The 18th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit

After turning pro at the age of 16, tennis prodigy Andre Agassi rose to international fame, earning 60 men’s singles titles, including eight Grand Slam singles championships, over a 20-year career. A former World No. 1 player, Agassi is the only male player ever to win all four Grand Slam titles and an Olympic gold medal. He was also a member of three winning Davis Cup teams (1990, 1992 and 1995). On July 9, 2011, Andre was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame for the Class of 2011.

While his tennis career took him all over the world, Agassi always stayed connected to his hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada. In 1994, at the age of 24, he created the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education. Early activities included building a shelter in Las Vegas for abused and neglected children, creating the Andre Agassi Boys and Girls Club, and developing Team Agassi, a tennis program that nurtures professional players and puts college within reach.

Over 20 years, the Foundation has honed its mission to focus on transforming public education. In 2001, in partnership with the Clark County School District, the Foundation opened the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a tuition free K -12 public charter school, in historical West Las Vegas with approximately 1,200 students. Recognized as a model charter school, Agassi Prep graduated its first senior class in June 2009 with a 100 percent college acceptance rate, as were the graduates in the class of 2010 and 2011.

Since the inception of the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education in 1994, $185 million dollars has been raised to benefit the mission of the Foundation including $118 million from the Grand Slam for Children fundraising event. The Grand Slam for Children served as the Foundation’s primary fundraising vehicle and brought together international stars to raise awareness and money.

After retiring in 2006, Andre Agassi has increased his focus on his Foundation and on promoting education reform. He is also building a lifestyle business through endorsement relationships, joint venture investments and real estate development. In November 2009, he released his autobiography Open, which reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and continues to hit record sales internationally.

On July 9, 2011, was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame for the Class of 2011.

In June 2011, as part of an effort to expand his impact on education, Andre partnered with Turner Impact Capital on an innovative new real estate fund – the Turner-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund – to promote the success and growth of best-in-class charter schools in urban communities across the United States.

Most recently, Andre launched BILT by Agassi & Reyes to provide the public with the actual fitness machines hand-developed by him and his strength and conditioning trainer, Gil Reyes. Andre won eight Grand Slam titles and dominated the world of tennis throughout his long career by recognizing the importance of strength, conditioning and safety through the use of these innovative machines.

He is married to tennis superstar, philanthropist and businesswoman Stefanie Graf. The couple resides in Las Vegas with their children, Jaden Gil and Jaz Elle.

Tennis champion Stefanie Graf, winner of 22 Grand Slam singles titles, remains the only player to win Wimbledon, the French Open, the US Open and the Australian Open at least four times. In a career spanning 17 years, Graf won 107 singles titles and is the first—and still only— woman player to achieve the "Golden Slam" by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same year. Graf was ranked No. 1 for a WTA-record 377 weeks, the longest of any player, male or female, since rankings began. She was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004.

With the same purposeful strength she brought to professional tennis, Stefanie turned her attention to aiding suffering children. In 1998, she founded Children for Tomorrow, a charity focused on providing psychological help for children and families who have suffered the trauma of war, violence, abuse, exile or loss of the family. She established the organization in conjunction with Outpatient Clinic for Refugee Children and their Families at the University Clinics of Hamburg-Eppendorf. The special outpatient unit for children's psychiatry and psychotherapy treats refugee children from all over the world and their families.

The majority of patients are from Afghanistan, southern Europe and West-African countries. Since its inception, over 7,000 children have received treatment at different projects. In addition to the current international projects in Uganda, Kosovo and Eritrea, the new Hamburg headquarters opened in April 2011.

The Hamburg location is the Foundation headquarters and will be an Outpatient Clinic for Refugee Children as well as a training center for therapist and crisis area workers. In 1999, Graf retired from the women's professional tennis tour with a World No. 3 ranking. As a mother, wife, philanthropist and entrepreneur, she now works on building lifestyle businesses through endorsement relationships, joint venture investments and real estate development. She is married to former tennis superstar Andre Agassi. The couple resides in Las Vegas with their children, Jaden Gil and Jaz Elle.

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee is the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2003 he co-founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) with Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan, and he remains one of the Lab’s Directors. Banerjee is a past president of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development, a Research Associate of the NBER, a CEPR research fellow, International Research Fellow of the Kiel Institute, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and a winner of the Infosys Prize.

Abhijit is the author of a large number of articles and four books, including Poor Economics, which won the Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year, and Good Economics for Hard Times, both co-authored with Esther Duflo. He is the editor of three more books and has directed two documentary films. Banerjee has served on the U.N. Secretary-General’s High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. He is a co-recipient of the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for his groundbreaking work in development economics research.

Nick Jonas is one third of the preeminent male group of this century, the Jonas Brothers, who most recently opened the floodgates for a new era of titans in pop music. They earned three consecutive number one albums and sold out shows throughout three continents. The tremendous success of the band provided a launch pad for the successful and storied solo careers of Nick and his brothers, Joe and Kevin Jonas, who have kept loyal fans yearning for a reunion, until last year. In 2019, the band announced their highly anticipated return to music with a new single, “Sucker,” which debuted at number 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100. Making history once more, the band captured #1 on the Billboard 200 with their Platinum-Certified album, Happiness Begins. The band continued to soar with their sold-out "Happiness Begins Tour," with over 1.2 million tickets sold.

Nick has received critically-acclaimed solo success off his self-titled album, which includes the triple-platinum and #1 U.S. radio hit, “Jealous.” A recipient of the Songwriters Hall of Fame's prestigious Hal David Starlight Award, Jonas co-wrote an original song titled “Home” for the movie Ferdinand, released by FOX Animation. The song was nominated for a 2018 Golden Globe in the category of “Best Original Song.”

As an actor, Nick garnered unanimous critical praise for his lead role in the 2016 Sundance Film Festival favorite Goat. He also appeared in a guest-starring role in the Fox's horror-comedy series, Scream Queens; starred in the gritty series, Kingdom; and can be seen alongside Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black in Sony’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which passed Spider-Man: Far From Home as the studio’s highest-grossing film ever at the U.S. box office. More recently, he starred in the sequel, Jumanji: The Next Level; Roland Emmerich’s Midway; and wrapped his first season as a coach on the four-time Emmy Award-Winning hit series, The Voice.

Up next, Nick can be seen in Lionsgate's post-apocalyptic thriller, Chaos Walking, which stars Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland, and is set to star in AGC Studios’ action thriller, The Blacksmith, opposite Laurence Fishburne. Through his production company, Image 32, Nick executive producer the newly released TV series Dash & Lillyfor Netflix.

Massimo Bottura opened Osteria Francescana in Modena in 1995. An innovator and restaurateur for over twenty-five years, Bottura has consolidated his reputation as one of the world’s most creative culinary figures. His internationally renowned three Michelin star restaurant, Osteria Francescana, was named number 1 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2016 and for the second time in 2018.

In 1986 Massimo Bottura departed on his life’s journey when he bought Trattoria del Campazzo on the outskirts of Modena. Working alongside the rezdora Lidia Cristoni and an apprenticeship with French chef Georges Coigny, he built his culinary foundation on a combination of regional Italian cooking and classical French training. In 1994 Bottura sold Campazzo and departed for Montecarlo to work with Alain Ducasse at Louis XV. This experience proved in valuable for the chef and lead to opening Osteria Francescana a year later in his hometown of Modena. Several years later, Bottura had another life changing experience with Ferran Adria at El Bulli during the summer of 2000.

Bottura’s kitchen walks a thin line between tradition and innovation. His dishes explore the deep roots of the Italian kitchen while making references to history, art and philosophy. In 2002 Bottura received his first Michelin star followed by the second in 2006. Among numerous awards, he received the prestigious “Grand Prix de l’Art” from the International Culinary Academy in Paris in 2011 and a confirmation of a life long ambition with the third Michelin star. Osteria Francescana has been ranked at the top of the Italian food guides for the past five years.

Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef is the title of Massimo Bottura’s first English language book published by Phaidon Press in 2014. It documents the past twenty years of cooking as well as the evolution of Osteria Francecana through images, storytelling and the iconic recipes.

Massimo Bottura has been also recognized for his commitment against food waste and social isolation, calling for social responsibility among the culinary community. During Expo 2015, the chef created an off-site Expo project called the Refettorio Ambrosiano, a community kitchen in which chefs from around the world joined him to transform food surplus from the exhibition into healthy meals for those in need. As a consequence of the success of the project, Massimo founded the non-profit organization Food for Soul together with his wife Lara Gilmore. Since then, Food for Soul has established other projects: Refettorio Gastromotiva in Rio de Janeiro, Refettorio Felix in London, Refettorio Paris and

Social Tables in Modena, Bologna and Naples.

In order engage the wider audience in the fight against food waste, Massimo Bottura collected recipes and experiences of the chefs who cooked at Refettorio Ambrosiano in a book called “Bread is Gold”, Published by Phaidon Press in 2017. Proceeds will help Food for Soul opening and sustaining new community kitchens around the world.

On February 6th, 2017 Massimo Bottura received a prestigious honorary degree in Business from the University of Bologna. Dean Francesco Ubertini stated, “Massimo Bottura’s work spreads across the fields of entrepreneurship, education and technique and represents a virtuous example of the promotion of Italian Culture and Made in Italy.” This was the first Laurea honoris causa awarded to a chef in the history of the University. On April 23rd, 2018, the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara also awarded Bottura with a diploma honoris causa in Arts.

While Osteria Francescana invites diners on an iconoclastic re-imagining of the Italian kitchen, Bottura’s second restaurant, Franceschetta58, is a contemporary osteria that features exceptional ingredients served in a convivial atmosphere.

In addition to his restaurants, Massimo created the Villa Manodori product line of award winning balsamic vinegars and olive oils twenty years ago. Villa Manodori condiments are product of lifetime obsession with quality ingredients. Today the line products can be purchased at the finest gourmet markets around the world.

In 2019 Massimo Bottura and his wife Lara Gilmore opened Casa Maria Luigia, a 18th-century property surrounded by the agricultural landscape of the Emilian countryside, turned into guest house with the intention of extending the art of hospitality beyond the doors of Osteria Francescana.

In March 2020, at the beginning of the Italian lockdown, Massimo Bottura and his daughter Alexa launched Kitchen Quarantine, the Instagram live show the Bottura family did every night during the Italian quarantine period. For them, it was a fun way to interact with families all over the world, cook together, share ideas, enjoy each other’s company and teach people good practices in the kitchen such as cleaning out the refrigerator to limit food waste. The show was all about sharing and bringing joy into the home kitchen especially during that difficult period. Last May Kitchen Quarantine also awarded a Webby Award.

The energetic and ever curious chef resides in his beloved hometown of Modena located in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy with Lara and their two children, Alexa and Charlie.

After spending 10 years in the UK, www.. Poonawalla returned in 2001 and joined the family business. At that stage, Serum Institute of India was in about 20-30 countries. With a push on exports and a passion to travel to expand in other countries, he expanded the business to 147 countries today and took over from his father in 2011 as CEO launching a number of new vaccines for preventable diseases that protect children’s lives today.

In 2012, he founded The Villoo Poonawalla Charitable Foundation along with his wife in memory of his late mother, Villoo, to address education, healthcare and sanitation. Today 500 Kms of roads, half the city of Pune, is covered using 250 trucks and 450 full time employees picking up and processing the city waste. Waste and garbage has a major environmental impact and creates a false image of a backward India to foreign visitors, dignitaries and public at large. We are on the brink of disaster when it comes to urban cities which are growing at an exponential rate in population and their waste. His ultimate vision is to do what is done in US and Europe whereby waste is converted to electricity / energy.

Today we burn our garbage which is obviously terrible from all angles or let it seep into the ground and into our water system because of landfills, polluting our river. The Foundation also now provides clean drinking water at 30 locations, has 8 schools with over 10,000 children being educated and a charitable hospital. A new business also which has been started in 2019 is Poonawalla Finance, a fast growing digital NBFC. He has received many accolades for his efforts, one being the CNN Indian of the Year in 2017 at the hands of www.. Arun Jaitley and he has also been appointed as The Swachh Bharat Ambassador by Prime Minister www.. Modi joining the company of the Brand Ambassadors like www.. Amitabh Bachchan and www.. www.S.Dhoni for Swachh Mission India.

He continues to expand by developing new vaccines for global outbreaks, most currently being the Corona Virus vaccine, first of its kind to be made in India. He has substantially brought down global prices by more than 50% and launched many new vaccines such as Rotavirus, Pneumococcal and now multiple Covid-19 vaccines which are under clinical trials.

www.. Dinesh Khara is Chairman of the country’s largest Bank - State Bank of India. Having joined the bank as a Probationary Officer in 1984, he has rich experience in all facets of Banking. Before assuming office as Chairman, www.. Khara has held several key positions in SBI such as www. (Global Banking & Subsidiaries), www. (Associates & Subsidiaries), www. & CEO (SBI Mutual Funds) and Chief General Manager - Bhopal Circle. He was also posted at Chicago for an overseas assignment.

As Managing Director, he led the International Banking Group, Large Corporate and Treasury operations in addition to the non-banking subsidiaries of the Bank viz., SBI Cards, SBIMF, SBI Life, SBI General etc. He also seamlessly executed the merger of five erstwhile Associate Banks and Bhartiya Mahila Bank, with SBI. Additionally, he also headed the Risk, IT and Compliance functions of the bank at various points.

www.. Khara is a postgraduate in commerce from Delhi School of Economics and an MBA from FMS, New Delhi. He is also a Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB). www.. Khara is passionate about reading and has travelled extensively across the world.

Ajay Bijli’s passion for movies led him to set up PVR Cinemas in 1997. The largest multiplex chain in India has unassailable lead in the number of screens over competitors. Clearly, www. Bijli transformed the way millions of Indians consume entertainment content over the past two-and-a-half decades.

www. Bijli’s entrepreneurial spirit has been best translated in his achievement in building the brand PVR. In 1995 he signed a JV with Village Roadshow, a global film production and exhibition company of Australia, and within a few years the company pioneered the multiplex format in India. Since its inception in 1997, the brand has redefined the movie watching experience in the country serving more than 110 million patrons at PAN India level. The company acquired Cinemax in 2012, DT Cinemas in 2016 and has recently taken over SPI Cinemas in 2018. With its launch in Sri Lanka, PVR now operates a portfolio of 835 screens across 175 cinemas in 71 cities (India and Sri Lanka).

With an Owners/President Management program from Harvard Business School and a passion to venture into the unknown; www. Bilji saw his business diversifying into distribution with PVR Pictures, hospitality, and retail. Acknowledging his business acumen, he has been honoured with “International Exhibitor of the Year award” at Cine Asia 2017 in Hong Kong. Furthermore, CNBC TV 18 presented him with Asia Innovator of the Year at India Business Leader awards, 2016 (IBLA) and Images Retail honoured him as one of the 100 Retail ICONS of INDIA 2019. Besides the recent recognitions, he has also been gratified with prestigious awards like E&Y Entrepreneurial Award for Business Transformation, CNBC's Emerging India Award, Most Admired Multiplex Professional by CMO Asia’s Multiplex Excellence Award, to name a few. Under his leadership, PVR has also bagged the Fortune India’s Next 500 Big and Mid-size companies’ award as well.

As an industry leader of Indian film exhibition, Ajay is on the Board of Trustees of the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI) and the founding member of FICCI Multiplex Association (India). He is also a member of The Film and TV Producers Guild (India), Young Presidents’ Organization and is associated with the Central Board of Film Certification, Government of India.

Uday Shankar is the President of The Walt Disney Company for Asia Pacific and the Chairman of Star and Disney India.

Uday leads the charge for Disney’s transformation into a direct-to-consumer company in the most exciting region of the world. Within a year, he led the launch of Disney+ in five countries, making Disney the leading streaming company in Asia Pacific. His successful strategy to launch Disney+ in India through home-grown Hotstar created a new template for Asian markets, which resulted in the subsequent launch of Disney+ Hotstar in Indonesia. Very few traditional media companies have made a leap to digital as effectively and rapidly as Star and Disney have in India and Asia Pacific.

Along with his leadership of Disney’s media networks and direct-to-consumer businesses, Uday also oversees Disney’s film distribution and content sales operations in Asia Pacific, which has emerged as the fastest growing market for this business.

Prior to his current role, Uday was the President of 21st Century Fox for Asia and the Chairman & CEO of Star India. He took over the leadership of Star India in 2007 and since then has transformed Star into one of the largest and most successful media companies in Asia. A believer in the power of local, Uday led the company’s aggressive foray into regional and local language programming, transforming Star into a content behemoth which now broadcasts more than 30,000 hours of content every year. Uday also consolidated Star’s sports broadcasting operations through 21st Century Fox’s acquisition of its joint venture with ESPN. Today, Star Sports is India’s largest sports broadcaster and is fundamentally redefining India’s sports ecosystem. In a notoriously single sport country, Star has launched multiple domestic sports leagues like those in Kabaddi and Football and has pioneered the agenda of creating a thriving multi-sports culture. Under Uday’s leadership, Star has also made strides in disrupting the country’s digital landscape with the launch of Hotstar, and subsequently Disney+ Hotstar, which is India’s largest OTT platform for professionally produced content and has gone global in its footprint. With its strong technology muscle, Hotstar has guided the evolution of Star beyond a traditional media institution into a leading consumer technology company. It is now the largest digital video platform outside of US and China. Under Uday’s leadership, Star has transformed into a multi-screen, multi-genre media network and that reaches out to more 700 million viewers every month in more than 100 countries. It broadcasts 70+ TV channels in 8 different languages in India, reaching 9 out of every 10 C&S TV homes.

In addition to his leadership of Star, Uday has played a key role in shaping the media and entertainment sector in India, bringing major reforms for the industry and its consumers. He has been at the forefront of landmark initiatives in television broadcasting including self-regulation and digitization of the television distribution ecosystem. Currently, Uday is the Senior Vice President of FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry). He has earlier been the President of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) and the Chairman of FICCI’s Media and Entertainment Committee.

A trained journalist, Uday also pioneered the development of TV news ecosystem in India. Prior to Star India, he was the CEO and Editor of Star News, which was the first 24-hour news channel in India. He was also the Editor and News Director at TV Today Group, where he spearheaded the launch of Aaj Tak, a leading Hindi news channel, in 2000 and Headlines Today, a leading English news channel, in 2003. Uday holds an www. Phil in Economic History from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

In 2000, Marchetti founded YOOX, the world’s first lifestyle e-commerce destination, long before the launch of Facebook, Instagram and the iPhone. YOOX was listed on the Milan Stock Exchange in 2009, the first IPO in Italy for 18 months; today, it remains Italy’s sole “unicorn”. In 2015, Marchetti drove the game-changing merger of YOOX and NET-A-PORTER to create YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP, the world leader in online luxury fashion.

Over the past two decades, Marchetti has brought speed and agility to the luxury industry and reinvented the business of fashion through technology.

He has gained the trust of the most important luxury brands in the world, such as Hermès, LVMH’s Fendi and Kering’s Gucci, who consider NET-A-PORTER a neutral platform even as part of Richemont. He has redefined the in-store customer experience for brands including Valentino through a game-changing definition of omnichannel (the Group’s pioneering “Next Era” initiative).

Marchetti has changed the way people shop. If an online shopper is buying luxury right now, chances are it’s coming from YOOX NET-A-PORTER. Today, YOOX NET-A-PORTER serves more than 4.3 million customers in 180 countries with more than 1 billion visits to its online destinations annually. Over 1 billion euros of luxury is sold through mobile phones each year. Now, he is transforming the luxury shopping experience through artificial intelligence, visual recognition and big data.

In 2016, Marchetti was among the first to believe in the potential of selling high jewellery and luxury watches online, pushing NET-A-PORTER and www. PORTER to become leaders online, today selling brands such as Piaget, Cartier, Audemars Piguet, Pomellato, IWC and Buccellati.

He has driven the creation of a state-of-the-art logistics platform outside Milan for the Group’s Luxury Division brands NET-A-PORTER and www. PORTER to better serve European customers, in a move that preceded Brexit but will prove invaluable during the transition. The project is one of the most complex techno-logistic platform renewals in the history of e-commerce, giving NET-A-PORTER and www. PORTER a huge competitive advantage for the future.

Sustainability and Social Responsibility

Marchetti brings an entrepreneurial spirit to his social and environmental engagement.

In 2019, alongside HRH The Prince of Wales, Marchetti committed to The Modern Artisan project, a unique partnership between YOOX NET-A-PORTER and The Prince’s Foundation. The collaboration is designed to equip young artisans with data-driven design expertise and the skills to succeed in a fast-paced digital landscape while producing sustainable collections of luxury menswear and womenswear to the highest standards.

Supporting the next generation has always been a priority for Marchetti. In 2011, together with Franca Sozzani, he launched The Next Talents programme with YOOX, which will continue in the future with the “Vogue YOOX Challenge”, designed to foster a responsible fashion through technology and innovation.

He has been a pioneer in promoting sustainable fashion and managing his business in an environmentally responsible manner. Back in 2009, he launched YOOXYGEN, the first online destination dedicated to responsible brands, and the ECOBOX, the first responsible packaging in fashion e-commerce, made out of 100% recyclable and recycled materials. He brought YOOX’s best practices to NET-A-PORTER after the merger, leading to the launch of NET SUSTAIN, the sustainable fashion destination on NET-A-PORTER.

He is strongly committed to creating a culture of inclusivity and gender balance. At YOOX NET-A-PORTER, women make up more than half of the Group’s leadership, holding some of the most strategic roles, and almost two-thirds of its global workforce. He is a founding member of the Male Champions of Change’s Global Technology Group, which works to advance gender equality in the tech industry. In this regard, in 2019 YOOX NET-A-PORTER launched the global tech contest ‘Incredible Girls of the Future’ to find the female fashion entrepreneurs of tomorrow, with young women challenged to create innovative new fashion apps with sustainable purpose at their core.

Cognisant of the challenges that businesses face in finding future digital talent, Marchetti is committed to boosting digital skills among young people. YOOX NET-A-PORTER partners with Imperial College London in the UK and the Fondazione Golinelli in Italy to provide local schools with coding lessons, hackathons and fashion-related digital games. Over 10,000 young talents have been trained since 2016, more than half of whom were girls.

In 2020, Federico established a mentorship program offering his experience and skills to aspiring entrepreneurs from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the sector. Over the course of the program Federico provided the mentees with advice, strategic suggestions and, where possible, concrete continued support.

Awards and Other Appointments

His achievements were recognized by the President of the Italian Republic who knighted him as a Cavaliere. He has also received the Leonardo Award for Innovation.

Marchetti was named by Wired UK as one of the most influential figures in European tech and featured by Vanity Fair America as one of “The Disruptors” in the magazine’s New Establishment List.

In 2020, Federico Marchetti joined the Giorgio Armani S.p.A. Board of Directors as an independent non-executive director.

A practicing physician, Ashish K. Jha, www.D., www.P.H., is recognized globally as an expert on pandemic preparedness and response as well as on health policy research and practice. He has led groundbreaking research around Ebola and is now on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response, leading national and international analysis of key issues and advising state and federal policy makers.

Dr. Jha has published more than two hundred original research publications in prestigious journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the BMJ, and is a frequent contributor to a range of public media. He has extensively researched how to improve the quality and reduce the cost of health care, focusing on the impact of public health policy nationally and around the globe.

On September 1, Dr. Jha started his role as the Dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University. Before that, Dr. Jha was a faculty member at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health since 2004 and Harvard Medical School since 2005. He was the Faculty Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute from 2014 until September 2020. From 2018 to 2020, he served as the Dean for Global Strategy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. A general internist previously with the West Roxbury VA in Massachusetts, Dr. Jha will continue his practice at the Providence VA Medical Center.

Dr. Jha was born in Pursaulia, Bihar, India in 1970. He moved to Toronto, Canada in 1979 and then to the United States in 1983. In 1992, Dr. Jha graduated Magna Cum Laude from Columbia University with a B.A. in economics. He received his www.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1997 and then trained as a resident in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He returned to Boston to complete his fellowship in General Medicine from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In 2004, he completed his Master of Public Health degree at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2013.

David A. Sinclair, Ph.D., A.O. is a Professor in the Department of Genetics, Blavatnik Insitute, and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School. He is best known for his work on understanding why we age and how to slow its effects. He obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, in 1995 and did his postdoctoral research at www.I.T. with Dr. Leonard Guarente where he co discovered a cause of aging for yeast as well as the role of Sir2 in epigenetic changes driven by genome instability and aging.

In 1999 he moved to Harvard Medical School and has primarily focused on understanding why we age and the role of protective enzymes called the sirtuins, which respond to changing NAD+ levels, exercise, and caloric restriction (CR). The Sinclair lab was the first to identify a role for NAD biosynthesis in the regulation of lifespan and first showed that sirtuins are involved in CR’s benefits in mammals and identified the first small molecules that activate SIRT1 (STACs).

His lab is alos working on epigenetic changes as a driver of aging and the use of reprogramming factors to reset the age of cells and tissues. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Lifespan (2019), has published over 200 scientific papers, is a co-inventor on over 50 patents, and has co-founded biotechnology companies in the areas of aging, vaccines, diabetes, infectious diseases, immunity and cancer. He serves as co-chief editor of the scientific journal Aging and has received 35 honors including the Australian Medical Research Medal, the Irving Wright Award, the NIH Director’s Pioneer award, TIME magazine’s list of the “100 most influential people in the world” and the “Top 50 people in Healthcare”. In 2018, he became an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO).

Dr K. Kasturirangan is currently Chancellor, Central University of Rajasthan; Chairman, Governing Board, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA); Chairperson, NIIT University, Neemrana; Member, Atomic Energy Commission, Emeritus Professor at National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore and Honorary Distinguished Advisor, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Earlier, as Chairman of ISRO, he oversaw the space programme of India between the years 1994 and 2003. He was a Member, Upper House of the Indian Parliament (2003-2009) and later Member of the erstwhile Planning Commission (2009-2014). More recently (July 2017-December 2018), he was the Chairman of the Committee that drafted the new National Education Policy.

Dr. Kasturirangan is a Member of all the four National Science Academies and several International academies. He is a Member of the International Astronomical Union and a Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He is the Honorary Fellow of the Cardiff University, UK and Academician of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Vatican City. Dr. Kasturirangan is the only Indian to be conferred the Honorary Membership of the International Academy of Astronautics, besides being its Vice President (2003-2005).

He has won several awards including Brock Medal (2004), Allan D Emil Memorial Award (2004), Theodore Von Karman Award (2007) and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award (1983) among others. He has been conferred with the highest civilian honours Padma Shri (1982), Padma Bhushan (1992) and Padma Vibhushan (2000) by the President of India, the Rajyotsava Prashasthi (2014) from Government of Karnataka and Award of ‘Officer of the Legion d’honneur’ (2002) by the President of the French Republic, France.

Vikram Patel is The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. He co-leads the GlobalMentalHealth@Harvard initiative. His work has focused on the burden of mental health problems, their association with social disadvantage, and the use of community resources for their prevention and treatment. He is a co-founder of the Movement for Global Mental Health, the Centre for Global Mental Health (at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine), the Mental Health Innovations Network, and Sangath, an Indian NGO which won the WHO Public Health Champion of India prize. He is a Fellow of the UK's Academy of Medical Sciences and has served on the Committee which drafted India’s first National Mental Health Policy and the WHO High Level Independent Commission for NCDs. He has been awarded the Chalmers Medal, the Sarnat Prize, the Pardes Humanitarian Prize, an Honorary OBE and the John Dirk Canada Gairdner Award in Global Health. He was listed in TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential persons of the year in 2015.

Hailed by rolling stone india as “one of the country’s leading singer-songwriters,” Prateek Kuhad has taken the rest of the world by storm in recent years, garnering a slew of accolades and honours around the globe with his mesmerizing, cinematic songwriting.

While kuhad has long been a household name in his native country (he became one of Spotify India’s most-streamed artists when the service launched recently, and his latest ep, ‘cold/mess,’ debuted at #1), 2019 proved to be his breakout year in North America, with a star-making turn at SXSW and a cross-country headline run that culminated with three sold-out shows in NYC. His song cold/mess was recently included in Barack Obama’s “favourite music of 2019” list. us press was quick to take notice of what millions of listeners around the world already knew, and rave reviews followed Kuhad everywhere he went: Austin monthly dubbed him “a certifiable international sensation,” us weekly praised his music as “beautifully haunting,” and Brooklyn vegan celebrated his “angelic vocals.”

Liberated by the limitless possibility he discovered in New York, Kuhad decided to take a leap of faith and pursue music full time upon his return to India. A pair of early eps (one in English, one in Hindi) put him on the map, and his full-length debut, ‘in tokens and charms,’ was an instant hit. the record earned Kuhad an MTV Europe music award, Indie album of the year Honours from Itunes, and the title of best pop artist at the radio city freedom awards, and the album’s opening track, “oh love,” captured first place in the prestigious international songwriting competition, which had previously helped launch artists like GOTYE and passenger to global audiences. soon, Kuhad was selling out auditorium and amphitheatre dates across India, landing arena support slots with the likes of alt-j and Mike Posner, and travelling the world for headline and festival performances in the US, Australia, Singapore, Canada, and France.