A K Srivastava – He is a 1984 batch IAS officer of the Sikkim cadre. He has been the Principal Secretary, Social Justice & Empowerment and Science & Technology Departments, Govt. of Sikkim. Apart from heading the key Departments of Food & C.S., Irrigation, Commerce & Industry and Tourism in his cadre State, he also served the Union Government twice in different capacities. Though by vocation, he is a career civil servant, by passion he is a writer. It is exemplified by his being an author of two books, editor of one and three dozen articles on diverse issues. He also has three photo exhibitions to his credit.

Anjani Bansal is Deputy Director for Strategy and Management for the India Country Office of the Gates Foundation with past experience in investments in India and Africa across multiple sectors such as technology, agriculture, finance and education. He worked in commercial and investment banking for several years and is most interested in leveraging innovation and investments in the private sector to drive large-scale impact.

Anuraag Srivastava is the Co-Founder and COO of Rainshine Entertainment, a global entertainment company that creates content for global audiences. Anuraag is also the Founder of Agate Group of companies, a services company catering to BPO / KPO and Technology clients globally. He has incubated various companies in the BPO / KPO, Media and Healthcare space. He has helped develop and lead the Investment thesis and business plan models for Online Video, Digital Media Education and Urban Entertainment during his time in Zodius. He has also been a co-founder of Inventurus (a Healthcare BPO) and Juno Clinic (an online platform for Mental Health management). Prior to his achievements at Rainshine and Agate, Anuraag has significant experience in management in varied fields. His past experiences include • Venture Partner & Managing Director at Zodius • CEO at WNS (leading BPO company) • Vice President at eVentures (Softbank/Newscorp Fund) • Category Manager (India and US) at P&G. • Senior Associate at VIEW Group Outside of work, Anuraag is associated with non-profits in Environmental Protection (www.ncs.org.in) and Rural Education (www.abhilashafoundation.org). He holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Birla Institute of Technology and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad.

Apoorva Oza is the chief executive officer of Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (India). He is also actively involved in founding and supporting nonprofits and nonprofit networks, as well as influencing government policy. A mechanical engineer with a diploma in rural management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand, he has also completed courses from Cranford University, United Kingdom, and Cornell University, USA.

Asitava Sen is the Chief Executive Officer of CropLife India. Prior to CropLife India, Asitava had worked in leadership and senior advisory positions for various international and multinational organizations such as The World Bank Group, The World Economic Forum, FAO, Rabobank, PwC etc. CropLife India is an industry association of 15 R & D driven member crop science companies, jointly representing approximately 70% of the crop protection market and responsible for 95% of the molecules introduced in the country so far.

Dr. Rohini Srivathsa – As National Technology Officer for Microsoft India, Rohini is responsible for empowering our customers and partners across industry and the government to drive innovation and growth through ‘tech-intensity’. Her 25+ years’ career spans business and technology – with strategy consulting at the Boston Consulting Group and IBM Global Business Services, operations and sales at start-ups, and R&D at AT&T Bell Laboratories.
Rohini is a member of the Wiley Innovation Advisory Council, is on the Advisory Council of the ECE Dept at Carnegie Mellon University, serves on the Scientific Advisory Committee for NM-ICPS, Dept of Science and Technology, Government of India, and is on the Industry Advisory Board of SRITNE at the Indian School of Business. She was recognized among the ‘Top-10 most influential analytics leaders in India in 2019’, by the Analytics India Magazine. Rohini holds an MBA from Wharton and earned her PhD in Computer Engineering from UT Austin.

Hemendra Mathur – Over 24 years of experience in venture capital, private equity, management consulting and investment banking in India, South Asia, Europe and USA.
About 12 years of experience in early-stage and growth capital investing. Working as Venture Partner with a deep-tech sector-agnostic fund. Raised a private equity fund earlier and managed a portfolio of mid- sized companies in the food supply chain. About 12 years of management consulting and investment banking experience in the food, agribusiness, retail and consumer goods industry for corporates as well as the Government of India / state governments.

Jinesh Shah co-founded Omnivore with Mark Kahn in 2010. Previously, he was Vice President and CFO at Nexus Venture Partners, one of India’s leading venture capital funds. Earlier in his career, Jinesh worked in corporate finance roles for Datamatics (leading Treasury/M&A), Patni Computers (initiating the IPO process), and HCL Technologies (founding the BPO business). He is a member of the IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Agriculture & Food Processing Committee. Jinesh is a Chartered Accountant with a B.Com from R A Poddar College and an MMS (Finance) from JBIMS.

Joanna Kane-Potaka is an Australian national and has a Master of Science degree in Global Marketing. Prior to joining ICRISAT she was Director, Communications and Marketing Information and Knowledge Group, International Water Management Institute, where she was responsible for science marketing, corporate communications, uptake approach of research findings, private industry fund raising, internal communications and information management. She was also Head, Information Management and Marketing, Bioversity International and Information and Communications Leader, WorldFish Center She began her career as an agricultural economist with the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (BAE at the time) and later moved into market research in the agribusiness area of the Queensland Department of Primary Industries. Since then she has worked in a wide variety of marketing-related areas including strategic marketing, communications, fundraising, knowledge management, and uptake of scientific research. She has worked for government, private industry (manufacturing and consulting) and with nonprofit organizations (including four CGIAR agricultural research centers). She has 25 years professional experience and has lived and worked in India, Sri Lanka, Italy, Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia. She is a certified practicing marketer in Australia, an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK and a fellow of the Australian Marketing Institute.

Kishor Jha – Prior to founding Ergos in early 2012, Kishor briefly worked at Barclays Bank Plc, in their Premier Banking Group. He worked with ACC Limited across the various functions based out of Motihari (Bihar) where he handled rural marketing. He also worked with ICICI Bank and group, and Future group, where he managed close to 100 crore portfolio on exchange traded agriculture commodity derivatives products in Bangalore. A veteran in the field of agriculture, Mr Jha is from an agriculturist family in Madhubani district in Bihar where he learned agriculture not by only professional engagement, but its imbibed skill inculcated by generations and ancestors. Mr. Jha is responsible for providing overall direction and leading the company to achieve transformational growth. Known for his vast knowledge in the field of agriculture, Mr. Jha has more than a decade experience in running agriculture and farm related businesses like agri-financing, agri-procurement, commodity trading and warehousing. He has been closely involved with the agriculture movement and farmer communities in Bihar, and Karnataka. An expert in the commodities sector, he has been associated with leading Indian and global corporations in different roles for procurement, warehousing and stocking of agri-commodities. He has also been associated with leading Indian banks in retail banking. He was the winner of the “Master Entrepreneurs- CNBC-South Zone” award by CNBC in November 2014. Kishor earned a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from PUMBA and SIBM in Marketing and Foreign Trade. He also earned a Bachelor in Physics from Magadh University.

Mark Kahn is a Managing Partner of Omnivore, a venture capital firm, based in India, which funds entrepreneurs building the future of agriculture and food systems. Omnivore pioneered agritech investing in India, backing over 20 startups since 2011. Omnivore defines itself as a “financial first” impact investor, seeking to deliver market-rate venture capital returns, while impacting the lives of Indian smallholder farmers and rural communities. Every day, Omnivore portfolio companies drive agricultural prosperity and transform food systems across India, making farming more profitable, resilient, and sustainable. Previously, Mark was the Executive Vice President (Strategy & Business Development) at Godrej Agrovet, one of India’s foremost diversified agribusiness companies. At Godrej Agrovet, Mark was responsible for corporate strategy, M&A, R&D, and new business incubation. Earlier in his career, Mark worked for Syngenta and PFM. He earned a BA (Honors) from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar. Mark is a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) National Council on Agriculture and a member of the Governing Council of the Maharashtra State Innovation Society.

Noshir Colah has over 25 years of wide-ranging international experience in top management across sectors. He has been an integral part of three start-up companies. His domain knowledge includes renewable energy and green technology, construction, mechanical engineering and the services sector. His fields of experience covers various aspects of management, including concept & product development, intellectual property rights, licensing and joint ventures, finance, legal, operations, sales and marketing. However, his passion is organization building through the development and implementation of corporate systems. In the past two decades, he has held four ‘C-Level’ positions and has served on the Board of Directors of several companies in India and abroad. Noshir has earned his M.B.A with a dual major in Finance and Computer Systems in Business from Ohio University and is an alumnus of Mumbai’s St. Mary’s School (ISC) Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics Government Law College.

Rajat Tandon is the President of IVCA. He is focused on planning, developing, and implementing IVCA’s regulatory advocacy activities, while also identifying and solutioning ways for members to maximize their membership experience. His goal is to effectively influence regulatory outcomes in support of the alternate asset class and enable a full-spectrum ecosystem from Angels to AIFs. Previously, Rajat was part of the leadership team at NASSCOM, the Indian IT and ITES/BPO body. In his role as Vice President, Rajat headed NASSCOM’s 10,000 Startups initiative, providing crucial support to technology startups in India. He is passionate about creating value for entrepreneurs, funding partners, and the ecosystem as a whole. With his early stint as entrepreneur and extensive corporate experience in the IT & Telecom and GIS/Navigable maps, Rajat competently bridges the gap between boardroom expertise and on-the-ground experience. Over the past 25+ years, he has worked in various positions ranging from technical support, sales leadership, service delivery to strategic initiatives at Siemens, Nortel, and Nokia (NAVTEQ).

Raman Ahuja – In a career spanning 27 years, his experience spans across agribusiness value chains, consumer products, and ingredients industries, operating in Indian and International markets. Since March 2013, he works as an independent advisor and consultant in food & agriculture – with startups, private sector and with multilateral agencies like – The World Bank Group (Transport, Food & Agriculture, AgriFin), ADB, FAO, IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute), US Aid, etc.

Rema Subramanian cofounded Ankur with a vision to use her multi decade CXO and entrepreneurial experience to bring the tools to young startups to become game changers. She has worked across education and IT/ITES taking young companies from scratch to midsize ventures. She is a cost accountant from ICFAI and when she has spare time she likes to travel and try her hand at growing plants.

Ritu Verma is one of the co-founders at Ankur. She is passionate about bringing innovation from lab to the market and did that for a decade across corporations – Unilever and Philips. She has also worked globally investing in IP led renewable technologies. She has a PhD in physics from University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from INSEAD. If Ritu had any spare time she’d love to travel to all ends of the earth and read a few books.

Suhasini Singh, Head of Agriculture Debt for responsAbility’s Asia Pacific region, heads a team of three investment officers looking after a portfolio of 21 companies in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. Working out of our Mumbai office, she has been instrumental in developing the responsIbility portfolio of sustainable food companies which work with 550,000 smallholder farmers who sustainably cultivate 1.2 m hectares of agricultural area.

Mr. Suresh Krishnan, an alumnus of BITS(Pilani) has 30 years of experience in operations, corporate finance, planning in fertilisers, energy and infrastructure sectors. He has been associated with Adventz Group and related companies over two decades. Over the years, was instrumental in financing of large greenfield projects in the domestic and international markets, forging and managing joint ventures and acquisitions, and in executing turnaround strategies alongside day-to-day operations in the manufacturing sector. He is on the Board of several Adventz Group Companies

Vaidhehi Ravindran is a Vice President at Lightstone Aspada. Most recently, she was an energy and chemicals consultant in New York; where she worked across several stages of project development of refining and petrochemical multi-billion dollar projects in the Americas and Africa. Previously, Vaidhehi has the distinction of being the first woman involved in project commissioning and refinery operations at Indian Oil Corporation. Vaidhehi currently serves on the board of LEAF. Vaidhehi has a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a Bachelor in Chemical Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli.

Nirav is Managing Partner – Kaizenvest Edu Finance at Kaizenvest, a leading education focused investment firm with operations in emerging Asia and Africa. Prior to joining Kaizenvest, Nirav was with the Tata Group for over 20 years in various capacities including as the Chief Executive Officer of Tata ClassEdge and Tata Interactive Systems. Nirav has led several international projects and collaborations in the fields of education, telecommunications and aerospace, and served as Director on the Boards of companies within and outside India. Nirav was recognized as a Young India Leader by the British High Commission in 2013. In 2016, Jagran Lakecity University conferred upon him an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Arts (Management) for his contributions in the areas of management, education and technology.

Safeena, a London School of Economics graduate, has worked extensively with rural and urban underserved communities in South America, Africa and Asia. After returning to India, Safeena chose the agenda closest to her heart – that of girls’ education – and founded Educate Girls. Safeena’s efforts to bridge the gender gap in education in India have been widely recognized. She has been conferred with the 2017 NITI Aayog’s Women Transforming India Award, the 2016 NDTV-L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth Award, and has in the past received the British Asian Trust’s Special Recognition Award from HRH Prince Charles for outstanding contribution in education. Moreover, Educate Girls has received the prestigious 2015 Skoll Award, 2014 WISE Award, the 2014 USAID Millennium Alliance Award, the 2014 Stars Impact Award and the India Development Marketplace Award in 2011 from the World Bank. Under Safeena’s leadership, Educate Girls initiated the world’s first Development Impact Bond (DIB) in education, a proof of concept that ties funding to outcomes. In 2018, on its completion, the Educate Girls’ DIB surpassed both its target outcomes by achieving 160% of its learning target and 116% of its enrolment target. The results are testimony to the fact that Educate Girls continues to deliver quality at scale and value to every single child in the program.

Abhishek Agrawal is Accion’s Chief Regional Officer for Asia, based out of India, and is responsible for overseeing Accion’s investment & operations in the region. A key region for Accion in its mission to advance financial inclusion, several features of the region and countries within it – such as an enabling regulatory environment, startup ecosystem, and entrepreneurial culture – make it a prime market for inclusive fintech innovation. As an Accion representative, Abhishek serves on the boards of SubK, DVARA – KGFS, Vindhya E-Infomedia, FTCash and Saija Finance. He comes to Accion with extensive experience in business transformation, financial management, strategy, business planning and operations.In earlier roles, Abhishek worked with FINCA International as CFO in different affiliates. Prior to that, he acted as an advisor to the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAI), where he worked on a number of projects in Municipal reforms.

Geeta manages the foundation’s operations in India to transform the lives of urban low-income communities through improved education, livelihoods and financial inclusion. In her role, Geeta manages the strategy and implementation of the foundation’s work in India in two key areas of Education and Family Economic Stability. Leveraging a suite of funding tools – grants, contracts and program related investments (debt, equity and guarantees) – the foundation has committed over $150 million in India and has over 50 active projects in the country, which are all anchored around our core thesis of Impact, Scale and Sustainability. Geeta has represented the foundation on several Boards of its investee companies, including Ujjivan, Janalakshmi, Swadhaar, Arohan, and Micro Housing Finance Corporation. She is also on the Investment Committee of India Educational Investment Fund and Education Catalyst Fund. Geeta served as Chairperson of the Impact Investors Council in India from April 2017 to March 2019. In 2017, she was nominated as India’s 30 Most Powerful Women in Impact by Business Today. Prior to this role, Geeta led the foundation’s Mission Investing work globally. The foundation has over 40 active investments, including some early stage funds in India and in the United States. Before joining the foundation, Geeta spent more than 12 years with the corporate finance group of PricewaterhouseCoopers in India, advising large Indian and multinational clients on joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, business plans, and valuations. She is an alumni of the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) and Lady Shri Ram College (Delhi).

Pradeep has over 25 years of global experience, in technology, management consulting and investing/funding. He started in Silicon Valley as a big five management consultant, building software application products. After a stint with technology start-ups, he moved to New York, to be part of an advisory start up led by President Clinton and Mayor Bloomberg. This led to another early stage opportunity to join an organization led by Paul Volcker, focused on the financial sector, academia and government. In his current role, he leads one of the oldest and largest private foundations in the region, deploying capital, supporting visionary people and organizations, to solve societal problems.

Deepali Khanna is the Managing Director of the Asia Regional Office of the Rockefeller Foundation overseeing the foundation’s policy, advocacy, grant-making, and strategic partnerships in Asia. She previously managed Smart Power for Rural Development,Foundation’s flagship initiative in India,Myanmar and Africa. Deepali comes with over three decades of experience, across Asia, Africa and North America, leading social impact and initiatives for organizations like The MasterCard Foundation,Plan International and UNICEF.

Reema Nanavaty has been working with the Self Employed Women’s Association since 1984 and stayed on to be elected as the General Secretary in 1999, expanded membership to new heights making SEWA the single largest union of informal sector workers. She negotiated the first ever IFAD loan to rebuild lives and livelihoods of 60000 earthquake affected rural women and is running post conflict economic reconstruction for 40000 members affected by 2002 riots; Reema is leading rehabilitation programme in Afghanistan and in Srilanka; providing vocational training in agro and rural livelihood security and heads the ICT cell to connect information technological with the farm women. Reema is expanding the activities of Trade Facilitation Centre (TFC) making women’s voice and contribution central to world trade decisions. Currently she is replicating the Trade Facilitation Centre model in all the SAARC countries building social enterprises of Homebased women workers.   Reema initiated the food security programme covering one million households through its rural distribution network, named RUDI, where women farmers and labour trade their agro-produce with each other. Reema is spearheading the Hariyali–Green Energy and Livelihoods Initiative to provide 2,00,000 mostly farm women access renewable energy tools of cookstoves and solar lights. Reema oversees 3200 self help groups (SHG), 110 co-operatives and 15 federations totaling 428,281 members, Nationally including Kashmir, Assam, Meghalaya, Bihar. Reema focuses on women’s economic empowerment by building women owned enterprises – Co-operatives, Companies, Federations. Building women led supply chain in Energy, Agribusiness, Food Processing, Waste recycling, Textile and garmenting. Reema was awarded Padmashri on 26^th January 2013.

Sairee Chahal is the Founder, CEO of SHEROES – a community platform for women, offering support, resources, opportunities and interactions via Sheroes.com and the SHEROES App. Sairee is credited with building up women at work and future-of-work conversations in India, besides building a strong technology play to solve the problems of gender disparity in India.A technology entrepreneur, Sairee has straddled the best of both worlds in her ventures Newslink, Fleximoms and now SHEROES. Her community-meets-deep technology approach has made SHEROES a globally formidable platform, changing the game for women and their aspirations. Over a million women have been directly benefited, and under Sairee’s leadership, SHEROES aims to impact over 100 million women in the next five years.An Aspen Leadership Fellow, Sairee is also the convener of The  SHEROES Summit – India’s largest women’s forum. With an M.Phil from JNU, and a PGDBM from IMT Ghaziabad, Sairee kickstarted her professional career while still in college before cofounding her first startup. She went on to also work at corporates like Heidrick and Struggles and CII. Recognized for her achievements globally, Sairee is a Devi Award winner, apart from the Femina Achievers Award, Cartier Award, Editor’s choice for L’Oreal Femina Women’s Award, Business Today and Most Powerful Women in Indian Business. In 2018, she was ranked 53 on Onalytica’s “Future of Work Top 100 Influencers” list.

Anant Maheshwari is President, Microsoft India. Anant leads Microsoft’s engagement with policy makers, customers, and business partners and is responsible for all product, solution, service and support offerings in India. At Microsoft, Anant works to make the company’s mission of empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, align with India’s inclusive growth agenda. He is committed to supporting government entities and organizations in India progress on their journey of digital transformation.

Ravi Kant has played significant role as CEO/Vice Chairman in making TATA MOTORS (TML) an admired and successful Indian multinational company. He has chaired and held seats on several Tata company boards. Currently he sits on the boards of Vedanta Ltd and Kone, Helsinki, as well as US-based non-profit organizations Enactus and Wonder Work. The Chairman of IIM Rohtak, he is on the advisory board of IIT Kharagpur and IIT  Mumbai as well as on the boards of the NID, and CGIO od the Business School at National University of Singapore.  He has chaired the Advertising Standards Council of India, the Audit Bureau of Circulation and the Society of Indian Automobiles Manufacturers.

Harish Hande (Handerto Harish Hande) is an Indian social entrepreneur, who co-founded SELCO India in 1995. He was awarded with the Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2011 for “his pragmatic efforts to put solar power technology in the hands of the poor, through his social enterprise SELCO India”.He was born in Handattu, Kundapura Taluk, Udupi District, Karnataka and raised in Rourkela, Orissa, India. After completing his basic schooling in Orissa in Ispat English Medium School, he went to IIT Kharagpur for his undergraduate studies in Energy Engineering and graduated in 1990. He then went to the U.S. to do his Master’s and later PhD. in Energy Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.Hande co-founded SELCO INDIA (in 1995), a social enterprise, to eradicate poverty by promoting sustainable technologies in rural India. SELCO India is a social enterprise that provides sustainable energy services to the poor in India. SELCO INDIA under the leadership of Hande has won the Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy 2005 and Accenture Economic Development Award for 2005. In 2007 SELCO INDIA again won the Ashden Award, this time for “Outstanding Achievement” in energy sector. The award was presented by Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States of America. Hande was named the Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation. In 2008, Hande was chosen by Business Today as one of the “21 young leaders for India’s 21st century”. Later, in June 2008, India Today named him one of the 50 pioneers of change in India. In 2011 he was awarded the Magsaysay Award. Harish Hande was also awarded the Karnataka Rajyotsava Prashasti in 2011 by the Government of Karnataka. In 2013 the Trustees of University of Massachusetts awarded him the Doctorate of Humane Letters. In 2014 IIT Kharagpur conferred upon him the distinguished alumnus award.

Mr. Praveer Sinha has over three decades of experience in the power sector and has been credited with transforming the power distribution sector and development and setting up of greenfield and brownfield power plants in India and abroad.

Mr. Sinha holds a Master’s Degree in Business Law from National Law School, Bengaluru and is also professionally trained as an Electrical Engineer. He is also a member of the Faculty Board at Faculty of Management Studies and a member of Board of Governors at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi. He is a Research Scholar at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and is also a visiting Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA.  Before his appointment in Tata Power, Mr. Sinha was the CEO & Managing Director of Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (Tata Power-DDL). Tata Power-DDL is a Public Private Partnership (Joint Venture) between the Company and Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi, supplying power to over seven million people in North and North-West Delhi.

Vineet is the Founder and Managing Director of Aavishkaar and Co-founder & Chairman of the Intellecap Group of companies. In a career spanning across two decades, Vineet’s areas of interest include early-stage venture capital, microenterprises, microfinance investments, incubations and social investment advisory. Vineet chairs the Board of Villgro, an incubating and funding platform, and IntelleGrow, an Intellecap subsidiary, which provides venture debt services to impact enterprises. He also serves on the Board of WISH Foundation and has recently been appointed as an advisor to the Tibetan Entrepreneurship Development Initiative.

Vineet was invited by the G8 Task Force on Impact Investing in 2014 to serve on its International Development Working Group. Vineet has received numerous awards including the G-20 SME Finance Award in South Korea, UNDP-IBLF World Business Award in New York and Lemelson Award for Innovation in Finance at IIT Madras in relation to his work at Aavishkaar. He was awarded Ashoka Fellowship and Honorary Membership of XLRI Alumni Association in recognition of his contribution to Impact investing space.