Advisory Board

Whistling Woods International is Asia's largest Film, Communication and Media Arts institute, providing world-class education in all technical and creative aspects of media and entertainment.

Founder & Chairman of Whistling Woods International, Mr. Subhash Ghai needs no introduction. He began his career in the Hindi cinema as an actor post his graduation from the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. But soon he was drawn towards the vocation of filmmaking. He offered a string of blockbuster movies like Kalicharan, Karz, Vidhatha, Hero, Karma, Ram Lakhan, Saudagar, Khalnayak, Pardes, Taal and Yuvraaj, to name a few. The grandeur and rich style of filmmaking seen in every film of his, earned him the title of 'The Showman of Bollywood'.

In 1999, with a career spanning over 2 decades and 18 blockbuster hits to his credit, SG sir realized the importance of institutionalizing filmmaking education, in order to carve our niche as a country in the global Media & Entertainment industry, artistically, technically and commercially. And this noble thought gave birth to what is today known as one of the world�s top 10 film school, Whistling Woods International. In February 2015, he was awarded the 'Visionary of India' award at the Vision summit - 2020 by FICCI � ET NOW. He was conferred with this honour for his contribution as a filmmaker and an education evangelist in making India as a brand internationally. He was also awarded at the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) 2015 awards ceremony held in Kuala Lumpur in July for his Outstanding Contribution to Indian cinema, both as a filmmaker and an eminent educationist.

Mr. Diwan Arun Nanda serves as Managing Director of Rediffusion Holdings Private Limited. Mr. Nanda is the Founder of the Rediff.Com India Ltd. Mr. Nanda serves as the Chairman of the Board and Managing Director of Rediffusion Dentsu Young And Rubicam Private Limited and previously served as its Managing Director until August 2008. He started his marketing career with Hindustan Lever Limited. Six years later, fueled by firebrand idealism, Mr. Nanda co-founded Rediffusion in 1973.

He has over 40 years of vast experience in marketing & advertising. Mr. Nanda serves as the Chairman of the Board of Rediffusion Holdings Private Ltd. He serves as the Chairman of the Board and Managing Director at Rediffusion Dy&R; and Co-Chairman of DY&R;/ Impiric, Asia Pacific. He has been an Independent Non-Executive Director of Oriental Hotels Limited since October 17, 2008. He has been an Independent Director of Yes Bank Limited since October 23, 2012. Mr. Nanda has been a Director of Rediff.Com India Ltd., since January 9, 1996. He has been an Independent & Non-Executive Director of Mastek Ltd. since October 12, 2006.

He serves as a Director of Rediffusion Dentsu Young And Rubicam Private Limited, Klaas Equipment Private Ltd., Wunderman Cato Johnson Action Marketing India Private Ltd. and Arion Horse Co. Pvt. Ltd. He served as a Director of Eveready Industries India Ltd from March 22, 2005 to December 4, 2012. He served as a Director of Kingfisher Airlines Limited from October 15, 2008 to September 05, 2011. He served as an Independent & Non Executive Director of Clariant Chemicals (India ) Limitedfrom March 24, 2006 to July 16, 2013. Mr. Nanda served as an Additional Director of Deccan Aviation Ltd. since October 16, 2008. Mr. Nanda served as an Independent and Non Executive Director of Mastek Limited from October 12, 2006 to July 25, 2011. Mr. Nanda served as Director of Clariant (India) Ltd. His numerous accolades include being a member on the Air India Board of Directors; a member of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centenary Committee; leader of the Indian delegation to the Asian Advertising Congress (Tokyo, 1993); President of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (1993-1995 and 1999-2000), and a Judge at the Cannes Film Festival.

He is the recipient of AAAI Premnarayan award for outstanding contribution to advertising in India in 2002. Mr. Nanda holds a B.Com. degree in Accountancy from Loyola College, Chennai University, and a Gold Medalist Post-Graduate Diploma in Business Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman and Creative Director, South Asia, Ogilvy & Mather, has been named the most influential man in Indian advertising ten years in a row by The Economic Times, India�s premier business paper. Under his leadership, Ogilvy India remains the most awarded creative and effectiveness agency � including forty-nine Lions at Cannes.

In 2004, Piyush became the first Asian to be the President of the Cannes Jury for Film, Press & Outdoor. He is the only Indian to have won three Grand Prizes at the London International Advertising Awards.

Before he �quit working�, Piyush was a professional cricketer and tea-taster. Then in the 80s he put away his teacups and hung up his ball-guard (!) to join Ogilvy, Mumbai. He became its national creative director in 1994. He was inducted to its worldwide board in 2006.

Under Piyush�s leadership, Ogilvy India has been named India�s most creative agency twelve years in a row. The Economic Times has rated Ogilvy number one across all parameters ten times in a row! In 2009, Ogilvy India was Media Magazine�s Office of the Year across the industry in Asia-Pacific.

Piyush was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 by the Advertising Agencies Association of India and the Clio Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. In March / April 2016 he will receive the Padma Shri in recognition of his distinguished service in the field of advertising and communication.

Ad Club Mumbai voted Piyush�s commercial for the adhesive brand Fevikwik as the commercial of the century. And his work on Cadburys, as the campaign of the century.

In October 2015 Piyush launched his first book on advertising � Pandeymonium. He is also the co-writer of Bhopal Express, the much-acclaimed film on the Bhopal Gas tragedy.

Most recently, he worked on a campaign that brought the new Prime Minister to power in India.

Piyush attributes his success to his colleagues across Disciplines and the people of India. Their lives, their loves and their laughter are all the inspiration he has ever needed.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is the Chairman and Managing Director of Biocon Limited, a biotechnology company based in Bangalore (Bengaluru), India and the current chairperson of IIM-Bangalore. In 2014, she was awarded the Othmer Gold Medal, for outstanding contributions to the progress of science and chemistry. She is on the Financial Times� top 50 women in business list. As of 2015, she was listed as the 85th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.

A post graduate gold medalist in science from Madras University, Pushpa Kandaswamy donned the hat of an entrepreneur way back in 1987 in the media and entertainment space when women managers were hard to find.

Her initial years were spent on achieving grass root level grooming of various aspects of film production. The fact that she is the daughter of the illustrious, iconic doyen of the film industry, Dada Sahib Phalke awardee Dr.K.Balachander exposed her to the nuances and vagaries of film making from childhood.

She has been heading the company Kavithalayaa productions founded by her father ever since and has produced around 50 films and forayed into television .

Kavithalayaa productions continues to be a well known banner for four decades now both in the trade as well as amongst the mass.

The inherent unpredictable high risk nature of the entertainment industry paved the way for her entrepreneurial skills to surface and she has steered the company in turbulent times with grit , determination and passion.

Being a short story writer herself , she has a knack of spotting scripts which could become box office hits with an eye on quality .Her films have won many an award at the centre and state level including Nargis Dutt award for National Integration for ROJA(1992), and Best film on social issues for Oru Veedu Iru Vaasal (1989).

With a keen interest on management subjects she has addressed women on entrepreneurship in various forums. She has been identified as a successful woman achiever by institutions like Rajalakshmi educational institutions, Chennai.

She has served in the Examining Committee of Central Board of Film Certification for two terms.

Capt. G.R Gopinath is the founder of Air Deccan - India�s first low cost airline set up in 2003. Shri APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India said �He is generally acknowledged as the father of India�s low fares airline, which enabled the common man to fly�. Air Deccan went on to revolutionize Indian aviation with its �no frill� business model that tightly controlled costs and offered affordable air fares to the Indian people, enabling millions of first time fliers. Within 3 years Air Deccan�s operations spanned over sixty eight destinations including dozens of unconnected cities, with a reach that extended beyond even the state owned Indian Airlines. In 2006, Air Deccan bagged the Best Low Fare Airline Award from the APAI (Air Passengers Association of India) and was also awarded the �Best Domestic No Frills Carrier� two years in a row (2006, 2007) by Galileo Express Travel World Awards.

Capt. G.R Gopinath is the founder & Chairman of Deccan Charters (formerly Deccan Aviation), India�s first and largest business aviation company operating and maintaining helicopters, Turboprops and business jets in the private sector. The helicopter charter business he founded along with his �buddies� from the Indian Army and the Army Aviation Corps. Deccan Charters specializes in activities as diverse as: Heli � tourism, aerial mapping, geophysical surveys, gas pipeline surveys, support to oil rigs and medical evacuations among others. Presently Deccan Charters operates twelve helicopters and four fixed wing and has under maintenance 50 aircrafts of all types. It has 15 operational bases across India from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

Marketer, Venture Capitalist, Corporate Speaker. Founder- Pinstorm. Co-founder- Seedfund

Mahesh has spent 30 years helping big brands with marketing and branding input, and 14 years helping startups with funding too. 19 of these years have been digital-intensive.

Mahesh dropped out of college, sold vacuum cleaners door to door, worked with Grey in India and then Ogilvy in Hong Kong, where he won notoriety and awards as Creative Director on Unilever, The Economist, Pepsi and MTV.

He then moved to a Silicon Valley agency, CKS Partners as CD and Partner, where he helped create the first commercial UI for Yahoo in 1995 and the now-classic launch campaign for Amazon in 1997.

After a successful NASDAQ IPO, Mahesh moved to head marketing at iCat, an e-com firm in Seattle, later bought by Intel.

He returned to India in 1999 to run and turn around Channel V, a rival to MTV, till its sale to Newscorp in 2000, then founded Passionfund to invest in startups. His investees include Geodesic, WebDunia, EBS Worldwide, Inkfruit and Doolally.

Mahesh has penned reasonably infamous columns in Business Today, Businessworld, Tehelka and WSJ. On TV, he's played the Donald Trump-like role in Business Baazigar in 2007, and the Dragon's Den-like role on ETNow's SuperAngels in 2011 and on Bloomberg�s The Pitch in 2013. In 2004, Mahesh found a need for a tech-driven, digital-first brand management firm - and set up Pinstorm. With over 100 people across offices in India, Singapore & Malaysia, it is now among South Asia's leading digital brand management firms, creating award-winning work on the region's largest telecom, banking, FMCG and retail brands, including Airtel, Cadbury Kraft, Nestle, ICICI Bank and Wipro.

Mahesh has a passion for early-stage investing and teamed with Pravin Gandhi and Bharati Jacob in 2006 to set up Seedfund, voted India's best VC fund in 2010. Seedfund has over 25 investees including Carwale, RedBus, AFAQs, Vaatsalya, MyDentist and Edusports.

Mahesh is a sought-after speaker on marketing, digital brand management and starting up. His updates are avidly followed by over 100,000 folks across Twitter, Facebook, Quora and LinkedIn.

Mahesh is an entrepreneur, marketer, investor and speaker - and among the most-tracked Indian businesspeople, with a following of over 400,000 across various social platforms. His fearless and often iconoclastic opinions are frequently quoted in business press, and he has hosted Indian versions of The Apprentice, Dragon's Den & Shark Tank on TV.

As an entrepreneur, Mahesh founded digital transformation firm Pinstorm in 2004, which helps ambitious brands win in the new economy: folks like Adobe, Airtel, ICICI Bank, India Today, Mondelez and Putzmeister. As a CEO, Mahesh turned around loss-making TV station Channel V till its sale to Star TV in 2000.

Mahesh spent 30+ years across FCB and Grey in India, Ogilvy across Asia and CKS Partners in Silicon Valley. He designed and launched Amazon.com globally, shaped Yahoo.com, sold subscriptions to The Economist across Asia and launched MTV in India - perhaps starting the long-bemoaned decline in Indian culture since

Since 1999, Mahesh has brought a marketer's point of view to investing. First as an angel, where he shaped firms like Doolally - India's leading microbrewery, Geodesic - a software product firm with a big IPO exit, CompassBox - acquired by CareerLauncher and WebDunia.

And then as a VC since 2006, when he co-founded Seedfund, India's most-awarded early-stage investor. Investees include RedBus - acquired by Naspers in a record-setting exit, CarWale - acquired by Axel Springer, EduSports, Chumbak, MyDentist and Voonik - a firm that Mahesh spotted on his TV show.

With the retirement of partner Pravin Gandhi, Seedfund will wind down in 2020 and Mahesh is shaping to launch his next early-stage fund, a game-changer.

Mahesh is a sought-after corporate speaker on digital transformation, marketing and innovation, having inspired CXOs at McKinsey, IBM, Cognizant, de Beers and Microsoft.

Lina Ashar did her primary schooling in England before moving to Australia, where she acquired her Bachelor�s degree in Education from Melbourne�s Victoria College. In 1991, Lina came to India on a year-long sabbatical, and landed up taking a school job in suburban Mumbai, an experience which changed her life. Back then, the education system in India was still grappling with a strait jacketed approach to education, leaving no scope for an overall development of the child, which was a complete contrast to what she had studied. Lina chose to stay back in India to change the antiquated approach to education which existed then.

Her conviction to offer an education which set the child as its centre led her to start her first preschool in Bandra (Mumbai) in the year 1993 with 25 students. The journey from one Kangaroo Kids Preschool to 100+ schools (Kangaroo Kids Preschool and Billabong High International School) across 30 different cities in India as well as in Dubai, Maldives and Qatar, has been a phenomenal one. Lina�s unique approach, injection of potent solutions and radical processes to ensure that the quality of education improved was instantaneously well received and noted.

Lina has been extremely passionate about creating a purpose of learning and allowing children to be thinkers, innovators, problem solvers and to orchestrate experiences that will result in their overall development. With an intention to spark human greatness in every student, Lina was the first in the Indian education industry to introduce a learner centric methodology and introduce innovative ways of learning via integrated and theme based learning.

Lina dreams of a society in which every child enjoys the right to a joyful childhood and top quality education.

Founder and Chairman of SKA Advisors

Former Managing Director & CEO of Britannia Industries Ltd

Sunil Kumar Alagh is the Founder and Chairman of SKA Advisors � a business advisory and consultancy service with an emphasis on Marketing and Brand management strategies. He is a recognised thought provocateur who enables teams to realise their full potential and partners them to build a sustainable profitable business model. His wide range of clients include Godfrey Phillips India Ltd., Setco Automotive Ltd., Elite Food Specialities Pvt. Ltd., Louis Dreyfus Commodities India Pvt. Ltd., Amira Pure Foods Pvt. Ltd., LT Foods Ltd, KS Oils Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer HealthCare Ltd., Warburg Pincus, Emami Ltd., VIP Luggage Ltd., Sapat Tea Ltd, Biocon India Ltd., and Mahindra Group. Sunil Alagh has 40 years of hands on experience and has developed and incubated several successful brands like Britannia Tiger. He also spearheaded Britannia's successful foray into Dairy through branded cheese and milk. He has a wealth of rich experience in marketing and brand building strategies. Sunil�s rich experience in multiple stakeholder management helps him mentor the top most executives plough through business objectives amidst conflicting personal objectives, fractured governance and challenging needs for succession planning.

Dr A. Velumani, a scientist turned entrepreneur is the Chief Executive Officer and creator of Thyrocare Technologies Limited, World�s largest thyroid testing laboratory. A visionary, in the field of medical diagnostics, his interest for thyroid which developed during his Masters as well as doctorate days continued for years even after being awarded a Ph.D. Such was the passion for thyroid, that Dr. A Velumani quit a comfortable job and set up thyroid testing as a business. Being born and brought up in a poor farmers family, the man had himself experienced the dark perils of poverty, which fueled his desire to start an affordable enterprise for the vast populace.

Dr. A. Velumani,�Promoter, Chairman, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Thyrocare He is a graduate in science from the University of Madras and has a post graduate degree in science from the University of Bombay and a doctorate in philosophy (science) from the University of Bombay. He has over 19 years of experience in the diagnostics business. He set up TBPL and TDPL in 1996 which were subsequently acquired by our Company in 2000. He has been heading the business of our Company for over 15 years. Prior to that, he worked for over 12 years as a scientific officer specialising in immunodiagnostics in general and radioimmunoarrays in particular, at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.� He was awarded the Brig. S.K. Mazumdar Memorial Oration Award in 2001. He is a life � time member of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, India.

With so much experience and passion associated with thyroid, Dr. A Velumani quit his job in BARC to start his own thyroid testing venture. With just an initial investment of 1 lakh rupees, which was also utilized to get the first gamma ray machine for thyroid testing, today stands Thyrocare, touted to be the World�s single largest laboratory for thyroid testing, handling more than 15000 samples for this one single test.

Set up with an initial dream to establish a single laboratory for thyroid testing, today Thyrocare boasts of a well crafted test menu covering over 200 tests, supported by the best laboratory automations in the world. Thyrocare is known to be the trend setter in Indian diagnostics with automations in the laboratory floor capable of handling sample load in lakhs every night. Thyrocare is the first Indian laboratory to have installed the Total Laboratory Automation from Siemens in its lab floor. Currently the 1,20,000 sq ft lab space has a new Aptio automation also from Siemens which is a complete laboratory automation solution for pre-analytical, analytical as well as post-analytical operations.

With an aim to make PET-CT for cancer diagnosis affordable, Nueclear Healthcare Limited was seeded by Dr. A Velumani. This diagnostic imaging company, powered by Thyrocare is focused on providing FDG scans for cancer recommended patients to aid in generating superior quality reports at an affordable cost.�

Apart from thyroid as an interest and passion, Dr. A Velumani is also a writer. He is the Editor in Chief for the monthly pre-patient care magazine �Healthscreen� and �Aarogyam Today� from Thyrocare. He regularly contributes articles and editorials for this magazine. Apart from routine magazine contribution, he has also authored a book on �Wellness� and �The sweet killer� on diabetes. His writings are generally focused on creating awareness on preventive healthcare and this continues to be the main scope of the magazines as well.

Dhiraj Rajaram is founder and chairman of Mu Sigma. He is responsible for the company�s vision, strategic direction, and ongoing alignment of all resources and activities with the belief system on which Mu Sigma was founded in 2004. Those guiding principles are: Learning over Knowing, Extreme Experimentation, and the need for Interdisciplinary Perspectives.

An entrepreneur at heart, Dhiraj has helped Mu Sigma secure both top investor backing and industry recognition, including being named to Fortune�s 40 under 40, an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, and most recently as 2014 Entrepreneur of the Year by the Economic Times of India.

Prior to founding Mu Sigma, Dhiraj worked as a management consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, an M.S. in Computer Engineering from Wayne State University, and a Bachelor's degree from the College of Engineering Guindy, Anna University.

Mr. Parthasarathi Ray is an Innovation Economist and Chairman of Indian Institute of Consumer Studies, Bangalore.