OMCAR 2009 - Partial List of Confirmed Speakers

» Already Confirmed Speakers

Mahesh Murthy

Mahesh Murthy, founder and CEO, has 20 years of marketing and communications experience – of which over 10 years are in online marketing. After dropping out of college, Mahesh sold vacuum cleaners from door to door and then found a home in advertising with Grey in India and Ogilvy in Hong Kong, where he won international notoriety and awards as a creative director on HP, Microsoft, Unilever, The Economist, Pepsi and MTV - for whom he wrote and directed a spot voted “Asia’s best commercial of the decade”. He then moved to a Silicon Valley firm, CKS Partners (later, USWeb/ CKS) as Creative Director, General Manager and eventually, Partner – where he helped create and launch the first commercial version of Yahoo in 1995 and the “Earth’s biggest bookstore” campaign for Amazon.com in 1997. After a successful NASDAQ IPO for CKS, Mahesh moved to head marketing at iCat, an e-commerce firm in Seattle, which was subsequently acquired by Intel. Mahesh then returned to India to run Channel V, a rival to MTV, till its sale to Newscorp in 2000 and then founded Passionfund to invest in and guide startups.

Vivek Bhargava

Vivek has spent 10+ yrs in the interactive marketing industry. He is the founder of communicate2 which started as a full service interactive agency and has evolved into search specialist agency.

During these 10+ yrs Vivek has built expertise in meeting the interactive marketing needs of MNCs such as MTV, Pfizer, Merrill Lynch and large agencies in US and Europe.

Vivek has traveled to more than 40 countries mostly in the developing nations, has lived in Dubai for two years.

Vivek believes that contextual advertising is the future of advertising, and it will require a balance of technology and a large team of people. He is focused on building communicate2 into a 1000 people search firm from the current strength of 100 people.

Vivek is the chair of SEMPO India and is focused on spreading the awareness of search marketing in the Emerging Markets. Vivek has played Table Tennis for the state, keenly interested in chess and an amateur paragliding Pilot.

Communicate2 is a 100 people search Specialist firm based in India. Communicate2 started in 1997 as a full service interactive agency and evolved in a search firm. Communicate2 has worked with Global clients such as MTV, Pfizer, Merrill Lynch, Commerce One and worked with large corporations such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, King Fisher Airlines, in the emerging Markets. Communicate2 also works closely with large agencies in US and Europe and acts like their back office.

Kiran Gopinath

Kiran Gopinath,
Founder & CEO, Ozone Media

Kiran Gopinath is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ozone Media Solutions Private Limited, India's leading Internet advertising network.

Kiran was introduced to the world of internet by DBS Internet selling Internet solutions and Internet advertising. Excited by the vastness and immense opportunity of the industry, he co-founded Webshastra Private Limited, an Internet advertising firm, with Warburg Pincus as investors.

Subsequently, he started India's then only ad network, Ozone Media in February 2006. Ozone Media has since grown rapidly and has established itself as a leader in the space and partners with India's top advertisers and publishers.

With an experience of over 11 years Kiran is also an active speaker in varied forums. He was also responsible for organizing India's first Internet advertising seminar in 1998.

A voracious reader, Kiran, likes spending time in the wild, camping and trekking.

Pradeep Chopra

Pradeep Chopra
Co-founder & CMO, OMLogic

Pradeep Chopra is a serial entrepreneur & is currently a co-founder of OMLogic Consulting, one of India's leading online marketing companies. In addition to delivering customer delight for OMLogic's global customers using Search Engine Marketing, Pradeep is evangelizing OMLogic’s Social Media Marketing strategy for its customers.

Prior to OMLogic, Pradeep was a co-founder of Whizlabs Software, an IT education company, where he built a global brand (using online marketing) for which Whizlabs won the 'Most Innovative Indian IT Company' award from NASSCOM in 2004.

Online marketing is Pradeep's passion & he is among the pioneers of online marketing in India. He is an international speaker & an author on online marketing & entrepreneurship. His previous speaking assignments include speaking at SES (USA), Global Entrepolis @ Singapore, NASSCOM India Leadership Forum, TiE and Web Innovation conferences.

Pradeep graduated from IIT Delhi & is also an active member of the SEMPO's Global Committee.

Alok Mittal

Alok Mittal
Managing Director
Canaan Partners

Alok Mittal is Managing Director with Canaan Partners India. Alok focuses on building companies in the fast-growing wireless, technology and Internet domains.

A successful entrepreneur and founding member of Band of Angels India, Alok also seeks to foster the development of new global technologies in India. He led the technology practice at Baring Private Equity Partners, India, where he focused on IT products and services, BPO, Internet and Telecom. Prior to Baring, Alok was Co-founder of JobsAhead.com, a leading web-based recruitment business.

Alok was instrumental in the acquisition of JobsAhead by Monster.com, the global leader in online recruitment. He also brings strong Telecom experience to Canaan having worked for Hughes Software Systems, the premium provider of telecom software services and systems in India.

He serves on the Board of Directors of Bharat Matrimony, iYogi and Cellcast. He holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and a Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Paritosh Sharma

Paritosh Sharma is an entrepreneur and is currently a Social Media Evangelist with OMLogic Consulting, one of India’s leading online marketing companies. In addition to delivering customer delight for customers globally, Paritosh is evangelizing OMLogic’s Social Media Marketing strategy and is also the ideator behind OMShare – The First from India, Online Events Promotion Platform.

Prior to OMLogic, Paritosh was the Founder of WeYouPoint, a startup consulting venture, where he built a personal brand in the entrepreneurial space (using social media and blogging). Paritosh is also the member of the Global Advisory Team of Experts(USA) and consults businesses into branding and positioning leveraging online marketing. In his zest for adding value to innovation and support the startup community, Paritosh is Consultant, Branding and Positioning for Proideaz (a startup into Incubation Consulting), advising in creating innovative marketing strategies.

Online marketing is Paritosh’s passion and he is one of the known LIVE bloggers blogging some of the biggest events in the industry having to his credit, NASSCOM, QAI International, TiE, Web Innovation etc. Paritosh is also one of the top 11 authors on Social Media, as per the Community Marketing Blog (Canada), he also authors on various Industry blogs as a guest author. Paritosh is also active in delivering workshops to young entrepreneurs and is the second youngest Indian to achieve the same at Symbiosis Pune and BITS Pilani and contributes to the growth of the entrepreneurship by delivering workshops for National Entrepreneurship Network.

Paritosh is a national speaker and an author on Social Media, Branding and Entrepreneurship.

Paritosh graduated from Indraprastha university Delhi.

Nikhil Rungta

Nikhil Rungta
Marketing Head
Yatra.com

Nikhil with a management degree from NMIMS – Mumbai and over 12 years’ experience currently heads marketing at Yatra.com. He has been instrumental in building Yatra.com as one of the most preferred travel services brand in India, in a short span of less than 3 years. He has an extensive Sales and Marketing experience across various categories like FMCG, Consumer Durables, Finance, IT and Travel Services. He started his career with Shaw Wallace & Co. and has also worked with advertising agencies like Contract and McCann Erickson.

Nikhil is one of the few marketing leaders in the country who has a deep understanding of both traditional offline and the new age digital marketing. He feels digital marketing is the future and appreciation of the same is must for all marketing and advertising professionals.

He loves to read management books and listen to Hindi film songs.

Manish Vij

Manish Vij is the co-founder of Quasar Media, an integrated online interactive agency. Prior to starting Quasar Media he worked with India's largest portal, Rediff.com, for over 5 years. He has been recognized as one of the prominent online media professionals in the country.In the last two years he has also co-founded Tyroo.com, India's second-largest fully self serve ad network, Zoomtra.com - a Travel meta search and incubating entreprenuers with ideas on digital business under the group name of Smile Interactive Technology Group.

Gayatri Buddha

AVP Marketing,
MakeMyTrip
Gayatri Buddha, Assistant Vice-President Marketing & Alliances for MakeMyTrip is truly an industry veteran. She has been associated with the internet space in India for over 10 years now! For someone who has traveled this far, she says “travel is not passion it is all in a day’s work”….

Hitesh Oberoi

Director & Chief Operating Officer
Info Edge (India) Ltd.
Hitesh is a core member of the Management Team and leads the day to day operations at Info Edge. He has been synonymous in setting up the marketing and sales operations at Info Edge which apart from Naukri.com also owns Jeevansathi.com, 99acres.com, Quadrangle, and recently launched Brijj.com. As a promoter, he keenly assesses all aspects of the businesses and prospects forays in to new businesses or innovation in existing products. He is responsible for all operational and strategic initiatives of the company With almost 8 years of experience in the internet industry, he is part of industry forums, and is also a charter member of the TiE, New Delhi.

Prior to joining Info Edge in March 2000, Hitesh worked for almost four years as the Regional Planning and Distribution Manager (North India) for the Ice Cream Division of Hindustan Lever Limited, the Indian arm of Unilever Plc

An alumnus of IIT, Delhi and IIM, Bangalore, he has always been an achiever and featured in the Director's Merit List at IIM Bangalore.

Gaurav Gupta

Director (Marketing) General Motors.
Gaurav Gupta is responsible for all marketing activities at GM in India. Includes all Brand Activities, Product Activities (Current, New, Life Cycle), Communication - ATL, BTL etc. CRM, Pricing. Prior to this, Gaurav was at GM, Singapore. He is a student of IMT Ghaziabad & St. Stephens College, Delhi.

Vasant Singal

Head Product Management
NIIT Imperia
Vasant Heads Product Management at NIIT Imperia- Centre for Advanced Learning. NIIT Imperia is a division of NIIT, an organization that has revolutionized IT education and shaped million of lives around the world for nearly 25 years.
NIIT Imperia offers specially designed Management Programs from IIM Calcutta, IIM Indore, IMT Ghaziabad and other leading industry practitioners. As a result the executives gain knowledge, skills and insight required to handle the current role more effectively. And, take on bigger challenges to emerge as leaders of tomorrow.
These programs are held at specially designed centres where the students participate in ‘live’ classes conducted by professors from IIMs using two-way broadband audio-video interaction systems. This allows professionals to attend classes after office hours with convenience of not leaving home or work. At the end of the program, the student gets a certificate from the respective institute.