Speaker - Mr. Nitish Mittersain
Hailing from a textile business family, Nitish was hooked to interactive gaming at the mere age of 7 when he coded his first game. He then went on to setup his own bulletin board service at 14 followed by Nazara at the age of 19.
Since then, the Nazara group has persevered over 2 decades to emerge as India’s leading gaming company with operations over 70 countries & has acquired & invested in over 15 companies in various sectors of gaming including esports, fantasy sports, freemium games etc. Under his leadership, Nazara has raised ~ $100mn from marquee investors such as Westbridge Capital, India Infoline & Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. The company is on track to launch its IPO as the first gaming company to list on Indian equity markets.
Nitish has served as the chairman of the Mobile Value Added Services Expert and on the Asia board of the MEF (Mobile Ecosystem Forum), a global association for mobile content and commerce. He has also been widely recognized for his contribution to the gaming and digital entertainment industry internationally. Nitish has also been recently graced with ‘Business World Disrupt 40 under 40 achievers awards.’
When not at work, Nitish likes to relax and play a range of wood-wind instruments such as the clarinet and saxophone. He is a member of a jazz band called the Jazz Junkies that has been playing in Mumbai clubs for over 20 years. He is also a Level 2 practitioner of Krav Maga, a type of martial arts. He is also a trustee of the Dr. B. K. Goyal Heart Foundation and the Dhanvantari Foundation.
Moderator - Mr.Imran Jafar
Imran is a Managing Partner at Gaja Capital (www.gajacapital.com)
Gaja is India’s leading mid-market growth capital firm. Gaja’s aim is to help create India’s next generation of market leaders in sectors such as Education, Consumer, Financial Services and Healthcare.
Imran has 21 years of experience in Private Equity, Pharmaceuticals and Technology services. Prior to Gaja, Imran worked in a variety of roles of increasing responsibility at Dr Reddy’s and Wipro Technologies.
At Gaja, Imran leads investments in the Education and Consumer clusters. He has been closely involved with Gaja’s investments in Educational initiatives (Ed-Tech), Kangaroo kids (Pre-K and K-12), KOOH Sports (Performance Sports), Sportzvillage (Youth Sports), Eurokids (Pre-K and K-12), John Distilleries (AlcoBev), CL Educate (Supplemental Education) and Indus World Schools (K12).
Imran has a post graduate degree in software engineering from BITS-Pilani and an MBA from IIM-Bangalore.