Mr. Mahesh Murthy
Founder, Pinstorm

Mahesh Murthy is one of India's recognised experts in youth marketing - having helped launch MTV India, run Channel V and managed offline and online marketing efforts for brands like Pepsi, Nike, Idea Cellular, Lipton and The Economist.

Mahesh has spent over 25 years in marketing and advertising, of which the last 15 have been in digital marketing. After dropping out of college, Mahesh sold vacuum cleaners from door to door, worked with Grey in India and Ogilvy in Hong Kong, where he won notoriety and awards as a creative director on HP, Korean Air and other brands - for whom he wrote and directed a spot voted “Asia’s best commercial of the decade”.

He then moved to a Silicon Valley firm, CKS Partners as Creative Director, General Manager and Partner – where he helped launch Yahoo and Amazon.com globally. After a successful NASDAQ IPO, Mahesh moved to head marketing at iCat, an e-commerce firm in Seattle subsequently acquired by Intel.

Mahesh then returned to India to run Channel V, a rival to MTV, until its sale to Newscorp in 2000 and then founded Passionfund to invest in startups.

Mahesh writes a column in the Wall Street Journal and speaks regularly at conferences around the world.