Events

Mr. Sundeep Sikka brings over 30 years of experience in financial services and currently acting as ED & CEO of NAM India. 

He joined the organization in 2003 and later became one of the youngest CEOs in India’s mutual fund industry in 2009. 

Under his leadership, the Company achieved industry-leading scale, built a strategic partnership with Nippon Life Insurance, acquired Goldman Sachs Asset Management India , and successfully listed on the stock exchange.

He is currently serving his second term as AMFI Chairman and has led several key industry committees including CII,FICCI,IFSCA . Mr. Sikka is also a prominent speaker at National and Global forums.

He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School.
 

BP Biddappa is the Executive Director and Chief People, Transformation and Sustainability Officer for HUL. He is also a Whole Time Director on the Board of Hindustan Unilever Ltd and Chairs the Board of Hindustan Unilever Foundation. Prior to this, he was the Chief HR Officer for Global Home Care and Head of Global Employee Relations for Unilever for the last five years. During this tenure, he also led two critical expertise functions for Unilever globally: Organisational Development & People Analytics and Global Employee Relations. He was also instrumental in helping build Unilever's Health and Wellbeing business. He has earlier led the HR function for HUL and Unilever South Asia as the Executive Director, HR for Hindustan Unilever Limited between 2013 to 2019. He set up the Winning in Many Indias approach, creating a more agile and focused business unit framework in South Asia. On the sustainability front, Prabhat, HUL’s community development initiative that touches millions of lives across India, was launched under his leadership. BP Biddappa started his three-decade career in Unilever with a factory stint in HUL and then moved on to undertake a variety of roles, from leadership development to business partnering, across several Unilever businesses. He also led HR for Unilever in Maghreb, Bangladesh, and India. He joined Unilever in 1992 after a brief stint as a consultant at AF Ferguson & Co. He graduated in Economics from Delhi University and has a post-graduation diploma in Personnel Management & Industrial Relations from XLRI Jamshedpur.

Mr. Sharma, in his current role as, Chief Credit Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer looks after setting up of policy directions both in the areas of credit as well as ESG and oversees the Credit approvals across the Bank.

He is also Nominee Director on the Board of NeSL (National E-Governance Services Ltd), NADL (NeSL Asset Data Limited) and ARCIL (Asset Reconstruction Company (India) Limited).

He has also been appointed as a member of Hybrid Securities Advisory Committee (HySAC) of SEBI.
Mr. Sharma has around 34 years of Banking experience in various verticals of the Bank and he is actively involved in policy level discussions at various policy level Bodies/Ministries.

Mr. Amit Tandon is the founder Institutional Investor Advisory Services India Limited (IiAS) and its Managing Director since July 2011. Before IiAS, Shri Amit was the managing director and CEO of Fitch Ratings: India from October 2001 to June 2011. He also had oversight over Fitch Ratings Lanka. Prior to joining Fitch, he was with the ICICI group for 17 years (from May 1984 – September 2001), where he rotated through various roles and businesses including project finance, leasing, and the merchant banking division. His last role with the ICICI group was as head of investment banking at ICICI Securities. He has been a member of the Reserve Bank of India’s Technical Advisory Committee on Money, Foreign Exchange and Government Securities Markets, a member of one of the working groups convened by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to review comments received on the Companies Act and the Kotak Committee on Corporate Governance constituted by SEBI. Shri Amit studied economics at St Stephens College, Delhi and has an MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi and has an MPhil degree from the University of Cambridge, UK.

Neha Kumar is the Head, South Asia, Climate Bonds Initiative and is based in Delhi. She steers policy, strategy and partnerships on climate risks and sustainable financial ecosystem in the region. Her efforts are targeted at building policy mechanisms, market infrastructure and capacities needed to accelerate financing for green, just and resilient transition. Her current areas of focus include transition and resilence finance, the role of financial policy and regulation, and DFIs and MDBs. Avidly interested in the political economy of flow of sustainable finance, she has been working on the topics of equity and climate justice. She has over twenty two years of experience in responsible financing, environmental and socio-political risks, serves on several policy and regulatory committees on climate finance and taxonomy. She is trained in science, international environmental negotiations and politics.

Viral is the Co-founder and Chief Business Officer at Credibl. Credibl takes a unique approach to helping organizations measure, manage, and report sustainability data as well as manage visibility and traceability into complex supply chains, significantly reducing the burden of data chaos and reporting fatigue. Viral also serves as an Advisor to Byufuel (a biofuels startup delivering circularity of used cooking oil) and NRoute (a nutrition supplements startup) Previously, Viral was the Global Consulting Services Sustainability Technology & Transformation Leader and led Deloitte’s Sustainability and Climate practice in South Asia. With over 28 years of experience, Viral has worked with clients across industries in the public and private sector to devise and introduce multi-disciplinary solutions for Sustainability and Climate initiatives. Viral has taken a particular interest in technologies for mitigating climate change and has mentored several startups who have won the Earthshot prize. Viral has led marquee initiatives for crop residue management (stubble burning) in Haryana over a four year period to reduce incidents of stubble burning by ~50% in Haryana, by launching farmer-centric technology based solutions. Prior to this role, Viral led the Strategy, Analytics and Mergers & Acquisitions practice in India, where he focused on strategic clients, serving them in areas such as such as strategy, innovation, enterprise transformation, and operations improvement leveraging analytics and artificial intelligence. Viral has led several large, global engagements in areas such as GBS strategy, IT Outsourcing, Shared Services/GBS Design and Implementation, as well as GCC transformation. Viral has also served on the India Consulting Executive. Viral had established the Shared Services and Outsourcing Advisory practice for KPMG in India, and served on the Board of Directors. Prior to that, Viral worked for Daimler-Benz Research and Technology, where he was engaged in transportation and mobility research, focusing on telematics-based initiatives. Outside of work, Viral serves on the Management Committee of Chandaramji School (Mumbai), one of the oldest schools focused on the education of girls, and is involved with Saraswatam, which operates 22 schools and 102 Anganwadis (Kutch district). Viral also serves on the India Advisory Board of Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC)

Royston joined Grameen Capital in 2007 to launch the organization as CEO. He currently oversees all aspects of operations in India.

Grameen Capital, founded by Grameen Foundation USA, IFMR Trust and Citigroup, is a first of its kind social business enabling Microfinance Institutions and Social Enterprises wider access to the capital markets. Grameen Capital is part of the global Grameen family of companies, the flagship of which is the Nobel Prize-winning Grameen Bank founded by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.

To realise his dream of a “Capital-with-a-Conscience” ecosystem, Royston along with Grameen Capital, promoted “Grameen Impact Investments India” a unique vehicle to provide debt financing to social enterprises across sectors such as affordable education and skill development, affordable healthcare, clean energy & innovation, agriculture, financial inclusion and livelihoods.

In his earlier assignment, as a Senior Vice President with HSBC, Royston was instrumental in setting up and heading HSBC’s Microfinance & Priority Sector businesses. Prior to that, he was the head of HSBC’s SME Business. Before joining HSBC, Royston worked in Citibank India for over 8 years in various assignments across both the Consumer Bank and the Corporate Bank.

Royston has just been elected to the global Board of GSG Impact, the Global Steering Group established under the G7 UK Presidency. He is the first Indian to hold this post.

In addition to being the current Co - Chair of the Impact Investors Council of India & the former Chair of Sa-Dhan, whose members have over 70 million women micro- entrepreneurs, he serves on many boards and advisory bodies, including Grameen Foundation India, Inclusive Business Action Network (iBAN), FICCI Financial Inclusion Committee, CII National Committee on NBFCs, the United Nations Microfinance Resource Group and the Banking & Finance Committee of the Indian Merchant Chambers.

Royston has been invited to address various programs in India and globally, to promote impact investment and blended finance as a sustainable tool to eradicate poverty, and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. In September 2018, Royston addressed a high-level event at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York on the Sustainable Development Goals, and recently on multiple taskforces of India’s G20 Presidency and also Brazil’s G20 Presidency.

The London-based Finance Monthly publication named Royston in their 2013 Global CEO Award Winners list as Top 4 CEOs in Asia, and Top 2 in India, the other one being Kumar Mangalam Birla. He has also been awarded the Global CSR Leadership award by World CSR Congress and the Power of One Award by the Archdiocese of Bombay.

Royston has done his Masters in Management Studies from the prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.

Ashok has nearly 30 years of extensive experience of applying ESG and sustainability aspects spanning across financial services sector, consulting and research. Ashok leads the NIIF’s approach to investing responsibly for impact while working closely with investors, investment colleagues and company management to assess and manage ESG risks and opportunities and helping build “NIIF-way of business”. Before joining NIIF in 2018, he was the Director & Head ESG at Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). Prior to this, Ashok led IDFC Alternatives ESG practice, working with multiple stakeholders including investors, investee companies, sustainability forums and communities. During his ~17 years stint with the IDFC and its subsidiaries, apart from other key initiatives he was responsible for managing a USD 3.8 billion alternatives portfolio in project equity, private and real estate asset class and has gained practical hands-on experience in implementing the IFC Performance Standards / ESG requirements. He started his career with ERM India in 1997 with the Natural Resource Management & Social Development group. Ashok is member of the ESG working group at Global Infrastructure Investors Association (GIIA). Ashok is a recipient of the prestigious Chevening Scholarship from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) of UK Government for pursuing environmental management and sustainable development program at University of Wales, Bangor. He holds M.Phil. degree in Applied Economics from Centre for Development Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University, a rank holder with distinction in MSc Environmental Sciences from Andhra University and a BSc Biological Sciences from University of Delhi.