Mr. Bunty Walia

Managing Director

GS Entertainment

Topic-Insight on Event Management & Movie Making.

Date-26th November2009

GS Entertainment is headed by Guneet Singh Walia aka Bunty Walia. An eminent businessman and a great visionary who has carved the company from a start up into a multinational organization.GS one of the leading names in the Indian entertainment industry startedbusiness in 1995 as an event management and film production company.Having scaled the heights of success, the company has ventured into thediversified fields of television software development, weddings, ad films,music videos and celebrity management.What sets gs apart is vision, talent, expertise and attention to detail whichshows in the flawless planning and execution. Some of the biggestBollywood shows in India and abroad have been co-ordinated, scripted &directed by gs entertainment. In addition gs has produced films like ‘PyaarKiya to Darna Kya’ (1998), ‘Hello Brother’ (2000), ‘Maine Dil Tujhko Diya’(2002) and ‘Ek Ajnabee’ (2005).

Mr. Anupam Vasudev

Executive Vice -President

Marketing & Communications
Star India pvt. ltd.

Date-25thNovember2009

Topic- Traditional Media and New Media
Mr. Vasudev is a marketing veteran from the FMCG industry with a career spanning 18 years in the US and Asia, He spent the last 6 years with SC Johnson Consumer Products and 12 years before that with Hindustan Lever in various roles in their sales and marketing functions in India
His key achievements include setting up and implementing the air care category strategy while he was the Regional Marketing Director across the Asia region in SC Johnson USA. He successfully commercialized new products across 35 countries with common marketing mix.
In Unilever as Regional Sales Manager for South India, he led the region to be the fastest growing region in the country for three years. Mr. Vasudev graduated in Economics from St. Stephens College, Delhi and has a MBA from FMS, Delhi University. Mr. Vasudev's role in STAR is to make marketing a core of Star's strategy and create processes for aligning the organization from a marketing point of view. In addition to Marketing, he also leads the L&M, research, communications and events divisions at STAR.Mr. Vasudev is based in Mumbai and enjoys watching movies, listening to music, reading and traveling with family.

Mr. Ratish Nair

Co-founder

Ad Magnet

Topic-Business Models for Online & Digital Marketing

Date-24th November2009

Mr. Ratish Nair has served as the CEO of Interactive Avenues, which is backed by Sequoia Capital India, a leading venture capital firm whose investments include Indiatimes, Travelguru and Shaadi.com. Globally, Sequoia Capital has been an early investor in leading internet and technology companies including Google, Yahoo, Apple, Oracle, Cisco, PayPal and YouTube.
Ad Magnet, the ad network launched by Interactive Avenues uses proprietary 4th generation ad serving technology to aggregate billions of ad impressions across categories, create audience segments and help advertisers reach highly fragmented Internet users.
In past Mr. Nair has also been associated with companies like Mediaturf Worldwide and Euro RSCG. He is also an alumni of IIM,calcutta and birla institute of tecnology.

Mr. Rajesh Gupta

Head of Logistics
J K Tyre & Industries

Date-23rd November

Topic-Uncertainties in Supply Chain: Risks and Futures

Mr. Gupta is a Gold Medallist in Electrical Engineering from Regional Engineering College, Srinagar (now known as NIT Srinagar). Afterwards he did MBA from IRMA in 1987. During the last 22 years he has worked with MNCs and Major Indian Companies. Presently he is working with J K Tyre & Industries at New Delhi, a pioneering Company in Radial tyres in India, as Head of Logistics. He has rich experience in the Supply chain function from one end to other end and has been instrumental in bringing transformation in the Supply Chain function of the Companies where he has worked. He is fond of Computer Systems and has implemented ERP including SAP and many other Systems.He believes in teamwork and has been able to create excellent teams. His hobbies are photography, traveling and reading. He also gives lectures on Supply Chain and other management topics. He is a visiting faculty to many business schools.

Mr. JP Shukla

Whole time Director & CEO merchandise
Vishal retail ltd.
Date-22nd November2009
Topic-Retailing
He has served as Ex. CEO indiabulls retail,Ex chief big bazaar and Ex Head adani retail.
has an experience of 15 years in retail and is among the Founder members of vishal retail.

Mr. Niteen Bhagwat

Executive Director & CEO
Cogito Consulting

Topic-"How Advertising Works."

Date-19thNovember2009

A Chemistry major,Mr. Bhagwat did his MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. A love for advertising drew him to JWT. This was followed by a stint in sales and marketing with Lakme – then India’s largest cosmetics company.
The pull of advertising was far too strong and the late 80’s saw Mr. Bhagwat coming back to his first love – advertising. Over the past 25 years, he has been involved with some of the biggest brand successes in the country.
Mr. Bhagwat is CEO Cogito Consulting, the marketing and brand consulting company from the DraftFCB-Ulka group. He also oversees strategic planning for the region. He is actively engaged in training within the organization and at management colleges. He specializes in training in the area of strategic thinking, campaign planning and innovation. In his free time he is associated with organizations like BMA – the oldest management association in Mumbai and assists them with their marketing initiatives.

Ms. Nandita Lakshmanan

Founder and CEO

The PRactice

Topic-360 Degree Communication.

Date-18th November 2009.

The PRactice – is a public relations firm specializing in technology, healthcare and consumer domains.
In her seventeen year long career,Ms. Lakshmanan has personally been involved with two start ups that she has built and scaled successfully: the first being her erstwhile employer, Genesis Burson Marstellar for whom she set up the southern operations. She set afoot their technology practice with clients like Digital Equipment, Intel and IBM while bringing in prestigious clients like Volvo, 3M into the Firm’s fold.
She subsequently founded The PRactice in Year 2000. The PRactice, under her leadership, has emerged as one of the top PR firms in Asia, having won several international awards including the APAC PR Week Certificate of Excellence for “New Consultancy of the Year”.
Ms. Lakshmanan’s philosophy has been to ‘grow slow, but grow right’ which she has exercised consistently throughout her career.
In 2009, in recognition of her work as an entrepreneur, Ms. Lakshmanan was amongst a handful of women chosen from around the world by Fortune and the US State Department to participate in its Global Mentorship Program.Based on the impression she made at this program, she was invited to speak at the Fortune’s Most Powerful Women’s Summit in Washington DC in September this year.
Ms. Lakshmanan is an active member of PRCAI (Public Relations Consultants Association of India) and stepped down in 2008 after serving two years as President.
She believes that every individual can and needs to make a difference. Since 2005, she has been a Member of the Board at Dream a Dream, an NGO that works with children, and advises them on their marketing and fund raising initiatives. She is also one of the founding members of a citizens-initiative called Smart Vote, to get the educated, privileged sections of society to participate actively in the country’s democracy. In addition to this, The PRactice works pro bono with one deserving cause every quarter to get them the publicity they need to succeed in their efforts.
In just nine short years, Ms. Lakshmanan is well on her way to realizing her dream that led her to start The PRactice - to get PR and Communications into the boardroom, a place she believes it always belonged.
Ms. Lakshmanan has been training in Hindustani Classical Music for close to two years; and is currently soaking in interesting conversations with her seven year old son.