Agnello Dias
Co-founder & CCO, Taproot India
Agnello Dias began his advertising career in 1989 with a hungry, local Mumbai agency hit the big league after being conferred the prestigious Copywriter of the Year award by the Advertising Agencies Association of India. He went on to lead Leo Burnett India to its first ever Global Agency of the year recognition and was voted NDTV’s Creative Director of the Year in 2006. In 2008, as Chief Creative Officer of JWT India, he made history by winning India’s first and only Cannes Lion Grand Prix plus the first and only Lion in the Titanium-Integrated category at Cannes, besides winning multiple Grand Prix’ at The Asia-Pacific AdFest and The Spikes. Today, he ranks among the most influential people in Indian Advertising and amongst the top creative names worldwide besides featuring in almost every award book from The One Show, The London International Advertising Awards, The Clios, Cannes, D&AD, The New York Festivals among others. He is the first and only Indian advertising person to be listed among the word’s 100 most Creative People in Business by the US-based Fast Company magazine. He also ranks on Campaign’s Global Power List featuring the world’s top media personalities. His work has received a commendation from the British House of Commons and he was conferred the Communicator of the Decade award by The Association of Business Communicators of India besides becoming the first advertising professional to be crowned the Impact Person of the Year in 2011. He has also been on several eminent advertising juries including the prestigious Titanium & Integrated jury at Cannes besides being a guest speaker on various platforms in Budapest, Cannes Vienna, Singapore, Sydney, Jakarta and more. In January 2009, he founded Taproot India, which soon ranked among the Top 20 independent agencies in the world and went on to become part of Dentsu Inc in 2012. In 2012, Taproot was crowned Creative Agency of the Year at the Asia-Pacific Adfest and also declared India’s top creative agency in the prestigious Gunn Report. In 2013 Taproot India was once again India’s top agency at Cannes and among the top 10 agencies in the world.
K Ramakrishnan
President – Marketing, Café Coffee Day
In his role at Café Coffee Day, Ramki heads the marketing function of Café Coffee Day across the country. He is primarily involved in improving walk-ins, expanding the retail presence of Café Coffee Day in the country and overseeing the implementation of the new branding template of the chain.
Presently Ramki is actively involved in engaging Café Coffee Day consumers via the new age medium ‘social media’. His brain child and an important facet of growing and retaining consumers in today’s retail scenario, Ramki devotes considerable time to listening to his consumers, engaging them and creating experiences that excite and connect with them.
Ramki envisions Café Coffee Day to not only be the friendly and stylish social hub for the free spirited to get together but to also make the café a catalyst of many memorable conversations over a delicious cup of coffee.
Pratik Mazumder
Vice President & Marketing Head, Times Internet
Pratik Mazumder is currently VP & Head Marketing at Times Internet Limited and is responsible for the overall Marketing portfolio of Times Internet Ltd across all verticals and consumer segments. Prior to this ,he was the Chief Marketing Officer of Yatra.com and was responsible for the brand health, overall revenue topline and demand generation for India's leading online travel brand .He also has held the position of Head Marketing in Bharti Airtel Limited seeing the overall brand communication and media strategy portfolio for the mobile SBU of Bharti Airtel .
Pratik comes armed with an experience of 19 years, during which he has made critical contributions in the areas of driving top line revenue, brand positioning and other key strategic initiatives. In the advertising space, he has worked with agencies such as Ogilvy One Worldwide, Enterprise Nexus Direct & Direct Response. Pratik also has experience in revenue & brand management, strategic planning, advertising and communication, key account management, product development insights, retail merchandising, trade engagement, consumer brand experience, alliances, media planning, event management and public relations.
Jyotsna Makkar
CMO at Microsoft India
Senior marketing professional with rich experience across Business Strategy, Portfolio Management, Brand Management and Innovation.
I currently lead the Central Marketing Organization at Microsoft India, responsible for consumer and commercial Marketing across Microsoft's portfolio of devices and services.
As an independent management consultant, I worked on Business Strategy and Strategic Brand assignments, applying my skills across diverse business and marketing challenges including portfolio strategy, big bet innovation, brand strategy and capability build.
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During my years at PepsiCo I was responsible for growing brands and teams in both mature and start up situations, across different business models and under varying competitive and P&L pressures. I led key categories at PepsiCo’s Snacks and Beverage businesses, scaling up brands like Pepsi, Mountain Dew, 7 Up, Nimbooz, Mirinda and Kurkure.
In an earlier avatar, as Account Director, Pepsi, I helped develop some of brand Pepsi’s strongest and most enduring equity drivers.
Dalveer Singh
Leader - Dialogue Factory
With comprehensive knowledge on consumer insights, and over two decades of work experience in Out-of-Home Brand Marketing Solutions , Dalveer has been a pioneer in successfully implementing & replicating the Indian model on Rural and Low Income Consumer Operations in 10 other emerging markets including the sub-continent (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka), Morocco, Indonesia , Vietnam , Philippines & South America (Brazil, Mexico & Argentine).
With proven expertise in Rural / Low Income innovative marketing and start-ups for the emerging markets, Dalveer is now busy setting up Dialogue Factory, a brand new unit for GroupM across India, Indonesia & Vietnam. He is shaping Dialogue Factory into a one of a kind experiential marketing agency that breaks market clutter through talk ability, Word-of-Mouth and brand advocacy. Within just a few short months, they are already active on clients like Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, Lakme, Tata Pepsi JV, Idea , Aditya Birla Group and the latest being a cracking campaign for World AIDS Day.
Papa CJ
Born the son of a tea planter in India, Papa CJ spent his childhood at a boarding school in the Himalayas before going on to complete an MBA at the University of Oxford. Five years into a successful corporate career in London, he threw it all in to become a stand-up comedian. Now recognised by Forbes Magazine as the global face of cutting-edge Indian stand-up comedy and one of Asia’s leading comedians, Papa CJ has gone on to tour sell-out shows across four continents. In 2008, he represented India on NBC’s TV Show Last Comic Standing where, from amongst the thousands of global comedians who took part, he was placed in the top ten. He was also the first Indian comedian ever to be invited to perform at the prestigious Just for Laughs Festival in Canada in 2008 and has regularly performed at the Edinburgh Fringe. Papa CJ has been instrumental in creating and growing the live English language stand-up comedy circuit in India. He also uses comedy as a vehicle to support a charity he founded for underprivileged children in India and he performs for patients in hospitals across the world. Papa CJ is a qualified executive coach, motivational speaker and laughter yoga instructor as well.
Basant Rathore
VP,
Strategy, Brand and Business Development at Jagran Group
Basant Rathore is the VP, Strategy, Brand and Business Development at Jagran Group and has been with the organization for the last 9 years. In his earlier stint in Media Planning, he has worked at Mudra, Mindshare and Madison. He has worked on leading brands across diverse categories ranging from Chocolates to Automobiles. He is an alumnus of the Shri Ram College of Commerce and a first batch pass out of MICA .
Anup Jain
Sr VP- Retail at Bata India ( markets Bata, Hush Puppies, Naturalizer, WeinBrenner and others)
Seasoned business leader with an ability to see the "big picture", from a strong sales and marketing mindset. 16 yrs of proven track record in leading teams to build, transform and turn around brands in both products and services. Width of cross-sectoral experience in FMCG, Durables, Multilevel FMCG, internet media and Retail in various roles- CMO, Mktg Dir, GM, Regional Product Development. Used to owning sales volume, brand equity and P&L throughout career.
Specialties: Broad business leadership skills grown through experience in developed / developing markets across diverse sectors in India, Asia, Australia. Marketing, Sales, R&D, QA. Marketing skill set combines classical FMCG and Retail/ e-commerce/ CRM/ analytics skill set suited for driving businesses in today's omnichannel environment. Out-of-the-box thinker and a strong network of relationships grown over the years with agencies and partners across disciplines.