Our speakers

Rituraj Baruah, Special Correspondent, Mint (Moderator)

RK Bansal, MD & CEO, Edelweiss ARC

R.K. Bansal, a distinguished Chartered Accountant, currently serves as the Managing Director and CEO of Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company Limited, the largest ARC in India. He is an accomplished professional with about 40 years of experience in banking and ARC industry.

Mr. Bansal is also actively involved in the industry, serving as the Co-Chair on the FICCI Committee on Stressed Assets and as The Chairman of the Association of ARCs in India. His expertise and experience in all functional areas of banking, including Corporate Banking, Project Appraisal, Retail Banking, International Banking, Finance & Accounts [CFO], Resources, Recovery, Investments, Treasury, and Operations, make him a valuable asset to the industry.

He was also the Chairman of the CDR Empowered Group and a member of several Top Management Committees, including Credit, Policy, System, Product and Process, ALCO, RBS Committee, HR, Internal Advisory, Fraud Review, Audit Committee of Executives, Investment Committee, and others. Mr. Bansal's main area of strengths & expertise lies in resolving stress assets, and he has successfully managed many large, strained groups/accounts.

Mr. Bansal has also held various board positions, including IDBI Federal Life Insurance Co. Ltd., ISIL, J.K. Lakshmi Cement Ltd., Uttam Value Steels Ltd., SIDBI, IDBI Asset Management Ltd., NSDL, and NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Ltd. He was also a member of the Indian Banks Association (IBA)'s Standing Committee on Retail Banking.

Previously, Mr. Bansal has served as Executive Director of IDBI Bank for eight years, during which he played a crucial role in the bank's growth and development. He was appointed as the CEO of Stockholding of India Ltd. (SHCIL), IDBI Mutual Fund (later Principal Mutual Fund) and IDBI Federal Life Insurance, by IDBI Bank.

With his extensive experience, Mr. Bansal is a distinguished figure in the banking and finance industry and continues to contribute significantly to the growth and development of the sector.
 

RK Misra, President - Ecosystem Partnerships & Co-founder, Yulu

RK founded and successfully exited Tenet Technologies (Sold to Hughes) and Traveljini.com (sold to ICICI Ventures) post which he decided to leave the corporate world to engage with the issues of Public Policy & Governance. RK is associated with several organizations like Carnegie India, Center for Smart Cities (Founder), SAHYOG (Founder), Karnataka CM's Vision Group. RK did his graduation from IIT Kanpur and Masters from Tokyo University. He is also a Fellow of Harvard Kennedy School of Govt and Aspen Institute.

RK Misra is a Co-founder of Yulu, India's largest Shared Mobility and Battery as a Service Platform. He heads Ecosystem Partnerships for Yulu. Mr. Misra’s knowledge and public policy experience have played a vital part in Yulu’s growth since its inception.

Roberto Gavazzi, CEO, BOFFI

Rohan Verma, CEO & Executive Director, MapmyIndia

Rohan is a passionate entrepreneur on a mission to make our world better through maps and location technologies. He has significant experience as an industry leader in the digital mapping, geospatial technologies and automotive mobility technologies sectors. In 2004 while still an undergraduate at Stanford University, the then 19 year old Rohan created India’s first interactive internet mapping portal, MapmyIndia.com. And on July 26, 2007 he joined the MapmyIndia board as a full time Director and thus began a period of high growth for the company and sustained value creation for the stakeholders. But his finest hour came in December 2021 when MapmyIndia was recognized as a ‘Unicorn’, post the company’s blockbuster IPO that was oversubscribed by more than 154 times and the stock listed with an opening day premium of 65% despite uncertain market conditions.

Rohit Inamdar, CEO, CARE ESG Ratings Limited

Rohit Inamdar, is the Chief Executive Officer of CARE ESG Ratings Limited. He brings a wealth of experience and expertise from over twenty-five years in leading Indian credit rating agencies. Throughout his career, he has held significant leadership positions in Corporate, Structured Finance, Public Finance, Infrastructure, and Financial Sector Ratings. As a seasoned member of the rating committees at CRISIL and ICRA for over two decades, Rohit has often chaired key meetings, leveraging his deep industry knowledge and strategic insights. His academic credentials include a Master of Science in Engineering from Auburn University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Pune, further enhancing his capability to lead and innovate in the ESG ratings domain.

Rohit Jain, VP & Head of Technology, Airtel Digital

Ronnie Screwvala, Co-Founder & Chairperson, upGrad

Ronnie’s first foray was Cable TV in India and for the first two years of that journey he found no takers and only advise was to treat it as a failed start up and move on, but with him staying at it he was credited with having pioneered Cable TV for all of India.

Entrepreneurship is about finding and seizing opportunities and moving on from failures and Ronnie saw an opportunity in toothbrush manufacturing and after many setbacks went on to build one of the largest toothbrush operations in India, at a time where there was no eco-system for PE Funding or bank debt to start ups. The other opportunity was TV Home Shopping but it was well before its time and was a big failure, but not enough for him to question if he should stick it out as an entrepreneur.

Ronnie went on to build a media and entertainment company - UTV, where post many pivots and four almost near bankruptcies and 15 years of focussed work with strong co-founders and a large team, it scaled to a size spanning all aspects of Content and Platform and then he divested UTV to The Walt Disney Co in 2012.

Perception in most cases is larger than reality and so in spite of so many failures, Newsweek termed him the Jack Warner of India, Esquire rated him one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century and Fortune as Asia’s 25 most powerful and ranked 78 among 100 most influential people in the world on Time 100.

Having lived it and seen the misconception that it’s all about quick success and that failure is to frown on - he authored a book ‘Dream With Your Eyes Open’ as his commitment to champion entrepreneurship and evangelize failure.

Ronnie got the term “cat with nine lives” attached to him by colleagues and peers for the number of times he had failed, but reflecting on his setbacks and counting on his main virtue that success can never be timed and staying the course is the only option, Ronnie in his second innings decided to deepen his commitment to making India a better place through a focus on two of the largest sunrise sectors - Online Education & the not-for-profit rural / social space. He is Chairperson & Co-Founder of upGrad which zeros in on the massive Online Education market and the fact that Learning for every working professional is now a lifelong commitment. He, along with his wife Zarina,  are the  Co-Founders of The Swades Foundation, which is committed to empower one million lives in rural India every 5-7 years through a 360 degree model spanning Water, Sanitation, Health, Education and Livelihood to lift them out of poverty permanently.

As a hobby and passion Ronnie loves to tell stories that must to told via movies with his new brand RSVP and he owns 3 sports teams under the brand U Mumba in Kabaddi, Volleyball and Football even though he has never played any of the sports himself.

Roopan Aulakh, Managing Director, pi Ventures

Roopan has 15+ years of experience across Venture Capital, corporate development and technology. Currently an MD at pi Ventures, she invests in early stage Deeptech startups across diverse sectors. Prior to pi Ventures, she invested in early to growth stage global startups at Applied Ventures (corporate Venture Capital arm of Applied Materials). Before becoming an investor, she worked in DeepTech as a technologist. She holds a BTech degree from NIT Jalandhar and an MBA from ISB Hyderabad

Roopwant Singh, MD, GMDC