VCCircle

A banker turned entrepreneur, Sanjay entered the Indian fashion Industry in the mid 90s and gets substantial credit for leading to the corporatization of the industry. Post acquiring a slew of premium Indian fashion labels and taking them to the world, he has expanded his vision of luxury retailing by the introduction of several International luxury brands into India.

His long-term vision of further expansion in the domestic and overseas market, coupled with his financial and market insights enabled Genesis Colors to be the market leader. Modeled on the lines of global fashion conglomerates, the company has posted an impressive growth for the last few years and established its footprints across 20 major Indian cities through over a 125 stand alone stores. Kapoor stands as an epitome of a distinctive and a dynamic business success story – a stature that is only growing by years as he transforms Genesis Colors into a fashion colossus through his impeccable business acumen.

Spending his growing up years in Singapore, Sanjay studied at Raffles Institution and then did his MBA from the University of Rochester, New York. Post that he worked at Citibank in the Singapore and India offices before starting his own business.

Sanjay now lives in New Delhi and is a member of several trade bodies and organizations such as the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE) and is a recipient of several awards for his innovative initiatives in fashion retailing. He is the chairman of the CII Luxury Goods forum and a regular speaker at industry forums across the globe. He unwinds with jogging, squash, reading and music. He is also an avid art collector.

Dev Lall is the Founder and Managing Director of Bakers Circle which is India's only ISO and HACCP Certified producer of Frozen Dough and Confectionary for the QSR industry.

Bakers Circle supplies Value added Bakery and Confectionary products to all Major QSR Brands in India and has had a very rapid climb to the top of the value chain over the past 3 years as well as developed a reputation of a proactive approach in frozen supply chain and tracking.

Prior to Bakers Circle Mr. Lall was associated with the Hyatt Hotels and Resorts of North America wherein he worked in various capacities with them from 1995 to 2001 both in North America and In India.

He has a diploma In hotel and restaurant Management from Ecole Les Roches Switzerland & BSc. in Institutional and Restaurant Management & MBA (hons) in International Business Management from Johnson & Wales University.

Dr Mahipal S Sachdev completed his MBBS from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India’s apex medical college. He pursued MD in Ophthalmology at Dr Rajendra Prasad Center for Ophthalmic Sciences, AIIMS, which is the best institute for Ophthalmology in the country. He did advanced training and fellowship in Cornea at the Georgetown University, Washington, USA. He has received training in Refractive Surgery and Phacoemulsification. Government of India has awarded him Padmashree for the excellence in eye-care.

Dr Sachdev has been Secretary of the Delhi Ophthalmological Society (DOS) and the Chairman, Scientific Committee of All India Ophthalmological Society (AIOS). Currently he is the Chairman Intraocular implant and Refractive Society, India.

After tasting clinical stardom at a young age, Dr Sachdev groomed himself for entrepreneurial success. His vision has seen Centre for Sight grow from a single eye care facility in 1996 to a network of eye care centres spread across India.

Mr. Thakurta is a President at Resurgent India Limited and heads the Consumer and Retail verticals. He has combined 11 years of experience in Investment Banking, Private Equity and Management Consulting – having worked with Francisco Partners, McKinsey & Co, A.T. Kearney and Arthur Andersen in his earlier stints.

Mr. Thakurta assisted several leading companies in Retail, F&B, TMT and Consumer Products across India, EMEA and Americas.  In India he has been associated with several F&B companies in formulating their growth strategies, M&A and capital raise. Earlier in his career he assisted nodal state agri agencies in development of contract farming framework to incentivize shift from existing paddy-wheat monoculture.

Mr. Thakurta started his career in ITC Agri Business. He is a rank-holder Chartered Accountant and an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur.

S. Harikrishnan is Partner in Avigo Capital Partners and heads the fund's Mumbai Office. Hari has more than 15 years of diversified experience in Investments, Capital markets and Manufacturing  of which last 12 years in Private Equity. Before Avigo, Hari was with Wall Street firm Lazard advising Emerging Market PE Fund for 2 years. Before moving to Lazard, Hari was part of the founding team of UTI Ventures and was with that firm for more than eight years. Hari has particularly focused on tracking and analyzing sectors undergoing rapid development such as consumer retail, infrastructure services, niche manufacturing, life sciences, media and alternative energy. In last 11 years in Private Equity Hari was closely involved with 20 cross-sector PE transactions of which majority of them in Infrastructure and consumer sector. Harikrishnan is a qualified Engineer and MBA.

Karthik Ranganathan is Partner with Baring Private Equity Partners. He has been with Barings since 2004 and is responsible for executing investments across - Industrials, Energy and Infrastructure. Prior to Barings, Karthik was a management consultant with Andersen / KPMG. Karthik has a post-graduate degree in management from IIM-Bangalore and has a degree in mechanical engineering from IIT-Madras.

Yogesh Kapur- an alumni of Shri Ram college of Commerce, Delhi University,Fellow chartered Accountant (FCA) has more than 28 years experience  in the Financial Services Industry. He  heads Axis Capital’s Northern India operations and is responsible for Axis’s Investment banking operations in the region. He has handled a number of Capital market/advisory and P/E transactions for mid size as well as large corporates across sectors. He has been associated very closely and proactively with the government’s divestment program over last 10 years and front led some of the most prestigious PSU transactions handled by Now Axis Capital including– COAL INDIA, NHPC, PFC, PGCIL, PNB and NTPC Offerings to name a few. He plays a vital part in a variety of strategic decisions at Axis Capital. He has also been member of different committees appointed by MOF - to study the ADR/GDR guidelines and changes therein and to advise on the framework for Domestic Exchangeable Bonds(DEBs). Both these reports have been submitted to the government. The composition of these committees included members from SEBI/RBI.

Before joining Axis Capital Mr Kapur worked for 8 years with HDFC, country’s premier Housing Mortgage Institution in its initial very challenging and formative years of operations and later on moved over to Investment banking with HSBC in 1991 and then to Axis Capital in 1994.

Mohit was the of head media investments at Barings Private Equity where he was also instrumental in several investments in the BFSI & Telecom sector with ticket size of over $50m. He has been instrumental in deals executed in plays such as Radio, Commodities Broking, NBFCs and telecom equipment providers. Prior to this role, he was a part of the initial team in a greenfield public sector bank. He headed strategy and was instrumental in setting up the mid market banking practice, the corporate liabilities book and SME offerings.

He has also worked with one of the largest telcos and advised the client on their expansion and JVs in the content management space.

He holds a MBA in Finance from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi and is an engineer from NSIT, Delhi University.

Dhanpal Jhaveri is the Partner & CEO of Everstone Capital.  With senior level experience in Investments, Strategy, M&A and Investment Banking, Dhanpal’s expertise is in providing hands-on leadership. He has extensive experience in financial services, natural resources, industrials and infrastructure sectors.   Dhanpal serves on the board of several companies including Indostar Capital, Crystal Crop Protection, Pan India Foods and Global Hospitals.  Dhanpal is an astute dealmaker with profound understanding for business growth and development.

Previously, Dhanpal led the overall development of Future Capital Holdings as Executive Director. Dhanpal has also worked as Director - Corporate Strategy with Vedanta Resources Plc where he was responsible for formulating and managing the strategic direction for the group. His other assignments included, Head - Investment Banking at ICICI Securities and Partner – Corporate Finance at KPMG. Dhanpal is presently a Member of the Board of Trustees at TiE, Mumbai.  Dhanpal is also actively associated with Avasara Leadership Institute, an educational institution focused on accelerating academic and leadership outcomes for India’s brightest girls.

Dhanpal holds a degree in Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Mumbai and an MBA from Babson College, Graduate School of Business, United States.

Dhanpal is an avid golfer and has a wide array of other interests that include photography and travel.

Amit is the Partner – Healthcare & Pharma, & Education Investments at Baring Private Equity Partners India and handles investment opportunities and portfolio companies in these respective sectors. He is also a Director on the Board of Sphaera Pharma – an integrated drug discovery and development company. He has worked in financial and business advisory in the past with leading Indian and Multinational companies. As part of the business consulting team at Accenture in India, he has advised clients on leveraging IT for business effectiveness and assisted clients in all change management issues associated with a large technology implementation.  Prior to working with Accenture, he was with the world’s fourth largest and India’s most influential credit rating agency, CRISIL, where he was involved in advising private and public sector clients on divestments, financial reviews and operational benchmarking. He is a recipient of the Directors Silver Medal from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi where he graduated in Structural Engineering and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management (MBA) from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. At Baring India Amit also leads the Corporate Communication & Public Relations initiatives of the firm.

Mr. Silgardo is Senior Managing Partner at IIML and has over 28 years of experience across the financial services industry. Mr. Silgardo has worked on the corporate banking side of two multinational banks, namely Banque Nationale de Paris and ANZ Grindlays for over 10 years and subsequently headed Kotak Mahindra Capital Company, one of the largest domestic investment banks in India. Thereafter as Managing Director, Corporate Finance of ABN Amro and then PriceWaterhouse Coopers, he led M&A transactions with deal sizes ranging from $25 million to $500 million across sectors as diverse as telecommunications, media, fast moving consumer goods, and oil & gas. Prior to joining IIML, Mr. Silgardo set up the Investment Banking division of IndusInd Bank, one of the premier private sector banks in India. He was also involved in M&A and fund raising strategy and execution for various Hinduja group companies spanning the telecommunications, media, ITES, real estate and pharmaceutical sectors, as well as in the structuring and development of a proposed fund management business.

From June 2006, Mr Silgardo has been running the growth private equity fund which invests in rapidly growing mid sized companies across a wide range of sectors.

Mr. Silgardo holds an MBA in International Finance from University of Rochester, New York. Mr. Silgardo did his post graduate studies in Marketing from IIM Ahmedabad.

Dhruv Shringi is the Co-Founder & CEO Yatra Online Pvt. Ltd. Dhruv leads the company’s business initiatives across continents.

Dhruv in a very short span of time, by making innovations in the field of travel and tourism, has made his unique identity in the online travel industry. He has contributed actively in rejuvenating the methods of the industry. Since its successful launch in January 2006, Dhruv, has lead Yatra.com to grow from a 3 member organisation to a 1,400 people strong organisation - thus making Yatra.com the leading travel brand in the country.  In 2011, Dhruv was listed by Fortune magazine amongst the top 40 CEO’s in India and he currently also serves as the Vice Chairman of the Internet and Mobile Association of India.

His most recent role prior to Yatra.com was as Director Group Operations and Technology of the Ebookers Group in London, where he led a team of over 600 people and was responsible for sales of $850 million achieved through across channels including online, call centers and retail shops.

Prior to his stint at Ebookers, he worked with Ford Motor Company in their Business Strategy team based in London, where he was part of the European Business Turnaround team. He also has significant work experience in India having spent over 6 years with Arthur Andersen based in their office in Delhi. Dhruv holds an MBA from INSEAD and is also a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Dhruv is an avid reader and enjoys playing golf in his leisure time.

Rakesh Malhotra, a serial entrepreneur, is the Founder of the SAR Group of companies, which cover a wide range of industries including power electronics, energy, water and telecom manufacturing and services, and the Managing Partner of Ncubate Capital Partners, which invests in early stage companies needing growth capital and knowledge infusion.

Rakesh graduated from Jadavpur University with a degree in Electronics & Telecom Engineering and started his career in 1985 at Siemens, followed by NELCO and Mitsui. His entrepreneurial journey began in 1988 with founding Luminous Power Technologies.  Beginning with $10K in capital, Luminous is now India’s leading manufacturer of power supplies, batteries, and invertors, and in 2011 sold 76% of its share to Schneider Electric for over $300M.Rakeshcurrently serves as Chairman of the company.

The SAR group has businesses across a diverse range of industries. Wynncom and Flymobiles in the GSM handset space. Luminous Mobile Accessories manufactures and sells accessories to complement the handset business. Navitas Green Power Pvt. Ltd. is developing a clean power generation portfolio throughout India. Luminous Water Technology currently operates in the domestic water purification space.

With a repertoire of rich and diverse experiences, and a strong interest in investing and mentoring entrepreneurs, Mr. Malhotra launched Ncubate Capital Partners as “a fund by the entrepreneurs for the entrepreneurs” to provide growth capital, skill-gap fulfillment and hands-on knowledge. Ncubate is currently focused in the sectors of Renewable Energy and Clean Technologies, Information Technology, Telecom, and Consumer Products and Services.

Mr. Malhotra regularly spends time with engineering and business school students to share experiences and to develop their interest in entrepreneurship. He holds multiple issued and pending patents in areas of power electronic, renewable energy, and energy storage. He serves on various industrial technology committees and still presents papers at engineering conferences. Rakesh is a family person and likes travelling, playing cricket, music and business reading.

Ravi looks after EMERGE, the exclusive SME platform of NSE, the leading stock exchange of the country. EMERGE, has been operationalised in September 2012 with two SMEs having raised Rs. 45 crore through the platform and several others being in pipeline. NSE has made efforts to position the NSE SME platform as an alternative and credible platform offering informed investors opportunity to invest early in India’s best emerging businesses. The SME platform is also expected to provide liquidity to early stage risk investors in SME companies.  

Ravi has more than 20 years industry experience including 15 years with SIDBI, the apex SME Financial Institution in the country. Apart from having rich experience of debt & equity investments development, he was instrumental in establishing of the Rs 2000 crore risk capital fund for MSMEs in SIDBI. The risk capital fund has rolled out several mezzanine risk and equity products in the country for SMEs in addition to running fund of fund operations.

Hitendra Chaturvedi is the Founder and CEO of RLC and its brand GreenDust  - India's #1 reverse logistics company.  Hitendra is regarded as a global subject matter expert in the area of reverse logistics.  Before starting RLC Hitendra was the business unit head for $400 million Microsoft’s OEM business in India.  Before Microsoft he was instrumental in building a leading reverse logistics company in the US. A computer engineer from IIT, with an M. Tech and MBA from US Hitendra has over 25 years of experience in strategy, technology, and supply chain. He has also worked for Ernst & Young and A.T. Kearney and helped many Fortune 500 companies achieve their strategic objectives through focussed, practical execution.

A born entrepreneur, upon graduation from Delhi University,Mr. Bhalla opted to forego studies at a business school and set up his first business venture in 1994. He has always been a pioneer in every business he has started. In 2000 he started one of India’s first KPO company focusing on the healthcare vertical for the US,which has now grown to over a 1000 employees globally.

In 2007 he completed the “Owners Presidents Management Program” and a program on “Launching New Ventures” programs from the Harvard Business School.

When he thought of entering into the fast growing food-and-beverage industry, he thought of introducing something for the young, health conscious urban Indians and create a brand that is not only associated with health and wellness, but is also a socially and environmentally responsible brand.

Keeping the extreme hot weather in mind, he thought of this cold treat as a viable business option that offered guilt-free indulgence and launched Cocoberry, India’s first frozen yogurt chain. Cocoberry is poised to become one of the dominant Health and Wellness food brands in India in the coming years.  The first store was opened at the posh South Delhi locality of Defense Colony in 2009. There also were a lot of innovations and transformations along the way. Today with its outlets across the NCR,Mumbai, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Pune, Ahmedabad &Goa, Cocoberry is a national brand in less than a span of 3 years with over 50 outlets and has over 2 millions fans of Facebook as a testimony to its huge success.

Cocoberry has received several awards and recognitions in the two short years since it started including “Most Admired Food Service Retailer 2012-Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards”“ Top 100 Brands That Rocked India”(4P magazine), “Top 100 Retailers 2011 and 2012”(Retailer magazine), “ Most Innovative Concept”(HT City), “ Best Frozen Dessert” (HT City), “Top Rated Frozen Yogurt” (Burrp) to name just a handful.

Mr. Bhalla has also received a number of awards and recognitions such as “Top Young Turk 2010” by CNBC India and has been profiled and featured numerous times in print and TV such as “CNBC”, “India Today”, “WSJ Mint”, “Outlook Business”, “Economic Times”, “Zee Business”, “ Inc.”, “ET Now”and many more.

GS was also featured on the cover of the book published by renowned journalist  Shaili Chopra called “Birdies in Business”

He is also an avid golfer, shooter and enjoys outdoor sports and travelling.

Salil Singhal has been associated with Industry since 1965.

He has been actively involved in the family businesses of agrochemicals, fine chemicals, electronic metering services and solutions, mining and mineral processing.  The Group employs over 5000 people and does business in 50 countries.

P.I. Industries Ltd., with registered office at Udaipur (Rajasthan) is in the business of agrochemicals and Solutions and Custom Synthesis of Fine Chemicals. PI produces and sells agrochemicals and speciality micro nutrients through its strong pan India distribution network.  Its custom synthesis business is focused on agrochemicals and intermediates, as also pharma intermediates, specialty chemicals etc which are sold to reputed MNC.  

PI’s manufacturing units are accredited by ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 ,ISO 17025 and GLP Certification.. PI has been awarded as winner of the prestigious GREEN CHEMISTRY AWARD 2009 in the "MNCs and Large Enterprises Category". PI is one of the first few companies to have its R&D facilities recognized by Department of Science and Technology, Government of India since 1976, for pesticides and chemicals. These facilities are also certified by GLP and NABL . Through its acclaimed strength in R&D, new product introduction and development, PI has developed some of the best brands in the industry that are leaders in their category.

Wolkem India is the world’s largest producer of the mineral wollastonite, and supplies around 65% of calcite to the Indian user industry with production facilities in Rajasthan, Himachal, Orissa, Andhra, Tamil Nadu and Vietnam.

Secure Meters Ltd. was started in 1987. The company pioneered electronic metering for the power industry in India, and is now internationally recognized for its innovations with subsidiaries in the UK, Sweden and Australia.
It operates through 7 global locations and has over 500 strong team into R&D.

Mr. Singhal brings a strong marketing and business development focus to the businesses, making them not only international in outlook but also strong in research and development. Each company in the Group is known to be in the forefront of technology. The Group enjoys an excellent reputation for its high standards of business ethics, and for fair and transparent business practices.

Mr. Singhal was Chairman of the Pesticides Association of India, now called the Crop Care Federation of India, for 20 years.  Members subsequently elected him as Chairman Emeritus for life. He is a well known person within the agrochemical/ agricultural business in India, and has been on several Committees of the Govt of India on agriculture/pesticide related policies.

He was a member of the Executive Committee of the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Chairman of FICCI’s Environment Committee for 5 years.

Mr. Singhal was the Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Northern Region which comprise of 9 north Indian states with over 2200 members, for the year 2008-09. Then he headed CII’s National Council for MSMEs for One year. Presently he is Co-Chairman of CII National Council on Agriculture. He has been a member of CII’s National Council since 5 years.  He is also an active member of CII’s National Environment Council, and the CII Task Force on Integrity and Transparency in Governance.

Nikhil Kumar is the founder and Managing Director of TD Power Systems (TDPS), manufacturers of large electric generators for turbine driven power plants up to 200 MW.  Founded in 1999, TDPS manufactures generators for steam turbines, gas turbines, hydro-electric turbines, diesel and gas engines and also builds thermal power plants on an EPC basis up to a size of 150 MW.  TDPS listed on the BSE and NSE in September 2011.

Nikhil is an engineer from NIT Suratkal.  He enjoys a competitive game of badminton; in his teens he was in the Asian Games squad for India as well as State Champion of Karnataka. He loves outdoor sports - scuba diving, trekking, skiing are his favourites.

His wife, Lavanya Sankaran, is an accomplished literary fiction writer. They have one daughter, Aarya, and live in Bangalore

A graduate in Mathematical Statistics and an LLB from Delhi University, Kunwer Sachdev, Managing Director, Su-Kam incepted the company in the year 1998. Mr. Sachdev, then running a small-scale unit for production and marketing of Cable TV accessories, was plagued by frequent power cuts and soon realized that cutting-edge power solution products are a necessity in India.

Guiding force behind the company, Mr. Sachdev catapulted Su-Kam to the top league of companies’ in its category within a short span of a few years. With Innovation as the mantra, he has introduced a wide range of the finest Power Electronics products, using the world’s most advanced technologies.

Mr. Sachdev entered the field of Inverter manufacturing in1997, at a time when local inverter manufacturers’ had started to mushroom in every nook and corner of the streets. Setting a benchmark for others to follow, not only did he transform Su-Kam into India’s No. 1 Inverter company, but also challenged the entire industry into becoming an organized sector. Mr. Sachdev was the first to introduce technologies such as MOSFET, Micro controller based and DSP Sine Wave into inverters. He also laid great stress on power saving and other convenient features to make his products more relevant and cost-effective for consumers.

Owing to Mr. Sachdev’s efforts, Su-Kam today is a complete power solutions provider and a leading inverter brand that has been honoured with several awards accolades. Mr. Sachdev has been hailed with Enertia Award (2011), Top SME Entrepreneur Award (2010-2011) and Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2011).

Although academically not from a technical background, Mr. Sachdev keeps abreast with the latest technological developments. His passion for technology has given him thorough knowledge of the scientific aspects of business. As head of Su-Kam’s professional electronic unit, he is constantly conceptualizing and testing innovative power solutions, which can revolutionize people’s lives.

Mr. Kunwer Sachdev has invited by leading business schools like IIM-A, BITS Pilani etc. to share his success mantra with tomorrow’s business leaders and entrepreneurs.