Arpit Bhargav is Director, Diamond Comics Digital. He has more than 10 years of experience working on Indian and international TV commercials, entertainment, travel and lifestyle programming, and documentary films. He has worked for production houses such as Endemol, Bunim/Murray Productions, Sony Pictures,TLC, Sun Network, Zoom TV, Star India and Zee Network.
Asoke Ghosh is Chairman and Managing Director of PHI Learning. He has been associated with the International Publishers Association (IPA) since 1974 and is currently a member of IPA’s Executive Committee. He is also a foundermember and twice President of the Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP). He is currently a member of FIP’s Executive Committee and Chairman of its International Relations Committee.
Atiya Zaidi is Publisher at Ratna Sagar. She has 26 years of experience in writing and preparing books for children. She specializes in ELT, and creates course material for the social sciences, maths and science as well. She is on the faculty of two major publishing courses and is a founder member of the FICCI Publishing Cell.
Baldeo Bhai Sharma , senior media personality and thinker, is Chairman of National Book Trust. He has served as Editor of dailies such as Dainik Swadesh, Dainik Bhaskar, Amar Ujala, Panchjanyain and National Duniya. He is known for his participation in socio-political discourse on various news channels and has long been associated with Akashvani through numerous programmes. He also works with various social institutions.
Bipin Shah is Publisher and Managing Director of Mapin Publishing, publishers of illustrated books on the art and culture of India. Mapin offers packaging services to international publishers and museums and custom publishing solutions to corporate clients in India, and has expansion plans involving the development of educational content in the art, architecture and design, and children’s segments. Bipin has recently led Mapin’s introduction of BooksPlus Augmented Reality for illustrated-book publishers.
Bishan Samaddar is Editor and Book Designer at Seagull Books, and Instructor in Editing at the Seagull School of Publishing. He has worked at Seagull Books for more than seven years, and has edited books by numerous authors including
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. He is a keen traveller and a phone photographer. Chiki Sarkar is Publisher and Co-Founder of Juggernaut Books. She started her career in publishing with Bloomsbury Publishing in London, and after seven years moved to Delhi and joined Random House in 2006. In 2011 she took over at Penguin Books India, and following the merger of Penguin Books and Random House in 2013 she was made the India head of the new company. She set up her own publication house, Juggernaut, thereafter.
Devayani Devesh Abhyankar has been Director and Partner at Marathilanguage publishers Continental Prakashan since 1994. She is a member of the Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP), and has won nine national awards from FIP for excellence in book production. For her contributions to publishing, Devayani won the Parvati Bhooshan Puraskar in 2013 and was feted by Lions Club Pune in 2014.
Emma House is Deputy CEO of the Publishers Association, the trade body in the UK for books and journal publishers. Emma has worked at the PA for 9 years, having previously spent 6 years in international roles at the London Book Fair and 6 years in international magazine publishing.
Geeta Dharmarajan is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Katha.A writer, editor and educationist, Geeta is interested in learning across boundaries. Her work has focused on education, especially for children from economically poor families, and on linking India’s diverse cultures, values and traditions through translations. Her interests have shaped the inclusive and integrated work of Katha and its various activities in the fields of literature and literary translation, community activism and education.
Gulshan Rai is Managing Director of Diamond Comics, the largest comic publishing group in India. In addition to Diamond Comics, he founded Diamond Pocket Books which has published over 2,000 books in Hindi, English, Urdu, Bengali and in other regional languages.
Mr Rai has won a number of awards including International Professional of the Year by International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, UK (2005); Bharatiya Udyog Ratna Award by National Education and Human Resource Development Organisation (2005); and World Business Leader Award by World Confederation of Businesses, Houston, USA (2015).
Himanshu Giri is CEO of Pratham Books, India’s largest non-profit children’s book publishing house. He has 20 years of experience in publishing and has worked on many public and private educational projects for setting up libraries for underserved children in India. He was one of the key team associates that set up Scholastic in India and was associated with the company for more than a decade.
Himanshu Gupta has been Managing Director of S. Chand Publishing since 2007. He has over 15 years of experience in the knowledge products and services industry. He was Vice President (South) of the Federation of Indian Publishers in 2012-13, and received the Young Publisher Award from the Federation of Educational Publishers in India for 2011.
Indira Chandrasekhar is Publisher and Managing Editor of Tulika Books, New Delhi and has been associated with the book publishing industry in India since the early 1980s. She is a founding partner of the Independent Publishers’ Distribution Alternatives, a distribution network set up by eight independent publishers to promote alternative/independent publishing in India. Indu is also a member of the Paris-based International Alliance of Independent Publishers, and a trustee of the Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation.
José Borghino is Secretary General of the International Publishers Association (IPA). He joined the IPA as Policy Director in 2013 and was appointed to his current role in 2015. He came to the IPA from the Australian Publishers Association where he served as Manager of Industry Representation. His previous professional roles include teaching journalism and creative industries at the University of Sydney, Executive Director of the Australian Society of Authors, and senior positions at the Literature Board of the Australia Council.
Kanishka Gupta , a writer and publishing commentator, is Founder of the literary agency Writer’s Side. His second book is forthcoming from Speaking Tiger in 2018.
Karthika V .K. is Publisher,Westland Publications. She started her career as an editor at Penguin Books India, and thereafter moved to HarperCollins India where she was Publisher for ten years. She joined Westland Publications, an Amazon company, in January 2017 to build a list that prioritizes literary fiction and narrative non-fiction. Over the course of her twenty-one-year career, Karthika has edited and published books in different genres including fiction, non-fiction, poetry and comics, and has worked with a number of awardwinning authors.
Dr. K. Sreenivasarao is Secretary of Sahitya Akademi and has worked with the organization for more than two-and-a-half decades. He is a sitting member of the Press Council of India, Rashtrapati Bhavan Literary Committee, General Assembly of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation, and Doordarshan’s Preview Committee, and is on the Council of Sangeet Natak Akademi. He has translated a children’s dictionary from English to Telugu, and received the Delhi Telugu Akademi Award for 2011. Keith Ogorek is President,Author Learning Centre. He has led many innovations in the self-publishing industry and is featured in the book, Innovation – How Innovators Think,Act and Change Our World. He has written three books and a number of white papers, and speaks at leading industry events. Keith is a regular webinar presenter for the Author Learning Centre.
Kristenn Einarsson has been Chairman, IPA Freedom to Publish Committee, since 2016. His other roles include: CEO, Norwegian Publishers Association; President, Bjørnson Academy (The Norwegian Academy for Literature and Freedom to Speech); Board Member, Norwegian Literature Abroad; Chairman, RiksTV; and Chairman, Norges Televisjon. He was CEO of Norwegian Book Clubs from 1991 to 2010, Chairman of the Kunnskapsforlaget publishing house during 2000-08, and Managing Director of Kunnskapsforlaget during 2008-10.
Michael Healy is Executive Director (International Relations) at the Copyright Clearance Centre (CCC). Pri
or to joining CCC, he was Executive Director of the Book Rights Registry. He has also worked for more than 20 years in UK’s publishing industry. Michael has been closely involved in developing standards for the international book trade and has been Chairman of the International ISBN Agency. He currently chairs the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) Agency and is a director of the UK Copyright Hub.
Mini Krishnan is Translations Editor at Oxford University Press India. She is involved in sourcing fiction, plays, travelogues, autobiographies and biographies from sixteen Indian languages. She consults for Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University’s translation programme, and writes two monthly columns for The Hindu. Mini also selects short fiction in translation for Frontline.
Namita Gokhale is Festival Director for the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), and is JLF’s co-Founder-Director along with William Dalrymple. Her debut novel Paro: Dreams of Passion was published in 1984 and she has written 14 books of which eight are fiction. Namita published the Bollywood film magazine Super right after dropping out of college.
Naveen V alsakumar is Co-Founder and CEO, Notion Press, and handles business operations, marketing and sales at the company. He strongly believes in technology’s ability to change lives and leverages it in his endeavour to change the way books are created and authors are launched. Naveen refers to himself as a ‘humour monger’ who spouts one-liners at the drop of a hat.
Neeraj Jain is Managing Director of Scholastic India. Before joining the publishing industry, he worked with media and direct marketing companies and has been in the Steering Committee of ‘Excellence in School Education’, an initiative by IIT Delhi. He is a member of CII and the American Chamber of Commerce.
Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee has been Editorial Director of Niyogi Books since 2013. In his previous roles, he was Editor of Sahitya Akademi’s bimonthly journal Indian Literature and Director of National Book Trust. He entered the publishing industry as a member of the editorial team for the Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature Project undertaken by Sahitya Akademi, and later took charge of the Akademi’s Eastern Regional Office at Kolkata. He has also been Director of K.K. Birla Foundation, a private trust devoted to the cause of art, literature and education.
Nitin Shah is Managing Director of Sapna Book House. He is also President of the Bangalore Book Sellers and Publishers Association,Vice President (South) of the Federation of Publishers’ and Booksellers’Association in India, and Executive Member of the Federation of Educational Publishers of India. He received the Karnataka State Rajyotsava Award in 2008 for publishing as well as the Best Publisher Award from Kannada Pustaka Pradhikara.
N.K. Mehra is Managing Director, Narosa Publishing House and President, Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP). He started his publishing career in 1959 and set up two companies, Narosa Book Distributors and Narosa Publishing House. Nandi, as he is popularly known, has been on FIP’s Executive Committee for over ten years, and has also served on the Executive Committee of the Federation of Publishers’ and Booksellers’Association in India where he was President for two terms.
Pankaj Bhardwaj is General Manager, Sales Operations at Taylor & Francis India. A publishing professional with over 20 years of experience, he looks after the company’s HSS publishing business across the South Asia region, and has worked with leading international publishing houses in the past.
Pranav Gupta is Director of Prints Publications, an exporter of Indian publications since 1966. He is Member, Regional Committee, Northern Region for the Books, Publications and Printing Panel of CAPEXIL; and is also on the Executive Committee of the Federation of Indian Publishers. Pranav is Director of the Afro-Asian Book Council, and regularly participates in various social welfare programmes.
Prashasti Rastogi is Director, German Book Office of the Frankfurt Book Fair in New Delhi. She works at the cross-section of publishing, technology and entertainment to create networks that will build the future of content. Her recent initiatives include the Young Publishing Professionals Programme and a translation portal to provide community orientation to German-language translators. She has previously served as Head of Communication and IT at the German Academic Exchange Service South Asia office.
Rachna Singh Davidar is a literary consultant based in New Delhi. She has worked with books and writers for 30 years in India, the UK and Canada. She started her career with The Bookshop in New Delhi, which her family owns. She is currently the Programme Director of Lit For Life, the literature festival of The Hindu.
Ramesh Chandra Jain is the founder of Manohar Publishers & Distributors. Initially selling only rare and out-of-print publications, Manohar soon branched out into local sales and export of new books published in India, and thereafter into publishing scholarly works under its own imprint.
Ramesh K. Mittal is Director of D.K.Agencies, an exporter of books and publications since 1968 and bibliographic services provider since 1973. He is also Director of LiFi Publications. He is Immediate Past President, CAPEXIL and ex-Chairman, Books, Publications and Printing Panel, CAPEXIL. He is Secretary-General of the Afro-Asian Book Council and the Indian Reprographic Rights Organization, and Advisor to Akhil Bharatiya Sanskrit Prakashak Sangh.
Ratnesh Jha is Managing Director, South Asia, Cambridge University Press, and President of the Association of Publishers in India (API). His management career spans over two decades and he is passionate about the education ecosystem. He is Co-Chair of the FICCI Publishing Committee and a member of the Higher Education Committee. He is also advises start-ups and works as a fundraiser and volunteer for NGOs.
Ravi Deecee is Managing Partner of DC Books, a leading book publisher in Malayalam. He is also Managing Director of the bookshop chain Current Books (India) Pvt. Ltd. Ravi serves as President of the All Kerala Publishers and Booksellers Association.
Ravi Singh is Publisher at Speaking Tiger, a Delhi-based independent publishing company he co-founded with Manas Saikia. In the past, Ravi has been Editorin-Chief and Publisher at Penguin India, and Co-Publisher at Aleph Book Company. Over 23 years he has worked with most of South Asia’s finest writers. Ritu Menon is Publisher at Women Unlimited.A writer and publisher who has been active in the South Asian women’s movement for over 20 years, Ritu is the Co-Founder of Kali for Women, India’s first and oldest feminist press, as well as the founder of Women Unlimited, an associate of Kali for Women.
Rohit Kumar is Managing Partner of Guiding Star Digital Publishers LLP and its subsidiary Chapter Apps Inc, where he is building and leveraging mobile technology platforms to improve productivity for professionals and students. Prior to starting his entrepreneurial ventures, Rohit was Managing Director, South Asia, Health Science Division, Reed Elsevier India. He was President of the Association of Publishers in India during 2013-15, and Co-Chair of the FICCI Publishing Committee during 2013-16.
S. Anand is Publisher at Navayana. He co-founded Navayana in 2003 along with Ravikumar, and in 2007 won the International Young Publisher of the Year award instituted by the British Council and London Book Fair. He has annotated Dr B.R.Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste and Riddles in Hinduism, and curated and co-authored Bhimayana, the graphic biography of Ambedkar that has been translated into nine languages.
S.K. Ghai is Chairman of Sterling Publishers and other group companies, as well as Chairman of the Institute of Book Publishing. He has been associated with the institute since its inception in 1985. He was Chairman, Books, Publications and Printing Panel, CAPEXIL during 2008-11. He is also Executive Committee Member of The Federation of Publishers’ and Booksellers’Associations in India. Mr Ghai has authored many books on the publishing industry, and is Editor of the e-journal Publishing Today. He is on the course faculty of National Book Trust and a member of the Expert Committee (Publishing) at IGNOU.
Saikrishna Rajagopal is Managing Partner of Saikrishna & Associates, a firm in the field of intellectual property. He has worked on a variety of intellectual property disputes in the past two decades and has appeared
in many landmark cases. He has appeared before a Standing Committee of Parliament deposing with respect to the 2012 amendments to the Copyright Act, 1957.
Sanjiv Gupta is Chief Operating Officer, Penguin Random House India. He manages finance and operations for the company and has over 25 years of experience across a spectrum of industries. Before joining Penguin in 2011 as Finance Director, Sanjiv was Director at Masonite Doors and was leading operations in India. He has previously worked with Hines India Real Estate, Bharti Group, Honeywell International, Honda Cars and DCM in various roles. Sesh Seshadri is Director of Lonely Planet India. He played a key role in Lonely Planet’s entry into the Indian market in 2012. In addition to over four decades of publishing experience, Sesh is an entrepreneur and consultant. He established the publishing consulting company O.V.E.R.L.E.A.F. in 1997, and is a trustee of the Neelbagh Group of Schools. He was also Founder-Director at Textech that specializes in providing content solutions to publishers.
Shalini Singh is Director, Publishing Services, SAGE India.After many years of spearheading multiple roles in advertising, she shifted gears and joined publishing at an entry level in 2005. She established the Publishing Services division at SAGE India and is now responsible for SAGE Bhasha commissioning and production. Her other core responsibilities are managing India Editorial Production (Books and Journals) and SAGE Global (Publishing Services).
Sivaramakrishnan V . is Managing Director of Oxford University Press India, with regional responsibilities including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. He has extensive experience in the education services, e-commerce, automobiles and FMCG domains. In his previous assignment, Siva was Executive President, Education Services at Manipal Global Education Services. He worked for nearly ten years with the Ford Motor Company and has held various consumer branding roles within Proctor & Gamble.
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