Vishal Sampat is the founder and CEO of Convonix Inc., India’s first dedicated search engine optimization (SEO) firm, which has now matured into a cutting edge internet marketing firm offering search engine optimization, paid search marketing, social media marketing and conversion rate improvement services, guided by in-house Web Analytics and campaign management programs. As the CEO, Vishal oversees the overall operations of the company and manages a team of over 120 trained individuals. Vishal began his career as an entrepreneur at an early age of 17, when he launched ‘Radio FM’ - an internet radio streaming platform – between the years 1999 and 2000. He was motivated to install a platform that could cater to the vast globally-placed Indian audience who wished to access Indian music with ease. After hitting a visitor count of six and a half million to the website, Vishal went on to launch another website by the name of ‘khopcha.com’ - a portal for teenagers which continues to be active even today. As a result of the research that was carried out to understand different ways of marketing these first two ventures on the internet, the idea for an SEO based firm took roots, and Convonix Inc. was subsequently founded. Vishal has received a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Mumbai University with a major in Information Technology. He is also on the advisory council of MICA- EDC, an initiative that fosters entrepreneurship in communications-driven projects as well as promoting corporate entrepreneurship in the communications industry. He regularly speaks at various conferences about internet marketing and entrepreneurship. Besides donning a professional avatar, Vishal enjoys photography, reading, listening to music and travelling. He is a self-confessed car aficionado and enjoys technology in all its avatars.