Scaling Success from Failure | Pullela Gopichand & R. Vaishnav | NISC 2019

NASSCOM International SME Conclave (NISC) 2019 was organized on 10th and 11th of January, 2019 at Biswa Bangla Convention Centre, Kolkata. NISC 2019 provided a great platform for SMEs to come and network at an international level with eminent speakers sharing their stories and thoughts on business expansion.
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Explore more at https://www.smeconclave.in

'Scaling Success from Failure'

Pullela Gopichand
Dronacharya Awardee and National Badminton Coach

There are those who drive themselves to make their passion the reason for their success and there are those whose passion also drives people to achieve success. Pullela Gopichand, former Indian badminton player is one such person to have done both. He won the All England Open Badminton Championships in 2001 becoming the second Indian to achieve this feat after Prakash Padukone. Currently, he is the Chief National Coach for the Indian Badminton team and runs the Gopichand Badminton Academy. Gopichand not only brought laurels to the country, but also coached two of India’s Olympic medalist badminton players Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu. He received the Arjuna Award in 1999, the Dronacharya Award in 2009 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.

After winning his first National Badminton Championship title in 1996, Gopichand went on to win the title five times in a row, until 2000. He won two golds and one silver medal at the Indian National Games in 1998. In 1996, he won gold in the SAARC badminton tournament and defended the crown in the next games held at Colombo in 1997. At the 1998 Commonwealth Games, he won a silver medal in the team event and a bronze in men’s singles. After retiring from his playing career, Pullela Gopichand founded the Gopichand Badminton Academy, which has produced several badminton players including Saina Nehwal, P. V. Sindhu, Parupalli Kashyap, Srikanth Kidambi, Arundhati Pantawane, Gurusai Datt and Arun Vishnu.

Rajiv Vaishnav
Managing Partner, Cornerstone Venture Partners

Rajiv is Managing Partner at Cornerstone Venture Partners, a global tech VC fund focused on Consumer business enablers (such as Applied AI) and Enterprise / SME BI solutions (vertical SaaS, AR & VR applications, Blockchain for enterprise, etc.).

Rajiv brings over 35 years of solid experience in building brands, developing teams, expanding the market share & building organizations from grass root upwards is his passion & experience. Right from his early career, Rajiv has been taking up challenges to plunge into the unknowns & make things happen.

Prior to this, he was heading the Ecosystem & Partnerships Development at GenNext Hub, A Reliance Enterprise and was responsible to evangelize the Start-Up ecosystem, identify and connect with the deserving start-ups, academia, government agencies, mentors, angel investors and VC networks globally. He was the Vice President – Member Outreach at NASSCOM for over 13 years, He has been an integral part of NASSCOM’s Trusted Sourcing Initiative and has led the Cyber Labs and cyber awareness initiatives in Mumbai, Thane and Pune in partnership with the enforcement agencies.