Leadership in the digital economy: K Vaitheeswaran

K Vaitheeswaran is widely known as the ‘father of ecommerce in India’. He pioneered the ecommerce industry of the country by co-founding its first ecommerce company in 1999, Fabmart.com, later rebranded as Indiaplaza.He is a serial entrepreneur, an internet industry veteran, and the author of “Failing to succeed—the story of India’s first e-commerce company”.

At CIO Year Ahead 2018, Vaitheeswaran joins us as the keynote speaker and will be addressing the audience on “Leadership in the Digital Economy.”

Vaitheeswaran has advised global brands like Deloitte, Diageo and the Tata group in their digital initiatives. He is well known in the Indian startup scene and also advises several technology and consumer ventures.

A celebrated TEDx speaker, he speaks regularly on entrepreneurship, internet, e-commerce and consumer marketing related subjects at various industry forums and leading educational institutes including the IITs, IIMs across India.

He has served on the CII National Committee for Marketing in 2012-13, and on the e-commerce committees of FICCI (Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry), IAMAI (Internet & Mobile association of India) and the RAI (Retail association of India).

Additionally, he is a charter member of TiE Bangalore and is also associated with Microsoft Ventures, The National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) and Headstart / Start-up Saturday.

Vaitheeswaran holds an electronics engineering degree from the Government College of Engineering, Tirunelveli affiliated to the Anna University. He began his career with Murugappa Electronics (1985-89), and spent a decade in Wipro (1989-99) where he held various positions in sales, marketing and business planning. 

After Fabmart.com in 1999, in 2001, he co-founded Fabmall, the world’s first online to offline hyper-local and omni-channel grocery retail company. It grew to become India’s largest supermarket chain and was acquired by the Aditya Birla Group in 2006 and later re-branded as the More chain.