Atul Ahluwalia

Atul Ahluwalia is the President of Corporate Voice | Weber Shandwick, India’s premier and the most awarded public relations firm. He has over 20 years of experience in the communications industry. 

With an astute focus on path breaking campaigns, Atul has catalyzed his firm’s journey of winning global awards such as the APAC SABRE, IPRA, PR Week, IPRCCA, Stevie's, UN Grand Prize for PR Excellence, among others. 

Atul is a founder-member of the Public Relations Consultants Association of India and the Chairman of its Advisory and Constitutional Committee. He was the Chair of the Jury at the Stevie’s Awards 2011.

Deepa Day

Deepa Dey is the Head of Corporate Communications, India and South Asia for Bharti Airtel.

With over 19 years experience in PR and Corporate Communications – spanning both agency and corporate, she has worked in leadership role in a range of sectors including Hospitality, Retail, Aviation, Telecom, Consumer Electronics, Infrastructure. She has handled various aspects of communication including Corporate Communication, advertising, event management, employee communication, organizational culture building and online reputation management.

Paresh Chaudhry

Paresh began his career as a Marketing professional and has been extensively involved in Brand building, Brand Management, Sales management and Corporate Reputation Management. Across industries. With over 25 years of experience, he has worked in a number of blue chipped companies including Reliance Industries Limited, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Smith Kline Beecham, Wockhardt and Raymonds. His varied experience in several industries clearly reflects that his Corporate Communication skills cut across all products and services influencing Brand and Corporate PR. Paresh is an MBA with specialization in Marketing and has completed a Public Affairs certification course from the Hong Kong University.

Paresh is the founder President of Indian Forum of Corporate Communicators (IFCC), a large group of practicing Corporate Communications professionals from leading corporates across the country. He is an active member of Round Table India, a social, non-political, cultural International organization. He has held several National positions in the organization including being the Chairman of Round Table Bangalore and North India.

An acclaimed speaker, he has been guest faculty to the top management institutes, mass media & brand educational colleges. He has also advised a few companies to develop their message house for sharp brand positioning. A voracious reader, Paresh is a keen sportsman with cricket being his favorite. He has captained University Cricket teams and Bombay Cricket Associations.

Nikhil Dey

Nikhil Dey serves at the helm of the Genesis Burson-Marsteller Public Relations team, bringing over 15 years experience in both the agency and corporate side of communications. 
Nikhil's previous experience includes his time as Vice President, Corporate Communication for Fiat India Pvt. Ltd. Prior to this, Nikhil was heading northern India operations for a prominent public relations firm.
Nikhil joined Genesis Burson-Marsteller in 2004 when he stepped in as leader of the northern and eastern markets. Throughout his tenure, he has grown and developed a team that includes some of the best emerging talent in the country. As President, Nikhil oversees a diverse staff of communications professionals across seven key markets. He works closely with client leaders to formulate targeted communications strategies, message development as well as providing crisis counsel and training.
In his spare time, Nikhil has conducted a number of communication courses and guest lectured at a number of esteemed institutions including ISB Hyderabad; Symbiosis Pune; the Delhi School of Communication; International Management Institute; Lady Sriram College, Institute for Technology and Management; K.C. College of Management; IIPM and Apeejay Institute of Management.
Nikhil has a post-graduate degree in Economics from Loyola College, Chennai and an MBA from International Management Institute, Delhi.

Madan Bahal

Madan Bahal

Meenu Handa

Meenu Handa has  over twenty  two  years of a wide and varied experience in corporate communications. She has worked  on a diverse set of communication issues across industries ranging from Boeing, Swatch Group, HCL, Citibank, STAR TV, Hindustan Construction Company, Allied Domecq, and Nokia among others. Her areas of specialization include, corporate strategy, public affairs, media strategy, crisis communications and marketing communications.

She was Director Corporate Communications at Microsoft,India. Her responsibilities included strategy and execution of both internal and external communication including analyst relations.

For her many contributions at Microsoft, Meenu  was recognized as the winner of the ‘Area Chairman's award for excellence’ in 2010. An industry thought leader she regularly speaks at various global and domestic forums. She was recently conferred the Corporate Affairs Leadership Award by the World CSR Congress. In 2012, she was recognized as the Corporate Communications professional of the year by exchange4media.

Prior to Microsoft, as a consultant at and as Vice President of IPAN, Handa successfully created communication strategies aimed at ministries to assert changes in policy and tax issues for clients like HLL, ISTMA, MAIT, TPAI and devised  pre emptive crisis and issue management strategies for clients like, Dr Reddy’s, HLL and Amway. She has developed and implemented advocacy programmes for social marketing organizations like Population Services International (PSI), Commercial Marketing Strategies (CMS), International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Public Affairs Center (PAC) and CRY.

 

She has played a key role in establishing, and turning around several brands  in India including  Swatch Group,  MTV, Star TV and Jim Beam brands.  Handa regularly conducts communication workshops for business leaders  and   has been  a Guest Lecturer at the  Delhi School of Communications..

Prema Sagar

Genesis Public Relations, which Prema established in November of 1992, mirrors the journey of India's most trusted public relations and public affairs firm. In 2008, it was ranked as 'India Consultancy of the Year' by The Holmes Report,             acknowledging Prema’s success in nurturing reputation whilst managing complex issues in a business environment rife with inherent contradictions.

Prema has played a leadership role in the industry demonstrated in her role as the Founding President of the Public Relations Consultants Association of India , Council Member for India of the International Public Relations Association and member of the global Board of Management of the International Communication Consultancies Organization.

In recognition of her contribution to global public relations, Prema was invited as the only Indian on the global jury for the first ever PR Lions at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival 2009. She was earlier in Oct 2005 inducted into the 'ICCO Hall of Fame', the first Asian to receive this rare honour, joining a select group of global personalities including Daniel Edelman, Founder and Chairman of Edelman, John D. Graham, Chairman & CEO, Fleishman-Hillard and Harold Burson, founding Chairman, Burson-Marsteller.

As a successful entrepreneur, she mentors future leaders as a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs , the world's largest not-for-profit organisation promoting entrepreneurship.

Inspired by Mother Teresa, Prema established the Genesis Foundation, a trust created to provide access to world class medical care for abandoned and underprivileged children facing life-threatening ailments. The work at the Foundation is Prema's life mission.

Prema is married to a lawyer. Her son is a professor and daughter is learning the ropes of PR.

Roma Balwani

Roma Balwani was elevated recently as Chief Group Communications Officer at Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., one of India’s leading business houses. In 2013 she was felicitated and received the Strategic Communication Leadership Award at the Corporate Affairs Forum, Mumbai. She has recently been included in the eminent Jury for the SABRE Awards, India. In 2013 the Mahindra Group, under her leadership, bagged the Champion of Champions Award from Public Relations Council of India (PRCI).In 2012, she was included in Global Influence 100, a listing of the 100 Most Important In-House Communicators in the world, brought out by the renowned Holmes Global Report for the second year in a row.

She was also the first Indian PR professional to receive the prestigious SABRE Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement 2012, in the inaugural year of this global award being instituted for individuals who have demostrated a stellar performance in their role during the year.In a career spanning over 30 years, Roma has served as Sr. Vice President at Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and VP and Head of Communications at Aptech.

An Economics graduate with post-graduation in Marketing from the University of Mumbai,Roma has been instrumental in communicating the Group’s transformation into a global powerhouse. Roma was also the only Indian in-house corporate communicator to be invited to speak at the prestigious ‘Communication on Top’ forum which follows the World Economic Forum in Davos. Roma is also a member of the PR Committee of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) and the Association of Business Communicators of India (ABCI). She has successfully completed two prestigious global leadership programmes. The first was conducted by the Michigan Ross School of Business, while the second was the Mahindra Universe programme for senior managers at the Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts.

Roma is a Member of the global advisory Committee of World Communication Forum (WCF) at Davos, Switzerland.Roma is on the advisory board of the Promise Foundation.

Sharif Rangnekar

Sharif has over 20 years of experience in the fields of journalism, communication and publishing, having worked with organizations such as Penguin Books India, The Economic Times and The Pioneer. During his career he has held prestigious positions and in fact was the sole Indian representative of the Indian Government at WIPO in 1997.In the past few years he was elected thrice to the board of global network of independent PR and marketing consultancies, PROI, and is currently in his second term as President of PRCAI - the association of Indian PR consultancies. During the past four years he has become an active teacher and speaker at different forums. He was a special invitee to the 10 year celebrations of PR in South Korea and has held training workshops for various groups including the Information Officers of the Malaysian Government. As a writer he continues to contribute to various publications such as the Business Standard, Hindustan Times, Times of India (Crest), Hindu Business Line, www.indiabiznews.com and the Far Eastern Economic Review. He was also the editor of the bestselling book - Realising Brand India.