Exploring Minds

About Guest: Jalaj Dani is the Chairman of the Board of Governors, IIM Trichy, and Co-Promoter of Asian Paints. He is also the Chairman of Addverb Technologies, India’s largest robotics company, and Fourth Frontier Technologies, a pioneer in smart heart monitoring. He is actively involved in policy-making, he contributes to government, industry, and philanthropic initiatives, driving innovation, e...

About Guest: Lalit Agarwal is an Indian retail entrepreneur, the Founder & CMD of V-Mart Retail, which he founded in 2002. With V-Mart he pioneered the concept of value fashion retailing in Tier II, III and IV towns in India. Under his stewardship, V-Mart's footprint has grown to 275 plus stores across 19 states, delivering affordable fashion to more than 35 million customers annually. As a le...

About Guest - Mayank Kumar is Co-founder and Managing Director of upGrad, India’s largest online higher education company. He has spent most of his professional career in the education sector, where he has been involved in deals resulting in over a billion dollars flowing into the sector. He has served as Vice President for Education at Bertelsmann, Senior Principal at The Parthenon Group, and as...

About Guest Mohandas Pai is a Padma Shri Awardee and former CFO and Board Member at Infosys. He is also the co-founder of Akshaya Patra, the world's largest school meal program for students, and works actively with government and regulators on policy recommendations and guidelines. Mohan has served on the Boards of SEBI, the National Stock Exchange, the Manipal Group, and many other institutions....

About Guest - Abhishek Goyal is a highly accomplished individual with a strong background in technology and entrepreneurship. He is the co-founder of Tracxn, a leading data intelligence platform that tracks innovative startups and private companies globally. Abhishek is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and has also worked at esteemed organizations like Accel Partners and Amazon. With deep expertise in ven...

About Guest - Kishore Biyani is the founder and Group CEO of Future Group. Widely credited as the pioneer of the modern retail industry in India, Kishore Biyani is a mentor and role model for many Indian entrepreneurs and a thought leader in Indian business. Over the past two decades, he has created and led some of India's most popular retail chains like Big Bazaar, Central, Brand Factory, Foodhal...

About Guest Saurabh Mukherjea is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Marcellus Investment Managers. Saurabh was educated at the London School of Economics where he earned a BSc in Economics (with First Class Honours) and an MSc in Economics (with distinction in Macro & Microeconomics). In London, Saurabh was the co-founder of Clear Capital. Prior to setting up Marcellus, Saurabh was th...

#foreignaffairs About Guest: Shiv Shankar Menon is a seasoned diplomat, former National Security Advisor of India to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He has been foreign secretary steering foreign policy during a transformative period and has held various ambassadorial positions, including in China, Israel, and Pakistan. In this insightful conversation we've discussed the complexities of interna...

About Guest: Ankit Mehta is the Co-Founder and CEO of IdeaForge Technology, a trailblazer in the Indian drone industry. Starting as a college project with three friends at IIT Bombay, through multiple failures and experiments, IdeaForge grew into a major player in the drone industry. The company’s IPO debut nearly doubled its investors' wealth, listing at an impressive 94% premium over the issue p...

About Guest - Raamdeo Agrawal is the Chairman and Co-founder of Motilal Oswal Financial Services, a prominent financial services firm established in 1987, specialising in Indian equity capital markets and research. Raamdeo Agrawal and his business Partner Mr Motilal Oswal, spread their businesses in Retail Broking and Distribution, Institutional Equities, Asset Management Company, Private Wealth,...

About Guest: Mr Mukul Agrawal, founder and chairman of Param Capital and Founder and Trustee at Plaksha University, is a successful capital market investor with over three decades of experience and has in-depth knowledge of the economy and politics and advises leading companies from time to time. He is also associated with reputed social institutions in healthcare and education. In this episode Mr...

About Guest: Hemant Jalan, Co-Founder of Indigo Paints, starting at a bankrupt venture after a decade in business, Hemant Jalan decided to start fresh in his 40s, driven by his unshakeable entrepreneurial spirit. He has a unique journey marked by innovation, resilience, and success. From his early days at IIT Kanpur, studying Chemical Engineering sharing college memories, to Stanford and life in U...

About Guest: Anand Jain is the Co-founder of CleverTap, a mobile marketing platform that's transforming the way brands engage with their customers and run advertising campaigns. With a background in technology and a relentless passion for innovation, Anand’s journey is a testament to the power of perseverance and vision. In this podcast, Anand dives deep into his journey through the life of an ent...

About Guest - Dr Velumani PhD, born in 1959 was an Entrepreneur who disrupted the Indian Diagnostic Industry in terms of Quality, Cost, Speed, Reach, Systems and Scale. Having walked a majestic journey from a small “ village” to the National Stock Exchange, his unique journey has given him unique life experiences. He is now a mass mentor for aspiring entrepreneurs and he is passionate about energi...

Mr. Nitin Jain, an IIT Delhi alumnus and silver medalist, shares his riveting journey as the co-founder and CBO of OfBusiness, a B2B commerce and fintech unicorn startup in India. He reflects on his college days at IIT Delhi, his seven-year stint at the Royal Bank of Scotland, and then moving on to co-found OfBusiness in 2015. Nitin discusses the unique challenges and triumphs in building the comp...

About Guest: Aanand Srinivas, former learning head of Khan Academy, Founder of StayQrious, a platform revolutionizing the way students engage with learning. With a passion for transforming education through technology and innovative approaches, Aanand shares his entrepreneurial journey, and challenges he faced building a successful ed-tech company. In this introspective video, Mr. Aanand recounts...

#investing #trading About Guest: Prashant Desai, Senior Director at Everstone Capital, as he takes us through his remarkable lessons from business failures, insights on leadership, and personal growth. Prashant has played a pivotal role in scaling Everstone, a venture capital and private equity firm that excels in real estate, and climate impact. Join us in an inspiring conversation with a visiona...

About the Guest: Sarvesh Agrawal is the founder and CEO of Internshala, a platform revolutionising how students find internships and skill-building opportunities. With a dual degree in Civil Engineering and Infrastructure from IIT Madras, Sarvesh started his career from running a family store to building one of India’s most recognized internship platform. In this insightful podcast, he dives deep...

About Guest: Dr. Edward Rogers, a pioneer in the field of knowledge management and organizational learning, shares his unique journey from his early days in India and Saudi Arabia to his missionary work in the Lebanon and Israel war in 1980s to his influential role at NASA and beyond. During his 17-year tenure as Chief Knowledge Officer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, he pioneered groundbre...

In this episode of the Exploring Minds Podcast, we have the pleasure of speaking with Akash Bansal, one of the co-founders of Orangewood Labs, a Y-combinator-backed robotics startup that has become a rising star in India's robotic startup landscape. Bansal's unique journey and insights make for a fascinating discussion that is both informative and engaging. Bansal's personal journey an...

About the Guest: Rajesh is currently the founder and CEO of GSF Accelerator, which made investments in over 110 companies with a combined valuation of more than 2 Billion Dollars. Rajesh completed his MBA from Mumbai University. He went to London School of Economics for a fellowship program in globalization. He served as the founding president in Reliance Entertainment where he led the rollout of...