Our Speakers

Brand Custodian
Tata Sons Ltd.

Harish Bhat is Brand Custodian, Tata Sons. He joined the Tata Group in 1987, as an officer in the Tata Administrative Service.

He is Chairman of Tata Coffee Ltd. He is also a Director on the Boards of several other Tata Companies, including Tata Global Beverages Ltd., Titan Company Ltd., Trent Ltd., Tata Starbucks Pvt. Ltd., Infiniti Retail Ltd., Tata Unistore Ltd. and Tata AIA Life Insurance Company.

During his career of 30 years with the Tata Group, Mr. Bhat has served in several senior roles. These include stints as Managing Director of Tata Global Beverages Ltd., Chief Operating Officer of the Watches and Jewellery businesses of Titan Company, and also in the telecom business of the Group. He has played a key role in several strategic moves over the past two decades, including the launch and nurturing of many iconic brands of the Tata Group, the successful turnaround of the jewellery business, as well as the acquisition of Tetley.
Mr. Bhat is an alumnus of BITS Pilani and IIM Ahmedabad, graduating at the top of his class in both Institutions. He won the IIM Ahmedabad Gold Medal for scholastic excellence in 1987. In 1997, he won the Chevening Scholarship for young managers, awarded by the British Government. He has strong professional interests in strategy, consumer behavior, business economics and business history. He has been a member of the Consumer Insights Panel of the Economic Development Board, Government of Singapore. He has also represented the Tata Group on the Executive Committee of the World Federation of Advertisers.
Mr. Bhat is passionate about writing, and is a prolific writer who contributes regularly to various national publications. In 2012, his first book was published by Penguin. Titled “Tata Log”, the book narrates stories from the modern history of the Tata Group, set to an overarching theme. His second book, titled “The Curious Marketer” has been published in 2017 by Penguin Random House. This book discusses why curiosity is very important to marketers, and how they can improve their curiosity quotient.

Finance Director and CFO

Amazon India

Raghava has 23 years of experience as a finance professional in the FMCG and E-Commerce industry. He has held various positions across Finance & Accounting, Supply Chain, Mergers and Acquisitions, Treasury & General Management. As a Computer Science engineer from IIT Bombay, he went on to do an MBA from IIM Calcutta. A career with Hindustan Unilever saw him complete assignments in seven locations and three countries before he took charge as Finance Director and CFO for Amazon India.

In his current role, he is in the center of India’s hottest industry and a senior leader in a team that is building Amazon’s customer franchise in the strongly contested e-commerce battle. He is also a guest speaker at various industry fora, management institutes and professional gatherings.

Partner, A.T. Kearney
Head, Consumer and Retail, India
F&B leader, Asia

Summary of experience
• Debashish is Partner with A.T. Kearney and has extensive experience assisting leading global and Indian companies evaluate strategic decisions as well as supporting them in their operations improvement initiatives. He is focused on the Consumer Goods & Retail industries and leads the practice for India. His areas of specialization are in growth strategy, customer insight, category
management and organization structure. He brings strong consumer insights in a variety of consumer categories and retail formats. His transformation experience in the consumer as well as retail industry has transformed companies on their topline and bottomline. Many of his clients over the last year have been top performing companies on the stock exchange as well ! He serves clients across multiple countries in Asia and Middle East. Debashish has authored several thought pieces in the area of consumer behavior, winning customer propositions, organized retail sustainability in India and Omni channel; he is widely quoted in local media.
• He has recently been voted as one of the hottest 40 executives under the age of 40 by Economic Times – Spencer Stuart
• He serves on the CII National Committee for FMCG and Retail
• He also serves on the jury of prestigious Retail conferences and Business Magazines

Education
• Debashish has an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and is a Mechanical Engineer from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Head – Strategy and Business Development
Reliance Retail Limited

Gaurav Jain is the Head of Strategy and Business Development at Reliance Retail, India’s largest retailer with revenues of $5.2 billion and presence of over 3600 stores.

A long-term retail professional, Gaurav brings significant management and leadership experience to his present role.

Gaurav has over 18 years of rich experience in varied fields such as strategy and planning, sales and business development, retail & general management.

Gaurav brings in a deep understanding of corporate planning and change management. He is also recognized as a ‘startup specialist’ and is seen as a key member in setting up of the Reliance group’s retail business.

At Reliance Retail, Gaurav is accredited with forming new businesses through collaborations with revered International retailers. Under his leadership, Reliance Retail has partnered with many international retailers such as Marks and Spencer, Grand Vision, Payless Shoesource, Cherokee, Flormar, Office Depot, Asics, Hamleys and more.

Gaurav serves as a Board Member on Boards of a number of partner brands of Reliance Retail where he drives vision, business planning and provides strategic guidance to maximize shareholder value.

Prior to working with Reliance Retail, Gaurav worked with Reliance Infocomm in Chairman’s Office as part of the strategy team supporting the launch of telecom business.

In early part of his career, Gaurav worked with Piramal group and Zensar Technologies in corporate sales.

Gaurav is a key member of the advocacy council at Retailers Association of India (RAI).

Gaurav has a Master’s in Science degree in Business Administration from University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, USA. He also holds a post-graduate degree in management from Symbiosis Center for Management & HRD.

President
Bajaj Corp Ltd.

Sandeep Verma has an experience of 17 years in the FMCG world and is currently the President of Bajaj Corp Ltd, a $1.5 Bn mkt cap Indian FMCG company and a market leader in value added hair oils and skincare.

Prior to this he had worked for India’s largest FMCG company, Hindustan Unilever Limited for 15 years. His last role being that of a Global Director in the Homecare Category of Unilever. Before that , he was the Regional Category Director – Household Care at HUL, from 2010 till 2014. Here, he led the regional category team, accountable for growing the business, market share and delivering the Unilever household care business.

Before this stint, Sandeep was the global marketing manager for India’s largest personal wash brand Lifebuoy. Here he has responsible for handling its entire P&L across the globe and also for extending it into 24 countries during his stint. Prior to that, Sandeep was the senior brand manager of the shampoo brand Sunsilk. Here he was also instrumental in the creation, setting up and running of the web community “Gang of Girls” for India and later on for all of Asia. It was Asia’s biggest social community of women on the net before Facebook.

Before coming to brand management , Sandeep was in the sales and customer development function at HUL and was handling the biggest Indian state of UP where piloted out HUL’ new rural distribution system into UP which was later adopted and rolled out all over India.

Managing Director
Pizza Hut

Unnat Varma is Managing Director – Pizza Hut for the Indian Sub-continent. Pizza Hut is owned by Yum Brands, world’s largest restaurant company which also owns KFC and Taco Bell worldwide.

Unnat has 21 years of experience of which he has spent 10 years working with Yum! Brands. He joined Yum! In 2006 as Director Marketing – KFC for the Indian Subcontinent. He spent 5 years in that role and built a strong foundation for KFC’s success and growth story in India. In Jan 2011, he took over the role of General Manager – Taco Bell and was responsible for launching the brand as the next growth engine for Yum! In India. After successfully establishing the consumer and business proposition for Taco Bell and appointing a new franchise partner, Unnat moved in as the General Manager – Pizza Hut Indian Sub-continent in Jan 2015. Pizza Hut is one of the most established brand and it has topped the chart at the Brand Equity “Most Trusted Food Service Brand” in India 11th year in a row.

Prior to joining Yum! Brands, Unnat worked with Gillette in India for 12 yrs across Sales and Marketing functions.

Unnat has a degree in Engineering and Management from University of Poona. He did his MBA from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune.

He is married and has two children.

Partner & Director
Rabo Equity Advisors Pvt. Ltd.

Rahul is an alumni of the Harvard Business School, Boston and a Fellow Member of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He has seventeen years of experience in the financial services sector, including nine years in managing private equity investments in the food and agribusiness sector.

He is presently a Partner and Director, Investments at Rabo Equity Advisors Private Limited. Rabo Equity Advisors manages two funds with USD 270 million under management, and is focussed on the Food and Agribusiness space in India.
His responsibilities include sourcing investment opportunities and mentoring companies to meet their full potential. He has been involved through the entire life cycle of the fund from conceptualisation, fund-raising, investing, portfolio management and exiting investments.

Prior to Rabo Equity Advisors he has worked with Rabo India Finance in its Renewable Energy & Carbon Credits vertical and at ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co. Ltd. in its strategic risk team.

He can be reached at rahul.rai@raboequity.in

Director
India Taxes for Amazon, India

Krupa is the Director for India Taxes for Amazon in India and has been there from September 2015. She started her career with the Government of India in the Customs and Central Excise Department, where she spent 10 years, before moving to Deloitte in 2001. She was the first member of the Deloitte Indirect Tax team in India, having resigned from the Government to start a new practice. At the time of leaving Deloitte, she was a Senior Director, having responsibility of the Bangalore and Chennai practices.

In her vast professional experience, Krupa has dealt with various Indian and Multi-national clients and has been involved in contract/transaction structuring, planning reviews, compliance reviews, etc. She has advised clients in various sectors, ranging from manufacturing, automotive, services sector, back offices, banks, insurance companies, e-commerce companies. She is a regular speaker at seminars organized by Trade Bodies in Bangalore, and also used to be frequently quoted in the press as a Deloitte India Indirect tax spokesperson. She was recognized by the ITR as being a leading Indirect Tax professional in 2013 and 2014.

She is a Member of the Indirect Taxes Committee, Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce as well as the Federation of Karanataka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI). She is a guest faculty for indirect taxes in the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.