S. Sivakumar is the Chief Executive of the Agri Business Division of ITC Limited. This Rs 4000 Crore Division operates in a number of verticals like agricultural commodity sourcing, agri-exports, rural marketing, and specialty retailing.

He has conceptualised the internationally renowned eChoupal model and is spearheading its roll out across the country. ITC eChoupal has won several awards including UNDP's World Business Award, Development Gateway Award and Stockholm Challenge Award. Sivakumar himself is also honoured with the World Technology Award. ITC eChoupal case study is taught in the business schools around the world.

Relevant to our theme today, ITC eChoupal is an acknowledged collaborative platform with some 150 partners joining hands to deliver a wide range of products and services to rural people.

Topper of the class of 1983 from Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), he worked for a farmers' cooperative before joining ITC in 1989.

Sivakumar is a Director on the Boards of NABARD, IRMA, ITC Infotech Ltd., and Technico Pty Ltd. among many others.

A Post-Graduate in Science (M.Sc) from Madurai University and Masters in Technology (M.Tech) from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and BKM had done his PG Dip in Management from All India Management Association Delhi. He had done further internships / studies in Japan with fellowships from Hindu Hitachi Foundation and AOTS – Association for Overseas Technical Scholarships, Japan. Also was an Associate Research Fellow in a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) funded project at Carnegie Mellon University, USA for 4 months in 1994.

All through his career spanning over 26 years, he has been associated with three mammoth organizations covering both public and private sector. Started his career with Indian Telephone Industries at Bangalore in 1982 and was part of Switching R&D. Then he moved on to the Center for Development of Telematics (C DOT) during its initial years and has worked under the guidance of luminaries like Sam Pitroda. He was responsible for Technology Transfer of telecom products to various licensees around the Country. When he joined Wipro in late 97, he set up the Telecom Division from almost scratch at Hyderabad -this has grown to become a large business unit in 5 years. He has been playing key roles in Customer Relations / Retention, providing Technology focus and Business Development across the globe.

He has been the Integration Manager for the M&A of India R&D labs from Ericsson in 2003 and subsequently the Quantech Global services with Wipro during 2006. Quiet at ease is handling issues of Technology, Customer and People. Six Sigma and Quality are ways of life for him and not mere Corporate Tools. He has a passion to develop & nurture talent.

Currently he is the Head of Global Delivery for Technology Vertical and also the Head for the Wipro Development Centres at Hyderabad.

He has been a Member of the Think Tank of the AP Govt to provide active co-operation among the Universities, Industry and the Govt. BKM was actively involved in formulating the operational concepts of Jawahar Knowledge Centers in the State to increase “job-readiness” of passing out students. He is also a member of the ICT Panel of CII Andra Pradesh & Member of Managing Committee at HYSEA. BKM is also an invited speaker / faculty for Management & leadership development programs of professional institutions like Centre for Organisation Development, IIPM etc.

BKM is the recipient of the IT professional of the Year award from Hyderabad Management Association in 2008.

Cooking is one of the hobbies of BKM and he has been featured in the February 2008 issue of WOW Hyderabad in the cover story “CEO Cook Out” along with 4 others from organisations like Microsoft, Satyam etc.

1) Graduated from IIT Madras and then went on to do his MBA from IIM Lucknow.

2) Over 10 years of work experience

3) Started his career with JWT and then worked with Bharti Airtel and Sify before joining Firefly eVentures as Regional Business Head (South) for Shine.com

Vikas is currently the Managing Director of Water Health India (WHI). WHI is a US based company that has operations in several developing countries; the company installs and manages water purifications plants in the rural and semi urban parts of the country. The Vision of the company is to eradicate the water borne diseases from the world. Currently in India the company has operations in 5 states of the country.

Prior to WHI Vikas worked as the President - Access Business Unit (ABU) of Tata Teleservices and celebrated his tenth year in Tata Teleservices Ltd. (TTSL) in February 2008. He was one of the oldest employees of TTSL and had an interesting track record in the company. He joined the Marketing Services Group in 1998 in Andhra Pradesh when TTSL was a single circle operation. Since then he worked in various capacities within the organization including Public Telephony, Quality, Village Public Telephony project, Collections, and Sales. In his last role Vikas managed Pay Telephony, Rural, Point of Sales (PoS) and Calling Card businesses for Tata Teleservices. The last financial year i.e. 2007-2008 ABU reported Rs. 1,700 crores of annualized revenue. From 2002 to 2008 Vikas and his team grew the PCO revenue of TTSL from a measly Rs. 30 to over Rs. 1,200 crores.

Before Tata Teleservices Limited, Vikas worked for a US based consulting and investment banking firm called PSi Inc. i.e. 1994 to 1998. He specialized in Engineering/Industrial Consulting operating out of Delhi. At PSi he worked for some of the major Fortune – 500 companies including John Deere, Eaton, Amoco Chemicals and Con Agra.

Vikas has a Masters Degree in Business Administration, Major-Finance from University of Jammu (1990-1992) and a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University (1986-90).

Mr. Subbaraman Iyer is an Engineer, MBA with 23 years experience in Sales, Marketing, Strategy and general Management; in organizations like Godrej, BPL and Idea.

Currently , he is the Chief Operating Officer for Idea, Andhra Pradesh Circle.

He is married to Uma, who is a finance consultant. He is blessed with two daughters---Krithika and Shweta.

His interests are Music, Photography and Traveling.

Abhijit is a Post graduate from the NMIMS Mumbai, and an Alumnus of the ISB – Kellogg Global Advanced Management Programme began his career with Blow Plast Limited over 17 years ago. After a brief stint, Abhijit moved to the CPG industry with a $100 Mill family owned organization in the Foods business and spent over 4 years in rural sales & marketing. He developed his skills in product as well as concept sales which brought him to his first turnaround assignment as the Regional Head of Ma Foi Management Consultants Ltd. In Ma Foi, he not only managed and ran the business in the western region, but also grew the rest of the region from being a loss making unit to a substantially profitable one. After another similar stint in East India in 2003, he made a career shift to explore the development activities of a world class business school, the ISB, in the capacity of a Director.

His most recent career move has been into the fast emerging Infrastructure & Realty space as the Director & Chief Operating Officer. At Totem, he has just completed the first round of Private Equity raising through a Singapore based fund.

V. Balaji. Is a management Graduate with 20 years exoerience in Pharma field. Started career with Merind as a Sales Representative. Worked with Max GB, Seranova, DSM NV a Dutch Multinationa, Arch Pharma. Currently he is the CEO of Avon Organics , which is under acquisition by Arch Pharma.

Chander is an Engineer in Mechanical from Delhi College of Engineering and a PGDBA from MDI, Gurgaon. Chander has 28 yrs of accomplished career to his credit in the Automotive, Metals, Telecom, Heavy Engineering and Trading sectors, both in India and overseas.

Chander was associated with many international organizations of repute, which includes; Tata Motors, INDAL, Usha Beltron/Martin, Alstom Projects and Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group-Dubai.

Chander has attended "Managers for Leadership Course" at University of Leeds under the British Chevening Scholarship awarded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He has also completed "The Advanced Management Program" at Harvard University.

Lekha Sishta is the Vice-President – HR & Talent Management at SumTotal Systems, the global leader in Learning, Performance and Talent Management Software. In this position, she is responsible for the Human Capital function in totality, including Talent Acquisition, Employee Engagement, Performance Management, Talent Management, Internal Resource Management, HR Generalism, Training, Competency and Career Development of all personnel across functions and levels in this reputed MNC.

Her 28 years of experience ranges across industry and academic, starting with NTPC at Delhi back in 1980 and thence in the private sector. Prior to SumTotal, she was the Chief Consultant of Fouress, an organisation dealing in corporate training and consultancy in the areas of soft skills, sales & marketing, service and strategy. Before that, she was the Head of Competency Development at Idea Cellular Limited where she handled Training and Performance Management for Service Delivery for all eight regions or circles of Idea across India.

Ms.Sishta has often held sessions at ASCI and has been faculty for a number of training programmes, seminars and workshops hosted by professional associations like the Public Relations Society of India, Hyderabad Management Association, etc. As a trainer, she has had among her corporate clients: Idea Cellular, Indian Airlines, CMC, BHEL, NTPC, Infotech, Wipro e-Peripherals, Escorts JCB, Orbit Technologies, SHV Energy, LIC, New India Assurance, Coca-Cola, Ramoji Film City, PowerGrid, Malayala Manorama, Shri Shakti, Times of India, Nagarjuna Group, APSRTC, Neospark Pharmaceuticals, Brigade Solutions, RMSI, and many others.

An active professional, she has been on the Managing Committees of the Hyderabad Management Association and Hymark (Hyderabad Marketing Association). Ms. Sishta has been a member of the CEO Club of Hyderabad, the President of the IIM Bangalore Alumni- Hyderabad Chapter and the founder Vice-President of IIMNet, a global combine of alumni from all the six IIMs.

I am an Alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur, Class of PMIR’ 95

Experience Profile:

• Currently with AppLabs Technologies
  • AppLabs is a World Leader in Independent Software Testing. Global Footprint with presence in US & UK in addition to India
  • Lead the Global Human Resource Function
    Recruitment, Post-recruitment employee engagement, Performance Management, Learning & Development & Physical Infrastructure Management
    
    
• Previous Organizations worked for:
  • Intelligroup Asia Private Ltd – headed their offshore HR Arm handling post recruitment HR and Training
  • Satyam : As General Manager - HR, was involved in steering Employee Relations as well worked on Leadership Development
  • Mascon Global Ltd : Handled Business HR function
  • Steel Authority of India Ltd : Personnel & IR function at Plant-level
    
    
• As visiting faculty to some Hyderabad-based colleges, share my learning in the area of Organization Behavior / Human Resource Management

K Siva Rama Krishna Prasad is currently Vice President heading Human Resources & Corporate Communications with SAI Advantium Pharma Ltd., a leading Contract Research Organization in India. Prasad was earlier with Satyam Computer Services Ltd., where he was General Manager & Head – HR for Satyam’s Enterprise Applications & Data Ware Housing cluster. Prior to Satyam, Prasad has provided HR leadership across industries including Engineering, Pharmaceuticals, FMCG and Financial Services with some of the most reputed Indian and Multinational companies like Larsen & Toubro, ICI India, TVS Electronics and TVS Financial Services at Bombay, Calcutta, Gurgaon and Chennai. Prasad studied Science for his Bachelor’s and Management for Master’s from University of Bombay. Prasad’s interests in HR include Process Facilitation, Leadership mentoring and Organization Development.

An Engineering Graduate from Osmania and MBA (HR) from XLRI, Srinivas has an outstanding academic record. He began his professional career with a five year stint at Godrej & Boyce. After a year in HR consulting, Srinivas joined Satyam Computers and was there for nearly 7 exciting years. Srinivas left Satyam as Assistant Vice President - HR. This was followed by a two year stint at Dell International as Head of Talent Acquisition for India Region. Srinivas spent the last two years at Bangalore as the Global Head of HR for TAVANT Technologies, a developer of enterprise applications.

- Electronics Engineer from JNTU College of Engineering Hyderabad and MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur

- Currently Lead Parnter National HR for EMRI

- Worked extensively in HR in various phases of a company's growth - from start-up, growth phase and winding down

- Industries worked in Manufacturing, ITES, Telecom and NGO

- Companies worked for L&T, ITW Signode, Genpact, Brigade, Perot Systems, Reliance Infocomm

- Managed varied roles from policy making, staffing, compensation, factory operations, site leadership, regulatory and compliance, Performance management, HR MIS, Program management.

Present Responsibility

• Regional Director of Apprenticeship Training (Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh & Orissa)
• Directorate General of Employment and Training (DGE&T), Government of India, Ministry of Labour and Employment
• Apprenticeship Training and Implementation of Modular Employable Skills (MES)
• Director - Apex Hi-tech Institute, Bangalore, Establishment of AHI & Management of Instructors Training Network in the Country

August 1973 to Sept.1988 (15 years)

Engineer / Manager
Guest Keen Williams Ltd. – 13 years
Advanced Systems Integration Organization (ASIEO)– 1 year Machines International – 1 year

• As Project Advisor for Skill Development, established world class Vocational Training Institute.
• As Counselor and Mentor have interacted with and addressed many individuals and organizations in the country and abroad and have positively assisted in their attitudinal transformation
• Designing National Systems for Skill Recognition & Development