Speakers

Keynote Speaker:

Shivakumar
Managing Director, Nokia India
Shivakumar is currently Managaing Director of Nokia Mobile phones and Vice President of Nokia. Shivakumar has handled more than 34 brands in his career of over two decades. He had spent about 15 years at Hindustan Unilever and then moved to Phillips to run their consumer electronics division. He had also been on the Phillips Board. Shivakumar has been with Nokia since 2006 and since then has been responsible for growing Nokia's mobile phones business in India as the second largest market globally, while providing strategic direction and operational focus. He is also on the Board of Godrej. Shivakumar writes, teaches, and is an avid sports watcher. He is married to Hamsini, who runs her own Brand and Innovation consulting firm.

Panel 1 – Evolution of Brands:

Ajay Kakar
Chief Marketing Officer, Financial Services, Aditya Birla Group
Ajay Kakar is currently the Chief Marketing Officer, Financial Services, Aditya Birla Group. He has over 17 years of experience in the marketing industry. Kakar began his career in 1991 with Ogilvy where he was responsible for launching the company’s finance practice, before he earned his additional mandate as country head in August 2003. He was the Executive Director and Head, Financial Practice for O&M and Country Head of Ogilvy Public Relations. Then, he joined the Reliance ADAG group as Head - Branding and Communications. He was responsible for the massive project to overhaul the branding and communication strategies of the ADAG group in a bid to shed Reliance’s image as an industrial house and get more consumer-centric. Kakar also sits on the Marketing, Communications and Financial Literacy Committee of the Financial Planning Standards Board India (FPSB).

Parminder Singh
Business Head, Google India
Parminder Singh, Business Head – Technology, Google India, has over 14 years of cross-functional experience in strategy and brand marketing in the technology and telecommunication sector. He was Country Head of Marketing for Apple and most recently Head of Marketing for IBM's Hardware division. He has a rich track record of being responsible for introducing several best practice marketing campaigns and also with launching and setting up of successful distribution networks for high technology products. He was awarded IBM's prestigious Asia – Pacific Role Model award for excellence in the marketing discipline.

Ramesh Viswanathan
Executive Director, CavinKare
Ramesh Viswanathan, is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM bangalore, from where he graduated in 1990. In the last 19 years, he has worked in fast moving consumer goods in different assignments across the country. Lakme, UB Group and Cavinkare are three companies he has worked in, working on brands such as Lakme Color Cosmetics, Elle 18, Kingfisher, Chik, Fairever and Spinz. Currently he heads the global personal care business for Cavinkare.

Panel 2 – Bending Global Brands:

R Sridhar
Chief Executive Officer, Brand-Comm
R Sridhar, founded Brand-Comm in the year 1998, which now has 7 offices pan-India which offer a comprehensive and, where possible, integrated range of services across brand consulting, advertising, and public relations, spearheading brand consulting projects. In addition, the network also offers Integrated Talent Communications (Internal Communications) which assists companies in communicating with internal clients / employees to meet their HR objectives of retention. Within eleven years of his establishment of Brand-Comm, the organisation has created tremendous value for companies in industries including Information Technology, Retail, Cement, Fashion & Apparel, Education, Health and FMCG. Prior to this he was the Executive Director at R K SWAMY BBDO, the CEO at Prathibha Advertising and Executive Vice President at Mudra Communications. His interests include brand consulting, teaching, writing columns and books on branding, counseling, playing golf, following cricket, networking.

K V Sridhar
National Creative Director, Leo Burnett India
The advertising guru K V Sridhar is the national Creative Director of Leo Burnett. Sridhar is better known as “Pops” to his colleagues. He started his career as an art director of feature films. His first film was Kukka in 1978. With his continued effort, Leo Burnett India was chosen as the Global Agency of the Year 2008 among the Leo Burnett network's 94 offices in 86 countries. Sridhar is the only Indian jury member to be a part of the list of judges at the New York Festival 2009. “I had three career options apart from films: Medical representative, drawing teacher and finishing artist in advertising. I chose advertising to use my art and science background," says Sridhar, who has given us the Thumps Up and HDFC Standard Life ads.  

Radha Chadha
Managing Director, Chadha Strategy Consulting
The development of Radha Chadha into a branding specialist is full of compelling experiences, valuable lessons, and extensive travels—especially in Asia. Her career has resonated with three particular themes that have shaped her industry insights and professional vision: the Asian consumer, luxury items, and passion for the branding industry. Her book, 'The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Aisa's Love Affair with Luxury' was ranked third on Amazon.com's best selling new releases in its category. After a stint in India where Chadha worked with a variety of advertising agencies, she moved to Hong Kong in 1997 and joined Bates Worldwide. She has spent almost a lifetime studying, evaluating, and working in the branding industry in Asia. It all began innocently enough, with an interest in numbers. Chadha graduated from St. Stephen's College in New Dehli, India, with a BA in Math. From there she decided to pursue an MBA at the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad, where her branding career began in 1981, when she was recruited by JWT, Mumbai.

Shripad Nadkarni
Chief Executive Officer, Marketgate consulting 
Shripad Nadkarni the Founder Director at MarketGate Consulting and brings an experience spanning over 25 years to help companies achieve superior business results and enhance brand value. He has worked across a multitude of sectors such as healthcare, OTC products, automobiles, entertainment and financial services leading sales and marketing teams for over 15 years. Nadkarni was Vice President-Marketing and Business Head for New Beverages at Coca-Cola India for over five years beginning October 2000.He also led the advertising of core brands for India, Indonesia, Rural China, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Prior to that he was Vice President-Marketing for the Johnson & Johnson Consumer Business and also headed the Vision Care (disposable contact lenses) profit centre. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has contributed articles to leading business dailies and magazines.

Prashanth Thiruvaipati
Vice President, Product Management and User Experience, People Interactive
Prashanth Thiruvaipati is one of the few professionals in the country who have been with the internet industry since the 90s. He developed a rich experience in the US with internet majors such as Expedia.com and Drugstore.com. He has been instrumental in bringing in Product Management expertise into some of the best Indian consumer internet brands including Naukri.com, Shaadi.com, Makaan.com, and Fropper.com. During his tenure at People Interactive, he has helped Shaadi.com earn the PC World Award for “Best Site” and “Best Design” in matrimony category. Thiruvaipati is extremely passionate about creating consumer products on internet and mobile. He believes that ‘superior Customer Experience and Continuous Product Innovation should be at the core of every good brand’.

Subbarao
Hub Head, TATA DOCOMO (GSM)
Subbarao is currently Hub Head of TATA DOCOMO (GSM). Subbarao has worked for over 20 years on various brands, involving new product development, brand, product, category management, sales, distribution and biz operations, across FMCG and telecom related sectors.  Over the years he has lived and worked in different geographies including US, Japan and Vietnam while working for companies such as P&G, Conagra Foods, TATA Tele and Bharti Airtel, and has recently joined TATA DOCOMO. Prior to this he was CEO and President for TANLA solutions in USA. Subbarao started his career with P&G as a management trainee and was with PG for +10 years while working on brands like Ariel and Tide across Asia Pacific countries. Later he moved to ConAgra and worked on brands such as Sundrop, Rath and Crystal.  For the past 8 years Subbarao has been involved with telecom/ mobile services and interactive applications. He is an active speaker and panel member at various forums like CII, 3 GSM, CTIA  and leading educational institutions.  Subbarao is an avid mobile evangelist and likes to spend his spare time watching/ playing sports, reading and with his family.