India Tax Workshop Speakers

Agneshwar leads the international trade policy vertical in EY since 2018. He completed his B. Com (Hons) in 1986 and qualified as a Cost Accountant in 1989, the same year he joined the Govt. of India through the Civil Services Exam.

Agneshwar comes with more than 28 years of experience and has held various positions in trade-related agencies of the Indian government. He has implemented various trade promotion schemes of the Govt., been involved in trade policy formulation, trade negotiations – both in free trade agreements and at the WTO, Geneva and investigating anti-dumping and related trade remedial complaints at the DGTR. He was on deputation to TRAI looking after consumer complaints and related issues before joining EY in 2018. In EY he has led a team to develop policy-related reports; assisted various clients on customs tariff-related issues; obtain trade incentives; devised an approach to trade remedial action and supported clients in seeking appropriate concessions under free trade agreements.

Ajay is a Partner, Lead Advisory at EY India. He heads the education and entertainment (TMT+Services), Technology and Communications sector and has been with EY from 2006. Mumbai-based qualified chartered accountant and lawyer, he has an extensive experience in M&A transaction and Private Equity fund raising transaction, investment structures and business structures across multiple sectors – Technology, Business Services, Media/Entertainment and Education. He has completed 15+ transactions in the last 3 years, with 7+ transactions over US$ 100 Mn. Some of these deals include advisory for Inox Leisure on its merger with PVR, Evosys on its acquisition by Mastek, BYJU’S in their acquisition of Aakash Educational Services, Allen Career Institute for fundraise from Bodhi Tree Systems, Northwest Executive Education in its acquisition by Great Learning, a BYJU’s group company, SPI Cinemas on its acquisition by PVR, Think Music on its acquisition by Believe International, Gradeup on its acquisition by BYJU’S, Nodwin Gaming on its acquisition by Nazara Technologies,Tagos Design Innovations (p) Ltd for PE fund raising from TG Holdings, Zee Digital Convergence, 3one4 Capital, Reliance Media Works on the merger of its film and media services business with prime focus.

Ajit Pai is the Strategy Lead Partner for Government and Public Sector at EY’s Strategy and Transactions group. Prior to this, he was Distinguished Expert, NITI Aayog where he headed Economics & Finance, oversaw Public Disinvestment and Public Enterprises. He was a Consultant to the Vice Chairperson and handled matters related to the World Bank, IFC, IMF, ADB, NDB, OECD, and the G20.

Previously, he has also worked McKinsey, Lazard, Thomas Weisel Partners and Stifel Financial, the latter two as Managing Director.  He has been awarded over six years a record five #1 Starmine Awards in the Forbes/Financial Times World’s Best Analysts Survey for forecast accuracy.

Ajit holds a B.Arch. from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, an M.Arch. from the Yale School of Architecture and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.  

Ajit is also Chairman of the Delhi Urban Art Commission, on the Executive Committee of the Indian Police Foundation, and on the Advisory Board of the Future Institute.

Amit is the Tax Director at Dell Technologies Indian Subcontinent based in Bengaluru, India. With an experience spanning over 25 years, Amit is responsible for all the tax matters of Dell Technologies (including legacy EMC) in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Prior to relocating to Bengaluru, Amit was based in Singapore managing taxes for Dell Technologies in the Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ) region. In this role, Amit was responsible for all the tax matters across Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, India and Singapore. 

Prior to joining Dell, Amit was the Tax Leader (VP) at GE Capital in India where his responsibilities included managing taxes (corporate and indirect) for various legal entities and advising/implementing tax-efficient structures for equity investments, cross-border funding/loans, leases, joint ventures and acquisitions. Amit has also worked as South Asia Tax Manager for Intel, Senior Consultant at Arthur Andersen/E&Y and as Financial Analyst with Kellogg India.

Amit is a qualified Chartered Accountant, Company Secretary, Grad. Cost & Works Accountant (CWA), Bachelor of Law (Law Graduate) from KSLU and Bachelor of Commerce (Honors).

Amit has been a regular speaker for many years at regional and worldwide reputed tax conferences/seminars held in places like Sydney (Australia), London, Paris, Cyprus, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, etc.

Amit Patwardhan is the Head of Taxation for HSBC Group in India. Amit is a Chartered Accountant by profession and has also done a master’s in commerce from the University of Mumbai.  He has more than two decades of work experience in the field of taxation and has worked with Multi-National Corporations (MNCs) such as KPMG and Barclays in India before joining HSBC. Amit has handled various facets of tax work including direct tax, international tax, transfer pricing, indirect tax, employee payroll tax, operational taxes etc. His area of expertise includes tax advisory, tax compliance, tax litigation and overall country tax risk management.

Anish, a partner in a member firm of EY Global and focuses on litigation, is a Chartered Accountant and a Law Graduate. Anish also has been a partner for more than a dozen years with EY’s Financial Services Tax Practice. He has close to three and a half decades of experience in various areas of tax including advisory, compliance, transfer pricing, transactions, policy advocacy and litigation. 

He was the President of The Chamber of Tax Consultants, a 97-year-old All India body of tax professionals comprising close to 3700 Chartered Accountants, Advocates etc, in the year 2020-21, a difficult year when the pandemic was in full swing. He is a regular contributor to various professional journals, books and newspapers and frequently speaks at seminars and conferences organised by various professionals and industry bodies. He has been a guest faculty at management institutes also.

Bipin is serving the Department of Commerce as a Development Commissioner and is an officer of the Indian Trade Service, 1997 batch. With private sector experience from 1991-96 dealing with engineering consultancy and foreign exchange risk management, he has also handled Foreign Trade Policy and the implementation of the schemes. He has steered the Multilateral trade negotiations at WTO and was posted in the Permanent Mission of India Geneva. Bipin has also been involved in FTA negotiations chiefly related to RCEP, Europe, Mauritius, Peru, Canada. 

Dhruv Gupta is a Partner and heads the international trade law practice at Lumiere Law Partners in India. He holds an L.L.B degree and a Bachelor of Commerce (Honors) degree from the University of Delhi, India. He is also an Associate Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Dhruv Gupta has extensive experience in representing clients in trade remedy investigations involving complex production and export value chains, cost allocations and product categorizations. He has represented multinationals, industry associations governments and domestic industry in more than 300 anti-dumping, countervailing duty and safeguard investigations conducted by India, EU, US, China, Canada, Turkey, Australia, South Africa etc. Dhruv Gupta has regularly appeared before the Indian authority during the course of trade remedy investigations and also before Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal concerning the review of trade remedy investigations conducted by the Authority. 

He regularly advises clients on various customs issues and issues relating to Foreign Trade Policy, Free Trade Agreements and anti-profiteering under GST law. He also has experience of working with a European Law Firm (Paris) where he advised multinational companies facing Customs and VAT issues in the EU. 

D.P. Nagendra Kumar is an officer from the 1985 batch of IRS and has wide experience in administering indirect taxes for over three and half decades. He holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration and a Degree in Law. He was a Member GST in the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) and is credited for establishing the first Large Taxpayer Unit (LTU) in the country in the year 2006. During his tenure as Member GST, path breaking measures in simplifying the GST provisions were recommended to GST Council that got approved in 45th and 47th GST Council Meetings. He was part of Focus Groups constituted by the Tax Administration Reforms Commission (TARC) on Audit and Scrutiny.  He was actively involved in drafting the model GST laws as a member of the Law Drafting Committee constituted by the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers and the Government of India. He was also a member in several Committees constituted by EC such as Dual Control, Threshold and Exemptions, Place of Supply, Committees constituted by GST Council on Seamless Transportation under GST, Sectoral Groups on Services provided to and by Governments. He was actively involved in training over 10,000 officers of both Central and State Governments in GST laws. He also addressed honorable members of the Legislative Assembly of Kerala on the invitation of the Speaker of the State Assembly in 2018.  He is a visiting faculty at IIM Bengaluru. Prior to his elevation as Member in the CBIC, he was Pr Chief Commissioner of the Central Tax Zone, Bengaluru overseeing the smooth transition to GST in the State of Karnataka. He was awarded the prestigious Presidential Appreciation Certificate for Distinguished Record of Service on the occasion of Republic Day 2009.

Ganesh is a Partner with Tax and Regulatory Services practice of EY India and also the Industry Leader for Aerospace & Defence Sector. He did his B.Com (Hons) in 1986 and cleared Chartered Accountancy in 1990 & LL.M. in 2015.

Ganesh comes with an experience of three decades in corporate tax planning, tax policy, international taxation, structuring cross- border investments and transactions, and joint venture negotiations. He has assisted various multinationals in identifying tax planning opportunities and ensuring an overall tax efficient structure with respect to their Indian operations. He heads the Firm’s Tax Policy initiatives and anchors the Firm’s relationship with the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and Ministry of Finance and is engaged on a regular basis in dialogue with senior Revenue Officials with regard to tax and fiscal policy issues. He has been a key negotiator before the Competent Authority for Mutual Agreement Procedures.

Garima has over 21 years of experience in advising and assisting clients on a broad range of tax and regulatory issues. Her area of expertise includes Financial Accounting, Statutory Reporting, Payroll services and Controls and Compliances. She has extensive experience in addressing tax and regulatory issues in Telecom, Technology and Professional Services sector on various aspects of domestic and cross border taxation, including tax treaty interpretation. She has gained wide experience in undertaking tax due diligence exercises, consulting on acquisition of businesses and structuring of transactions. During her two years stint with the US practice, she supported in development and implementation of Global Tax Risk Assessment methodology for the firm.

Himanshu Agarwal is CFO at Bennett and Coleman - one of the oldest companies of India, popular for its publications, Times of India and Economic times. Himanshu brings with him 28 years of professional experience. Himanshu is a rank holder Chartered Accountant as well as a company secretary and cost and management accountant. Prior to joining Bennett and Coleman, he has worked for Huhtamaki, AkzoNobel, Astra Zeneca Pharma, and ICI India. Himanshu brings broad Global and India experience in Finance, Strategy, operations and technology enablement in Coatings, Chemicals, Pharma, Packaging and Media industries. He has successfully led many strategic initiatives including business enabled finance transformation, profit turnaround, value chain optimization and many M&A deals and integration. He has enabled technology deployment from ERP to BOT’s that have enabled process transformation and simplification. 

Jayesh has three decades of experience in corporate international tax, transfer pricing, controversy, and transaction tax. He is a regular speaker at conferences and has contributed several articles on tax in journals and leading business dailies.

Mohapatra, a 1985-batch Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax) officer, was a member of the board that frames the policy for the Income Tax department. JB has served as a Chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) from May 2021 to April 2022. He was with the Income Tax Department, AP & Telengana as a principal chief commissioner. He was also an Adviser to PSA (Principal Scientific Adviser) to the Government of India under the Cabinet Secretariat from May 2018-to February 2020. JB has also been a Joint Secretary and Financial Adviser in the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Department of Science and Technology and Department of Biotechnology from 2013-2018. His term also includes Joint Secretary in Judges Inquiry Committee constituted by the Upper House of Parliament to lay charges against a Chief Justice of a High Court from 2010-2012. His first appointment was with the Central, Head Quarter, Vigilance positions at Mumbai, Kolkota, Bhubaneswar and Commissioner Appeals at Delhi as an Assistant Commissioner, Deputy, Joint and Additional Commissioner. He has been writing on tax laws and policy matters, and public finance issues of general interest.

Jitesh is a Partner and Leader, Tax and Finance Operate, at EY India. He has worked with EY for almost two decades in different roles. As part of his current role, he leads the Tax & Finance Operate (TFO) service offering (which involves EY taking over, transforming and operating the tax function of companies under an outsourced model). He has strong core tax technical knowledge and a passion for technology. He has experience across industries, primarily financial services and technology. He has been a part of the evolution in the Global Capability Center (GCC) space over the years. He has helped set up and continues to work with a number of GCCs in Bengaluru.

Haroon Qureshi is an Indian Chartered Accountant by profession with over 30 years of experience in tax, accounting and regulatory matters. His work experience includes reputed companies like SRF group and GE Capital, and he is currently with Genpact group as APAC Tax Leader. His responsibilities include corporate and international tax, indirect tax, transfer pricing and regulatory matters. Apart from India, he also handles taxes for various countries in Asia Pacific region like China, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore.

Vishwanathan joined EY in 2021 with over four decades of experience as a central banker with wide-ranging exposure in core central banking and administrative functions, including a foreign central bank. At RBI, he was instrumental in setting up the enforcement department to speed up regulatory compliance and was also a member of the expert committee on the economic capital framework. Mr. Vishwanathan has represented RBI in numerous international and domestic committees, notably the Basel committee on banking supervision, the Financial Stability Board, International Credit Union Regulator's Network, the Banks Board Bureau (BBB), Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), etc.

He is a non-executive chairman of the Board of Directors of Acuite Ratings and Research Ltd and also Governing Council of the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology.  He was a non-executive member of the Board of Directors at the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the Punjab and Sind Bank, Dena Bank (now merged with Bank of Baroda) and the Punjab National Bank. Mr. Vishwanathan is currently a Sr. Fellow at Centre for Public Policy at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore. 

Vishwanathan joined EY in 2021 with over four decades of experience as a central banker with wide-ranging exposure in core central banking and administrative functions, including a foreign central bank. At RBI, he was instrumental in setting up the enforcement department to speed up regulatory compliance and was also a member of the expert committee on the economic capital framework. Mr. Vishwanathan has represented RBI in numerous international and domestic committees, notably the Basel committee on banking supervision, the Financial Stability Board, International Credit Union Regulator's Network, the Banks Board Bureau (BBB), Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), etc.

He is a non-executive chairman of the Board of Directors of Acuite Ratings and Research Ltd and also Governing Council of the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology.  He was a non-executive member of the Board of Directors at the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the Punjab and Sind Bank, Dena Bank (now merged with Bank of Baroda) and the Punjab National Bank. Mr. Vishwanathan is currently a Sr. Fellow at Centre for Public Policy at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore.

Nilesh Shah is Group President & Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Co. Ltd. He has over 30 years of experience in capital markets having worked in ICICI Group, Axis Bank Group and Franklin Templeton. He has been a part of the teams that received the “Best Fund House of the Year” Award at Franklin Templeton, ICICI Prudential and also at Kotak Mutual Fund. Nilesh is a Board Member of AMFI, a Member of SEBI's CoBoSAC committee and a part-time member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister.

Om Prakash Hisaria is a Senior Executive Vice-President, with Reliance Industries Limited, heading Indirect taxation, trade policy and international business compliance and has been with Reliance since 2009. He joined ‘Indian Trade Service’, in 1992, as Group ‘A’ officer, after selection through Civil Services Examination conducted by UPSC. In a tenure of 17 years with the Government, worked in various capacities in Ministry of Commerce, New Delhi, Ministry of Agriculture, New Delhi and in various offices of Director General of Foreign Trade [DGFT]. At the time of leaving the Government, was posted as Director (Joint DGFT) in the Ministry of Commerce. He has handled some of the assignments including the operation and implementation of various FTP Schemes in regional offices of DGFT at Bangalore and Kolkata; Formulation of Foreign Trade Policy (FTP), in DGFT Head Quarter, worked for more than 6 years in the Policy Division of DGFT; Negotiated Free Trade Agreements with Sri Lanka, ASEAN, Singapore and SAARC. Specialist in Rules of Origin negotiations; Negotiated Agreement on Agriculture at WTO, as designated negotiator representing Ministry of Agriculture; Worked on various market access-related issues arising out of India’s commitment to WTO, including disputes at WTO. 

Pranav has more than thirty-four years of experience in the practice of Direct Tax Laws. He specializes in advising on various international tax matters, inbound and outbound transactions, cross border and domestic mergers, acquisitions & joint ventures, group financial and corporate restructuring, and international tax planning.

He has addressed and presented papers at various seminars and conferences organized by various professional and industrial bodies. He is a member of the Permanent Scientific Committee of International Fiscal Association (IFA), Netherlands. He is presently a member of the Executive Committee of the IFA India Branch and a member of the Managing Committee of the Western Region Chapter of IFA India. Pranav is also a member of the National Executive Committee & Steering Committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) & Chairman of the FICCI Committee on Taxation.

Pranav has been consistently rated as one of the leading tax advisors in India by International Tax Review & by the Legal Media Group Guide to the World’s Leading Tax Advisers. He is a gold medallist Chartered Accountant & was also awarded the prize for the Best paper on Direct Tax Laws by The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Rahul Bothra is the Chief Financial Officer at Swiggy, India’s largest hyper local convenience platform. He joined Swiggy at an early stage of its expansion journey and has been an integral part of its evolved mission from changing the way India eats to elevating the quality of life for urban consumers by delivering unparalleled convenience.

He has over 20 years of domestic and international experience across emerging markets. Prior to Swiggy, Rahul was the Divisional CFO at Olam International Limited, Singapore providing functional leadership to the global Cotton operations across 15 countries. He was also the Head of Finance for Olam’s Brazil country operations where he was instrumental in scaling the group’s leadership position across key agri-commodities & value chains. Rahul started his career at Wipro Limited before moving on to Britannia Industries Limited where he held multiple finance leadership positions across the company’s various verticals. Rahul is a qualified Chartered Accountant from ICAI, New Delhi, and holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from Bangalore University.

Rahul Verma is CA, CS, LLB(DU) and Executive MBA from UC Berkeley with over 20 years of work experience in matters related to Direct, Indirect taxation, Transfer-pricing and business structuring in varied industries, including Pharmaceuticals, IT/ITES, Tyres and Consumer Electronics.  He has handled APA, MAP and tax litigation besides developing and automating reporting systems for tax.   He has done projects on ETR optimization, global transfer pricing, optimizing global supply chain taxes, internal corporate reorganization and M&A structuring and integration. Prior to working at CIPLA Ltd, he worked with NIIT Technologies, Apollo Tyres and Intex Technologies ltd.

Rahul Patni is a Partner with EY’s Tax Technology and Transformation (TTT) practice and has over 17 years of work experience. In the past few years, Rahul has been working with companies to help shape their digital tax agenda, bring automation and process improvement in the tax function and design and implement optimal operating models. He has also advised large companies on international tax, structuring and litigation matters.

Rajan heads the Direct Tax Litigation practice of EY Global Group of Concerns and is presently based in Mumbai, India. The group specializes in providing assistance on tax matters in proceedings before Tribunals, High Courts and the Supreme Courts. With over 43 years of experience in litigation and corporate tax advisory (including International Tax), he is an expert in representing tax litigation matters before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) and Authority for Advance Ruling.  Rajan has represented a large number of cases before ITAT and AAR on Corporate Tax, International Tax and Transfer Pricing matters.
For the 8th Consecutive year, Rajan has been nominated as 'Top Ten Tax Dispute Advisors in India' by Euromoney's International Tax Review Magazine, published in London.

He was co-opted for various special committees by ICAI. He was the President of the Bombay Chartered Accountant Society from 1990-91. He has also chaired the Direct Taxation Committee of the Indian Merchant's Chamber for many years, a leading Industry organization for over 125 years. He is also a member of the taxation committee of the Bombay Chartered Accountant Society. He has authored several publications and has presented papers and has been a regular panel speaker at Seminars and Symposiums in India and abroad.

With over 30 years of experience in various areas of taxation, Ronald is EY Global Transfer Pricing Market and Innovation Leader. He supports clients in multiple industries including oil and gas, consumer products, technology and pharmaceuticals.

Ronald is part of EY Global BEPS group and one of EY’s representatives at the OECD with respect to transfer pricing and BEPS, including public consultations on BEPS 2.0. He is a regular speaker during EY’s global webcasts on BEPS 2.0.

He has supported various global companies analyzing the impact of the BEPS 2.0 Pillar 2 proposals, including quantitative impact analysis, technical interpretations of Pillar 2 rules and compliance aspects.

Prior to joining EY, Ronald served the Dutch Tax Administration (DTA). From 2004 until 2009 he was responsible for transfer pricing within the DTA, and as such involved in transfer pricing audits and design of transfer pricing rules and legislation, Advance Pricing Agreements (APA’s), mutual agreement procedures and the Dutch patent/innovation box. He was part of the Bureau of OECD’s Working Party 6, the international rule setting body with regards to transfer pricing.

Dr. Sachchidanand Shukla is Chief Economist of the Mahindra Group. He has over 2 decades of experience spanning capital markets, financial services and the industrial sector. He is currently a part of NITI Aayog’s consultative panel of economists and has been associated as an external expert with the planning commission of India and World Bank study titled Maharashtra Development Report, 2002, accepted by the then Chief Minister, Maharashtra.

Prior to joining the Mahindra Group, he was associated with Axis Capital (earlier known as ENAM) as Chief Economist. His key areas of research have been financial markets, strategy, development policy, program implementation and impact evaluation. A Ph.D in financial economics from Birla Institute of Technology he also holds a postgraduate degree in Economics from the University of Mumbai as well as PGDBM (Finance) and has been a recipient of the K.J Somaiya Gold Medal.  Dr. Shukla is currently Co-chair of FICCI’s national Economics & Policy Committee and Chairperson of the Policy & Economics Committee of the Bombay Chamber (BCCI). He is also a member of the CII Mission on Atmanirbhar Bharat as well as ASSOCHAM’s Shadow Monetary Policy Committee. Shukla is a Member of the Board of Somaiya Vidyavihar University, Mumbai and has also authored a book (on macro-economics for the BMS course of the University of Mumbai) besides several research papers as well as articles in leading dailies. He has also been a keen participant in research seminars, conferences and discussions on macroeconomics.

Based in Mumbai, Sameer joined EY in 2022 and is a Partner and National Tax Leader of EY.  In his previous roles, Sameer led the Tax Markets initiatives across sectors at EY India prior to which he was the leader of EY’s Financial Service Tax & Regulatory practice.

Sameer has over two and a half decades of experience in advising senior executives from large corporates on tax and regulatory matters affecting their businesses, building tax strategies and efficiencies.

Sameer’s areas of expertise include inbound investments/ fund structuring, corporate tax and regulatory advisory, compliance services and transfer pricing. Sameer leads large diverse teams on the firm’s key clients, and also serves on various Industry bodies and associations.

Sudhir is a Senior Partner in the Tax & Regulatory service line and a Board member in EY India. A Chartered Accountant by qualification, Sudhir has over three decades of professional experience. He has served as EY India Region Tax Leader for over a decade and has been a member of EMEIA Tax Leadership team as well. Sudhir has vast experience in advising multinational companies in respect of their cross-border investments and transactions. He is a member of the CII National Committee on MNCs. Sudhir has been speaking at key national and international events and contributes to thought leadership in the areas of international taxation and investments and tax policy. Sudhir is the past President and member of the Board of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry. His views and opinions are cited across leading media and industry publications.

He has been speaking at key national and international events and contributes to thought leadership in the areas of international taxation. He is a regular speaker on major tax forums and has contributed articles on tax & policy matters for national newspapers and trade journals.

Uday has over 24 years of experience in advising clients on various indirect tax legislations including Customs, Foreign Trade Policy, Excise, Goods & Services Tax / Service Tax / Value Added Tax.

Uday has advised clients in various indirect taxes and assisted them in litigation matters by way of drafting, pleading and strategizing. His experience includes advising clients on complex tax issues, tax planning structures, assessing and strategizing tax risks, guiding through assessment, audit, and investigations by the revenue authorities.

Uday has been involved in numerous tax policy representations which our practice in India has been at the forefront of.  He has been actively involved in making representations on behalf of various industry forums and liaising with Governmental authorities on reforms in tax laws, with particular reference to service tax and GST. He is an active member of several trade associations and has frequently advised trade associations and participated in deliberations with the government and key ministries.

Varun joined Bharti Airtel, one of the leading global telecommunication companies, 5 years ago in 2017.  He is heading the Indirect tax function for Bharti Airtel and its group companies. He is responsible for tax strategy and implementation and is also leading Bharti group’s restructuring and M&A transactions.  

Prior to Bharti Airtel, Varun was Vice President, Finance at Micromax, where besides taking care of the books of accounts, he was also responsible for Direct, Indirect and transfer pricing of all group companies spread over 5 countries.  Varun is a qualified Chartered Accountant and started his career with Arthur Andersen.  From Andersen he moved to Alcatel Portugal, where he was heading the finance function.  He has also worked with GE and BMR Advisors.  At GE, he was Vice President, Enterprise Sales, taking care of business development & key client management and at BMR, he was Director with M&A team.  

Vijay leads the Transfer Pricing practice at EY India. With an experience spanning 30 years, he has been advising clients on domestic and international tax matters. He specializes in Transfer Pricing since the inception of the Indian Transfer Pricing regime in 2001 and gained extensive practical experience assisting clients across industries. Vijay also works closely with members of EY network around the world to provide consistent advice to clients.

Vijay’s experience includes helping clients in developing local and global TP compliance documentation, developing defense strategies for Transfer Pricing audits, identification and strategizing of planning opportunities to optimize global effective tax rate, evaluating permanent establishment and international tax issues, integrating indirect tax positions and harmonizing Transfer Pricing and customs documentation.

He is actively involved in Transfer Pricing Litigation, both as an arguing counsel and as an advisor assisting clients in devising their litigation strategy.

Vikas Aggarwal has 17 years of experience in supporting multinationals companies like Philips, FedEx , Roche, and now Novartis, with their direct and Indirect tax compliances and representation services. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has been associated with different organizations. He has almost 8 years of experience working in the Pharma industry. He shares his views on both direct and Indirect matters as a speaker at different forums by CII, OPPI and Big 4s. He has vast experience of managing M&A deal, complex tax litigations, multiple APAs and implementation of GST along with many other issues.