Mr. Anand Kripalu has over 30 years of experience in the fastmoving consumer goods (FMCG) industry. Prior to joining Essel Propack Limited (EPL), he spent seven years as the MD and CEO of Diageo India, India’s leading beverage alcohol company with $6.4 billion market cap, where he led the transformation of the company. He was also a member of Diageo’s Global Executive Committee.
Before joining Diageo, Mr. Kripalu spent almost eight years with Mondelez International (earlier, Cadbury) as the president of the India and Southeast Asia business. He was responsible for accelerating Cadbury India’s performance to deliver 25 percent y-oy growth in revenue and profit over eight years. Before that, he spent 22 years at Unilever in various general management and sales and marketing roles.
Mr. Kripalu has a Bachelor of Technology in Electronics from IIT, Madras. He also holds an MBA from IIM, Calcutta. He has received the distinguished alumnus award from both IIT Madras and IIM Calcutta. He has also completed the Advanced Management Program from Wharton Business School.

At 47 years old, Mr. Vivek is an engineering graduate with a Master’s in business management from IIM, Ahmedabad.

Mr. Vivek is a unique executive with homegrown India and global commercial and leadership experience. He brings solid and broad experience from commercial and leadership roles in MNCs and new-age start-ups, both in international markets and India, which feeds his deep knowledge of go-to-market channels and understanding of operating complex businesses in traditional and digital environments.

Mr. Vivek spent over two decades in leadership and commercial roles at P&G, working across various categories, from everyday consumption to premium categories. His last position with P&G was as Managing Director of Australia and New Zealand. He joins UBL from India’s fastest-growing unicorn, Udaan.com. As Chief Business Officer, he helped build India’s most significant and disruptive e-B2B business.

Along with the UBL leadership team, Mr. Vivek will be responsible for driving sustainable growth for the company. He will lead the premiumization of UBL’s portfolio, including strengthening the iconicity of Kingfisher.

Mr. Kersten joined Heineken in 2007 and has 17-plus years of experience. Currently, he is Finance Director - Ethiopia. Previously he was Regional Business Control Manager for the American Region. He held various roles in HEINEKEN Netherlands before joining the American Region.

In 2007, he completed his MSC in Economics and Management Control from the University of Amsterdam. He has also completed his Executive Master of Finance & Control from Nyenrode Business University.

Mr. Jan Cornelis van der Linden, is an MBA in Business Administration from Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands. He has completed various Management Development Programs from Harvard Business School, Wharton – University of Pennsylvania, INSEAD Business School and University of Michigan. He joined Heineken in 1999 as Management Trainee, and since then has worked in increasingly senior international management positions in Sales, Marketing and General Management. From 1999-2008 he worked in Africa, Ireland and was part of the Management Team at Group Commerce, Heineken International, in the capacity of Global Brand Director Amstel. In 2008 he became Executive Board Member of Nigerian Breweries Plc. and joined the Management Team at Heineken UK in 2012. In 2015 he was appointed as Managing Director of Heineken China and in August 2019 he was appointed as Managing Director of Heineken Vietnam. Currently, Mr. van der Linden is President Asia Pacific, Heineken.

Mr. Radovan Sikorsky joined HEINEKEN UK as Finance Director in September 2016. Prior to this, he was Senior Director Regional Finance Americas from 2013, leading the regional Finance function in a period of quick-fire business expansion and transformation. Mr. Sikorsky has also held the role of Finance Director in Slovakian, Hungarian, and Polish HEINEKEN Companies. Before joining HEINEKEN, Mr. Sikorsky worked for over three years with KPMG as Senior Audit Manager. Mr. Sikorsky is a B.Compt (Honours), University of South Africa – (UNISA); South African Institute of Chartered Accountant.

Mr. Sikorsky was Director & Chief Financial Officer of United Breweries Limited since August 15, 2022, and elevated to his current position as ‘Regional Chief Financial Officer’ for Asia effective July 01, 2024.

Ms. Yolanda joined Heineken in 2017 as Senior Vice President Human Resources Americas Region. Prior to Heineken, Ms. Yolanda was Senior Vice President Human Resources – Latam Region, Canada & Hub (Miami) at SAB Miller. Ms. Yolanda has more than 20 years’ experience working in senior HR roles with global business. Since, 2021, she is Chief People Officer of Heineken.

Mr. Manu is a Chartered Accountant and has completed Advanced Management Program from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, USA.

Manu brings the experience of over three decades, out of which he has been in the general manager roles for the last 20 years with a track record of building diverse teams, driving growth, managing multi-billion-dollar P&Ls, and leading change and transformation.

In his role with Mondelez International before his retirement, he managed the Chocolate business (approx. $2 billion) operations across the Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa, covering a range of developed and developing markets. The role required managing the levers of P&L, driving top and bottom line and market share growth through a combination of region-wide and market-specific initiatives on the brands and innovation. In addition, he ran a consolidated supply chain with a complex manufacturing site network and worked closely with sales teams in markets to deliver sustained business performance.

Manu was earlier leading the India business for Mondelez International and as Managing Director for Cadbury India Limited was responsible for all business functions; the role required a high degree of general management skills to steer the categories and functions appropriately to drive continued growth and build competent teams.

Mondelez International started transforming to a category run model from the end of 2014, and he led significant change management initiatives to transition the organization to the new model seamlessly.

At PepsiCo India, Manu spent 19 years in various roles and is credited with building its food business virtually from scratch.

In his last role at PepsiCo as the Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo India Manu was responsible for PepsiCo’s beverage and foods business (including JVs) in India and South Asia, reporting to the President of AMEA. PepsiCo India was a scale operation with over 6000 direct employees, over 50 manufacturing sites, and availability in over 2 million retail outlets with high growth driven by scale brands.

Preceding this, Manu was based in Bangkok as the President of South East Asia. He was responsible for the Beverage and Food businesses in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos. The Business Unit was a complex portfolio of different business models in the various stages of development across the markets. It included Company-owned businesses, Joint Ventures, and Franchise business models through bottlers. The job helped develop a strong ability to collaborate and work effectively with local partners while learning to work effectively in a multi-cultural environmental. As a result. Manu successfully built sustainability and profitable growth models in these competitive, high potential markets with healthy growth in top and bottom lines.

Currently Mr. Manu is the Senior Advisor with Advent and Director on Manjushree Technopack and DFM Foods boards. He has also been a member of CII and has experience as Chairman of PepsiCo India and Director on board of Mondelez India.

Ms. Geetu Verma is a global business leader with close to 35 years’ experience in the FMCG sector with Procter & Gamble, Pernod Ricard, PepsiCo and Unilever. Her experience pans launching breakthrough innovations, leading businesses of scale, turnaround assignments in developed and emerging markets – Asia, Europe.

Ms. Verma is now a global management consultant, helping businesses with innovation, marketing strategy & new business models to create sustainable growth. She partners OxfordSM, a BCorp and a global strategic and marketing consultancy headquartered in the UK. She is also a strategy advisor to companies in the nutrition and social impact space both in Netherlands and India.

She is credited with having turned around HUL India’s Foods & Refreshment (F&R) business, has led the turnaround/creation of iconic brands for the Indian market – Kissan, Brooke Bond Red Label, Kwality Walls, Kurkure, Royal Stag and led strategic business acquisitions in India and Europe.

Ms. Verma has been recognized as among the most powerful women in Indian business by Business Today and ranked among the top 10 most influential marketers, several years in a row. She is an immensely respected FMCG industry voice, an ardent advocate on authentic leadership and a strong proponent of an inclusive culture that helps diversity thrive.

Mr. Subramaniam was the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Titan Company Limited for over a decade till his superannuation in June 2021. During the stint with Titan, he was also on the Board of its subsidiaries Caratlane Trading Private Limited and Titan Engineering and Automation Limited and the Joint Venture, Montblanc India Private Limited. He is currently Independent Director on the boards of Teamlease Services Ltd, API Holdings Ltd (Pharmeasy), Honasa Consumer Limited (Mamaearth), Avanti Finance Pvt Ltd and Landmark Retail FZE (Dubai).

Before joining Titan, he was in the Telecom industry for over 11 years including stints of CFO for BPL Mobile Group and Chief Executive Officer for BPL Mobile operations in Mumbai. As CFO of the telecom verticals in Essar Group he worked extensively in setting up its foray into greenfield telecom operations in Africa. He started his career with ITC Limited in India and then had a stint with Mannai Corporation, Doha.

Mr. Subramaniam is a Chartered Accountant and Cost Accountant by qualification with over 35 years of post-qualification experience in Finance, Strategy and Business roles.

Dr. Ranjan Pai is an educationist, entrepreneur, institution builder and investor. He is the founder and chairman of the Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG). He set up MEMG in the year 2000 which is the holding entity for businesses spread across health care, education, health insurance, research and private investments. In the last two decades, his work across education and health care has broken new ground and redefined these sectors.

Dr. Pai is deeply passionate about education and its ability to transform lives. He serves as Chairman of the education trusts of not for profit preeminent educational institutes that have shaped and moulded human capital for India. These include, Manipal Academy of Higher Education – MAHE (Manipal & Bangalore, Karnataka) – A Top 10 ranked multi-disciplinary university and an Institute of Eminence decreed by Ministry of Education, Government of India, Manipal University Jaipur (Rajasthan), Manipal TATA Medical College (Jamshedpur, Jharkhand) and Sikkim Manipal University (Sikkim). His singular focus on providing quality education led him to build Manipal as a trusted education brand in international markets too. Today, Manipal’s education initiative has presence across Malaysia (Melaka Manipal Medical College), UAE (MAHE, Dubai) and in Americas through American University of Antigua.

To provide impetus to the outcome-based model of professional education for employability and skill enhancement, he set up Manipal Global Education in early 2000 with a focus on training banking and financial services professionals for the largest private and leading public sector banks, insurance companies and NBFCs. Manipal Global also pioneered the distance education model in partnership with Sikkim Manipal university to make education affordable to masses. These ventures have impacted lives of 1 Mn+ students and learners. His prescient ability to spot trends in the education space, led him to set up UNext Learning in 2020 – a next gen online learning platform focussed on the higher education ecosystem. This online play has already established itself as a leading ed-tech player in online degrees, emerging tech courses and digital assessments.

Dr. Ranjan Pai has transformed the private health care delivery and services in India through Manipal Health Enterprises(MHE) which runs Manipal Hospitals. As board chair for MHE, he provides strategic leadership and direction to the team. MHE is the largest hospital chain in India with 10500+ beds and serving more than 2.5 Mn patients. His vision of providing affordable health care led him to complete the health services play by partnering with Cigna of USA (#15 on Fortune 500)to form Manipal-Cigna Health Insurance – a leading standalone health insurance company.

Dr. Pai firmly believes in the power of entrepreneurship to spur innovation, alleviate people lives and transform society. He is a prolific investor and mentor to start ups with his deep experience in building large enterprises and institutions. Through his family offices, MEMG Family Office & Claypond Capital, he is leading and making marquee investments in some of the leading start-up success stories in India, primarily across consumer, fintech, ed tech and healthcare sectors. He also holds an enviable distinction of partnering with number of global PE and sovereign funds to scale up the group’s businesses and providing positive returns and handsome exits to all the investors.

Dr. Ranjan Pai is a medical graduate from Kasturba Medical College, Manipal and has completed his fellowship in hospital administration in the United States.