S. Sundar

S. Sundar is Managing Director of Dovetail and its retail venture The Design Store. The company has a turnover of 25 crores and sustains a staff of 150 people. He is also a co-founder of Idiom Design and Consulting.

Sundar started his career in Wipro Infotech. He then went on to co-found Studioline, a furniture workshop in 1985 and Tessaract Design, a design consultancy in 1986. Sundar managed the production operations at Studioline and also headed his own design team at Tessaract working on designing products, retail showrooms and institutional workspaces. In 2000, Sundar was appointed as CEO of the group of companies - Tessaract, Dovetail & Studioline and functioned as such till April 2005, when he decided to focus his energies into expanding the furniture business as managing director of Dovetail.

He is an alumnus of the National Institute of Design, specializing in industrial design (1984).

George Mathews

George Mathews is co-founder of Icarus. Icarus has a high level of expertise in the areas of Branding, Industrial Design and Structural Packaging. By discovering ways to seamlessly blend design with brand strategies, the team has provided meaningful solutions to a huge number of leading Indian FMCG brands in categories that cover Spirits, Beverages, Foods, Personal Care, and Clothing. Icarus is now demonstrating a similar thought process with Corporate and Service Brands.

For himself, George defines design as a human ability to imagine a "valuable" future possibility and create a plan to achieve it. He believes that this ability may lie at the core of entrepreneurship.

George has taught at Srishti school of Art and Design and at the IIM in Bangalore. He has also been speaker in several conferences organized by the NID, CII and other Industrial bodies.

George is a Mechanical Engineer from Bangalore University (1989) and he also holds a postgraduate degree in industrial Design from the National Institute of Design Ahmedabad (1993).

Sandeep Mukherjee

Sandeep Mukherjee is a founder-director of Quetzel Design, which was set up in 2000. The company specializes in providing end-to-end solutions in furniture design. At present Ouetzel has a turnover of 3.5crores and employs 180 people.

Prior to Quetzel, Sandeep was a founder-partner in Kiri Design, which concentrated on retail and furniture projects. The firm later specialized in graphic design and brand identities.

Sandeep made his career debut through Tessaract, a design consultancy firm. Tessaract did a lot of unconventional projects in the area of structures, furniture, products and interiors. They were among the first to undertake organized retail projects in the country and did cutting edge work in the field of retail design, institutional furniture, furniture for public spaces and office interiors. Sandeep's focus of work was in furniture and interior design.

He graduated from NID (1985) specializing in Industrial Design (Furniture)

Vinay Rao

Vinay Rao is a founder director at Bang Design, an award winning product design and strategy company. With a number of industry-defining products, Bang is recognised as one of the leading promoters of Indian Design. The company has won awards for their work and has been featured in International Design publications. Vinay is a regular speaker on design, product strategy, human factors, usability and innovation.

Vinay has a BE (Mechanical) degree from the University of Pune, 1994 and a MDes [Master of Design] Industrial Design from IIT Delhi, 1998.

Neelam Chhiber

Neelam Chibber is Founder Director of Industreecrafts Pvt. Ltd. At its core the company is a social, self sustainable , for profit, design led enterprise. Industree has a turnover of 5 crores and a membership in the Fair Trade Union. They work with over 2000 rural producers and sell to over 50 stores in the country as well as export to companies like IKEA and Crate and Barrel. Industree has worked with the Indian government , the European Union, ICICI bank and the Future Group, towards building marketing platforms and supply chains focused on rural livelihoods. Neelam believes that Industree's biggest challenge and reward has been to facilitate and enable producers to manage themselves in changing scenarios.

Neelam is of the firm view that Design education has been key to attempting 360 degree thinking. She is an Industrial Design graduate from NID,1986.

Poonam Bir Kasturi

Poonam Bir Kasturi set up Daily Dump that involves the design, manufacture, distribution and servicing products related to home composting. Daily Dump has been selected, as one of the "Top Nominees" for the INDEX Design award 2007. Poonam is one of the co-founders of Indus Tree Crafts, which is a unit that designs, manufactures, retails and exports Indian crafts for contemporary customers. She also founded Playspeak a company that explored different kinds of product ideas. Poonam's work is about seeking ways to be autonomous, sustainable and celebratory.

Poonam is a firm advocate of design education. She is a founding faculty at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology Bangalore and continues her association with them in different areas. She is consultant to Riverside School in Ahmedabad and Prin L N Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research, Mumbai. She is also on the board of a trust called DESI, which works in the area of livelihood generation in rural Karnataka.

She graduated from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad India, specialising in Product Design (1986).

Jacob Mathew

Jacob Mathew is Co Founder and Director of Idiom Design & Consulting Ltd. Idiom is one of the largest design firms in the country and employs close to 240 people. The firm is multidisciplinary and holistic and works in different domains such as experience design( for brands in retail ,hospitality and healthcare) business design(for corporate identity, communication, workspace and culture) dynamic design(for multimedia,interactive technologies and events) tactile design(for product furniture and packaging design)and social -cultural design(for social and cultural enterprises). Jacob firmly believes that integration of design services will result in holistic design.

He was also a founding partner of Tessaract Design - a space, furniture and product design firm based in Bangalore in 1985, before it merged to become Idiom.

Jacob has been part of the evolution of organised retail in the country. Retail concepts include Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, Central, Home Town, Mport ,Ezone, CollectionI, for Future Group and other brands like Godrej Aadhaar,Levi's and Sf Jeans. He has also designed offices for the Future Group and Institutional spaces for Mallya Aditi International School etc.

Jacob maintains a keen interest in the development and evolution of work communities. He is an alumnus of National Institute of Design specializing in product design (1986).