75 Leaders. Countless Conversations. One Evening to Remember: The Catalyst Collective Hosts Its Founding Edition

VMPL
Gurugram (Haryana) [India], August 13: The Catalyst Collective hosted the first edition of its founding year on 7 August at The Camellias Club, Gurgaon, bringing together 75 of India's most influential founders, investors, family offices and enterprise leaders for an evening built entirely around conversation, with no stage, no agenda and nothing being sold. Among the prominent business leaders who joined the gathering were Aman Gupta, Co-founder and Director of boAt; Akash Gupta, Co-founder & CEO of Zypp Electric; and Umesh Kumar Agarwal, Managing Director of Haldiram Snacks Food.
The invitation-only gathering brought together a carefully curated community of leaders, including Sarita Raichura, Director at Blume Ventures; Arjun Vaidya, Co-founder of V3 Ventures; Karann Mittal, Managing Partner at Caret Capital; Zulfiquar Ghadiyali, Managing Director of One World Business Consultancy, Dubai; and Deeksha Ahuja, Founder of Encubay. They were joined by founders who have built through more than one business cycle, investors deciding where serious capital moves next, family offices thinking in decades, and enterprise leaders whose introductions can open markets.

True to its founding idea, the evening carried no registrations, no fees and no topics tabled for discussion. In a landscape where business gatherings run on panels, keynotes and pitch decks, The Catalyst Collective offered something India has rarely seen. What unfolded instead was several hours of unhurried conversation and spontaneous introductions between people who had operated in parallel for years, often within kilometres of one another, yet had never once shared a room.
The Catalyst Collective was conceived and hosted by Anjali Sehwwag, Founder and CEO of Benedicct PR and Brand Building, and brought to life alongside a distinguished group of partners and co-hosts who shared her belief in creating a different kind of room. Sahil Jindal, Co-founder of Trevel, joined as Mobility Partner; Varun Singh, Managing Partner of Foresight Law Offices, as Legal Partner; and Tushar Gandotra, Founder of x42 Venture Studio, as Idea Partner. Rahul Khandelwal, Director and Partner at Felix Investment Banking, and DBS Bank, one of Asia's leading financial institutions, were also part of the founding co-host group that helped bring the evening to life.
Sharing her excitement and gratitude following the first edition, Anjali Sehwwag said, "Some ideas are exciting on paper, but The Catalyst Collective was even better in the room. Bringing together people from different fraternities and industries for an evening of real conversations, fresh perspectives and meaningful networking was deeply fulfilling. Different journeys, different industries, one room, and some genuinely interesting conversations. This is just the beginning."

By every measure, the founding edition was a success. An exclusive gathering by design, it drew leaders from across industries and geographies, and the energy of the evening came precisely from that range. Entrepreneurship, investment, family enterprise and industry each brought a different vantage point to the conversations that followed, and the absence of a programme left room for all of them.
For a room defined by who is present, the journey into it mattered as much as the destination.
Speaking about what made the evening particularly meaningful, Sahil Jindal said, "In our business, you learn what people truly value by what they are willing to give up, and at this level it is never money; it is time. That people of this calibre chose to spend an entire evening in one room, with nothing scheduled beyond conversation, tells you everything about what that room was worth. We were proud to move this community, and it may be the shortest and most valuable journey we ever help anyone make."
The spirit of relationship-building was central to the evening, with the founding co-hosts seeing the gathering as the beginning of a community rather than a one-night event.
Reflecting on the evening, Varun Singh, Managing Partner, Foresight Law Offices, noted, "It was a genuine privilege to be part of the founding year of The Catalyst Collective, and I came away both grateful and honoured to have helped shape it. The most valuable relationships are built long before any transaction, and this was an evening designed to create exactly those. I look forward to seeing where this community goes from here."
The value of the room, several co-hosts observed, lay in how quickly people found each other in it.
Expressing his happiness at being part of the founding edition, Tushar Gandotra added, "It has been a delight to co-host an evening like this one. Most real progress begins with two people meeting earlier than they otherwise would have, and this room made a great many of those meetings possible in a single evening. Being part of the experience, and watching the conversations take on a life of their own, has been immensely satisfying."
With no stage to face and nothing on the record, the evening's real output was everything its conversations set in motion: partnerships, capital and companies that will appear inevitable only in hindsight. Building on the response to its founding edition, The Catalyst Collective intends to host further gatherings in the months ahead.
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