jury panel 2019

Amarjit Singh Batra is the Managing Director for Spotify India.  He joined the company in April 2018 to set up operations and build business in the country.

Before Spotify, Amar founded OLX in India and was the country CEO for 9.5 years, where he led more than 500 team members across marketing, product, technology, analytics, customer support, and sales. His role was to create the market for C2C (consumer to consumer) trade in India, through buying and selling of pre-owned goods for anyone who had access to a mobile phone and internet in the country.

Prior to Spotify and OLX, Amar was with Baazee/eBay India, where he spent over 5 years, and he headed their B2B auctions, cross border trade, category management, advertising sales & partnerships, and new business initiatives. Amar also did stints in B2B marketplaces and international trade during the first decade of his career before joining Baazee.

Amar holds a Bachelors in Industrial Engineering and has an MBA from University Business School (UBS), Chandigarh. He lives in New Delhi with his wife, daughter, and son. He enjoys sports and an active lifestyle, and spends his spare time playing squash, reading, and listening to music.

Ashok Malhotra is the Managing Director of Habasit South Asia Region since 2014.

He has over 34 years of corporate experience across Technology, Office Automation, Information Technology, Industrial and Life Science Instrumentation sectors. He has developed a deep understanding of the Indian business environment; successfully built several profitable businesses in both MNCs as well as Indian companies including start-ups with strong focus on cohesive high performance team building; create enabling environment & stakeholder management, managing strategic challenges and excellence in execution.

Ashok worked with Ascom, where he successfully introduced new technologies in India. He established the 2nd largest market shares for Ascom electronic machines in less than 3 years. Prior to Ascom, Ashok was a part of the Bradma of India team where he set up the sales operations and build a highly profitable operation for Pitney Bowes products in South Asia.

Ashok joined Mettler-Toledo in November 2000 when they started their 100% subsidiary in India. There, he was responsible for setting up the operations from scratch, leading and successfully driving profitable Mettler business for all their divisions. He also helped in setting up Mettler Global Shared Services Centre in India.

He has been on the boards of successful Indian organizations. Ashok joined the board of these companies with the goal of providing strategic inputs to the current management teams for faster profitable growth, creating strategic business plans and support in talent acquisition, managing governance and regulatory compliance, assist in raising capital, improving and establishing business processes and guide the team through the implementation plan and support in the business development by bringing these opportunities to relevant distribution partners where he has strong relationships.

Ashok had his Bachelor of Production Engineering in PEC-Chandigarh, Masters in Business Administration from FMS-Delhi University.

Ashok has attended several executive education modules at Harvard Business School, ISB, Kellogg Business school & INSEAD.

Dhanpal Jhaveri is Managing Partner at Everstone Capital, a premier investment group focused on India and South East Asia, with assets in excess of US$5 billion across private equity, real estate, green infrastructure and venture capital. He is also the CEO for EverSource Capital, which is a joint venture between Lightsource BP and Everstone Capital to make green and sustainable investments in India. Dhanpal’s previous experience include Director (Corporate Strategy) with Vedanta Resources Plc, Head of Investment Banking at ICICI Securities and Partner for Corporate Finance at KPMG.

Kavinder Singh is the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Limited (MHRIL). He is a Member of the Group Executive Board (GEB) Mahindra Group, President (Leisure & Hospitality Sector) and Vice-Chairman of Holiday Club Resorts Oy (Finland).

He also Chairs the Customer Experience Academy of Mahindra Group. His aim is to develop Mahindra Holidays into a world class vacation ownership company, focused on creating differentiated experiences for Club Mahindra members.

With more than 33 years of extensive consumer experience in the FMCG and hospitality, Kavinder has worked at Asian Paints, ITC Ltd and Pidilite Industries.

During his 17-year stint at ITC, he was heading the Biscuits and Confectionery business and played a crucial role in setting up and building the ‘Sunfeast’ biscuits business. At Pidilite, he initiated the ‘Strategic Initiatives Group’ and led the transformational Corporate Strategic Initiatives.

Kavinder is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Warangal and has attended the General Management Program at Wharton School of Business. Kavinder has completed a Mahindra Group,18 month Future Leadership Program at IMD Lausanne, Yale School of Management and MLU Nashik.

A voracious reader, Kavinder is a fitness enthusiast and enjoys traveling and exploring new destinations.

Vikas Gadre is a senior professional with 42 years of experience in the industry. Previously the CIO at Tata Chemicals, he is currently engaged in the IoT space. In the past, he has worked as an SBU head with bottom line responsibility, driven acquisitions/mergers in India and abroad, and headed the biofuels business at Tata Chemicals, which included an SBU at Nanded in India and a US$ 250 million agri project in Mozambique. He was also responsible for identifying acquisition targets in Brazil in the agri space. After Tata Chemicals, Vikas worked as Director General of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce for four years. For the last one year, Vikas has been the Chairperson and faculty member for IS at the School of Business Management NMIMS Mumbai. Vikas has also served on the Board of Governors of NITTTR Bhopal, a Government of India institution, and serves as an independent director in an IoT related private limited company and is an advisor to an IT company from Hyderabad.