Welcome to ALB x Law Ninjas: General Counsel Conversations

    DATE              19 August 2022, Friday

    TIME                9.00 am to 5.30 pm, India Time  (GMT +5:30)

                                   Ninja Night - 6:00 pm until late

     VENUE            Andaz Delhi, New Delhi India [ FACE TO FACE /LIVE EVENT ] 

            

 

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FORUM CHAIRPERSON

Rohan Bilimoria, Founder, Law Ninjas

Rohan Bilimoria is an international attorney with market-leading Magic Circle firm, US firm and Fortune 500 in-house experience in London, Moscow, New Delhi, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo.

Rohan is an in-house lawyer for a Big Four Bank in Australia, a former in-house legal counsel for KFC Asia and Pizza Hut Asia Pacific, and a former attorney for international law firms Linklaters and Mayer Brown.

He is the founder of Law Ninjas, which was set up initially as a social network for in-house lawyers in 2017.  Since then, it has transformed into a community and platform for thousands of lawyers and law students around the world and a place where one can build relationships and learn everything about being a successful lawyer.  Rohan is incredibly passionate about giving back to the legal community, and 10% of Law Ninjas’ profits go towards funding scholarships for deserving law students.  In addition, Rohan has conducted free career workshops for 51 leading law schools around the world to date.

Law Ninjas has brought on Barbri, Beacon Legal, BTG Legal, Carey Olsen, DFDL, KorumLegal, MikeLegal, Presolv360, Rainmaker Online Training Solutions, SpeedLegal, SpotDraft, Syntheia and 10BE5 as global partners this year.  Last month, Rohan received Businessworld’s Legal Entrepreneur of the Year award, and this week Law Ninjas were named as finalists in two categories at the Australian Law Awards.

 

SPEAKERS

 

Rakesh Kumar Prusti, Group General Counsel, OYO

Rakesh is the Group General Counsel at OYO Hotels and Homes. He is responsible for M&A transactions, Contracts management, Compliance, Litigation, Governance, Corporate secretarial, Real Estate etc.

Rakesh is a versatile professional with over 20 years of progressive experience. He is a specialist in-house counsel with extensive international experience across Healthcare, Trading IT and IT enable services, Export and Manufacturing sectors. Max Healthcare, Carrefour, NIIT, Global Vantage to name a few.

He is a certified Company Secretary and holds a Bachelor of Law degree. He is recognized as a successful and true business partner.

 

 

Damini Bhalla, General Counsel, Zomato

Damini Bhalla, General Counsel of Zomato Limited, leads a robust team of lawyers and company secretaries. She plays a pivotal role in equipping and training the team to handle issues across business verticals. Not only has she helped Zomato navigate its ~$7.4 billion IPO, but also adeptly assists in  all investment transactions (including minority investments in Magicpin, Shiprocket and Curefit, and acquisition of Fitso), drives commercial contracts, manages litigations and strategizes business friendly solutions to ensure compliance while driving innovation.

Her versatility is underscored by the wide range of commitments she leads beyond what is expected of a General Counsel; whether with her active participation in policy related issues, or promotion of a gender inclusive team at Zomato which houses a progressive women: men ratio.

Under her leadership, the team has been recognised as ‘Asia’s Top 15 In-House Teams 2022’ by ALB Asia and as the ‘Compliance & Risk Management In-House Team of the Year 2022’ by ALB India. Her feature in BW’s ‘Top 100 General Counsel Power List 2021’ and as IFLR 1000’s ‘Notable Practitioner’ as of date, among various other recognitions, only goes on to reflect her hard work and abilities as an excellent lawyer and leader.

 

 

Priyanshu Pandey, General Manager – Legal & Company Secretary, UNIQLO India

Priyanshu is a qualified lawyer and company secretary with around 12 years of experience in well-known retail brands Like United Colors of Benetton, adidas and UNIQLO. He is currently heading the legal and compliance function of UNIQLO India and other subsidiaries of Fast Retailing Group (parent entity of UNIQLO) in India. His area of specialisation includes corporate laws, retail laws and legal technology.

 

 

Jagvinder S Brar, Partner and Head of Investigations, KPMG EMA region

Jagvinder is a Partner and heads the Forensic Investigation practice in KPMG EMA region. He is a forensic accountant and investigator with over 24 years of experience: 20 years with KPMG in Canada and India, and over four years with the Integrity Vice Presidency at the World Bank Group in Washington, DC. His geographical experience includes U.S (4 years), Canada (8 years) and India (12 years). His expertise includes -

• M&A due diligence involving transaction forensics, validations, anti-money laundering concerns, share purchase agreements, etc.
• Cross-border investigations of fraud/corruption allegations under the U.S and Indian anti-bribery and corruption as third party agents, employees
• Investigation of vendor frauds, construction frauds, government, regulatory and other inspections, internal investigations, and litigation support, international investigations on procurement and financial statement frauds, bid-rigging, corruption, collusion, kickbacks, and obstructive practices.

Jagvinder has presented and delivered trainings on anti-fraud and anti-corruption measures, forensic accounting, and investigation techniques to various corporates, investigating agencies, anti-corruption commissions and supreme audit institutions in various countries.

 

 

Sreenidhi Srinivasan, Partner, Ikigai Law

Sreenidhi Srinivasan is a Partner at Ikigai Law. She leads the firm’s data practice, advising the world’s leading technology companies, startups, premier industry bodies, VC funds and several others, on data governance.

 

 

Majid Siddiqi, Partner, Lex Consult

Majid is the founding partner of Lex Consult, an award winning firm that has over the past couple of years created a niche for itself in the emerging technology, fintech start-ups and venture capital space. During this period, Lex Consult has advised a number of emerging and established companies in structuring operations, fundraising and navigating the Indian regulatory landscape. The firm believes in working closely with founders, legal teams of established start-ups and investors to deliver on their expectations, and keeping an eye out for them, at all times.

Among others, Majid have been recognized as among India’s top Fintech and TMT lawyers by Asian Legal Business in 2021. Before Lex Consult, he spent 10+ years in firms such as Amarchand & Mangaldas and Trilegal.

 

 

Avisha Gupta, Partner, Luthra and Luthra Law Offices India

Avisha Gupta is a Partner in the Technology and Corporate law practice of Luthra and Luthra Law Offices India. She has over ten years of experience and specializes in FinTech, Emerging Technologies, Data Privacy, and E-commerce.

She has advised some of the largest global and national technology companies, banks/NBFCs, start-ups, on regulatory compliance & structuring issues, licenses/approvals, and commercial contracts.

Apart from corporates, Avisha often works with regulators and industry associations on policy issues, such as IAMAI, RBI, FICCI, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, and SEBI.

Avisha is frequently quoted in media articles and writes for financial dailies on issues around legal developments. She also regularly delivers guest lectures at leading business schools of India.

Avisha has been featured in the ‘Economic Times Young Leaders’ list of 2019.

 

 

Anupam Shukla, Partner, Pioneer Legal

Anupam heads the technology law and privacy practice at Pioneer Legal and has been ranked as one of the Top TMT Lawyers in India by Asian Legal Business in 2022. He has over 10 years of experience advising on several cross-border private equity and M&A transactions. RSG India Report 2019 has also recommended him for the Corporate M&A sector.

 

He started his working career in the year 2011, when he graduated as an advocate and joined DSK Legal as an associate. In 2015, he moved to Pune to set up the Pune office of DSK Legal and moved back to DSK Legal’s Mumbai office in 2017 after the Pune practice was successfully set up. In April 2019, he joined the founding partners of Pioneer Legal as a Counsel. He was elevated to partnership of Pioneer Legal in October 2021.

 

Anupam has developed expertise in the tech and privacy related matters, advising clients on complex legal issues in this space and also specializes in education sector and has advised various schools and educational institutions on diverse issues.

 

Shashank Bijapur, CEO & Co-Founder, SpotDraft

Shashank is the Co-founder and CEO of SpotDraft, an end-to-end contract automation platform. After studying law at Harvard, he joined White & Case, New York, as an attorney. Those initial years of practicing corporate law gave him a good understanding of lawyers' everyday challenges and honed his entrepreneurial insights. As the CEO of SpotDraft, Shashank integrates his legal expertise with global insights to solve the most pertinent problems for today’s legal teams. An avid reader, Shashank is an active member of multiple legal communities. Shashank is passionate about helping lawyers do and achieve more every day and envisions doing so through his journey with SpotDraft. 

 

Abhishek Malhotra, Founding Partner, TMT Law Practice

Abhishek Malhotra, Founding Partner, TMT Law Practice (having offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Bhubaneswar), has two decades of experience in the primary areas of expertise, including intellectual property, commercial dispute resolution, technology, media and telecommunications. He has advised clients in minimizing legal risks and devising strategies for safeguarding against civil and criminal liability. Mr Malhotra’s expertise in the media sector has resulted in a close alliance with production houses, broadcasters, and artists across the industry, and he is recognized as the “go to” professional for issues concerning copyright, with specific reference to broadcasting, music and sports. He has represented clients in precedent setting disputes in the realm of copyright law.

Mr Malhotra is a member of the Bar Council of Delhi and the State Bar of California, and also holds memberships of national and international professional associations.

 

 

 

Roop Loomba, General Counsel and Head of Ethics & Compliance, India and South Asia, Rolls-Royce

22 years of experience in Leadership roles of Legal Operations encompassing Legal Strategy planning ,Litigation ,Business Partnering, Compliances including statutory compliances and Ethics and Compliances, Business divestment ,Mergers, Acquisitions .Highly Recognized and recipient of multiple in-house and external awards including top 100 General counsels by BW Legal, Top 100 General Counsels by Legal 500, Best Lawyers in Engineering Sector, 100 top women in Law by World IP Forum.

 

 

 

Payal Khanna, Director - Legal & Compliance, Volvo Cars India

Payal is working as a Director- Legal & Compliance with Volvo Cars India and is responsible for handling all legal and compliance matters for its business operations in India. Earlier to this Payal was working with PepsiCo India for almost 9 years where she was responsible for handling all India business and litigation support for beverages and foods division of the company. She has overall 16 years of rich experience working across prominent Indian law firms and as Inhouse Legal Counsel in handling diverse and complex legal issues relating to Company Law, Competition Law, FEMA, Data Privacy, Food safety, Consumer Protection, Labour Laws, Indirect Taxation, Transfer Pricing etc. She has extensive experience in handling general corporate matters and litigation support for various sectors such as FMCG, Automobile, Real Estate, Information technology, Oil & Natural Gas etc.

Payal is born and brought up in Delhi and a law graduate from Amity Law School , Delhi. She is a second-generation lawyer and her parents are renowned practicing advocates at the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court. She is happily married and blessed with two kids, a girl and a boy. Payal loves travelling, dancing and spending quality time with family.

 

 

Shashank Jain, VP and Head of Legal, Tata SIA Airlines Ltd (Vistara)

Shashank is the general counsel of TATA SIA Airlines Limited (Vistara) and has experience of more than 14 years in legal and compliance domain. At Vistara, Shashank leads purchase and leasing of aircraft, aircraft engines, and is involved in strategic decisions. He also leads the data privacy and cyber security initiatives at Vistara. He has worked previously worked with several law firms including AZB & Partners and Trilegal. He has wide ranging experience in corporate finance, M&A, aviation laws and regulatory matters.

He is an alumnus of Symbiosis Law School, Pune and the George Washington University Law School, Washington DC.

 

 

Satyajit Gupta, VP, Assistant General Counsel and Head of India Legal & CSR, EXL

Satyajit is a dual-qualified lawyer (India and England) with over 19 years' work experience in top law practices, and is currently the Vice President, Assistant General Counsel & Head of India Legal at EXL.

Satyajit's work encompasses M&A and general corporate matters, labour & employment laws, contracting, IT and privacy laws. Satyajit took over the CSR function at EXL in 2021 and is passionate about scaling up the CSR program; one of his key initiatives recently was to activate the EXL Foundation, a not for profit set up by the group. Aside from peer recognition and external awards, he has received various accolades in EXL for Covid19 relief efforts and its impact on business (he is a member of the EXL Management Task Force). Other than work, Satyajit enjoys mentoring young and upcoming lawyers. Satyajit has also worked in raising awareness about mental health & wellness amongst legal professionals.

Satyajit is the Secretary, IBA Asia Pacific Regional Forum and a Co-Chair of the IBA’s India Working Group.

 

 

Kanika Shah Wadhwa, Head of Legal, India Subcontinent, GlaxoSmithKline

Kanika leads the legal and secretarial team for Haleon in the Indian Subcontinent. With Haleon she has worked on complex transactions including the divestment of the nutritional brands, inter group restructuring. She has 17 years of experience spanning across telecom, financial services, FMCG, airline. She has worked with IndiGo, Coca-Cola, Airtel and GE in the past.

Kanika has also been recognized as one of ALB’s Rising Stars in 2021; Star Woman Lawyer of the Year by Legal Era in 2021; and  awarded ‘40 Under 40 Rising Star’ in 2020 by Legal Era.

 

 

Rohit Sharma, Director - Legal and Compliance, South Asia, Zimmer Biomet

Rohit Sharma is the Director -Legal and Compliance, South Asia for Zimmer Biomet, an American medical device company. He advises the company on legal and compliance issues, risk analysis and crisis management concerning South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan). He works closely with teams across the globe to develop legal and compliance policies, programs and their implementation.

He is a 2010 graduate of law from Kurukshetra University. Prior to his stint at Zimmer, he worked with Economic Laws Practice, Karanjawala & Co. and Geeta Luthra, Senior Advocate.

He has vast experience in advising clients on corporate, commercial, contractual and insolvency disputes.

His litigation experience spans numerous sectors including Pharmaceutical, Mining, Telecom and sports amongst others and he use to appear regularly before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India and various High Courts.

 

 

Dhiroj Barad, General Counsel- Zone India, Company Secretary & Data Privacy Officer, Siemens Healthineers

Dhiroj Barad is a business lawyer with more than 20 years of experience in Corporate, Commercial, IPR, Tax and Data Laws in various industries ranging from Electronics, FMCG, Infrastructure & Healthcare.

Enabling business through the evolving legal & regulatory challenges has been his major contribution throughout. As a General Counsel, he explores and experiments use of technology in legal delivery to improve productivity and remove redundancy. He serves as a visiting faculty in various chapters of professional institutes.

He is fellow member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India and holds Post Graduate Diploma in IPR from NLSIU, Bangalore & Management Accounting degree from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountant, UK.

 

Siddharth Manchanda, General Counsel, Unacademy Group

Siddharth joined Unacademy Group as General Counsel in November 2021.

Prior to that, he was with Indus Law, Mumbai as a Partner where he had joined in August 2020.

Siddharth started his career with Bharucha & Partners in June 2009 and was a part of the transaction advisory practice of the firm.

He focuses on corporate and business restructuring, mergers & acquistions and equity fund raising. His experience also extends to capital market and banking and finance.

 

 

Vani Mehta, General Counsel, South Asia, GE

Vani Mehta is the General Counsel at General Electric (GE) South Asia. In her role as General Counsel for South Asia, Vani leads the legal teams of all GE businesses in the region and advisor to the GE senior leadership. She is also board member and drives GE’s thought leadership in the legal fraternity.

With over 17 years of work experience she has previously part of SAP in house legal team and earlier in private practice for several years with Little &Co. and has worked extensively in both litigation, M&A and general corporate area of practice including securities & capital markets having several Indian companies and leading MNC’s as her clients.

Vani graduated in Law from Delhi University, India and earned Bachelor honors degree in Political Science from Delhi University, India.

Vani is a fitness enthusiast and enjoys outdoor activities with her family. She is a keen collector of Indian art and traditional weaves.

 

 

Dr. Vivek Mittal, Global General Counsel, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories

Dr. Vivek Mittal is currently Global General Counsel at Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Limited (DRL), a NYSE, NSE, BSE listed multi-locational global generic pharmaceutical giant. At DRL Dr. Mittal leads a team of about 75 lawyers and professionals covering areas of domestic and cross border merger and acquisitions, in-licensing, out-licensing, other commercial agreements, domestic and cross border complex civil and criminal litigations, arbitrations, ethical and statutory compliances, data privacy and data protection (Dr. Mittal is DPO of DRL), IPR, employment laws, regulatory issues, corporate commercial advisory, amongst other things. Prior to DRL Dr. Mittal had a very successful and illustrious multi-industry career at Danaher Corporation where he was Regional Counsel – METAI for Diagnostics Platform, Head of Legal at Lupin Limited, and other legal roles at Reliance, Radico Khaitan, IndiaBulls, and Caparo India and Mount Shivalik, in a career spanning about 23 years.

Dr. Mittal has been recognised and has received multiple accolades by various prestigious institutes, and he is a regular speaker at various prestigious events.

 

 

Jyotsna Sharma, General Counsel and Head of Government Relations, Rario

Jyotsna is a lawyer qualified in India, with a decade and half of experience, spanning across industries and global businesses in various stages of growth and restructuring. She specialises in private equity, mergers and acquisitions. She is presently General Counsel and Head of Government Relations at Rario, where she is leading the legal department and working on policy matters for digital assets in India.

 

 

Ankita Sharma, General Manager- Legal, Honasa Consumer Pvt Ltd (Mamaearth)

A post-graduate from NLU, with almost a decade of experience, I currently head the Legal & Corporate Governance vertical for one of the fastest growing beauty and personal care Unicorn of India. Over the years, have led and headed IP, Brand protection and IP Litigation with innovative solutioning and first-principles problem solving. Handled entirely new charters of greenfield businesses and new countries of entry for the organizations. Currently serving as a General Manager for Honasa Consumer Pvt. Ltd.(MamaEarth).

 

Pranav Mehra - Director - Legal - Freshworks

Pranav is the head of legal for India and Asia Pacific at Freshworks (Freshworks is a NASDAQ listed company that provides innovative customer engagement solutions that make it easy for retail teams to attract, win, and keep customers for life on a cloud based platform).

 

 

Ramanuj Gopalan, General Counsel, Elevation Capital 

Ramanuj is currently working as General Counsel of Elevation Capital. Elevation Capital is a venture capital fund and manages more than USD 3 Bn assets across funds with a focus on early-stage investments in India and other jurisdictions. It has more than 50 active portfolio companies in India. Some of Elevation’s portfolio companies include Paytm, Swiggy, Urban Company, Meesho, Spinny and Sharechat. As General Counsel he has overall responsibility for all legal matters concerning the fund including advising on investments and exits, compliance and management of portfolio companies, overseeing regulatory and tax matters. Ramanuj works closely with the investment team as well as founders and endeavour to provide business-oriented solutions to legal issues. He guides the founders and our portfolio companies with the experience and insight in overseeing legal functions across the portfolio. He has been part of Elevation Capital (earlier SAIF Partners) for more than 7 years. Before this, Ramanuj worked for 8 years at Amarchand and Mangaldas, New Delhi in the M&A and General Corporate team. He completed his legal studies from NUJS, Kolkata.

 

Rajarshi Sen, Lead Counsel, India, Siemens Energy

Rajarshi is currently the Lead Counsel for the Siemens Energy business of Siemens Limited India. Over the last 13 years, he has enjoyed being a strategic business enabler as an inhouse counsel for major multinational corporations doing compliant and sustainable business in India, Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

 

 

Debosmita Nandy, Head Legal, India, Cinepolis

Debosmita has over 13 years of experience as disputes lawyer (Khaitan & Co) and as in-house counsel (ITC Limited and Cinepolis India). She presently heads the legal and compliance team at Cinepolis India and is based in Gurugram. She is also the author of practical legal blog “The Five Things Checklist”.

 

Vinayak Mishra, Director (Legal), Lightspeed India Partners Advisors

Vinayak is a corporate lawyer specialising in PE and VC transactions. After having spent over a decade with various leading law firms in India, he joined Lightspeed Venture Partners to set up their legal team for India and SE Asia. At Lightspeed, in addition to overseeing deal execution for investment and exit deals, Vinayak is also responsible for advising the fund and companies / founders backed by it on various legal and risk matters.

 

 

 

Garima Budhiraja, Director, Legal, MobiKwik

Garima has over a decade of experience in the legal domain across various setups including law firms and corporate law. Currently serving as the Director of Legal at Mobikwik, Garima oversees the legal, regulatory and compliance functions and leads a team of passionate individuals in helping set up the strategic direction of the company working closely with the founders. She is a veteran in FinTech and advises several teams across product, technology, information security and customer operations in driving the company's growth. Garima represents Mobikwik at Payments Council of India, and Digital Lending Association of India to help provide the industry view in the regulatory ecosystem.

Garima was recognized as one of the Best Leading Lawyers in 2022 by the World Intellectual Property Forum. She holds an LLM degree from the Indian Law Institute and has authored several publications on IPR and arbitration.

 

 

Varsha Chaudhary Jain, Head, Legal & Compliance, India, Goodyear

Varsha currently heads Legal & Compliance at Goodyear India. She is responsible for Legal, Corporate Secretarial, Compliance and CSR. She is part of the Asia Pacific Executive leadership and is also executive sponsor for the Employee Resource Group for D&I.  

Varsha has a rich experience of over 20 years in law firms and as in house counsel across large multinational corporations in the FMCG sector.  She has worked with Hindustan Unilever Ltd., GSK Consumer and Amway India in the past and has diverse and extensive experience covering commercial and corporate laws, contracts, transaction structuring, regulatory compliances, dispute resolution, Competition law, Food, Consumer and Environment issues. 

Varsha has been recognized for her excellence and achievements as ‘Star Woman Lawyer of the Year’ by Legal Era in 2021. 

 

 

Shalini Saxena, Head of Legal, CoinDCX

Shalini has been in the legal field for around 22 years, with experience both as a litigation and corporate lawyer. Prior to joining the corporate sector, she was a Partner with a Delhi based law firm, working across  various government bodies and companies. 

From 2004 as an inhouse counsel, she has worked through multiple industries ranging from Credit Cards, Consumer Finance, Power, social media, manufacturing set ups in organizations such as GE, SBI, NASPERS,  PINE LABS and now CoinDCX as a generalist, commercial lead and M&A counsel in multiple geographies, supporting complex commercial transactions.

 

 

Sandeep Chowdhury, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Hindustan Construction Company Ltd.

Recipient of Legal 500 GC Powerlist award, the Top Inhouse lawyer award from IPR Gorilla, Sandeep is the Group General Counsel for HCC, one of the the largest infra and EPC company of India. He looks after legal, regulatory and compliance matters and manages a team of lawyers and leads his team across various verticals. He is passionate about developing a proactive, connected and metrics-driven culture. In his role, Sandeep provides necessary advise and guidance to senior management and board members. He also manages outside counsel; handles large, complex transactions, looks after legal budgets; and is focused on developing the capabilities of the in-house team. Some of his key area include corporate and commercial contracts, joint ventures, M&As, litigation, competition law, employment, securities law, compliance, GDR listings (at SGX and Luxemburg), corporate governance, re-structuring etc.

Prior to HCC Sandeep was the Group General Counsel for ANI Technologies (OLA). He has also worked at Senior level in organisation(s) like Nuvoco Vistas Ltd., (Lafarge India), UPL Ltd, Hindustan Coca Cola, Baxter and Walmart India. Having started his career with Khaitan & Co., Sandeep has a unique blend of working both with Lawfirm and also corporates.

Sandeep also has rich experience on US FCPA and had conducted various training and investigations in the matter. He has also worked with lawfirms across APAC, UK and US.

Sandeep is a prominent speaker in various legal and compliance forums. He has also participated as panel speaker in various events organised by Marcus Evans.

 

 

Ashish Chandra, General Counsel, CoinSwitch Kuber

Ashish has over 22 years of experience with various large and start-up internet and emerging technologies companies such as CoinSwitch (current employer), WhatsApp, Netflix, eBay, Reliance Jio and Snapdeal.

Ashish has witnessed the growth of internet and related businesses from web2.0 to web3.0 and the evolving legal and regulatory landscape over last two decades. Ashish also led some of the major internet industry related regulations and litigations over this period.

He is currently the General Counsel of CoinSwitch, India’s largest crypto exchange which recently turned. Before CoinSwitch, he acted as the Associated General Counsel for WhatsApp in India and led its corporate, regulatory and litigation affairs including Facebook’s $5.6 billion investment in Jio Platforms, launch of WhatsApp payments, building for social and conversational commerce and payments platforms for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and defending end to end encryption, user data privacy, intermediary-content issues before various High Courts and the Supreme Court of India.

 

Deepti Rustagi, Group General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, PolicyBazaar

Deepti has 20+ years of rich experience in varied business environment in multiple industries viz. Insurance, Financial Services, Manufacturing and Legal Consultancy.

She is a qualified Company Secretary and a Law Graduate.

She is currently the Group General Counsel and Compliance Officer of Policybazaar Group.

Her expertise includes advisory on several branches of law including Corporate Laws, Insurance Laws, Inbound and Outbound Foreign Investments, private equity transactions, mergers and business acquisitions etc. She plays a pivotal role in driving the regulatory advocacy with various Industry bodies and regulators. She has been a part of IRDAI’s committees and has contributed towards building robust regulations for Insurance sector, in particular. 

 

 

Amit Bhasin, Chief Legal Officer and Group General Counsel , Marico Limited           

Amit Bhasin is Chief Legal Officer and Group General Counsel for Marico Limited. He is part of the Executive Committee of Marico Limited and is responsible for Legal and Corporate Affairs Function for Marico Group both in India and International markets. Amit Bhasin is member of Governance Committee of Marico and also leads Corporate Social Responsibility function of Marico. 

Amit has over 19 years of experience in Corporate Legal, Legal Business Partnering, Corporate Compliances and Governance. He has worked across organizations in consumer sector. Prior to joining Marico, Amit Bhasin was associated with Hindustan Unilever Limited as General Manager – Legal and Corporate Secretarial for over 13 years. He has handled multiple roles and worked on several M&A transactions and corporate actions for Unilever including the acquisition of GSK business.  He was part of several global working networks for Unilever in the areas of Competition Law, Governance and Compliance.

Amit plays an active role in the advocacy efforts for FMCG industry and is part of several industry bodies. He is member of FICCI FMCG Committee and Chair for FICCI FMCG Committee for Legal Metrology and CCPA. He is part of Legal Committee of Indian Beauty & Hygiene Association (IBHA), Executive Committee Member of MCIA FMCG User Council and Chair for Chief Legal Officer Network India, Winmark . He has been recognised for his excellence as the Best Leading Lawyers 2022 by World Intellectual Property Forum (WIPF). Amit was awarded 40 under 40 Legal Rising Stars Award by Legal Era in 2019.  

Amit is a Law Graduate and a certified Chartered Secretary from the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) . He has also earned a post-graduation certification in Sustainable Business from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom in 2011.

 

Amar Sundram, General Counsel – Sr. Vice President (Legal) & Chief Compliance Officer, NEC Corporation India

Amar is an in-house Senior Corporate Legal Professional, having rich experience in strategic thinking, formulation of operational guidelines and a business enabler to complex legal issues. With over 26 years of experience, he has worked with both Indian and multinational business houses including DCM Shriram, Birla, Tata, AT & T, Reliance, Citi, Ernst & Young and Royal Bank of Scotland. Amar has held senior leadership management positions in many of the organisations that he has worked for.

He has handled high-stake international and domestic mediation and arbitration involving critical issues of law and multi-jurisdictional complexities. He has also spearheaded litigations in the Supreme Court, different high courts of India and the courts in the US.

A topper in LL.M from the Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi, Amar has advised corporates on various legal issues in the arenas including regulatory, compliance, taxation, arbitration, insurance, financial laws, employment laws, cross-border transactions, government contracts, technology related laws, power, and criminal law.

A known name in the legal world, Amar was listed among India’s Top 100 General Counsels by Legal 500 in 2016 & 2018.

Under his leadership, the EY India legal team was selected amongst the top 100 in-house teams (2017) by Legal 500 and also his team at EY ranked in the top five finalists for Asia Legal Awards (2019). Further, his legal team at Royal Bank of Scotland, India was declared the best legal team by Legal 500 (2019).

Recognizing his contribution in the field of Corporate Law and Strategic Planning and for his exemplary commitment in legal policy implementation and corporate leadership, Amar was conferred with the title of ‘Honorary Professor’ by Amity University, Haryana in the year 2019.

Amar was honored as Shining Star of Indian Legal Fraternity (2019) by the Corporate Counsel Association of India, was declared the Best General Counsel (Banking) by the Indian National Bar Association (2019), ranked among the top 100 General Counsels in India by Business World (2021), recognized amongst the Best Leading Lawyers by the World Intellectual Property Forum (2022) and recently has been recognised as Top General Counsel of India by Forbes India Legal Powerlist 2021 (result declared in March, 2022).

Amar holds various honorary positions – the latest ones being a member of the Advisory Board of UK-India Legal Partnership (UKILP) and a founding member of General Counsel Association of India (GCAI).

 

Yogesh Wadhwa, General Counsel, Hyundai Motor India Limited

Yogesh Wadhwa is a law graduate from University of Delhi and with a mix of law firm and Inhouse experience with Tier 1 law firm, Big 4 and MNC’s.

He has experience of working across India and Middle East markets in Automobile and Oil and Gas Sector.

He is currently working as a General Counsel with Hyundai Motor India and in the past was the GC for Nissan and Renault in India and Dubai and with General Motors in India.

 

Vineet Vij, Global General Counsel, Tech Mahindra

Vineet is the global legal head of Tech Mahindra and group companies worldwide, namely, Comviva Technologies, Born Group, Target Group, Tech Mahindra Business Services, leading a team of over 100 lawyers supporting multi-billion dollar cross-border commercial transactions, mergers and acquisitions, disputes and litigations, global compliances, legal policy and regulatory, IPR. Vineet’s professional experience spans over 28 years with corporations like TATA Consultancy Services, American Express, HCL, covering divergent practice areas including Commercial and Contract law, Litigation and Dispute resolution, Cross-border M&As, Global regulatory compliances, Financial and Banking laws, Real estate, Company law, IT, Data protection, Privacy, Cyber and IPR laws, Criminal law, Telecom, Arbitration, Employment, Bankruptcy, Competition and Indirect tax laws. Vineet is on the Board of Studies of Bennet University, Amity Law School and Mahindra University. He has also received several accolades, including Forbes Powerlist Top India GCs 2020 and 2021; Business World’s Top 100 GCs 2020 and 2021; Global General Counsel 2021 by Legal Era; General Counsel IT Services 2021 by IBL, General Counsel 2020 by IDEX Legal; General Counsel 2019 by Legal Era; Shining Star of Indian Legal Fraternity 2019 by CCAI; General Counsel 2019 by INBA; General Counsel 2018 by ICCA; Legal Era Excellence Award 2017.

 

Aditya Shamlal, Head of Legal, Zeta

Aditya is a graduate of NLSIU. He started his career as a corporate lawyer in AMSS, New Delhi. After that, he moved on to practice litigation in the courts and tribunals in New Delhi. Thereafter, Aditya worked for a majority of my career in GameChanger Law Advisors, a boutique law firm. His practice areas were Venture Capital Transactions, TMT (Telecom, Media and Technology), Sports and General Corporate.

 

Arvind Gopal, Senior Legal Counsel & Group IP Counsel, Bharti Airtel

Arvind, in his 14 years as a legal professional (as an independent counsel for a decade and thereafter as an in-house counsel) had the privilege of representing, in contentious and non-contentious matters, companies at the forefront across various industry sectors such as telecommunications, technology, pharmaceutical, lifestyle, consumer goods as well as financial institutions and government departments.

In this thoroughly enriching journey thus far, he had the absolute privilege of being associated with some of the leading legal luminaries and law firms coupled with the experience of successfully managing his own practice.

Through such afore stated experience, Arvind have been able to hone skillsets and gain expertise in areas such as Intellectual Property Laws, Music Licensing, Cyberspace Law, Information Technology Law, Litigation & Litigation Management, Privacy & Data Protection, Commercial Contracting, Legal Metrology, Customs & Excise, Arbitration & Conciliation and Risk & Compliance both domestically as well as internationally.

 

Ojasvita Srivastava, General Counsel- Securitas Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific

Ojasvita Srivastava is the General Counsel at Securitas for Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific Region. She oversees the legal function across 16 countries and has been working in similar cross- jurisdictional roles as a business lawyer. In her previous stints, she worked as the Regional Legal Counsel at G4S, as Senior Legal Manager at Reliance Communications and as Legal Counsel at a French Pharma company besides practicing as a litigation lawyer.

She is also the Founder of Project Abhimanyu (www.projectabhimanyu.in), an NGO that is working towards providing free legal guidance to first generation lawyers and law students. Founded in 2015, Project Abhimanyu has so far worked with law students across 80 colleges all over India, while also conducting workshops and seminars. Project Abhimanyu presently has 70 Mentors from across the country including General Counsels of MNCs, Law firm partners and highly successful litigators.

Ojasvita completed her LLB (Honours) course from V. M. Salgaocar College of Law, Goa with full scholarship and also acquired an LLM in Commercial and Corporate Law from Queen Mary, University of London.

 

Sumeet Singh, General Counsel & Head- Corporate Affairs and Corporate Strategy, BharatPe

Mr. Sumeet Singh is the General Counsel & Head- Corporate Strategy and Corporate Affairs at BharatPe. In his current role, he leads legal as well as corporate affairs and strategy at BharatPe. He works closely with the management, the Board and other stakeholders to explore new business and growth opportunities and to define the brand’s broad corporate strategy. He also oversees the legal and regulatory framework for all the products and services offered by the BharatPe Group.

Sumeet is responsible for leading the equity and debt fund raising at BharatPe and led the US$ 350 million Series E and US$ 108 million Series D fund raise at BharatPe. He spearheaded BharatPe’s effort in becoming the first fintech to obtain a banking license and played an integral role in setting up Unity Small Finance Bank (in partnership with Centrum Group).  

Prior to joining BharatPe, Sumeet was a Partner at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, New Delhi, India’s leading law firm and was with the firm for over 8 years. A seasoned legal professional with 13+ years of experience, he has also worked with other leading law firms such as AZB & Partners and DSK Legal. Sumeet is considered as a subject matter expert in legal, compliance, regulatory and structuring aspects of multiple sectors including fintech, non-banking financial, retail, e-commerce, FMCG, digital media and technology.

During his professional career, Sumeet has been a part of some of India’s largest M&A transactions and has actively represented some of the biggest e-commerce companies, retail entities, startups, venture capital funds, non-banking financial companies such as International Finance Corporation (part of World Bank), Norwest Venture Partners, Reliance Retail, Grofers, Indiamart, Inshorts, Nestle etc.

Sumeet has won numerous awards and accolades during his professional career and was recently featured in the Forbes Legal Power List 2021 as one of the Top General Counsels. He is also a part of the renowned 40 Under 40 Club of Lawyers, Legal Leaders and Legal Influencers, published by Business World Legal.

Sumeet holds a B.B.A L.L.B degree from Symbiosis Law School.