Forty-four year old Bharat Dhuppar, after his stint with the hospitality and real estate sector for over two decades is now playing a pivotal role of driving the sales and marketing at Mumbai-based Omkar Realtors & Developers Pvt. Ltd. Designated as the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), he currently heads the sales, marketing & CRM functions of the company which has established itself as a key brand in Mumbai’s realty market. He began his corporate journey with the premium brands in hospitality sector including the Taj Hotels Resort & Palaces and the Oberoi Hotels& Resort before foraying into the realty vertical. His passion for the realty domain is reflected in the successful deliverance of big ticket projects valuing Rs 5,000-crore plus during his previous engagements at Lodha Group, Mantri Developers and the Chatterjee Group. His realty domain expertise encompasses planning & construction, sales & marketing, finance & investments, legal & liasoning and customer networking with an in-depth exposure to Biotech, IT, SEZ, residential and retail project development.

At Omkar Realtors, Bharat has immersed himself in introducing new age brand strategies and marketing collaborations to capture the variant group of target customer base while propelling a young brand to level next. In 2010, under his aegis as the CMO of Mantri Developers, the brand bagged the prestigious CMO Asia Pacific award for branding in Real Estate. He has been also nominated for the Marketer of the Year award in the recent past.

A student of English Literature from Jadavpur University and specialising in Communication from Clarion College. With over 14 years of experience in advertising and marketing - across diverse categories from cigarettes, telecom, lifestyle and jewellery and fashion apparel - having been extensively involved in building powerful brands.

The valuable advertising experience and learnings with Lowe and Ogilvy through ITC India Kings, Classic, Wills Lifestyle and Vodafone......helped to harness and strengthen skill-sects like creative analysis and communication and account management. The next step was a natural transition into the world of marketing in the space of branded jewelry from Tanishq and World Gold Council to fashion apparel in Future Group for Pantaloons, Converse and Planet Sports.

I believe that marketing is a passion involving effective deployment of multifarious communication tools, media innovations and differentiated expertise to lead any brand into category leadership.

A seasoned marketing professional with over 19 years in Marketing & Communication, with a Special emphasis on branding and product management, along with digital marketing. With an experience across multiple categories and industries across the globe that spans various categories like – Telecom, Travel & Tourism, Financial services, and Consumer goods, Airlines, Hotels and Real Estate. Pratik has a keen understanding of the youth consumer mindset and the digital e- commerce industry. A Specialist in Brand architecture and re engineering, brand launches and creating positioning across all stakeholders – customers, partners and employees with a record of having achieved organizational goals and work to establish businesses and brands that grow and last. He was one of the key architects in building the Bharti Airtel brand.

Rafiq Gangjee currently is the VP – Marketing & Communications at India’s prestigious studio, YASH RAJ FILMS, in Mumbai.  Rafiq’s passion a few years ago was focused on setting up a School of Film & Television for the Indian M&E industry, while he was concurrently performing his duties as Vice President of South East Asia’s largest television content production house, Balaji Telefilms Limited. He was additionally the Head of the HR department where his responsibility as mentor and educator bridged the divide between the staff and management.

 He was largely instrumental in setting up their first overseas subsidiary office in Sharjah.  Rafiq started his own organisation and Consultancy, Zabardast Communications, in 1989. He has worked on films with several local as well as multinational clients both in India and abroad, devoting a considerable amount of time to scripting, producing, directing and shooting advertising and corporate films.

Ranked first in Biochemistry from Mumbai University, he took up teaching Genetics at the St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. He then moved on as a Marketing Manager in a Shipping company. This was followed with a move to Advertising at Everest (an affiliate of Saatchi & Saatchi) and later to Rediffusion-DY&R, where he was an Account Director on some of India’s largest brands.

Ms. Shaswati Saradar is the Director General at MRUC. Ms. Saradar started her career with McCann Erickson India and then moved on to Ogilvy and Mather as Media Director. She worked with Maruti Suzuki India Limited for 7 years and then joined Zee Network as Vice President and Head of Marketing for Europe & Russia before moving on to Media Research Users Council in Jan 2011.  

 Shaswati is an English Literature Honours Graduate from Presidency

College, Kolkata. She is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Mass Communication with an academic Career of PG  Diploma in Advertising and PR from the batch of 1995.

18 years as a Marketing Professional with extensive experience in domestic and global brands, Ms. Saradar has had expertise in building and managing multi product brands. She has a very good track record of Brand Portfolio Management, Strategy & Budgeting that have directly contributed to top-line growth and return on investments for a Brand.

Marketing & PR Director with Volvo Auto India, Sudeep has successfully driven all Marketing Communication Campaigns in his very enriching 4 years with the company. He works very closely with the global teams on their brand development campaigns and is solely responsible for driving and streamlining all initiatives of Volvo Cars in India. He is responsible for successfully launching the XC60, S80 and S60 in India. He recently announced the foray of Volvo Cars in the world of fashion by becoming the official car partner for Lakme Fashion Week 2012. Sudeep has over 16 years of experience starting with Advertising and moving on to the Automobile Industry. A sports enthusiast he is passionate about cricket and soccer and loves to explore adventure sports like rafting and mountaineering in his spare time. Sudeep is a post graduate from the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai and is currently based in Delhi.

Shubhodip Pal is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at Micromax, leading all the marketing efforts of the company globally. He comes with an experience of 16 years, during which he has worked with globally renowned brands such as Samsung, ABN AMRO and HP.

He has worked in the consumer space, in strategizing and implementing new and innovative campaigns and achieved laurels at national and international levels. Pal began his career in 1997 with Samsung India Electronics and spent over nine years serving different roles. In 2005, he moved to ABN AMRO as AVP and head, communications and sponsorships.

After that, he joined Hewlett Packard in 2007 and worked as head, consumer marketing. He managed and led communications for both HP and Compaq brands in India and successfully turned Hewlett Packard into a fashionable lifestyle-centric brand from just a B2B brand.

Later, Pal associated himself with BLYK India, a mobile messaging company, as its country manager and director, and successfully launched the country's first mobile magazine that catered to the youth.

He successfully established the service with Aircel as one of the most powerful youth engagement platforms within the first year of its launch; today, BLYK on Aircel has more than 3.7 million opted-in users. He marries his dynamism and experience in various industries to create magic for all consumer campaigns and help the BLYK brand grow from strength to strength.

In his 16 years of career spent at global renowned brands such as Samsung, ABN AMRO, HP and Blyk, Shubhodip has earned several national and international industry recognitions. In the last Brand Equity survey by Economic Times he was rated as one of the Top 8 Young Marketers in the country in 2009. Also awarded as one of the Super Achievers in the Global Telecom Business Awards Under 40 last year – a rare feat with two other Indians in the Global List.

Marketing professional with over 20 yrs of post MBA experience. Worked in diverse industries like Retails, FMCG and Food & Beverage. Notable among them are Coca Cola, Bausch & Lomb, ITC, Reliance Retail and Lavazza. Keen interest in current affairs, societal development and economy. Active participant in platforms linked to development of marketing. Like to engage in pursuit of knowledge linked to any field.

A graduate in Engineering from VJTI, Mumbai and postgraduate in Management from University of Pune, Pravin Kulkarnii has more than 20 years experience in various leading companies like Blow Plast, Pidilite & Parle in Sales Management & Marketing Management functions.

He joined PARLE PRODUCTS PVT LTD, the leading manufacturers of biscuits, confectionery and snacks, in 1994 and is currently working in the capacity of Head of Marketing.

He is based in Mumbai and is responsible for corporate strategy, business profitability, product portfolio management, strategic brand management, advertising and promotion for all the Parle brands in the country.

Rajiv Kr Vij did his graduation from Hindu College and then followed it up with Post Graduation in Management from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University.

Rajiv handled the distribution network and Institutional businesses for Hindustan Motors and later moved to exports of automobiles and auto components for Jumbo Group. He moved to International Travel House an ITC group company to head its car rental business and later managed corporate travel, tourism and event management businesses. In the travel industry he can be credited with being instrumental in the growth and expanded reach of global car rental brands in India.

The entrepreneur in him saw an opportunity to write a success story in Car Rental in India and so he left Travel House and set up Carzonrent (India) Private Limited. The company was appointed Master Licensee for Hertz International within six months of starting operations. He raised PE investment into the company from SIDBI Ventures and Sequoia Capital to expand the business and launched Radio Cabs, Operating Lease and Limousine services in addition to car rentals. In a span of 10 years, Rajiv has been able to clearly position Carzonrent as the # 1 company in Personal Ground Transportation Industry in India.

Having established a strong core team of professional managers, he now spends more time in taking the organization into its next level of expansion and is working to build “Carzonrent” as the Indian car rental brand with global scale in terms of fleet size and operations.

Rajiv considers all his drivers as his partners and has implemented innovative programs making them entrepreneurs and owners of cars that they drive. As part of his commitment towards the Drivers who form the most critical component of the industry in India, Rajiv has also set up “COR Welfare Trust” to support Drivers and their families in improving their living conditions.

Rajiv K Vij is the president of “CARS”- Confederation of All India Car Rental Service Providers and has been contributing significantly to improving the health of the industry and all its stake holders to match with global standards.

Amitesh Rao is a business leader and marketer who has worked with some of the biggest of global brands and with organizations at various stages of maturity. His 16 years of experience ranges from growth stage companies to enterprises, across conventional and emerging industry sectors including FMCG, telecom and software. His specialization lies in the area of building brands with strong consumer orientations emerging from a combination of deep consumer insight and research, market knowledge, life experiences, and creativity.

A management education from IIM Bangalore, together with his career experience, has given him rich perspective gained from many standpoints – as chief executive, marketing head, brand manager, sales manager and entrepreneur.

He currently works with MTS India as Director, Marketing in charge of Brand & Media.

Amitesh is an advocate of the belief that winning strategies in today’s emerging context are predicated on a view that goes beyond the boundaries of orthodox marketing and strategic thinking. His driving motivation has been in doing jobs that haven’t been done before.

A veteran in sales and marketing profession, Mr. Abhra Banerjee brings with him rich work

experience of 17 years in the field. A visionary Marketing Strategist, Mr. Banerjee is widely credited with creating leading brands and highly rewarding brand experiences for consumers across Asia. His work experience spans in multiple industry like FMCG, TELECOM, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT and BUILDING MATERIALS.

His core strength is in generating insights behind consumer behaviour and tailor making the enterprise offer in line with the consumer insights generated. A strong believer in Guerrilla Marketing Warfare, thinking out-of-the-box comes naturally to him and he manages to gain fantastic ROI for each marketing dollar spent. At Centuryply, Mr. Banerjee has been a catalyst in doubling the turnover of Decorative Business portfolio of the company through Century Laminates and Century Veneers. He has also played a significant role in repositioning of Centuryply as a lifestyle brand. He has been instrumental in launching NESTA Furniture in 2012 and defined the new business model for this chain of complete home lifestyle solutions from Centuryply. Amongst others, Mr Banerjee believes in creating strong teams and possesses skills in team building from scratch. He specializes in creating environments where each of the team members can be self-motivated and can put in that EXTRA effort to chase individual and organizational goals.

Educated in Economics at the prestigious Delhi School of Economics, Mr Banerjee holds an MA (Economics) and also an MBA degree. He did his graduation from the Presidency University, Kolkata. He also got the opportunity to be trained on Advanced Marketing Techniques by ICI Paints at Shanghai and Singapore. Mr Banerjee has also won many prestigious awards, he has won the CMO Asia, Marketing Professional of the year award in 2011. He has also won PowerBrands Hall of Fame - Most Dynamic Marketing Professional of the Year along with Top 25 Marketers of the year – World Brand Congress and India Leadership Award - Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) & Eastern Institute for Integrated Learning in Management (EIILM).

Dr.Alok Bharadwaj is Executive Vice President, Canon India. Under his leadership, Canon registered a record breaking expansion of 20 times in 12 years to emerge as a strong imaging industry leader in India.

Alok is a well known face of the industry & has garnered high recognition & respect. He has been listed in top 100 global influencers by ventureoutsource.com in 2012. He was conferred honorary doctorate in 2011 to signify his leadership and contribution to the industry. He has led Indian IT Hardware industry body ‘MAIT’ as President and is a Chairman of CII-OA & Imaging Division. He has been recognized as “The Best CMO of the Year” by CMO Council USA, “The Most Influential Person in Photography” and “Pride of the Industry Award for organization leadership”, “Corporate Executive of the Year”, “Most Favorite Country Manager” and the “Most Dynamic Marketing professional in Powerbrand hall of fame” to name a few. He has been listed in ‘THE ‘A’ LIST’ of who’s who in media, marketing & Advertising industry He is a common face in many industry forums, panels and Juries. Alok takes active interest in Industry Academia interface. To recognize his contribution to leadership in marketing, nation building & society, Alok was presented ‘Outstanding Global Manager’ award in April 2012.

Dr. Alok is an MBA from the FMS, Delhi and an alumni of Executive Program of IMD Lausanne. He has also worked with Motorola India, Usha International and Voltas.

Karan is currently the Marketing Manager of the Education & Stationery Products Business (ESPB), a role he has held for the last 3 out of nearly 11 years that he has been working with ITC Limited. He started his career as a Management Trainee in 2001 in Kerala. Since then, Karan has had multiple exposures in both Brand Marketing & Channel Sales functions across various ITC's businesses. Winner of the CII "Business Leader of Tomorrow" award, Karan earned his Bachelor's Degree in History from St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi and has a PGDBM from the International Management Institute (IMI), Delhi, where he specialized in Marketing Management & Strategic Business Policy.

Nalin Kapoor, is the Senior General Manager and Group Head-Marketing, of Hyundai Motor India Limited. In this role, he is responsible for all aspects of strategic and tactical direction in business and marketing strategy planning, advertising, digital marketing and public relations to ensure marketing excellence and provide overall leadership.

Mr. Kapoor joined HMIL in February 2008. Prior to his current role, Mr. Kapoor was instrumental in the progress of major players in the automobile industry at leadership positions. He brings with him a rich expereince of the Indian automobile industry and his career reflects immense experience in the areas of marketing, sales, network management, product planning, strategy and business planning.

Renuka Jaypal is the National Head Brand & Media at Aircel.

She is responsible for devising all communication for the brand in addition to managing media, brand properties & trade marketing for the organization. Renuka possesses rich experience in the domain of brand management and strategy. She has a vast professional experience in handling various challenging assignments and serving in various capacities with leading corporates like Rediffusion, Sony Music & Ogilvy and Mather for over two decades. She played a key part in the launch of the Hutch brand and its transition to Vodafone.

In the recent past she has served as CEO South East Asia for Euro RSCG Worldwide and Group CEO of Ogilvy & Mather for Indonesia.

When not busy with work she is a self acknowledged shopaholic and a dog lover.

Arindam has been shuttling between the two sides of the table between a client and an agency for the past 18 years and still is undecided which side of the grass is greener. Building brands like Pepsi, Uninor, Tropicana, Eveready, Reliance Telecom etc is what he has done as a brand marketer. Arindam today is the head of brand & media at Uninor. OOH has been one of the key pillars for building Uninor for him and he takes keen interest in being closer to the local consumer through his constant consumer interactions