The Future of Tech in India

Lourdes Casanova is the Gail and Rob Cañizares Director of the Emerging Markets Institute and a Senior Lecturer at Cornell University’s S.C. Johnson College of Business. A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Casanova holds a Master’s from USC and a Ph.D. from the University of Barcelona.

Previously at INSEAD, Dr. Casanova is recognized as one of the 50 most influential Iberoamerican intellectuals and 30 most influential Iberoamerican women intellectuals by Esglobal. She has co-edited books like “From Copycats to Leaders” and authored “Global Latinas” while actively contributing to global economic forums and publications.

Saurabh Agrawal is the Group Chief Financial Officer of Tata Sons, the holding company and promoter of over 100 Tata companies. He joined Tata Sons in June 2017 from the Aditya Birla Group, where he was the Head of Strategy. In a career spanning over two decades, Mr. Agrawal has been the Head of Investment Banking in India for Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Head of Corporate Finance Business in India and South Asia for Standard Chartered Bank.

Mr. Agrawal chairs the board of Tata Capital, Tata Sky, Tata AIA Life Insurance, and Tata AIG General Insurance. He is the Executive Director of Tata Sons Limited and on the board of Tata Steel, Tata Power, and Voltas. 

Mr. Agrawal has wide-ranging experience in strategy and capital markets, where he had a ringside view of the evolution of the Indian economy since the mid ‘90s. He has helped various large Indian and global corporations on both capital markets as well as mergers and acquisitions. In his past roles, Mr. Agrawal has worked with several business groups, both Indian and global.

In his role as Group CFO, in addition to the businesses that he chairs, Mr. Agrawal is focused on driving financial performance and strategy of the group through rigor and synergy in capital allocation, investment management decisions, and portfolio optimization. He completed his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from IIT Roorkee and has a postgraduate management degree from IIM Kolkata. Mr. Agrawal lives in Mumbai with his wife Shelly and two children. An avid reader, outdoors enthusiast, and movie buff, he enjoys playing badminton and squash.

Shobana Kamineni was named Executive Vice Chairperson of Apollo Hospitals Enterprises Ltd (AHEL) in July 2014. A member of the founding family, she has been Director since February 2010. Championing special initiatives for over seven years, Ms. Kamenini directed the company’s diversification into several new domains, all of which have been largely responsible for Apollo’s emergence as Asia’s foremost integrated healthcare organization.

Ms. Kamenini continues to helm the Apollo Global Projects Consultancy that steers the planning, design, and execution of new projects. She also heads Apollo Pharmacy, presently the fastest-growing business within AHEL. Apollo Pharmacy is now India’s largest pharmacy chain with a pan-India network of over 2,000 stores and 14,000 employees, serving 150,000 customers a day. Ms. Kamenini championed Apollo’s collaboration with Munich Re in 2008 and continues to be a Whole-Time Director on the Board of Apollo Munich Health Insurance.

In addition, Ms. Kamenini is Vice Chairperson of the KEI Group, a diversified logistics, leisure, and infrastructure business founded with her husband. She is an Independent Director on the boards of Blue Star Limited and Hero MotoCorp. Ms. Kamenini also serves as an Advisor to CISCO India’s External Board. As an active member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), she was elected as Vice President for the year 2015. Ms. Kamenini was the President of the Confederation of Indian Industry from 2017 to 2018 — the first woman to hold this position. 

Passionate about inculcating a culture of wellness, Ms. Kamenini championed the establishment of “Billion Hearts Beating,” an NGO dedicated to educating Indians about preventing heart disease and staying heart-healthy. She has also been a recipient of prestigious national awards for entrepreneurship and leadership. Ms. Kamenini holds a B.A. in Economics from Stella Maris College, Chennai, and an accelerated degree from Columbia University, New York. An avid sportsperson, she was a national-level squash player.

Vinit Kr Khicha is a second-year full-time MBA candidate at the SC Johnson College of Business. He hails from India and has completed his undergraduate degree cum laude in Mining Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) – Dhanbad in 2013. Before joining Cornell, he has donned various hats as a BCG consultant, corporate strategist, and project engineer in diverse industries. He is passionate about leveraging digitalization to augment key socio-economic drivers in emerging markets and plans to work at the intersection of strategic management and finance domains after graduation.