Gajendra Chandel

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Founder and CEO, Viribus Unitis Consulting Former President and CHRO, Tata Motors

Gajendra Chandel is Former President and CHRO, Tata Motors. He joined Tata Motors in 2014, from another Tata Group Company, Tata AutoComp Systems where he was the Group CHRO from 2005 to 2014. At Tata Motors, he led the Reorganisation, Restructuring and Re-energising Project as part of the Transformation agenda with the responsibility of various strategic growth initiatives of the company. He also pioneered Next-Gen HR and business practices, seen as trendsetters and industry benchmarks. In pursuit of transformation, he piloted significant initiatives, e.g., building a robust leadership pipeline, rejuvenated business performance process re-skilling/up-skilling, employee experience and resource productivity, market footprint, customer experience, making the organisation agile and lean fighting machine, to be amongst the top global players. Previously, he worked with Siemens in India, Germany and USA for almost 13 years where he held various operational and strategic assignments at local, country and international levels, including the Global Leadership Framework Project. He was honoured with the Leader of the Year Award in 1997 by LMI Inc. USA. Gajendra loves photography, hiking and reading. It is Gajendra’s dream to create, support, coach and guide at least a dozen successful entrepreneurs.

Gagan Adlakha

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Leadership Coach and Senior Partner, Vyaktitva

Gagan is a Leadership Coach and a specialist in the area of people performance with over 28 years of experience. An XLRI 1990 alumnus, he initially handled a variety of roles covering the complete gamut of the HR function for 10 years. He rounded off his corporate experience by handling business roles for the next few years. Gagan joined Vyaktitva in 2004 as a Partner with the desire to help enhance people’s performance across organizations. Gagan has been working on various Coaching, Organizational Design and Learning assignments focused on both individuals and organizations. He has designed and delivered solutions for organizations including Max, PepsiCo, Amex, Unilever, Colgate, Airtel, Genpact, Hewitt, Whirlpool, Accenture, Interglobe, GE, ITC, Hero, RB, Mother Dairy, Ericsson, Cap Gemini, Jubilant, Viacom18, Aditya Birla, Godrej, CK Birla, Star, and IBM. His experience has been across countries, cultures, levels, and industries. He has also done extensive work with owner/ proprietor family-run businesses, partnerships, and social sector organizations.

Ashutosh Pandey

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Managing Director and CEO, Mahindra First Choice Wheels

Ashutosh Pandey was previously the CEO of Tata CLiQ (Tata Unistore Limited), the digital commerce venture of the Tata Group, a business that he was responsible for founding and developing between October 2014 and May 2018. Ashutosh has more than two decades of experience in leadership roles across E-commerce and Retail, and functional roles in diverse industries. He joined the Tata Group in 1998 as a member of its flagship cadre, Tata Administrative Services (TAS). Over the next 16 years, Ashutosh took up challenging assignments in Tata Global Beverages (erstwhile Tata Tea), Rallis India, Tata Communications and the Taj Group of Hotels, in functions spanning marketing, strategy, business development, and project management. He also worked with Accenture Consulting for a year, where he was responsible for the post-merger integration of two large companies. Before taking up his assignment as CEO of Tata Unistore in 2014, he was the COO of Landmark E-Tail Limited, Trent’s online retail business, from 2013 to 2014. He was earlier the COO and Business Head of Landmark, one of India’s leading leisure and entertainment retailers, from 2009 to 2013. During this time, Ashutosh was responsible for the turnaround in the retail format besides building the brand, customer connect and store operations. Ashutosh is an MBA from FMS Delhi and holds a BE degree from BIT Sindri. He is based in Mumbai where he lives with his wife Aparna and two lovely daughters, Shriya and Shraddha.

Arvind Singhal

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Chairman, Technopak Advisors

Arvind Singhal is the Founder and Chairman of Technopak Advisors. Having started its operations in January 1992, Technopak is one of India’s leading management consulting firms focusing on 4 key sectors that include Consumer Products and Retail, Textiles and Apparel, Packaged Foods and Food Services, Education and Skills Development. He has a Bachelor of Engineering Degree from IIT-Roorkee, India (1979) that has also recognized him as a “Distinguished Alumnus”, India and an MBA from the UCLA, USA (1982). Over the years, Arvind has been invited to speak at leading academic institutions and professional forums, which include Harvard (USA), Wharton (USA), UCLA (USA), ESADE (Spain), various IIMs (India) and IITs (India), and the Vatican (Italy) to list a few. He also writes frequently for leading Indian and International publications with over 400 published pieces till date. Arvind sits on several Boards (including some not-for-profit). He is currently on the statutory Boards of Welspun India, Greaves Cotton Ltd., Blue Star Ltd., and Metro Shoes, and on the Advisory Board of Apparel Group (UAE). He also sits on the Board of Governors of IIIT-Delhi.

Amit Kalra

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Chief Transformation Officer, HLE Glascoat Former CFO and Director, HR, Hilti Manufacturing India

Prior to his recent role as the Chief Transformation Officer, HLE Glascoat, Amit was the Member of the Executive Management Team at Hilti Manufacturing India, which is a subsidiary of the Europe-based multinational Hilti Group. With close to two decades of exhaustive experience, Amit has worked across some of the world’s large engineering and technology companies, including Hilti, Umicore and Infineon, and has held leadership positions internationally. Amit is passionate about organizational development and his life purpose is to build and help other leaders build caring and high performing organizations. Amit frequently speaks on leadership, entrepreneurship and organizational consciousness at various IITs, other premier institutes and entrepreneurial forums across India on his original content known as “we need to move from ambition to vision” and “six pillars of organizational greatness”. He holds academic degrees from India and Germany in Engineering and an MBA from ESSEC Mannheim Business School with campuses in Germany and France. He is also a certified Culture Transformation practitioner from Barrett Values Center UK and a Yoga and Meditation practitioner from Isha Yoga Center and is a promoter of Conscious Leadership. He is married, has one child, is settled in Gujarat since the last 6 years and has spent 13 years in Germany and Switzerland prior to that.