Aakrit Vaish is the CEO & Co-founder of Haptik, one of the world’s largest conversational AI platforms. Besides spearheading the overall business operations of the company, Aakrit also oversees key aspects such as revenue & finance, hiring, and defining the strategy and vision of the company. Driven by the belief that “an idea can take you to a great product, but people can help you build a great company”, he devotes almost half his time to recruiting the right talent for Haptik.

Holding a Bachelor’s of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, USA, Aakrit started his career in technology with a San Francisco-based start-up called Flurry as its twelfth employee. Aakrit was part of the core team at Flurry, a mobile analytics, monetization, and advertising company. The team grew the business in three years from 0 to $100 million until the company was finally acquired by Yahoo! in 2014 for close to $300 million. Aakrit started Flurry's India office and ran its global business operations, besides handling a number of other roles. In 2013, he co-founded and was the lead investor in Flat.to (Flatchat), a rental flatmate-finding application, which was later acquired by Commonfloor.

With a robust belief in the potential of chatbots as interface, Aakrit has his eyes set on the mission of establishing Haptik as the world’s largest chatbot company in the next 5 years. Aakrit was a contender for Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30’ list for 2015 and In 2017, Aakrit was also honored with Business World 40 Under 40 Achievers award for his work at Haptik.

Having invested in 10 start-ups, Aakrit spends a lot of his time in helping them out with strategy and guidance in the areas of mobile internet and SaaS. When he does take time off, he loves to travel or catch a game of football, especially if his favourite club, Manchester United, is playing.