Introducing The Panelists Of the WATBlog Panel

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Well the WATBlog Panel discussion on “Digital Media in the Next Decade” is just 3 days away happening on the 16th of October and just last week we had to increase the seats from 200 to 220 due to extra demand! Also as the event nears we thought it was the right time to introduce our readers on who are the final panelists for this panel discussion so that they can participate via comments and by emailing us on info at watblog dot com with their questions.

digital media in the next decade

Here are the names & profiles  of the panelists (in alphabetical order)

ashish guptaAshish Gupta Managing Director - Helion Ventures

Ashish is a co-founder of Helion and serves on the boards of Anantara, Jigrahak Mobility, Kirusa, Komli, MuSigma, Naukri, and Virtual Synaptics. He has invested in over 35 companies in the US and in India. His investments include Daksh (IBM), Odesk, Obongo (AOL), Speedera (Akamai), Make My Trip, Merittrac, and Kaboodle (Hearst). Ashish co-founded and helped grow two successful companies; Tavant Technologies and Junglee (Amazon.com) that pioneered comparison shopping on the internet.

Ashish has worked at Woodside Fund, Amazon.com, Oracle Corporation, and IBM Research. He has to his credit several patents, international publications, and a book by MIT press. He is a Kauffman fellow, the world’s leading venture education program.

He also holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree from IIT Kanpur, where he was awarded the President’s Gold medal.

sateesh andraSateesh Andra - Venture Partner, Draper Fisher Juvertson

Sateesh Andra is a Venture Partner at DFJ India.  He currently is on the board of directors at MetroMela, mGinger and Pressmart, and is a board observer for Cleartrip.   With hands-on start-up experience and in-depth knowledge of the dynamics of VC funding, he has effectively leveraged India to create technology products for global markets.

Sateesh started his Silicon Valley career in the early nineties and has an extensive background in general management, marketing, product strategy, and technology development.

Prior to DFJ, Sateesh was the founder and CEO of Euclid Software, a leader in the IT Governance space.  Previously he has also served in product marketing and engineering leadership roles at Tsqware (Conexant), LSI Logic, VLSI Technology (Philips), and Wipro.

He holds U.S. patents in Communications and Networking and has published several articles about Business - IT Alignment.  He is actively involved with TiE-ISB Connect, an annual networking event for entrepreneurs and investors.

Sateesh holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering.

Surya Mantha - CEO - Web 18

Surya Mantha, 44 years, is the Chief Executive Officer of Web18, Network18’s Web arm. He has 16 years of experience that spans business management, consulting, product and service development, product management and marketing across range of business and consumer software, hardware and service companies.

In his last job he was the Sr.Vice President - Interactive Services for Sify India. Prior to that he has worked for Real Networks PTR (a leading management consulting firm) in US and wth Xerox Corp US.

He is a Btech from IIT kanpur, has a PhD in Computer Science from University of Utah  & an MBA from University of Rochester, New York.

suvir sujanSuvir Sujan - Nexus India Capital

Prior to Nexus, Suvir was Co-founder and Co-CEO of Baazee.com, the leading online marketplace in India that merged with eBay in 2004 to form eBay India. Post the merger, Suvir was Country Manager, eBay India and Regional Director, Asia Pacific, PayPal. Suvir also has experience in Management Consulting at the Boston Consulting Group and in Engineering and Product Marketing at Nortel Networks.

Suvir has an MBA from the Harvard Business School where he was the Co-President of the South Asian Business Association and a BS in Electrical Engineering (High Distinction) from the University of Maryland at College Park where he was voted Outstanding Senior of the Year. He is a charter member of the Internet and Mobile Association of India and an active mentor to several entrepreneurs across the Internet, Wireless and Retail in India. He is also an angel investor and board advisor to guruji.com (Online Search) and Pangea3 (Legal Outsourcing). He also sits on the board of the US-India Venture Capital Association.

His current investments include Dimdim.com, Komli.com and MapmyIndia.com

Viraj Malik - Managing Director & CEO - Percept Knorigin

Viraj is M.D and CEO of Percept Knorigin, A full service digital agency. Percept Knorigin also incubated Adchakra Ad network focussed on aggregating quality web and mobile publishers and offer media planning and buying services to clients.

Viraj started his career with percept by starting an online advertising division in 1996 after finishing his mechanical engineering from MIT, Manipal.

He moved on in 1998 and played a key role in setting up commercial internet datacenter ventures in India with Global Telesystems and Enron.

His last assignment was with Infosys where he headed business development and led key client engagements for Infosys in the European & US markets for IT outsourcing business and was based in London and New York for the last 5 years.  He is now based in Bangalore and is passionate about bringing brand advertisers to digital media.

I think we have got an amazing mix in the panelists from the backgrounds of Venture capital to last decade entrepreneurs to Ceo’s representing TV media companies who have ventured online to traditional agencies who have launched a digital arms. Im sure this is going to be one exciting panel which will bring different viewpoints from different but really experience people on the same platform.


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About the Author

Rajiv Dingra

Rajiv is a prolific blogger who has over 1000 blog posts to his credit at WATBlog. The Founder & CEO of WATMedia our parent company and the Chief Blogger at WATBlog, he has been the driving force of the WAT Evolution. Rajiv does some excellent analysis of the digital media industry in India and often brings out deep insights with his inimitable style of interviewing. Just mail rajiv|at|watblog|dot|com and it will reach him..

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