Senior Director of Sales,
Lufthansa Group

Based in New Delhi, he is responsible for overseeing all commercial activities for Lufthansa Group Airlines business in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. His experience over the last two decades spans airport operations and projects, financial controlling, HR development, aircraft line maintenance business strategy, process orientation, organizational development, change management and global airline B2B sales & distribution. In his current role he is globally responsible for all offers towards B2B customers, such as corporates and travel agencies, as well as the IT infrastructure for all Sale and CRM tools, as well as B2B customer platforms, such the Lufthansa Groups SME Program ‘PartnerPlusBenefit’.

Chief Business Officer - Holidays,
MakeMyTrip

In a career spanning over two decades, Rupendra has worked with leading global FMCG companies Hindustan Unilever Limited, PepsiCo India, Philips and GSK India. Prior to joining MakeMyTrip, Rupendra was a part of the leadership team of GSK Consumer healthcare. His other stints include Preethi Kitchen Appliances, subsidiary of Philips India and PepsiCo India, where he played a pivotal role in leading market development for the brand’s Food and Beverages category.

A chemical engineer from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Rupendra holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow.

SVP and Head of Corporate Strategy, Cleartrip

As SVP and Head of Corporate Strategy, Aditya Agarwal is responsible for Cleartrip’s Business Strategy, M&A, and Corporate Finance functions, including fundraising and investor relations. In 2018, Aditya led Cleartrip’s acquisition of Flyin, the largest online travel company in Saudi Arabia. Aditya has also led the last 3 funding rounds in the company.

Prior to Cleartrip, Aditya was a private equity investor with experience across asset classes and geographies, including India, Africa, Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Aditya’s most recent role prior to joining Cleartrip was with TPG Capital in Mumbai, and he has earlier worked with Standard Chartered Private Equity in Mumbai and Goldman Sachs in London.

Aditya has done his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and Bachelors in Commerce (Honours) from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Vice President Growth & Conversions, OYO Hotels & Homes

Burhan currently heads growth and marketing for OYO, where he is responsible for driving complete customer life-cycle right from acquisition to retention by use of Data Sciences and Product led growth engines.

Before this role, Burhan was heading South India for OYO, where he was instrumental in launching Bangalore and other key markets. He led the expansion in South India and took it to over 1000+ hotels from its start in Oct 2014 with the 1st hotel in Bangalore. He handled a team of over 300+ spread across Sales, Operations and Customer Experience.

Before OYO, Burhan Co-Founded a Technology-Driven Event distribution Company in 2012. This experience was key in shaping his learning around growing startups and teams fast.

Burhan is a Graduate from IIT Kharagpur and also has 3 years plus Leadership and Operations Management Experience at ITC Limited and Hindustan Unilever Limited through earlier stints.

At present Burhan is heading growth and conversion for OYO Globally except for China for consumer demand. He manages a team of over 200+ across India, US, UK and South East Asia driving a complete customer demand portfolio. OYOs unique strategies for growth have been key in entering new markets and start getting a solid direct demand very early on. While in-home market India, OYOs realized value run rate grew at 3X YOY in Dec 2018. Recently he bagged the title of Marketing Professional of the year at the National Awards for Marketing Excellence presented by BTVi.

Senior Partner, Genesys Digital Transformation

Paul is Senior Partner of the world’s leading independent travel technology consultancy, Genesys Digital Transformation (www.genesys.net). Paul founded the consultancy over 25 years ago and during that time Genesys has helped many travel companies across the globe select and implement new technology.

Clients range from some of the largest, market leading, global players to smaller niche players. All benefit from Genesys’ unrivalled experience, expertise and in-depth knowledge of the travel industry’s strategies, technology and business processes.

Paul’s consultancy work includes board-level advice on profitable strategies for the digital world, assisting clients with the purchase of new travel systems, due diligence for acquisitions and mergers, project management of technology projects, website and technology audits. Paul chairs the majority of the industry’s digital travel conferences in Europe so he has built up an extensive knowledge of leading edge best practice. His advice propels his travel industry clients to new levels of profitability.

Paul holds an MBA from Cranfield School of Management, is a Fellow of the Institute of Travel & Tourism and Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

VP, Head of Travel, APAC and Greater China, SAP Concur

Carl Jones is the Vice President, Head of Travel for SAP Concur across Asia Pacific and Greater China. In this role, Carl oversees the travel strategy, management, innovation and partnerships for SAP Concur’s travel portfolio suite including Concur Travel, Request, Locate, TripLink and TripIt. Responsible for the commercial development of SAP Concur’s travel business within the region, his charter includes building a travel management and ecosystem strategy that helps customers navigate complexities and optimise travel.

Carl is an industry veteran with extensive experience throughout Asia Pacific, having held regional leadership roles in countries including China, Singapore and Thailand. Carl brings with him over 10 years of experience in Asia within the travel industry. Prior to SAP Concur, Carl was the Vice President, Global Client Management, Global Business Consulting and General Manager of American Express Thailand, Global Business Travel.

Carl holds a Bachelor of Physics from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Applied Physics from the University of Manchester, as well as a Master's Degree in International Relations from the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore.

President and Group Head - Marketing, Thomas Cook

Abraham Alapatt is a Marketing & Brand professional with over 23 years of professional experience at senior strategic levels across the varied domains of Brand building/advertising, corporate communication, PR/media relations, internal communication, customer service & web-technology. During this period, he has worked as part of senior management teams, with 2 leading advertising agencies, an international internet solution provider start-up, a leading asset management company (mutual fund), a bank, a national insurance company (life + general) as part of its original start up team and currently leads the Innovation, Marketing and Service quality efforts of India’s largest integrated travel services Group that operates leading travel brands like Thomas Cook, SOTC, Sita, TCI, TC Travel and others across 25 countries and 4 continents.

Director,
PayPal India

Siddharth is the Director for Enterprise Business segment in India and spear heads growth initiatives for this segment.

Siddharth brings with him over two decades of rich payments experience from both within India and the globe across sectors including payments, ecommerce, telecom, mobile financial services and IT. He also had a very successful stint with Razorpay where he helped them scale from 500 to 50,000+ merchants in a short span of two years.

Siddharth has done is MBA and lives in Bangalore. Besides having a keen interest in innovations in the payments sector he is passionate about Badminton.

Chief Revenue Officer,
RateGain

Apurva Chamaria is the Chief Revenue Officer of RateGain, one of world’s leading SaaS company’s serving over 20,000+ customers in the travel and hospitality industry across 100+ Countries. In his role, he leads sales, marketing, alliances and customer success across the world.

Prior to joining RateGain, Apurva was the Global Head of Corporate Marketing for HCL Technologies, an 8 Bn US$ global IT major. Under his leadership HCL became the fastest growing brand in the Interbrand top Indian brands list for 2 years in a row (No. 17 in 2016) and was ranked at No.378 and valued at 4.4 Bn US$ in the Brand Finance Global 500 2017 league table. Between 2013-2017, HCL campaigns won 110 prestigious global and regional marketing awards. In his 12 years at HCL, he performed various leadership roles including being CEO’s Vineet Nayar's Chief of Staff and Sales Director at HCL America playing an integral role in scaling the company from 700 Mn to 8 Bn US$.

In 2016, he was awarded the “Marketer of the Year” by World Leadership Forum, “Digital Marketer of the Year” by IAMAI and “B2B Marketer of the Year” by Paul Writer. He featured in Pluralsight Digi100 List Powered by Paul Writer, the recognition for the top 100 Digital Marketers in India. In 2018, he was feted as 40 under 40 by the Campaign Asia magazine.

Prior to HCL, he was the youngest country manager at Ranbaxy Laboratories (now Sun Pharmaceuticals) leading the business in Australia & NZ. In various parts of his career, he has worked in Asia-Pacific, India, Africa, U.K. and NorthAmerica.

Apurva was recognized by The Economic Times as amongst the top 10 angel investors in India in 2018. His book “You are the key – unlocking doors through Social Selling” (Bloomsbury) hit # 2 in the Amazon India Best-Sellers list* within 20 days of being launched in Jan 2016 and is currently a best-seller on the WH Smith best-seller list as #1. It was also recognized by Prime-minister Narendra Modi for contributing to Digital India. His second book “Master Growth Hacking” (Random House Penguin) features in the trenches stories of top internet companies in India and was released in August 2018.

He is regarded as a thought-leader on “digital transformation” and is regularly quoted in publications. He completed his schooling from the prestigious Mayo College, Ajmer. He holds a double master’s in business management (from IMI) and advertising (from IIMC, JNU). He is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School, Boston and pursuing his PhD. In digital engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Director of Strategic Partnerships, Ovation Global DMC & Past President, SITE Global

Hugo specialises in conferences, incentives and most particularly, DMC (Destination Services) and destination marketing. He actively participates in various travel conferences on a global scale as well as focusses on networking and business activation. From the hotel industry to the convention bureau and the consulting assignments to the agency and DMC world, connecting people with meaningful stories has been at the centre of his career. Hugo has not only achieved this in the world of corporate travel but also in the domain of associations, through the global presidency of SITE. He is dedicated to the cause of speaking at industry events and sharing knowledge and experiences with professionals of his and of younger generations.

Chief Digital Transformation Officer, Aroundtown SA

Daniel Wishnia is an advisor, speaker and Entrepreneur in the field of Digital Tech. Digital Transformation director, marketing consultant, eCommerce manager, technical director, head of experimentation and development, project manager, consultant and adviser, programming, supervision, assimilation, development of applications in different systems. Extensive experience in information and communication technology (ICT) and internet technology.

CEO,
QuadLabs

Gaurav is the CEO and Chief Technology Architect at QuadLabs. A successful entrepreneur, Gaurav has 20 years of technology leadership experience and understands the nuances of the travel domain.

In the last 2 decades, he has designed best in class systems for the who's who of the travel business. He started QuadLabs Technologies in year 2006 as a next-gen technology company with a focus on intuitive and engaging products which help businesses do better.

Gaurav was awarded the "Star Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2010" award at the India International Innovation Summit (part of World HRD Congress 2010).

QuadLabs products and services derive from his mantra - "Software for Growth".

Regional Managing Director for India and Sri Lanka, Travelport

Martin is responsible for managing the P&L and growth strategy for the Indian and Sri Lankan territories, Government Affairs strategy for Southeast Asia and leading key commercial projects in the region (for example, acting as commercial lead for the Pakistan Operator).

In his last role, Martin led the Agency Commerce sales team in Asia in expanding Travelport’s commercial presence across the region (excluding Greater China region, India and Japan), while providing expertise and support to Travelport’s travel agency subscribers and distribution partners.

Martin joined Travelport in 2009 to develop key relationships with airlines in Africa, based in Dubai. He then relocated to Nairobi, Kenya in 2011 as Regional Director. Martin was instrumental in establishing a Travelport Regional Office, and the successful acquisition of Travelport’s Kenya operation and entry into several key countries.

Martin started his career as a software developer working on projects for Thomas Cook and Lastminute.com. He has previously worked for Worldspan, Galileo and Expedia.

Strategic Partnerships,
WhatsApp

Chetan Kumar manages Strategic Partnerships at WhatsApp and is based in India. He has over 16 years of diverse and global experience in digital and financial services. He was previously a Vice-President at Saavn, the leading music service in Asia and a Director at Flipkart, the foremost e-commerce company in India. Before that, he was at Citigroup, American Express and Ernst & Young, where he worked in several roles globally in Singapore, Hong Kong, and the US. He earned a Masters in Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern) and is also a Chartered Accountant (ICAI). Chetan is keenly interested in the start-up eco-system and serves as a mentor on start-up accelerators.

VP - Digital,
Indigo

Nitin brings deep experience in product design and digital customer experience, which he has acquired over the last 19 years across leading internet companies in India. He is currently leading IndiGo as VP Digital to help the group undergo Digital Transformation. He previously built Quikr.com, Yatra.com, Naukri.com, Indiatimes, Rediff and Bharti Airtel. He is an expert in crafting loveable experience for the consumers through simple and usable products. Nitin mentors many startups and has invested in a few of them, as well. He also likes to speak on Design Thinking on many public forums.

Nitin has won the 'Design-led Entrepreneurship Awards' 2017 at TiE 2017. Nitin has been awarded with Karnataka Brand Leadership Award 2017. He got recognised as top digital influencer and made it to Adobe Content 100 list for 2017. Nitin has recently also made it to Adobe Digi100 list for 2018.

General Manager,
Trip.com Japan

Country Manager - India, Sri Lanka & Maldives, Booking.com

CEO,
Thrillophilia

An MBA from ISB Hyderabad, Chitra has worked with SAP Labs and Infosys before co-founding Thrillophilia with Abhishek Daga in 2009. Thrillophilia is India’s biggest online platform for activities and things to do. On the platform, one can discover, compare and book from 2500+ tours and activities from 1000+ suppliers. Chitra was Featured on Young World Rising by Rob Salkowitz, Women Entrepreneur and "Going Solo"- a CNN IBN TV show on entrepreneurs.

Co-founder & CEO,
Tripoto

An IIT and ISB alumnus, Anirudh Gupta is the co-founder and CEO of Tripoto, which is India’s largest travel community with over 6 million avid travellers on board. Tripoto also runs one of the country's largest social media channels for travel with around 2 million followers on Facebook and 366,000 on Instagram. Tripoto has been named one of the top 10 startups by Nasscom and also won the Pride of India Award 2019 for successful fundraising from Chiratae Ventures Mumbai. Before Tripoto, Anirudh was part of the founding team of Notion Ink and also worked for Rocket Internet as an Entrepreneur in Residence.

Area Director National Sales - India,
Marriott International

Sales & Marketing astute with expertise in managing sales operations at property and off property environment in both start up and established merchandising. Currently engaged in building and leading a world class sales team.

Manager- Business Solutions and Quality Assurance, Copa Airlines

Antonio Saad is a business solutions and quality assurance manager for Copa Airlines. In this position, Antonio was appointed to lead the Hub of the Future Strategy, a program that seeks to improve the competitiveness of the hub, by modernizing the passenger experience. Prior to this, Antonio was the information and communication technologies (ICT) director for the National Assembly of Panama and a consultant for the Global Center for ICT in Parliaments, a joint initiative of the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. He earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science engineering from the Latin University of Panama and a master´s degree in business administration (MBA) from Eada Business School, Barcelona, where he was elected President representing the class of 2012. He attended programs on strategy at Linköping University, Sweden, on leadership at the University of Bradford, UK, on disruptive innovation at New York University, United States and infrastructure in a market economy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, United States. Antonio is a Fellow of the fourteenth class of the Central America Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Director,
Taiwan Tourism Bureau

Dr. Trust Lin is Director, Taiwan Tourism Bureau Office Singapore, leading on the promotion of Taiwan as a leisure and business destination in India, the Middle East, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore. He has spent a considerable amount of his career promoting Taiwan for tourism in varied roles that included being Director of the East Coast National Scenic Administration; Director of the Taoyuan International Airport Tourist Service Center, and heading the Los Angeles Taiwan Tourism Bureau Office. Dr. Lin has a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the National Central University in Taiwan, a Masters in International Management from Portland State University, U.S.A. and has done an Executive Leadership Program from Harvard University.

Dr. Lin is a scuba diver and has dedicated much time to promoting sustainable marine tourism. He won the "ADEX Award for Outstanding Contribution of Dive Tourism" in April 2019. Dr Lin won the award for his efforts in promoting sustainable marine tourism when he was stationed on Taiwan’s east coast, as well as for his leadership in bringing Taiwan to the Asia Dive Expo (ADEX), the largest, and the longest-running dive show in Asia. for the first time in 2019.

Founder and Principal Consultant,
Elevated Consultancy and Training & World Women Tourism

Nisha is a management consultant, corporate trainer and academic with more than 25 years extensive management experience in the Tourism, Hospitality and Events industry.

As the Founder of Elevated Consultancy and Training, Nisha is currently involved in regional and international consultancy work in the area of tourism and hospitality development in destinations that include Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Vietnam, South Africa and Malaysia. She has provided marketing and management consul to destination marketing teams to develop long term strategic plans. She is currently part of an international team of tourism experts to steer Cape Town, South Africa’s, Tourism Roadmap 2035. Nisha is also involved in capacity planning and development of tourism workforce to enhance the quality of service provision in emerging tourism markets. She has extensively trained and developed travel intermediaries, tourism boards and hospitality employees.

Nisha is a co-founder of World Women Tourism, a network intelligence platform that provides opportunities to women in tourism to connect, grow and flourish. The organization visions to impact the trajectory of women in the tourism industry through promoting diversity, knowledge sharing, building networks, capacity building and opening up business opportunities. Capitalising on her tourism experience and knowledge, Nisha is an invited keynote speaker, thought leader and panelist for conferences and seminars in internationally.

Nisha is also a qualified corporate trainer and professional coach. Her wide training exposure in diverse fields, industries and destinations provides her with a unique advantage to transfer best practices and service standards to organisations and destinations. In recognition of her high-quality work, Nisha has been bestowed with several awards, including the Outstanding Tourism Trainer 2010 accolade by Workforce Development Authority (WDA) of Singapore.

Nisha is a passionate academic and lecturers at several higher educational institutions teaching a wide range of tourism, hospitality and events management subjects as well as a curriculum developer for academic and professional skills-based programs. Her research interests are in the areas of women in tourism, tourism branding and marketing, tourism education, halal tourism and sustainable tourism.

CEO,
HappyEasyGo

Boris ZHA, the founder and CEO of HappyEasyGo. Through continuous innovation in technology and service, the company promotes the reform of the travel industry, so that everyone can enjoy the lowest prices and most thoughtful services.

HappyEasyGo.com, one of India’s leading OTAs providing professional services for leisure and business travel, was founded in the year 2017 by Boris. Ever since the launch of its air ticket business in 2017, the performance has been growing by leaps and bounds, having obtained hundreds of thousands of page views per day, which ranked to the top 2 of peer industry in India. And just right behind that, Hotel business launched in September 2018 provides full service to travellers in the mode of “Air ticket + Hotel”.

Before entering the travel industry, Mr Boris devoted himself to the education industry for quite a long time. In the year 2006, Boris Joined NEWORLD Education Group as a founding member of Sakura International Japanese. During that time, he contributed the core code for the company, leading the team to establish the industry leadership. Later, Boris served as CIO of NEWORLD Education Group, which employs more than 10,000 employees.

In the year of 2012, Mr Boris made an important decision to change his career direction with great ambition and courage. He founded Lvbanx.com, now become one of the top B2B OTAs in China. Through innovations of technology and operating model, Lvbanx.com achieved a turnover of 1.2 billion RMB and an operating income of more than 10 million RMB in 2015.

President and Country Head,
Leisure, SOTC

An MBA (Tourism, General Management & Marketing) from the Pondicherry University and an Executive General Management Program from Indian Institute Of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B).

Daniel has been associated with SOTC since 1998 and has worked his way up through various positions from a Frontline Sales Executive to Heading the Groups Tours Business at SOTC.

His forte lies in strategizing towards Business Growth and Building Scale thereby increasing market share and revenue. He has been responsible for building a Strong Sales organization and capitalizing & broadening the franchisee network & streamlining processes at SOTC, thus enabling the Organization to grow faster than the Market.

Managing Director,
Cineyug Entertainment

Mohomed Morani is a successful and dedicated doyen in the business of showbiz and entertainment for the last three decades. Starting his career in the family business and then introducing modern technical innovations; Mohomed has carved a veritable niche for himself.

He founded a film production company called Cineyug Entertainment. From 1989 till date, Cineyug has completed over 3000 stage shows and events across the world. His continual desire to innovate and raise the bar with each production has made Mohomed Morani a stalwart in the Entertainment industry. High on creative content and versatility, each of Cineyug’s productions have delivered on the creative and commercial front.

Mohomed has managed to raise Cineyug into a 360 degree event management firm with multiple verticals that continues to venture down diverse avenues in a rapidly expanding dynamic industry. Over the past many decades, Cineyug has gone from strength to strength charting a course all of its own setting the benchmark in whatever avenue they have ventured into. From film and TV content production to large scale domestic and international event management, from pyrotechnics to public relations, Cineyug continues to be a trailblazer in the entertainment sector. Keeping in line with their perennial emphasis on "non-conformance and proclivity to embrace a variety of diverse ventures discarding traditional straitjacketed approaches, Cineyug has recently launched its Sports Management/Marketing vertical - Cineyug Sports. Mohomed Morani’s expanded vision and great exposure took him on the path to create Bollyland, India’s first and only Bollywood dance music festival, in conjunction with MTV.

Cineyug is known for the creative take on its weddings, that are held across the globe, keeping in respect the different cultures and themes; along with uncountable number of Award functions, World tours, international concerts shows for which Mohomed Morani has won an abundance of awards.

Founder & CEO,
Wovoyage

Rashmi built the foundation of wovoyage, a women centric travel startup. Rashmi’s vision is to build an accessible & safe platform for women wanderlust across the world. With her entrepreneur prowess along with business acumen, she carved the niche for wovoyage in the travel and tour industry. This TEDx speaker has won many accolades lately for the leadership role across the industry including Women on mission award at Women on a mission summit 2019, an initiative by YourStory, Indian Women Excellence Leadership Award 2019-WIEF award. From planning to strategizing the core business, Rashmi has in cooperated tech-enabled ecosystem at wovoyage to have tech driven journey onboard.

Prior to wovoyage, she had her stint with ITC Category Champion & worked with NGOs. With the sports & communication background, she aims to promote, women in Tourism incredible India, women empowerment & women employability.

Head,
Costa Cruises India

She is the driving force behind the brand Costa Cruise. With over 2 decades of varied exposure in the travel industry, Nalini Gupta set up Lotus Destinations, the GSA of Costa Cruise in India, in December 2009. Mrs. Gupta is a firm believer in making things happen and walking the path, not too many people have treaded. This belief led to the company becoming the GSA for the European Cruise Leader, Costa Cruise in 2012.

Head of Strategic Partnerships,
Travelstop

Experienced Team Lead with a demonstrated history of working in the internet industry. Skilled in customer acquisition, retention, B2B partnerships and Software as a Service (SaaS). Hands-on experience in market entry and expansion in Asia Pacific.

Head - Travel,
Cipla

President,
Procurigence

He is a veteran strategic global sourcing consultant with proven achievement, who has created and executed comprehensive indirect sourcing plans, negotiated hundreds of supplier contracts resulting in cost savings and cost avoidance of many millions of dollars. He is well established in the travel industry and trade associations as a Subject Matter Expert in travel systems integration, presenting at conferences and corporate events on more than 30 occasions in the last five years.

Mr. Caplan is passionate about food & wine and traveling the world with his family. He speaks English and French and conducts business in both languages.

Co-founder & Head of Sales and Marketing,
Vista Rooms

Amit Damani is the Co-founder and Head of Sales and Marketing at Vista Rooms, a chain of branded holiday homes with a touch of luxury. Besides spearheading sales and marketing, Amit also handles the company's operations in Sri Lanka. Amit’s vision for Vista Rooms is to establish it as the largest network of branded homes across Asia. Currently, with over 100 unique luxury villas and homestays across Maharashtra and Goa, Amit aims to further strengthen this network across India in the next 2 years and across Asia in the next 5 years.

A keen supporter of charitable causes, Amit is a founding member of Robin Hood Army in Mumbai, a volunteer-based organization that works to get surplus food from restaurants and serve it to the less fortunate sections of the society. He spends his leisure time playing football and reading fiction stories rooted in Indian history.

Head of Marketing-India,
Klook

Vaibhav turns startups into profitable businesses, acts as growth consultant for brands and helps them use the internet to increase profitability and their overall bottom lines.

In 2012, he moved from running Discovery Android, to founding an award-winning digital media company, CrazyHeads. Within 3 years, CrazyHead helped 100+ clients over the world grow their businesses using internet.

He also builds courses on Growth Hacking and how to turn Instagram, Facebook chatbots and LinkedIn into massive growth tools. He has worked as a Marketing Manager at Uber.

Vice President, eCommerce & Revenue Management,
Chroma Hospitality

Sunish Sadasivan has worked with several hotels and resorts chain for the past 18 years doing Revenue Management and E-Distribution at Property as well as Corporate levels, for which his primary job scope was to maximize overall hotel revenue; while balancing profitability through implementation of an effective revenue management process and data driven fact based business decisions. He has held Area Distribution level positions with Anantara as well as Amari Group. He has pre-opened two hotel chains located in Dubai and Philippines leading the Revenue, E-Commerce and Reservation Sales teams. He has also successfully set up Revenue Management systems including Ideas and EZRMS in his previous companies with hands on Training experience in building the Revenue Management culture. He is currently the Vice President of eCommerce and Revenue Management for Chroma Hospitality in the Philippines.

Chief Operating Officer,
InterGlobe Technology Quotient

A passionate global business leader with over 25 years of rich and diverse experience spread across various industries such as technology, aviation, media, manufacturing, trading and consultancy.

Sandeep is a business and commercial head with expertise in end to end P&L, sales management, integrating an acquisition, people management and driving tactical results and plotting strategic plans. In past professional experience with Business Standard as CFO, he was engaged in driving dramatic growth, aligning business turnaround, P&L and regional general management.

He is currently associated with InterGlobe Technology Quotient as the Chief Operating Officer where he spearheads operations, strategy and business development. Specialties: Business Leadership, General Management, New Market Entry and Penetration, Strategy & Execution, People Leadership, E-commerce, Sales, Distribution & Channels, Brand Building, Product Management.

Director,
Lonely Planet India

44 years of experience in Publishing, Management Consulting, Manufacturing, Sales / Marketing and Financial Management. Thought Leader who drives Innovation, Early Stage Start-Ups and Operational Excellence in the Asian market with a specialized focus on South Asia. Also engaged in digital technology development.

Managing Director,
BCD Travel India

As Managing Director, Ajay Bali is responsible for the overall quality performance of BCD Travel across India.

Prior to joining to BCD Travel, Ajay spent nearly 18 years at Thomas Cook, based in Mumbai in various leadership positions. Ajay has had extensive experience in multinational contracting, security issues, configurations and consolidation, and has been a regular speaker at high-level industry events around the country.

With 29 years of experience, Ajay is an acknowledged authority in the business travel industry in India. His responsibilities at BCD Travel include overseeing the company’s operations, including nearly 700 staff in over 7 cities in India, and all activities relating to operations, brand management, network development, supplier and industry relations and sales and account management.

Director of Sales,
Razorpay

Over 15 years of experience in Sales and Business Development, Client Relationship Management, Key Account Management, Team Management and Strategic Planning. Carries diversified exposure in industries like Financial Services, Media Selling, Telecom VAS and FinTech.

Co-founder,
Haptik

As Co-Founder & CEO of Haptik, Aakrit pioneered the wave of conversational AI starting back in 2013. Today, Haptik is one of the world's largest companies in the space with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Singapore, and more than 100 large enterprise clients including KFC, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Oyo Rooms, Kotak Life, Dream11. In April 2019, Reliance Industries acquired majority shareholding in the company in a $100 million transaction making Haptik one of the highest valued AI companies globally.

Outside of Haptik, Aakrit is an investor in startups in the areas of consumer/consumer tech and B2B SaaS. Notable investments include Unacademy (valued at >$200 million), Third Wave Coffee, Dataweave, Haikujam (Ligthtbox backed), Flatchat (sold to Commonfloor in 2014), Tookitaki, Dil Mil, Ayopop, iON Energy, Talent Litmus, among others.

Aakrit is also the Chair for the Mumbai chapter for H2, one of the world's leading leadership organizations for the technology industry.

Managing Partner,
Iffort/TravHQ

With over 13+ years (with 9+ years) of entrepreneurial experience in leading a boot-strapped Digital Agency and a team of over 30 people, Daksh been responsible for marketing, business growth and customer acquisition, providing strategic digital solutions to brands across spectrum. He has been regularly quoted in the media and invited to speak in forums for insights and thoughts on startup trends and how the digital industry is shaping up. Have been a close observer of startup trends in India & SEA.

Founder & Director,
Veena World

Sunila describes herself as a ‘traveler who wants to discover the world’; and discover she does, with her amazing experiences and memorable travel stories that have taken her to almost 70 countries across the world. With her ingenuity and skill of creating something unique, she began planning offbeat itineraries and crafting exclusive experiences for the FIT segment. At Veena World, this wonderful concept flourished into ‘Customized Holidays by Sunila Patil’. She loves exploring new destinations across the world and bringing those experiences to our tourists and that is exactly what she achieves with Customized Holidays. Being a Master’s Degree holder in Physiotherapy with a major in Neurology and a former research student at the university college of London, she worked in various hospitals of Mumbai over the years. Destiny welcomed her into the wonderful world of travel and from here on, there was no looking back! Travel for Sunila Patil, indeed came as a true calling and that is where she realized her passion and love for creating something new, always!

General Manager - Indian subcontinent,
Wego

Bernard leads Wego’s India strategic, Operational and business activities, focusing on establishing an ecosystem of cross industry alliances while engaging and leading Wego’s Presence in the Indian subcontinent. Bernard is the General Manager of Wego for the Indian subcontinent.

Bernard began in this role in May 2017 where he focused on developing the product as well as played an integral role in expanding the company’s portfolio and hiring the right talent across INSUB Prior to that, he established the Advertising sales unit in 2013 and was the Head of Advertising and Partnerships.

Director,
Veena World

A well-respected name in the Indian tourism industry, Sudhir is the Founder and Director of Veena World. He is also the founding member of the Visit USA Committee that facilitates and strengthens India-USA ties in terms of tourism and has been the President of the Maharashtra Tour Operators’ Association (MTOA) since the last 3 years. He is very keen on promoting travel and tourism in the state of Maharashtra, which he believes can be achieved through the medium of marketing. He firmly believes that the right marketing strategy goes a long way in promoting a product and is therefore at the forefront, when it comes to educating team members, service providers, travel agents and suppliers on the importance of marketing, in different ways and on various levels.

Operating Partner,
GoVenture (GoJek)

Diwakar is the operating partner at Go-Ventures and mentors the portfolio companies on product, strategy and technology aspects. Previously, Diwakar was leading product for GoPay. During this time, Diwakar built multiple products to increase liquidity and acceptance for Go-Pay and has helped provide digital payment access to a large set of banked and unbanked users in Indonesia. Currently, GoPay is the largest and fastest growing e-money wallet in Indonesia and is empowering millions of users to pay digitally on a variety of in-app and retail services. GoPay is being taken to other southeast asian countries as well.

An Information and Communication Technology Engineer and an MBA from XLRI, Jameshedupr, Diwakar has been an entrepreneur, product leader and programmer. He has experience of setting up two retail businesses and has worked with Snapdeal, Peppertap, Sapient and CGI.

Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer-India,
Ingenico ePayments

Currently serving as Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer as well as the Regional CTOO for Ingenico e- Payments India; Rajeev brings to Ingenico, its customers and partners relevant experience of over 20 years in Financial Services, Telecommunications, Travel and Transportation, e-Business / e- Commerce & Digital Services, Industrial, Distribution, Media, Public, Government and Information Technology sectors.

His last stint was at IBM India/South-Asia, where he held various leadership positions that saw him play a pivotal role in decision-making, market strategies and driving value realization across industries.

He is currently working on driving responsible innovations with a ‘Can do’ approach that apply the new internet and web paradigms, business integration, user experience, SMAC, IoT and DARQ. He earned his Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Mumbai University, professional executive enablement in Advanced Sales Management from Boston University, Entrepreneurship from INSEAD and Product Management from University of California, Berkeley.

Chief Marketing Officer,
Mahindra Holidays & Resorts

Ramin currently heads all the marketing and branding operations of the company. Prior to joining MHRIL, Ramin was associated with renowned brands, namely -Mahindra & Mahindra, Idea, ICICI Bank, Reckit Benckiser and GSK.

He has spearheaded landmark campaigns such as ‘What an idea, Sirji ’ for Idea Cellular, ‘Khayal Aapka’ for ICICI Bank, ‘Banega Swachch India’ with NDTV while at RB, and more.

He did his schooling, college (B.Tech in automobile engineering), and MBA in marketing (Mumbai University) in the Maximum City. He is inspired by Elon Musk, is a cricket fan & foodie, and is passionate about travel.

Regional Director, India, Middle East & South Asia,
Singapore Tourism Board

Srithar oversees STB's regional marketing, tourism developmental and trade partnership work in South Asia & Middle East, including leisure marketing, MICE, cruise and school trips promotions.

Global Travel Manager, Procurement
Adobe

Global Award-winning Business Travel Leader, Competent professional with approximately 18 years of experience in Travel, A versatile and design thinker with a proven track record of Travel business Process management, Quality operations, Supplier relationship management, Research analysis on travel data, Team management, Global Air and Hotel sourcing , Travel procurement , Travel dashboard and Travel expense management system. Thought leader in the travel industry, including process, procurement, and operations. An active speaker and Moderator in Business Travel space, willing to contribute to the overall development of Business Travel industry, A die-hard optimist who pushes individuals to go beyond their comfort zones and enables them to pursue only success in everything they do.

Vice President - Online Products,
MakeMyTrip

As Vice President, Online Products, Apar manages multiple products like MyBiz – MMT’s Corporate offering, Ground Transportation. In the last five years at MMT, he has launched and managed large-scale complex products across customer life cycle journey. Apar strongly believes in sustainable tourism and as part of the travel industry wants to contribute more towards it.

Prior to MMT, Apar ran his own start-up in e-learning space called EnglishLeap.com and was a product manager with eBay in the US. Apar also mentors and invests in early stage technology startups.

Apar did his MBA from IIM Lucknow and is an engineer from Delhi College of Engineering.

Head of Corporate Travel,
Reliance Industries

Sales Director,
Geotourist

Mo Talukder holds the position of Sales Director at Geotourist- a multi-award winning mobile disruptive GPS travel technology, data analytics and mapping solution available in 30+ languages.

Her role involves working across the globe with clients from the USA, Caribbean, Europe right through to the Middle East and AsiaPac regions. Assisting governments, tourism boards, private, public and charities with their digital tourism strategies and helping to solve their current and future challenges.

Previously she has held roles at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Cadbury Schweppes as well as owning and running a few other SMEs including Real Estate and Media.

Head – Administration & Infra Projects,
Elara Technologies

Nitin Narula – Head Facilities, Projects, Procurement & Corporate Travel for Elara Group companiesProptiger.com, Housing.com, Makaan.com & Fastfox.com. He is associated with this group from last 5 years and played a vital role in acquisitions and workplace expansions in more than 9 cities in India and overseas. He plans the facilities keeping the international benchmarking in mind as Elara group is “Great Place to Work”. Nitin has worked with Organisations like Mahindra Comviva, Bharti Enterprises, ITC Hotels etc.

His last stint was with Mahindra Comviva as their Corporate Administration. Nitin has over 13 years of experience across the Projects, Facilities Management, Corporate Travel & MICE.

Hospitality Graduate from IHM Meerut, He also holds a degree in MBA in HR & SCM, MA in English and LLB. He is also Diploma certified in French Language and Tourism from IGNOU.

A strong believer in fitness and meditation. A motivational speaker and he loves to write articles and being associated with various platforms like CE worldwide, iNFHRA, MTM & LLTM etc.

President,
Japan Accessible Tourism Center

When I was 17 years old, I broke my back bone while playing rugby in high school. It was a terrible sport accident in 1990 and I became a wheelchair man. Nothing changed on my side except that I could not walk. But the behavior of people around me changed completely, 180 degrees. Society and people would look at me as being poor, miserable, and unfortunate. Also whenever I wanted to do something, everybody said " Don't do that because there is no equipment " " It is a rule, so you cannot do that ".

I think it is OK to let people do what they want as long as they are ready to take responsibility. I was so disappointed with Japanese society for not giving us a chance.

First summer vacation in university, I stayed in USA for one month and was really shocked. I forgot that I was on a wheelchair while in USA. This was my first trip overseas. It was wheelchair accessible almost everywhere including town, shops, transportation . No barrier. Above all, no people eyes. Wheelchair was not special and I felt like a citizen.

In USA, people would first see me as an individual person. But in Japan, people looked at "disability " before individual character. Disability is recognized by society. So if society changes, disability may disappear.

Understanding differences, respecting personality, giving equal opportunity, I wish for a better society and peace, full of love and smile !!

Business Development Manager,
AirDNA

Mercedes is currently Business Development Manager at AirDNA. With her previous experience in sales consulting in the tech industry, and her passion for travelling, Mercedes brings a global perspective to her role at AirDNA. Originally from Spain, she has travelled extensively through Europe, Asia, Oceania and Latin America. Her career has brought her from Spain, to the UK, and back to Barcelona, where she works closely with Destination Marketing Organisations worldwide. She helps these DMOs to grasp and understand the impact of ever-changing short-term rental trends in their destinations relying on AirDNA’s industry-leading insights.

CEO & Co-founder,
Travel Boutique Online

Ankush founded Travel Boutique Online (TBO) in 2006. Under his leadership and dynamic management, TBO now serves as an online platform for 46,000+ travel agents across 93 countries. He was recognised by CNBC as a Young Turk for revolutionising the travel trade through his B2B travel portal. He heads the Nijhawan Group, one of the leading travel conglomerates with vastly diversified entities within the Travel Industry.

Global Travel Manager,
Lupin

Specialist in Corporate Travel Expense management with skills to handle sourcing strategy, process simplification, policy and change management.

Regional Director - South Asia,
Sabre Travel Network

I am the Regional Director South Asia at Sabre Travel Network responsible for key agency partnerships and network channel strategy for five key growth markets. I have a successful track record in aviation with Qantas Airways and an entrepreneural business like Egencia Australia, an Expedia company. I have a financial services industry background with American Express, Standard Chartered Bank and ANZ Grindlays Bank. My field of experience is diverse from aviation and agile online travel business to payments and banking. I have driven relationship management, negotiating tie ups and commercial contracts with third party businesses and transformed operations in a shrinking margin industry that has seen disruption. I have led business development in the small and medium enterprise segment and created tailored strategies to drive market share growth. My customer centric focus has resulted in significant improvements in net promoter scores. I am known for my EQ and leadership of large and diverse teams across Asia Pacific, managing fast growth businesses in Australia and India, commercial acumen and six sigma black belt project skills. I have completed an Executive MBA from INSEAD and Tsinghua University.

Deputy Director General,
Tourism Malaysia

Mr. Zulkifly Md. Said is the Deputy Director General (Planning) for the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (Tourism Malaysia). He is responsible for overseeing the operations of the organisation and Tourism Malaysia Regional Offices in Peninsular Malaysia as well Sabah and Sarawak. He has been a key speaker at many international tourism seminars and conferences.

A graduate from Westmar College Le Mars, Iowa in United States of America, Mr. Zulkifly joined Tourism Malaysia in 1988. He rose through the ranks and for the past 31 years has amassed a wealth of experience and knowledge that has contributed to the tourism industry of Malaysia. He has served in various leadership roles including heading the Tourism Malaysia overseas offices in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Istanbul. He was seconded to the Islamic Tourism Centre (ITC) as the Director General from 2013 up to November 2018 where he has been assigned as the Deputy Director General (Planning) for Tourism Malaysia. He is the recipient of several Excellence Service Award for his dedication, unwavering support and outstanding contributions towards the development and promotion of the national tourism industry.

Country Director - India,
BCD Meetings and Events

Multi-faceted Professional with over 21 years of comprehensive experience in Business Development, Process Reengineering, Client Management, Service delivery and Business Strategy.

Director,
Pathfinders Holidays

Managing Director,
Pathfinders Holidays

CEO & Founder,
helloGTX

Gaurav have more than 18 years of versatile experience in business process automation for various domains including Finance, HR, Travel, CRM for companies like Religare, PepsiCo, Ranbaxy, JKTDC, Korea Tourism, RB, DCB Bank and alike companies.

helloGTX is a robust platform specially designed for Small & Medium Travel agencies to do more with less. helloGTX helps travel agents to manage their IT needs under single platform from Itinerary Builder, CRM, Customer Profiling, B2C & B2B business, Lead Management, Emailer and Landing Page creation, Fixed Departure Management, Bookable Website Management, Supplier Management, Sourcing and many more such feature.

Vice President & Brand Leader,
FCM Travel Solutions India

Rakesh Negi leads FCM, the corporate travel brand of FCM Travel Solutions India and has been associated with the organization for five years now. With over twenty years of experience in the travel industry, Rakesh drives strategic direction and expansion of FCM Travel Solutions in India. Prior to joining FCM, Rakesh held leadership positions with various other corporates like Thomas Cook and American Express Banking Corp. He is also an alumnus of the esteemed Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Consul General,
Consulate General of Sri Lanka in Mumbai

Lifestyle/Travel Vlogger,
Airline Captain

Gaurav and Ritu Rathee Taneja are working full time as Captains (Pilot) with well known Indian Airlines. They also run the biggest Indian Vlogging and Fitness YouTube Channels named " FLYING BEAST " and "FIT MUSCLE TV" with 3.4 million subscribers having more than 33 million monthly views and still growing. In 2019 they clocked a total of 293 Million + views on their channel which makes them No. 1 channel in Vlogging category. Gaurav is B.Tech (Civil Engineering) from IIT, Kharagpur. He is a body builder himself and a Certified Nutritionist, Gaurav has won many National and State Awards in Body Building Championships. Recently Gaurav and Ritu, personally met President Barack Obama and shared their vision about how they want to bring a change in the enviroment by acting on “water conservation” and rain water harvesting. Recently his latest travel vlog covering Meghalaya was appreciated and Retweeted by Mr Conrad Sangma Honb’ Chief Minister of Meghalaya.

Fashion/Travel Vlogger,
Airline Captain

Chief Growth Officer,
Isobar India

A Digital Evangelist-cum-Strategist challenging and applying my interests & experience in the production of leading-edge technology and information solutions with concern for human factors and user experience.

About 25 years of experience in leading Digital SBUs and developing word-class digital campaigns for some of the biggest brands across IT, Telecom, FMCG, Banking, Entertainment, etc.

Sr. Vice President Trade Relationships, Communications & Service Quality,
Thomas Cook (India)

Founder,
One Above

Rahim Aslam is the major force behind the emerging brand name in the tourism industry called One Above. Rahim comes with a vast array of experience of heading two sides of the coin in the tourism industry; he was a hotelier for the largest resort chain in Maldives for 12 years followed by being a founder for the globally renowned DMC group for the next 14 years. Best described as people’s person and a known name in the Indian and international market, Rahim is among the chief pillars of One Above.

Editor & Publisher,
Travel News Digest

Sanjiv Agarwal is the Editor & Publisher of Travel News Digest and the Founder & CEO of Fairfest Media Limited, the organisers of TTF, OTM and BLTM - India's largest network of travel shows since 1989. He has 30+ years of experience in the travel trade industry.

Founder & Chief Growth Hacker,
SaffronStays

An avid traveler, photographer and a hacker/ cyber security specialist, Mr. Devendra Parulekar is the Founder of SaffronStays – Where Families Bond, a hospitality collective. Devendra is a management graduate from University of Mumbai with over 18 years’ experience in the Information Technology Industry. An Ex-Partner and Practice Leader-Cyber Security, India at Ernst & Young LLP, Devendra left his cushioned corporate job in July 2016 to pursue the vision of transforming the hospitality and real-estate market in India. With an objective to charter a legacy for himself, Devendra took a risk by leaving job at EY, when SaffronStays was in its early stages.Devendra intends to build sustained growth for SaffronStays and build a scale and width of corporate business as that of EY. Devendra thoroughly enjoys non-fiction, loves playing tennis, swimming and is passionate about photography. He abides by an idiom ‘Think big. Then, multiply that 10 times. That should be your DREAM.’ Although the foundation for their dream had been set by Tejas, Devendra brings his vast experience, leadership skills, and passion to their business to offer unique vacations!

Founder,
Open Eyes India

Anna came to India 9 years ago with the intention to create a social business which could have a positive impact on both the local population and in the hearts of the travellers. Today her company, Open Eyes India, is an Award winning tour operator that support local communities, women artisans and encourage sustainable travel practices. They organize fixed departures or customized tours for groups, families or solo travellers.

From the start they worked towards including the poor, and especially women in the tourism value chain to activate positive changes in the places they visit. They focus on woman empowerment to grow participation and aspiration.

Their role is to create strong partnerships and to act as the bridge between our women partners and markets. Open Eyes train them and create immersive experiences, which connect them to travellers in both urban and rural settings.

One example is their Women in Tourism initiative launched in 2017 after 7 years spent designing responsible tourism experiences and realizing that no tourism enterprises were actively working to reduce the gap in gender equality in India. Its aim is to raise the number of employment opportunities, as guides, in Non Traditional livelihoods for women in tourism in India.

In 2019, her company has been rewarded by two of the most recognized world awards for responsible tourism for their Women in Tourism initiative: TO DO Awards at ITB Berlin and Best Experiential Operator at IRTA (Indian Responsible Tourism Awards) organized by WTM London.