Learning@Unmukt
If you are a history buff this is a podcast made exclusively for you. And even if you aren’t one, then too an episode or two is enough to get…
Ashwin Kunder
Sr. Director – Retail & Alternatives, India, JLL
Unmukt – The Senior Hub
The Senior Hub
If you are a history buff this is a podcast made exclusively for you. And even if you aren’t one, then too an episode or two is enough to get…
Ashwin Kunder
Sr. Director – Retail & Alternatives, India, JLL
Current Responsibilities
Ashwin is a Sr. Director – Retail & Alternatives business at JLL. He is responsible for providing strategic oversight and growing the firm’s Retail and Alternatives business across Karnataka and Kerala. He leads a team of over 16 professionals covering all business functions and processes pertaining to Schools, Co-living, Senior Living, Student Housing, Retail Mall Leasing, Sales, Investment, Retail High Street Transactions and F&B and Lifestyle brand representation. He is also on the advisory board of JLL Retail and forms a key member for JLL Alternatives India team.
Experience
Ashwin has over 13 years of experience in the real estate sector. He began his career as a Management Trainee from Cushman & Wakefield India. In this role, he was among the pilot team who drove the business for C&WI Retail for Karnataka and within 4 years, started heading the region with a team. In 2011, he joined Vestian Global India and as a core member started the Retail Leasing Business for the firm. In 2014, Ashwin took up an additional role for Vestian managing Commercial Leasing and provided solutions to Corporate Real Estate Clients – Consolidation of space, relocation of office space for key clients.
He joined JLL in 2015 and since then has been instrumental in turning around the retail operations for Karnataka and Kerala markets. Ashwin is also part of the Shopping Mall Advisory team – advising developers across elements such as Design advisory, trade and tenant mix study, leading to lease management & transactions. He recently took over the additional role of Alternatives business which encompasses asset classes such as Co-living, Student Housing, Schools and Senior Living. Ashwin has advised occupiers through market entry strategies, competition mapping and built a robust team to drive this business across the region. Along with managing new locations across key cities, Ashwin also oversees expansions into Tier 2 and 3 cities.
Ashwin is a member of Royal Insitiute of Chartered Surveyors in India since 2017.
Education and Affiliations
• Postgraduate Diploma in Management, Alliance Business Academy, Bangalore 2007
• Bachelor of Business Management, MICRO Business Management, Udupi, 2005
• Member of RICS since 2017
• Accelerated Leadership Program, Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning, 2019
• JLL Retail Board member since 2018
Contact
T: +91 9686688841
E: ashwin.kunder@ap.jll.com
Vaibhav Tewari
Chief Operating Officer, Portea Medical
Vaibhav Tewari is the Chief Operating Officer at Portea Medical. He has more than 23 years of extensive experience in building new businesses across industries such as healthcare, business process outsourcing, technology, and supply chain management.
Portea is the largest consumer healthcare brand outside of hospitals in India. At Portea, as a key member of the founding team from the inception, Vaibhav has been instrumental in building the organization to a scale of over 4000 employees with operations in 20 cities, serving over 1 Million patients so far.
In his earlier ventures, he co-founded iSeva, which was one of the first BPO and Tech Support companies in India. As the Founder and President, he set-up and ran the company’s India Operations in the initial years. Vaibhav moved on to assume the position of President – India operations at e4e, a company with which iSeva was merged in the year 2006. In this capacity, he managed their India operations across all the verticals with over 4000 employees.
He later co-founded o2s360, which offered B2B Distributor and Loyalty Management Software and was used at many large corporates in India.
He has also worked in well-known organizations like Citibank, Grindwell Norton and Microland in his career.
Vaibhav is also an accomplished speaker and has presented his views on various topics at forums/events such as Nathealth, CII-GES, ISB Health forum, InterOp, TiE, and Cloud Connect; and has numerous papers and articles to his credit. He is also actively involved in mentoring entrepreneurs; and serves as a Board of Director, Advisor and Mentor to many fast-growing companies across Internet, Retail Consumer and Technology verticals. Vaibhav has also been a judge and mentor at many Industry events like Power of Ideas (ET), TiE Entrepreneurship events, NEN, IBM SmartCamp, Women Entrepreneurship Quest, IITK fest and SLP etc.
Vaibhav has an MBA in Marketing from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He has completed a Bachelors’ degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT, Kanpur.
His hobbies include Golf and Astrology.
Vineet Verma
Executive Director & CEO, Brigade Hospitality Services Ltd.
Vineet served Royal Calcutta Turf Club, one of the most prestigious thoroughbred horse racing institutions in the world from 1980 till 2003, having been appointed as its Secretary & CEO in the year 1993. He was also two times the Secretary General of the Turf Authorities of India.
He was later invited to join Bengal Ambuja Metro Dev. Ltd, Kolkata in 2003 as their CEO. The company developed the award winning ‘City Centre’ Mall in Salt Lake, Kolkata.
While in Kolkata, he was actively involved in CII, ICC, Young Leaders forum, Bengal Chamber of Commerce etc. He was also the Member, Governing Body of Concern for Calcutta, a leading NGO in West Bengal.
Vineet was then invited to join Brigade Group in 2006. He is presently the Executive Director & CEO, Brigade Hospitality, that develops and oversees the management of Hotels, Serviced Apartments, Clubs and Convention Centers besides Corporate & Institutional Catering and Event Management.
In October 2019, Vineet has been given the additional charge as President and Director World Trade Centre Bangalore, Kochi and Chennai.
Presently, Brigade Group has seven operating hotels and several more under various stages of development, with a target of creating an inventory of around 2100 keys by 2021-22.
He is also leading Brigade Group’s foray into Senior Living services, through Celebrations LLP, a subsidiary.
He is an active member of Bangalore Chamber of Industry & Commerce and is also the Mentor of its Expert Committee on Tourism.
He also heads the CII Taskforce for Tourism in South India and is the Vice President of Karnataka Tourism Society set up to promote Tourism & travel in the State in association with Government of Karnataka.
Vineet has been acknowledged on a number of occasions, for his contribution to the Tourism & Hospitality sectors.
He is actively involved in promoting the cause of the Girl Child, in association with World Vision India.
Akila Krishnakumar
Chair, Social Venture Partners, Bangalore
Akila Krishnakumar has over 30 years of experience in software product development for financial services and education markets world-wide. Until 2013, Akila was President – Global Technology and Country Head for SunGard (now FIS) in India – a Fortune 500 company and global leader in financial services software. In 2013, she stepped out of her executive position to pursue broader interests and now divides her time equally between the corporate and social sector.
She is the founding partner of India’s first venture philanthropy organization – Social Venture Partners – which has built a network of engaged philanthropists across 6 cities in India to address complex livelihood issues. She recently set up the MELA Foundation – an organization that supports innovative ideas in the areas of Active Ageing, Learning and Mental health.
She is a distinguished alumnus of BITS, Pilani.
Dr. Radha S. Murthy
Co-Founder & Managing Trustee, Nightingales Medical Trust
President, Alzheimer’s & Related Disorders Society of India, Bangalore Chapter
Vice Chairperson, Alzheimer’s & Related Disorders Society of India
AWARDS / RECOGNITIONS
Dr. Alexander Thomas
D.Orth, M.S. Orth, M. Phil. [HSSM], PGDMLE
Founder-Member and President of the Association of Healthcare Providers of India (AHPI)
Dr. Thomas has served the healthcare sector for over 30 years, and holds positions in several national associations that address issues within the healthcare sector: he is the Founder-Member and President of the Association of Healthcare Providers of India (AHPI), Founder-Member and President of the Association of National Board Accredited Institutions (ANBAI), Founder-President (2012-2017) and Patron of the Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organizations (CAHO). In these roles, he has effected far-reaching policy changes within the healthcare landscape.
He played a significant part in incorporating healthcare communication among the NABH Accreditation Standards for Hospitals (4th Edition), introducing communication skills within the MBBS and PG curricula for medical students across India, rolling back the service tax for the health sector and making assaults on doctors a non-bailable offence. Due to his efforts, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) of India made entry-level accreditation mandatory for the empanelment of hospitals, which will result in mandatory empanelment (currently numbering 33,000 hospitals). Dr. Thomas led the expert group on medical education for the National Education Policy (2019) headed by Dr. Kasturirangan. He initiated the creation of a national Think Tank on Health at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU). He is also the Chairman of Health Environment Leadership Platform [HELP] and Chairmen of the organizing committee of the first National Conclave on Climate Change on health, Role of healthcare Sector.
At the State level, Dr. Thomas played an important role in developing the State Public Health Policy as the Member-Secretary of its Task Force. He has led committees for NABH accreditation of government hospitals in Karnataka, the implementation of NBE accreditation for DNB courses in district hospitals of Karnataka, and working towards a tobacco-free Karnataka. He played a key role in engaging with the Government of Karnataka to bring out a patient-centric Clinical Establishment Act, and through FHAK, was able to engage with insurance companies to negotiate reasonable reimbursements for hospitals while ensuring patient safety and quality care, Member, Vision Group, Medical Education & Health, Government of Karnataka [GoK]
He has served as a member of several Boards including those of NABH and the Health Sector Skills Council (HSSC), and on committees including those set up by the Union Health Ministry, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), the National Board of Examinations (NBE), UNESCO, and the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), among others. Dr. Thomas also serves on the boards of many reputed healthcare organisations.
He has pioneered several training initiatives and certificate courses for healthcare professionals through AHPI and CAHO, as well as in collaboration with PHFI, on different topics such as healthcare quality (adopted by several State governments); healthcare communication; mental health and substance use disorders; and technology. He is an Examiner and Inspector for NBE, Former Professor of Orthopaedics at the MSU in Malaysia, and Visiting Faculty at IIM-B and NLSIU.
Dr Thomas co-edited the Handbook of Healthcare Quality (2016). Other important publications led by Dr. Thomas are the Guidebook for Pre-Accreditation Entry-Level Standards for Small Healthcare Organizations (2015) supported by the World Bank and NABH; Aspirations for the Elderly in India in collaboration with IBIn and the Planning Commission; and Health Quality – Upgradation Enabled through Space Technology [QUEST] in the Emergency and Critical Care Departments, in partnership with ISRO. He has co-authored several white papers submitted to the Government of India on the topics of chronic care, climate change and health, and the reformation of higher medical education, among others.
During his tenure as Director (CEO) of the Bangalore Baptist Hospital (BBH) from 2006-2014, the institution expanded from a small secondary-care hospital to a nationally-recognised 300-bedded multi-specialty operation, winning several prestigious awards in the process. The transformation of BBH under the leadership of Dr. Thomas is now a case study for management students at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B).
In addition to the awards received while he was the Director (CEO) of BBH, Dr. Thomas was awarded the Emeritus Teacher Award by NBE for his distinguished achievements and contributions to the field of Medical Education (2014), the National Distinguished Services Award (2016) by the Indian Medical Association, and the Lifetime Achievement Award (2018) by the Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organisations (CAHO). He was also awarded for his work on elder care by the Union Minister of State,Delhi in February 2020.
Nitish Agrawal
Founder, Indium Capital Advisors
Nitish is the founder of Indium Capital Advisors, a healthcare focused investment banking advisory firm. He has advised on domestic and cross border M&A as well as equity fund raising transactions across all segments of healthcare including large hospital chains, single speciality formats (maternity, IVF, etc), diagnostics, medical devices, and healthcare-tech, with a cumulative experience of evaluating over 45+ deals in healthcare. Nitish has had over 20 years of leadership experience in the past across Allegro Capital, GE Capital & Genpact. He is an engineer from IIT, BHU and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Calcutta.
Subhasish Sircar
Founder & CEO, Health Vectors
I lost a very close friend who died of cardiovascular complications at just 32. That one incident changed my life forever. Today I am passionate about leveraging technology and data science to gain deep insights into an individual’s health with a goal to enabling individuals live healthy with certainty, and avoid future diseases.
Over the last 6+ years, HV has been diligently building a personal health analytics engine. It is a cloud-based engine using an expert driven AI model, heuristics, evidence- based science and predictive analytics. One output of this engine is a hyper-personalized smart health report that is created in a few seconds while making thousands of calculations/decisions every time.
Using this analytics engine we are able to provide significant value to various stakeholders:
Prior to this venture I held leadership positions with organizations like GE, Alcoa, NASA. I hold a PhD in Materials Science from Michigan State University and an MBA from Wharton. I also hold 20+ international patents in various verticals.
Specialities: Data Analytics, Preventive Health, Predictive Health, Holistic Health, Data Science, Evidence Based Science, Artificial Intelligence, Heuristics, Claims Reduction
P S Srikumar
Founder & CEO at Integrated Eldercare Solutions Pvt Ltd.
Consultant, Unmukt Festival
Srikumar set up Integrated Eldercare Solutions (brand : Care Finder) in 2015 as a social sector enterprise. Care Finder works on concepts, strategy and specific go to market strategies for products and services focused on senior care. The company works on primary research, consumer surveys and secondary research, audit of Government funded NGO’s and day care centers focused on senior care, training manuals, academia interface and inter generation programs, communication and training programs for Care Givers in area of dementia and Alzheimer’s etc.,
Prior to this, Srikumar had 26 years of corporate sales and marketing in the Financial Services and HR Services industries. He handled resource mobilization, corporate finance, investment banking and consumer finance with Chemplast Sanmar, Kotak Mahindra and GE Capital. While working with Randstad India for almost 9 and half years as the Chief Operating Officer for India he worked on a number of skilling initiatives and managed staffing programs.
Dr. Ramanathan Sethuraman
Server Product Development Group, Intel
Dr. Ramanathan Sethuraman has 23 years of research and development experience in media algorithms/architectures post his Ph.D at the Indian Institute of Science. These R&D activities were carried out at Philips Research Labs (PRL) in Netherlands, Silicon Hive which was a start-up from PRL and Intel which acquired Silicon Hive in 2011. Dr. Sethuraman has 5 years of experience as Director of India operations and video product management at Silicon Hive. Having invented VSP (video signal processor) architecture at PRL, he formed Silicon Hive startup in Bangalore and productized VSP (used in Samsung TV series9 and above).
At Intel, Dr. Sethuraman was a video architect in Platform architecture team of mobile/client product groups for 4 years. He is currently, with the Server Product Development group focused on emerging server usages (healthcare analytics, media analytics) based on deep learning.
Dr. Sethuraman has mentored several Ph.D and MS students and has 14 US patents and 20+ US patent applications in flight.
Ravi Ramaswamy
Sr. Director & Head, Health Systems at Philips Innovation Campus
Ravi Ramaswamy heads the New Business Creation Hub at the Philips Innovation Campus, Bangalore, India. This hub interfaces with markets in Australia, Japan, APAC, India, Middle East, Turkey & Africa to support their growth ambitions. In addition to product development for the developed world, he is also deeply involved in creating products and solutions for the underserved segment in emerging geographies. The solutions are on par with international standards of quality as also affordable. Ravi is a member of the Leadership team of PIC.
Ravi completed his Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 1982 and then Masters in Engineering Management in 1990. He started his career with L&T in 1982, then moved on to GE in 2000 and then to Philips in 2010. His experience covers R&D, Operations, Finance, Strategic Planning, Project Management, Product Management and General Management. He has also worked in several domains like Computer peripherals, Consumer electronics, Defence electronics, Telecommunications, Medical electronics and IT environments.
Ravi has been a task force member of several Government committees at the Central and State level. He is a regular speaker in Indian / International Conferences on Healthcare. He evangelizes Healthcare in the print and Digital media. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers (India), Fellow, HITLAB USA, Senior Member (IEEE) and Chairs the Healthcare Track for IET in India.
Vishal Bali
Co-founder & Chair of Medwell Ventures
Vishal Bali brings with him 27 years of experience in building and leading global healthcare delivery organizations across developed and developing countries through a combination of organic and M&A driven strategic growth. Vishal brings with him a unique and diversified business experience of managing a $ 1bn P&L of an integrated healthcare delivery organisation comprising a wide spectrum of healthcare verticals including Hospitals, Diagnostics, Primary Care and Daycare Speciality networks across Asia Pacific. Having worked with a highly talented and multi-cultural global team based in Singapore, Australia, India, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Srilanka, Dubai and multiple other countries has given him the exceptional opportunity to grow teams and transform healthcare businesses across geographies.
Vishal is currently Executive Chairman, Asia Healthcare Holdings Pte and Senior Advisor TPG Growth He is also Co-founder & Chair of Medwell Ventures.
Prior to his current assignment Vishal was the Group CEO for Fortis Healthcare Limited which is the leading provider of healthcare services in India with a network of 68 hospitals and a pan India pathology diagnostics chain. Under his leadership Fortis Healthcare had also built Asia’s leading integrated healthcare delivery system with a presence across 12 countries and a human capital base of more than 20000 people. His previous roles also include CEO for Fortis Healthcare International in Singapore and CEO for Fortis Hospitals in India. One of his key contributions in the Indian healthcare ecosystem includes spearheading the growth and transformation of Wockhardt Hospitals from a single hospital to one of the largest pan India speciality hospital chains as its CEO & Managing Director and led India’s largest healthcare delivery merger of Wockhardt Hospitals with Fortis Healthcare. Vishal’s expertise in healthcare M&A, post-merger integration and divestments has given him a unique perspective to the role of private equity in the healthcare sector of Asia Pacific. He completed his Bachelor’s in science and Post-graduation in Business from Bombay University and completed an advance program in hospital management from Harvard Medical, Boston. He sits on the board of leading healthcare organisations and has been an invited member of the Strategic Initiatives group of Joint Commission International, US and a past member of the Global Agenda Healthcare Council of the World Economic Forum. His keen interest in education and globalisation of healthcare takes him to leading Healthcare Education Institutes and Business Schools globally which include case studies at the Harvard Business School. He is an active member of various Industry bodies and globally recognized industry public speaker.
Bradford Perkins
Founding Partner, Perkins Eastman, USA
Co-founder and Chairman of Perkins Eastman, Brad has directed a wide variety of projects in each of the firm’s primary practice areas. These have ranged from small projects for non-profit organizations and major healthcare and senior living communities to large-scale, mixed-used developments, entire institutional campuses, and master plans for new cities. He has worked throughout the US and Canada, as well as on projects in over 30 countries overseas. The depth of Brad’s experience makes him a firm-wide resource on planning, programming, project management, and feasibility analysis.
Brad’s portfolio of senior living work has been recognized by dozens of awards for planning and design excellence and has been featured regularly in books and the design press. He is also the author of more than 80 professional articles and book chapters, as well as seven textbooks on a variety of planning and architectural topics, including two editions of Building Type Basics for Senior Living, Wiley Publications. He has lectured at over 100 conferences and colleges and is currently on the faculty of Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning.
He has served on many boards and commissions and for five years was the Chairman of Helen Keller International, a major NGO dedicated to preventing blindness and malnutrition in many of the poorest countries around the world. In addition to his architectural degree, he has a degree in Latin American History from Cornell University and an MBA from Stanford University.
Rajit Mehta
Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Antara Senior Living
Rajit Mehta is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Antara Senior Living, a subsidiary of Max India Limited that pioneers the concept of ‘Age in Place’ by developing senior living communities. He also oversees the New Business Initiatives at Max India and Human Capital function at Max Group as an advisor.
Rajit is a Non-Executive Director at Max Life Insurance and Max Skill First.
As Antara’s MD and CEO, Rajit spearheads Antara 2.0 – a rejuvenation strategy that aims to propel the premier senior living organisation towards a new scale of growth and operations.
Previously, Rajit has served as the MD & CEO for Max Healthcare where he led a transformation journey for Max Healthcare through a 5C framework, comprising Care, Clinical Excellence, Cohesion, Commitment and Compliance. He also successfully helped Max Healthcare achieve its vision of being the most admired healthcare company in India known for clinical and service excellence. Under Rajit’s leadership, MHC made two large acquisitions which significantly increased its footprint in NCR. He led the seeding of alternate business models in Home Care, Diagnostics and Oncology day care, keeping in mind emerging trends and to secure future growth. Under his watch, the company doubled its earnings (EBITDA), revenue and valuation within a 5 year period.
Rajit has also been a founder member of Max Life Insurance and was instrumental in helping Max Life become an admired and profitable Company. During his tenure at Max Life as Chief Operating Officer, he undertook additional responsibilities as the Chief Transformation Officer and provided oversight on execution of key initiatives; designing and implementing new work systems; aligning key stakeholders; rationalising the cost structure to improve profitability; and laying down a comprehensive change management agenda. Rajit has played a strategic role in helping Max Life expand its distribution footprint across India including facilitating a project to “Revamp Sales processes”. The project culminated in Rajit co-authoring a book titled “Growth Leadership Practices at Max Life”. He was also the co-lead for Project Max Vijay, an innovative retail business model aimed at providing protection and long-term wealth creation opportunities to the underserved segments in India. The initiative was recognized with the Golden Peacock Award at London in September 2008 and Asia Insurance Industry Award – Innovation of the year at Singapore in November 2009.
During his tenure as Chief Operating Officer, Max Life progressed its Quality & Service Excellence journey. This included putting a Service Blueprint in place, implementing a comprehensive outsourcing strategy to impact customer experience and cost and embedding the Max Performance framework in the business.
Rajit mentored the setting up of Max Skill First (MSF), which is now providing learning and skilling solutions to all Max Group companies as well as to a few external organisations in the financial services space.
Prior to Max Life Insurance, he was the Director – Personnel at Bank of America and has also worked with HCL. His total experience spans 3 decades. Rajit is a graduate in Commerce, post graduate in Human Resources and has also attended an Advanced Management Program at INSEAD – France. He is the recipient of the Chairman’s Award at Max Life Insurance.
Srihari Kulkarni
Executive Director, Unitus Capital
Wide experience in equity and debt investments on both buy and sell sides of the spectrum. Have analysed and structured deals, and monitored portfolios from an equity and debt perspective, primarily with respect to MSMEs (across various industry verticals and geographies in India) and social impact sectors.
Have considerable experience in resources raising and managing of resources for a large financial institution and for various entities in social impact sector.
Have a very good understanding of business strategy and execution and monitoring of business plans.
Naganand Doraswamy
Managing Director & Founder, Ideaspring Capital
Naganand is a serial entrepreneur turned investor. After exiting his most recent start-up, he founded Ideaspring Capital to fund and actively support product innovation start-ups. He enjoys working with entrepreneurs who have the vision and passion to build products for the global markets. Naganand is very well networked and respected in the start-up ecosystem and he actively participates in various organizations focusing on Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Lewis R Shomer
Advisory Board – Unmukt Festival & Chairman, Abilities Expo
Lewis R Shomer is the Chairman of Abilities Expo, the world’s leading exhibition and trade show for people with disabilities – seniors, their caretakers and professional healthcare workers. As a member of the advisory board of Unmukt Festival, he brings the wealth of his experience with Abilities Expo, as well as, a passion for empowering persons with diverse challenges to find solutions that will improve and enrich their quality of life. His latest involvement is with the development of ‘A Passion for Dance’, a documentary on dancers with disabilities as they share their experiences of overcoming challenges to continue their life’s passion. As a member of the NAACP Board of Trustees, the largest civil rights organization in the world, Shomer actively worked to increase awareness of another underserved community.
Lakshmi Narayanan R
Regional Manager, Sales & Marketing
Lakshmi Narayanan is a Sales professional with over 15 Years of experience in the field of sales & marketing. Having worked earlier with companies like Pepsi, Parle, Whirlpool, Tata Motors etc, he is currently heading the Sales & Marketing Division of Medband for Gold Coast It solutions.
Medband is a product of Gold coast It solutions or GCIT, which is one of the leading IT Solutions Provider in the Health Care Sector, established in the year 2006.
Based on Market study, its estimated that more than 50% of people do not reach hospital on time. A lot of precious time is still being wasted in taking a patient to a hospital and if not taken within golden hour it is almost impossible to save the patient, as per Doctors.
In this endeavour, to minimise the time taken to hospital, and to get treatment on right time, GCIT has come up with a wearable device Called MedBand , An emergency alert system that Helps to lead a safe and healthy lifestyle.
It uses a wearable device to track user location, which can detect a when someone falls and alert the near and dear and provide ambulance assistance and take them to the best place that’s capable of providing treatment for the user in the shortest time.
Varma Konala
Business Head – Smart Devices, Intel Corporation
Varma Konala worked for more than 20 years at Intel spanning a wide range of technical and business roles. Majority of his experience has been in new business initiatives handling multiple responsibilities taking products from conception to revenue. He currently works in I2R group that is chartered with prospecting, prototyping & productizing opportunities in segments/markets beyond the traditional segments addressed by Intel in India. His current focus is on building an AI edge inference platform for Healthcare market.
Dr. Vijay Raaghavan
Director Healthcare, PwC
Dr Vijay Raaghavan, anchors the healthcare practice for PwC South and reports into the National Leader. He and his team work closely with the firm’s leaders spread across the width of the firm and across geographies in helping organizations in co creating their 2.0 with players like that of GE, Apollo, Khazanah, Roche, Merck – chart their transformation path.
Prior to joining PwC, Dr Vijay was a senior member of a boutique healthcare consulting firm and executed projects centered around blueprinting and executing business model solutions for a diverse portfolio of healthcare needs. Prior to joining Medium, Dr Vijay was a part of the core healthcare delivery team at Infosys. At Infosys, he played the key anchor role in executing different hospital enterprise performance and management solution suites for clients spread across the US, UK and the Middle East
Dr Vijay is particularly excited about newer healthcare delivery formats like that of Digital Health and Do It Yourself Health. He firmly believes in the power of Exponential Levers impacting the future of healthcare.
Monimita Sarkar
Founder, Unmukt Festival & MD, KW Conferences Pvt. Ltd.
With 26 years and over 500 events, KW Conferences and its Managing Director, Monimita Sarkar, are well-known names in the conferences and events space. Under Monimita’s leadership, KW Conferences has organized conferences in India for the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the International Congress of Mathematicians, among many others. More recently, Monimita has developed a passion for working with senior citizens.
In 2018, KW Conferences pioneered the Unmukt Festival, India’s original lifestyle solutions event targeted at seniors. Her work with Unmukt has earned her the role of Ambassador of the Delhi and Bangalore chapters of Aging2.0, an international organization that strives to accelerate innovation to address the biggest challenges and opportunities in ageing. Aging2.0 is based in San Francisco and has over 95 chapters worldwide. Monimita’s interest in serving the senior population stems from the belief that, all too often, senior citizens are overlooked by society and avenues that were once accessible appear closed.
Vikram Venkateswaran
Founder and Managing Editor, Healthcare in India
Dr. Vikram Venkateswaran is the Founder and Managing Editor of Healthcare in India, an online forum that focuses on healthcare public policy, digital health, artificial intelligence (AI) & healthcare analytics and IoT & Connected health. He is passionate about building futuristic models for healthcare in India with a view to increase access, quality and outcomes. His vision is for the country is to have a sustainable healthcare model that focuses on prevention and proactive interception. This includes emerging technology areas like Blockchain, IoT and Connected Health. He is also a frequent speaker at well-known healthcare conferences in India, where he shares his views in connection with health, digital healthcare adoption challenges, impact of AI and Analytics on healthcare, besides showcasing the digital journey at hospitals.
Rakesh Kumar Vangari
Territory Business Development, AP & TS, Amazon Internet Services Pvt. Ltd.
Rakesh manages Customer Relationship at Amazon Internet Services Private Limited and is a technology evangelist. He engages with organizations of all sizes, from start-ups to large enterprises, to enable them to adopt and be successful with AWS Cloud. He has over 13 years of experience in building customer relationships for IT- ITES, telecommunications, media and pharma services industries.
He loves to talk about building a connected-intelligent enterprise and enabling great customer experiences through connected smart technologies. Prior to AWS he worked with IBM, Wipro, Reliance and HP
Dr. Arti Thapliyal
Innovation Lead, Health &Public Service
Dr. Arti Thapliyal is a healthcare domain and innovation expert with a range of experience in the business, strategy and technology of the healthcare system globally. She holds degree in health administration from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai and finished her masters from the prestigious institution- ‘London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE)’ in Innovation and Entrepreneurship in 2018 and is working as Innovation Lead for Health & Public Services business for Accenture, India. Dr. Arti’s prime motto is to work on healthcare delivery challenges across the globe with a health systems approach in mind and use technology as enabler. She is passionate about social innovations empowering patients and consumer to live a healthy life with dignity. She is working towards realizing the larger vision of Connected health, connected communities and connected living through connected and living systems. Senior care is one such area closer to her heart.
Aparna Thakker
Founder & CEO, Empowerji
Aparna Thakker is the Founder and CEO of Empowerji. She believes that technology makes us self-reliant and this is the driving force behind Empowerji. Aparna’s goal is to empower the ji’s in our communities. She conducts workshops with live demos on how to use everyday Apps and Sites for older adults.
Having previously co-founded an Education Technology company – KoolKampus, her keen understanding of online learning has helped her create India’s first multi-lingual learning app targeted exclusively towards the senior community. With formal degrees in engineering, before being an entrepreneur Aparna has worked in the field of telecommunication with reputed MNCs.
Colonel (Veteran) A Sridharan, VSM
Founder, Covai Care
Colonel A Sridharan, VSM a career army officer, served the Indian Army for nearly 30 years. He is also a Graduate of Defence Services Staff College and a member of the faculty of that prestigious institution at Wellington. During his tenure in the army he served in Military Operations Directorate at Army Headquarters, as General Staff Officer (Operations) in Ladakh and Military Assistant to the Chief of the Army Staff. Colonel was awarded Vishishst Seva Medal (VSM) by the President in 1992
After retiring from the army in 1995, Col. Sridharan launched Covai Property Centre (India) Private Limited, and in 2004 ventured into creating retirement communities, setting benchmarks for service and care with passion and compassion. Since then, CovaiCare has been a pioneer in many areas of senior living and care, including assisted living, memory care and palliative care. It has India’s first platinum rated green community and is a pioneer in creating model that offers solutions for elders with challenged children (PwD).
Col. Sridharan is a member of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) Coimbatore Zone, CREDAI and Co-Chair of Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), Coimbatore. He is a member of the Governing Council of GRG Institutions, Coimbatore. He contributes articles on variety of subjects to newspapers as well as on the Internet.
Ajit Rangnekar
Director General – Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad
Ajit Rangnekar is the Director General of Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad, a Telangana Government initiative to take Innovation in Agriculture, Health and Sustainability to Market. He retired as the Dean of Indian School of Business, where too he espoused Entrepreneurship and Innovation in socially important sectors. He has been a member of many global committees and advises Boards of Foundations and Social Ventures.
Prior to ISB, he was in HongKong for over twenty years, primarily with Price Waterhouse Consulting, handling various roles including Country Head, first of PW and then of PwC Consulting practice, and East Asia Head of PwC Telecomm practice and of Learning and Development.
He is a graduate of IIT, Bombay, and did his post graduation in Management from IIM, Ahmedabad. He runs the Hyderabad chapter of Social Venture Partners, an organisation which provides pro bono advice to NGOs to scale up their impact.
Shailesh Mishra
AWS-Solutions Architect, Amazon Internet Services Pvt. Ltd.
Shailesh is working with Amazon, Hyderabad since last 4 years and comes with about 18-19 years of experience in Cloud Technologies, Product Development/ Sustenance, Customer Support, Project Management, Vendor Management, Team building and Hiring. In current role, Shailesh works with IT Enterprises /Startups to innovate, architect, build, deploy and migrate applications onto AWS Cloud platform. He is certified in #4 AWS Certifications. Before Amazon, he worked with Oracle Inc, IBM, TCS and has done various International IT certification (Oracle, Redhat) and Masters in Computer Applications.
In his free time, he enjoys playing sports and watching infotainments.
Rajib Das
CEO, Evexius Pvt Ltd
Rajib is graduate in pharmacy and a certified professional from IIM Kolkata. Rajib has more than 21 years of experience in pharmaceutical, diagnostics and medical device industry with Fortune 500 Companies like J&J and Medtronic, managing different Business cycles like start-ups, turnarounds and Growth Businesses. Rajib has worked across various geographies in India, Bangladesh, Nepal Bhutan and Sri Lanka in the medical devices industry.
He is the Founder and CEO of Home Health Solutions which he has build from his own experience that he has gone through for his parents.
Mohit Nirula
Chief Executive Officer, Columbia Pacific Communities
“The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The second best time is now.” Chinese proverb
The second innings:
Columbia Pacific Communities, Nirula’s second organisation in a 30-year old career allows him to bring to the fore all the skills that he has gained over the past three decades.
A vision that he has created, a culture that he is nurturing, a mission that is “worthy”. Its an opportunity to expand his knowledge and skills working with domain experts in areas as diverse as land acquisition; design and development of the communities; construction – on quality, on time, on budget; sales & marketing of real estate but with heart and empathy, ultimately continuing the association with the buyers and residents by servicing the community and the needs of the residents. His sole objective is to provide our elders with a safe, secure and engaging lifestyle in an environment of genuine warmth and care.
The first innings:
He started in hospitality with The Oberoi Group in 1986. Since 1996, he has been in leadership roles, heading hotels – across brands (Novotel / Trident / Oberoi), geographies (India / Mauritius / Egypt), with a diverse range of responsibilities (Operations / Openings / Renovations / Restorations).
Specialties: Process analysis for enhanced efficiency and effectiveness, a passion for detail and maximizing the achievement of potential of colleagues through a mentoring approach. The ability to balance the creative tension that must exist between the means and the end. The means being the way and manner in which he conduct business and the values embodied in our brand, while the end being the hunger and passion necessary to win and out perform competition.
Ravi Narayan
Chief Executive Officer, T-Hub
Ravi is the Chief Executive Officer at T-Hub, which enables and empowers an ecosystem hungry for innovation. Based out of Hyderabad, India, T-Hub leads India’s pioneering innovation ecosystem that powers next-generation products and new business models. It currently houses India’s largest tech incubator and leads programs with large corporations like Boeing, Facebook, and United Technologies along with several international institutions.
In a career spanning over two decades, Ravi has been a product engineer, entrepreneur, investor, mentor, and leader. He has co-founded three companies that he led from their inception to their successful acquisitions. As the global director of Microsoft for Startups, Ravi has helped establish Accelerators and Co-sell Programs across the world. He also worked with the portfolio of Temasek funds in Singapore to help them with digital transformation by collaborating with global startups. Mentor Partners, a venture capital fund that he cofounded, invests in product startups from India building for the global market. With a marked focus on creating world class products out of India, Ravi has been actively involved in India’s startup ecosystem. By helping create startup density in the product space of Bangalore, Ravi is a key player in its evolution beyond being a hub for services. Besides advising government of Karnataka, Ravi has also advised with other national governments such as Singapore and Malaysia. During his time in Bangalore, he chaired TiE Entrepreneurial Summit (TES), NASSCOM Product Conclave and PAN IIT Conclave.
An engineer from IIT Madras, Ravi also holds an MS, and an MBA from the University of Southern California. Having seen every facet of an entrepreneurial journey, Ravi now spends his spare time amalgamating age-old wisdom from the scriptures and classics with his experiences so one can lead a balanced, and fulfilling entrepreneur’s life.
Sanjay Kadaveru
Founder, Action For India
Sanjay Kadaveru is the Founder & President of Action For India (AFI), an initiative to help social entrepreneurs in India overcome barriers to scale and achieve greater impact at the Bottom of the Pyramid. AFI connects social innovators with impact investors, mentors, technology resources, government contacts and local partners. Launched in 2012, AFI is headquartered in New Delhi, India and has a chapter in Silicon Valley, California.
Prior to launching AFI, Sanjay managed investments at The Seven Hills Group, a family office based in the US, where he supported the deployment of $50M in capital across several sectors: energy, media, IT, infrastructure and education. He is also a co-founder of the Center for Healthcare Innovation, a US based not-for-profit thought-leadership organization focusing on the life sciences. Sanjay is a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs, the world’s largest network of entrepreneurs, and served as a Co-Chair for TiECon East. He also co-founded the AP Technology Leadership Council, a non-profit networking organization created to provide pro-bono business consulting services to civic and governmental causes in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
Sanjay is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Vikas Bhalla
Director for Ultrasound Development, Philips PIC
Vikas is a senior professional with ~30 years of rich & diverse experience in Idea to Market for Healthcare Imaging devices. Vikas started his career as Design engineer and eventually transitioned to Program Manager at GE Healthcare. Progressively, Vikas has led the R&D teams for Ultrasound and PET/CT at GE. Vikas took a role as Global Design controls leader at GE and then returned to his passion in R&D. Currently Vikas is the Director for Ultrasound Development at Philips PIC, Bangalore.
Vikas has successfully delivered several high worth products in global markets for Ultrasound, Cathlab and PET/CT imaging.
Engineer by education and passion, Vikas has undergone several senior management learning experiences at GE, Philips & IIM Bangalore, is six sigma and lead auditor certified as well.
Ramu Muthangi
Chief Technical Advisor, Smart Health Connect
Ramu Muthangi is the CEO & Co-founder of ApnaCare. ApnaCare connects people seeking high quality, affordable care for their elderly loved ones in India with trained, reliable professionals. ApnaCare has helped thousands of families find care. Ramu has 25+ years of operating and general management experience at major technology companies like Polycom, ADC Telecommunications and Honeywell. He was a Business Unit Head at Honeywell for their Aerospace division, closing multi-million dollar contracts. Ramu was a Director of Engineering at Polycom and ADC Telecommunications. As a Director of Engineering at Polycom, the market leader in VoIP technology, Ramu managed large cross-functional global teams in China, Canada, India, and Thailand. He led Polycom’s strategic alliance with Microsoft. Ramu has an MS in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. Ramu leads business development at ApnaCare. He is building partnerships with healthcare service providers and corporations in India.
Prateek Madhav
CEO, Assistive Technology Accelerator (ATA)
Advisor & Former CEO, Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled
Former General Manager – Analytics, Accenture
Marathon Runner & Running Coach
Prateek has 18+ years of experience in IT Outsourcing industry and Social Sector
Currently Prateek is the CEO of ATA which Nurtures Assistive Technology Start-ups to Empower Persons with Disability
In Accenture, Prateek was a part of Global Analytics team, driving key Strategic Initiatives and Differentiation through Digital Innovation, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) & new service offerings
He has been a part of Strategy & Client Management teams leading Account Strategy and Revenue Growth for multiple clients
In his previous role as CEO – Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled (NGO), Prateek grew organization 40% y-o-y along with establishing Samarthanam pan-India (15+ cities) and Global locations (US, UK). Currently he’s a part of Samarthanam Advisory Committee
Education: Prateek is an alumni of NIT, Jaipur and IIM, Calcutta
Prateek enjoys travelling with his wife Suja and 2 kids. He is a Marathon Runner & Running Coach
Dr. Mahesh Joshi
CEO, Apollo Home Care
Dr. Mahesh Joshi, an alumnus of the Indian School of Business, is a physician with a passion for quality healthcare and compassion for his patients. He is a dynamic blend of clinical and administrative excellence, and has gained acknowledgement nationally and internationally for establishing the Emergency Medicine Specialty in India. He has now taken on the challenge to establish professional, high quality home healthcare services in India.
Adarsh Narahari
CREDAI Secretary, Founder & Managing Director, Primus Lifespaces Pvt. Ltd.
Mr. Adarsh Narahari is the Managing Director of Primus Lifespaces Pvt Ltd and the pioneer in conceptualising and creating luxury communities for seniors in India. A brain child of Adarsh, Primus represents his entrepreneurial spirit and passion.
At a young age, his quest for a ‘unique’ concept led to Adarsh identifying a growing market of senior citizens who were independent, affluent and demanded the best living options. To create a relevant model, Adarsh travelled extensively to study the best practices from the most successful retirement communities globally.
His first project, Primus Eden is a unique combination of global best practices, offering an enriching living experience for seniors, focussing on operation, service and care and not just on real estate. The project was conferred with the ‘Senior Living Project of the Year’ at the prestigious BAM Awards and Realty Plus Awards for the years 2017 and 2018. Primus Senior Living also won the “Most Outstanding Senior Living Developer in Asia” award at the 2017 Global Awards in London and was the finalist in the 5th Asia Pacific Eldercare Awards 2017 in Singapore. Adarsh was also the pioneer in introducing the ‘leasing model’ as well as developing India’s first “age in place” retirement community, an internationally accepted norm in the senior living sector.
Adarsh’s experience encompasses a wide range of skills, having held and managed varied portfolios in the field of real estate development and land banking. He has been instrumental in planning key projects while supervising all aspects right from the conceptualizing, planning and development stages, through the marketing and sales phase, leading up to the post-sales support for the project.
Under his able stewardship, Primus has set the standard for excellence in senior living. Adarsh aims to take the concept of senior living across India, promoting healthy lifestyles and offering the best of holistic care and convenience for seniors. Primus has already finalised plans to develop 1500 units of senior homes across 3 south Indian metros. Adarsh’s efforts in this sector led him to win the “Young Entrepreneur of the year” award in 2018.
Adarsh holds a Master’s degree in Construction Management from the University of Leeds in UK. His robust engineering base comes from having graduated in Industrial Engineering and Management from RV College of Engineering in Bangalore. He also serves as the current Secretary for CREDAI Bengaluru and on the board of Entrepreneurs Organization, Bengaluru and ASLI (Association of Senior Living India)
Dr. KR Gangadharan
Heritage Medical Centre, Heritage Eldercare Services & Heritage Foundation
K. R. Gangadharan a Ph D in Social Work is the Founder of India’s premier private geriatric healthcare facility in 1994 at Hyderabad. Heritage Medical Centre has two units at Kamalapuri Colony and Kukatpalli while Kshetra has facilities at Moinabad and Khajaguda. He served on the Board of the International Federation on Ageing from 2004 till 2014 and became its Global President during 2012-14. He served as a Board Member of the Washington DC based International Association of Homes and Services for the Ageing for over five years.
He served one term as a Member of the National Council of Older Persons constituted by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India and as a Member of the Committee to Review the National Policy on Older Persons 1999. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India has nominated him to serve the Executive Committee of National Institute of Social Defence, the committee to design distribution of assisted living devices to senior citizens living in poverty and is a member of the committee to review the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007, member of the Screening Committee for Vayoshrestha Sammans (National Award for Senior Citizens) during 2016-19 and National Action Plan for Senior citizens for 2019-24. He is a member of the Core Group, Core Group on Disability and Elderly Persons constituted by the National Human Rights Commission. He is involved in the research study conducted by the UNFPA India on “Building Knowledge Base on Population Ageing in India”.
Rajeshwar Devarakonda
Mission Head of Programmes, HelpAge India
Rajeshwar Devarakonda is a Development Practitioner and is currently Mission Head – Livelihoods and a member of the Executive Committee, the policy management body of HelpAge India. He has been with HelpAge India for over 14 years during which period he has held various Senior Management positions and was instrumental in establishing the Model Elders Village at Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu for Tsunami Affected Elderly, the first of its kind in Asia-Pacific region, institutionalising Geriatric Physiotherapy and AgeCare Centres and Elderly Livelihoods, as also mentoring a 100+ independent institutions of the elderly, about 800+ Primary and higher order federations of the Elderly, including the Elders for Elders Foundation, the autonomous Trust of the Tsunami affected Elderly.
With over 25 years of his intensive & graduated multi-contextual Professional engagements with Tribal, Rural and Urban communities and experiences of working from grassroots to policy design, advocacy and roll-out, he has come to be recognised as a mentor/facilitator in the areas of Visioning and Strategic Planning, Program Planning and Management, Participatory Poverty Profiling, Community Led Disaster Risk Reduction, Organisational Development & Change, People Centred /led Monitoring and Evaluation. His particular field of interest is in Livelihoods and collectives of Rural Elderly Poor specifically targetting Social, Financial and Digital Inclusion.
He is a Member of the National Resource Group, DAY-NRLM for National Institute of Rural Development, Government of India in which capacity he advises the State Livelihoods Missions implementing the DAY-NRLM on Elderly Inclusion. He is also providing pro-bono advisory support to some corporate foundations working on Geriatric Care.
Rajagopal G
Founder CEO, KITES Senior Care
Rajagopal G (Raj), is an experienced business leader and a healthcare entrepreneur who chartered a career in this sector out of his passion to be part of this growing eco-system and contribute to it meaningfully. Raj is the Founder CEO of KITES Senior Care, a speciality brand in geriatrics based in Bangalore providing geriatric care at home, at Senior Living Facilities and providing for assisted care since 2016.
Raj has varied experience in the field of single specialty healthcare services and he has served as the CEO of Motherhood, a boutique maternity chain & HCG Milann, a leader in the space of reproductive medicine founded by Padma Sri Dr Kamini Rao. Prior to the healthcare foray, Raj has served in various capacities in the corporate world and was part of the Indian Navaratna HPCL, Scottish O&G major Cairn Energy, Time Warner AOL & Eastern Condiments, a large food FMCG player.
His success stories include building/scaling healthcare brands, taking companies through strategic deals (Strategic M&A deals)/ PE fund raising, setting up of businesses (startup/bootstrap)/capital projects including scaling them with improved processes and governance. He strongly believes in effective teams to deliver organizational goals and hence strive to invest, build and grow winning teams.
Raj is a Fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, New Delhi, an alumnus of ISB, Hyderabad (AMP) and holds a bachelor’s degree in Science from Madras University. He enjoys mentoring start-ups & sharing knowledge with budding businesses.