KBF Class 6
Prashant Agrawal, Ambassador of India to Namibia
Prior to taking up his current assignment, Prashant served as Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs during 2016-18, heading the Development Partnership Division overseeing India’s entire concessional credit portfolio, and before that, one overseeing South Asian regional cooperation. He has undertaken assignments building political, economic and cultural relations in India’s diplomatic Missions in Paris (2000-2003), Port Louis (2003-2006), and in Bangkok (2009-2014), where he served as Deputy Chief of Mission and India’s Deputy Permanent Representative to UNESCAP. He was India’s Consul General to Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR (2014-16), implementing India’s Look East policy and driving engagement with the global financial and business hub. As desk officer at Ministry of External Affairs, he handled relations with the US during 2006-07 and with Nepal during 2008-09. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the United Service Institute of India during 2007-08, and published his research “A comparative analysis of India and China’s approaches to Energy Security”. He also speaks French. Prashant is a graduate from IIT Kanpur. He joined the Civil Service in 1998 as the topper of Indian Foreign Service batch that year. At the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy for Administration in Mussoorie, he stood first in overall academic performance. He is passionate about travelling, heritage, arts and culture, with a special interest in UNESCO World Heritage Sites. His other interests are photography, trekking, nature and wildlife. He is a Fellow of Class 6 of the Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Apurva Asrani is a National Award & Filmfare Award winning film-editor and a Screen Award winning screenwriter based in Mumbai, India. He is best known for editing films like ‘Satya’ (1998) and ‘Shahid’ (2013) and for writing the acclaimed human rights drama ‘Aligarh’ (2016). In 2019, Apurva worked on the hit Amazon series ‘Made In Heaven’, where he edited the work of its creator, Zoya Akhtar. He is also an influential voice in the fight for equal rights for the LGBTQ in India. He is a Fellow of Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Utsav Baijal is a Partner with Apollo’s India office and its India dedicated fund, AION Capital. He joined Apollo the firm in its New York office in 2008 and has worked actively on private equity, mezzanine and credit investments across the US and Asian markets. In 2012, he helped Apollo establish a joint venture with ICICI Bank and helped raise one of the largest India dedicated funds, AION. Prior to Apollo, Utsav was with the private equity team at Bain Capital in Boston, where he worked extensively on consumer and retail opportunities. He spent five years as a consultant with McKinsey & Company across the New Delhi and Hong Kong offices and was one of the founding members of the firm’s corporate finance practice in India. During his tenure at Mckinsey, he also completed a secondment at the Indian School of Business working for the Dean’s office and assisting in several aspects of institution building. He is on the Board of several companies and is also an advisor to YRGCare, a Chennai based NGO specializing in the treatment of AIDS and to Embrace Cinema, a media platform for creative talent in the country. Utsav graduated summa cum laude from St. Stephen’s College/University of Delhi with a BA in economics. He also completed his MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where he was an Industry Scholar. In his early years, he also worked as a freelancer and wrote on youth affairs, politics, sports and entertainment for several national publications, including Hindustan Times, Indian Express and Asian Age. He resides in Mumbai with his wife, Mitali Tewari and two young daughters, Myra and Misha.
Sairee Chahal is the Founder and CEO of SHEROES –the world’s largest women-only social platform, offering a complete online ecosystem for women via communities, a chat-based helpline, opportunities and resources, accessible via Sheroes.com and the SHEROES App. A serial entrepreneur, Sairee is credited with building up the Women’s Internet conversation in India, making a strong technology play to solve the problems of gender disparity in India. Sairee’s community meets deep technology approach has made SHEROES a globally formidable platform, changing the game for women and their aspirations. A technology entrepreneur and a liberal arts student, Sairee has straddled the best of both worlds in her ventures Newslink, Fleximoms and now SHEROES.SHEROES is set up to impact over 500 million women in the next decade under Sairee’s leadership. Sairee is on the board of directors of Paytm Payments Bank. She is also a Fellow of Class 6 of the Ananta Aspen’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Network, and the convener of SHEROES Summit – Asia’s largest multicity forum for women. An M. Phil from JNU and a PGDBM holder from IMT Ghaziabad, Sairee kick started her professional career while at college before cofounding her first start-up. She later worked at corporates like Heidrick and Struggles and CII. Recognized for her achievements globally, Sairee is a Devi Award winner, apart from Femina Achievers Award, Cartier Award Alumni, Editor’s choice for L’Oreal, Femina Women’s Award, Business Today, Most Powerful Women in Indian Business.
Mishi Choudhary is a technology lawyer and an online civil liberties activist. She is the Legal Director of the New York based Software Freedom Law Center. At SFLC, Mishi is the primary legal representative of many of the world’s most significant free software developers and non-profit distributors, including Debian and the Apache Software Foundation. She consults with and advises established businesses and startups using Open Source software in their products and service offerings in the US, India, China and Korea. In 2010, she founded SFLC.in and served as its President and Executive Director until 2017. Under her direction, SFLC.in has become the premier non-profit organization representing the rights of Internet users and free software developers in India. She has played an instrumental part in constitutional proceedings that brought in the landmark Shreya Singhal judgment on online free speech and content moderation. She was part of the SavetheInternet.in that galvanized support of over a million Indian citizens for net neutrality and fought against FreeBasics by Facebook. As of 2015, Mishi is the only lawyer in the world simultaneously to appear on briefs in the US and Indian Supreme Courts in the same Term. She is an expert associated with Columbia University’s Global Freedom of Expression project. In 2015 she was named one of the Asia Society’s 21 young leaders building Asia’s future. In 2017, she won the Digital Women Award in the “Social Impact” category for her work with SFLC.in. The Open Magazine called her one of the emerging legal guardians of the Free and Open Internet while profiling her in their list of “Open Minds: Soft Power” in 2017. She is a Fellow of Class 6 of the Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. In addition to an LLM from Columbia University, she has an LLB degree and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Delhi. Mishi is a member of the Bar Council of Delhi, licensed to appear before the Supreme Court of India, all the State High Courts in India, in the State of New York, and before the Southern District of New York.
Pooja is a part of the senior leadership at The Conduit with an aim to grow the scale and impact of businesses that are solving some of the most complex and challenging issues of our times, together with the support of The Conduit community. Prior to The Conduit, Pooja co-founded UnLtd India, a pioneering organisation that finds, funds and supports early stage social entrepreneurs in India. Under her leadership, since 2007, UnLtd India supported 150+ social entrepreneurs who impacted 2.5+ million lives and created 80,000+ jobs. Pooja also co-founded Bombay Connect, India’s first co-working space for social entrepreneurs and Journeys for Change that brings global leaders to learn from social entrepreneurs in India. Pooja was nominated as a TED India Fellow in 2009, a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2013 and She is a Fellow of Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship from 2016 and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Networkin
Nyrika is the Executive Director of Godrej & Boyce and leads the legal and corporate advisory functions for all Godrej & Boyce companies. In this capacity, she manages commercial contracts, domestic and cross border mergers and acquisitions and the intellectual property portfolio across the 14 businesses of the Group which include furniture, locks, security, process equipment, power, nuclear and aerospace amongst other businesses. She has significantly reduced the Groups’ financial exposure by streamlining the negotiation and contract management process across the businesses. At the Group level, she is actively involved in talent identification and development. In addition to this, she is involved with several digitisation initiatives across the Group which range from knowledge management to improving manufacturing efficiency to product development and improving customer experience. She is committed to improve skill development through the company’s Good and Green CSR program. Additionally, she is on the board of Godrej Infotech, the Group’s IT company and is involved in key decisions with regard to IT security, technology platforms and is working to enhance G&B’s connect with startups and technology partners to improve the digital ecosystem for G&B businesses. She began her career at AZB & Partners where she specialised in M&A transactions and advised foreign companies seeking to invest in India. She graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Philosophy and Economics from Colorado College and obtained LL.B and LL.M degrees from University College London and is a qualified Solicitor from the United Kingdom. Nyrika is a Fellow of Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Network. She resides in Mumbai with her husband Yeshwant and their daughter Arianne.
Shalaka is the Gender Lead, South Asia for the International Finance Corporation (IFC)- the private sector focused arm of the World Bank- where she works on gender in the private sector. Shalaka has over 17 years of global leadership experience in early-stage investing, social venture, financial inclusion, entrepreneurship, livelihoods and market-based solutions to poverty in emerging markets, especially in Asia.Her social enterprise career began with UNICEF where she worked on micro-planning and building public- private-nonprofit alliances. She also worked with Ashoka, a global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. Her private sector experience includes ICICI Bank – India’s largest private sector bank – where she led the process of integrating private sector partners into the Bank’s initiatives in health, education and micro finance. Shalaka’s investment experience includes being part of the early team at the IFMR Trust and serving as a Managing Director of Unitus Impact (now Patamar Capital)- an early-stage fund which supports the growth of scalable livelihood ventures in Asia. Shalaka also served as Managing Director, Asia-Pacific for Toniic- the world’s most active network of impact investors, supporting ventures and funds across 28 countries. She led Toniic’s expansion into the Asia-Pacific region and as its Chief Investment Officer globally, across asset classes. A Chevening scholar and a Fellow of Class 6 of the Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, Shalaka serves on the Boards of Toniic Global (which seeks to move millions of dollars into impact investing globally), the IEF Entrepreneurship Foundation (which works with Indian State governments to mainstream entrepreneurship) and UnLtd, India (a leading incubator for social entrepreneurs). She is based out of Mumbai, India and enjoys poetry, travel and dance.
She is a senior partner at one of India’s leading law firms, AZB & Partners and has been working largely in the corporate, M&A and private equity space for over 23 years. She graduated as a lawyer in 1996 from the National Law School of India University. In addition to corporate and transactional work and being actively involved in AZB’s internal knowledge management programs, she takes keen interest in various social causes, particularly women and children. She has also taken up several opportunities to provide pro bono assistance to clients in the social sector. She worked closely with Save the Children on their early learning training programs. She is associated with the Ashoka University’s YIF Program aimed at picking diverse talent from across the country and training them to become change agents. She supports mentorship programs for YIF and mentors one or two fellows from YIF every year. She is a Fellow of Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Mmhonlumo Kikon is a second time MLA in the Nagaland Legislative Assembly. He lost his first elections in 2008 and contested and won his second and third elections in 2013 and 2018 respectively. He has been a keen soccer player right from school to the university representing the college and school he studied. Prior to joining electoral politics he had been actively engaged in three important issues in the Northeast. He founded an NGO called the DICE Foundation in 2006 to address to key areas of environmental policy, sustainable development and rural women livelihood. With an aim to push for civil society engagements with the Government of India on the various conflicts and development challenges in the NE he has been instrumental in forming regional coalitions among civil society leaders and young leaders from diverse fields from all the NE states and communities. He completed his undergraduate and Masters degrees from the University of Delhi. He was the Nagaland Chapter Chair of Young Indians of the CII and had a short stint with a Publishing firm in Delhi before joining social work and active politics. Besides focusing on healthcare and primary education in his constituency, he is working on creating jobs through skill development programs in Nagaland. He represents the Bhandari Constituency of Wokha District and he belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is a Fellow of Class 6 of the Ananta Aspen’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He is presently the Advisor to the Government of Nagaland on Information and Technology, Science & Technology, and New & Renewable Energy.
Ananth Narayanan was previously the Chief Executive Officer at Myntra, the country’s largest online platform for fashion and lifestyle products. Under his leadership, Myntra has made two strategic acquisitions – Cubeit, a Bangalore based start-up that facilitates content aggregation on mobile devices and Jabong from Global Fashion Group; making it India’s biggest fashion shopping destination. Featured as one of “India’s Hottest 40 under 40 Business Leaders” in 2014, Ananth has deep expertise in driving performance improvement and product development. He started his career with Mckinsey & Company where he worked for 15 years across four offices (Chicago, Shanghai, Taipei and Chennai). In his most recent role as Director in the company, he was responsible for leading the Product Development practice in Asia and worked with several companies on strategy, operations and organizational models. Ananth leverages his vast experience and knowledge from years in consultancy and managing operations to mentor start-ups. With his financial acumen and marketing insights, he has helped start ups create systems and processes, build stakeholder communities, effectively reach out to markets and scale up their business. A person with a strong commitment to building an entrepreneurial environment in the country, Ananth has helped shape many a new enterprise from seed stage to commercial success. He is also a speaker at various summits organized by premier institutes such as The Economist, Harvard Business School and University of Michigan among others. Away from work, Ananth dedicates time to working with various NGOs on helping nurture and educate the girl child. His association with Banyan enables him to find a meaningful outlet to his philanthropic and social development instincts. He is strongly committed to building a base for girl child education and is happy to devote his time to contribute to the effort. In addition, Ananth is deeply interested in the study and performance of the fine arts. His association with Kalashetra enables him to indulge in his interest in cultural expressions and artistic education. Ananth has a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from University of Madras and a Masters from the University of Michigan, in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. He is on the Industry Advisory Board of University of Michigan’s Tauber Institute. He is a Fellow of Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Karma Paljor, Co-Founder of Atvi Infotainment & Editor-in-chief, EastMojo.com
Atv Infotainment,co-founded in 2017 aims to do path-breaking work in content production and digital media from Northeast India. Its digital news arm EastMojo.com is focused on reporting from the eight Northeastern states and its neighboring countries. The platform has a network of journalists and trained verified citizen journalists across the region to deliver news even from the most remote locations. Mobile phones are used to gather voice, video and text based news. The idea is to use technology to report from areas otherwise neglected by mainstream media. Karma’s career spans 19 years, having started his first stint with The Times of India. His first brush with broadcast was with CNBC TV18 where he spent 5 years. He was founding employee of CNN News18 where he spent 11 years heading various teams and programmes. Karma was awarded reporter of the year in 2010 by Indiantelevision.com at the News Television Awards and the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism in the category for Business and Economic Journalism in 2011 and ground reporting CycloePhailin in 2014. His notable investigative piece, titled ‘Fear in the Sky’, was a series on how aviation infrastructure was not keeping pace with the growing aviation sector in India drew widespread attention. He was part of the CNN News18 team which won the award for Best National News Coverage in English at the exchange4media News Broadcasting Awards (ENBA) for their coverage of the devastating Uttrakhand floods in 2013. He has also produced, directed and anchored several award winning programmes for CNN News 18 like Budget Yatra, Axe the Tax, Reporters Project. Karma is a graduate from Bangalore University; he also holds a post graduate diploma from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. He won the Chevening Scholarship for Broadcast Journalism in 2004. He is a Fellow of the class 6 of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Roopak Saluja is Founder & CEO of The 120 Media Collective – a communications and content group, working with some of Asia’s largest advertisers. He turned entrepreneur in 2006 with the launch of BANG BANG – India’s International Production Company, which was named India’s second fastest growing company across all sectors (source: AllWorld Live) in 2010. In 2009, he launched Jack in the Box Worldwide that has grown to be one of South Asia’s most reputed and heavily awarded digital agencies. In 2013, he founded The 120 Media Collective and consolidated all of his ventures within. In 2015, he founded Sooperfly, a company that has redefined the video content creation and production model for the digital era. Roopak began his career in advertising at Young & Rubicam Budapest followed by Ogilvy & Mather Paris, where, in his last role, he ran the Motorola account for Europe, Middle East & Africa, and was instrumental in the development of the globally iconic Hellomoto campaign. He as a number of notable awards and recognitions to his credit including Campaign Asia- Pacific’s ‘40 Under 40’ List of leading professionals and entrepreneurs in Advertising, Media & Marketing across APAC, IMPACT Digital Power 100 in 2013, 2014 (India’s 100 most influential leaders in the digital media industry), Campaign India’s A-List of the Most Influential People in India’s Advertising, Media & Marketing Industry (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013), CNN Mumbai Hot List of 20 People to Watch in 2011, and Star Youth Marketing Achiever 2010. He is a regular speaker at industry and entrepreneurship events across the globe and has held several advertising, marketing and content jury positions globally as well. Roopak is an active angel investor and has served on various company boards. Additionally, he is an Advisor to the Content Marketing Summit Asia and Mentor to D Labs, a design-thinking led accelerator at the Indian School of Business. In the past, he has served on the Executive Committee of the Association of Advertising Producers and on the Advisory Boards of the Indian Digital Media Awards. Roopak attended The Doon School and holds an MBA from INSEAD, where he is also an occasional guest lecturer. A diplobrat, his education, work and life have allowed him to live in ten countries on six continents and to speak nine languages. In a past life, he has also been a trance DJ, performing around the globe and co-founding his own trance label, Procyon Records (Budapest & Paris). Roopak is obsessed with Japanese cuisine, single malt, Tintin and trivia and lives in Bombay with his TV personality/actress wife, Tara and two sons, Zen and Kai, aged 10 and 8. He is a Fellow of Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Bangalore based historian, Dr. Vikram Sampath is the author of three acclaimed books: Splendours of Royal Mysore: the Untold Story of the Wodeyars; “My Name Is Gauhar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician”- and “Voice of the Veena: S Balachander – A Biography” . Vikram was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s first Yuva Puraskar and the ARSC International Award for Excellence in Historical research in New York for his book on Gauhar Jaan. The book has also been adapted to theatre as a play “Gauhar”, directed by Lillette Dubey. The book is now being adapted to a Bollywood film by noted film-maker Ashutosh Gowariker. Vikram was among the 4 writers and artists to be selected by the former President of India Shri Pranab Mukherjee as a Writer-in-Residence, to stay at the Rashtrapati Bhawan for 2 weeks, in 2015. The first of his two-volume biography of freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar titled “Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past” was released in August 2019 from Penguin Randomhouse India. Vikram has a doctorate in history & music from the University of Queensland, Australia. Vikram is now a Senior Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi . A Visiting Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study), Berlin and an alumnus of the Australia-India Youth Dialogue (AIYD), Vikram is an engineer /mathematician from BITS-Pilani and an MBA in Finance from S P Jain, Mumbai. He is also a trained Carnatic vocalist trained under several eminent gurus such as Vidwan D.V. Nagaraj and Vidushis Bombay Jayashri and Dr. Jayanthi Kumaresh. He has established the Archive of Indian Music, India’s first digital sound archive for vintage recordings, is the Founder-Director of the Bangalore Literature Festival, Indic Thoughts Festival and the ZEE Group’s ARTH- A CULTURE QUEST. Vikram has worked with several corporates such as GE Money, Citibank and Hewlett Packard and later the Government of India’s Ministry of Culture where he headed the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) in South India. He serves in an advisory capacity on several Government bodies–both at the Centre and the State and represents India in the UNESCO body the International Society for Music Education (ISME). He is a Fellow of the Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network
Jamal Shaikh is National Editor of New Media Initiatives at the Hindustan Times, and is responsible for driving digital content in the lifestyle, entertainment and luxury space. He is also editor the Sunday magazine, Brunch. Previously, Jamal has launched and edited several magazines, including the Indian edition of Robb Report, which is the world’s most exclusive luxury magazine and also Discovery Channel Magazine India. However, he is best remembered for his role in making Men’s Health the largest-selling men’s magazine in India, and bringing fitness and six-pack abs into the consciousness of young Indian men. In his early career, Jamal worked with the Bombay Times, Times of India, and DNA, and has written for the New York Times and hosted several TV shows on travel, health and fitness, and lifestyle. Jamal has been consistently involved with community development activities since his days as a student. As an active member of the AIESEC and Rotaract Club of Churchgate, he helped organize several activities like Polio Drives, Cleanliness Campaigns and Education Initiatives for slum kids. As a young journalist at Bombay Times, he started a column called ‘Dal Chawal For The Dil’, which profiled ordinary citizens in a largely glamourous lifestyle newspaper; reading about their real-life challenges invited support from several readers regularly, and the column was awarded a Lions Club award for social impact. On the basis of this, Jamal was also selected by the Govt. of Israel to represent India at an international workshop on ‘The Media’s ole in Social Change’ in 2001. More recently, Jamal was involved in the rehabilitation of flood-affected victims in Kashmir, and in a project promoting the development of urban toilets. He is a Fellow of Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Mihir S Sharma is a Bloomberg View Columnist whose writing focuses on economic policy in India. Mihir has a decade of journalistic experience, after being trained as an economist and political scientist in New Delhi and Boston. Before writing for Bloomberg, he was an editor at The Indian Express and Business Standard, where he was given a Sriram Sanlam award in recognition for his work in financial journalism. Sharma also has considerable experience as a policy economist. In 2015, he published his first book, Restart: The Last Chance for the Indian Economy, to considerable critical acclaim. It was awarded the Tata LitLive Best Business Book of the Year and was long listed for the Financial Times–McKinsey Business Book of the Year. He is a Fellow of Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Anil Srinivasan is an accomplished classical pianist, the first to be awarded the coveted Sangeet Natak Akademi youth award in 2010 for creative and experimental music, India’s national honour for musicians under 35. His various collaborative works – with several of India’s top artistes have come in for critical acclaim. Collaborators include U Shrinivas, Ravikiran, Aruna Sairam, Unnikrishnan, Rakesh Chaurasia, Lalgudi Krishnan, Gaurav Mazumdar, Jayanthi Kumaresh and others. He is best known for his collaboration with Sikkil Gurucharan, with whom he has produced ten highly popular albums. Anil had composed extensively for dance and theatre internationally working as far afield as Korea, Australia and the United States. His active involvement in music has seen his performances all over the globe. He has been a TED speaker, chaired conferences on music in venues as diverse as Liverpool Hope University and the University of Mumbai and has represented India across multiple forums involving arts education. Importantly, he is the founder of the hugely successful “Rhapsody” music education initiative, to take the classical arts through structured, systematic syllabi delivered through schools using a combination of physical classroom learning and online support, that reaches out to nearly 75000 children across Southern India. He serves as a trustee of the NalandaWay Foundation, reaching children in difficult situations, and as a director of The Peninsula Studios in Delhi, one of India’s first initiatives to record and archive independent music. He is a Fellow of Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Kartik Sriram, a second generation entrepreneur, is the President and CEO of Rapsri- a high technology niche metal casting company. Functionally, he is responsible for the growth strategy, diversification and execution of the long term business plan. He has a double masters degree -MMS (BITS Pilani) and MBA (Babson College). He has been involved in the company from a young age learning the ropes on the job from when he was a student at school. Following the completion of his MBA, he returned to India in 1997 to lead the turnaround of Rapsri. He is responsible for bringing in a business focused approach to Rapsri by dramatically improving the product mix, customer portfolio and operational efficiency. He has ambitious plans for the diversification and growth plans of Rapsri and evolving a group company based strategy. He was a founder member and instrumental in setting up of the Young Indians initiative of CII. He is an active member and served on the Board of both EO an international organization for entrepreneurs and the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). He also has a social bent of mind and serves as a trustee in Bangalore Kidney Foundation (BKF) – an organization that provides affordable renal health care for poor patients suffering from chronic kidney failure. He is actively involved in raising funds and managing the project to build the third hospital for the trust. He is a Fellow of Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Network. He loves the outdoors enjoying trekking, camping and white-water rafting. He plays tennis and cricket. He is an avid reader and enjoys reading a wide range of authors and genres. His choice in movies is unconventional and he prefers foreign language and vernacular Indian films to mainstream Hollywood or Bollywood. He is married to Kalpa and they have two sons, Rishikesh and Vedanth.
Kami Viswanathan is Founder, work4.0capital, a cross-border investment firm focused on the future of work. Work4.0capital partners with game-changing companies in the areas of skilling, job matching, credentialing, microlearning and lifelong learning and helps them scale internationally. Kami was co-founder co-CEO of Lumina Datamatics (formerly PreMedia Global Inc), a leading provider of educational content and technology solutions to the US and European markets with over 3000 employees across 7 locations in the US, Germany, Bosnia and India. As an investor and mentor, she has seeded early-stage ventures in education, learning and creativity, and health and fitness. Earlier, Kami headed Mergers & Acquisitions at OfficeTiger, where she was also responsible for project implementation, and was a consultant in Arthur Andersen’s business advisory practice helping multinational companies negotiate joint ventures and set up operations in India. Kami serves on the Executive Committee of the Music Academy, Chennai and on the board of the Harvard Business School Club of India. She is a gold-medallist from the National Law School of India where she graduated with the BA, LLB (Hons.) degree, and holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School. She is a Fellow of Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Amitabh Yash is currently Inspector General of Police (Traffic) in the state of UP. He received his education from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and IIT, Kanpur. He served as Senior Superintendent of Police in various districts of UP including Saharanpur, Noida, Bulandsahar Barabanki and Jalaun, As Deputy Inspector General at Kanpur, Moradabad and Banda and IG at Gorakhpur. As a professional police officer, Amitabh specialized in Operations. He first honed his skills at Jalaun, a district then infested by heavily armed bands of brigands who virtually ruled the place. He eliminated the dreaded ‘Nirbhay Gurjar’ gang and was awarded a Police Medal for Gallantry. In 2007, he was asked to lead the Special Task Force of the UP police. Within a few months, he eliminated the dreaded ‘Dadua’ gang in Chitrakoot for which he was publicly felicitated by the CM of UP and awarded another Medal for Gallantry by Govt. of India. He was also involved in many successful Anti- terrorist operations, ops against organized crime, drug syndicates, fake currency rackets and wildlife crime groups, to name a few. The most visible operations were the decimation of around twenty dacoit gangs of Bundelkhand region of UP and MP. These gangs had ruled the social, political and economic landscape for more than thirty years. His third Gallantry Medal came on account of the elimination of the dreaded gang of ‘Thokia’, who had ambushed and killed six of the best STF Commandoes of STF. He has also been awarded the ‘Police Medal for Meritorious Services’ and the ‘Chief Minister’s Outstanding Services Medal.’ He is among the most decorated Police Officers of UP. As SSP (Kanpur), Mr. Yash had worked on resolution of family and marital disputes through positive counselling, involving local eminent personalities of repute and NGOs. The efforts led to saving hundreds of families from expensive litigation and disintegration. As IG (Gorakhpur Zone), he made special efforts to curb trafficking of young women and children. Special seminars were organized to involve children’s homes and orphanages as well as NGOs to sensitize policemen. A major earthquake in Nepal had led to a collapse of the Nepalese economy, making the economically weaker sections especially vulnerable to such activities. He has also been involved in the formulation and implementation of transparent recruitment processes as Secretary of the UP Police Recruitment and Promotion Board. Yash is currently working on an ambitious Government project for universal availability of integrated emergency services for public safety and security throughout the state of UP. Yash is married to Renu Singh (IFS), Chief conservator of Forests of the Endangered Species Project at Lucknow. She is an avid wildlifer and was recently conferred the ‘Devi Award’ for her contribution in the field of wild-life protection. He has two daughters, Pratyaksha and Pihu. Amitabh is a keen photographer and loves Riding. He is a Fellow of Class 6 of Ananta Aspen Centre’s Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship and a member of Aspen Global Leadership Network.
