Amar Thomas
GM Marketing, Idea Cellular Ltd

Tech enthusiast and seasoned marketer with successful track records as head of marketing at BlackBerry and currently GM marketing with a leading telecom services provider.

Apurva Chamaria
Vice President & Head – Corporate Marketing, HCL Technologies Ltd

Apurva Chamaria is the Vice President and Head of Corporate Marketing for HCL Technologies, a 7 Bn US$ global IT major. Under his leadership HCL became the fastest growing brand in the Interbrand top Indian brands list for 2 years in a row (No. 18 in 2015) and was valued in the Brand Finance Global 500 2016 league table with a brand value of 3.2 Bn US$ (up by 23% with a rating of AA+). In the last 3 years the HCL campaigns have won 101 prestigious global awards. In his 11 years at HCL, he’s performed various roles including in Sales, Marketing and Strategy. He has worked in various sales & marketing positions at Ranbaxy Laboratories. He’s also been a journalist and a client servicing executive at an advertising agency. In various parts of his career he’s worked in Asia-Pacific, India, Africa, U.K. and North America.
He's regarded as a thought-leader on “digital transformation” and is regularly quoted in publications. He’s a sought after speaker and has key-noted at TED x, IAMAI MarCon, DMAI GMAW, Oracle Cloud World, LinkedIn Tech Connect, Microsoft Ignite, Paul Writer GIIMS, Hindustan Times Top 50 Brands, Exchange for Media Pitch Top 50 Brands etc. and teaches a full credit digital marketing course at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) & Great Lakes Institute of Management. He’s a member of the advisory board at Mudra Institute of Communications (MICA), Ahmedabad.
He’s a columnist for the Pitch and Digital Market Asia magazines. His book “You are the key – unlocking doors through Social Selling” (Bloomsbury) hit # 2 in the Amazon India Best-Sellers list* within 20 days of being launched in Jan 2016 and is currently a best-seller on the WH Smith best-seller list as #1. It was also recognized by Prime-minister Modi for contributing to Digital India.

Bharat Kharbanda
Marketing Head, Assistant Vice President, Electric Fans & Home Comfort Business, Usha International

Coming soon...

Bhaskar Choudhuri
Director Marketing, Lenovo India

Passionate marketer believes in creating an ideal ecosystem of agencies for impact, relies on creativity to overcome constraints and deliver results. A passionate believer in nurturing teams and creating future leaders. Proven track record of successfully launching new brands and reinvigorating existing brands and businesses. Diverse Experience in Industries: FMCG, consumer technology and B2B technology businesses.

Chandrahas Panigrahi
Sr. Director and Consumer Business Head, ACER

Chandrahas has been influential in building ACER’s consumer business where he has been responsible for overall P&L, sales and marketing across multiple categories in South Asia. He is now responsible for facilitating growth, sales and marketing strategy. Panigrahi brings with him a go-to- market experience to ensure the continued growth momentum of ACER’s business across the region.

During his tenure, Chandrahas led the expansion of ACER into a full service entertainment brand, monitoring market Intelligence and formulating and implementing important policies. Under his leadership, ACER has built strong associations with its channel partners and customers to increase its brand presence across the length and breadth of the country. Mr. Panigrahi comes with 15 years of rich industry experience with leading companies in the technology domain spanning components and personal computing, having worked in different profiles ranging from consumer business, retail management, product management, marketing and distribution. Chandrahas is poised to leverage the existing successful platform and redefine marketing with his thoughtful analysis and insightful perspective.

Neelima Burra
Chief Marketing Officer

Armed with a degree in Marketing from Xavier Institute of Management, Neelima has over 15 years of experience in brand marketing and product /category management. Known for her remarkable communication skill with strong business analytical and leadership skill to drive business and brands, she is currently heading Marketing with Cargill Foods India Pvt. Ltd. in handling multiple portfolios of oils brands Leonardo Olive Oil, Sweekar, Gemini, Rath including Cargill’s own brand Nature Fresh of oil and atta.
Neelima Burra, a professional who has managed business across FMCG, OTC and consumer durable industry across brands has rich working knowledge in Brand Marketing, Product Management, Market Research, Media Management, Communication development, Project Management, Social Marketing and rural marketing. Neelima has demonstrated exceptional abilities in conceptualizing, planning and executing sales and marketing strategies for augmenting revenues, profitability and gain market shares for various top brands and products.
Before joining Cargill India, Neelima had worked with Usha International as Head – Marketing for two years handling a diverse portfolio of Kitchen Appliances, Home Appliances and Sewing Machine verticals. Prior to that, she worked with Whirlpool Corporation as General Manager (Marketing) in the Refrigerator Business. As Category Head, she was responsible of Frost Free Refrigeration Business in India & Asia Markets. She was also held responsible for complete product management, brand management, Consumer researches etc.
Neelima’s initial stints were with Britannia Industries Limited as Brand Manager for its brand ‘Tiger’ and with Hindustan Latex Limited as Product Head.

Mridula Shekhar
Head Marketing, Retail Business, Tata Steel

Coming soon...

Prabhakar Tiwari
Ex- CMO, PayU Payments Ltd

Prabhakar Tiwari is currently mentoring few startups in technology and media space. Earlier he was the Chief Marketing Officer at PayU Payments Limited responsible for PayUmoney, PayUbiz and PayUprime divisions focused on B2C & B2B business marketing projects.

His recent campaign #FaydeKiAadat was a unique and meaningful take on E-commerce Brand Building. Further, #FaydeKiDiwali Social Media Campaign was declared among top 5 festive campaigns by Twitter Festive Consumer Index. Currently Google is in the process of publishing a digital case study of #FaydeKiAadat campaign to showcase the unique approach and brilliant results.

Prior to this, Prabhakar worked as GM – Marketing for Passenger, Brand & Shoppe portfolio in CEAT Ltd. CEAT campaigns have won many awards including Effies, Emvies, Abby’s under his leadership. His most notable business building campaigns were ‘Monsoon Smart’ on Bike tyres and 'Nimbu Mirchi’ on SUV tyres with CEAT.

He started his sales and marketing career with classical FMCG setup of Marico Ltd, where he held different positions of increasing responsibility in marketing and sales functions for 5 years. Post Marico stint, he launched blockbuster brands of Danone dairy, World’s No. 1 fresh dairy company, in India as their Head Marketing for the startup.

Prabhakar, an active member of many CMO Peer Group Forums, has contributed to the marketing fraternity, as the jury member for many awards including Effies, Emvies, Impact etc and through panel discussions/ speaker assignments.

Rajesh Kumar
VP- Audience & Experiential Marketing, SAP Asia Pacific & Japan

Rajesh Kumar is the Head of Audience Engagement & Experiential Marketing for SAP in Asia, Pacific and Japan region. Experience for APJ. He holds responsibility for Audience & Industry Marketing, Demand Generation, Digital and Social Media, Brand stewardship and customer loyalty & advocacy for these markets, Rajesh has been a core part of the team that has driven significant growth as Head of Marketing for SAP in the Indian subcontinent over last 5 years. He has championed the role of marketing as an accountable business function aligning closely with the sales & channel
Prior to joining SAP, Rajesh was associated with Microsoft India in various leadership roles. Rajesh's career spans over two decades, with deep experience in sales & marketing across Technology and Consumer brands like Perfetti Van Mille, Pernod Ricard (earlier Seagram) & HCL. Besides marketing, his areas of expertise include Startups, Incubation, Direct & Channel Sales, Trade & Alliances Management, Sourcing /Operations and General Management. Rajesh is adept at hiring, motivating, coaching high-performance teams and stakeholder management in highly matrix, multicultural, international environments.
Rajesh is a regular speaker at Industry/marketing events and is a visiting faculty at prestigious business schools. He is a strong advocate of Digital and his views on marketing have been quoted by many media publications. Rajesh was honored with the Brand Leadership Award by CMO Asia and recognized among '50 most talented CMOs' in India in 2012. He has been a member of CII National Marketing Committee (2013-14), Chairman- World Brand Congress (2012-2013), and Chairperson of Advisory Council for DMAI convention since 2013. He was recognized with Innovation leadership Award in Asia Pacific & Japan at SAP in 2014 and recently declared as ‘CMO of the Year’ by VAR India magazine.
Rajesh received his degree in Mechanical Engineering from NIT Kurukshetra (1988), MBA from IIM-Calcutta (1994). He has also completed Executive programs on ‘Leading People & Change Management’ from Wharton (2012) and ‘Maximizing Leadership Potential from Harvard Business School (2014) and Digital & Social Media Strategies by Indian School of Business, Hyderabad (2015).

Sevantika Bhandari
Sr. VP & Head Marketing, DHFL

A veteran marketer with expertise in the financial domain, Sevantika has over 14 years of experience in Brand Management, Product Strategy, International Marketing, Online Marketing and Customer Relationship Management. A bachelor in Economics Honours, Sevantika holds a Post Graduate Degree in Management from MDI.
Since joining DHFL in May 2014, she has been instrumental in making the brand a household name in the target segment and creating relevant products and communication for the company both in the traditional and the digital space. The innovative and successful “Ghar jaisa Loan” was conceptualised and implemented with DHFLs brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan and was backed by extensive customer research and insight.
Prior to DHFL, Sevantika served as Director –Marketing at Max Bupa. She successfully conceptualized key brand campaigns including the Family First campaign for Max Bupa’s flagship product Heartbeat, strengthened Max Bupa’s product pipeline through new to market retail and group products, spearheaded Max Bupa’s digital strategy making it the most visible brand in the segment, instituted and successfully drove two consecutive editions of Max Bupa Walk for Health, a first of its kind health initiative by the brand.
She also served as the Head Marketing, International Retail Banking Group at ICICI Bank where she was leading critical portfolios like NRI Product and Marketing for Indian & International markets and handling diverse teams of product and brand managers.
She has won prestigious accolades such as the Brand Builder Award and Best Marketer Award at World Brand Congress 2014 and was also declared one of the top 50 CMOs in India by CMO Asia in 2013.
Sevantika is an avid traveller and theatre enthusiast and takes a keen interest in pottery during her free time.

Shashank Sinha
Associate Vice President Marketing, Eureka Forbes Limited

Shashank is Associate Vice President and Head Marketing (B2C) at Eureka Forbes. An accomplished Sales & Marketing professional with high caliber general management qualifications and over 20 years of experience with Eureka Forbes.

Graduated in Economics from Nagpur and went on to specialize in marketing from Pune (1996). He joined Eureka Forbes in July 1996 as a management trainee and has climbed up to be its Head Marketing.

Some of his experiences include brand management, involving brand extension and repositioning as well as management of national sales and marketing programmes. His 20 year journey in Eureka Forbes has taken him from marketing to business development to sales operations and back now to marketing. In this journey, Sinha has been a member of the prestigious 'Dream Team' of Eureka Forbes - an exclusive group of high achievers charged with the development and initiation of turnkey assignments that have a crucial bearing on the future path of the organisation.

As AVP & Head Marketing, he is responsible for creation of systems and processes that drive a high level of execution in marketing and sales, thereby resulting in high productivity, customer relationships and effective resource utilization. He also drives special transformation projects and market category strategy development and brand equity management of iconic brands like Aquaguard Water Purification System, Euroclean Vacuum Cleaners, Aeroguard Air Purifiers and Eurovigil Electronic Home Security Solutions.

New category creation/redefining existing products, deployment and refinement of short, medium and long term business plans & strategic road maps business and alignment of organisational goals, actions, systems and processes to increase speed of decision-making, diligence, execution and profitability are his core areas of strength.

Though Shashank does not have any engineering degree, Eureka Forbes gave him the opportunity to set up their own vacuum cleaner manufacturing company and today, Forbes Aquamall Ltd is one of India's largest manufacturers of high quality vacuum cleaners and he is proud of the same. He also takes pride in having nurtured the Euroclean Vacuum Cleaners.

He has lead the digital transformation of Eureka Forbes and setting up the much awarded lead management & e-commerce process.

"Most professionals may wonder 'why such a long stint in one organisation’, I know why. Eureka Forbes has ensured I enjoy each moment of this journey. The pride of running 'my own company'; earning well to support my family; learning together while growing and I say with immense pride… I am a Eurochamp, "says Shashank.

Sumit Bedi
VP - Marketing, Indiamart Intermesh Ltd

Driven by creativity and passion to enhance the brand experience, Sumit is responsible for leading the marketing, advertising, research and communication initiatives for the organization. He has played an active role in spearheading various brand building and product marketing efforts to lead the brand on a high growth trajectory.

Prior to this, Sumit honed his skills at Info Edge India Ltd, serving as its Associate Vice President, Marketing, where he undertook strategic marketing operations for 99acres.com.

Sumit earned his PGDM from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore after completing B. Tech from Punjab Engineering College. He is an avid reader, leadership and management being his favorite subjects.