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.

Anurag Gupta
(Managing Director- DGM India) 

A 1989 batch MBA from India’s premier management institute - IIM Ahmedabad, Anurag has almost 18 years of experience across diverse industries and has handled a wide spectrum of functions - Sales, Business Development, Marketing Communication, Operations Management, Logistics and Sales Administration.

Anurag has spent the last 6 years in the Indian Internet space, which includes a 4 year stint with one of India’s largest Internet entity – Indiatimes.com where he was instrumental in creating and heading the “Subscriptions” business. Starting with a single product he scaled up the business to a level where it had a very large number of paid users across varied products with many of them becoming leaders in their categories.

With his latest assignment as MD of dgm India, he leads the charge in replicating the outstanding   international success of DGM Holdings plc-the legendry internet marketing firm, in the rapidly expanding on-line marketing and advertising world.

Anurag’s understanding of Indian Internet space is very deep and he also authors a very keenly followed blog on Internet Business Trends in India – http://anuraggupta.blogspot.com

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.

Harish Bahl
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, SITG

Harish, an engineering graduate in Computer Sciences is a serial entrepreneur. In 1999, he founded Smile, one of India's first Internet Business Solutions Companies. Over the last eight years, he has laid the foundation to Smile Interactive Technologies Group, which has developed leading business ventures like StudioSmile, Quasar, Tyroo, Zoomtra & Zumtra.
His previous ventures included, Creons Advertising (amongst top three Indian retail infrastructure companies) and Dial-A-Meal (food delivery Service Company).

Harish is considered a thought leader on the subjects of digital technology, interactive advertising, online travel, and entrepreneurship. He is a regular speaker at various forums for the same.

He is an active member of NASSCOM and IAMAI and proactively represents the Indian Internet community for addressing issues related to the growth and smooth functioning of the industry with various regulatory bodies.