Ajit Andhare helms Viacom18 Studios, one of India's premier full-service film studios, widely regarded for its brand of new age Indian cinema. He is a senior leader in Indian Media & Entertainment with 25 years of experience across consumer & media sectors building factories, brands, companies, TV series & films. Ajit has led Viacom18 Studios to become a force to reckon with in the Indian film ecosystem with unparalleled commercial & critical success winning 6 Best film National awards over the last 7 years.

His current role spans film development, greenlighting, production, marketing, distribution and syndication of all Viacom18 Studios films worldwide as well as marketing & distribution of all Paramount Pictures Hollywood films in the Indian Subcontinent. In addition to the film portfolio, Ajit launched Tipping Point - a young digital content brand that creates cutting-edge digital content. Under Tipping Point, Ajit has led the creation of multiple high-rated web series such as 'Jamtara - Sabka Number Aayega', 'Taj Mahal 1989' and 'She', amongst others. A result-oriented business leader, Ajit has pioneered many industry firsts ranging from bringing India's first Imax 3D Hindi blockbuster Padmaavat to making an unusual film like Andhadhun, a box office success in India & China.

As Chief Operating Officer, his vision for the studio is founded on the belief that script & budget are the Queen & Kingpin of every film. This ethos honed over 13 years of experience in content development & production in Media as well as his insights in consumer behaviour & brands with 12 years at Unilever, have yielded some of the most enduring TV franchises & iconic films.

Under his leadership, the studio broke new grounds first with the biopic 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' in 2013, 'Queen' & 'Mary Kom' in 2014, followed by 'Drishyam' & 'Maanjhi' in 2015. Female- protagonist led films like 'Queen' & 'Mary Kom' besides succeeding at box office, won prestigious National awards, making it three National awards in a row for the studio. These films set industry trend for heroine led films, biopics & a new breed of content led modern Indian cinema. With blockbusters 'Toilet- Ek Prem Katha' in 2017, 'Padmaavat' in 2018, widely feted releases like 'Andhadhun' and 'Manto' selected for 'Uncertain Regard' at Cannes, he has steered the Studio to unparalleled highs of commercial & critical success.

Ajit has created a body of work for the studio that is diverse in genres, scale & ideas ranging from socially relevant 'Toilet Ek Prem Katha' to one of its kind thrillers like 'Drishyam' & 'Andhadhun'. He is currently developing inspiring Biopics like Kalpana Chawla' & 'Mithali Raj' and a first of its kind Hollywood remake of cult classic Forrest Gump as 'Laal Singh Chaddha' with Aamir Khan.

He has successfully collaborated with India's leading creative talent & marquee directors such as Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Vishal Bharadwaj, Sriram Raghavan, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Ketan Mehta as well as new directors like Omang Kumar, Sri Narayan Singh & Robbie Garewal.

His mandate was expanded to include development of all regional films and digital series for Voot & Jio platforms under the new digital content brand Tipping point. This has resulted in landmark Marathi films like 'Kashinath Ghanekar', 'Bhai' & 'Thackrey' with Viacom18 creating a new standing in Marathi cinema in past 18 months & making forays in South Indian Cinema with 'Devdas', 'Balan Vakeel and 'Manmadhudu 2'.

Before assuming his present role, Ajit founded a television production start-up, Colosceum Media Pvt. Ltd. raising venture capital from Raghav Bahl's Capital18. He developed a primetime Game show, Wheel Smart Srimati aired on National Network as the start-up's first break. Scaling up rapidly Colosceum produced several franchise television properties such as MTV Roadies, MTV Splitsvilla (Reality), Jai Shri Krishna (Scripted) for Colors and Master Chef India (Reality) series for Star Network.

He also developed a yet to be commissioned scripted series 'God Parayee' a surrogacy-based drama set in a contemporary Royal family in Rajasthan with writer Vipul Mayank. Having built Colosceum Media into a successful multi-genre production company he sold his stake & exited the venture in 2013 to pursue his passion for Cinema taking charge of Viacom18 Studios, then known as Viacom18 Motion pictures.

Ajit's entrepreneurial journey forms part of a published book - The Start-Up Diaries featuring his story & Colosceum alongside those of Red Bus, Pay TM, One 97 & their founders. The book covers personal life journeys of these professionals-turned-first generation entrepreneurs who created enduring businesses from scratch. His entrepreneurial journey was also featured on the cover page of Outlook money in January 2011.

Before Ajit took to entrepreneurship, he was among Unilever Plc.'s distinguished marketers in India and the Asia Pacific region. Through his Unilever career, besides business accomplishments, he was known for his conviction & creativity to develop ideas into successful & award-winning marketing campaigns. He ploughed back these qualities as the founder of Colosceum and in his current role as Studio Head.

Prior to moving into marketing and general management Ajit started off in the Engineering function at Hindustan Lever and led several Engineering projects, setting up green field factories and developed innovative engineering solutions like Shift bin system for the division.

Ajit is a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) from National Institute of Technology Rourkela and holds an MBA in Marketing & Technology from the prestigious Indian School of Business-Hyderabad. He wrote & directed plays in College, pursued product design on the side developing automatic chapati maker and a beverage dispenser. A mythology & history buff, trained Tabla player and a music aficionado who loves to fiddle his piano playing unplugged Bollywood numbers from the sixties, he pens poems occasionally. He is a recreational runner with 15 half marathons & a full marathon under his belt.

From a practicing Engineer who dreamt of inventing a roti maker to a marketer, general manager, entrepreneur, show developer and now leading a film studio making path breaking films, his unusual journey makes for an interesting tale.

Anil Wanvari, is the founder, CEO and editor in chief of the Indiantelevision.com group. He has spent more than 37 years in the media industry and is considered India's foremost analyst, consultant and catalyst for the media sector.

The Indiantelevision.com group which he has set up has a mission to educate, engage, entertain and enrich the audiences it serves in the various verticals.

It achieves this through the various B2B portals the group runs: indiantelevision.com (for the cable, satellite, OTT, production, advertising, marketing, media industries), tellychakkar.com (TV show and actor news for TV fans), AnimationXpress.com (for the VFX, comics, gaming, and animation segments) and radionandmusic.com (for the FM radio, digital music and music industry).

The Indiantelevision.com group engages with the industry through the various conferences it runs: Indian Digital Operators Summit (IDOS), VidNET, News Television Summit, The Content Hub. The group executes market engagement activities for industry clients - both online and offline through road shows and events. The entertainment part comes in through the India's oldest television awards The Indian Telly Awards which Anil initiated way back in 2000. Additionally, the group also organizes The News Television Awards.

Anil has been Paris-based Reed Midem's India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh representative for some of the world's largest audiovisual content trade exhibitions - MIPTV, MIPCOM, MIPFormats, MIPDoc, MIPCancun,Midem and MIPChina. He represents the world's No 1 property market for the same markets, as well as Reed Exhibitions Asia Television Forum, Singapore.

Aditya Pittie is the Managing Director of IN10 Media, a network with diverse offerings in the media and entertainment sector. Trained in Management Leadership from London's prestigious Kings College, Aditya has successfully repositioned EPIC channel as India's only Hindi language, India- centric infotainment channel.

Envisioning the opportunity to expand and create newer offerings in the ME space, he has launched multiple content vehicles including EPIC On, DocuBay, ShowBox, Ishara, Juggernaut Productions, Platanista Games and Latestly in the recent past. A young entrepreneur with a keen eye for opportunities and a passion to cater to the dynamic entertainment ecosystem, Aditya is fast working his way towards placing the brands on the top shelf of the most-loved brands in the world.

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pittie

Twitter - @adityapittie

Chhitra Subramaniam comes with a rich & diverse creative background of over two decades as being a part of the entertainment industry. Currently she holds a Senior Vice President's position at Kross Pictures (A South Korean Production Company) overseeing the Business, Creative and Producing.

Her successful career span has seen her through leadership roles in Cinema, Television and Advertising, working with Trikaya Grey, Rediffusion, Ogilvy in advertising & in cinemas with Bhansali Productions, Percept Picture Company, Viacom18, Turner International & Wiz Films.

With over 27 feature films & hundreds of hours of television content to her credit, as a Creative Producer, Content Developer & Producer , Chhitra has also been responsible for driving a strong content-led value proposition for her collaborators and the audience at large.

Chhitra is also a philanthropist who has been recognised and won several awards for her continued work as a humanitarian.

With over two decades of experience in the Indian film industry, Nikkhil Advani started working as an Assistant Director with trendsetters such as Saeed Mirza, Kundan Shah, and Sudhir Mishra. His very first outing as a co-screenplay writer for the cult classic 'Iss Raat Ki Subah Nahin' garnered largescale appreciation, especially for its unique format in story-telling and multi-track narrative.

The understanding of large-scale production and main-stream storytelling was learnt under the tutelage of Mr. Yash Johar's Dharma Production and the iconic Yash Raj Films where Nikkhil collaborated with Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra as an Assistant Director and then subsequently made his debut as Director with the path-breaking and hugely successful 'Kal Ho Naa Ho'.

Not one to restrict himself to a single genre, Nikkhil Advani went on to direct India's first Kung Fu comedy 'Chandni Chowk to China' with Warner Bros. and received a National Award for his 'Delhi Safari', India's first 3-D Animation Feature, distributed by Disney in India and now being developed into a full-fledged franchise in Hollywood.

His Production Company, Emmay Entertainment, started in 2011 went on to produce award winning films like D-Day, Airlift, Baazaar as well re-write box office records with the hugely successful Satyameva Jayate and Batla House.

Emmay Entertainment was also one of the first production companies to embrace the advent of the digital wave when they produced POW-Bandhi Yudh Ke (based on the critically acclaimed Israeli show Hatufim) for the Star Network. The show once again was nationally acclaimed, and went on to win awards both nationally and internationally for Emmay Entertainment, its stellar star cast, as well as the show's creator, Nikkhil Advani.

Nikkhil Advani's infamous police encounter at 'Batla House' (film of the same name) that took place in New Delhi in 2008, released in 2019 and received several accolades as well as critical acliam. At present he has directed a digital show for Amazon Prime, based on the horrific 26/11 attacks, and which celebrates Mumbai's first responders. It is slated to release later this year. His company is currently in active development and production for several feature films and digital shows to be directed by him and other directors' signed/retained by them respectively.

In his spare time, Nikkhil works actively with Bittu Sahgal and Sanctuary Nature Foundation, which advocates Climate Change, Bio-Diversity and Nature Conservation.

Anuraag Srivastava is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Rainshine Entertainment, a leading global entertainment company that houses multiple content studios that include CM Studios, Kinsane Entertainment, Lightstream, Raijin Studios, Rainbox Studios, All Things Small, First Action, Five Fifty Five, Manzar Studios and Weirdass Comedy. He is responsible for Business Development and Content Delivery for the company. He is also the Chief Executive Officer at CM Studios & Lightstream.

A media-focused partner at Zodius Capital Advisors, Anuraag has led investments in Only Much Louder (OML) and Culture Machine, which has been strategically restructured into CM Studios and Lightstream. He is the Founder of Juno Clinic and Agate Services Pvt. Ltd. and has held senior executive roles at organizations such as WNS, Inventurus Knowledge Solutions, and P&G. Anuraag is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and a graduate of the Birla Institute of Technology.

Abhimanyu Singh has contributed to the Indian Television and Entertainment Industry with his innate skills in storytelling and film-making using the best of the technologies creating a larger than life canvas.

He began his television production journey 20 years back in the mid 90's. Since then Abhimanyu has produced over 100 shows and 3 feature films under his banner Contiloe.

Being called as the pioneer in producing Historical & Mythological shows, Abhimanyu has successfully produced various genres that cover historical, mythological, crime, horror, thriller, events, formats, comedies, animation and mini-series, featuring nearly 7000+ hours of content.

With awards like Dadasaheb Phalke Film Foundation Award, and many more. He has also bagged the 64th National Film Award for the Best Animation Film "Mahayoddha Rama".

Anuraag Srivastava is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Rainshine Entertainment, a leading global entertainment company that houses multiple content studios that include CM Studios, Kinsane Entertainment, Lightstream, Raijin Studios, Rainbox Studios, All Things Small, First Action, Five Fifty Five, Manzar Studios and Weirdass Comedy. He is responsible for Business Development and Content Delivery for the company. He is also the Chief Executive Officer at CM Studios & Lightstream.

A media-focused partner at Zodius Capital Advisors, Anuraag has led investments in Only Much Louder (OML) and Culture Machine, which has been strategically restructured into CM Studios and Lightstream. He is the Founder of Juno Clinic and Agate Services Pvt. Ltd. and has held senior executive roles at organizations such as WNS, Inventurus Knowledge Solutions, and P&G. Anuraag is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and a graduate of the Birla Institute of Technology.

Aradhana Bhola is currently Managing Director, Fremantle India Television Productions Pvt. Ltd. In her current role she overlooks all the content produced out of Fremantle, India. Working alongside an extremely talented team, Aradhana has worked on producing inspiring and award- winning shows like India's Got Talent (Colors), Indian Idol (Sony), TED Talks India (Star Plus), Covershot (National Geographic Channel), Amra Na Ora (Star Jalsha) and digital shows like Hear Me Love Me (Amazon Prime India) and Confetti (Facebook) amongst others.

Aradhana started her professional journey in the city of dreams, Mumbai, with the written word in the spring of 1998 for publications such as the Times of India, Femina and Elle. In 2000, she graduated to the powerful world of audio-visuals by reporting and anchoring for news from the world of entertainment for NDTV. After walking the thin line between celebrity quotes and quota of confessions, she spread her wings into the world of non-fiction. This incredible flight has saw her collaborating with key general entertainment channels such as Star Plus, Sony Entertainment Television, Colors TV, Zee TV, Sahara One, as well as niche channels like Zoom, Nickelodeon, Filmy, Zee Cinema and Star One.

Aradhana has had the opportunity of seeing both sides of the coin: the broadcaster's perspective through her stint as VP Programming at Star Plus and Head of Programming at Zoom; and has experienced the production side as Creative Director at Optimystix and Fremantle India which helps her immensely in understanding perspectives from both ends. As an Army officer's daughter, Aradhana has lived in many places across the country while growing up. She has enjoyed discovering new places, people, local culture & cuisine and in many ways, this very curiosity and exposure, has paved the way for her career in the media. Aradhana has schooled at some of the best schools in India graduating in Literature in English from Miranda House, Delhi University followed by a diploma in Mass Communication at Xavier Institute of Communication, Mumbai.

A believer in creativity being a way of life, Aradhana continues to enjoy discovering, crafting & sharing stories with a healthy dose of irresistible entertainment!

Rohit Jain is Managing Director for Lionsgate South Asia and Networks-Emerging Markets Asia.

Rohit started Lionsgate's office in the region in 2017 as the founding member and has since set up a high performing team.

In his role, Rohit has spearheaded setting up Network business for Lionsgate by launching its OTT service Lionsgate Play across multiple markets in South Asia and South East Asia markets. He has forged several strategic partnerships for the platform including all major Telco's in India and Indonesia, major Broadband players in various markets, OEM's, Airlines and global OTT aggregators etc.

Rohit has also been instrumental in establishing a robust Licensing and Syndication business for Lionsgate in South Asia creating a multi-million dollar business. He has also established Theatrical Distribution business for Lionsgate, distribution several movies each year including blockbusters like Robinhood, Anna and Oscar nominated movies Knives Out and Bombshell.

In his role, he has established Production business for Lionsgate and leads the team in developing local films, television, and digital production business for Lionsgate in India with multiple Indian original shows and movies under production.

Prior to joining Lionsgate, Rohit was the Deputy CEO of Videocon d2h, a media company that he helped grow from a start-up to over a billion dollar in annual revenues and personally led major corporate milestones including Videocon's successful listing on NASDAQ in 2015 and the merger with Dish TV in 2016, the largest so far in media industry. During his tenure, the merged entity, scaled from a start up in early 2010 to become Top 3 media companies in India on revenues and profitability. During his tenure he raised more than $1B in equity and debt.

Preceding to his tenure at Videocon, Rohit worked at Aon, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte. In total Rohit has 25+ years of professional experience. He has worked with organisations / partners across various continents with different ownership structures, understanding cultural and ownership sensitivities. He is a regular speaker at industry bodies and forums and is a Commerce graduate and All India rank holder Chartered Accountant by education background.

With an experience of three decades spanning across media and entertainment, industry veteran Sameer Nair has held prominent positions at leading media organisations. His experience, stellar achievements and his creative flair showcase his innate ability to balance Art with Commerce, to lead and motivate Creative & Revenue teams with equal dexterity.

In 2017, Sameer took over Applause Entertainment - a Content & IP Creation Studio - a venture of Aditya Birla Group, India's leading multinational conglomerate as its Chief Executive Officer. With Applause Entertainment, Sameer aims to build a new ecosystem for premium content creation & monetization bringing together talent, producers and platforms.

After a stint with Yellow Pages in Mumbai, Sameer entered the nascent television industry in the early 90s with Star Network, where he started as programming head and through his journey of 12 years went on to become the CEO of the network. In 2007, Sameer turned entrepreneur with the popular general entertainment channel, NDTV Imagine Ltd. and later, he successfully concluded the sale of NDTV Imagine to the Turner Group and went on to become the CEO of Turner General Entertainment Networks. Further to this, Sameer took over one of the prime production houses of India, Balaji Telefilms Ltd. as its Group CEO devising an expansive strategy for the company's foray into digital with ALT Balaji.

With his innate ability to present the perfect amalgamation of quality and creativity with commerce, over the past 3 years, Applause has developed a vast range of premium drama series including Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story, Hostages, Hasmukh, Avrodh, Undekhi, Your Honour, among others, currently streaming on India's leading platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+Hotstar, MX Player and SonyLiv. Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story effectively transfigured the concept of storytelling in India, by staging new talents that were phenomenally appraised globally. The show blazed a novella trail by putting Sony LIV on the Indian OTT map being the highest rated web series in the country breaking records and setting unprecedented benchmarks. Sameer has led the studio to create prolific content, associate with leading talent from the industry to essay strong characters, partner with prominent global content studios, with plans to explore newer content formats including films, animation, audio and short form.

Karan Bedi brings over a decade of rich experience across the media, technology and education industries. An alumnus of the prestigious Stanford University, it was there that Karan discovered his passion for entrepreneurial ventures at the intersection of media and technology, especially focused on mobile. Karan comes from a family background in the media industry.

Karan co-founded and was CEO of ContentFlow Technologies, a company focused on creating innovative and engaging content experiences in infotainment and education. The success of ContentFlow led to the development of Tutorific, a cutting-edge adaptive learning system.

Post his stint at ContentFlow, Karan helped set up and was COO of Eros Now, one of India's first and largest OTT platforms focused on Bollywood for the world.

In his current role as the CEO of MX Player, Karan uses his experience to build content and technology to take the OTT platform to the next level. He is responsible for setting strategy and leading teams across all functions including content, tech, product development, sales, marketing and other business verticals. MX has always been at the forefront of innovation in the digital content space and has extended this to the short video category with MX TakaTak. Under Karan's able leadership - the young brand has emerged as the market leader in this product category, catering to over 150Mn Monthly Active Users.

As a leader in the media technology space, Karan believes in creating original content experiences that are engaging, entertaining and socially relevant to an aspirational Indian audience.

Misra is the President - Content and International Markets at Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL). As the President, Punit oversees content for both the TV network of Zee as well as its digital offering Zee5, both domestically and globally. He also manages ZEEL's international business spanning 190 countries.

Punit joined ZEEL 4.5 years ago as the CEO of its domestic broadcast business. Under his leadership, ZEEL became India's fastest growing entertainment broadcast network in terms of viewership as well as revenue.

Prior to joining ZEEL, Punit spent 20 years at Hindustan Unilever Limited, where in his last role he was part of the Management Committee of HUL, as the Executive Director incharge of Sales and Customer Development for the company, and a member of the global Sales Leadership team of Unilever. As Punit often remarks - his journey has taken him from selling one kind of soap to another!

Punit also serves as the Chair of FICCI Broadcast Forum and Co-Chair of the CII Broadcast Committee. He is also on the Board of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the industry body for broadcasters.

Mr. Shariq Patel, Chief Business Officer - ZeePlex and Zee Studios spearheads the Movies business of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. and is responsible for various aspects of the value chain viz. movie purchase/production as well as monetization, across all markets (Domestic & International).

Following his MBA from NMIMS, in a career of almost 25 years, Shariq has worked across industries across diverse sectors including Financial Services, Radio, Internet, Telecom, Sports Management and Film Production. As a leader in multiple management teams, Shariq has brought core business tenets and processes in multiple large organisations.

Shibasish is Media & Entertainment Industry professional with over 25 years of corporate experience in handling multiple verticals across gaming, films, television, animation, digital content & new media platforms. He has been a part of the leadership team with the Reliance ADA group and has demonstrated organizational capabilities in establishing and scaling business operations, driving sustainable growth by forming key alliances, managing stakeholders, talent partners & cross functional teams. He is adept at liaising with industry bodies & government authorities and if often called upon to speak at industry related forums.

Shibasish is a Chartered Accountant, Cost Accountant, Company Secretary and MBA with specialization in marketing. His past employment includes managerial positions at Viacom 18, UTV Disney & Godrej Sara Lee.

Besides serving in the capacity of Director & Member of the Board within various Reliance ADA group companies, Shibasish leads the M & E businesses as it's Group CEO - Content, New Media & Gaming.

He has ever growing following on twitter where he posts his views on the entertainment business @Shibasishsarkar

A well known name in the Indian Media & entertainment Industry, Raj Nayak is visionary leader, media maverick, growth spinner, trendsetter and a motivational powerhouse.

In his illustrious career spanning over three decades, he has led some of the largest media conglomerates in the country. Raj was a founding member of the Star India team in 1993, where he spent almost 10 years to grow into the role of Executive Vice President & part of the Managing Committee. He then moved on to launch the NDTV News Network redefining how news was consumed in the country.

Before setting up House of Cheer, he was the Chief Operating Officer - Viacom 18 Media Pvt Ltd, where he steered the company to great heights. His unique prowess to pioneer new concepts and mentor people, make him one of the most respected professionals in the industry. An advocate of happyness, Raj derives his energy from people across all walks of life and believes in the strength of diversity.