Santosh Maheshwari - Partner, BDO India

Santosh is Partner in the Transaction Tax Services division of BDO India and is based in Bangalore, India. He is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and Licentiate Member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India. He has over 14 years of experience and more than 8 years in the area of Corporate re-organization, inbound and outbound structuring advisory, conducting tax due diligences, advisory on various M&A activity including buy back, capital reduction etc. He has been part of more than hundred tax due diligence exercise in various sectors including IT, hospitality, hotels, catering, auto components and other sectors. He has also been part of regulatory, tax, financial and business advisory related to group re-organization and restructuring activity. He has handled mergers, de-mergers across seven states in India. His experience includes advising on transaction structuring including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, corporate restructuring, foreign investment consulting, tax due diligence and inbound acquisitions; Has experience on restructuring services include realignment and rationalization of organizational structure in tax and regulatory efficient manner. Has extensive experience in advising clients in the areas of acquisitions, divestments, mergers, demergers, corporate restructuring, reorganizations, foreign investment consulting/ establishment of joint ventures, international tax (including PE advisory), corporate tax and business re-organization. Advised various Private equity players on their transaction and investment structures, withholding tax issues , Tax NOC s etc.

Rajiv Sunder - Partner, Deloitte India

Mr.Rajiv Sunder is Partner- M&A Transaction Services, Deloitte Touche & Tohmatsu, based out of Bengaluru. He leads the TMT industry vertical for transaction services. He has been with Deloitte India for over 20 years. Prior to transitioning to transaction services, he was with the audit practice working on audit engagements of some of the largest Clients of the firm in Bangalore. He has focussed on transaction services for the past seven years and has worked with a wide array of clients (both multi-national companies and large Indian corporate) with a focus on the Technology sector but also on a number of transactions in the consumer business, infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. Rajiv has worked on some marque transactions in India and overseas. He has managed large multi-locational engagements and worked equally on a number of cross-border transactions involving Indian Companies looking to acquire overseas businesses and MNC’s investing into India. Since 2012, Rajiv has been managing Deloitte India’sTechnology Fast 50 events, an award program which recognizes the fastest growing companies in the technology sector in India. Rajiv is a Fellow member of the Chartered Accountants of India. He has presented at various forum on M&A and transactions services in specific.

Vikas Suresh - Director, Unithos Business Advisors

Vikas is a Chartered Accountant with over 20 years of post qualification experience specializing in Corporate Advisory (valuations, joint ventures, M&A deals, business advisory) across diverse industries He was leading the South India valuations team at KPMG (for around 10 years) and branched out in October 2018 to set up his own company (Unithos Business Advisors Private Limited). He was instrumental in setting up the valuations practice in South for KPMG and built it to a leadership position in the region Prior to joining KPMG in 2008, he has worked in the industry with Murugappa Group as part of the Corporate & Strategic planning team of the Group and went on to head the EMA region for the engineering business (Precision steel tubes); and with Ernst & Young in their Corporate Advisory practice (specializing in valuations and deals)

Neeraj Dubey - Joint Partner, Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan

Mr Neeraj Dubey is a joint partner, Corporate Practice, Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan. He is a corporate lawyer with over 11 years of legal experience encompassing vast gamut of business law, contract management, labour & employment laws, aviation and technology laws. He routinely counsels manufacturing and service industries on a vast range of compliances in all elements of commerce and business including contracts (negotiation, drafting and review), corporate governance, competition law, labour & employment, health & safety environment. Neeraj’s industry spreads across automobile, aviation, banking, chemicals, defense, energy, food, pharmaceuticals, information technology and waste management.

Huzefa Tavawalla - Head - International Commercial Law Nishith Desai Associates

Huzefa Tavawalla Heads the Bangalore Office along with the Disruptive Technologies Practice Group at Nishith Desai Associates. He is also an integral member of the TMT & Corporate Practice Groups and focuses on matters pertaining to IT, M&A and International Tax. Mr. Tavawalla has done extensive research and undertaken various matters in relation to cutting areas of technology such Artificial Intelligence, Driverless Cars, Robotics, Drones etc. Amongst others, he has also lead the team for the research papers on The Future is Here: Artificial Intelligence & Robotics, Drones – Unmasking the Future, Internet of Things: The Era of Convergence - Legal & Tax Issues. More recently, he was also appointed as the special task force committee member on the drone committee set up by the Indian Government. He also continues to be closely associated with academics and is a regular guest lecturer at law school(s), industry associations and other education institutions. He is actively involved in addressing legal issues and has published various articles on the same.