December 3, 2009 | New Delhi, India
Mark Rushton is UK based and has worked in print, pulp and paper for a career spanning 30 years. He has been reporting on the pulp and paper industry for over 10 years and has visited mills and companies across the globe. He started on Papermaking and Distribution (PMD), Digital Printer and Print & Paper Monthly. Mark is now the editor of Pulp & Paper International (PPI) magazine and is also responsible for overseeing content on the www.risi.com website and in Pulp & Paper International (PPI) China magazine. Mark is also the chairman of the PPI Awards judging panel and regularly interviews the leading CEOs in the pulp and paper industry. Mark holds a City and Guilds in Printing and Allied Trades.
Gautam Thapar is Chairman & CEO of one of India's foremost diversified corporation, the Avantha Group. The Group has business interests in diverse areas, including pulp and paper, power transmission and distribution equipments and services, food processing, farm forestry, chemicals, energy, infrastructure, information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services.
With an impressive global footprint, the Group operates in more than 10 countries with 20,000 employees of 20 nationalities.
Gautam began his education at the prestigious Doon School, where he imbibed a liberal education based on the ideals of secularism, discipline and equality. After studying chemical engineering in the U.S.A., he returned to India and started his career as a factory assistant in one of the organisation's manufacturing companies. He rose steadily and steered the organisation through a strategic and visionary turnaround, involving resilience and restructuring, ensuring that the Group attained dominant status in key operating sectors. Gautam became Group Chairman on 1st July 2006. He sits on the boards of various companies in India and overseas, and is one of India's youngest and brightest global business leaders. In 2008, Gautam received the coveted Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Manufacturing.
Keen on giving back to society, Gautam takes his social responsibilities very seriously. This is manifested in his involvement across three sectors: education, leadership development and sports. He serves as an active member of the Pratham Education Trust and is the President of Thapar University, one of the top twenty technical schools in India. He is the Vice Chairman of The Aspen Institute India, which aims to internationalize India's business, political and cultural leadership. He also takes an avid interest in promoting the game of golf, and is President of the Professional Golf Tour of India.
Gautam is married to Stephanie and they have four children.
Mr. Anil Kumar is an Electrical Engineer with post-graduation in Business Management and has more than 35 years industry experience. He is presently working as Executive Director and CEO of Shreyans Industries Limited, a leading agro based paper manufacturing Company of India.
He is currently Senior Vice President of Indian Agro and Recycled Paper Mills Association [IARPMA].
He is also Immediate Past Present of Indian Pulp and Paper Technical Association [IPPTA].
He represents industry on Governing Council of Central Pulp and Paper Research Institute [CPPRI] and is also a Member of Research Advisory Committee of this Institute.
Did Post Graduation in Management from MS University, Baroda.
Joined ITC in 1982 after a 2 year stint in ABB. Associate with ITC in Paperboards division from 1982 to 1989 and with ITC Global Holdings, international trading outfit of ITC, from 1989 to 1999, based at Singapore and Dubai.
Joined back ITC Paperboards business in 1999 as Head of Supply Chain handling complete procurement of all inputs,logistics,warehousing and Inventory Management for 4 units operating across India.
Pioneered ITC's WOW- wealth out of waste Initiative, to create awareness among general public on source segregation of recyclables, which are currently getting landfilled. This will help to reduce import of recycled fiber by paper industry and generate enough raw material from local sources.
In the process WOW will reduce dependence on Natural resources substantially, protecting environment and improving green cover and general health and hygiene.
Sandy Lu, Economist, Shanghai, have been working in the Asian Service helping with RISI's coverage of Asian graphic paper and pulp markets. Ms. Lu did her undergraduate work at the University of Science and Technology East China, and holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Cardiff, United Kingdom. She is fluent in English, Cantonese and the Shanghai dialect.
Ajay Shukla joined Tata McGraw-Hill Education India (MHEI) in October 2005 and has led the Indian operation to consistent and profitable growth doubling revenues and profits in a short span of three years. Most recently he was awarded the global McGraw-Hill Companies’ highest individual honour – the Excellence in Leadership Award 2008 for achieving extraordinary growth in India.
In his earlier stint with Reader’s Digest, India where he was a publishing director Ajay was recognized by the Indian media and advertising industry as the Best Media Marketer of the Year 2005.
Ajay is an electronics and communication engineering graduate from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and a MBA from Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), University of Delhi.
An avid reader, Ajay likes to read contemporary fiction and management books. He plays tennis regularly, is fond of adventure holidays, plays classical tabla and sings Hindustani vocal music. Ajay is also a PADI certified Open Sea Diver.
He is married to Rachna who teaches Economics and they live in New Delhi with their daughter Aishwarya(14) and son Aday(8).
Robert (Bob) Flynn is Director, International Timber for RISI, the leading information provider for the global forest products industry. Mr. Flynn has more than 30 years experience in the forest industry, including 9 years as a forester for Champion International in Oregon. He has spent the past 20+ years as a consultant to the industry, with a focus on analysis of timber supply and demand trends outside of North America; international trade of logs, woodchips, and biomass; and trends in international timberland investment. He joined RISI in April 2006, and has published two reports on China’s timber supply and demand; a global comparison of planted forest economics and investment attractiveness for tree farm development; a profile of India’s forest products industry; an analysis of the impact of Russia's log export tax on Asian log markets; annual reports on international trade in woodchips and biomass; and most recently he published a report on South American plantation forestry and bioenergy markets. He holds a BA degree in geography from the University of Texas, a BS degree in forest management from Northern Arizona University and an MS in economics from the University of Oregon.
Surya Raina has over 25 years of experience in the pulp and paper industry. He is a Chemical Engineer and has 15 years of operational experience in the Asian pulp and paper industry.
Since 2002, Surya has been working with RISI benchmarking services and has recently assumed the responsibility as Vice President of Mill Intelligence group. Prior to that he spent eight years working as consultant with Jacobs Sirrine Consultants and Simon Consulting group based in Atlanta.
Surya specializes in cost benchmarking of graphic papers and is well versed with the cost structure of graphic papers in different geographical regions. He has also been actively involved in due diligence and optimization studies.
ITC Ltd., is one of India's high-performing diversified conglomerates with interests in Foods, hotels, paper, lifestyle retailing, matches, stationery products, incense sticks, paper, printing & packaging, international trading and tobacco. The Company's paper business, Paperboards & Specialty Papers Division (PSPD) is headquartered in Hyderabad. The main themes of this business are Paperboards, Fine Papers and Specialty Papers.
Mr. Viswanathan, a Management Graduate, joined the Company in 1982. In his long career he has handled various roles in the Sales & Marketing function, the last 7 years at the helm. He is also a member of the Divisional Management Committee of the business.
ITC has been the pioneer in India in spearheading market creation efforts for premium paperboards and presently its portfolio includes a very wide range of products, customized for various applications. Mr. Viswanathan has played a key role in this effort, conceiving and executing the product, market strategies very successfully.
Raji Philip has been the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of the Hindustan Paper Corporation Limited (HPC), Kolkata since January, 2001. Managing Director of HPC’s wholly owned Subsidiary Hindustan Newsprint Limited (HNL), Newsprint Nagar, Kerala for 3 years from January 1998. Post Graduate in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) – Class of 1977 – 79. Worked with organisations in the Indian Power Sector like NTPC Ltd., Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd. and Power Finance Corporation Ltd. from 1979 to 1998. Vice-Chairman - Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE), the apex forum of Public Enterprises for two 2-year terms from April, 2003 to March, 2007. Represented Indian Organisations at several international fora. President of the Indian Newsprint Manufacturers Association (INMA) since 2002. Member, Council of Association, CPPRI, the R&D Organisation for Indian Paper Industry. Member, Board of Governors, Indian Institute of Forest Management. Visiting Faculty to Business Schools and Management Development Institutes.
Sridhar has a cumulative work experience of close to fifteen years in industry and company research. He has been researching and providing opinion on various sectors including paper, sugar, textiles, and some of the services sectors like hotels, hospitals and educational services. Besides being quoted in the print and electronic media for his views, Sridhar is also a speaker at several industry forums and training colleges of banks. He has advised various corporates in areas of product selection, market estimation and demand forecasting.
Mr. Deepak Khedkar is a hard core Food Technologist and completed Master’s of Technology from Laxminarayan Institute of Technology, Nagpur. He is also a Chartered Engineer and having an experience in Quality Control, Production Management, Operations Management and Projects Management. He has designed and commissioned various projects in Food Processing area. He is with Indian Institute of Packaging for the last 4 years and published papers in leading Indian magazine. He has delivered many presentations on various packaging materials used in various sectors of Industry on different forums of national and international levels. He has also established various projects in the field of Packaging to various national and multi-national companies. He has also joined National Advisory Committee on Food Regulations under Confederation of Indian Industry. He is also a member of various Committees of Bureau of Indian Standards.
Stoffel's career at HP began in 1983 with projects involving plasma enhanced vapor deposition of silicon carbide, silicon design, printhead construction, and ink formulation for PaintJet, HP’s first color ink jet device. After PaintJet was successfully introduced, Stoffel directed his efforts primarily to ink formulation, becoming a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in 1991, a Project Manager in 1993, and the Hewlett Packard Ink Jet Ink Technology Manager and Master in 1998. As a member of special product development teams at HP, he took part in the creation of the first color ink jet inks for HP printers; the first pigmented black ink jet ink, the black ink used in the HP 45 cartridge, and, the first six color set of ink jet photo inks.
John Stoffel holds over 28 patents relating to ink jet ink, media, and printhead design. In addition, he has authored articles published in the HP Journal, has delivered several lectures at imaging industry conferences, and has given numerous interviews to the newspaper, magazine, and television press.
In 1998, John Stoffel was promoted to Master Chemist and in 2005 he was promoted to Distinguished Technologist. His responsibilities included managing Hewlett Packard’s inkjet ink technology roadmap and investments. In 2005, John led the HP team that worked with International Paper to introduced ColorLok media across HP Everyday Paper. In April 2007, Stoffel moved to the HP Media supplies and Solutions Division as the position of Director of Research and Development. Under his leadership, groundbreaking photographic media for retail photo printing and coated media for HP’s web press were developed.
