Episode 7&8 resources

Special Guests

Episode 7

Akshat Harbola

Akshat heads strategy and operations at Spotify India, and is responsible for strategic planning and cross-functional operating rhythm for the business. He has been instrumental in shaping the market entry strategy, ensuring product-market fit, and setting up the India operations. He is responsible for local operations and leveraging Spotify’s global leadership in product development for India. Prior to Spotify, Akshat worked at Google for nearly three years, where he collaborated with the global sales leadership to enable top-tier customers to maximize ROI from their digital spending. Before that, Akshat spent nine years at McKinsey & Company working across India, Europe and Southeast Asia. Akshat lives in Mumbai with his wife and three-year-old daughter. When he’s not with family, Akshat can be found discovering new music (most recently Jazztronica) and rediscovering old favorites (classic rock)

Parmesh Shahani

Is the author, LGBTQ inclusion advocate and Vice President at Godrej Industries Ltd. where he heads the Godrej India Culture Lab. You can buy his new book Queeristan: LGBTQ Inclusion in the Indian Workplace right here (it was released in August 2020, from Westland Business) and also do check out the updated 2020 edition of my 2008 book - Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)Longing in Contemporary India (Sage Publications).

He is the creator of The Godrej India Culture Lab is an award winning experimental ideas space. You can read our Culture Lab blog, listen to a podcast, see a video that MTV India shot at the Lab, check out the Elle photoshoot with our Lab team, view my conversation with Sir Ian McKellan, my Twitter Blue Room summary with Sonam Kapoor, or download a white paper that emerged from the Lab - all part of the different things that comprise work.

Episode 8

Devraj Sanyal (born 21 March 1975) is an Indian businessman and musician. Since 2011 he has been the Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of Universal Music Group & EMI Music, India & South Asia, based in the company headquarters in Mumbai.He is also the Managing Director of the group's Publishing business "Universal Music Publishing Group" for the same region. He is charged with the management and operational running of all Universal Music Group businesses in the region. Sanyal runs the Universal Music Label, Universal Music Publishing, EMI Music and their allied businesses as its MD and CEO. In August 2019, he co-founded Mass Appeal India, the first ever global imprint for Indigenious HipHop in a joint venture between Mass Appeal USA, the label cofounded by legendary hiphop artists NAS (Nasir Jones) and founder CEO Peter Bittenbender.

Sanyal has differentiated the Indian & South Asian opco of Universal Music Group by aligning it with a host of profitable allied non-traditional businesses such as Live, Merchandising, Branded Content, Artist Accelerator & Intellectual Properties.[citation needed]

Sanyal has been a performer in heavy metal band Brahma since 1994[1] which has led to some media dubbing him "the heavy metal CEO".[2] Sanyal is also a judge on TV talent show The Stage.[3]

1. Sgobba C. ​Here’s When You’re Most and Least Likely to Have a Heart Attack [Internet]. Men’s Health. 2017 link

2. In the study, researchers analyzed data from over 156,000 hospital admissions