Paul Rossi
President -The Economist Group

Mr. Paul Rossi serves as the President of the Economist Group Media Businesses at The Economist Group Limited. He was the Managing Director and Executive Vice President of Americas of The Economist Group Limited. Mr. Rossi joined The Economist in 1987 and managed advertising sales for the Middle East and Africa. He later became advertising director in Asia and subsequently in North America; commercial director and then publisher of Economist.com. He also served as a Publisher of The Economist in North America.

Ajay Srinivasan
Chief Executive - Financial Services, Aditya Birla Group

Ajay Srinivasan has been the Chief Executive of the Financial Services business at the Aditya Birla Group since July 2007.

In his role as Chief Executive, Financial Services, he sets the strategic direction and leadership for the Group’s Financial Services business which covers several verticals such as life insurance, fund management, private equity, wealth management, retail broking, capital markets based lending, corporate financing, infrastructure finance, housing finance, general insurance broking, health insurance, pension fund management and online personal finance management.

Under his leadership, the financial services business has diversified into a large conglomerate with 8 new verticals. Aditya Birla Financial Services Group (ABFSG) ranks among the top 5 fund managers in India (excluding LIC) with an AUM of INR 217,840 Crore as on 30th September 2016 and has a lending book of Rs 31,823 Crore.

As on 31st March 2016, ABFSG reported aggregate revenue from businesses at Rs. 9,299 Crores and profit before tax from established businesses, in excess of Rs. 1,110 Crore. Anchored by about 11,500 employees and trusted by over 10 million customers, ABFSG has a nationwide reach through over 1,350 points of presence and more than 125,000 agents / channel partners. The business has been one of the fastest growing non banks in the country.

With a proven track record for building successful businesses, his experience in the financial services industry spans over two and a half decades.

Prior to joining the Aditya Birla Group, Ajay was Chief Executive, Fund Management at Prudential Corporation Asia, based in Hong Kong between January 2001 and July 2007. Ajay joined Prudential in 1998 as Managing Director of Prudential ICICI Asset Management Company, Prudential’s Indian fund management joint venture with ICICI Bank. Within two years of operation, Prudential ICICI AMC had grown to become the largest private sector asset management company in India.

Under Ajay’s leadership, Prudential’s fund management operations in Asia grew rapidly, both organically and through acquisition. Ajay oversaw a business that spanned ten markets, including Japan, with total funds under management of about USD 70 Bn, which made it at the time the second largest retail fund manager in Asia. As a member of Prudential Corporation Asia’s Board of Directors, Ajay also oversaw the development of Prudential’s retirement business in Asia.

Before his innings at Prudential, Ajay was the Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of the Indian operations of Threadneedle Asset Management.

Ajay has been engaged with several bodies including the Financial Planning Standards Board, the CII Committee on Financial Sector Reforms, the CII Committee on Insurance and Pensions, the FICCI Committee on Insurance, the CII Committee on Financial Inclusion, the CII Committee on Financial Sector development in India and as a member of the Advisory Board of the City of London. He is also actively engaged with some non profit organisations including Pride India and the Ashoka Fellowships.

Ajay holds a BA with Honours in Economics from St Stephens College, University of Delhi and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Arnab Goswami
MD and Co-founder, Republic TV

Journalist and well known television news anchor Arnab Goswami is the managing director and co- founder of the upcoming news channel, Republic TV. Arnab Goswami began his career as a junior editor with the Kolkata-based Telegraph in 1994, before moving to television, just as the liberalization policies that transformed the country’s economy ended India’s era with only a single government-owned channel. He rose to become a senior anchor and editor at NDTV, a new cable network, before quitting in 2004 to set up Times Now, a new channel backed by the Times of India media group. Goswami quickly led Times Now to leadership in less than a year of launching the channel in 2006. He became famous as the outspoken Editor-in- Chief and news anchor of Times Now, which he launched and headed from 2006 to 2016. On Times Now, he anchored The Newshour, a popular live debate at 9 pm on weekdays. He also hosted ‘Frankly Speaking with Arnab’. At Times Now, he revolutionized news coverage, anchoring for 100 hours during the 26/11 attack, spearheading the greatest exposes against corruption, and path- breaking interviews with Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi in 2014 that set the news agenda for the National Election. On November 1 2016, Goswami resigned as Editor-in- Chief of Times Now and ET Now, and subsequently announced his upcoming venture Republic TV, to be launched in 2017. Goswami is a postgraduate in Social Anthropology from Oxford University, and has been a visiting fellow at Cambridge University's Department of International Relations. He has been invited to speak on Indian media at Oxford, Cambridge, Kings College London and most recently the House of Lords. In 2001, Goswami’s book ‘Combating Terrorism’ was quoted in debates in Parliament on the drafting of an anti terror law. He has been published in several international journals, on geo political trends in India and the region.

Jack Uppal
Vice President, Marketing and Customer Experience Chevrolet India

Jack Uppal has been associated with Chevrolet/GM for a prominent 15 years of his career and has held integral positions in GM offices around the world - Canada, the Middle East, Singapore and is now posted in India.

With Chevrolet’s expanding portfolioin India– Beat, Cruze, Sail, Trailblazer and Tavera, the need for his global expertise was noted essentialforIndia’s dynamic economy. Hence, Jack Uppal was appointed Vice President of Marketing and Customer Experience for GM India, on 1st August, 2015. He handles GM’s home grown global brand Chevrolet and has played an integral role in improving its brand equity in the past year.

Jack manages diverse teams internally across verticals like Chevrolet complete care, Chevrolet contact center and Chevrolet customer experience. Having had years of experience in brand management, he has improved Chevrolets brand visibility in the Indian market by partnering with Amazon for online booking of Trailblazer and engaging Chevroletas Manchester United’s title shirt sponsorship . This move hasenabledChevrolet to connect with consumers beyond the automobile space. As a part of this partnership, he undertook activities like refurbishing football pitches in Kolkata and mustering Manchester United fans to be made mascots during the Manchester United game, all of which gained nation wide publicity.

Under his leadership, Chevrolet launched their latest campaign in 2016 for Chevrolet Cruze which positioned Cruze as a car for independent and confident thinkers. The essence of this TVC has positioned Chevrolet as a brand for car enthusiasts who do their own thinking.

Tailoring and delivering as per consumer demands, incorporating a global touch with a local feel in their communication strategies and a calculated use of digital and mobile platforms to connect with consumers is Jack Uppal’s 3 formula marketing mantra for India in the upcoming years.

In the past, Jack has held sales service positions across Canada for brands like Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac and Hummer. He was associated with Hummer as their Brand Manager in Canada, in addition to being the Regional Advertising Manager for Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac.

Sujit Ganguli
Sr. General Manager & Head - Brand and Communications Group

Sujit Ganguli is a Senior General Manager at ICICI Bank where he heads the –Brand & Communications Group. He is responsible for ICICI Bank's brand, digital advertising, media, market research, social media and corporate communications portfolio.

Prior to this, Sujit worked in ICICI Prudential Life Insurance. He was the SVP & Head – Marketing, where he was overall in charge of the Brand and the Direct Sales & Internet channels of the company.

Sujit has won awards and accolades at various forums, both international as well as Indian.

Sujit obtained his Post Graduate Degree in Management (PGDM) from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore in 1994. He began his career with Hindustan Lever Ltd., in the Sales and Marketing function.

Sujit is a keen sports fan and loves watching sports programs during weekends. He also loves spending time with his family and going on long trips with them.

Vinay Singhal
Co-founder & CEO, WittyFeed
Partner Speaker

Vinay Singhal is the co-founder & CEO of WittyFeed, India's largest & world's 2nd largest viral content company. Wittyfeed is the 20th most visited website in India.
Hailing from Nunsar, a small village in Haryana, Vinay’s hunger for excellence made him the very first person from his family to pursue engineering. Entrepreneurial bug bit him early in 2010 while he was still pursuing his B.Tech, Computer Science from Chennai. A few failures and a score of learning later WittyFeed.com took shape in September 2014 under the aegis of Vatsana Technologies. Just completed two years and WittyFeed.com is already valued at $30 million.

Vinay, still only 26, has 6+ years of successful experience providing fiscal, strategic and financial leadership in uniquely challenging situations. Internet media industry has always been his work field. He is an innovative and result-driven leader, focused on achieving exceptional results in highly competitive environments. He is highly motivated and has all important core values in place.

He believes in affecting positive change in others and the community as a whole. He derives his strength from the people and his team around him. He says. “My journey from 2010 to 2014 was nothing short of a roller coaster ride. What kept me going was – My Team. It still is my propelling force.”

Aditya Save
Sr. VP & Chief Marketing Officer,People Interactive

Aditya Save is the Senior Vice President of People Interactive and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at People Interactive. Prior to this, Aditya was heading Marico’s Global Centre of Excellence for Digital and Media covering markets across Africa and Asia.

For close to a decade now, Aditya has been actively involved in the Digital & Mobile domains. He was a member of the inaugural Mobile Marketing India council & has spoken at MMA forums in Singapore, Delhi & London. His paper on Mobile Marketing has been published by the IDM in the UK.

He is an early-stage investor & actively mentors startups in the Consumer Tech space.

Pankaj Parihar
Asso. VP & Head Digital Marketing | Transformation | Ecommerce | Programmatic,Godrej Consumer Products | Godrej Group

Pankaj S Parihar, is in the Marketing communication field, for over 15 years, with over 10 years in Digital Marketing. He is a multi award winner true-blue digital native, who heads digital center of excellence & digital transformation at GCPL & Godrej Group. Pankaj leads complete Digital & Ecom lifecycle of various brands at GCPL & Godrej group. Before joining Godrej group, Pankaj was VP and Business head – at OmnicomMediaGroup India, and was business lead for Unilever India digital business & other key clients from north and west. Before that he has worked with marketing communications giants like Ogilvy & Mather, Quasar (WPP Digital), Times of India Group.

Pankaj, is also a great contributor to various industry bodies in India, like – IAMAI, MMA, adtech, iMedia, through active participation & bringing in thought leadership. He’s been a judge and jury at various domestic and international award functions, and has been speaking on Digital Transformation at various large industry events . He also teaches digital marketing at various top B schools like SP Jain, Symbiosis et cetera .

He considers himself as an “Hyperadopter”, is an auto head, and a food & fitness enthusiast.

Sankalp Mehrotra
Sales Head - Commerce, Media & Monetization

Sankalp heads brand sales for Flipkart. In short time, he’s scaled revenues from zero to an industry leadership position. Previously, as the Executive Director for South East Asia he led growth for Affle - a Singapore headquartered, Mobile Audience as a Service (MAAS) platform for marketers & publishers.

For close to seven years, he was part of leading media agencies (ZenithOptimedia, Cheil and DDB) managing top brands in India, Malaysia and Singapore.

He’s been a jury member and active speaker at various industry events. He has also won multiple awards for work done for brands, across agencies and as a publisher.

Beyond work, Sankalp enjoys cycling, squash and climbing. He’s scaled Kilimanjaro, StokKangri and a few others and has his eyes set on a challenging goal for this year too.

Sankalp holds a Masters from the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA)

Shamsuddin Jasani
Managing Director, Isobar India

Shams, as he is fondly known, has been in the digital industry for close to 14 years across agencies such as Hungama, Mediaturf and Apnaloan, before launching Isobar in India in 2008. Since then he has grown the agency from a zero to over 25 million dollars in billing and led the agency to win 4 Agency of the Year awards in 2012, 2014, 2015&2016.

He’s been named an A-Lister on Campaign India’s top 500 people in advertising and marketing list and has featured on e4m's Impact Magazine’s Digital Power100 list last two years in a row. He was also voted by brand equity as one of media's valued players by brand equity across media's. He is one of the few people who has an experience as a Media Owner, agency and client.

He was one of the first people to introduce the concept of ROI based marketing in India in his stint at Apnaloan the pioneers of Lead based marketing in India.

He also is visiting faculty at Rizvi management institute and North point institute where he has introduced the potential of digital marketing to the students of these institutes.

Sunny Nagpal
Managing Director – Httpool India

Sunny Nagpal is a seasoned executive, experienced in strategic planning, development and management of a multimillion dollar international operations with specific expertise in Digital Advertising Industry. He has consistently been successful in analyzing market trends and capitalizing on global market opportunities to create high profit, high-visibility partnerships through product development, brand positioning and innovative strategies. He is a serial entrepreneur and an angel investor with focus on Media and technology with investment/participation across India, Asia, Europe and ANZ.

He is currently leading the Ad Tech Platforms globally and India business operations at Httpool - one of the leading international online and mobile advertising providers with focus on emerging markets. He co-founded Httpool in India in 2010, and under his leadership, the company has successfully executed 3000+ digital media campaigns across online, mobile, search and social, partnering with major agencies and supporting over 250 top brands across all industry categories.

Managing Director and Co-Founder at Httpool India, Sunny Nagpal heads the overall strategy & corporate development. In the past, he has worked in key positions across multiple functional areas with some of largest media houses like the Times Group, Network 18 Group, SVG (earlier Yahoo-SITG), MIH (Naspers).

A Management Post Graduate, IT Graduate and an Advanced Application Developer from IBM, he brings with him rich experience in Product Development. He has to his credit establishing a central point for Internet and Mobile advertising activities on the local market through implementing advanced technology, services and products and consultancy activities.

He is currently involved in development of a Cross Channel marketing platform that would enable execution of campaigns across all channels and devices from one single point with broadest range of creative formats, targeting options and pricing models and report advanced data for extended analytics deploying attribution modelling. Sunny has been on Advisory Boards and Jury Panels of leading industry awards like IDMA, IAMAI, MMA (India + APAC).

He is a regular speaker at global advertising events, and authors opinions, articles, researches and insights for major publications. He is a certified Scuba Diver, loves swimming, playing snooker, writing poetry and is currently pursuing Private Pilot License course at Bombay Flying Club.

Vivek Bhargava
CEO, DAN Performance Group

A digital marketing veteran with a two-decade experience, Vivek Bhargava is the Chief Executive Officer of DAN Performance Group, wherein he heads and is responsible for all the digital performance agencies of Dentsu Aegis Network.An early frontrunner in the digital revolution in India, Vivek believes that ‘digital’ is much more than a mere marketing medium, playing the role of a catalyst and multiplier across every aspect of business. He consults an impressive roster of clients and advises them on the most effective digital strategies for their brands.

Prior to this, Vivek was the CEO atiProspect India, a part of the Dentsu Aegis Network.

Vivek has donned the role of an investor in the reality television show The Vault which funds innovative start-ups by promising entrepreneurs on the merit of their business idea instantly.

He is a TEDx speaker, where he recently delivered a talk on ‘Money can buy happiness.’ He is a regular orator at global events such as ad:tech, SES, SMX, I-com and the Apex Digital conferences in India. He has been invited by educational institutes of repute, namely IIT Mumbai, IIM Bangalore and 20 others.

He is the Co-Chair at SEMPO APAC and on the advisory board of industry bodies like ad:tech, DMAi and DMTI. He is on the board of Young Presidents Organization Mumbai.

Vivek has been awarded for his invaluable contribution to the digital marketing fraternity on several occasions, couple of the coveted recognitions being titled ‘Marketer of the Year’ and named one of the top 50 digital icons of India.Under his able leadership, iProspect India has won over 100 industry awards globally along with bagging the ‘Agency of the Year 2015’ label at the 5th Asian Customer Engagement Forum.

Vivek actualized his entrepreneurial edge back in 1997 when he founded Communicate 2. The company joined hands with iProspect from the Dentsu Aegis Network in 2012. He led iProspect Communicate 2 as the Founder and Managing Director. The company was rebranded as iProspect India at the end of 2015 and Vivek has been holding reign as Chief Executive Officer ever since.iProspect India is home to over 250 people across four offices in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai.It offers brands an entire spectrum of result-oriented digital marketing strategies.

Vivek is a proud national level table tennis player and has won multiple laurels in the sport worldwide, one of the highlights being when Vivek bagged the bronze medal in the 39+ table tennis nationals held in 2015. He is also an avid chess player and an amateur paragliding pilot. A complete travel buff, he has travelled to more than 50 countries on various projects and tournaments.

Connect with Vivek on LinkedIn and Twitter.