Our speakers

Ishpreet Gandhi, Founder and Managing Partner, Stride Ventures

Ishpreet is the founder and managing partner at Stride Ventures. At Stride, Ishpreet’s all-encompassing role at the fund involves sourcing proprietary investment opportunities, fundraising, managing the portfolio by working with and supporting portfolio companies, including attending board meetings and monitoring performance to ensure returns and strategic objectives of the fund are achieved. As the fund manager, Ishpreet has built a well-diversified portfolio sanctioning over INR 1300Cr across 55+ companies across Consumer, FinTech, Logistics, AgriTech, B2B Commerce, HealthTech, B2B SaaS etc. Additionally, he has successfully pioneered tailor-made short term solutions for growth stage businesses and has created banking alliances for Stride’s portfolio company’s by leveraging his banking experience and network. Stride has been the most active venture debt fund in India in terms of deals executed, completing 50 deals in the calendar year 2021. Ishpreet currently operates across two funds, with the second fund gaining significant momentum, targeting above INR 1000 Crore with a greenshoe option of INR 75 Cr.

Prior to founding Stride Ventures, Ishpreet Gandhi started his career with Standard Chartered Bank in the SME banking division. This was followed by a term in Citibank commercial banking and thereafter, he managed MNC business for the northern region for Kotak group. He was the team leader at Yes Bank managing MNC and VC relationships in 2014, where he started sourcing growth-stage startups. Ishpreet managed relationships with Venture Capital funds like Omnivore, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, Mayfield Advisors & Bertelsmann during his term at YES Bank and IDFC. He closed his first VC-backed transaction as a first lender to BIRA (Alcoholic beverages) in late 2015, when the company attracted Series A investment from Sequoia Capital. The second company Ishpreet identified was Lendingkart, (Series A in 2016). The company was amongst the earliest fintech companies in India. Similar companies which Ishpreet successfully onboarded amongst startups were Leap India backed by Mayfield Advisors, Sixth Sense Ventures & TVS Capital (2016), Rivigo backed by SAIF Partners & Warburg Pincus (2018), Securens backed by Mayfield Advisors (2017), Ofbusiness backed by Matrix Partners and Norwest Venture Partners (2017). All these companies have witnessed significant increase in valuations with no delays in principal repayments or servicing of coupons.

Jack Hidary, CEO, SandboxAQ

Jack is the CEO of SandboxAQ which focuses on enterprise SaaS solutions at the convergence of AI and quantum tech. 

Jack worked previously at Alphabet leading AI and quantum teams.   Jack is the author of Quantum Computing: An Applied Approach, published by Springer. This work, now in its second edition, is one of the leading textbooks in the field and is used both in undergraduate and PhD programs, as well as corporate training sessions.

Jack is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of several tech companies, including EarthWeb/Dice (NYSE: DHX), which he led from its founding through IPO. He also co-founded Vista Research, a fintech company, which he and his team sold to S&P/McGraw-Hill.

Jaffrey Thomas, Partner -Logistics and Transport Infrastructure, PwC India

Jagbir Singh Sidhu, Chief Commercial Officer, Diageo India

Jai Rupani, Chief Investment Officer, Dinesh Hinduja Family Office

Jairam Sridharan, MD, Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Ltd.

Janmejaya Sinha, Chairman India, Boston Consulting Group

Jash Kriplani, Senior Assistant Editor, Mint (Moderator)

Jaspreet Bindra, Founder and MD, Tech Whisperer Ltd. UK

Jaspreet Bindra is the Founder of Tech Whisperer Limited in UK, which does Thought Leadership and Advisory work on Digital Transformation and Digital Technologies like AI (including Generative AI), Digital Transformation, Web3, and the Future of Work.

Jaspreet was the Group Chief Digital Officer at Mahindra Group, a $25bn conglomerate, and a Regional Director at Microsoft (Search/Devices/Online) before that. He is the author of the bestselling book ‘The Tech Whisperer: On Digital Transformation and the Technologies that Enable It’, published by Penguin Random House, as well as ‘The Immune Organisation: Future Proofing Organisations from COVID-like Disruptions’, published by Amazon Westland.

He was recognised as the inaugural ‘Digitalist of the Year’ by Mint and SAP in 2017, is an Educator at Duke Business School Corporate Education, Moderator/Educator for Harvard Business Press, Expert at Singularity University, and Visiting Faculty at Ashoka University, and served earlier as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Indian School of Business. He is also an accredited Coach (PCC ICF)

Jaspreet started his career with the Tata Group, as a part of the Tata Administrative Services, and is a Chemical Engineer and an MBA in International Business. He is currently completing a Masters in AI, Ethics and Society at the University of Cambridge.

Jaspreet has worked extensively in AI over the past decade – in Mahindra Group implementing AI, as a Chief Evangelist for Findability Sciences a Boston based Enterprise AI company, an AI advisor to leading businesses, and has spoken and written extensively on Generative AI across global and Indian audiences.

He divides his time between Cambridge, UK and Gurgaon, India

Jay Prakash Gupta, Founder & COO, Dhan