As AI adoption shifts from a technical advantage to a strategic imperative, Indian enterprises face a critical inflection point: How do you prepare for a future shaped by intelligent, autonomous systems? What skills, structures, and governance models must be in place to embed AI at scale? And how do you turn AI readiness into lasting competitive leadership?
Strategy Shift Forum 2025, hosted by MIT Sloan Management Review India and powered by Salesforce, convenes world-class AI experts, industry pioneers, and academic thought leaders to answer these questions. Drawing on the cutting-edge research of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the MIT Sloan School of Management, the Forum decodes the levers of strategic agility and organizational success.
Through a focused agenda, explore business-driven frameworks, real-world case studies, and the talent models that help deploy AI not just efficiently, but ethically and effectively. Walk away with actionable insights into emerging AI trends – and a roadmap to future-proof your organization.
Welcome to Strategy Shift Forum 2025, where the future of business is decoded and redesigned.
Who is it designed for?
This invite-only summit is for decision-makers leading AI-powered transformation across business, technology, and customer strategy. Ideal attendees include:
- C-Suite Leaders (CXOs)
- Strategy & Innovation Leaders
- Sales & Revenue Leaders
- Customer Experience, Growth & Marketing Leaders
- AI, Data & Analytics Decision-Makers
- IT
& Digital Transformation Leaders
If you’re shaping how your organization thinks, builds, sells, serves, and scales – this is your room.
What you’ll gain by attending?
AI-Ready Leadership
Strategic foresight from MIT and India’s boldest enterprise leaders.
Certificate of Attendance
Upon completion of the program, you will receive a certificate from MIT Sloan Management Review India.
Leadership Masterclasses
MIT Sloan Management Review India - endorsed, led by global experts.
Proven Playbooks
Cross-functional frameworks and case studies across marketing, customer experience, sales, and tech.
(Terms and conditions apply)
Leadership Luminaries
Neil Thompson
Director of the FutureTech Research
Project, Principal Investigator at Initiative on the Digital
Economy
MIT
Patrick Fagan
Bestselling Author, Chief Scientific
Officer
Capuchin Behavioural Science
Capt. Raghu Raman
UN Peacekeeper, Founding CEO,
NATGRID, Strategic Coach
Storyteller
Industry Experts
Ashish Tiwari
Chief Marketing Officer
Home
Credit India
Deepak Pargaonkar
Vice President, Solution
Engineering
Salesforce
Dilpreet Singh
Head of Loyalty, CRM &
Partnerships
ITC Hotels Limited
Harvansh Singh Sagar
Corporate VP & Head - IT Infra
& Digital Ops
Axis Max Life Insurance
Sessions
Registration & Networking
Set the tone. Meet the minds leading India’s next wave of intelligent transformation.
Welcome Note: MIT Sloan Management Review India
A short note on where we are and why AI today is non-optional for strategic leaders.
Keynote: The Age of Autonomous AI - Hype vs. Reality
The world has witnessed transformative shifts before
with cloud, with mobile, with big data. But this time, the shift is
fundamentally different. AI doesn’t just assist; it acts. It makes decisions,
takes initiative, and adapts in real time, and with little to no interference.
This keynote by an MIT professor confronts the inflated promises and illuminates
the real, untapped potential of deploying autonomous AI at scale. You’ll walk
away not with comfort, but with clarity.
Speaker:
Neil Thompson
Director of the
FutureTech Research Project, Principal Investigator at
Initiative on the Digital Economy
MIT
Keynote: Humans with Agents drive customer success together
Join Salesforce leaders and experts to learn how
Agentforce, the digital labour platform from Salesforce, brings humans &
agents together to drive customer success. With this unified, trusted platform,
you can extend your teams and unlock new capacity for every function and every
workflow across the enterprise.
Speaker:
Deepak Pargaonkar
Vice President,
Solution Engineering
Salesforce
Mankiran Chowhan
Vice President - FCI
Sales, India
Salesforce
Session: Governing the Autonomous Era - Policy, Power & the New Leadership Code
The age of autonomous AI demands more than innovation; it demands intention. This session features a senior government leader outlining how national policy is shaping the AI landscape: the incentives, the risks, the mandates. It also examines how leadership must evolve – from making decisions to designing the systems that do. How do you build control into intelligence? Where do you draw the line between trust and oversight? This is where public vision meets private execution and where leadership gets redefined for a self-driving future.
Coffee Break & Networking
Breakout Tracks: Deep Dives for Tangible Change
Designed as 2-hour certified interactive masterclasses with panels, group activities, workshops, and practical takeaways.
Panel Discussion: Signals of Loyalty - Rethinking Experience, Behavior & Personalization
Customer experience isn’t built through broad journeys, and marketing isn’t just about messaging; it’s shaped by split-second interactions. This panel explores how AI is transforming the Marketing and CX function by translating behavioral signals into real-time, high-impact actions. How do humans and agents work together in a hybrid workplace to achieve customer success? From hyper-personalization to predictive engagement, we’ll ask:
What does loyalty look like when every touchpoint is intelligent? How do brands maintain trust, consistency, and coherence when the experience is increasingly machine-curated? And how do you design for emotion in a system driven by data?
Speakers:
Ashish Tiwari
Chief Marketing
Officer,
Home
Credit India
Dilpreet Singh
Head of Loyalty, CRM
& Partnerships
ITC Hotels
Limited
Satyam Mehra
Chief Business &
Strategy Officer
Tata
Digital
Leadership Masterclass & Group Activity
Reading Minds, Crafting Moments: Using Psychology and AI for Personalised Experience
This 90-minute masterclass explores how to create meaningful customer experiences by combining behavioural science with AI-driven personalisation. Led by a Sunday Times bestselling behavioural scientist and the former lead psychologist at Cambridge Analytica, the session begins with a deep dive into the psychology of what makes brand experiences effective. It then moves into how we can infer psychological traits from everyday data, like chat transcripts or reviews, and use those insights to shape tailored, resonant interactions at scale via generative AI. The session includes a hands-on group challenge where participants apply these ideas in practice, redesigning a customer journey using both human insight and AI tools.
Certificates of participation from MIT Sloan Management Review India will be provided to attendees.
Expert:
Patrick Fagan
Bestselling Author,
Chief Scientific
Officer,
Capuchin
Behavioural
Science
Panel Discussion: Is your Team Chasing Deals - or Closing Them Smarter?
Today’s customer doesn’t wait and neither can your pipeline. This panel explores how India’s leading sales teams are rebuilding their strategy to keep up with high-velocity markets. From territory planning and account prioritization to buyer engagement and revenue forecasting, the rules of selling are shifting.
What’s powering this shift? Real-time signals. Predictive insights. Smarter execution. Today’s tools can autonomously nurture inbound leads 24/7, coach every rep on every deal, prep you before client meetings, and even generate quotes in an instant. Humans and AI agents now work side by side to drive sales success, with confidence, speed, and consistency. In this session, sales leaders share how they’re sharpening instincts with data, moving faster on deals, and focusing their energy where it counts. It’s not about more tools. It’s about better timing, clearer visibility, and a stronger close rate.
Speakers:
Prasun Kumar
Chief Marketing
Officer &
Business Head,
Magicbricks
Shamik Banerjee
CMO & Founder
Member, Growth &
P&L Leadership,
Apollo 24|7
Varun Das
EVP & Chief
Product Officer,
Airtel
Digital
Leadership Masterclass & Group Activity
The Leadership Edge: Driving Performance When the Stakes Are High
In high-growth environments, leaders are constantly navigating ambiguity, pressure, and rapid shifts in market dynamics. This session, led by Capt. Raghu Raman, whose career spans Special Forces, corporate boardrooms, and public institutions, explores what it takes to lead high-performing teams when the stakes are real.
Through real-world examples and immersive insights, the session will decode how leaders can build trust, drive alignment, and make clear-headed decisions when surrounded by uncertainty. Participants will leave with actionable frameworks to:
- Build resilient and accountable teams that stay focused under stress
- Lead with clarity and intent, even amid volatility
- Balance strategy with execution, and instinct with information
- Foster a culture of reflection and continuous improvement
Certificates of participation from MIT Sloan Management Review India will be provided to attendees.
Expert:
Capt. Raghu Raman
UNPeacekeeper,
Founding CEO,
NATGRID, Strategic
Coach
Storyteller
Panel Discussion: It Takes a Village - Unifying Data, Driving Real-Time Action
In today’s enterprise, AI’s true power lies in what it sees, and what it can do with what it sees. This session focuses on the unification of data across systems, teams, and workflows, transforming fragmented information into cohesive, real-time intelligence.
The discussion will explore how to surface actionable insights instantly and trigger the right decisions within any application, from CRMs to ops platforms. It’s not about stacking more tech. It’s about making the stack think and act as one.
Speakers:
Harvansh Singh Sagar
Corporate Vice
President & Head
- IT Infra &
Digital Ops,
Axis Max Life
Insurance
Neeraj Gera
President, upGrad
Enterprise,
upGrad
Sandhya Kapoor
Senior Vice
President & Head
of the Central
Platform
Organization,
Flipkart
Saurabh Tiwari
Chief Technology
Officer,
Policybazaar
Leadership Masterclass & Group Activity
The Logic of Scale: Evaluating Autonomous AI in Practice
AI is
evolving rapidly, yet its promises often
outpace practical realities. This
90-minute masterclass, led by the expert
guiding MIT’s Future Tech Lab and deeply
involved in researching and exploring
the latest AI advancements, draws on
cutting-edge academic research and
real-world applications to explore how
deep learning models capture complex,
interdependent factors that traditional
methods often miss.
Using demand
forecasting as a case study,
participants will examine the
mathematical foundations of neural
networks, the exponential computational
scaling driving AI breakthroughs, and
the nuanced economic and environmental
trade-offs involved in deploying
autonomous AI at scale. The session
provides a clear framework to critically
assess where AI investment delivers true
value.
Certificates of participation from MIT Sloan Management Review India will be provided to attendees.
Expert:
Neil Thompson
Director of the
FutureTech Research
Project, Principal
Investigator at
Initiative on the
Digital Economy,
MIT
