Rajesh Gopinathan
CEO & Managing Director, TCS
Rajesh Gopinathan is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services company. Under Gopinathan’s leadership, the market capitalisation of the company crossed $100 billion in April 2018, overtaking IBM. He joined TCS in 2001 from Tata Industries and worked in different roles including as the chief financial officer. He was elevated to the role of Chief Executive in February 2017. Gopinathan has restructured the organisation to empower businesses, while adopting a machine first delivery model for customers. TCS, with $22.01 billion in revenue in Fiscal Year 2020, accounted for 15% of India’s $147 billion software exports. It employs around 4.5 lakh professionals, among the largest employers in India’s private sector. Gopinathan is an electrical and electronic engineer from REC Trichy (now NIT, Trichy) and has Post-Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM, Ahmedabad.
Roopa Kudva
Managing Director, Omnidyar Network India
Before joining the investment firm in 2015, she spent over two decades at Crisil, eight of them as its managing director and chief executive officer. She was instrumental in leading the company’s transformation from India’s premier ratings agency to a diversified global analytical company with research centres in Argentina, Poland and China. During her tenure as the CEO, Crisil saw a four-fold jump in its market capitalisation. She is currently an independent director on the board of Nestlé India and a member of the board of governors at her alma mater IIM Ahmedabad.
Satyan Gajwani
Vice Chairman, Times Internet
Satyan Gajwani is the vice-chairman of Times Internet, the digital arm of Times Group that reaches over 450 million online users a month through its internet companies like Gaana, MX Player, Cricbuzz, MagicBricks, among others. Gajwani grew up in Miami in the US and did his graduation in mathematical and computational science and his masters in management science and engineering from Stanford University. He then worked as a consumer equities trader at Lehman Brothers for a year between 2007-08 before the global recession hit the world economy. Late 2008, Gajwani moved to India and joined The Times Group where he worked for over a year and a half across print, radio and television departments, and eventually joined its digital new media entity, now called Times Internet.
Kalyan Krishnamurthy
CEO, Flipkart Group
Krishnamurthy is the CEO of Flipkart Group which operates its flagship marketplace Flipkart, Myntra, and Walmart India. Under his leadership, in 2018, the etailer orchestrated the biggest ever e-commerce exit globally when Walmart agreed to buy majority of the firm for $16 bilion. Prior to joining Flipkart, Krishnamurthy served as the Director of Finance and Portfolio Companies at Tiger Global Management. Tiger was one of the largest institutional investors in Flipkart before its sale to Walmart. A seasoned corporate executive, Krishnamurthy has had prior stints at eBay and Procter & Gamble. He holds an MBA degree from Asian Institute of Management, the Philippines, and another MBA in Finance from UIUC College of Business, Illinois (US).
Sanjeev Bikhchandani
Founder, Info Edge
Sanjeev Bikhchandani is the founder of Info Edge which owns Naukri.com, 99acres and, Jeevansathi online portals. He is also the co-founder of Ashoka University and an active startup technology investor. Bikhchandani counts Zomato, and PolicyBazar as two of its top technology investments. Some of his other early-stage bets include ShopKirana, Sunrise Mentors, Shipsy, and Dotpe among others. In 2020, he was given the Padma Shri Award, the fourth highest civilian award in India. In June, Info Edge’s board approved of raising upto Rs.1875 crore through QIP sale of shares. Bikhchandani completed his schooling from St. Columba’s School, graduation from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and his MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
Bejul Somaia
Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners
In 2008, Bejul Somaia established Lightspeed Venture Partners’ India operations. While the Silicon Valley firm invested in the country from its global corpus, it was only in 2015 that it mopped up an India-dedicated $135 million fund under the leadership of Somaia. That was followed by a bigger $175 million India Fund II. A Harvard Business School graduate, Somaia has had a great run in the past few years. He has spotted some of the breakout domestic internet startups like Oyo and B2B commerce platform Udaan, very early. Alongside he has also exited older investments — Indian Energy Exchange and ItzCash
Albinder Dhindsa
Cofounder & CEO, Grofers
Albinder Dhindsa is the co-founder & CEO of Grofers, one of India’s largest grocery delivery platforms backed by investors including Softbank and Tiger Global. Grofers started as a hyperlocal delivery platform in 2013, but when the funding winter hit in late 2015, Grofers saw that its instant delivery model was not feasible without higher losses.The company decided to shut operations and pivot to a differentiated grocery offering. Grofers is a low-price online supermarket that delivers products across categories like grocery, household care, beauty & wellness, baby care. A former Zomato top executive, Dhindsa holds a Bachelor of Technology degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Byju Raveendran
Founder and CEO, Byju’s
Byju Raveendran founded Think & Learn, which goes by the name of Byju’s, along with a group of his former students in 2011, as his ambition to teach more students outgrew the auditoriums and stadiums he was filling while delivering lectures. The growth of the company over the next few years, alongside attracting marquee investors such as Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Naspers, Tencent, Sequoia and others cemented Raveendran’s position as one among the top entrepreneurs in the country. Today, under his leadership, Byju’s is one of only two Indian firms to currently hold the distinction of being a decacorn – a private firm valued at over $10 billion.
Larry Illg
CEO Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures)
Larry Illg serves as Chief Executive Officer at Prosus Ventures which makes early-stage bets on consumer internet startups. Under Illg’s leadership, Prosus has built one of the most enviable consumer tech portfolios in the world with investments in marquee consumer tech startups such as Byju’s, Udemy, Brainly, Flipkart, Swiggy, PayU to name a few. As an investor Illg, also finds himself on the boards of several of Prosus’ high profile investments, making him one of the most influential figures in the global startups landscape. Prior to assuming full-time leadership responsibility at Naspers in 2013, Illg’s career spanning two decades has seen him take up a wide array of responsibilities. Past roles include a stints include leadership roles at EBay and New Ventures.
Sahil Barua
CEO & Co-founder Delhivery
Sahil Barua is the cofounder & CEO of logistics and supply chain management company Delhivery. Today, Delhivery processes more than 500,000 parcels a day and is valued at over $1.5 billion. It provides a full suite of logistics services, including express parcel transportation, freight, reverse logistics, and B2C warehousing and technology services. It raised funding from SoftBank Vision Fund in February last year, catapulting it into the unicorn league. Delhivery won the prestigious Startup of the Year category at the ET Startup Awards in 2019. Before confounding Delhivery, Barua, an IIM- Bangalore graduate, was a consultant at Bains and Co.
