Ahmedabad, 23 November, 2011

Confluence, Asia’s biggest business festival and the annual business summit of IIM Ahmedabad will be happening at the IIM-A campus on the 25th, 26th and 27th of November. The event is being hosted in association with TAS, who has supported the fest for several years. The fest consists of speaker sessions where eminent speakers engage with the students on a variety of topics and competitions where the best brains from students across the country compete in events across the marketing, finance, strategy and agri-business spheres.

Confluence has continued its flagship events such as Masterplan, Mousetrap, Bizzquizitive and Corporate Combat along with the introduction of prestigious new events such as the TSMG – Strategy Quotient, TAS Altius, Oil Barons and a Model United Nations. Confluence is also known for the MSPs or Management Students’ Program that where B-school students from across the country can be taught by the renowned IIMA faculty on a variety of relevant management topics.

Confluence 2011 will host an eminent set of speakers this year hailing from a variety of sectors. The topics to be discussed by these speakers take forward the theme of Confluence this year, ‘Fostering Change, Championing Excellence’ by focusing on business leadership, entrepreneurship and public policy.

The speakers on the first day include Mr. GV Ravi Shankar, the MD of Sequoia capital, Mr. N. Thiruambalam, the MD of Heinz India, Mr. Kaushik Chatterjee, the CFO of Tata Steel, Mr. Renny Thomas, a partner of McKinsey and Mr. Vishal Mehta the founder of Infibeam. These speakers bring their unique perspectives to the discussion on Business Leadership and Excellence combining entrepreneurship, consulting and corporate experiences. To carry this theme forward, the MD of Google India, Mr. Rajan Anand will also be giving a talk during the afternoon session.

A focused session on Entrepreneurship in E-Retail will also be taking place on Day 2 featuring stalwarts such as Mr. Rohit Bansal, the MD of Snapdeal, Mr. Kashyap Dalal, the MD of Inkfruit, Mr. Vishal Mehta, the MD of Infibeam and Mr. Kartik Taneja, the MD of Verisign. The session will focus on the burgeoning opportunities in this fast growing sector and will aim to engage the interest of students to take up entrepreneurship in this area. The final day’s sessions have inspiring personalities like Justice C. K. Thakkar, Mr. J. M. Lyngdoh, the former Chief Election Commissioner and Wing Commander Rakesh Sharm, the first Indian in Space.

Rahul Madhavan, the student coordinator for the Speaker Cell of Confluence this year said “We have tried to make Confluence this year centered around the Speakers sessions and have quite a diverse set of speakers. From the former Chief Election Commissioner to an Honorable Justice of the Supreme Court of India; from the MD of Sequoia to the MD of Google, from the young entrepreneurs in tech start-ups to the experienced heads in the Tatas – we have an amazing set of speakers to interact with. I am really excited to be a part of this Confluence and am personally looking forward to meeting each of these stalwarts!”