K Vaitheeswaran is the author of the bestselling book “Failing to Succeed - the story of India’s first e-commerce company” (bit/ly/ftsaz) and is widely hailed as the “father of e-commerce in India”

He is a serial entrepreneur and an internet industry veteran who pioneered the e-commerce industry in India when he co-founded India’s first pure-play online retail company Fabmart.com (later rebranded Indiaplaza.com) in 1999.

In 2001 he co-founded Fabmall – the world’s first online to offline hyper-local, omni-channel grocery retail company. Fabmall grew to become India’s largest supermarket chain and in 2006 was acquired by the Aditya Birla Group and later re-branded as the More chain of stores. The More chain of supermarkets has been acquired by Amazon in 2018.

K Vaitheeswaran has advised global brands like Deloitte, Diageo and the Tata group in their digital initiatives. He is well known in the Indian startup scene and also advises several technology and consumer ventures. He is also a member of the review committee for the Government of India’s prestigious project GeM (Government eMarketplace).

K Vaitheeswaran is a TEDx speaker and speaks regularly on entrepreneurship, internet, e-commerce and consumer marketing related subjects at various industry forums and leading educational institutes across India. He is also a visiting faculty at IIM Ahmedabad (Managing Digital Businesses) and IIM Bangalore (Corporate Failures)

He served on the CII National Committee for Marketing for the period 2012-13 and on the e-commerce committees of FICCI (Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry), IAMAI (Internet & Mobile association of India) and the RAI (Retail association of India) and is a charter member of TiE Bangalore

K Vaitheeswaran holds an electronics engineering degree from Government College of Engineering, Tirunelveli affiliated to the Anna University. He began his career with Murugappa Electronics (1985-89), part of the Murugappa & Parry Group and then spent a decade in Wipro (1989-99) where he held various positions in sales, marketing and business planning before launching his entrepreneurial journey.

He is a voracious reader, keen sports enthusiast and was a registered umpire with KSCA for a few years. His favourite pastime is to watch Test cricket or listen to Ilayaraaja songs while sipping chilled beer. He lives in Bangalore with his wife and son and tweets @vaitheek

Sundeep has been associated with multiple start-ups and has been a part of their evolution & growth either as an early employee, as a professional CEO or as a Founder over the last 2 decades across several consumer industries - E-Commerce & Internet, Food & Grocery and Health & Wellness.

His first entrepreneurial venture was Fabmart, India’s first E-commerce company, which he co-founded in 1999. It received investments from a large industrial group and top tier VC firms. Fabmart was rated by Business Standard amongst top 20 brands launched in 1999-2000.

In 2003, he co-founded Fabmall, a chain of supermarkets in South India. It secured funding from a leading PE fund in 2004. Within a couple of years, it was rapidly scaled up to become one of the largest Grocery retailers in India with over 150 supermarkets. In 2006, the Aditya Birla group acquired the chain as part of their foray into Food retail and re-branded it as "More."

As a non-founding senior executive, he has worked as a Chief Executive Officer of two companies in the Nascent Health & Wellness industry and with a bought out retail chain in South India.

Sundeep always brings an entrepreneurial zeal, passion and energy along with a strong sense of ownership to each & every activity, role and challenge. He has a keen eye for detail, hands on operational style, a strong commitment to excellence, strong results & growth orientation, an unrelenting focus on customers and a demonstrated capability to build strong, motivated and cohesive teams.

He is a Computer Engineer with a Post Graduate degree in Management from SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai.

Author, Corporate Advisor and Speaker, Gopal is former Director of Tata Sons and Vice Chairman of Hindustan Unilever.

R. Gopalakrishnan, called Gopal, has been at the top of the corporate world in India for over three decades. Gopal’s career began in 1967 in the information technology department of Hindustan Lever. Following that he spent a total of 31 years with Unilever (in India, Saudi Arabia and UK), and 18 years at Tata Sons.

Tata group is a global enterprise from India, comprising operating companies across industries like automotive, software, steel, chemicals, and beverages. With a market cap of US$144 bn, the Group is India’s most valued and prestigious business group. Gopal was a key member of the Tata Group Executive Office.

Gopal has been appointed as Distinguished Professor of IIT, Kharagpur and Executive-in-Residence at SPJIMR, Mumbai. He is a best-selling author and newspaper columnist in India. His column on governance (The Wise Leader) is well-read in Business Standard. With a passion for experiential learning and people development, he has diverse experience in building organizations and capabilities, thus unlocking people potential. He has over thirty years of board experience and currently serves as an independent director of listed companies, Castrol India and one of the prominent Sri Lankan conglomerates, Hemas.

With India named as a priority market for many organisations, Gopal is a vital contact for business leaders keen to effectively build organisation capability and encourage new thinking.