People | Purpose | Practice | Profit

Ashutosh leads investments for Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures)in India, where his team identifies entrepreneurs and companies that are addressing big societal needs with technology in the most innovative ways. While at Prosus Ventures, Ashutosh has led investments in Swiggy, BYJU’S, Meesho, Eruditus, ElasticRun, PharmEasy, Urban Company and more. Prior to joining Naspers Ventures in 2016, Ashutosh was a Vice President at Norwest Venture Partners investing in companies across a range of sectors. Before that, he was an investment manager with Qualcomm Ventures focusing on Seed and Series A/B internet and mobile startups. Ashu received his MBA from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree in Electronics Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.

Recognized as the founder and the pioneer of the Business Process Management (BPO) industry in India, Pramod Bhasin is a visionary and a foremost voice on financial inclusion. He, along with his long-time business associate and friend Anil Chawla, the former CEO of GE Capital’s commercial business, founded Clix Capital to build the best hybrid financial and technology solution that will change the power equation in the lending space by empowering customers and providing simple, easy and fast-moving loans ubiquitously on a click. The company will drive new and disruptive lending models which can radically alter customer experience and responsibly serve the traditionally underserved segments. Pramod began his career with GE over 25 years ago and spent time across US, Europe and Asia. He moved to India from the US in 1994 to set up GE Capital. He served as the Head of GE Capital for India and Asia until 1997. Under his leadership, GE Capital launched the SBI-GE credit card business in India.

With a career spanning more than 3 decades in the consumer brand and investing ecosystem, Kanwaljit Singh brings deep expertise in venture investing, strategy and business development, brand building and marketing. As the Founder and Managing Partner of Fireside Ventures, he has successfully raised two separate funds (AUM US$170Mn) with notable investors include L’Oreal France, Investment Corporation of Dubai; Unilever Ventures, SIDBI (managing Govt of India’s Fund of Fund for startups), HDFC Bank etc. Apart from defining the overall contours of the portfolio he mentors entrepreneurs to scale and champions Fireside’s thought leadership. Kanwaljit is on the board of several companies, and at Fireside plays a pivotal role in the growth of brands like Boat, Slurrp Farm, Vahdam Teas, and The Ayurveda Experience etc. Prior to establishing Fireside Ventures, Kanwaljit invested personal capital and provided mentorship support to consumer brands like Licious and Mama Earth (both became Unicorns recently), Paper Boat, Epigamia, Yoga bar, amongst others. Prior to this, as the co-founder and Senior MD at Helion Ventures (AUM US$600Mn) from 2005 to 2015 he worked closely with business in the consumer and consumer technology space. Some of his notable investments were Qwikcilver, ID Fresh, Simplilearn and Lifecell etc. Prior to Helion, as the Director of The Carlyle Group, India (2001-2005) he led investments in technology ventures. Kanwaljit’s foundational years (1987-2000) were at Hindustan Unilever focussing on sales, marketing and product innovation, along with a 3-year stint at Intel as the General Manager – Marketing overlooking responsibilities in India and the SAARC Countries. Kanwaljit holds an MBA in Marketing and Finance from the Faculty of Management Studies, New Delhi; and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Punjab University

Ritu Marya is the Editor- in- Chief for Entrepreneur India-Asia-Pacific and Franchise India Media, a group company of Franchise India Holdings Limited. She is the Group Editor and leads the editorial desk which comprises business magazines including Entrepreneur, The Franchising World and Retailer together with the Digital media arm of Entrepreneur.com, Franchiseindia.com, wellnessindia.com, indianretailer.com and restaurantindia.in. In her tryst with Business Journalism over the last 16 years, Ritu is regarded as an authority on Startups, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Fintech, AI, Blockchain, Consumer Businesses, Retail, Luxury to Education, Restaurant, Funding and more. In her role as the Group Editor she meets and interacts with Leading Indian and Global Entrepreneurs and thought-leaders while tracking Startup and Entrepreneurial and consumer business landscape in India and Asia-Pacific.

Mr. Rajeev Chitrabhanu is the founder of MAGNETIC, an advisory lead investment platform, The focus is to help founders build unicorns by investing and advising them across strategic growth initiatives, org design, structuring and capital raising. Prior to this, he was the CEO of JM Financial Services (earlier JM Morgan Stanley). He has been on the Board of some of the largest private equity players like TPG and Bessemer Ventures. He is currently an advisor to some global companies in the food tech space like JUSTegg and Sundial Foods (Nestle band board member to Manipal Cigna. More about the work.