Group Editorial Director (Broadcast & New Media), India Today

Kalli Purie is the Vice Chairperson of the India Today Group, a news media conglomerate renowned for its journalistic excellence for over 49 years. Kalli is known to have revolutionised the media landscape by seamlessly integrating digital and broadcast newsrooms, redefining conventional workflows, with cutting-edge technology. Under Kalli's leadership, Aaj Tak became the World's Most Subscribed News Channel on YouTube and the First News Channel to receive a Custom Play Button. She also spearheaded the launch of the Digital First Original Content Tak ecosystem, a network of 29 digital mobile channels catering to interest based and regional cohorts. India Today Group introduced Sana, the world's first AI news anchor, that crowns a futuristic newsroom architecture, leveraging multimedia and multi-device storytelling to enhance audience engagement. She has also been at the forefront of fact checking initiatives and at adopting artificial intelligence (AI) to make news delivery and storytelling more compelling and efficient. The India Today Group has leveraged AI to translate marquee content into multiple languages, to scale impact, and to widen reach. An in-house AI-assistant, advanced translations, generative templates and ai driven seo optimisation are now routine at the group. With a focus on innovation and efficiency, Kalli Purie has ensured that the India Today Group remains at the helm as the future shaping news source.

Managing Director

Chief Executive Officer, HT Digital

Built and lead India's largest online payments merchant network at Paytm processing millions of transactions worth billions of dollars across various product lines including Paytm wallet, Payment Gateway and UPI. Led all aspects of business building from Enterprise Sales and Business Development, Product Delivery, SME Engagement, Product and Tech Roadmap culminating to complete P&L responsibility of this business. I bring with me an unique combination of building large businesses from scratch as well as advising large corporations in their journey to scale. I am extremely focused on the execution and firmly believes that its the implementation that makes any good idea a great success. I have a total work experience of 11+ years across industry and management consulting. At consulting, I have worked across industries such as Healthcare, Auto and BFSI with some of the largest organizations in India. Key Skills - Enterprise Sales, SME Engagement, Go to Market, Product Management, Strategy design and its execution, Growth marketing, Channel partner development, Sales force effectiveness, Operational Excellence, Program Management

Chief Operating Officer, Times Internet

Puneet Gupt is the COO of Times Internet, the digital arm of the Times of India Group and India's largest digital network. Times Internet runs multiple category leading businesses across general, business and Indian-language news, fintech, ad-tech and sports, including India's #1 English news destination, The Times of India. These businesses monetise through advertising, reader payments, subscriptions and transactions. A strong believer in leveraging AI for the growth of the industry, Puneet is actively deploying it across use cases in revenue, content, productivity and profitability at Times Internet. As the Co-Chair of the DNPA AI Committee, he is also contributing to AI readiness across DNPA members. His other industry enabling roles include being a member of the India Digital Advisory Committee of WAN-IFRA and a member of the marketing sub-committee at IAMAI. His personal mantra is Focus, Simplification, Prioritisation. Puneet is a B. Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and studied management from IIM Calcutta.

Executive Director, The Indian Express Pvt Ltd

Anant Goenka is the Executive Director of The Indian Express Group. His mission is to grow the reach and impact of the newspaper group's core journalistic values of fairness, accuracy, & courage, which were established by the founder, his grandfather Shri Ramnath Goenka in 1932. Today, Indian Express Group is one of the world's largest digital news media groups reaching over 200 million unique users a month across seven languages worldwide. In 2022, pressgazette.co.uk, ranked its flagship, indianexpress.com, as the world's 16th largest news site. Awarding him as a Tycoon of Tomorrow, Forbes Magazine says, “Anant exudes the energy that he promises to infuse into the venerable Express brand”. Economic Times recognized him as India’s 40 under-40 business leaders. He has also received IAA’s Global Compass Award. News 24 & Hello Magazine awarded him as Media Entrepreneur of the year. GQ listed him amongst India’s 50 most influential young Indians. Before The Indian Express, he worked at Spenta Multimedia. He also worked with Bloomberg’s commercial team in UK. Anant graduated from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. He was awarded Dean’s scholarship for his Master’s in print journalism from the Annenberg School for Journalism, USC.

Chief Executive Officer, Manorama Online Malayalam Manorama

Mariam Mammen Mathew is the Chief Executive Officer of Manorama Online, the digital media operations of the Malayala Manorama company. Malayala Manorama went Online in 1997 and has readers from across the world. With a traffic of over 36 Million unique visitors a month, ManoramaOnline is the leading Malayalam news website in the country. The news portal comprises of 19+ dedicated channels, from news to movies to technology news and features. ManoramaOnline also has a bouquet of digital classifieds products, including M4marry.com, Helloaddress.com, Quickerala.com, QKDOC.com, Manorama Horizon. Before joining Manorama, she was Vice President at J.P. Morgan Chase in New York, where she was part of the Lab Morgan group that specialized in management consulting for e-businesses. Prior to this she was a Senior Consultant at the Management Consulting Center at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York. Mariam received her MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh and her BA in Economics (Honours) from St. Stephens College, New Delhi. She is in the Executive Board of The World Association of News Publishers (Wan Ifra). She is also the Chair Person of Digital News Publishers’ Association (DNPA). Mariam is married to Jayant Mammen Mathew, Executive Editor & Director, Malayala Manorama. She has two children – Malaika and Nihal.

Chief Operating Officer, Jagran New Media

Gaurav Arora is currently serving as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Jagran New Media, the digital wing of India’s largest print and radio publisher group, Jagran Prakashan Ltd. Having worked for more than 25 years, his journey of driving sales, strategic alliances, audience acquisition strategies, and enterprise success across diverse industries has been nothing short of fulfilling. In his current role as COO, he spearheads transformational growth in revenue & operations and new product innovation to generate more revenue streams. He is responsible for leading critical imperatives to enhance overall organizational effectiveness with a focus on people strategy and development, accompanied by managing affiliate sales, video production, beneficial monetization prospects, audience acquisition, and the marketing blueprint that fuels the brand's upward trajectory. He strongly believes in leveraging the power of content & technology to build and nurture high-performance teams. Gaurav has played a pivotal role in spearheading key strategic initiatives, such as enhancing content-to-commerce offerings (affiliate and e-commerce), expanding Jagran New Media's vision of providing credible content, and establishing Rocketship Films, Jagran New Media’s creative production house. He is also responsible for implementing AI driven technology and tools to drive efficiency in product, content and advertising. In his last role as Chief Revenue Officer, his contribution helped drive the growth curve in the dual role of guiding revenue and product strategy. In association with key leadership teams, he built a sustainable revenue architecture, devised go-to-market plans, resolved deal-flow bottlenecks, and executed growth initiatives. Cross-functional efforts spanned across sales, business development, programmatic platforms, AdTech, and more. During his previous stints at Times Internet Ltd & HCL Technologies, he pioneered innovative sales strategies and fostered client relationships to achieve incremental revenue growth. Led sales efforts and synergies to enhance brand visibility via multi-geographic brand campaigns & established robust processes for smooth workflow across teams. He believes in cultivating a culture of agility, innovation and adaptability with ingenious foresight & excellence to contribute to the overall success of the organization.

Director, Eenadu Television Pvt. Ltd.

Venkat holds a Bachelor's degree in Science. He has been in the communication profession since 1970. He joined Board of Directors of Ushodaya Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., publishers of Eenadu Telugu newspaper and ETV group channels in 1987. Venkat was the past Chairman of Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and founder member of Media Research Users Council (MRUC) as well as Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF); and also on the Board of Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), International News Media Association (INMA), Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC). He also had long innings as a Board Member for over 15 years with the Indian Newspaper Society (INS). Venkat currently is the Chairman of Media Research Users Council (MRUC) and Chairman of Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).

Deputy Managing Director, Dainik Bhaskar

Pawan Agarwal is the Deputy Managing Director of Dainik Bhaskar Group (DB Corp Ltd). He joined the group in 1996 and has been on the Board of Directors since 2005. Dainik Bhaskar Group is a media conglomerate having strong presence in print, radio and digital. Founded in 1958, today it is India's largest and No. 1 newspaper group with three flagship newspaper brands in three different languages, namely, Dainik Bhaskar in Hindi, Divya Bhaskar in Gujarati and Divya Marathi in Marathi. The group operates in 12 states in India, having 61 editions catering to 66.3 mn readers and a circulation of 5.4 mn copies. Dainik Bhaskar is also the 3rd largest circulated newspaper in the world. Dainik Bhaskar's digital presence is in all 3 languages - Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi. According to the latest ComScore results, the Dainik Bhaskar App monthly users have increased by approximately 7 times since the beginning of 2020, owing to high-quality content development and a highly tailored product experience. With this, Dainik Bhaskar has become largest and #1 Hindi and Gujarati News App with 15 mn Monthly active app users. Dainik Bhaskar is one of the most awarded Media Brand with many prestigious national and International awards like INMA Global Media Awards, WAN IFRA Print Innovation awards, Hermes International awards to name a few. Pawan led the DB group in the digital domain as he envisioned it as the way of the future. Currently, he is actively involved and steering the digital business to cater Bharat (Real India residing in Tier 2 and 3 cities) with high quality trusted content in multiple languages. He has been awarded by the Prime Minister for his contribution to Indian language journalism and also by Enterprise Asia as one of the outstanding entrepreneurs of Asia-Pacific, 2010. He holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University, USA. He has also attended several programmes on leadership and strategy at Harvard as well as Stanford University. Pawan serves as President, South Asia Board of International News Media Association (INMA). He is also a member of Young Professionals Organization (YPO) and Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO).

CEO & Editor-In-Chief, NDTV

Rahul Kanwal is one of India’s most respected journalists and media leaders, currently serving as the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of NDTV. With over 25 years of experience in television journalism, investigative reporting, and editorial strategy, he now oversees both business and content at one of India's most influential and credible news networks. Before joining NDTV, Rahul held several senior leadership roles at the India Today Group, including News Director for India Today and Aaj Tak, where he led editorial operations across television and digital. He also served as Executive Director at Business Today, guiding the brand through a phase of strategic transformation and content diversification. As an anchor, Rahul is known for his incisive interviews and election analysis. He has hosted acclaimed shows like ‘Newstrack’, a hard-hitting prime-time bulletin, and ‘Jab We Met’, a conversational series featuring prominent voices from politics, business, and public life. His credibility as a field reporter and sharp on-air presence have earned him widespread industry recognition. Rahul is a graduate of Delhi University and studied International Broadcast Journalism at Cardiff University. He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School’s General Management Program (GMP). A recipient of the Chevening Scholarship and the Rory Peck Trust Grant for Hostile Environment Journalism, he is also the founder of pioneering newsroom initiatives like the Anti-Fake News War Room (AFWA) and the Open-Source Intelligence Desk (OSINT) - reflecting his deep commitment to credible, innovation-driven journalism.