Global Head of Travel,
Ingenico ePayments

Eric Liebman leads the Travel vertical for Ingenico ePayments and helps travel companies optimize their international payment capabilities. He brings more than 25 years of travel experience gained across several countries and continents.

Eric began his travel career working with Continental Airlines in Florida, then made the jump to the hotel industry as Sales and Marketing Director at Marriott in the Caribbean. Following that, Eric spent the next 20 years in Asia Pacific as a senior travel Industry executive, holding a host of regional and global roles with International hotel groups such as Starwood, Regal Hotels and Millennium Hotels. Later he held a position of Vice President - Asia Pacific at Pegasus, where he helped look after a portfolio of more than 1,500 hotels, 9 call centers and a range of operational offices throughout the region. Eric also worked at IBM’s Business Consulting Group as a Senior Managing Consultant based in Singapore where he helped Airlines and Hotel Groups grow and enhance their customer experiences.

In 2014, Eric joined Elavon as the Vice President, Global Head of Payment Strategy for their Hospitality vertical, responsible for the Strategy and Product Development of Elavon’s Hospitality sector throughout North America, Caribbean and Europe. He joined Ingenico ePayments to head up the Travel vertical in March 2019 and is responsible for the development of a cohesive strategy for their diverse and extensive Travel customer base.

Eric graduated from the prestigious Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and speaks English, French and Mandarin Chinese.

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.

Managing Director - Indian Subcontinent,
Amadeus

Recently honoured with the "Entrepreneur of the year – Travel Technology" award by BIG Brand Research and Brand Academy, Ankur is a prolific and outstanding leader, he has led the group’s strategic thrust to create multiple drivers of growth that made a significant and growing contribution to the company and industry at large. He also shaped and implemented blue ocean strategies that strengthen the overall brand proposition and accelerate a leap in core business value by exploring new growth avenues for building uncontested market leadership.

Articulating a vision for Bird Group and direction to the consortia of companies, Dr. Bhatia is credited with bringing in the Amadeus brand to the Indian subcontinent in 1994, which today is the market leader in providing travel technology for travel agents & airlines. Amadeus celebrates 25 successful years of operations in India in 2019.

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

What I have always considered to be my personal and professional mission is to inspire and engage people. For that, one needs first of all good foundations - like integrity, credibility and being authentic. Understanding the person I have in front of me and asking the question that this person is probably asking herself or himself: what’s in it for me? Above all, I like to tell powerful stories, preferably in a meaningful and memorable narrative manner. Whether I would like that person to like or love me, or a potential client to buy our destination services. That’s what makes me happy.

Connecting people and thoughts has been at the center of my career. From the hotel industry, to the convention bureau and the consulting assignments to the agency and DMC world.

My dream as a child was to travel, see the world and meet people and make it my profession.

I have done this in the corporate world but also in the world of associations with the global presidency of SITE as a major personal achievement. My goal is to keep doing this. In short term, to keep the world meeting, and bring success to those parts of the meetings industry which we cover. In a long term to share success with our company MCI Group and be a pro-active player in the development of Ovation Global DMC as a world leader in this field.

Also I want to keep on speaking at industry events and share knowledge and experiences with professionals of my and of younger generations.

Specialties: Meetings, conferences, incentives and most particular DMC (Destination Services) and destination marketing. Speaking engagements globally. Global networking and business activation.

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 Air

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

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.

Co-founder & CEO,
Travelstop

Prashant Kirtane is the Co-founder and CEO of Travelstop, a revolutionary platform aimed at modernising and simplifying business travel.

Prior to founding Travelstop, Prashant Kirtane was Vice President at HomeAway (Emerging Markets), leading the development and operations of the company across Asia and other emerging markets.

Before joining HomeAway, Kirtane was the Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Travelmob, one of Asia’s pioneer social marketplace for booking accommodation and room rentals, during which time he was instrumental in the evolution of the company’s local market positioning before it was acquired by HomeAway/Expedia in 2015.

An experienced and well-respected leader in his field, Kirtane spent 12 years in various roles at Yahoo! Inc. where he led the development of game-changing mobile solutions and technology platforms for the company. In his last role as the Senior Director of Engineering for Yahoo!’s video division, he was instrumental in leading a team of over 40 engineers in a global revamp of consumer video experiences. Kirtane started his career in India at Tata Infotech.

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.

Founder,
QuaQua

A consultant by karma and an entrepreneur by nature, Purav’s passion for work and life has guided Purav through his 18+ years of professional career. His love for 3Ts - Travel, TV and Technology led him to set up QuaQua.com, his long-time dream. QuaQua is world’s first virtual travel platform that curates and integrates the best content, meta-information, personalized bookings and community for every Point of Interest around the world leveraging 360/VR/AR/XR. Just like his choice of movies, Purav’s professional journey has been an eclectic mix of working from analyst to leadership roles for Top 4 consulting and technology firms, BPOs and VCs. He’s lead engagements in M&A space with deals worth over $10bn, and lead consulting projects worth over $3 bn in value. He’s successfully exited three of his start-ups, most recent one at 6x valuation within 12 months. While accumulating fly miles, he’s been advising Fortune 1000 companies on strategy, digitalization, post-merger synergies, product innovation, business turnaround, process efficiencies, technology-business alignment and strategic sourcing. While he is always ready to convince fellow entrepreneurs to ‘riding on current innovation’, he does have several patents to his name in process and technology space. He has been involved in supporting development and review of process frameworks including e-SCM and PMP. He is regularly seen playing the role of a mentor or often on the the stage at colleges, universities and events talking about “passionpreneurship”, thought leadership, innovation, design thinking amongst other topics of interest. He has achieved his Masters in IT from Griffith University, Australia. He holds a Bachelors in Computer Science from Sardar Patel University, from his home state Gujarat, India.

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, South Asia & Middle East,
Singapore Tourism Board

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