Resilience, Relevance and Reinvention: The CMO Agenda for Tomorrow

Suresh Narayanan
Chairman & Managing Director, Nestle India

Mr. Suresh Narayanan has over 40 years of rich and exhaustive experience in the FMCG Industry and has held Senior Management and Top Leadership roles in leading global companies. He is on the Board of Directors of Nestlé India Limited from 1st August, 2015. Mr. Narayanan was Chairman and CEO of Nestlé Philippines prior to joining Nestlé India in 2015.

Mr. Narayanan was Managing Director of Nestlé Singapore Pte. Ltd., from 2008 to 2010. During his time, the overall business in Singapore witnessed sustained growth amidst the economic downturn. He was awarded the Medal of Commendation by the Government of Singapore in 2010, for excellence in employee relations during this challenging period. He moved to Nestlé Egypt as Chairman and CEO and Head of NEAR, where his initiatives resulted in significant business growth and investments despite the turbulence and volatility faced by the region at this time.

Mr. Narayanan joined Nestlé in 1999 as Executive Vice President for Sales in India, where he spearheaded major structural and strategic changes in Sales and Customer Management and set up the chilled dairy business. He moved to Nestlé Indochina in 2003, as Executive Director for Sales, Marketing and Food-Services, covering the countries of Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. Two years later in 2005, he returned to Nestlé India as Head of Sales for India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Mr. Narayanan began his career as a Management Trainee with Hindustan Unilever, where he held numerous positions of increasing responsibility in Sales, Marketing and General Management. He has also worked with Colgate Palmolive in India.

Mr. Narayanan holds a master's degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and has a Diploma from the IMD Program for Executive Development. He was conferred with honoris causa, Doctor of Philosophy in Management by Bennett University, India.

He has participated in the Nestlé Leadership Program of the London Business School. He has delivered talks at NASSCOM forums, various Corporates, NUS School of Business-Singapore, American University–Cairo, Columbia University, Army War College Mhow, Naval War College-Goa and Business Schools such as IIM's, ISB etc. in India.

Mr. Narayanan was honoured at the Forbes India Leadership Awards 2017 as the Best CEO in the Multinational category. He was recognized among "Most Valuable CEOs" in 2019 by Business World and also awarded "Best CEO – FMCG" for two years consecutively in 2019 and 2020 by Business Today. CNBC-AWAAZ awarded Mr. Suresh Narayanan as the Best Performing Leader for the MNC category in 2020. Mr. Narayanan was honored as the Entrepreneurial CEO at EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2020

Under his leadership, in 2019, Nestlé India won the "Best Governed Company Award for 2018" by Asian Centre for Corporate Governance & Sustainability. Business Standard Awarded Nestlé India as the MNC of the year in 2020. In 2020 Business World Awarded Nestlé India for Best Financial Performance in the MNC Category and also bestowed 'Purpose and Resilience' Award 2020 and in 2021 Nestlé India was awarded Outstanding Company of the year by CNBC TV18 India Business Leader Awards (IBLA).In 2021 Mr. Suresh Narayanan was honoured amongst the Top 101 Male Gender Equality Champions Globally. Under Mr. Narayanan's leadership Nestlé India recognized as 'MNC in India of the year' in 2022 by All India Management Association.

Rajesh Ramakrishnan
Chairman, CII National Committee on Marketing Leadership & Managing Director, Perfetti Van Melle India

Rajesh Ramakrishnan, Managing Director, Perfetti Van Melle India

A veteran with over 28 years of experience in General Management, Sales and Marketing, Rajesh Ramakrishnan is the Managing Director at Perfetti Van Melle India, the country's leading confectionery player. Rajesh is responsible for the overall operations of the company for India and Nepal.

An accomplished business leader and a seasoned marketing professional, Rajesh has worked across categories like Personal Care, Household Care, Foods & Beverages, Confectionery and Media. Under his leadership, Perfetti Van Melle, Bangladesh delivered sustained growth and achieved market leadership in 2016. Rajesh has been in his current role since 2018 and has led the growth revival in India and further consolidated its market leadership position.

Prior to joining Perfetti Van Melle in 2014, he was the Marketing Head at HT Media Limited. He has also held senior positions in diverse corporations including Pepsico, Marico Industries and Reckitt Benckiser. Post his graduation in Engineering from BITS Pilani, Rajesh pursued his MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur.

Rajesh is an award- winning photographer. His work has been featured at Cannes and has also been published in several publications in India and outside. He is also passionate about travelling and has been on expeditions to Everest Base Camp, Kilimanjaro and Annapurna Base Camp. Rajesh along with his wife and teenage daughter started an initiative- My Daughter is Precious [MDIP] in March 2015 to raise awareness about gender equality and support the education of the girl child. The website is https://mydaughterisprecious.com/

Rajesh is also a champion for gender equality and is a mentor for the past 7 years with BD foundation.

Sandeep Deshmukh
CEO, Elastic Run

Sandeep is leading ElasticRun to build a full stack B2B eCommerce platform for rural India. Prior to ElasticRun, Sandeep was part of the Amazon's pioneer team that launched the India business. Sandeep started his career as a software engineer with some of the technology leaders like Apple in silicon valley and DHL in Asia Pacific.

Sandeep completed his schooling from a small town and then went to complete his bachelors in Instrumentation Engineering and further his business masters from IIM Ahmedabad.

Sandeep is passionate about building large technology led businesses from scratch. He is an avid reader with interest in history, psychology and evolution.

Rahul Handa
Senior Vice President- Strategic Initiatives, ONDC*

Rahul Handa is the Senior Vice President-Strategic Initiatives at ONDC. In his current role, he is responsible for looking after the taxonomy, dispute management, fraud management, open data, reputation ledger, and settlement as a service.

Rahul brings 25 years of work experience with consulting expertise across global markets like sales, retail technologies, health technologies, client delivery, global team setup and management, onshore-offshore team structure, and margin & profitability management.

On the academic front, he is a Delhi University graduate and pursued his MBA from IMT Ghaziabad. He later completed MIM (Strategy) from Arizona State University.

Prior to ONDC, he managed various IT transformation, project management, and consulting assignments. In the past, he was associated with Gartner as an Engagement Lead and Consultant, wherein he closely managed more than 50 engagements with clients in Healthcare, Retail, Telecommunications, and Utilities. He then moved on to Ernst & Young as Senior IT Transformation manager. He has also worked with Cognizant for three years, first as a Consulting Head for India & Middle East and then as a Consulting Partner in retail and consumer goods for the Nordic region.

Rahul began his entrepreneurial journey with GiftZenie, India's first gift registry platform that connects guests with event hosts to create a personalised wishlist for gifting. He further cofounded MarSha Healthcare, a Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) and a Patient Specific Longitudinal Health Record. As a health tech start-up, it created a single platform to access all medical records of a patient facilitating quicker treatment for them and better utilisation of limited resources for hospitals.

Deepika Bhan
President - Packaged Foods, TATA Consumer Products

Ranjani Krishnaswamy
GM - Marketing, Titan

Ms. Ranjani Krishnaswamy joins Titan as the Head - Tanishq Marketing, based at the Corporate Office. She is a passionate Brand Builder with over 17 years of experience in Marketing Leadership Roles, journeying a rich, diverse spectrum of Markets (Developed & Emerging economies), Roles (national, regional and global), and Brands (Mature as well as Nascent); in large complex as well as small nimble teams. Her marketing journey has been fuelled by Brands such as Dove Skin, Dove Hair, Yardley London, Hindustan Times, Lever Ayush, Santoor, Giffy, Carrie Junior, Wipro Lighting, across diverse markets of India, SEA, Japan, North America, EU, Middle East. She is an SPJIMR Marketing pass out and a Mathematics graduate.

Most recently she has been engaged as an Independent Brand Consultant to craft, design and bring to life their brand strategy. Prior to this she has been associated with Wipro Consumer Care, HT media and Unilever in various leadership capacities.

She is a music lover and tries to eke-out time for her reading.

Mehernosh Malia
Director – Dairy and Ready-to-Drink Beverages Nestlé

Deepak Bakshi
Managing Director, Accenture

Deepak is a Managing Director with Accenture Strategy & Consulting in India. He is passionate about data-driven digital commerce transformation to accelerate business growth. In his 18+ years' experience, he has worked across Digital Strategy and transformation, Digital Marketing, e-Commerce, Experience Design, and Applied Intelligence, with multiple clients spanning Consumer Goods, Retail, Automotive, Life Sciences, and Travel industries.

Karthi Marshan
President & CMO. Kotak Mahindra Bank

Karthi Marshan is the CMO and President, Kotak Mahindra Bank. He oversees the marketing functions of all entities of the Kotak Group. He has also steered the CSR, Customer Experience and HR functions in the past at Kotak.

Before Kotak, Karthi has worked at IDBI Bank, helped found Sharekhan and turned around an ailing DTH company in Sydney catering to the Asian diaspora in the ANZ region.

Karthi has also produced television shows for Sony, managed advertising campaigns for P&G (at Grey Worldwide) and written copy at Roger Pereira Communications.

Ravi Santhanam
Chief Marketing Officer, HDFC Bank

Mr. Ravi Santhanam is the CMO, Head – Digital Sales, Head-Corporate Communications, Head-Liability Products and Managed Programs at HDFC Bank.

In his current role, Mr Santhanam has espoused and put into practise the belief that marketing can be revenue driven. A firm believer of harnessing the potential of big data & analytics, brand communication and activation, digital marketing and digitization, he is responsible for driving the entire customer experience through digital origination, which enhances customer experience and also helps fulfill the business objectives. He has played a key role in establishing the customer centricity practice at HDFC Bank by setting up the NPS system across the Bank.

As part of the Future Ready teams, he has also been given the mandate to Head the Digital Sales function and Manage the product portfolio of liability products and managed programs for the Bank.

Prior to HDFC Bank, Mr. Santhanam worked with Vodafone, as COO for Uttar Pradesh. In 2013, He was given the responsibility to lead the new business vertical of Data, Devices, and Content & Innovation in Mumbai. He drove the the fast growing data business, which according to him, played an important role in driving the data led revolution that we see today in the country

With over 25 years of work experience, Mr Santhanam's previous stints include Reliance Communications, ICICI Bank and PowerGen, spanning across functions including Strategy, M&A, and Business & Functional leadership roles. He was the only CMO from India to be featured in the top 50 list of Forbes 'The World's Most Influential CMOs 2020'. This recognition was for the outstanding work done on the brand during the pandemic.

Ravi has a Mechanical Engineering degree from Anna University and is also an alumnus of IIM Calcutta and Harvard Business School.

A football aficionado, Ravi is married with two children, who he believes are his primary teacher on all things digital and digital experience.

Shubhranshu Singh
Vice President- Marketing Domestic and IB, CVBU, Tata Motors

Shubhranshu is the Vice President – Marketing, Domestic and IB, Tata Motors, CVBU. A thought leader, and growth catalyst, Shubhranshu has two decades of global brand and category-building experience on some of the most admired brands in the world, and earlier in his career has held leadership positions in global corporations such as Royal Enfield, Unilever, Visa, and Star. He has been instrumental in encouraging path-breaking work, creating the much-loved IPs, and inspiring large teams to go beyond.

Shubhranshu has international and wide-ranging exposure to brand management, demand creation, and customer experience management across diverse categories. Through his work on some of the most iconic brands, Shubhranshu has built a celebrated career spanning more than two decades. He is also a prolific writer and a columnist for several publications, particularly on brand design, consumer sociology, technology, and trends.

Shoma Narayanan
Managing Director - Group Strategic Marketing & Communications, DBS India*

Shoorveer Shekhawat
Head of Marketing, Video Banking & TFx Initiatives, AU Small Finance Bank

An impact-driven professional with over two decades of experience in BFSI, Shoorveer is currently Head of Marketing, Video Banking & TFx Initiatives at AU Small Finance Bank. His notable work in diverse banking roles, primarily building some profitable portfolios for industry leaders like YES Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and IDBI Bank, has blessed him with a unique perspective on how to articulate AU's branding credo of simplified banking,' with the customer-centric philosophy of 'Badlaav Humse Hai.' He is also an alumni of Harvard Business School and credits his learning from the prestigious university for his clear and focused vision of the Brand's future.

Shoorveer started his career in 2004 as a young branch banking executive and achieved steady growth with several stints of multi-functional experience. This granted him exposure for the key managerial roles he would take up in his future years. He has developed profound expertise in Channel and Product Management and has made significant impact to Business Banking with his research-based banking solutions for SMEs. Since 2016, Shoorveer has channelized his energies and experience to build and establish AU Small Finance Bank's portfolio, by developing its network and digital growth as the Chief of Products - Liabilities, Cards & Direct Banking. His attention to detail, strong focus on customer engagement and result-oriented initiatives and campaigns, set industry benchmarks.

However, his AU journey had many more miles to go. Shoorveer's interpersonal skills and love of storytelling have blessed him abundantly on personal and professional fronts. And this reflects in some of AU's foremost social Marketing campaigns under Badlaav Humse Hai. Quite recently, his passion and belief in the Brand's maxim has been instrumental in delivering a heartfelt and inspiring campaign with Network18 to recognize some of the most impactful ground root Changemakers from across India – lending meaningful value to the 'Badlaav movement.'

Shoorveer's core values of sincerity, focus and people management have been the driving force that helped him deliver benchmark results in the industry. He believes that learning never stops, and constantly challenges himself to explore new and upcoming domains – his present interest being the sustainable marketing models of the future. Finally, he believes that investing in impactful conversations by networking with varied stakeholders can bless all professionals with the best ideas and fulfilling relationships.

Anindita Veluri
Director - Marketing Adobe India

A sales & marketing professional, who has 23+ years of experience working at the intersection of technology, business and creativity. I have always believed in applying my customer centric approach to solve business pain- points. Armed with a cross industry mindset, I have been fortunate to work with leaders and teams cross APAC, Greater China, Latin America, Middle East & India. My career choices have led me to learn and partner with clients & organisations that drive change, build sustainable businesses and deliver meaningful customer experiences powered by technology & data insights. I have been recognised as the "warrior woman" who differentiates by being authentic, constantly learning and a trusted partner to drive the change as organisations navigate their digitisation journey. Personally, I am happiest when I mentor, coach and guide young women achievers in my additional role as the D&I regional lead.

Shuvadip Banerjee
Chief Digital Officer (CDO), ITC Limited

My Areas of Interest: Offbeat Travelling and Wildlife Photography

I am based out of Bangalore, India.

I joined ITC in 2007 as Head of Consumer Insights and over the last 15 years I have been lucky to be a part of the organization which grew ten folds to 1.5 Billion Dollar Business. I was instrumental into our forays into multiple food and beverage categories like Snacks, Juices, Chocolates, Noodles and Coffee.

Understanding consumers and their needs has always excited me and the quest has hence been to innovate systems and processes to keep ITC ahead of the curve and create winning solutions for the business. As data and analytics became more important in the area of decision making, I got the opportunity to spread my sphere of contribution. Today we have been able to go beyond the traditional analytical process to adapting the new age practice of machine learning and using artificial intelligence to predict outcomes with higher degree of accuracy.

Having set the practice of analytics, we focused to develop capabilities in the field of Digital Marketing. As a CDMO, I get the opportunity to be at the cusp of strategy, creative thinking, build innovative offers and create capabilities in the organization to be future ready. I feel like being a student 20 years back and even now. Hope to continue in the quest of knowing the new and implementing the best.

Surbhit Jain
Head of Product Marketing Data & Insights, APAC – Adobe

Surbhit Jain leads the Product Marketing for Adobe's Data & Insights product category for the Asia Pacific region. In his role, Surbhit is responsible for the regional product strategy, go-to-market and customer adoption for Adobe Experience Cloud solutions and the Adobe Experience Platform. Surbhit's broader areas of expertise are within data strategy, analytics, content & personalisation and enterprise architecture; having spent 18+ years of experience across product development, sales and consulting providing strategic advice to Adobe's customers.

Vijay Koshy
President - Content, TVF India

Mr. Vijay Koshy is the President of The Viral Fever (TVF), India's first OTT content creation brand, and a pioneer in the field. A digital content visionary, Vijay has over two decades of experience across leadership positions in ad sales revenue and integrated branded content solutions prior to a decade of media planning and buying amongst the top most agencies in the country including Enterprise, Trikaya Grey, Lintas, JWT Fulcrum etc . He has developed monetization models in the digital media industry for several brands some of which are the biggest media and content companies in India like Star TV, Sony, ESPN, RBNL, Channel V, Arre' and many more. Vijay was instrumental in establishing TVF as the go-to destination for everything branded, ranging from web series to mini-snackable content.

Utkrishta Kumar
CXO Business, Meesho

Utkrishta Kumar is the CXO of Business at Meesho. Prior to this, he worked as the Associate Vice President of Business at Paytm Mall . He also has experience as a Founding Member and Head of Operations and Product at Hopscotch.in . In his diverse experience UK was responsible for building the product roadmap, scaling the product, leading the supply chain product org, and driving important business rules and frameworks for P&L management.Utkrishta Kumar pursued a Bachelor's and Master's degree at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur.

Sharan Hegde
Founder, Finance with Sharan

Sharan is a former management consultant, at Big 4 companies, KPMG & PwC. Here I have worked with banks and NBFCs and helped them make a ton money. He has worked on several projects such as manpower optimisation, supply chain optimisation, new product development and digital transformation.

He now works as a full-time content creator and helps the common man make a ton of money. Sharan creates engaging personal finance content with a blend of comedic flavour and cosplay such as Harry Potter, Batman, Friends etc. on Instagram and YouTube. He also writes down highly action oriented posts on Linkedin and Twitter for those who prefer to read it instead. Sharan has amassed around 3 million followers on all social media platforms.

Sharan is also an active angel investor in the Fintech and Ed-tech.

Atul Sinha
Senior Vice President – Retail, CaratLane

Atul Sinha has over 20 years of industry experience and is currently working as Sr Vice President (Business) at CaratLane, one of India's leading omni-channel jewellery brands. He joined CaratLane in 2015 and currently leads the entire omni-channel business including its online business, Try-at-Home channel, CaratLane Live, and retail operations across 160 stores all over India. Prior to working at CaratLane, Atul was with Hindustan Unilever Limited for 13 years. He holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM-Ahmedabad and a BA (Honours) degree in Economics from the University of Delhi.

Philip Kuncheria
General Manager- Ecommerce and Modern Trade, Sebamed*

Philip Kuncheria is one among the core team that has built Sebamed in India and played a key role in making Sebamed among the fastest growing and profitable FMCG companies across beauty, baby and nutrition.

Philip Kuncheria is one among the core team that has built Sebamed in India and played a key role in making Sebamed among the fastest growing and profitable FMCG companies across beauty, baby and nutrition.

He is a Global Marketing Excellence Award winner at 3M & is an alumnus of IIM Lucknow.

Jayant Kshirsagar
Senior Vice President Marketing, CleverTap

Jayant brings with him over 26 years of rich industry experience across MNCs like SAP, Intuit, Wipro, AT&T (Idea Cellular), and most recently with high growth start-ups: CleverTap and MarketsandMarkets. Jayant believes in marketing for business impact and is known for building brands and scaling demand engines. Jayant is a momentum player.

Jayant is known for Growth Marketing and creating marketing programs that help organizations build brand and demand. He has launched various marketing programs that went on to become best practices globally at Intuit, SAP, MarketsandMarkets and CleverTap. During Jayant's tenure, SAP's brand ratings were ranked highest in the Indian market amongst 150+ countries they operate in. Jayant was recognized as Best Marketer across SAP APJ region for two consecutive years.

Before spending 8 years with SAP, Jayant spent 4.5 years at Intuit, 10 years with Wipro group, and 3 years with AT&T. At Intuit, Jayant built their ecosystem for small and medium businesses from scratch and launched flagship SaaS offerings like QuickBooks online in India.

At Wipro, he was instrumental in transforming one of their product companies into a services organization that went on to become a listed company later.

Jayant holds a bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering from Pune University and is an MBA in Marketing from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management.

Ankit Desai
Marketing Director, Hershey India*

Ankit Desai is the CMO India at The Hershey Company. In his role at Hershey, Ankit brings in extensive experience from renowned organizations such as Kellogg, Perfetti Van Melle, in building consumer brands, across diverse food categories of Chocolates, Breakfast Cereals, Snacks, Groceries, Health F&B, and Confectionary.

Under Ankit's leadership, Hershey Marketing vertical has deepened its presence in the fast-growing Indian chocolate market with the successful launch of the iconic Hershey's Kisses and other chocolate brands including Hershey's Exotic Dark and Hershey's Bar. During the same period, Ankit has successfully built campaigns, innovations and initiatives, which have led to Hershey being among the top players across multiple categories including chocolate syrup, chocolate spreads, milkshake, soya milk and lollipops.

Prior to joining Hershey India, Ankit has spent more than 11 years in various marketing and sales roles at Kellogg & Perfetti Van Melle.

Ankit's expertise is in building sustainable & profitable brands. He thrives on unlocking potential and building successful teams, bringing in culture of high bias for action and result-orientation. Recognized industry thought leader, who has contributed to internal senior-level learning interventions, Ankit's orientation towards 'thought leadership', has led to many a successful cross-media campaigns and launches, with 25+ industry awards.

Ankit enjoys spending most of his time post work with his wife, Delnaz, a seasoned HR professional and their nine-year-old daughter Hriana. He is a fitness enthusiast and a movie buff

Dr. Jagdish N. Sheth
Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Business, Goizueta Business School, Emory University

Prof Amitava Chattopadhyay
GlaxoSmithKline Chaired Professor of Corporate Innovation—Professor of Marketing, INSEAD

Prof. Ajay Kohli
Gary T. and Elizabeth R. Jones Chair & Professor of Marketing, Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

Dr. Marcus Collins
Clinical Professor of Marketing, Stephen Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

Prof. Utpal Dholakia
George R. Brown Professor of Marketing, Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University, Texas

Mr. John Jantsch
Business Growth Speaker and Marketing Consultant

Mr. Brendan Kane
Founder and Managing Partner
Hook Point and Bestselling Author

Mr. Harshavardhan Neotia
Chairman, CII Suresh Neotia Centre of Excellence for Leadership and Chairman, Ambuja Neotia Group

Mr. Girish Agarwal
Director, Dainik Bhaskar Group

Mr. Sadashiv Nayak
Chief Executive Officer, Future Retail

Mr. Jayant Khosla
MD & Group CEO VLCC

Ms. Bidisha Nagaraj
Vice President - Global Marketing, Schneider Electric

Mr. Sunder Madakshira
Head of Marketing, Adobe India

Mr. Pankaj Parihar
Vice President & Head - Digital & Digital Transformation, Godrej Consumer Products

Mr. Ajay Kakar
Chief Marketing Officer, Aditya Birla Capital

Ms. Lulu Raghavan
Managing Director, Landor & Fitch India

Mr. K Ramakrishnan
Managing Director – South Asia, Worldpanel Division, Kantar

Ms. Nimisha Jain
Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) & Global Leader - Center for Consumer Insight

Mr. Mohit Kapoor
Group Vice President -Advertising & Innovations, Jio Platforms

Mr. Rajat Wahi
Partner, Deloitte

Mr. Supratik Sengupta
Head Of Marketing - Consumer Health (OTC), Lupin

Mr. Pankaj Rana
Business Head – Mobility Division, Panasonic

Mr. Nikhil Rungta
Vice President and Country Manager, Verizon Media (Yahoo)

Ms. Jayati Singh
Global Head- Marketing and Corporate Communications, Tally Solutions

Mr. Manav Sethi
Chief Marketing Officer, Octro Inc.

Ms. Garima Dikshit
Head - eCommerce and Modern Trade, Mondelez India Foods

Ms. Deepika Sabharwal Tewari
Chief Brand Officer, WOW Skin Science

Mr. Parth Joshi
Chief Marketing Officer, BharatPe

Ms. Shailja Joshi
Associate Director, Marketing, PepsiCo India

Meghna Apparao
Chief Business Officer, Licious

Mr. Smerth Khanna
Business Head, Ecommerce, Dabur India

Ms. Bianca Ghose
Chief Storyteller & Head of CEO Communications, Wipro

Mr. Kalpesh Parmar
Country General Manager
Mars Wrigley India

Mr. Rajesh Kumar
VP Marketing - India & South Asia
UI Path

Mr. Sagar Boke
Head - Customer & Shopper Marketing - Foods & Beverages
TATA Consumer Products

Ms. Soumya Mohanty
Managing Director, Client and Quantitative, Insights Division
Kantar

Harshavardhan Neotia
Chairman, CII Suresh Neotia Centre of Excellence for Leadership and Chairman, Ambuja Neotia Group

Rama Bijapurkar
Management Consultant

Prof. Nirmalya Kumar
Lee Kong Chian Professor of Marketing Singapore Management University

Bharat Puri
Chairman, CII National Committee on FMCG & Managing Director Pidilite Industries

Amit Syngle
Managing Director and CEO Asian Paints

Sunil Kataria
CEO – India and SAARC Godrej Consumer Products

Sameer Satpathy
Divisional Chief Executive – Personal Care ITC

Vivek Sunder
Chief Operating Officer, Swiggy

Abheek Singhi
Managing Director and Senior Partner Asia-Pacific Leader, Consumer and Retail Practice Boston Consulting Group, Mumbai

Ajay Khanna
Chief Marketing Officer, Amway

Amit Doshi
Chief Marketing Officer (India and South Asia) Lenovo

Sanjay Gupta
Marketing Director – APAC, Uber

Preeti Reddy
Chairman, CII IWN Maharashtra and CEO South Asia - Insights Division Kantar

Arvind RP
Director - Marketing and Communications McDonald's India (West and South)

Sharad Somani
Digital GTM Leader - South Asia & South East Asia Western Union

Prof. Tim Calkins
Clinical Professor of Marketing, Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University

John Hall
Co-founder Calendar.com

Prof. Jan-Benedict E M Steenkamp
C. Knox Massey Distinguished Professor of Marketing Kenan-Flagler Business School University of North Carolina

Dr. Darren Coleman
Managing Consultant & Founder Wavelength Marketing

Steve Mckee
Co-founder McKee Wallwork + Co

Prof. Ravi Dhar
George Rogers Clark Professor of Management and Marketing and Director, Center for Customer Insights Yale School of Management

Mark W. Schaefer
Chief Operating Officer, B Squared Media

Pinakiranjan Mishra
Partner, Sector Leader Consumer Products and Retail, India Ernst & Young

Avnish Anand
Co-Founder, Caratlane

Prasanjeet Baruah
Head - EdTech and Health, Technology, Telecommunications Facebook India

Manoj Rijhwani
Head of Online Sales - India, LinkedIn

Arvind Bhandari
Executive Vice President, Director Nutrition - South Asia Nestle

Saloni Nangia
President Technopak

Pallavi Singh
Marketing Director BMW India

Anil Chilla
Chief Digital Officer L’Oreal

Siddhant Narayan
Head Of Marketing, OnePlus

Vishal Rupani
Co-founder and CEO mCanvas

Darshana Shah
Senior Vice President Marketing and Digital Aditya Birla Health Insurance

Sukhpreet Singh
Corporate Head – Marketing Dish TV & Watcho

Achint Setia
Vice President - Marketing Myntra

Rory Sutherland
Vice Chairman Ogilvy UK

Avinash Chandra
Founder & CEO Brandloom Consulting

Bansari Vyas
Product Marketing Head Facebook India

Bhaskar Ramesh
Group Head – Branding Sector Google

Chhavi Sharma
Head of Brand and Marketing Bisleri International

David Meerman Scott
Business Growth Strategist, Entrepreneur, VC Strategic Partner

Erich Joachimsthaler
Founder and CEO, Vivaldi Group

G. Ajay Row
Partner DAN (Dentsu Aegis Network) Consult

Haja Sheriff
Partner DAN (Dentsu Aegis Network) Consult

Indrani Khanvilkar
Director – National Sales mCanvas

Kaacon Sethi
Chief Corporate Marketing Officer Dainik Bhaskar

Karam Malhotra
CEO (India) and VP, Global SHAREit Technology

N. Chandramouli
Chief Executive Officer TRA Research

Nicholas Ind
Partner, Equilibrium Consulting and Professor at Kristiania University College, Oslo

Rachana Panda
Chief Communications Officer & Citizenship Leader GE South Asia

Rajiv Singh
Head, Ad Sales and Monetization SonyLiv

Sameer Seth
Director, Marketing - India Dolby Laboratories

Shailendra Singh
Head - Marketing & Branding Bank of Baroda

Sridhar Narayan
Digital Leader Adobe India

Vivek Bhargava
Chief Executive Officer DAN Performance Group

Vivek Sharma
Chief Marketing Officer Pidilite Industries Ltd

Aashish Chopra
Vice President - Content Marketing Ixigo.com

Abhishek Upadhyay
Head Marketing OLX India Pvt. Ltd.

Advit Sahdev
Head of Marketing Infibeam Incorporation Ltd.

Akhil Almeida
Vice President – Digital Kantar IMRB

Alok Agarwal
Partner - Marketing Strategy, New Product Development & Brand Communication Hypersonic Advisors

Alpana Parida
Managing Director DMA Yellow Works Limited

Arpan Basu
General Manager & Head of Communications, India & SW Asia Coca Cola India Pvt. Ltd.

Atul Bhatnagar
Group Head – Hospital Marketing Narayana Health

Karthik Srinivasan
Independent Communications Consultant – Digital / Social Media Marketing & PR

Madhubanti Banerjee
Associate Director Nielsen India Pvt. Ltd.

Meenu Bagla
Head Global Brand & Digital Marketing Tech Mahindra Ltd.

Peter Yorke
Chief Executive Officer Yorke Communications Pvt. Ltd.

Rajesh Lalwani
Chief Executive Officer Scenario Consulting Pvt. Ltd.

Ramin Saherwala
Head - Media, Digital & Communications, South Asia GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Rubeena Singh
Chief Executive Officer Iprospect Inc.

Samar Singh Sheikhawat
Chief Marketing Officer United Breweries Ltd.

Shradha Tripathi
Head of Sales Wittyfeed

Sumanta Ganguly
National Director - Digital Marketing & Transformation Pointnine Lintas

Sunder Madakshira
Head of Marketing Adobe Systems India Pvt. Ltd.

Viresh Oberoi
Entrepreneur and Consultant & Past Chairman, CII Eastern Region

Abhijit Sanyal
President, DY Works

Harish Bijoor
Brand Guru & Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Hitesh Rajwani
Head, Social Samosa

Krishnan Chatterjee
Head of Marketing – Indian SubContinent, SAP

Kunal Jeswani
Chief Executive Officer Ogilvy & Mather India

Maneesha Khanna
Associate Director – Media & Consumer Engagement PepsiCo India

Prashant Singh
Chief Customer Officer, Leadsquared

Ranjan Kumar Mohapatra
Executive Director, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd

Shireesh Joshi
Head - Strategic Marketing, Godrej Group

Sonia Khurana
Sr. Vice President & National Head of Customer Engagement Ogilvy & Mather India

Subhrangshu Neogi
Director - Group Marketing & Brand Religare Enterprises Limited

Sudipto Ghosh
Executive Director – Services Lenovo India

Sugato Banerji
Chief Marketing Officer, Videocon d2h

Sumanta Ray
Chief Marketing Officer, Narayana Health

Kedar Lele
Executive Director, Customer Development, Hindustan Unilever

Mr Kedar Lele (45) was appointed as the Executive Director, Customer Development for Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) w.e.f. July 1, 2021.

Kedar joined HUL in 2004 after completing his MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and holds a prior degree in advertising and brand management from MICA, Ahmedabad (1998).

Kedar is a well-rounded business leader with over two decades of experience covering General Management, Sales & Customer Development, FMCG Marketing, Internet companies and Advertising.

Prior to his appointment as Executive Director, Customer Development, Kedar led Unilever Bangladesh Limited as Chairman and Managing Director and has been instrumental in delivering consistent, competitive, profitable and responsible growth while making a difference to the country and communities.

Kedar’s purpose is to unleash hidden energy that brings success and happiness to people, business, and society. He brings his passion for balancing the team’s energy and driving accountability while being recognised as a compassionate leader.

Moumita Sarker
Partner, Deloitte

Moumita is passionate about driving the business of analytics for organizations and making an impact through AI. 19 years have seen transformation of the field of analytics and partnerships through AI journeys of various organizations in multiple domains including entrepreneurship and a practitioner of AI.

Karishma Gupta
Partner, Consulting, Deloitte India

Karishma Gupta, Partner, Consulting, Deloitte India comes with 25 years of experience in helping brands transform how they engage and transact with their customers, build digital platforms and capabilities, and drive change in pursuit of that ambition. She has led engagements for some of the biggest brands in the world, defining and delivering large scale solutions at the intersection of strategy, creativity and technology and leading diverse, multi-cultural global teams, complex and agile program management, and in delivering results for her clients.

Karishma values collaboration, lead with empathy, and always try to do the right thing. Having experienced the benefits of diversity in driving innovation, she is a passionate advocate of workplace diversity.

Manish Makhijani
Partner
Positron Advisor

Manish has worked for more than 26 years in the insights and analytics space, 19 of which have been with Unilever; where he has lived and worked in four countries, across brands and categories in different leadership roles within businesses. Manish’s expertise is to make the businesses more consumer centric and integrate insights with the business strategy. He has pioneered several new initiatives for Unilever that have become institutionalised, and part of the global best practices used every day – like analysing 6Ps of marketing to diagnose the performance; Growth Scout: a tool for identifying growth opportunities; Demand Spaces: a new way of segmenting the market for category and brand expansion; creating new market development models for expanding categories; accreditation of qualitative researchers across the world to identify the best talent; to name a few. He is recognised as a thought leader in the space of insights globally and won the global prestigious international ‘Ginny Valentine Award’ in 2013 and global ‘Insights 250’ in 2023.

Srivatsan Sridhar
Co-Founder & CEO, Skydo

Srivatsan is Co-founder & CEO of Skydo Inc. Earlier, Srivatsan was head of Business at Rupeek – an asset-backed lending platform, leading teams across growth, business delivery and customer experience. Srivatsan has 19 years of professional experience spanning management consulting, business building and leadership roles in fast growth technology startups. Prior to joining Rupeek, Srivatsan managed the platform Revenue and profitability at India’s largest ride-hailing platform, Ola. Before Ola, Srivatsan led his family-owned automotive parts manufacturing business. He also has 6 years of experience with management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. where he advised clients primarily in financial services. He is most excited by the possibilities to transform business using data and digital technologies, and is passionate about building high performing teams, and mentor students and young professionals. Srivatsan has a master’s degree in industrial Engg from The Ohio State University and an MBA from The Indian School of Business.

Soumya Mukhopadhyay
Head of Innovation, APAC ,Kantar

Soumya Mukhopadhyay is the APAC Innovation lead for Kantar. He has worked in the area of innovation for more than two decades across different categories and clients including ITC, BAT, Pepsi, Coke, Colgate, Mondelez, Nestle, GSK, L’Oreal, Google, Amazon. His areas of expertise include thought leadership, solution development and strategic consultancy in the early stage of innovation, pricing, portfolio & revenue management and forecasting. He has been the Global R&D Head of Innovation for Kantar leading the development and successful launch of behavioural idea and concept testing offers; e.g. Idea eValuate, eValuate in Context.

Anand Santhanam
Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Saint Gobain

Anand Santhanam brings over 22 years of experience and expertise as a well-seasoned sales, marketing and business development professional. He has a successful track record of working in diverse sectors like construction and building materials, automotive, durables and electronics. Anand’s skill sets in marketing management, sales, channel management, consumer insight generation and leadership management have been instrumental in shaping his career graph. Over the years, Anand has held key positions in his various stints across some of India’s best-known companies including Carrier Aircon, ONIDA (MIRC Electronics), Philips India Ltd, Tractors & Farm Equipment (TAFE), Massey Fergusson Tractors, etc. Anand holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering (Instrumentation and Control) from the University of Madras and a master’s degree in management studies (Marketing) from the University of Mumbai. He is an active member of the CII Marketing Forum.

Prabhat Kumar
Vice President - Flat Products, Marketing & Sales, TATA Steel

Mr Prabhat Kumar is the Vice President - Flat Products, Marketing and Sales, at Tata Steel. He has held multiple leadership roles across functions in the organisation since 2008 getting deep exposure to the core business, managing stakeholders and high-level management. Before taking on his current role, Mr Kumar was Principal Executive Officer to CEO&MD, Tata Steel. He has rich experience across Marketing & Sales of both Flat and Long Products and has been instrumental in developing strategies for automotive and construction market segments. Mr Kumar oversaw the launch of several new products to cater to changing market needs. He has rich experience in techno-commercial functions.

Mr Kumar is Mechanical Engineer from B.I.T Sindri and has more than 32 years of rich experience in Tata Steel and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management from XLRI, Jamshedpur. He has also completed CEDEP General Management Program at INSEAD, France. He joined Tata Steel Jamshedpur as a Graduate Trainee in 1990. In addition, he is part of the Profit Centre Councils in Tata Steel and is also a Member of the Board of Directors of subsidiary companies of Tata Steel.

Ashwin Moorthy
Chief Marketing Officer, India, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL)

Ashwin is a Marketing and Advertising professional with 15+ years’ experience in Media, Marketing and Sales in the Consumer Products industry. He joined Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL) in August, 2022. At GCPL, he heads marketing for India, encompassing brands across the categories of household insecticide, home care, personal care and hair care. Prior to this, he was with Hindustan Unilever where he worked across Sales and Marketing, including roles in Skin Cleansing, Beverages, and Functional Nutrition.

Mohit Ahuja
President, Gozoop Group

Mohit is an Experienced advertising specialist with a demonstrated history of working across categories and brands. Skilled in Brand Management, Integrated Marketing, Advertising and Marketing Strategy. An engineer with a PGDACM focused in Marketing and Advertising from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies.

VG Senthilkumar
Head marketing & branding, Bank of Baroda

His current role encompasses the overall Marketing, Branding & Public Relation functions of the Bank. Leadership role at TOP. Executive Grade (TEG-VI ) with direct reporting to Executive Director and MD & CEO of Bank. The Role involves managing a Team of 30+ at corporate level and 180+ at the Zonal & Regional levels. Responsible for building the Marketing Strategy including Digital. Marketing Strategies for Bank across all product lines and strengthening the Brand Value. Responsible for handling all Media channels including Print, Electronic, Outdoor and social media with budget spends of over 23 Million USD. Digital Marketing functions include Paid Digital, Organic and Social Media Marketing. Selected for sharing best practises in Digital Marketing amongst Public Sector Banks under EASE Reforms Agenda of Government of India. Sanctions of Rs 1800 cr + Retail Asset Loans (HL, Pl, CAR, MSME) through Paid Digital Marketing and over Rs 60 K Crores from organic Lead generation through Digital Channels during FY-2022-23. Management of Banks Website which include Development of Content, Trafffic growth & sustenance, Lead Generation & Building infrastucture capabilities alongwith managing other 9 websites of Banks International Territories. Handling the entire gamut of PR functions of the Bank which include Press & Media Releases, announcement of Banks Quarterly Financial Results and Analyst.

Sumeli Chatterjee
Head - Integrated Marketing and Experiences, India & Southwest Asia, Coca Cola

Sumeli leads the integrated marketing communication for India and Southwest Asia for Coca-Cola. She is at the forefront of driving digital transformation, implementing platform strategies, and creating unique brand experiences like Coke Studio in Bangladesh and India. She also leads company's relations with sports associations like the International Cricket Council and spearheads creator programs that foster deep audience connections, especially for youth.

With over 20 years of experience, Sumeli has worked across diverse portfolio of clients, having navigated sectors such as FMCG, Media, and Entertainment. From her early days at Coca-Cola to her stints at MTV and The Times of India, she has consistently managed large and diverse teams, successfully steering complex projects. These initiatives have even earned recognition at prestigious events such as Cannes Lions, D&AD, and CLIO. She has also co-authored several youth insights publications at MTV and has been a speaker at public forums and conferences in India and abroad.