VCCircle

As a co-promoter Hitesh leads the operations at Info Edge. Apart from the country's leading job site, Naukri.com Info Edge also owns Jeevansathi.com, 99acres.com, Quadrangle, Brijj.com and the recently launched Shiksha.com.

With 10 years of experience in the internet industry, he is part of various industry forums. He currently chairs the Classifieds' Committee for IAMAI and is also a charter member of the TiE, New Delhi.

Prior to Info Edge, Hitesh worked for almost four years as the Regional Planning and Distribution Manager (North India) for the Ice Cream Division of Hindustan UniLever Limited, the Indian arm of Unilever Plc

Vamshi leads Apalya's efforts in Corporate Strategy and Business Development. Over the years, Vamshi has garnered a lot of respect in the Mobile TV space in India helping make Apalya synonymous to Mobile TV in India. Prior to starting Apalya, Vamshi worked at Cisco Systems in Information Technology management in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior stints include AT&T, USA and Ernst and Young, USA.

Sameer has 7 years of experience across the technology, media and internet domain and is currently responsible for spear-heading UTV Interactive's digital celebrity and digital video divisions in addition to heading Interactive for UTV's television channels including Bindass and UTV Stars.

Prior to joining UTV Interactive, Sameer worked with the Times Group, where he created and built the Times Audience Network (TAN), the digital video arm of the Times Group. In addition to his role in TAN, Sameer was also the Business Head of Follo, the Group's foray into digital distribution of celebrity content.  

Mukul Singhal joined SAIF in 2010 and is currently the Vice President. Prior to joining SAIF, Mukul worked at Canaan Partners, an early stage venture capital firm.  Mukul is a TiE Charter Member and actively participates in the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem. His primary area of focus is early stage investments.

Mukul is B.Tech from IIT Kanpur and MBA from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Anuj Kumar is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Affle. As a founding member, Kumar has played an extensive role in building Affle’s business globally, to countries such as Singapore, Australia, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia and India, among others. Kumar is further involved in evangelising mobile media amongst leading advertising firms and telecom operators/ carriers. In his current role as business head, Kumar leads Affle’s business worldwide, continuing the success and growth of the organisation.

He has 10 years’ experience in the field of marketing and advertising and has worked with some of the leading companies such as ESPN-STAR Sports, GroupM Mindshare and JWT. Kumar has been an active speaker and participant in industry forums and conferences, sharing valuable insights on themes related to entrepreneurship, mobile advertising and technology innovation, among others.

Mr. Manik Arora is founding Managing Director of IDG Ventures India, a US$150 Million early-stage technology venture capital fund backed by IDG. Mr. Arora is based in Mumbai and invests across industry sectors nationally, with an emphasis on Internet, Wireless, Software and Services. He currently serves on the Board of Directors at Kreeda and Ozone Media. Prior to starting IDG Ventures India, Manik was at Battery Ventures in Silicon Valley. Previously, he spent time with General Atlantic Partners (GA) working on technology investments, including GA's first India investment, Patni Computer Systems.

Manik was part of the founding management team at GA-backed i-DNS.net International, the global leader in multilingual Internet DNS technology.  Previously, Manik managed global outsourcing initiatives for American Express in New York and ran sales and marketing for MasterCard International in Singapore. His early career was as a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group in India and South East Asia advising clients on strategy and operations primarily in the e-commerce, financial services and consumer services sectors.

Manik is a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and a Kauffman Fellow at the Center for Venture Education. He holds a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College where he received a McCabe Fellowship to pursue his MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

Deepak Srinath has operating and management experience in Mobile VAS, IT services and business services prior to co-founding Viedea. Before founding Viedea, he was at July Systems, a mobile VAS infrastructure provider funded by Motorola Ventures, Sequoia Capital, etc. His roles included product management of July's flagship Mobile Marketplace platform and business development for the EMEA region. Prior to this he was a part of the start-up management team for the UK operations of Apar Infotech (later Ness Technologies), where he helped the company grow from zero to over GBP 5 million revenue. Deepak also started and successfully exited a Bangalore based IT recruitment company, focused on turnkey staffing solutions for the high-tech sector. He has an MBA from Manchester Business School and a BE in Computer Science from National Institute of Engineering, Mysore. 

Ravi C Adusumalli joined SAIF in early 2002 and is currently the Managing Partner and Head of the India operations. Prior to joining SAIF, Mr. Adusumalli worked at Mobius Venture Capital, Credit Suisse, and Wasatch Funds .

Mr. Adusumalli graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelors of Arts in Economics and Government.

Suresh is the Chairman & CEO at Ybrant Digital and is responsible for strategic direction and expansion efforts in the company. Prior to co-founding two successful companies USAGreetings and Ybrant Technologies, he worked in various roles across different industries in Fortune 500 companies, such as Caterpillar, Chrysler, SBC(PacBell) and Charles Schwab.
Suresh holds an M. S. in Engineering from the Iowa State University and a B. Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India.

B. G. Mahesh is the founder & MD at Greynium Information Technologies Pvt. Ltd., an Internet applications development services company. Greynium also owns Oneindia.in and Click.in. Greynium was acquired by Mumbai based Netcore Solutions Pvt Ltd in April 2010.

Mahesh was a pioneer in the Indian Internet, being active since 1992. Being at the forefront of Internet and Information Technology, he has to his credit initiating Portal Communications, with Mahesh.com being one of the popular Indian portals during the mid-1990s. Mahesh also co-founded Indiainfo.com. Under his leadership, Indiainfo.com survived the Dot-com bust and saw multifold growth over the years, to gain a preeminent position.

Mahesh received his graduate degree in computer science from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and his undergraduate degree from the SJCE, University of Mysore.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, is the Chairman, Managing Director and Founder of One97 Communications Limited. He is currently responsible for the strategy and direction of One97 and leads the company in all areas relating to business expansion as well as product road map. Vijay has more than 10 years of experience in the telecom and new media industries, having founded his first venture XS Corps while he was at college, which he sold to Lotus Interworks LLC, New Jersey in 1999.

Prior to founding One97 in 2000, Vijay played key roles in a number of organizations such as Riverrun Software Services Group Limited, Inter Solutions Software Private Limited, Startec Global Communications Limited, focusing on the design and development of various products and applications for the technology, media and telecom industries. Vijay holds a Bachelors degree in Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering.

From being the youngest graduate from Delhi College of Engineering (DCE) to making One97 India's widest and largest deployed telecom application cloud platform, Vijay has always sided with the unconventional at each step. He has created unprecedented business milestones using his sharp and quick decision making skills. Vijay is also credited by the telecom industry for putting together the most entrepreneurial, agile and incisive leadership team in One97 that is powering ambitious growth plans.

V.S.S. Mani, Founder and Managing Director, Just Dial Private Limited, is a first generation entrepreneur. A strong visionary and an experienced management professional, he revolutionized the process of searching for information by allowing people to pick up the telephone and call for instant access to a huge database of information.

Mani started Just Dial with some borrowed furniture, rented PCs, a 3x5 feet garage on hire, a seed capital of Rs 50,000, and a dream! Today JustDial describes itself as India’s no.1 local search destination. The company caters to over 57 million unique users. It is accessible from across 2000 towns and cities in India on phone. JustDial employs a 4000 strong work force and has more than 1,35,000 paid advertisers.

Kiran Gopinath is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ozone Media Solutions Private Limited, India's leading Internet advertising network. Kiran has over 12 years experience in Internet advertising. In 2000 he co-founded Webshastra Private Limited, an Internet advertising firm, with Warburg Pincus as investors.

Subsequently, he started India's only ad network at that time, Ozone Media in February 2006. Ozone Media has since grown rapidly and has established itself as a leader in the space and partners with India's top advertisers and publishers.

Adhil Shetty is the CEO of BankBazaar.com. Prior to BankBazaar, Adhil lived in New York City and managed Deloitte Touche Tomahatsu's US East alliances with the world's leading Information Management Company.
Earlier in his career, Adhil worked with Cisco Systems as an engineer in Bangalore and San Jose.
Adhil has a Masters degree in International Relations with a specialization in International Finance and Business from Columbia University in the City of New York, and a Bachelors degree in Engineering from the College of Engineering Guindy, Anna University.

In 1994, Rakesh pioneered the digital maps and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) industry by setting out on a mission to digitally map out India. And since 2004, MapmyIndia has revolutionized the consumer navigation market in India by releasing innovative products and services, starting with the internet portal MapmyIndia.com and recently launching in-car and mobile phone GPS navigation.

In 1990, Rakesh quit a successful career with General Motors in the US to return to India, and co-founded CE Info Systems with his wife, Rashmi. In 1993, he was exposed to the emerging field of GIS (Geographic Information Systems), and recognized the potential benefits of GIS to businesses, the government and individual people. Armed with this foresight and a desire to participate in India's development, Rakesh led MapmyIndia's pioneering effort in creating a complete digital map of India. The effort was started from scratch because no digital maps were available for India at that time. Today, MapmyIndia is a leader in the Indian mapping and navigation space, with the most comprehensive and accurate repository of digital map data for India.

Rakesh was recently appointed as a member to the Government of India's Committee on Geographical Information Systems (GIS).

Radha is the Founder and CEO of iStream ( www.istream.com), an online video service.  He has close to 18 years of experience across print, TV and new media.  He turned entrepreneur in 2000, when he co-founded Indiasyndicate.com, a leading content management company in the digital space managing clients like MSN India. Prior to that, he was Chief of Bureau of CNBC.  Radha holds a Masters degree in Communication & Journalism from University of Kerala and an Engineering degree in IT from SJCE, Mysore.

Mr. Rishi Khiani, CEO of Times Internet Limited, carries with him an exceptional track record of industry expertise and management experience. Prior to joining Times Internet Limited, Rishi launched Urban Eye Media in 1998. Urban Eye media focused on creating high end custom design and development solutions for many leading brands and companies the world over such as US Army, Nike, FIFA 2006, Universal Music, Samsung and CNBC – TV18. He was Chief Executive Officer for 'sidewalks of the world', an online store dedicated to offering customers unusual art and home décor products around the World.

Rishi joined Web 18, the online division of Network 18 Group as Chief Operating Officer, after it acquired Urban Eye Media in 2006. Rishi is a graduate in Fine Arts from school of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (U.S.A.).

Naveen is the Chief Executive Officer, Founder and the man in charge of it all.

He has been responsible for the overall vision, strategy and execution of InMobi. His view of the growth of the mobile ecosystem and leveraging InMobi as a key tenet in developing that mobile ecosystem was the foundation stone on which InMobi was built.

Naveen’s journey started with McKinsey & Company where he worked on developing the go-to-market strategy for a large Indian conglomerate, as it entered the telecom sector. He has also worked with the top management of technology companies on various issues. Later, he joined Charles River Ventures (CRV), a top tier VC firm focusing on early stage investing in software and communications. Naveen worked with CRV on developing its India investment strategy. He also worked briefly with a mobile VoIP startup in Silicon Valley.

Naveen is the Founder and Chairman of a US based non-profit organization, India School Fund (ISF), which has been formed to set up schools in rural India. ISF started in 2006 with only a few Harvard Business School friends and has now grown to have over 50 people across India and US.

Mr. GirishBatra (CMD of NetAmbit), is a first generation entrepreneur who established Netambit in September 2000 by drawing on his experience from successful stints at Escorts and Godrej. Over time, under his leadership, NetAmbit has become India’s first of its kind retail financial products supermarket.

NetAmbit has grown rapidly over the last 11 years to become one of the dominant players in the financial products distribution in India and has an enviable name especially in the Life Insurance Distribution space.

Girish belongs to the Class of 1997 of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from College of Technology, Pantnagar, Uttaranchal. At NetAmbit, Girish spends most of his time giving strategic direction to the company. He likes to travel and supports philanthropic causes, which he feels are the best way to give back to the society.

Amarjit Batra is a Sales & Marketing professional focused in the Internet space. Amarjit has successfully launched and grown Internet businesses in the C2C, B2C and B2B domains in India region.

Amarjit joined the OLX team in Dec 2008 to take over the responsibility to build and grow the India business for OLX. As the Country Manager for OLX India, Amarjit leads the category development efforts, executes marketing programs to create brand awareness and improve user engagement, build strategic partnerships and formulate strategies for driving growth. As a senior member of the OLX team, Amarjit also contributes to the Global Business Development initiatives for OLX and reports to both Fabrice Grinda and Alec Oxenford, Co- CEO and Co-Founders of OLX, Inc.

Prior to OLX, Amarjit was at eBay India, where he was heading the New Business and Global Trade business and was a part of the India Management team. In a 5 ½ year stint at eBay (and erstwhile Baazee), Amarjit has handled many roles in Category Management, Strategic partnerships, New Business, Rural Initiatives and Ad Sales.

Before eBay, Amarjit has done Business Consulting for Procurement Auction and B2B auctions businesses handling leadership and Business Development responsibilities with reputed corporate clients across India. As a common thread across his experience in the Internet, Amarjit has specialized in making markets online more efficient.