MD & CEO, Kotak Mahindra Bank

Uday Kotak is founder, managing director and CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank.

Over the past 34 years, the group under his leadership has established a presence across financial services including banking, stock broking, investment banking, car finance, life and general insurance, and asset management.

The billionaire banker started the financial firm in 1985 when he was just 26 years old, and went on to convert it into a full-fledged bank in 2003.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, India’s second most valuable private lender, cemented its position when it acquired ING Bank’s Indian operations in 2014.

Today, the bank has a network of 1,500 branches and reported more than $57 billion in assets as of March 31, 2019.

CEO, NITI Aayog

Amitabh Kant was recently given a two-year extension as chief executive officer of planning body, the National Institution for Transforming India Aayog (NITI Aayog), after the Narendra Modi-led government was voted back to power.

Kant, a 1980 batch IAS officer from the Kerala cadre, took charge as the first full-time CEO of NITI Aayog in 2016. Prior to that, he was Secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.

Kant has been a key driver of the “Make in India”, “Startup India”, “Incredible India” and “God’s Own Country” initiatives.

A recipient of The Economic Times Policy Change Agent of the Year Award, Kant has been one of the most fervent supporters of the Indian startup ecosystem.

Founder & CEO, BACQ and co-founder, Flipkart

Sachin Bansal cofounded Flipkart in 2007 along with Binny Bansal (no relation), and pretty soon the ecommerce firm went on to become India’s most valuable internet startup.

Both Bansal and Flipkart emerged as role models for youngsters, inspiring many to quit cushy jobs and launch their own entrepreneurial ventures.

Last year, after US retail giant Walmart acquired Flipkart, the 38-year-old IIT-Delhi graduate exited, selling his entire stake for around $1 billion.

Since then, Bansal has been actively backing startups, including India’s largest cab-hailing platform Ola with a $100 million investment, among others.

He also cofounded BACQ last year along with investment banker and fellow IITian Ankit Agarwal, eyeing largely debt investments.

Bansal is also keenly interested in the financial services sector and is in talks to make big bets in the sector.

Founder & Group CEO, Oyo Hotels & Home

Ritesh Agarwal is founder and group chief executive of hospitality chain Oyo Hotels & Homes.

A Thiel Fellow, Agarwal founded the Gurugram-headquartered company in 2013, and has scaled it up to one of the largest hotel chains in the world.

The 26-year-old college dropout, who hails from a small town in Odisha, has now taken Oyo to multiple markets across the globe.

Some of the world’s biggest investors have reposed faith in Agarwal – a list that includes Softbank Vision Fund, the largest institutional stakeholder in Oyo.

The young entrepreneur, who started with one hotel in Mahipalpur in New Delhi, has now grown his company to 23,000 hotels and 850,000 rooms spread across more than 800 cities. Oyo won the coveted Startup of the Year award in 2018.

Vice Chairman, Times Internet

Satyan Gajwani is the Vice Chairman of Times Internet, India’s largest digital platform.

Times Internet is the digital arm of The Times of India Group, India’s largest media company. With over 450 million monthly visitors and 63 billion page views across 40+, digital businesses – in news, sports, music, real estate, jobs, utilities, personal finance local, and more – Times Internet is the largest digital network in India. Times Internet operates as a platform, enabling its business to run independently with independent leadership, while leveraging the collective reach and intelligence that Times Internet provides. Times Internet exists to inform, entertain, and enable hundreds of millions of Indians.

Satyan earned his Undergraduate and Master’s degrees from Stanford University. He previously worked with Barclays Bank in New York, before joining The Times Group in 2008. Satyan also serves on the board of Bennett Coleman and Company, the parent company of the Times Group.

Founder & MD, Multiples Alternate Asset Management

Renuka Ramnath has spent close to three decades in financial services, building several businesses within the ICICI Group. She was MD and CEO of ICICI Venture for close to a decade, and transformed it into one of the largest private equity funds in India. In January 2009, she quit to found Multiples, which now manages assets of $1 billion.

At a time when most peers stayed away from investing in technology startups due to lofty valuations and a cash-burn heavy business model, Ramnath backed the likes of logistics tech firm Delhivery and gaming company Dream11.

Her other big bets include PVR Cinemas, Cholamandalam, South Indian Bank and Mogae Media.

Ramnath also sits on the board of L&T Technology Services, Tata Communications and Arvind Ltd, among others.

Co-founder & CEO, Swiggy

Sriharsha Majety, a BITS Pilani and IIM-Calcutta alumnus, cofounded Swiggy with Nandan Reddy and Rahul Jaimini in 2014.

Initially Majety and Reddy started Bundl Technologies, a logistics and shipping startup for small sellers which were retailing on e-commerce platforms such as Flipkart and Amazon India.

The venture, however, failed to take off, and within a year the two tapped the buzzy hyper-local delivery segment catering to food delivery.

Today, Swiggy is one of the most valuable companies at $3.3 billion and among the fastest to achieve unicorn status.

Backed by the likes of Naspers, Tencent, Accel Partners and SAIF Partners, Swiggy has diversified beyond food-delivery over the past year to expand into delivering groceries, medicines, and vegetables.

Founder & CEO, BookMyShow

Ashish Hemrajani co-founded Bigtree Entertainment – which runs BookMyShow – along with Parikshit Dhar and Rajesh Balpande.

BookMyShow, which is backed by Stripes Group, Network 18, Accel Partners and SAIF Partners, has grown from being a movie and events ticketing site to one that is building a full-stack model with an emphasis on live events.

After twenty years of being in business, it has been able to shed its dependence on movie ticketing to focus on events such as music concerts, stand-up comedy shows and sports, which form more than a third of the company’s business.

Sensing that Indian consumers would leapfrog desktops and move over to cellphones, Hemrajani also launched the company’s mobile app, giving it an early mover advantage.

Managing Director of SAP Labs India

Dilip Khandelwal holds a dual responsibility at SAP.

In his role as the global EVP of enterprise cloud services, he is responsible for SAP’s HANA enterprise cloud, cloud delivery, and key services and support functions. He is a member of the global leadership team at SAP, directly reporting to its executive board.

Additionally, Khandelwal is also the managing director of SAP Labs in India, responsible for SAP’s development facilities in Bengaluru and Gurugram.

He is also an active angel investor, a strong proponent of startups and has been instrumental in setting up SAP’s Startup Accelerator in Bengaluru.

Managing Partner, DST Global

The Dubai-based Rahul Mehta has been part of the Yuri Milner-founded DST Global since 2008, investing primarily across the United States and India.

A former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, Mehta is a qualified chartered accountant with an MBA from IIM-Bangalore.

He has led investments in WhatsApp, Snapchat, Zalando, and in companies like Flipkart, Ola and Grofers in the country.

DST Global is among the most prominent late-stage funds with a portfolio including Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Spotify and Alibaba.