Ambassador (Retd) Gautam Bambawale was a member of the Indian Foreign Service from 1984 to 2018. He was India’s Ambassador to Bhutan, Pakistan, and China. Bambawale was stationed in Washington DC in 2004-07 during the Indo-US nuclear deal which transformed ties between the two countries. He has been India’s first Consul General in Guangzhou (China) 2007-09. He was Director of the Indian Cultural Centre, Berlin 1994-98. Ambassador Bambawale worked in the Prime Minister’s Office 2002-04. At the Ministry of External Affairs, he was Joint Secretary for East Asia from 2009-2014. Bambawale has dealt with China for 15 years of his 34-year diplomatic career. Ambassador Bambawale is currently a distinguished professor, faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Symbiosis International University, Pune.

Talmiz Ahmad joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1974. He had a long stint in West Asia early in his career, being posted in Kuwait, Baghdad and Sanaa, and then as Consul General in Jeddah. He also served in Indian Missions in New York, London and Pretoria. He was the head of the Gulf Division in the Ministry of External Affairs in 1998-2000, and then became Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (2000-03), Oman (2003-04) and the UAE (2007-10), before returning to Riyadh as ambassador in 2010-11. He was responsible for international cooperation in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in 2004-06. After retirement from foreign service in 2011, he worked in Dubai as head of business development for two petroleum services companies. He returned to India in 2017 and is now a fulltime academic: he holds the Ram Sathe Chair for International Studies in Symbiosis International University, Pune, India, and writes and speaks regularly on the politics and economics of West Asia, Eurasia and the Indian Ocean, political Islam, and energy security issues. He has published three books on West Asian politics.

Dr. Juergen Morhard has been serving as the Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Mumbai since July 2016. His love for India and the potential of furthering Indo-German ties convinced Dr. Morhard to stay back in India. The diplomat brings with him an array of credentials: After having completed his doctorate in International Relations, Dr. Morhard served in important positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin and Bonn and held office in Washington DC, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Africa, besides being posted as German Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. He believes that the two nations can progress together only if there is an inter-mingling of civil societies through exchange programs – student exchange programs, cultural exchange programs, an exchange of ideas, research-work, authors, artists, and sports talents, besides his demanding and responsible role as the Consul General, Dr. Morhard is an ardent supporter of tennis and golf, and one could often find him on the courts or on the greens.

Mr. Pitale has 19+ years of experience in the Elevators and Escalators Industry. Back in 2001, In a short span of time, he went on to lead various teams in the New Installations business and became the Product Line Manager for Elevators. Post his MBA from JBIMS, Mumbai, he joined the Schindler Career Development Program and was assigned to lead sales for various projects in the Middle East. Mr. Pitale is very process-driven, loves to plan ahead of time, and strictly follow that. People orientation, customer centricity, and operational excellence come as naturally to him in terms of business skills. Currently, Mr. Pitale develops and executes the local and regional strategies to attain the goals of the Group HQ and the Regional Asia Pacific office, prepare and implement comprehensive business plans to facilitate business achievement by planning cost-effective operations and market development activities.

Mr. Jivesh Govil is a seasoned operations leader with a demonstrated ability to execute the vision until the end, building and scaling up high performing teams, and using innovative and transformative strategies to fully execute on complex programs in the organization. With over 13 years of experience in multiple operations roles across the globe, he has addressed employees, forums, and published extensively with a desire to invest in talent in youth to make this world a better place. He has an MBA from Cornell University, MS from University of Michigan, and BE from University of Delhi and actively believed in inclusion and diversity.

Dr. Abhay Sinha is currently working as the Regional Director in Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council, an organization set up by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt of India. Having an experience of 18 years in the promotion of international trade, market research, and international trade information services, he has been associated with various projects of Export Promotion Councils, UNCTAD, Coffee Board, APEDA, and Coir Board while working with National Centre for Trade Information-a joint venture of ITPO and NIC under the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India. Dr. Sinha initiated a number of activities related to industry-institute partnership, innovation, and CSR. Obtained specialized training on international trade-related sources of information and databases by UNCTAD and also received training in Market Information System by CBI, Netherlands. Academic qualifications include Ph.D., MBA with specialization in Marketing and Masters in International Trade. His efforts have made a difference by significantly improving the growth of the sector and the organization in serving the industry in a much better way.

Mr. Atul Mehra is a leading entrepreneur in this region with his interest in dairy and food segments. He was Co-Chairman of the National Committee of CII on Allied sectors in Agriculture – Dairy, Fisheries & Poultry. He is also the founder of INDUCED (Indo Dutch Centre of Excellence on Dairying) born out of MOU between Tasty Dairy Specialities Ltd and PUM (Senior Experts, Netherlands) which is actively working for the welfare of dairy farmers by providing them proper training and education on best modern dairy techniques.

This year he has been awarded CEO of the Year by Agriculture Today Group at Indian Dairy Award 2020. He is a promoter and Chairman of M/s Tasty Dairy Specialities Ltd., a leading dairy company in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India in the sector of Foods processing Industry with a turnover of over INR 4 Billion, and listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Mr. Anand Chordia is Director of Technical & Innovations at Suhana. He is also the founder of The Eco Factory Foundation. Mr. Chordia graduated from Fergusson College with a Bachelor of Science, Botany/Plant Biology. Later he completed his Post Graduation from the University of Auckland in Food Science. His interests lie in Circular Economy, Design Thinking, Permaculture, Organic Natural Farming, World Cuisine, Food Technology, Entrepreneurship.

Mr. Dilip Rajan is a proven executive leader for business change and transformation, with quantifiable results for driving sustainable revenue and profit growth in both developed and emerging markets. Having an extensive business background in international, multi-cultural environments in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, biotech, and agriculture, he is Responsible for driving the transformation and change agenda for India- the largest and most important affiliate for East-West Seed (a leading agro-biotech company).

Author, Architect, Sustainability Professional, and a Technology Evangelist, Rk Gautham in his long professional career spanning 30 years, has worked in various capacities with Consultancy, Execution, and Project Management firms and has pursued diverse interests ranging from Design, Execution, Operations, Teaching, Training and Technical Authoring. Mr. Gautham has also been actively associated with Green and Smart Building Projects for over a decade and has keenly pursued technological advancements in the Building Industry including Building Information Modeling, Lean & Integrated Project Delivery, Corporate Sustainability, and Smart Cities. Mr. Gautham is an Accredited Professional from the Indian Green Building Council and heads the Sustainability business for the Global Real Estate Consultancy firm Cushman & Wakefield in India.

Santhosh Jayaram has more than 2 decades of work experience across Manufacturing, Certification, Verification, and consulting. His consulting experience ranges through a spectrum of topics in the field of sustainability. These include sustainability reporting, sustainability strategy, extra-financial risk, integrated reporting, carbon strategy, Carbon finance, Adaptation and Resilience towards climate change, product stewardship, EHS management systems, responsible investment, and responsible supply chain. Mr. Jayraman is involved in the development of standards and guidelines in the field of sustainability. He is an active member of the development of G4 guidelines at the Global Reporting Initiative,(GRI) in the Netherlands. Mr. Jayaraman is also a part of the Standards Committee for the development of AA1000SES standard at AccountAbility, UK. He is also associated with the Technical committee constituted by SEBI for Social Stock Exchange, India (2020).

Link will be shared soon.