Naiyya Saggi

CEO and Founder – BabyChakra
Priya Naik

CEO – Samhita Social Ventures
Dr. Renu Khanna

Global Head-Leadership Development, Tech Mahindra
Vanita Datla

Executive Director & CFO at Elico Ltd
Vasu Primlani

International Standup Comedian, EMCEE & Comic
Uma Rani

Senior Vice President SAP Labs India
Swati Lakra

Additional Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad
Shweta Singh

Co-Founder & Managing Partner – Sol Primero
Smita Sabharwal

IAS – Addl.Secretary to the Chief Minister of Telangana
Nishtha Satyam

United Nations Women
Mamata Vegunta

Director – Human Resources at Invesco
Mary Kom

International Boxer
Lavanya Ashok

Executive Director – Goldman Sachs & Co.
Lakshmi Manchu

Actor & Producer
Kavitha Kalvakuntla

Member of Parliament
Jeroo Mulla

Head – Sophia Institute of Social Communications Media
Haleem Khan

International Dancer
Aruna Reddy

Head – Entrepreneurship Centre at ISB
Archana Doshi

Founder – Archana’s Kitchen
Anu Acharya

CEO – Mapmygenome India

Partners

Main Sponsors

Knowledge Partners

Design Partner

Media Partner

Naiyya Saggi

CEO and Founder – BabyChakra

Naiyya Saggi is the CEO and founder of BabyChakra. BabyChakra is the fastest growing & largest platforms for young parents to discover local services & products in India. It has been awarded as one of the top tech ventures by Google, BusinessWorld, Wharton University & The Exhibit Awards.

Prior to Babychakra, Naiyya was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and at the Bridgespan group (Boston) where she worked extensively on her areas of passion: maternal & child health and education. Naiyya is a graduate of the Harvard Business School (MBA 2012) where she was a Fulbright and J.N.Tata scholar. She received her BALLB (Hons.) from National Law School, India.

Priya Naik

CEO – Samhita Social Ventures

Priya set up Samhita Social Ventures, in 2009 to bring together companies, donor organizations and high net-worth individuals to collaborate with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and social enterprises. Samhita is fully supported by Mr.N.S.Raghavan, the co-founder of Infosys.

Samhita works with companies and foundations to shape their social initiatives, facilitate program implementation, run cause-related marketing campaigns and assess impact created. Samhita’s unique advantage lies in its extensive grassroots network of NGOs and social enterprises, which results in a deep understanding of and strong relationships with social organizations.

Prior to setting up Samhita Social Ventures, Priya co-founded The Spark Group, an education company that delivered affordable education to low income communities.

Priya’s interest in social entrepreneurship began when she worked as a Researcher at the Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, USA. At MIT, Priya was part of two student-led start-ups that won several awards at MIT.

Priya has graduate degrees in Economics from Yale University, in Public Policy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and in Commerce from Mumbai University where she stood first in the University. She also completed an Executive Education course from Harvard Business School.

Dr. Renu Khanna

Global Head-Leadership Development, Tech Mahindra

Renu is a Learning and Development professional with over 25 years of rich experience in ITES/IT, Consulting and Manufacturing organizations. She is a learning strategist and has worked in areas of Organization Development, Change Management, Leadership Development, People development, Associate engagement and Diversity. She is a learning consultant and has the natural ability to provide learning solutions that align directly with the strategic needs of the business.

In her 17 years career Renu has led the learning for streams like Leadership which includes people leadership and business leadership. In the area of people leadership she has worked on initiatives like Global leadership, Building high performance teams, Mentoring and Coaching. In the area of business leadership she has worked on Sales leadership and Delivery leadership. She has provided integrated solutions in the area of leadership by focusing on key issues and challenges in business. She has led many action learning projects which attempt to look at CXO challenges. She interfaces with HR and has led integrated projects like Building a leadership pipeline, Transition programs, Game Changers and Improving retention of associates.

Renu also managed the Learning Alliances with global universities. Renu has travelled across the globe for consulting and training both customers and employees and also initiated virtualization in leadership education through various mediums. She has developed various learning products which are reusable assets for the organization on the learning management system. She has incubated the concept of leaders as teachers and customers as teachers in the organization.

She is fond of research and has collaborated with Gallup and Wharton on specific projects. She has organized many conferences within the organization both for the employees within and outside. She is a part of the Leadership council, Diversity council and Green initiative council.

Renu has also worked at Tecumseh (previously known as Sriram Refrigeration), a multinational manufacturing company, as head of learning and development. She was instrumental in setting up the learning center and expanding it for workers, supervisors and executives. Her achievements at Tecumseh included bringing a learning focus across the organization and setting up a roadmap for learning in the old and new environment.

Renu has a Doctorate in Sociology as a fellow from Indian Council for Social Science and Research (ICSSR) and a double masters in Sociology and Education. She was the President of ISTD Hyderabad chapter from 2008-2010. She is on the board of various institutes and is a member of several committees and has been a speaker in various forums.

She is married to Madhusudan Khanna and they have one daughter, Spanya.

Vanita Datla

Executive Director & CFO at Elico Ltd

Vanitha Datla is the Executive Director & CFO at Elico Ltd, a 50-year-old company that is a pioneer in the Analytical Instruments Industry, ‘Innovating to connect Science with Lab’ and Managing Director Elico Healthcare Services Ltd, a service provider to the Health-Care Industry in countries like USA, UK, Middle East etc.

Her initial career days saw her working as a financial assistant to an Insurance Agent with Farmers Insurance, one of the top 5 Insurance companies in the US. She then joined Raasi Finance & Investment Ltd, as Executive Director & later became its Managing Director. During her tenure, the company achieved a commendable turnaround into a profitable & dividend paying company. In 1999, she joined her family & associates in taking over a non-operational cement company, Anjani Portland Cement Ltd, and was part of the driving team that helped convert the company into a profit making & dividend-paying venture. In her role as Director Finance, she was actively engaged in the cement, power & security printing verticals.

Vasu Primlani

International Standup Comedian, EMCEE & Comic

Vasu Primlani is an internationally celebrated speaker, emcee and comic.

Vasu is a professional comic, has performed/headlined variously in the US (San Francisco, New York, Miami) and India (Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore). She has also performed at over 200 shows, and is probably the only comic in the world to perform during a light in the US (Southwest Airlines).

Some of these venues are: the Comedy Store Mumbai, New York Comedy Club, Taj Hotel Delhi, Capgemini, the Alila Bangalore, the Lalit Bangalore, Stanford University, India Habitat Center Delhi, Epicentre Gurgaon, Ashoka Innovators Bangalore, Rooster T Feathers, Tommy T’s, the Punchline Park Hotel, Movenpick Bangalore, and the Blue Frog Delhi.

She has produced the First ever all female comedy show in India: That’s What She Said, her one woman show: Outlawed! and a national tour California Comedy Invasion with Raj Sharma of 15 shows across India.

She has performed in Dubai, the US and India, and has been featured on national and international media and television including NDTV, NPR, CBS, KCSM TV, Delhi Doordarshan, SF Bay Guardian, SF Chronicle, KPFA, VOA, ABC News and the BBC.

Uma Rani

Senior Vice President SAP Labs India

Uma Rani TM is the Senior Vice President of SAP Labs India, a subsidiary of SAP SE, the world leader in enterprise applications in terms of software and software-related service revenue. Headquartered in Walldorf, Germany, SAP operates in over 130 countries and has an employee base of over 74,000. Uma Heads the Maintenance and Support for SAP’s On Premise Applications with teams in 11 countries covering all the time zones.

In 2010, Uma Rani was awarded the “Leader of the Year” at SAP Labs India, which is among the largest research, development and support centers for SAP. Uma has the distinction of being the first and only woman employee from SAP Labs India in the SAP Global Senior Leadership Team. She is the recipient of the CMO Asia Women Leadership Award in Technology and Exemplary Woman Leadership Excellence in 2014. She is an inspiring leader who believes in applying the “management by empowerment” strategy. Uma has been associated with SAP for the past 18 years and has been representing SAP in various internal and external forums besides this Uma has driven several SAP technology events like SAP technology summit, SAP teched over multiple years.

Uma holds a B Tech in Electrical and Electronics from College of Engineering, Trivandrum, and has done Post Graduation in Management from IIM Bangalore. Uma has also done several Executive Programs at INSEAD Singapore and Harvard Business School. Uma is a business and leadership coach at SAP certified by ICF.

Swati Lakra

Additional Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad

Swati Lakra is an Indian Police Service officer who joined the service in 1995. As of 2015, she is working as the Additional Commissioner of Police for the city of Hyderabad. She is the chief of the ‘She’ teams that are operating in Hyderabad to combat the harassment of women and increase their safety. She was born in Jharkhand. She worked as Deputy Inspector General of Visakhapatnam Range, before joining the Hyderabad city police.

Swati Lakra was key in setting up 100 special teams to check harassment of women in public places. To be called ‘She’ teams, their members will keep a tight vigil at places where sexual harassment is common. Each team comprises five police personnel and they have been provided small cameras to record the movements of suspects, including women to keep an eye on the suspects. These teams are aimed at dealing with all cases of harassment of women including physical and mental abuse. The teams, which will work under the direct supervision of additional commissioner Swathi Lakra, will act swiftly on the complaints of harassment of women in public places.

Shweta Singh

Co-Founder & Managing Partner – Sol Primero

Shweta is a co-founder and a Managing Partner at Sol Primero. Prior to Sol Primero, Shweta worked with the restaurant discovery platform, Zomato, in the International Operations team where she successfully launched the business into several new geographies. She has 5 years of Investment Banking experience at UBS Investment Bank in their London office and has worked across both the Equity Capital Markets and Mergers and Acquisitions teams. Shweta holds an MBA in Operations and Entrepreneurial Management from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Cambridge and an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

Smita Sabharwal

IAS – Addl.Secretary to the Chief Minister of Telangana

Smita Sabharwal (born 19 June 1977), is an Indian Administrative Service Officer of 2001 batch borne to the Telangana cadre. She is popularly known as “Peoples Officer”. She is the first lady IAS officer to be appointed to the Chief Minister’s Office.

Awards

Indian Express Devi Award – 2015, for Innovation and Dynamism
e-India (e-Health Category) Government Digital Initiative – 2013
Chief Minister’s Award for best district in 20 Point Flagship Programme in 2011
Chief Minister’s Award for best district in 20 Point Flagship Programme in 2012
Recipient of “Platinum Award” worth Rs.10.00 Lakhs under District Category sponsored by Information Technology & Communication Department for the best e-Governance initiatives taken up in the district for the year 2012-13.
Nominated for Prime Minister’s award under individual category for excellence in public administration in best district initiative “Ammalalana” programme from erstwhile united Government of Andhra Pradesh

Nishtha Satyam

United Nations Women

Nishtha brings extensive experience in advising Boards and Senior Management Teams on organizational approaches to establish strategic partnerships and institutional engagement with traditional and non-traditional allies, positioning the organization as a thought leader on key policy issues. Her current role at the United Nations (UN) principally focuses on developing and implementing strategies aimed at securing a diversified partnership portfolio and building a community of commitment leading to sustained support for the organization, both financial and non-financial. At the UN Women Multi Country office in India that also services Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Bhutan, Nishtha is responsible for spearheading and executing the strategy for building innovative, strategic and technical partnerships with the Government of India, both Centre and State, the Private Sector and Foundations. Prior to this, Nishtha has served the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office (UNRC) as an advisor on partnerships with the Private Sector through well-designed, multi-stakeholder platforms that address shared goals covering business’s role in development, including the MDGs and SDGs, ethics and governance, democratization of the ICT arena, impact of ICT on development and the impact of the regulatory and policy environment on businesses. Her competencies include advising and informing organizations of approaches to leverage CSR, building inclusive business models, consensus building and developing multi-stakeholder policy advocacy models.

Prior to her career with UN, she has spent about a decade working with the Private Sector with leading firms such as KPMG, The Corporate Executive Board and American Express as an economist.

Nishtha has authored many articles on the business value of diversity and balanced leadership and was the key author of the WILL-KPMG reports on the value of balanced leadership to the business performance of a firm. She holds a Master’s Degree in International Business from the University of Nottingham, UK and a Bachelors in Economics from Delhi University.

Mamata Vegunta

Director – Human Resources at Invesco

Mamata is a seasoned management professional with 20 + years of working experience. She is currently the Director – Human Resources at Invesco Hyderabad.

Her teaching and research interests include a wide variety of topics related to management and leadership. She is also an artist and writer. She is a champion of ‘Renaissance Leadership’, a personal leadership philosophy that draws from the creativity of arts and the precision of the sciences.

Mamata is the Joint Secretary of the Society for Cyberabad Security Council, and the leader for it’s Women’s Forum. The SCSC Women’s Forum is focused on creating awareness and executing interventions on issues of women’s safety in Cyberabad. Mamata has a Master’s degree from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and has a Ph.D from Osmania University, Hyderabad.

Mary Kom

International Boxer

“Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom, (born 1 March 1983), also known as MC Mary Kom, Magnificent Mary or simply Mary Kom, is an Indian boxer belonging to Kom tribal community of the north-eastern state of Manipur. She is a five-time World Boxing champion, and the only woman boxer to have won a medal in each one of the six world championships. She is the only Indian woman boxer to have qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics, competing in the flyweight (51 kg) category and winning the bronze medal. She has also been ranked as No. 4 AIBA World Women’s Ranking Flyweight category.”
Her autobiography, Unbreakable, was co-authored by Dina Serto and published by Harper Collins in late 2013.

In 2014, Priyanka Chopra played the main role as Mary Kom in the biographical film about her life. The movie is directed by Omung Kumar and was released on 5 September 2014.

Lavanya Ashok

Executive Director – Goldman Sachs & Co.

Lavanya Ashok is an Executive Director in Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division (MBD) in India, where she heads private equity coverage for South India. She serves on the board of Global Consumer Products, Nova Medical, Pepperfry.com and Azure Hospitality. Lavanya is on the Mumbai Diversity Committee for Goldman Sachs and has co-headed the Mumbai Women’s Network for the past five years. Previously, Lavanya worked at SPO Partners & Company, a $10bn California-based hedge fund focused on value-oriented investing.

Lavanya earned a BS in Economics and Finance summa cum laude from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2004 where she was a Beta Gamma Sigma scholar. She also received an MBA in 2010 from Stanford University where she was a Barrett Fellow and President of the South Asia Students’ Association.

Lavanya is passionate about investing, social entrepreneurship, dance, photography, books and long meandering conversations with family and friends. She lives with her husband Arjun in Mumbai.

Lakshmi Manchu

Actor & Producer

Lakshmi Manchu, is an Actor producer and a Humanitarian.

As a television presenter she is known for her works in American Television. She acted in the American television series Las Vegas, Desperate Housewives, Late Nights with my Lover and Mystery ER.

She has bagged three Filmfare awards in a short span in Indian Cinema and also her recent movie won the National Award.

Lakshmi is very active in social and political movements across the country. She has been advocating for various causes like Education reforms in Primary Education, Cancer Awareness and Women empowerment. The Government of India has nominated her as the Swach Bharat Ambassador for the state of Telangana

Kavitha Kalvakuntla

Member of Parliament

Kalvakuntla Kavitha (born 13 March 1978) is an Indian Member of Parliament and Telangana Rashtra Samithi party member. She is a daughter of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader K. Chandrasekhar Rao and was active in the agitation for the separate statehood for Telangana. She elected as Chief Commissioner for Bharath Scouts and Guides in 2015. On July 15 2015, special Indian Postal covers of kavitha came into existence on the occasion of Pushkaram.

Kavitha runs a non-governmental organisation called Telangana Jagruthi’. In the General Elections 2014, Kavitha was elected to the 16th Lok Sabha from the Nizamabad constituency.

Kavitha has mentioned her interests as representing the aspirations of the Telangana people and the Jammu and Kashmir issue. She supports resolving the Kashmir dispute and moving on. She has come out in support of a uniform civil code.

Jeroo Mulla

Head – Sophia Institute of Social Communications Media

Jeroo Mulla was the Head of the Sophia Institute of Social Communications Media, Mumbai from 2012 -2013 and the Head of the Social Communications Media Department, Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai from 1986 – 2012. She has been teaching film appreciation, photography and the Fundamental Concepts of Communications, and supervising student documentaries at the Sophia Polytechnic for over thirty years since 1979. Currently she continues to teach film and photography as a visiting faculty at Sophia Polytechnic and at various other media institutes such as Xavier’s Institute of Communications and Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communications and at St Xavier’s College. She is also a media consultant, and on the advisory boards of the Xavier’s BMM course and the Haridev University of Communications in Jaipur.

At Sophia Polytechnic she has supervised the student productions of over eighty audio-visuals and twenty-four video documentaries on human development issues. In 2004 she was awarded a Gold Medal for her 25 years of service and dedication to the Sophia Polytechnic. In September 2014 she was given the Professor Satish Bahadur Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to Film Studies in South Asia at the Alpaviram Film Festival at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad

In April 2007 she was awarded a Fellowship and a Gold Medal, by the Association of Business Communicators of India in recognition of her “long and distinguished career in the communication practice.”

In 2010 she served as a Jury member for the National Film Awards. She was also on the Selection Committee for the International Children’s Film Festival Hyderabad 2011 and 2013.

In 2003 she served on the Advisory Panel of the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. She was appointed to the Film Censor Board as an Advisory Panel member in 1987 where she served for three years. She is currently on the advisory board of WIFT (Women in Film and Television) and on the advisory board of the Asia Society for their New Voices Fellowship for Screenwriters. Jeroo Mulla is also an accomplished Bharatnatyam exponent who has trained under the renowned guru Acharya Parvatikumar,

Haleem Khan

International Dancer

Dancing is Haleem Khan’s passion. It is also a language that he speak best as an artist. To him all art is an attempt to create beautiful things. “To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim”, Haleem is impressed by these famous words, and constantly aims to realize that. With stage as a canvas, music giving form and rhythm, Classical Dance is an essay and outpouring of feelings – at once a performance but also as an art form comes very close to life.

Right from his childhood days, Classical dance form of Kuchipudi fascinated Haleem. Movies were his primary source of inspiration. Long before he fully comprehended the obstacles that had to be faced, Haleem had set his goals to pursue learning Kuchipudi. Obstacles were many cornered – personal, family, religious bias, financial and conservative milieu surrounding this classical art form. He was fortunate to have found his guru, Sri Kaza Venkata Subhramanyam garu, who spotted him and gave guidance to his passion.

Haleem has performed in more than 800 solo and group dance shows in India and abroad. Besides shows and performances, he has a vast experience in teaching dance, choreographing both conventional and fusion, conducting workshops for grips both private and corporate. Haleem enjoyed immense success on his recent road shows in the United States and Malaysia, and immensely enjoy travelling and continuous learning that comes from that.

More recently he was handpicked as an artist / speaker / performer by INK – to open and interact in their recent conference in Mumbai. A renowned film maker has produced a documentary on Haleem’s life – bringing out the diversity he has in him – passion for dance, religious background, and people in his life. This would be premiered at a film festival in Calcutta this month.

The passion, innovation and excellence of dance is ingrained in him. His innovation can be seen through many of his performances where he has intertwined poetry and music (both English and Urdu) with dance, or he has fused ballet with Kuchipudi. Haleem can effortlessly bring out the aggression of Lord Shiva as he does the Thandavam, or can take the audience inside a woman’s heart who is romancing her man through his Jaavali!

Natural as he is in preforming arts, Haleem has acted in films very successfully.

Haleem had been passionate in looking at a broad canvas. To look inside the psyche of this artist, and what drives him, is perhaps the innate desire to in many ways preserve this ancient dance form. Where dance cannot reach many due to the pressures of modern day life, constraints in access to resources; Haleem has produced a sophisticated Dance Instructional DVD. Haleem has taken upon himself the shades and nuances to hold on to and propagate the ancient tradition when female dancers did not take to stage, and female impersonation was popular; Haleem is amongst the few male dancers who can don the female role effortlessly leaving the audience mesmerized. The jig saw puzzle fits – Haleem’s passion as a male dancer to preserve and propagate this this centuries old dance.

Ambition has no end, and Haleem has been blessed by many gurus and very senior artists and veterans, that he will go a long way. The sky is the limit.

Aruna Reddy

Head – Entrepreneurship Centre at ISB

Aruna Reddy heads the Entrepreneurship Centre at ISB. She is responsible for developing, building and refining the ICE strategic plan to further the ISB vision and mission in the area of Entrepreneurship. She has over 17 years of entrepreneurial and professional experience with the Indian School of Business and Oracle Corporation, USA, and as a successful entrepreneur.

Archana Doshi

Founder – Archana’s Kitchen

Archana is the founder of Archana’s Kitchen which is among India’s top Recipe and Food websites with over 7.2 Million users a year and with lakhs of fan following over social media. The website publishes high quality curated recipes and video recipes and works with top bloggers around the country to curate the content. The curated recipes with menu meals, dinner ideas, lunch boxes and more along with videos, has inspired millions of people from around the world to start cooking, eating healthy and lead a fit lifestyle. Archana was the inspiration behind Google Chrome’s first TV Adin India and was also featured as the Google Entrepreneur on the Web.

Links to some of the videos that featured her work at Archana’s Kitchen.

Google Chrome’s first TV Ad
Google Women Entrepreneur Video
CNBC What Women Want in association with Google Women Entrepreneur on the web

Apart from this, She has also been on National Television at the Fit Foodie Channel cooking up with Michelin Star Chef Vikas Khanna and gets featured in a lot more media who continue to get inspired with the work Archana does.

Anu Acharya

CEO – Mapmygenome India

Ms. Anu Acharya is the CEO of Mapmygenome India, a Genomics company whose vision is “Better Health using technology”. In 2013, she introduced the concept of improved healthcare through personal genomics in India. Ever since, she has successfully pioneered the company through growing product lines, expanding affiliate network, and a Pre-Series A round of funding. She is a Co-Founder of Ocimum Biosolutions, which she led as the CEO (2000-March 2013). She is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and University of Illinois where she has two Post Graduate degrees in Physics and MIS.

Awards and honors include ET Start-up Women Ahead award 2015, member of Young Leaders Forum (British High Commission, 2013), Young Global Leader (World Economic Forum (WEF) 2011), Entrepreneur of the Year (Biospectrum, 2008), Astia Life Science Innovators Award (2008), and 25 Tech Titans under 35 (Red Herring, 2006).

Current Board positions include Global Agenda Council on Genetics for WEF (Vice Chair), NIBMG (Governing Board Member), ABLE (Board Member), Action for India (Advisory Board Member), IvyCap Ventures (Board of Mentors) and KIIT (Advisory Board Member). Past Board positions include Hyderabad chapter of the Entrepreneurs Organization (Past President) and CSIR (Governing Board Member).