BS BFSI Summit: From Ananth Narayan G to Sameer Nigam, here're key speakers

Ananth Narayan G, Dinesh Kumar Khara, Sameer Nigam, and Christopher Wood: Meet the key speakers of BS BFSI Summit 2023

Business Standard BFSI Summit: The two-day summit will be held in Mumbai’s Jio World Centre, Bandra-Kurla Complex, on October 30 and 31

SPEAKER PROFILES

Ananth Narayan G
Wholetime Member, Sebi

Ananth Narayan Gopalakrishnan is a wholetime member of markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). He has over two and half decades of experience in banking and financial markets, a period during which he has served as a director on the boards of banks like Deutsche Bank, Citibank, Standard Chartered and several other corporate entities.

At Sebi, Narayan handles several departments like Market Intermediaries Regulation and Supervision Department (MIRSD), Alternative Investment Fund and Foreign Portfolio Investors Department (AFD), Department of Economic & Policy Analysis (DEPA), Integrated Surveillance Department (ISD), and Information Technology Department (ITD).

 

Before assuming charge at Sebi last year, Narayan had held the position of associate professor at SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai, for nearly five years. He also served as a member of various advisory committees constituted by Sebi and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Narayan has been an active member of the financial market since 1993, when he completed his postgraduate diploma in management from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. Earlier, he did his graduation in technology (Electrical Engineering) from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

At the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit 2023, Narayan will deliver an address on ‘Regulation and Capital Formation — Recent Experiences’.

Dinesh Kumar Khara 

Chairman, SBI

A banker with close to four decades of rich experience, Dinesh Kumar Khara has been heading State Bank of India (SBI), the country's largest bank, since October 2020 as its chairman. Having come on board to lead the bank amid the Covid-19 pandemic’s first wave, he has maintained a razor-sharp focus on keeping operations up and running in trying times and ensuring a healthy credit and financial profile for the lender.

Khara joined SBI as a probationary officer in 1984. Before becoming chairman, he was the bank’s managing director (global banking & subsidiaries). In that role, he steered international banking group, corporate and treasury operations of the bank.

As MD (Associates & Subsidiaries), Khara accomplished SBI’s merger with its five associate banks and Bharatiya Mahila Bank. Additionally, he was also in charge of risk, information technology and compliance functions at the bank. Before being appointed managing director of SBI, he was MD & CEO of SBI Funds Management (SBI Mutual Fund).

Khara did his MBA from New Delhi’s Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) and holds a postgraduation degree in commerce from Delhi School of Economics. He is also a Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers.

Sameer Nigam
Founder & CEO, PhonePe  

Sameer Nigam is the CEO of PhonePe, which he founded in 2015. Earlier, he served as senior vice-president (engineering) and vice-president (marketing) at Flipkart, where his journey started in 2011 with Flipkart’s  acquisition of his earlier startup, Mime360, a digital media distribution platform.

Nigam has also served as director of product management at Shopzilla Inc, where he built the company's proprietary shopping search engine. In 2009, he won the Wharton Venture Award from the prestigious Wharton Business School. He holds an MBA from Wharton Business School (University of Pennsylvania), USA, and a masters degree in computer science from University of Arizona, Tucson, USA.

Under Nigam’s leadership, PhonePe now has over 490 million registered users, which means one in every three Indians is on this platform. As of March 2023, the company's UPI total payments value (TPV) market share was 50.54 per cent. PhonePe recorded a consolidated revenue of Rs 2,914 crore in FY23, with 77 per cent year-on-year growth. The Walmart-owned fintech firm saw this surge due to its market expansion strategies and leadership in digital payments. Significant contributors to revenue include money transfers, mobile recharges, and bill payments.

In FY23, Nigam led the company to three critical milestones that laid the groundwork for its future growth — a full spinoff from the Flipkart group, relocation of domicile to India from Singapore, and securing an equity fundraise of Rs 7,021 crore from General Atlantic, Walmart, Ribbit Capital, TVS Capital Funds, and Tiger Global, valuing PhonePe at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion.

Christopher Wood
Global head of equity strategy, Jefferies   

Global head of equity strategy at Jefferies, Christopher Wood has been ranked number one equity strategist in the Asia Money polls for 2002-2004 and 2006-2022. In 2005, the firm he was working with at the time, withdrew from the poll. Wood has been publishing his renowned weekly investment report GREED & fear since July 1996.
 

Before entering the investment business, Wood was a financial journalist and worked for Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review from 1982 to 1984, and The Economist as its bureau chief for both New York and Tokyo from 1984 to 1994.
 

While at The Economist, Wood also authored three acclaimed books – Boom and Bust: The Rise and Fall of the World's Financial Markets (1989), The Bubble Economy: Japan's Extraordinary Speculative Boom of the '80s and the Dramatic Bust of the '90s (1992), and The End of Japan Inc: And How the New Japan Will Look (1994).