Abhishek Joshi
VP & Head, Marketing, Analytics & Content Syndication - Digital Business,Sony Pictures Network

Abhishek Joshi is a media executive with over 15 years of Marketing, Analytics, business development and content partnerships, Strategy business planning and execution expertise spanning television networks, internet video, content distribution, Ad Agencies and brand licensing & marketing. A track record in building businesses, negotiating partnership deals and executing go to market strategies. A result oriented executive able to balance both commercial and creative objectives and lead multi-functional teams in fast paced corporate and start-up environments.

Currently he is Vice President & Head of Marketing, Analytics & Content Syndication , Digital Business @ Sony Pictures Networks India, freemium OTT platform, SonyLIV. He believes that digital media will redefine the consumer habits and create enormous value for the economy and society in the future.

Abhishek was awarded Digital Marketer of the Year, 2016. Abhishek’s work has been recognized and awarded at various prestigious events including Cannes Ad Festival, Clio and Goa Fest. Abhishek is an active member of AdTech, iMedia, DMAI, IAMAI and FICCI

He strongly believes and nurtures the spirit of teamwork, and is committed to the philosophy of enjoying every moment of the journey towards success, not the destination alone.

Anirudh Pandita
Founder, Pocket Aces (FilterCopy/Dice Media/Gobble)

Anirudh is a founder of Pocket Aces, a Sequoia Capital-funded, new age socially-distributed, multi-format, digital entertainment company making highly engaging content for the millennial audience via its channels FilterCopy, Dice Media, and Gobble. Prior to founding Pocket Aces, Anirudh was at Valo Group LLC, a value-oriented hedge fund based in Philadelphia. Prior to that, he worked in investment banking and private equity at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Istithmar World Capital in New York, London, and Dubai.

Anirudh holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Anirudh is a huge Liverpool FC fan, massive cricket buff, and a film fanatic. He loves playing poker, reading history, and discussing politics in his spare time. He calls Kuwait (where he grew up) and Mumbai (where he currently resides) home.

Blaise J Fernandes
President & CEO, The Indian Music Industry

Senior Executive with 24 years of CEO experience in strategic planning, development and management of a multinational business in India with specific expertise in international brands, adapting international products for local market and developing local consumer brands. Diverse skill sets across key business functions: General Management, Strategy & Business Development, Sales, Distribution and Marketing, P&L management and Advocacy. Built consumer brand equity, established strategic partnerships, structured dynamic teams, and pioneered new growth opportunities in a rapidly changing ecosystem. Consistently successful in anticipating and analyzing market trends, capitalizing on constantly changing Indian market opportunities, agilely adapting to changes in regulatory policies and challenges, brand positioning, and innovative marketing and media solutions.

Kartik Kalla
EVP & National Head – Programming, Marketing & AudaCITY
Radio City 91.1FM

Kartik Kalla is the Executive Vice President and National Head for Programming, Marketing and the in-house creative agency, AudaCITY for Radio City 91.1FM, India’s first private FM channel. With a career in the media and brands space spanning close to two decades, Kartik started his journey in advertising where he worked with leading agencies on the biggest brands globally.

Having established himself for close to a decade as an adman across leading agencies Leo Burnett, McCann Erickson, Contract and Publicis creating campaigns across international brands such as Coca Cola, Sprite, Nestle, Dominos and Reckitt Benckiser among others, Kartik moved to the radio industry almost a decade ago where he started off with Big FM as the Station Head for Delhi.

Beginning his stint at Radio City 91.1FM 8 years back as Head – Programming, North, Kartik progressed to the position of National Head – Programming for the channel within 2 years, heading a team of over 200 full time creative professionals that includes radio presenters, programme directors and sound engineers.

The year 2016 has seen Kartik’s career graph spike as he has had two profiles added to his portfolio, those of Head of Marketing for the FM brand and Head of AudaCITY, Radio City’s creative agency which works on ideating 360° brand campaigns for advertising clientele. Under the ambit of this role, Kartik manages a team of creative client solutions experts who carry the mandate of delivering out-of-the-box and innovative solutions for clients.

A singer and self-professed foodie, Kartik lives life by the philosophy of ‘whatever it takes’. His passions include simplifying and de-cluttering issues and communication in a manner that stand out for the brand.

Manav Dhanda
Group CEO, SAB GROUP

Manav Dhanda is the Group CEO of SAB GROUP Shri Adhikari Brothers Group Of Companies, over seeing all the businesses including broadcast, movie production & distribution, digital, publication etc.

He leverages over 19 years of experience across creative and business role with MSM’s Sony Entertainment Television, ENIL- Radio Mirchi, Reliance Broadcast.

He is one of the rare Corporate Media Executive who has grown from a creative role into business and strategy role. In a career span of 19 years Mr. Manav Dhanda has worked on and launched several TV shows like Indian Idol, Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahi, Crime Patrol to name a few that remain a landmark till date.

Manav Dhanda has also been a start up specialist and has been instrumental in the launch of Reliance Entertainment, BIG FM, built and sold a start up with India’s own M. S. Dhoni and yet another start up in US and Canada.

An Avid Sportsman & a professionally certified adventure sports freak, he also is a member of a music band which provides age appropriate learning & development content for preschoolers as a Passion Project.

Manish Maheshwari
CEO, Network18 Digital

Manish leads Network18 Digital, which is the mobile and internet arm of Network18 Group, India's leading media and entertainment group with over 425 million television viewers and 60 million unique digital visitors per month. Key group properties include moneycontrol, Firstpost, CNN-News18, CNBC India, ETV/News18-Languages, CricketNext, CompareIndia, Tech2, Overdrive and In.com

Outside of work, Manish mentors consumer- and SME-focused tech start-ups as India lead of Ivy League Alumni Angel Network (ILAANET) and is part of India's vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Previously, Manish headed Flipkart's Seller Business and Ecosystem and grew its marketplace by 10x to create a significant lead as India's #1 digital commerce player. Prior to Flipkart, Manish co-founded txtWeb and made it the world’s largest marketplace for text-based apps. txtWeb won several innovation awards e.g. mBillionth, NASSCOM. Prior to txtWeb, Manish was the Head of New Markets at Intuit, which is NASDAQ-listed world’s leading provider of software products for SMEs and consumers with brands such as TurboTax and QuickBooks.

Prior to this, Manish worked at McKinsey in New York, where he advised Fortune 500 companies, start-ups and government bodies. Previously, he worked at Procter & Gamble (P&G), starting his career in Mumbai and then in the Philippines, China and Singapore.

Manish has been featured in national and international newspapers, has presented at TED and has been profiled on many blogs. Manish relocated from the Bay Area, California to India in 2012.

Manish holds an MBA with honours from Wharton Business School, where he served on the MBA Admissions Committee, was elected Co-President of the Asia Club and won Shils-Zeidman Award, the highest award for Entrepreneurship at Wharton. He also served as an Economic Development volunteer in East Timor under the Wharton International Volunteer Program.

Manjit Singh Gill
Corporate Chef, ITC Hotels

Coming soon...

Piyush Sharma
Former CEO - New Initiatives | India, APAC, Zee Entertainment

Piyush Sharma is a global Tech, Media and entrepreneurial leader with a reputation for value creation and catalytic growth - across large billion dollar enterprises and start-ups. As CEO – New Initiatives, he created the successful factual entertainment foray of USD 1 bn Zee Entertainment in India and Asia Pacific region under the ‘Living’ brand and successfully spearheaded their digital commerce foray in India. Prior to this, he was the CEO of the digital and consumer publishing business of USD 4 bn Burda, Germany in India and S Asia.

Shalini Raghavan
Chief Marketing Officer – Consumers Products Division, L’Oréal India Private Ltd

Shalini Raghavan is the Chief Marketing Officer of the Consumer Products Division at L’Oréal India. Shalini has over 16 years of experience in the FMCG industry and has worked in leadership roles in marketing and business development of brands such as Lux, Ponds, Lakmé and Dove at Hindustan Unilever Limited before joining L’Oréal in mid-2016. At L’Oréal, she currently leads the overall marketing, media and digital mandate, with the responsibility to build and execute a strong strategy for the company's portfolio of CPD brands. These include L’Oréal Paris, Garnier, Maybelline New York & NYX Professional Make up across the categories of Haircolour, Makeup, Skincare and Haircare. She also leads the creation of an innovation pipeline and brand development for L’Oréal India at the country level.

Passionate about the beauty business, Shalini loves the opportunity she has at L’Oréal in driving overall marketing capabilities and digital initiatives in building categories of the future. Shalini is a Bachelor in Economics, and holds an MBA from the Mumbai-based S P Jain Institute of Management and Research. When not at work, Shalini who is married with two children 13 and 10 years old, is busy trying to do the much more difficult job of being Supermom and sacrifices sleep for fitness 5 times a week.

SHANTANU GANGANE
Head Marketing - Viu India

With more than 13 years of experience in the field of marketing for media and entertainment sector, Shantanu Gangane is currently Heads Marketing at Viu in India. Appointed in January 2017, he is successfully leading the brand communications and innovation for Viu.

At Viu, Shantanu’s core responsibilities include strategizing and execution of the go-to-market approach and create strong brand recall amongst the key stakeholders. In addition to this, he is also responsible to drive customer engagement and acquisition for Viu’s freemium and subscription based models.

With a deep-rooted understanding of consumer behavior, Shantanu has driven marketing and brand development campaigns of many popular brands such as Times Network, Nickelodeon, MTV, Radio City and Hungama among others. Prior to joining Viu, his last stint was with Times Network, where he was heading the marketing and research for their television channels. He also played an instrumental role in repositioning of the brands such as Times NOW, ET NOW and ZOOM along with the successful launch of Magicbricks NOW.

Shantanu holds a Master’s degree in Management Studies from Welingkar’s Institute of Management Development & Research.

Vikramjit Roy
Head - Film Facilitation Office of the Ministry of I&B and NFDC

Having begun his career in advertising at McCann Erickson, Vikramjit joined Sony Pictures Entertainment in 1997, where he worked for more than a decade, followed by a brief stint at Mumbai Mantra (a start-up from the Mahindra Group).

In 2010, The NFDC (a Public Sector Enterprise under the Ministry of I&B, Government of India) gave him an opportunity to live a personal philosophy of dedicating a few years of his life to the Government and the Industry that nurtured him.

As the General Manager, he executive-produced 22 feature films across 11 Indian languages including THE GOOD ROAD (India’s submission to the 86th Academy Awards), QISSA (Indo-German coproduction | Best Asian Film at the Toronto International Film Festival 2014), ARUNODAY (amongst the 15 Can't-Miss-Foreign- Language Films at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival), CHAUTHI KOOT (Cannes Film Festival 2015 - Un Certain Regard), ISLAND CITY (Best Debut Director at Venice Days 2015), and the much loved THE LUNCHBOX.

As Head of Marketing, a position he held simultaneously, Vikramjit played a key role in the positioning of NFDC brands - Cinemas of India (NFDC’s distribution brand across all media formats) and Film Bazaar (South Asia's largest film market) - as well as guiding the Corporation’s foray into digital distribution.

Given his leadership position at NFDC, he has been a key contributor towards NFDC’s objective of developing an efficient balanced growth in the film sector including working on policy matters with key Government and Industry stakeholders.

In 2016, Vikramjit was made the Head of the Film Facilitation Office (India's version of the Film Commission), set up by the Ministry of I&B and housed in the NFDC with a view to promote the 'Film in India' initiative and ensure ease of filming in India. The institution of the ‘Most Film Friendly State’ Award, won by Gujarat in 2015 and Uttar Pradesh in 2016, is a unique initiative to create a film friendly ecosystem across the Country.