secretary of the State Department and special assistant to former secretaries of state Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright; minister-counselor for political affairs at the U.S. embassy in Moscow; acting director and principal deputy director of the State Department’s policy planning staff; and special assistant to the president and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council.
Ambassador Burns speaks Russian, Arabic, and French, and he has been the recipient of three Presidential Distinguished Service Awards and a number of Department of State awards, including three Secretary’s Distinguished Service Awards, two Distinguished Honor Awards, the 2006 Charles E. Cobb, Jr. Ambassadorial Award for Initiative and Success in Trade Development, the 2005 Robert C. Frasure Memorial Award for Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking, and the James Clement Dunn Award for exemplary performance at the mid-career level. He has also received the highest civilian honors from the Department of Defense and the U.S. intelligence community. In 2013, Foreign Policy named him “Diplomat of the Year”.
Ambassador Burns earned a bachelor’s in history from LaSalle University and master’s and doctoral degrees in international relations from Oxford University, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar. He is a recipient of four honorary doctoral degrees and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Ambassador Burns is the author of Economic Aid and American Policy Toward Egypt, 1955-1981 (State University of New York Press, 1985). In 1994, he was named to Time magazine’s list of the “50 Most Promising American Leaders Under Age 40” and to its list of “100 Young Global Leaders.”
Ambassador Burns and his wife, Lisa Carty, have two daughters.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Jennifer Clinton
President & CEO, Cultural Vistas
With more than 20 years of experience, Jennifer Clinton is a recognized leader across the fields of international education, nonprofit management, and government relations.
Ms. Clinton joined Cultural Vistas, a nonprofit that develops global skill-building experiences for thousands of individuals and organizations in the United States and more than 135 countries every year, as its President and CEO on November 6, 2017. She brings deep expertise, proven leadership, passion for the exchange mission, and a spirit of innovation that is well suited to lead the talented, entrepreneurial, and dynamic team at Cultural Vistas.
Ms. Clinton joined Cultural Vistas after serving five-and-a-half years as President and CEO of Global Ties U.S., where she led a grassroots network of 120 community-based organizations in 45 states and 21 countries around the world that engage 40,000 volunteers who implement public diplomacy and international exchange programs in close partnership with the U.S. Department of State.
Prior to Global Ties U.S., Ms. Clinton held leadership roles at the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars, the Telecommunications Industry Association, and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
She earned her executive MBA at the University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business, Ph.D. in French Literature at the University of California, Davis, and her bachelor’s in political science and French from Marquette University.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Subi Chaturvedi
President, YGI, Yes Bank
Dr. Subi Chaturvedi is a distinguished Public Policy professional with a PhD from IIT Delhi and a Masters in Mass Communication from the AJK Mass communication Research Centre, a gold medalist and a recipient of several awards. She brings with her excellent management skills and expertise in public policy, public administration advocacy, community engagement, campaign management, public relations and social policy. She has served as a key resource person, expert member on committees, plenary speaker and a core conference organizer. Held roundtables to influence policy initiatives in ministries and build alliances and coalitions.
Dr. Chaturvedi has served as Member of the United Nations (UN) Internet Governance Forum Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG), appointed by the UN Secretary General. During her three-year term, she has made notable contributions in brokering consensus, working with all stakeholder groups, Governments, IGOs, private sector, and the technical community. Through her extraordinary leadership, Dr. Chaturvedi has been instrumental in influencing India’s position in support of a multistakeholder model for Internet Governance with measurable outcomes. Dr. Chaturvedi has also served as the Global Co-Chair of the Netmundial initiative, led by Brazil, for the Future of the Internet ecosystem.
Prior to her appointment at Yes Bank, she was the senior director and head public policy and public affairs at the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the country’s apex association for leading mobile, telecom operators, technology, internet and digital services companies. She headed stakeholder engagement dealing directly with ministers and key bureaucrats as well as other industry associations in championing and executing successful advocacy campaigns. Held roundtables to influence regulatory and policy initiatives for ministries, including Min. of Electronics & IT (Meity), Ministry of Communications (MoC, DoT), and MHRD. Made invited contributions to Meity and DoT, MoC, Committees on Net Neutrality and the Standing Parliamentary Committee for IT on Net Neutrality and Call drops.
Previously, she has served as the Director Strategy- Public Policy and New Media at Hill+Knowlton, creating successful integrated marketing campaigns for brands, governments, private sector bodies and intergovernmental organisations.
As Assistant Professor of the Journalism and Communication at the Lady Shri Ram College for Women, DU, she successfully taught and trained several batches of formidable journalists.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Hemant Contractor
Chairman, Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA)
Hemant G. Contractor is the first Chairman to head the statutory Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) after notification of the PFRDA Act in 2014. He joined PFRDA on 7th October 2014.
Prior to joining PFRDA he was a career banker, joining State Bank of India (SBI) as a Probationary Officer in 1974. During his illustrious career spanning 40 years in SBI, he served in several important positions including Group Executive of International Banking, Group Executive of Corporate Banking, and Chief Financial Officer and rising to be the Managing Director of State Bank of India.
Shri. Contractor has also served on the Board of several organizations such as State Bank of India, National Security Depository Limited (NSDL), Nuclear Power Corporation of India. He is a qualified Chartered Banker (ACIB) from Chartered Institute of Bankers, London.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Zarin Daruwala
CEO, India, Standard Chartered Bank
Zarin Daruwala has been the Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank, India since 2016. In a career spanning 28 years she has worked across all areas of banking ranging from wholesale banking, agri-finance, corporate finance, corporate planning, investment banking and credit.
As the CEO, she has been driving transformational change to get the Bank back to sustained growth and profitability; building out a competitive and technologically smart retail banking business; focusing on new income-streams, new segments; greater use of analytics to deliver better customer experience as well as better risk monitoring, and investments for increased process efficiencies.
Ms. Daruwala was named the 11th most powerful woman in business by Fortune in 2017 and was selected as one of the top 30 most powerful women in Indian business by Business Today six times. She has also been recognized for “Outstanding Contribution toward Banking and Financial Services” for 2017-18 by Ladies’ wing of IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Ms. Daruwala features in “Top 100 Most Influential BFSI Leaders” released by the World BFSI Congress and Awards.
A rank holder in Chartered Accountancy, Ms. Daruwala has also won the President's gold medal, topping the all India Company Secretary exams. She has also been conferred the CA Business Achiever award by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Prior to Standard Chartered, Ms. Daruwala worked at ICICI Bank, where she spent 26 years of her career, starting out as a management trainee, eventually becoming President and Head of the Wholesale Banking business. She has also served on the Board of Directors of key ICICI group companies, ICICI Lombard General Insurance and ICICI Securities.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Thomas J. Donohue
President and CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Thomas J. Donohue is president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Since assuming this position in 1997, Donohue has built the Chamber into a lobbying and political powerhouse with expanded influence across the globe.
During his tenure, the Chamber has helped secure business victories on Capitol Hill, in the regulatory agencies, in politics, in courts of law and in the court of public opinion, and before governments around the world.
In an era of economic and fiscal challenges, Mr. Donohue has led efforts to expand trade and domestic energy production, rebuild America’s infrastructure, combat an avalanche of new regulations, protect intellectual property, revitalize capital markets, and aggressively advocate legal, tax, education, and entitlement reform. In addition, he has vigorously challenged attacks on free enterprise, while working to protect the business community’s right to speak and participate in the political and policy affairs of the nation.
Under Mr. Donohue’s leadership, the Chamber has emerged as a major political force in races for the Senate and the House of Representatives. As part of this bipartisan effort, millions of grassroots business advocates, as well as the Chamber’s federation of state and local chambers and industry associations, mobilize in support of pro-business candidates.
Mr. Donohue established the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, which advances significant legal reforms in the courts, at the state and federal levels, and in elections for state attorneys general and Supreme Court judges. He has dramatically expanded the activities of the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the Chamber’s law firm, which represents the business community’s interests in the courts. And he has reinvigorated the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, which houses Hiring Our Heroes, a program that identifies job opportunities for returning veterans and military spouses.
Born in New York City, Mr. Donohue earned a bachelor’s degree from St. John’s University and a master’s degree in business administration from Adelphi University. He holds honorary degrees from Adelphi, St. John’s, Marymount, Bradley, and Pepperdine universities, as well as the National University of Ireland at Maynooth.
He is a recipient of the Horatio Alger Award and the Boy Scouts of America National Capital Area Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He holds the highest civilian honor from Germany and South Korea, as well4as the Order of the Crown (Commander Class) presented by the Crown Prince of Belgium.
Mr. Donohue and his late wife, Liz, have three sons and five grandchildren.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Richard H. Edwards
Executive Vice President, Lockheed Martin International
Richard H. (Rick) Edwards is Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin International. Lockheed Martin’s Board of Directors appointed him to this position in January 2018, and under his leadership, Lockheed Martin International develops and executes strategies to grow the corporation’s international business by strengthening customer relationships and industry partnerships in the 70 countries where we do business.
Mr. Edwards also serves as the senior executive overseeing the corporation’s business activities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In this role he leads engagements with in-country and U.S. government customers and oversees industrialization, offset, contract negotiation, business development, supply chain, functional and program management activities.
Mr. Edwards has been with the company for more than 30 years and most recently served as executive vice president of MFC. While he was in this role, MFC secured several significant long-term strategic contract wins and grew international sales to 37 percent of MFC’s 2016 sales. Prior to that, Mr. Edwards served as Vice President, Tactical Missiles and Combat Maneuver Systems (TM/CMS) for MFC, where he was responsible for all aspects of Precision Fires, Close Combat Systems, Ground Vehicles, Nuclear Systems and Solutions programs, as well as MFC’s business in the United Kingdom. During that time he achieved significant expansion into new business markets, doubling the size of the TM/CMS line of business in approximately five years.
Throughout his career Mr. Edwards has held several significant leadership positions including: Capture Program Director for the Joint Common Missile, Javelin Program Director, and Tactical Missiles Program Director, where he was responsible for all aspects of Javelin, Hellfire, Longbow, Predator, Common Missile and Precision Guided Munitions programs.
Prior to joining Lockheed Martin, he served in a variety of leadership positions of increasing responsibility at Fairchild Republic Company in Hagerstown, Md., where he gained experience in cost estimating and scheduling as well as industrial engineering.
Mr. Edwards graduated from Gettysburg College with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration. He is a member of the Association of the United States Army Council of Trustees.
He serves on the Board of Directors of the Dallas Opera and the Advisory Boards for the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Navy League of the United States Fort Worth Council and the Committee of the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas for the Industry and Community Affiliates.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Devendra Fadnavis
Chief Minister, Maharashtra
Devendra Gangadharrao Fadnavis is the 18th Chief Minister of Maharashtra. Since launching his political career in the mid-nineties, he has become a respected political leader of the masses. His educational background includes a Graduate Degree in Law, a Post Graduate Degree in Business Management and a Diploma in Project Management from D.S.E. Berlin. His personal ideology is that ‘Politics is an instrument for socio economic change’ and his political career of 25 years so far reflects the same.
Shri. Fadnavis’ years of public service are based on his core belief of ‘People First,’ and his drive to serve stems from his desire to see equitable progress for all in the state. He has essayed multiple leadership roles for both his political party as well as an elected representative of the people of Nagpur, Maharashtra. He has served as an elected member in the Municipal Corporation of Nagpur for two consecutive terms, in 1992 and 1997. He has been elected Member of the Legislative Assembly of Maharashtra State, representing Nagpur, since 1999 and is serving his 4th Term. In his many years as a representative of the people in the Maharashtra State Assembly, he has been a part of several committees.
Knowledge driven policy making, solving root cause of problems, and using technology as key enabler – these are the three pillars of his result driven vision to transform Maharashtra with a 360 degree approach. Ambitious initiatives like JalYukta Shivar, which aims at a Drought Free Maharashtra by 2019, in a state that has been plagued by drought and hardship for decades is an example of how his mission as a leader is to serve and empower the people through sustainable solutions.
Under his stewardship and efforts to boost investment and industrialisation, Maharashtra has achieved the feat of attracting 50% of the total FDI inflow into the country in 2016. He has successfully launched the Right to Service Act, a first of its’ kind in the country to ensure efficient delivery of Public Services among other initiatives that are aimed at ensuring good governance in the State. 393 services have been brought online and over 2 crore people have benefitted within just a few months of the launch.
Shri. Fadnavis’ has been the recipient of awards including ‘Best Parliamentarian’ from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the prestigious Nag Bhushan award in 2016. He was the first Indian to be selected for an Honorary Doctorate by Osaka University, Japan for major reforms for socio-economic development in Maharashtra. Shri. Fadnavis was sworn in as the 18th Chief Minister of Maharashtra on 31st October 2014.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Gopalakrishnan S.
Joint Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), Ministry of Electronics and Info Tech
Shri S. Gopalakrishnan is presently working as Joint Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), Government of India, New Delhi.
He is a 1991 Batch Officer from the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) from Tamil Nadu Cadre. He has worked at state and central government in areas such as transport, HR, commerce, census, food, IT, etc.
At MeitY, his responsibilities include data protection framework, digital payments, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, startups and innovation.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Carlos Gutierrez
Chair, Albright Stonebridge Group
Carlos Gutierrez is Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group. Secretary Gutierrez served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 2005 to 2009 under President George W. Bush, where he worked with foreign government and business leaders to advance economic relationships, enhance trade, and promote U.S. exports. Secretary Gutierrez also played a key role in the passage of landmark free trade agreements that remove trade barriers, expand export opportunities, and boost global investment.
Previously, Secretary Gutierrez spent nearly thirty years with Kellogg Company, a global manufacturer and marketer of well-known food brands. After assignments in Latin America, Canada, Asia, and the United States, he became President and Chief Executive Officer of Kellogg in 1999 − the youngest CEO in the company's hundred year history. In April 2000, he was named Chairman of the Board of Kellogg Company.
Secretary Gutierrez joined ASG from Citi, where he was Vice Chairman of the Institutional Clients Group and a member of the Senior Strategic Advisory Group.
He currently serves as the Chair of the National Foreign Trade Council and of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s U.S.-Cuba Business Council, and is on the boards of the Chamber's U.S.-India Business Council and the Boao Forum for Asia.
He is also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Meridian International Center, and serves on the boards of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, MetLife, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Time Warner, Viridis Learning, the George W. Bush Institute’s Human Freedom Advisory Council, and Republicans for Immigration Reform.
Secretary Gutierrez was born in Havana, Cuba. He is married to Edilia, and has three grown children.
He is based in Washington, DC.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
George Hamilton
President and Co-Founder, Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC)
George Hamilton is president and co-founder of the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC). Since 1991, this entrepreneurial nonprofit organization has strengthened thousands of communities and institutions in more than 30 countries.
For the past 13 years, ISC's goal has been to accelerate climate and sustainability solutions in the United States and Asia. With staff based in Washington D.C., Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Shanghai, Beijing and Dhaka, ISC takes a business-minded approach to transforming cities and supply factories often in partnership with major international companies.
Prior to leading ISC, George was planning director for the State of Vermont, and chief policy advisor to Vermont Governor Madeleine M. Kunin. He co-chaired of a special commission appointed by New England Governors and Eastern Canadian premiers that organized the first international conference on sustainable development in North America.
His policy experience focused on energy, environmental health, telecommunications, and natural resource management. He has served on a variety of boards and commissions focused on sustainable development, resource efficiency, environmental health, and climate change.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
General Michael Hayden
Principal, The Chertoff Group
General Michael Hayden is a retired four-star general who served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency when the course of world events was changing at a rapid rate. As head of the country’s premier intelligence agencies, he was on the frontline of global change, the war on terrorism and the growing cyber challenge.
In addition to leading CIA and NSA, General Hayden was the country’s first principal deputy director of national intelligence and the highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the country. In all of these jobs, he worked to put a human face on American intelligence, explaining to the American people the role of espionage in protecting both American security and American liberty. General Hayden also served as commander of the Air Intelligence Agency and Director of the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center and served in senior staff positions at the Pentagon, at U.S. European Command, at the National Security Council, and the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria. He was also the deputy chief of staff for the United Nations Command and U.S. Forces in South Korea.
General Hayden has been a frequent expert and commentator on major news outlets and in top publications, valued for his expertise on intelligence matters like cyber security, government surveillance, geopolitics, and more. He was featured in the HBO documentary Manhunt, which looked at espionage through the eyes of the insiders who led the secret war against Osama bin Laden, and in Showtime’s The Spymasters, a detailed look at the directors of the Central Intelligence Agency.
General Hayden is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group and a distinguished visiting professor at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government. He is on the board of directors of Motorola Solutions and serves on a variety of other boards and consultancies.
In 2013, the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) awarded Hayden the 29th annual William Oliver Baker Award. General Hayden is also the first recipient of the Helms Award presented by the CIA Officers’ Memorial Foundation. In 2014 he was the inaugural Humanitas visiting professor in intelligence studies at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. His recent memoir, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, has been a New York Times best-seller and was recently selected as one of the 100 most notable books of 2016.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Shobana Kamineni
Executive Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited
Championing Special Initiatives for over seven years, Shobana Kamineni has steered the organization's emergence as a proponent of integrated healthcare in India. She heads Apollo Pharmacy, India's largest pharmacy chain with a pan-India network of over 3000 stores, 19000 employees; it serves 3,00,000 customers a day. She is a founder and a Whole Time Director on the Board of Apollo Munich Health Insurance, acknowledged as India's best specialized Health Insurance company for 6 consecutive years.
As lead Director in Apollo's research and innovation activities, Ms. Kamineni championed the creation and Incubation of a Biobank - a catalogued library of ethically consented, anonymised bio-samples. The Biobank was recognized as one of the top 10 ideas in Life Sciences by the Time Magazine for the decade.
Ms. Kamineni holds a Board position in FIND (Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics), an international non-profit organization that enables development and delivery of diagnostic tests for poverty-related diseases. Passionate about inculcating a culture of wellness, Shobana has also championed the establishment of 'Billion Hearts Beating' - an NGO dedicated to educating Indians about preventing heart disease.
An active member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Ms. Kamineni was the first women elected CII president, an position she held for the 2017-2018 term. She also launched the Power of Parity Initiative, dedicated to ensuring that more women enter the workforce, and was invited in 2018 to be a member of the National Foundation for Corporate Governance (NGFC) Trust.
She is an Independent Director on the Boards of Blue Star Limited and Hero MotoCorp. In addition, Shobana is Vice-Chairperson of the KEI Group, a diversified logistics, leisure & infrastructure business, that she founded with her husband.
Ms. Kamineni has received prestigious national awards for Entrepreneurship and Leadership, including 'Businesswomen of the Decade' from the Women Economic Forum in recognition of her work in healthcare and empowerment of women. She was conferred an Honorary Doctorate Degree of Science by the prestigious Bryant University, USA, in recognition of her life's work in healthcare & pharmaceuticals and her leadership role in business expansion in India.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Hemant Kanakia
President, Kanakia Ventures
Hemant Kanakia has over 20 years of experience in the communications industry as an entrepreneur, executive, and most recently as an investor in early stage startups in India. Previously, Mr. Kanakia was a General Partner with Columbia Capital, a well-known U.S.-based venture capital firm.
Mr. Kanakia has been on the Board of Directors of Enpirion, Teranetics, WiNetworks, and Tilera.
He was previously founder and CEO of Torrent Networking Technology (acquired by Ericsson) and co-founder of Photuris (acquired by Meriton) and Gemplex, Inc. (acquired by Tata Telesystems).
Prior to joining Columbia Capital, Mr. Kanakia served on the Board of Directors of Photuris, Viagate, Price Hawk, Gemplex, and Torrent Networking Technology. Prior to founding Torrent, Mr. Kanakia worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Tata Consultancy Services, India.
Mr. Kanakia received his B.Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, his M.S. degree from Case Western Reserve University, and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Mr. Kanakia is a member of the board of Trustees at Case Western Reserve University. He also has been a trustee at Virginia Polytechnic, and on several other non-profit boards in past.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Hemant Kanoria
Chairman and Managing Director, SREI Infrastructure Finance Limited
Hemant Kanoria has been the Chairman and Managing Director of SREI Infrastructure Finance Limited since 1994. He has over 36 years of experience in industry, trade and financial services.
Mr. Kanoria serves as a Director of SREI Capital Markets, Ltd., Viom Networks Limited, SREI Infrastructure Finance Limited, Quippo Oil and Gas Infrastructure Limited, HBI Valuers, Auctioneers Pvt. Limited and NAC Infrastructure Equipment Limited. He is a member of the Steering Committee of Tata Energy Research Institute’s Repository of Environmental Activities and Technology, and serves as a Member of the Supervisory Board at Austrian Anadi Bank AG.
He is a board member in the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Guwahati, Neotia University and New Delhi Institute of Management and is a member of the advisory board of the Calcutta Business School. He is also a member of the Regional Direct Taxes Advisory Committee, Government of India.
Previously, Mr. Kanoria was Company Secretary and Vice Chairman of SREI Infrastructure Finance Limited. He also served as an Independent Director at Texmaco Rail & Engineering Limited from 2011-2016.
Mr. Kanoria served as the President of the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce and was Chairman of the NBFI Task Force and the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Committee on Infrastructure. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry (Eastern Region) Infrastructure Committee.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Calcutta.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Gilbert B. Kaplan
Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration
Gilbert B. Kaplan was nominated by President Donald J. Trump as Under Secretary of Com- merce for International Trade in the United States Department of Commerce and confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn in to the position in March 2018. Mr. Kaplan was a partner at King & Spalding and part of the International Trade Practice Group. His practice focused on inter- national trade cases and trade policy issues.
He represented U.S. companies and workers in a wide range of cases on antidumping (price discrimination), countervailing duties (subsidies), and Section 337 (intellectual property infringement). He also advised clients on trade policy matters, as well as trade negotiations such as those involving the WTO and international anti-subsidy agreements. Mr. Kaplan filed and prosecuted the first successful countervailing duty (anti-subsidy) case ever against China in 2007.
Mr. Kaplan previously served as Acting Assistant Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Import Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce. While there, Mr. Kaplan adminis- tered U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty laws and conducted more than five hundred antidumping and countervailing duty cases. These included cases on agricultural products, steel products, textiles and apparel, and semiconductor and high-technology products.
During his service at the Department of Commerce, Mr. Kaplan supervised the President’s Steel Program, the U.S.-Japan Agreement on Trade in Semiconductors, the U.S.-Canada agreement on lumber, and the machine tool program. In addition, he oversaw the foreign trade zones program, as well as the Office of Industrial Resource Administration. He was a principal spokesman for the administration on legislative and congressional issues related to the dump- ing, countervailing duty and National Security import relief (Section 232) laws.
Mr. Kaplan was also an active participant in the negotiation of the World Trade Organization Agreement. He testified before the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, as well as before the House and Senate GATT Task Forces, and traveled to Geneva to meet with GATT officials and negotiators. He also was one of the few non-Govern- mental representatives from the United States in Doha, Qatar for the kick-off of the Doha Round.
Mr. Kaplan graduated from Harvard Law School, cum laude, Harvard College, magna cum laude, and Phillips Exeter Academy, with high honors. He and his wife Betty Ann have two children, Katharine and Nicholas.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Amit Kapoor
Honorary Chairman, Institute for Competitiveness
Dr. Amit Kapoor is Honorary Chairman at Institute for Competitiveness, India and Editor-in-Chief of Thinkers. He is also Chairman for the Social Progress Imperative & Shared Value Initiative in India and sits on the board of Competitiveness Initiatives in Mexico, the Netherlands, Italy & France and University of Vermont’s SEMBA Advisory Board.
In addition to being advisor to Thinkers50 and a participant with the Global Solutions Network, Dr. Kapoor is an affiliate faculty member at the Harvard Business School Institute of Strategy and Competitiveness and an instructor with Harvard Business Publishing in the areas of strategy, competitiveness and business models. He has been inducted into the Competitiveness Hall of Fame, which is administered by the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School.
Dr. Kapoor is currently working closely with NITI Aayog on developing an ease of living index for Indian districts, and has recently presented his work on cluster mapping in India to the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India.
Dr. Kapoor is a Ph.D. in Industrial Economics and Business Strategy and has received the Ruth Greene Memorial Award winner for writing the best case of the year, by North American Case Research Association (NACRA). He has been invited by the Kennedy School of Government & Harvard Law School, Harvard University; Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University, and the World Economic Forum to present his views on strategy, outsourcing and economic development. Dr. Kapoor has also spoken at the TEDx and Unreasonable Thinking Summits.
Dr. Kapoor is the author of the bestseller “Riding the Tiger,” co-authored with Wilfried Aulber and published by Penguin Random House. His forthcoming book titled “The Age of Awakening” focuses on India’s Economic History.
He is also the author of India City Competitiveness Report, India State Competitiveness Report, India Manufacturing Competitiveness Report, India State Sustainability Report, and Livability Report. Dr. Kapoor has been published in the Economic Times, Hindu, Business Insider, Hindu Business Line, Mint, Financial Express, Outlook Business, Governance Now, and Business Today. He chairs the jury and curates the Porter Prize, in addition to curating events like the National Competitiveness Forum, Shared Value Summit, and Thinkers 50 (India).
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Edward Knight
Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Nasdaq
Edward Knight is Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Nasdaq. Mr. Knight served as the Chief Legal Officer of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD, now FINRA) from June 1999 until joining Nasdaq as General Counsel in 2001.
In his role as General Counsel, Mr. Knight is responsible for providing legal counsel to senior management and overseeing the quality of legal services across the global organization. The Nasdaq legal and regulatory team was honored as an innovation leader by the Financial Times in December 2015, and Mr. Knight was awarded a “special mention for outstanding innovation” among North American public company general counsels.
He is also responsible for government relations, listing qualifications, market regulation and the Office of Corporate Secretary. Mr. Knight is the Chief Regulatory Officer of the NASDAQ Exchange. In addition, he serves on the Board of Nasdaq Dubai and the United Arab Emirates’ Securities and Commodities Authority Advisory Board.
Mr. Knight led Nasdaq's efforts to operate as a national securities exchange. In January 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission unanimously approved Nasdaq's application for exchange status.
Prior to joining the NASD in 1999, Mr. Knight served as General Counsel of the U.S. Department of the Treasury from September 1994 to June 1999. Upon his departure, Mr. Knight received the Alexander Hamilton Award, the Department's highest award, and the Honor Award. Before being named General Counsel, he served as Executive Secretary and Senior Advisor to Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen.
Previously, Mr. Knight was a partner with the law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld. A Texas native, Mr. Knight received his B.A., with honors, in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law. He serves as a Trustee of the University of Texas Law School Foundation.
Mr. Knight is a member of the District of Columbia, Texas and Supreme Court Bars. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and its Committee on Corporate Affairs. He also sits on the Leadership Board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness. Mr. Knight served as a member of the Obama Transition Team at the U.S. Treasury Department in 2008-2009.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Uday Kotak
Managing Director and CEO, Kotak Mahindra Bank
Uday Kotak, Founder, Managing Director & CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, has led the group in a broad range of financial services for over 30 years. The Group’s vision for equitable prosperity extends beyond financial services. The Kotak Education Foundation works with some of India’s most economically underprivileged communities, attempting to alleviate poverty through education and livelihood programmes.
Mr. Kotak is a member of the Primary Market Advisory Committee of SEBI and Member of the Board of Governors of Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations. He is also a Governing Member of the Mahindra United World College of India.
Mr. Kotak has been awarded the 'Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year Award' in 2014, 'Economic Times Business Leader of the Year Award' in 2015, and Business India’s 'Businessman of the Year 2016.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Madan Rohini Krishnan
Vice President and Managing Director, Indian Sub-continent (ISC) Region, Medtronic
Madan Krishnan joined Medtronic in 2011 and is currently the Vice President and Managing Director of Medtronic`s Indian Sub-continent (ISC) region. Mr. Krishnan led the integration of Medtronic and Coviden in Asia Pacific and served as VP Finance, APAC since the Integration. Prior to that, he led the Medtronic operations in Turkey. Before joining Medtronic, Mr. Krishnan was employed for 12 years in AstraZeneca where he held various commercial and finance leadership roles in Turkey, APAC HQ in Singapore and was also the president of AstraZeneca in South Korea.
Mr. Krishnan has keen interest and expertise in emerging markets, M&A, corporate finance, sales and marketing effectiveness.
Mr. Krishnan earned a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Calicut, India and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He also earned an M.B.A from the Sloan School of Management and was an elected member of MIT Sloan Senate.
Mr. Krishnan grew up in Kerala in India and started his career as an executive trainee in Asian Paints India Ltd. Early in his career he gained experience in corporate finance, market entry and M&A in petro-chemicals and consumer goods industries in India, Turkey, and South Africa.
Mr. Krishnan has proficiency in Turkish, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam in addition to English and has working knowledge of Korean and Spanish.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Arun M. Kumar
Chairman & CEO, KPMG in India
Arun M. Kumar is a seasoned business leader who serves as Chairman & CEO of KPMG in India. In this capacity he leads a large organization of thousands of talented professionals constituting the second largest firm, in terms of employee strength, within KPMG globally. Mr. Kumar also serves on KPMG’s Global Board.
Mr. Kumar previously served in President Obama’s Administration as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Global Markets and Director General of the U.S. & Foreign Commercial Service. As one of the United States’ senior commercial diplomats, leading a team of 1700 professionals in 78 countries and all the 50 states, he worked to promote U.S. exports, inward foreign direct investment and enhanced market access around the world. He was a key architect of the U.S.-India Strategic & Commercial Dialogue launched in 2015. Under his direction, the Commercial Diplomacy Institute was founded, housed in the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Prior to his nomination by President Obama, he served in KPMG LLP. Based in Silicon Valley, he served on the firm’s Board of Directors and led the firm’s Management Consulting practice in the West, serving high technology corporations globally. He also founded the firm’s U.S.-India practice.
Mr. Kumar was born in Mavelikkara, Kerala. After his schooling at Lawrence School, Lovedale, he graduated in Physics from University College, Trivandrum of the University of Kerala.
Mr. Kumar has served on advisory councils at Stanford University and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was an early charter member of TiE, Silicon Valley and has served on its Board.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Ram Madhav
National General Secretary, Bharatiya Janata Party
Shri Ram Madhav is an Indian politician, writer and journalist. He serves as the National General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is a former member of the National Executive of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Shri Madhav was born in Amalapuram in the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh on 22 August 1964. Primarily a student of engineering, he earned his Diploma in Electrical Engineering from Andhra Pradesh. He has a post-graduate degree in Political Science from the University of Mysore, Karnataka.
Shri Madhav's association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh began as a teenager. He volunteered to be a full-time worker for RSS in 1981. He was assigned to several key positions in the organization and has been the Senior Functionary, Media interface, Interlocutor for the intelligentsia for the RSS.
Shri Madhav was the editor of Bharathiya Pragna, a monthly magazine in English published by Pragna Bharati, and associate editor of Jagriti, a Telugu weekly. He also served as a director in several film censor boards and educational institutes of India. He worked as a journalist for over 20 years with RSS sponsored publications and authored more than twelve books His latest is Uneasy Neighbours: India and China after Fifty Years of the War.
He also serves as the Director of the India Foundation, an independent thinktank focused on the issues, challenges and opportunities of the Indian polity. He has visited more than 32 countries and spoke at various national & international forums.
He served as the national spokesperson of the RSS from 2003-2014. Shri Madhav was deputed to the BJP and appointed as its national general secretary in 2014.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Anand G. Mahindra
Chairman, Mahindra Group
Anand Mahindra is the Chairman of the $20.7 billion Mahindra Group and the Executive Chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. His tenure has seen the Group expand domestically and internationally into a range of major industrial sectors from automobiles and agriculture to IT and aerospace. The Group has also grown inorganically through acquisitions such as Ssangyong Motors, Reva Electric Car Company, Satyam Computer Services, Peugeot Motorcycles, Gippsland Aeronautics, Aerostaff Australia, Holiday Club Resorts, and Pininfarina S.p.A.
He has served on several influential bodies, national and international. These include the UN Global Compact Board, Global Board of Advisors of the Council on Foreign Relations, New York, World Bank Group’s Advisory Board for Doing Business and the International Advisory Council of Singapore’s Economic Development Board. He co-chaired the Bloomberg Global Business Forum 2017 and is co-hosting the Global Climate Action Summit 2018. He has served as President of the Confederation of Indian Industry. He also served on the Boards of the National Stock Exchange of India and the National Council of Applied Economic Research, as Chairman of the Governing Council of the National Institute of Design and the India Design Council. Mr. Mahindra has been invited by the Central & State Governments to provide his inputs on matters of national importance.
Mr. Mahindra is an incisive business commentator and humanitarian with over 6 million followers on Twitter. Among his many social change initiatives is the Nanhi Kali programme, which, for over 20 years, has provided over 250,000 underprivileged girls access to high quality education. He is Chairman of the Board of the Naandi Foundation, India’s leading NGO educating girls, skilling youth and providing sustainable livelihoods to small farmers through biodynamic agriculture. Mr. Mahindra also serves on the Founders Board of The Rise Fund, a US $2 billion impact fund. He is a strong votary of arts and culture. Mahindra Blues, Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards and Mahindra Sanatkada celebrate and nurture music, theatre culture, art and history in India. He also serves as a Trustee of the Natural History Museum of London and as Chairman, India Advisory Council of Lincoln Center.
Mr. Mahindra graduated from Harvard College (1977) and secured an MBA from Harvard Business School (1981).
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Udayant Malhoutra
CEO & Managing Director, Dynamatic Technologies Ltd.
At 52, Udayant “Toby” Malhoutra has successfully initiated, nurtured and scaled to industrial size, various technologies associated with all three sciences; physics, chemistry and biology. He is the CEO & Managing Director of Dynamatic Technologies Limited, a world-class design, engineering and manufacturing company which designs and builds highly engineered products for Hydraulic, Automotive, Aeronautic and Security applications. Dynamatic Technologies Limited is a leading private R&D organisation with numerous patents and inventions to its credit, and partners marquee customers like Airbus, Boeing, Bell Helicopter, BMW, Audi, Daimler, Mercedes, John Deere and Cummins on a single source basis.
Mr. Malhoutra has been associated with Dynamatic Technologies for three decades and drives the leadership team of the company in transforming it into a knowledge based organisation. In addition to his role as CEO & Managing Director, he is also the Chairman of Eisenwerk Erla GmbH, Germany, and Dynamatic Limited, UK.
He is the Chairman of the National Sector Skills Council for Strategic Manufacturing, and has recently been appointed Chairman of the new National Institute of Design, Amravathi/Vijaywada. He is a member of CII National Council, and has chaired the CII National Committees on Design and Technology. He has also served on the Board of Governors, IIT Kanpur.
He is an active member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), having served as Chairman, India & South Asian Area and as a member of the International Board of Directors.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Rahul Matthan
Partner, Trilegal
Rahul Matthan is part of the TMT practice group of Trilegal. He also serves on the firm’s man- agement committee.
Mr. Matthan has advised on some of the largest TMT transactions in the country. He has worked with companies across all sectors of the industry from big telecom operators, to ISPs, OSPs and managed data service providers and advised on matters ranging from regulatory matters to ongoing business issues relating to the rollout of operations.
Mr. Matthan has also advised on a range of sectors in the technology space including in relation to data protection, outsourcing, electronic commerce, new media, entertainment, biotechnology, pharma, and other new technologies. He has advised on new content delivery models for mobile value added services, regulatory issues surrounding the delivery of elec- tronic content and legal and contractual issues in global e-commerce.
He has also been involved in a number of policy initiatives in the TMT space including, assist- ing the government in preparing the country's privacy law.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
Chairperson & Managing Director, Biocon Limited
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is a pioneer of the biotechnology industry in India and the founder of the country’s leading biotechnology enterprise, Biocon. Named among TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, Ms. Mazumdar-Shaw is recognized as a thought leader who has made her country proud by building a globally recognized biopharmaceutical enter- prise that is committed to innovation and affordability in delivering best-in-class therapeutics to patients across the globe.
As a global influencer, she is ranked among the ‘World's 25 Most Influential People in Biophar- ma’ by Fierce Biotech, Forbes magazine’s ‘World’s 100 Most Powerful Women’ and Fortune’s ‘Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Asia-Pacific.’ She has been recognized as the only Indian on Forbes' list of 'World's Self-Made Women Billionaires.' She has been featured in ‘The World- view 100 List’ of the most influential visionaries by Scientific American magazine and named among the ‘100 Leading Global Thinkers’ by Foreign Policy magazine. She has been ranked No. 1 in the Business Captains category on ‘Medicine Maker Power List' 2018, an index of the 100 most influential people across the globe in the field of medicine, where she has been among the Top 10 since 2015.
She was felicitated with ‘Advancing Women in Science and Medicine (AWSM) Award for Excellence’ 2017 by The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, USA. Ms. Mazumdar-Shaw was honoured with the prestigious ‘Women Leader of the Decade Award’ at the India Pharma Awards 2017 organised during CPhI & PMEC India, South Asia’s largest pharmaceutical event. She has been named ‘India’s Most Respected Entrepreneur’ for 2017 by the prestigious Hurun Report and felicitated as an exceptional woman achiever by Ministry of Women and Child Development, Govt. of India for being the first Indian business woman to reach USD 1 billion net-worth. She has received two of India's highest civilian honours, the Padma Shri (1989) and the Padma Bhushan (2005).
Ms. Mazumdar-Shaw serves on the Global Advisory Committee for the Women and the Green Economy Campaign (WAGE)™ initiative and is a member of the MIT Charter Society, USA, in honour of her philanthropic commitment to the Institute. She is also associated with The Live Love Laugh Foundation, a leading not-for-profit organisation spreading mental health aware- ness, as a member of its Board of Trustees.
Ms. Mazumdar-Shaw holds a bachelor’s degree in science (Zoology Hons.) from Bangalore University and earned a master’s degree in malting and brewing from Ballarat College, Melbourne University. She has been awarded with several honorary degrees from Ballarat (2004), University of Abertay (2007), University of Glasgow (2008), Heriot-Watt University (2008), National University of Ireland (2012) and Trinity College, Dublin (2012) for her pre-emi- nent contributions in the field of biotechnology.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Rana Mehta
Partner, Healthcare Leader, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Dr. Rana Mehta has over 21 years of experience in strategizing, planning, commissioning and operations of over 75 hospitals and healthcare systems around the world. He is conversant with the excellence of services expected in the present competitive scenario across the entire healthcare value chain. He has worked on numerous assignments to develop customized healthcare solutions to suit client needs within political, socio economic, geographic, and demographic imperatives.
During a decade long stint with Apollo Hospitals (India’s largest healthcare provider), Dr. Mehta was instrumental in commissioning and operating the group’s hospitals in New Delhi and Colombo.
Dr. Mehta’s extensive client experience, which includes some of the largest integrated health systems and payers in the Asia, Middle East and Africa has allowed him to pioneer innovative solutions that improve quality and cost for all stakeholders in the delivery system – patients, providers and payers.
He has also been advising clients in the mobile and remote healthcare space, to implement transformation of healthcare in a rapidly changing, information-intensive environment
Dr. Mehta’s views are extensively sought after by both international and domestic media on a variety of matters effecting healthcare in the subcontinent and globally. He travels and speaks extensively at leading healthcare forums and management schools across the world.
Dr. Mehta holds Master of Hospital Administration (MHA) from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India and Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), Medical College, Kolkata, India.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Dorthe Mikkelsen
Senior Vice President, President Asia-Pacific, MSD
Dorthe Mikkelsen is the MSD President Asia Pacific, Senior Vice President and a member of the MSD International leadership Team. The Asia Pacific region covers Korea, Australia & New Zealand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Malaysia & Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia. She is based in Singapore.
Ms. Mikkelsen began her career in Novo Nordisk. She joined MSD in Denmark in 1997 within Sales & Marketing and External Affairs and was appointed Managing Director of Denmark & Iceland in 2006. In 2009, Ms. Mikkelsen became Vice President for Scandinavia and Ireland followed by 2010-2013 leading the Mid-Europe 2 region and during 2014 the Nordics & Baltics while establishing the Fertility Business Unit in Europe/Canada. From 2014-2016, she was Senior Vice President for the MSD Mid-Europe region with 30 countries including Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Nordics & Baltics, Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and the Balkans.
Most recently, Ms. Mikkelsen held the position as Senior Vice President for the global Diversified Brands Customer Business Line (CBL) based at the Merck Kenilworth HQ in the USA. The Diversified Brands CBL managed a portfolio of 100 mature brands with 6 billion USD sales annually and the commercial center for life cycle management.
Ms. Mikkelsen is member of the Board of Directors of Falck, the world’s largest international rescue company present in 44 countries helping people by preventing accidents and providing assistance at and after emergencies.
From 2010 to 2016 Ms. Mikkelsen served as Chairman of the Board of The Danish Industry Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry and member of the Board of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Denmark.
Ms. Mikkelsen is Executive Ambassador for Merck for Mothers, a 10-year, $500 million global CSR program focused on creating a world where no woman dies giving life.
Ms. Mikkelsen holds a Master of Science in Pharmacy from the Royal Danish School of Pharmacy and a Diploma in Business Economics from Copenhagen Business School.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Amit Mitra
Minister of Finance, Industry Commerce & Enterprises and Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises & Textiles Departments, Government of West Bengal, India
Dr. Amit Mitra, a renowned economist, is now the Minister of Finance, Industry Commerce & Enterprises and Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises & Textiles Departments of the Government of West Bengal. He also chairs the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers of India and is a member of the national GST Council of Finance Ministers.
Dr. Amit Mitra joined Trinamool Congress and became the first Finance Minister in the Cabinet of Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee in 2011 and was re-elected in 2016. He is instrumental in bringing about significant changes in the area of finance and tax administration in the State. Through an e-taxation revolution, the tax collection has more than doubled and the Government of India has given the highest award, among the States of India, to West Bengal, in 4 areas of fiscal reforms, including the Golden Peacock for Integrated Financial Management System.
Dr. Mitra had previously served as the Secretary-General of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). He was on the board of Steel Authority of India Ltd, which is the largest steel producer in the country. Dr. Mitra also served on the boards of GAIL (India) Ltd, the largest gas transmission and marketing company in India and the IFCI, one of the largest financial institutes in the country. He was on the board of the Unit Trust of India (UTI) and the advisory board of Microsoft as well.
Dr. Mitra represented India in the India-China Eminent Persons’ Group and India-EU Roundtable Meetings on Track II Diplomacy. Dr. Mitra received his Master’s degree from the Delhi School of Economics and received his PhD from Duke University in the US. The Government of India conferred its civilian award Padma Shree on him in 2008. The Japanese Government honoured him with the “Order of the Rising Sun” in 2005. He also received the highest civilian award from the President of Italy in 2007.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Sudhir Mungantiwar
Minister of Finance, Planning and Forests for the State of Maharashtra
A veteran of the State of Maharashtra’s political scene, Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar has overseen the Finance, Planning and Forests Ministries since 2014, and contributed to the development of the state for more than two decades. He is a 5 time Member of State Legislative Assembly representing the Ballarpur constituency in Chandrapur District since 1995. Active in politics since his student days, he continued his social aspirations and eventually became the Minister of State (MoS) for Consumer Protection and Tourism in 1995. With a strong understanding of law and a focus on social good and sustainable development, Shri. Mungantiwar has established himself as an efficient and dependable administrator in Maharashtra’s governance.
As part of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), Shri. Mungantiwar has played a valuable role in building up the strength and capacity of the party in Maharashtra. He served as Vice President of the Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha in 1993 and became State Secretary for the Bhartiya Janata Party in 1996. From 2009 to 2013, he served as the Maharashtra State President for the BJP party.
For implementation of effective project management processes, the offices of Finance and Forest departments in Mantralaya were awarded the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) certification in 2015, the first elected officials' office in India to receive this certification.
As Finance Minister, Shri. Mungantiwar has played a critical role in major decisions taken by the Maharashtra Finance department, including the historic decision to initiate the farm loan waiver program by the Maharashtra Government in 2016. He has also been extremely effective in leveraging the success of Government of India policies and initiatives, facilitating smooth coordination between the State and Central Governments. He personally chaired over 150 meetings to ensure effective implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in Maharashtra.
During his tenure as Finance Minister, he has not only delivered pro-farmer and pro-development budgets but has actively initiated innovative schemes. He has partnered with UN Women and UNICEF to formulate a ‘Gender and Child Budgeting’ component in the budgets and introduced maternity leaves for women employed by government.
Shri. Mungantiwar is effectively able to encourage participation of the public and private sector, which is essential for the success of government’s social initiatives. It not only makes the initiatives more effective but inculcates a sense of responsibility and ownership in the minds of people who are able to support the government’s efforts.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Prashnant Nair
National News Editor, CNBC-TV18
Prashant Nair works as the National News Editor at CNBC-TV18. He heads the entire reporting team at the channel. Mr. Nair has been covering and reporting on India's leading companies for nearly the last 15 years.
Mr. Nair is known as an astute commentator on financial markets. He has covered global summits like the World Economic Forum in Davos for a number of years. Before joining CNBC-TV18, Prashant was Executive Editor with NDTV.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Aparajit Pandey
Programme Director with Observer Research Foundation (ORF)
Aparajit Pandey is a Programme Director with ORF’s Climate, Energy and Resources programme. His research focuses primarily on incentivising institutional investor and international debt financing for climate action projects, domestic policy changes to encourage local investments in climate change and the effects of macro policy changes on the Indian economy.
Mr. Pandey worked as a financial consultant for two years prior to joining Observer Research Foundation.
Previously, Mr. Pandey was an Analyst at Financial Advisory Services Group, AlixPartners and an Associate at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
He holds a MSc Finance, Imperial College London, BBA Accounting, University of North Texas and BBA Statistical Systems, University of North Texas.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Salil Parekh
CEO & Managing Director, Infosys
Salil Parekh, as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, sets and evolves the strategic direction for the company and its portfolio of offerings, while nurturing a strong leadership team to drive its execution. Mr. Parekh has nearly three decades of global experience in the IT services industry with a strong track record of driving digital transformation for enterprises, executing business turnarounds and managing successful acquisitions.
Most recently, Mr. Parekh was a member of the Group Executive Board at Capgemini, where he held several leadership positions for 25 years. He was responsible for overseeing a business cluster comprising Application Services (North America, UK, Asia), Cloud Infrastructure Services, and Sogeti (Technology & Engineering Services Division).
He was responsible for the strategy and execution of these businesses - setting direction and enabling rapid client adoption. He was also the Chairman of Capgemini’s North America Executive Council. He was the architect of the North America growth and turnaround strategy, and was instrumental in setting up their offshoring capabilities.
In his earlier role as Partner at Ernst & Young, Mr. Parekh is widely credited for bringing scale and value to the Indian operations of the consultancy firm.
He holds Master of Engineering degrees in Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, and a Bachelor of Technology degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Jayant Patil
Whole-time Director and Senior Executive Vice President for Defense Business, Larsen & Toubro Ltd.
Jayant Patil is a Whole-time Director, and Senior Executive Vice President for Defence Business at Larsen & Toubro Limited. He is an alumnus of IIT Mumbai having pursued M Tech Mechanical Engineering in 1978.
Mr. Patil has a rich nearly four decade long career in L&T, and has been instrumental in growing the nascent Technology and Product Development Group of L&T’s corporate R&D with a focus on Top end inter-disciplinary Product Development. He was a member of a core team that designed and developed super heavy rotating industrial machinery systems for Cement, Chemical, Fertilizer, & Mineral processing plants.
Mr. Patil spearheaded L&T’s foray into the Defence sector, about 15 years ahead of the opening up of the Defence Production for participation by the Private Companies in 2001. He led development efforts for the first orders for weapon delivery systems from DRDO for missiles under IGMDP. Under his leadership, L&T built a portfolio of indigenous, in-house products, systems and technologies by teaming up with DRDO, the Indian Navy, and few on its own. L&T is today engaged in design to-delivery of solutions across chosen Defence segments.
Mr. Patil heads Defence Business at L&T with focus on Naval Platforms (Submarines & Warships), Naval & Land Weapon Launch & Engineering Systems, Guns, Missiles & Armoured Systems, Radar Systems, Military Communication Systems, & Avionics. He also oversees dedicated Technology Development Centers & Design Centers for the Defence Sector, Prototype Development centers, Defence Production Centers and dedicated centers at L&T’s Powai, Hazira, Chennai and Baroda complexes.
Mr. Patil is Chairman of the Board of Directors of L&T MBDA Missile Systems Limited and member of the Board of L&T Special Steel and Heavy Forging Private Limited, a Joint Venture between L&T and Nuclear Power Corporation of India. He is a founding member and Vice President of the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers set up under the aegis of CII, and has been appointed Chairman of the FICCI National Committee on Defence & Aerospace. He has been awarded Honorary Fellowships by Project Management Associates (The National Association of Project Managers) and Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE). He has been recently honored by IIT Bombay with the prestigious Distinguished Alumnus Award.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Erran Persley
Head of International Affairs, State of Kentucky
Erran Persley serves as the Head of International Affairs for the State of Kentucky and is responsible for the full global foreign direct investment portfolio for the state and assisting businesses in their efforts to export, expand and thrive. India is a country of focus for both Kentucky and Mr. Persley, in addition to Japan, the European countries and others.
Prior to this position, Mr. Persley served as the foreign direct investment advisor for the U.S. Department of Commerce and SelectUSA and was responsible for analyzing and addressing the challenges and barriers to foreign direct investment in the United States.
In this role, he coordinated the activities of the Federal Interagency Investment Working Group (IIWG) that consists of 32 federal government departments and agencies on behalf of the Secretary Commerce Wilbur Ross.
In the private sector, Mr. Persley worked overseas as an Outreach and Communications Manager for a trade and development project in sub-Saharan Africa for Chemonics International Inc. and later served as the company’s senior vice president for the Africa Region, overseeing 26 government funded projects in 19 countries. Additionally, he served as the Executive Administrator to the corporation’s Chief Financial Officer and Board of Directors where he actively participated in developing the company’s Employees Stock Option Plan (ESOP) and assisted with corporate mergers and acquisitions.
Mr. Persley holds dual Master Business Administration degrees from Georgetown University and the ESADE School of Business in Barcelona, Spain. His undergraduate coursework was in Political Science at Howard University.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Satish Pillai
Managing Director and CEO, TransUnion CIBIL
Satish Pillai is the Managing Director and CEO of TransUnion CIBIL. He is responsible for management, growth, and business strategy.
Mr. Pillai brings over 15 years of rich experience in banking, risk management and usage of analytics and decisioning services to enhance consumer access and experience. Prior to July 2015, Mr. Pillai was Chief Operating Officer for TransUnion CIBIL with responsibility for strategic management of bureau operations and new product development.
Mr. Pillai was also President of TransUnion’s business in India. His team designed and launched analytical solutions including the first generic scoring models in the market – CIBIL TransUnion Score and the Personal Loan Score – as well as customized decisioning solutions for credit institutions to seamlessly integrate bureau data in their credit decision process. In addition, his team worked directly with the financial services and telecommunication industry to design tailored analytics and technology solutions to enable profitable growth.
Before TransUnion, Mr. Pillai was Director of Collection Strategy at American Express, and a manager in the small business risk management area, both part of the U.S. Risk Management division. He began his career in the banking industry with Banco Popular North America and then with Wachovia Bankcard Services.
Mr. Pillai received a Master’s degree in economics from the University of Florida.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu
Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Government of India
Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu is the current Minister of Commerce & Industry of India, under the Narendra Modi government. He is a Chartered Accountant by profession and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Since 1996, Minister Prabhu has been a repeatedly elected Member of Parliament from Rajapur Lok Sabha constituency in Maharashtra as a member of the Shiv Sena (SS) political party. He quit Shiv Sena and joined BJP on 9 November 2014. He currently represents Andhra Pradesh in Upper House of Indian Parliament.
Shri. Prabhu completed his school from Sharadashram Vidya Mandir, Dadar, Mumbai, followed by a Bachelor in Commerce with Honours from M.L. Dahanukar College, Vile Parle, Mumbai. He received a Bachelor in Law degree from the New Law College (Ruparel College campus), Mumbai. He was All India 11th (eleventh) rank holder in CA exam.
Shri. Prabhu was, at various times during the Premiership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee from 1998 to 2004, Industry Minister, Minister of Environment and Forests, Minister of Fertilizers & Chemicals, Power, Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises. As the Union Minister for Power, he won praise for his performance, including the introduction of major reforms in India’s power sector. He is credited with championing and enacting The Electricity Act, 2003 and reforms that created securitization of dues from the states. Since 1996, he has been elected from Maharashtra for four terms to the Lok Sabha, India’s parliament. However, he lost his seat in the 2009 general election.
Shri. Prabhu was also Chairman of the Task Force for Interlinking of Rivers with a status and rank of Union Cabinet Minister. He was elected a member of the World Bank parliamentary network and chaired the South Asia Water regional group of the World Bank.
On November 9, 2014, he was sworn-in as Cabinet Minister in the Narendra Modi government. Shri. Prabhu served as the Union Railway Minister of India from November 2014 to September 2017. He was elected as Rajya Sabha member from the state of Andhra Pradesh on June 3, 2016.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Penny Pritzker
Founder and Chairman, PSP Partners
Penny Pritzker is the founder and Chairman of PSP Partners and its affiliates, Pritzker Realty Group, PSP Capital and PSP Growth. From June 2013 through January 2017, she served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Administration.
Ms. Pritzker is an entrepreneur, civic leader, and philanthropist, with more than 25 years of experience in numerous industries. Ms. Pritzker founded Vi Senior Living (formerly known as Classic Residence by Hyatt), and co-founded The Parking Spot and Artemis Real Estate Partners. Ms. Pritzker is the former chairman of the board of TransUnion and is a past board member of Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, Marmon Group, and LaSalle Bank Corporation.
Ms. Pritzker is currently a member of board of Microsoft, a member of the Harvard Corporation, chairman of board of trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a member of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group and Aspen Strategy Group and a co-chair of the Cyber Readiness Institute. Ms. Pritzker was formerly a member of the board of the Council on Foreign Relations, the board of trustees of Stanford University, the Harvard University Board of Overseers and founded Skills for America’s Future. Ms. Pritzker also served on President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and his Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Ms. Pritzker earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Harvard University and a Juris Doctor and Masters of Business Administration from Stanford University. Ms. Pritzker and her husband, Dr. Bryan Traubert, co-founded The Pritzker Traubert Foundation, a private philanthropic foundation that works to foster increased economic opportunity for Chicago’s families.
To learn more about The Pritzker Traubert Foundation, visit www.ptffoundation.org.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Sri Rajan
Chairman, Bain & Company, India
Sri Rajan is chairman of Bain & Company's India offices. He is an active contributor to the firm's Customer Strategy & Marketing, Private Equity, Industrial Goods & Services and Tele- communications, Media and Technology (TMT) practices.
He has nearly 20 years of management consulting experience in India and the United States. Mr. Rajan has supported the creation and execution of turnaround strategies for multiple diver- sified firms and also significant experience working with private equity firms in pre-deal diligence and post-deal strategy, as well as in operational engagements across sectors.
Mr. Rajan is a leader in Bain's Developing Market 100 program, which advises high-growth companies in developing markets as they journey toward global leadership. He is also a member of the Global Agenda Council on India of the World Economic Forum.
Mr. Rajan earned his MBA from the Wharton School of Business, where he was a Palmer Schol- ar. He graduated with a post-graduate degree in management from IIM, Calcutta.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
T. R. Ramachandran
Group Country Manager for India and South Asia, Visa
T. R. “Ram” Ramachandran is Visa’s Group Country Manager for India and South Asia. He is responsible for the overall management and strategy development and execution across all aspects of Visa’s South Asia business in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan.
Mr. Ramachandran is focused on driving the company’s growth and innovation strategy which includes growing e-commerce and m-commerce payments, growing the acceptance footprint for electronic payments, building out and scaling a payments ecosystem which is secure and reliable, and creating and developing a roadmap towards a less cash society and financial inclusion.
Mr. Ramachandran brings a wealth of knowledge to his role, with more than 25 years of experi- ence across banking, Cards & payment products, investments & insurance and Fintech across Asian markets.
Prior to joining Visa in 2015, Mr. Ramachandran was the MD & CEO of Aviva Life Insurance in India, and Chairman of Aviva Sri Lanka for six years over which time he contributed to building their India strategy, turned the company to profitability and launched India’s first suite of digital and online insurance products.
Before that Mr. Ramachandran was with Citibank for close to 20 years, last serving as the Country Head for Retail Banking. During his time there, he has held diverse positions with increasing responsibility, including in Business Development, Consumer Finance, Marketing, Product Management, as Head of Mortgages & Business Banking, and Head of Credit Cards & Payment Products.
Mr. Ramachandran has an MBA from the Bharatidasan Institute of Management, and is an alumnus of Columbia Business School’s CSEP Advanced Management Program. He is a regu- lar contributor to magazines and newspapers in the areas of Fintech, Innovation and Leader- ship, a guest lecturer at several Bschools, and participates as a speaker and panelist in many industry and public forums. In his spare time, Mr. Ramachandran is a mentor and advisor to several startups and Fintechs, an avid reader and a keen golfer.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Deepthi Ravula
CEO, We Hub
Deepthi Ravula is the CEO of WE Hub, a Government of Telangana initiative launched in March 2018 to promote and foster women’s entrepreneurship. She concurrently serves as the Joint Director for Electronics (Business and Semiconductor) for the State of Telangana.
Ms. Ravula is an electronics engineer with over 25 years of experience working in the USA with Palm, Nokia, Qualcomm, and Atheros. She is an avid gamer and advocate for women in STEM.
Ms. Ravula is a graduate of St. Anne’s College, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, and San Diego State University.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Padmaja Ruparel
Co-Founder & President, Indian Angel Network (IAN)
Padmaja Ruparel is nationally recognized as a key player in the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem and has helped co-found many of the relevant institutions, besides being an active Angel investor herself. Her operating experience spans large corporates, M&A, and startups/early stage companies. She has been awarded as one of the 'Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Business' by Fortune India, listed in Forbes India’s W- Power Trailblazers and “30 Most Powerful Women in India” by Business Today.
She is Co-Founder & President of Indian Angel Network (IAN), India's first and one of the world’s largest group of business angels, comprising the who's who of successful entrepreneurs and dynamic CEOs from India and overseas. She built IAN from inception, making it within 10 years a unique institution globally, with over 450 investors across 10 countries and a portfolio of 130+ companies in 7 countries, spanning 17 sectors.
Ms. Ruparel is also the Founding Partner of the IAN Fund, a uniquely differentiated Fund which along with IAN, is set to create the largest horizontal platform in India for investing in seed and early stage ventures.
She is a member of the Governing Council of EM3 Services, a nation building venture seeking to create a paradigm shift in the Indian agricultural sector by improving productivity. She helped the company raise funds from an international Venture Capital fund and is actively involved in its strategy and growth.
Ms. Ruparel contributed actively in the Planning Commission’s Committee on “Angel & Early Stage Investing in India” which resulted in a seminal report: “Creating a Vibrant Entrepreneurial Eco system in India.” She is on the Committee of Telecom Centre of Excellence, Selection Committee of MSME and is actively engaged with the various committees of Ministry of Finance, SEBI, etc.
In her corporate avatar at Xansa India, Ms. Ruparel led several functions over a 16-year period, including recruitment operations, brand and communication strategy, and corporate social responsibility. She was a key architect of the company’s corporate strategy and M&A team when the company went public.
A graduate with English Honours, Padmaja completed her MBA and Chartered Accountancy (Intermediate) with her internship with S.R. Batliboi (an E&Y group company).
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Jagdish Salgaonkar
Senior Vice President, AECOM
Jagdish Salgaonkar has 38 years of diversified experience in all facets of infrastructure planning, engineering, design, construction and management. He has held executive and management positions advising public and private sector clients in the USA, UK, UAE, Singapore, Hong Kong and India. Mr. Salgaonkar is a Senior Vice President with AECOM and leads India’s Smart Cities Program. As Program Director for India’s first Platinum rated Greenfield Smart City, Dholera in Gujarat, Mr. Salgaonkar is responsible for implementing the trunk infrastructure and inward investments.
Mr. Salgaonkar has a double Master’s degree in Civil Engineering (Mumbai) and Environmental Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. He also has an MBA from University of South Florida, USA.
Mr. Salgaonkar is a registered Professional Civil Engineer in USA; Board Certified by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers (AAEE) and certified Project Management Professional (PMP) by the Project Management Institute (PMI), USA. He was recognized with the President’s Award for his pioneering work in sustainable development by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers, USA.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Samir Saran
President, Observer Research Foundation (ORF)
Samir Saran is the President of Observer Research Foundation (ORF). He provides strategic direction and leadership to ORF’s multiple centres on fundraising, research projects, and outreach initiatives.
Mr. Saran is the curator of the Raisina Dialogue, India’s annual flagship platform on geopolitics and geo-economics, and chair of CyFy, India’s annual conference on cyber security and internet governance.
Mr. Saran is also a Commissioner of The Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, member of the South Asia advisory board of the World Economic Forum, and a part of its Global Future Council on Cybersecurity.
Mr. Saran writes frequently on issues of global governance, climate change, energy policy, global development architecture, artificial intelligence, cyber security, internet governance, and India's foreign policy. He has authored four books, several academic papers, and is featured regularly in Indian and international print and broadcast media.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
James Schellinger
Indiana Secretary of Commerce
James Schellinger is the Secretary of Commerce for the state of Indiana, serving as a member of Governor Eric Holcomb’s cabinet and leading the state’s domestic and international economic development agenda.
Mr. Schellinger previously served as president of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation under Governor Mike Pence, helping lead Indiana business growth and Hoosier job creation efforts as well as key initiatives like the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative and the state’s $1 Billion Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative. Mr. Schellinger was appointed to the role in August 2015 after serving two years as a member of the IEDC Board of Directors.
Prior to serving the state in his current role, Mr. Schellinger most recently served as the Chairman/CEO of CSO Architects, a 52-year-old architectural firm, where he practiced architecture since 1984. Under Mr. Schellinger’s leadership, CSO led landmark projects such as the Indianapolis International Airport, the JW Marriott, and the Palladium at the Center for the Performing Arts.
Mr. Schellinger is currently a member of the Dean’s Council for IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs and a board member for AgriNovus Indiana, a catalyst for innovation in the food and agriculture industry. Mr. Schellinger has served on numerous civic boards including the Indianapolis Capital Improvement Board where he led the new Stadium and Convention Center taskforce and the Super Bowl Host Committee for which he served as the Chairman of the Weather Preparedness and Response Team (WPRT).
Mr. Schellinger is a member of AIA as well as the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. Schellinger has received numerous honors and awards. He was recognized as a Sagamore of the Wabash in 2003, as a Kentucky Colonel in 2009, and received the lifetime achievement award from the Archdiocese of Indianapolis in 2011. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture. Schellinger and his wife, Laura, have three sons: Zack, John and Nick.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Arghya Sengupta
Research Director, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy
Dr. Arghya Sengupta is the founder and research director at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy in New Delhi, India. He graduated in law from the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore, India in 2008, and obtained his B.C.L. from the University of Oxford, UK in 2009, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. While at Oxford, he completed his DPhil. on Independence and Accountability of the Indian Higher Judiciary and was a lecturer in Administrative Law at Pembroke College.
At Vidhi, his areas of specialisation are constitutional and administrative law. He regularly advises the Union of India, state governments, and regulatory authorities on a range of legislation and regulation. He has served on several law reform committees in India including committees looking into data protection, institutional arbitration, immigration, and media reporting of court proceedings.
Dr. Sengupta has a number of academic publications on the Supreme Court, Parliament, Fundamental Rights and Federalism in several leading academic journals including Public Law and Law Quarterly Review. He has recently co-edited a collection of essays titled Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of India published by the Oxford University Press. He also regularly writes for national dailies such as The Hindu and The Times of India.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Aisha de Sequeira
Co-Country Head and Head of Investment Banking in India, Morgan Stanley
Aisha has completed 22 years at Morgan Stanley in New York and Mumbai. She joined Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Group in New York in 1995 after completing her management degree at Yale University. From 1995-2007, Aisha was in Morgan Stanley’s Mergers & Acquisitions group in New York.
In November 2007, Aisha moved to Mumbai to head Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Group in India.
In May 2013, Aisha was appointed as Co-Country Head for Morgan Stanley in India, in addition to her role as Head of Investment Banking India.
Morgan Stanley is the dominant M&A franchise in India with a 30% share of all cross-border deals and the leading equity house in India.
Aisha was named by Fortune India as one of the Most Powerful Women in India for the last 6 years (2012-2017).
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Ambika Sharma
Managing Director, India, U.S.-India Business Council
Ambika Sharma is the Managing Director, India, U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC).
Prior to this position, Ms. Sharma was Director General – International, FICCI. During her career of over three decades, she has led some of the most innovative and worthwhile endeavours of domestic and international teams including the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific and Oceania, Africa and Foreign Trade Policy Division. She steered the agenda for the Forum of Parliamentarians and special initiatives including economic diplomacy, projects with dias- pora and strategic and multilateral policy matters.
She was responsible for taking forward FICCI's international agenda and dovetailing it with domestic strategy. In this context, she works closely with the Government of India, represent- ing FICCI at bilateral and regional level deliberations and leads conceptualization and imple- mentation of mega programs at national and international levels.
In 2016, Ms. Sharma was appointed Member, Executive Council of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to represent industry and support BIS in the activities of standardization, marking and quality certification of goods and related matters.
Her academic background comprises a Post Graduate Degree in Business Economics from India's prestigious Delhi University - where she graduated summa cum laude with a Gold Medal. She has participated in a number of Executive Training programs conducted by EU. She had also been nominated by FICCI for senior leadership management programs at institu- tions such as XLRI, Jamshedpur and has been engaged in the Women on Corporate Boards (WCB) initiative of FICCI.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Rob Sherman
Deputy Chief Privacy Officer, Facebook
Rob Sherman is the Deputy Chief Privacy Officer at Facebook, where he is responsible for managing the company's engagement on public policy issues surrounding privacy, security, and online trust. Collaborating with Facebook's product teams, regulators, and other key stakeholders, Mr. Sherman works to build the company's core commitments to transparency, control, and accountability into every aspect of the Facebook service.
Mr. Sherman joined Facebook from Covington & Burling LLP, where he represented Facebook and other leading technology and digital media companies on regulatory and public policy issues relating to privacy, data security, electronic marketing and communications, and digital content. While in private practice, Rob was recognized by Chambers USA as one of the nation's leading media regulatory lawyers.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
S P Shukla
Group President for Aerospace, Defence & Steel at Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.
S.P. Shukla is a Member of the Group Executive Board of Mahindra & Mahindra Limited and as Group President, he is responsible for the Aerospace, Defence & Steel sector. In this position, he is the Chairman of the boards of several companies engaged in designing and producing aircrafts, armoured vehicles, radars, naval systems and specialty steel.
A B. Tech. & MBA, he has 37 years of rich, varied experience in managing large projects and operations. He has been a top professional in the field of Automotive Tyres and Information & Communication Technology (ICT) sectors in India and is widely credited with taking mobile telephony to the masses by setting-up telecom infrastructure in the remotest parts of India.
Prior to his current role, Mr. Shukla served as President of Group Strategy and Chief Brand officer of the Mahindra Group. He oversaw and orchestrated a complete makeover of the visual identity of the Mahindra Group. It was during this period that Group Strategy Office launched and institutionalized Rise Prize, which aims to foster and develop the innovation eco-system in India. He has also been responsible for Mahindra Racing portfolio – both MotoGP (Motorcycle) and Formula E (Electric Cars) in his capacity as Chief Brand Officer.
He also served as Chairman of Group Brand Council & Member of the Investment Committee of Mahindra Partners and continues to serve as the Chairman of Mahindra Innovation Academy. He has also served as director on the Boards of Group companies such as Bristlecone, USA & Mahindra First Choice Services, India. Additionally, he is a director on the Boards of CIE, Spain and Mahindra CIE, India.
Mr. Shukla has been invited to speak at various industry and academic forums, including prestigious international universities, such as Harvard Business School, Nelson Mandela University, Washington University, besides IITs, IIMs and Ted-X.
Mr. Shukla is affiliated with several renowned industry forums. He is a member of the India-Spain CEOs Forum, Indo-French CEOs Forum, India-Israel CEOs Forum, Indo-German CEO Forum, Indo-French Chamber of Commerce & Industry and India UAE Joint Working Group on Trade, Industry & Investment. He is the Co-Chairman of FICCI Committee on Defence and CII National Council on Aerospace and a member of the Technology Development Board, Government of India.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Ajai Shukla
Freelance Journalist and Commentator on Strategic Affairs
Ajai Shukla is a journalist and commentator on strategic affairs. He writes primarily for Business Standard, and also for international publications including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and South China Morning Post.
Mr. Shukla hosts a defence affairs blog, Broadsword, which attracts 3,000-6,000 readers daily. Earlier, as a war correspondent for New Delhi TV, he reported from conflict zones like Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Jammu & Kashmir and India’s northeast.
Mr. Shukla served in the Indian Army, retiring as a colonel after commanding a tank regiment. He graduated from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and did his post-graduation from King’s College, London.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Manisha Singh
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs at the U.S. Department of State
Manisha Singh was unanimously confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State on November 22, 2017. She leads a team of over 200 employees in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs which also serves as the home bureau for economic officers posted in embassies around the world. She is the first woman appointed to the role and is responsible for advancing American prosperity, entrepreneurship and innovation worldwide. This includes leveling the playing field and providing opportunities for U.S. companies and their workers to compete and succeed.
Ms. Singh previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs responsible for developing and promoting international trade policy. She also served as a senior aide to members of Congress and as Deputy Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where she managed international economic policy. Her private sector experience includes practicing law at multinational law firms and working in-house at an investment bank. She was also the Senior Fellow for International Economic Affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council as well as a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Ms. Singh completed a Master of Laws (LLM) in International Legal Studies, with concentration in international trade, at the American University Washington College of Law. While completing this degree, she worked in the Office of General Counsel at the United States International Trade Commission. Her educational background also includes earning a Juris Doctor (JD) from the University of Florida College of Law and completing a Certificate at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands. She earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) with honors at the University of Miami at the age of 19. She is admitted to practice law in Florida, the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania. She speaks fluent Hindi and conversational Spanish.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Siva Sivaram
Executive Vice President, Silicon Technology and Manufacturing for Western Digital
Siva Sivaram is Executive Vice President of Silicon Technology and Manufacturing for Western Digital, responsible for the company’s industry-leading NAND flash memories and other memory and storage technologies.
Under his leadership, SanDisk and Western Digital have created the world’s first cross point 3D memory technology, the world leading 15nm 2D NAND technology, and the industry’s first 64 and 96 layer 3D flash memories.
Dr. Sivaram has more than 30 years of experience in semiconductors, 3-D memory architectures, process technology, equipment and materials. He has held executive positions at Intel and Matrix Semiconductor, and at SanDisk after its acquisition of Matrix. Additionally, he was Founder and CEO of Twin Creeks Technologies, a solar panel and equipment company.
Dr. Sivaram was recently appointed to the board of directors of the Global Semiconductor Alliance. He also serves on the board of the U.S.-India Business Council. He has been a board member of several start-up firms and was entrepreneur-in-residence at Crosslink Capital and XSeed Capital.
Dr. Sivaram has published numerous technical papers and a textbook on Chemical Vapor Deposition. He holds several patents in semiconductor and solar technologies.
He holds a doctorate and master’s degree in materials science from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where he has been elected to its Board of Trustees. Additionally, Dr. Sivaram is a Distinguished Alumnus of the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchi, India, with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Ralph Voltmer
Chair, Covington India Practice and Partner in the Covington Corporate Group
Ralph Voltmer is Chair of Covington’s India Practice and a partner in the firm’s corporate group. Mr. Voltmer has been active in India for almost 20 years, working with companies such as Reliance Industries, Reliance Jio Infocomm, Balkrishna Industries, ICICI Bank, Piramal Enterprises, UPL, Mindtree, the Birla Group, and OmniActive Health Technologies.
Mr. Voltmer advises clients on cross-border and U.S. domestic transactions. He has advised clients on mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances and has led more than $3 billion in financings in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He has particular experience representing clients in the media, communications and technology sectors.
Over the past decade, Mr. Voltmer has received accolades from Chambers USA (Telecom, Broadcast & Satellite), Chambers Global (Corporate/M&A for India and the United States), Chambers Asia-Pacific (Corporate/M&A for International Firms), Legal 500 Asia-Pacific, India (Foreign Firms), Legal Era, India (Global Leader of the Year Award), and was recognized in Legal 500 for Intellectual Property and Telecoms advisory work.
Mr. Voltmer received his law degree from Georgetown University. He has a Master’s degree from the University of California, Riverside and obtained his undergraduate degree from Wheaton College.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Pradeep Kumar Vyas
Principal Secretary, Public Health Department, Government of Maharashtra
Pradeep Kumar Vyas is a 1989 batch IAS Officer, currently serving as Principal Secretary in the Public Health Department of Mantralaya, Mumbai.
Mr. Vyas initially served eight years in Tamil Nadu in the Industries and Finance department. He then worked in the Agriculture Sector in Maharashtra as Managing Director, State Seeds Corporation and as Managing Director, the Maharashtra Agro Industries Development Corporation Limited for 8 years. He was also a Collector, Mumbai for three years and Secretary, Finance Department, for four years.
Mr. Vyas passed his MBBS in 1986 and MD Pediatric in 1989 from Sawai Man Singh Medical College, Jaipur.
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Anup Wadhawan
Commerce Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India
Anup Wadhawan is an officer of the Indian Administrative Service borne on the Uttarakhand cadre, currently posted as Commerce Secretary in the Department of Commerce, Government of India.
His appointments in the States of UP and Uttarakhand have ranged from magisterial and development administration positions in the field to development policy related and regulatory assignments in areas like education, planning, hill development, rural development, panchayati raj, cooperatives, urban development, forests & environment, land revenue, home and disaster management. He was District Magistrate in Etawah and Secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission.
Shri. Wadhawan has served in the Government of India in the Departments of Economic Affairs, Financial Services and Commerce, and the Prime Minister’s Office.
He has worked for the Water and Sanitation Program of the World Bank, providing technical assistance for enhancing accountability in Water Supply & Sanitation service-delivery through policy, institutional and utility reform. He was a member of an African Development Bank team that evaluated its lending to the public utilities sector in Ghana and Tanzania.
Shri. Wadhawan holds a doctorate from Duke University, Masters’ degrees from the Delhi School of Economics and Duke University, and a Bachelors degree from Hindu College, University of Delhi, in the area of Economics. His doctoral thesis was on the “Time Path of Macro Variables in Alternative Structural Settings.”
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India U.S.-India Business Council | U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Jawed Zia
Vice President, Established Pharmaceuticals, Abbott
Jawed Zia is Vice President of Established Pharmaceuticals, India. He was appointed to this role in June 2018.
Mr. Zia has been the Country President, Novartis India responsible for the Novartis Group of Companies in the country and leads the Pharmaceuticals business as well. He has a wealth of experience gained in various geographies and functions across the globe. Having joined Novartis in 1987, he has a successful career history working across Pharmaceuticals, Consumer Health and Devices in positions of increasing responsibility across various functions of Market Research, Brand Management, Marketing Management, Division Management and Area Management in Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Singapore, Canada, Switzerland and now in India.
A strategic thinker with versatile experience, Mr. Zia has a deep knowledge and extensive experience of building businesses from inception. His innate ability to drive growth of people and businesses, build brands, transform operations and scale capabilities has been the hallmark of his success. A firm believer in the power of innovation and collaboration, he is passionate about driving access to healthcare and has been steering the company towards ‘Winning for Patients.’ A strong proponent of the adage ‘People are our greatest asset,’ he takes a keen interest in leadership development across the organization.
Mr. Zia is a graduate in Clinical Pharmacology from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and holds an MBA from Trinity College, Dublin (Ireland).
USIBC | India Ideas Summit | Mumbai, India
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