1. Vishal Gupta
Vishal Gupta, is the Managing Director at Bessemer Venture Partners in Bangalore. Vishal joined BVP India in 2006 and focuses on investments in consumer internet, market places and enterprise SaaS.
Vishal is currently on the board of SnapDeal.com, Hungama.com, Bharat Matrimony.com, Taxi For Sure, Indian Energy Exchange Ltd., Medi Assist, Anunta Technology Management Services, NephroPlus/Nephrocare Health Services and Applied Solar Technologies.
Vishal is also involved in the investments of Shriram City Union Finance, Orient Green Power, Kiran Energy Solar Power, Ind-Barath Power Infrastructure, and Motilal Oswal.
Prior to joining BVP India, Vishal was a senior manager in the treasurer’s office at Reliance Group, Vishal helped the firm establish a private-equity fund that invested in such companies as Celebrity Fashions, Adlabs, and other firms in the healthcare and financial-services sectors. Previously, served as an executive assistant to the CEO a joint venture of HCL Tech and Deutsche Bank in India.
Vishal holds an M.B.A from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta, is a chartered accountant and has a B.A. in commerce from GS College, where he was ranked one of the top 750 students in the country. He is also a member of Mensa and has been a nationally-ranked table tennis player.
2. Sanjiv Aiyar
Sanjiv Aiyar joined SingTel in August 2007 as CEO, Global Markets & Wholesale. He leads SingTel’s growth in the global markets – delivering Telecom solutions to customers worldwide through the Global Offices. He also drives SingTel’s Wholesale business growth with international carriers and service providers.
Prior to joining SingTel, Sanjiv was President of Emerio Corp., an IT Managed Services company headquartered in Singapore with operations in 11 countries. He co-led the company with the founder CEO.
He spent 18 years with Hewlett Packard prior to this. He started with DIGITAL and stayed with the company through the Compaq-HP merger. He held several senior management positions in the Asia Pacific region. His last position was VP and Managing Director SE Asia region, overseeing the financial performance of the operations in ASEAN and some of South Asia countries.
His prior assignments included VP, Strategy & Development, Asia Pacific & Japan, driving transformational growth in China, India and Japan; VP, Marketing (Enterprise Systems Group), Asia Pacific region, where he successfully led marketing transformation. He also managed the high-end server and Telecoms businesses, Finance industry practice, Industry marketing, Channels development, Services P&L and Singapore sales. Prior to HP, Sanjiv worked in SI/Services companies focused on DIGITAL, Wang and Prime/IBM.
Sanjiv spent over 27 years in the IT industry of which 25 years have been in Singapore. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from the Regional Engineering College, Bhopal, India and received his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He is the President of IIM Calcutta Alumni Association in Singapore.
3. Abhay Pandey
Abhay Pandey is a Managing Director with Sequoia Capital. Based in Mumbai, Abhay spearheads investments in the healthcare, energy and outsourcing sectors. Some of his investments include Moolchand Hospitals, GVK Biosciences, Coastal Projects and Ind-Bharath Power.
Prior to joining Sequoia Capital, Abhay was head of Real Estate and Infrastructure investment banking at DSP Merrill Lynch where he led capital raising for the largest Indian companies in these sectors including the largest Indian initial public offering for DLF Ltd. Previously, Abhay worked at McKinsey & Co, in Mumbai and Johannesburg, where he worked with a number of leading Indian corporations in the Media & Entertainment and Manufacturing sectors.
Abhay received an MBA from IIM Calcutta and a B. Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay.
4. Krishnan Ganesh (Chairman, Portea Medical)
Krishnan Ganesh is a successful serial entrepreneur with four successful green field ventures and exits. He actively mentors, incubates and funds start-ups and is strategic investor and promoter of several Indian consumer Internet and ecommerce companies including Bigbasket.com – India’s largest egrocery company, Bluestone.com – leading online jewelry company and Avagmah.com – India’s fastest growing online higher education company.
His last venture, TutorVista was acquired by US and UK listed education leader Pearson for $ 213 MM . He was among the top 5 nominees for the Economic Times Entrepreneur of the year 2012 Award.
His current venture, Portea Medical, provides technlogy-led home health care to the Indian consumer.
In 1990, he founded his first company – IT&T, one of India’s top multi-vendor IT service and support company. The business was acquired by iGate (a listed company) in 2003.
He is also a popular speaker in entrepreneurship, start-up and technology events. He has been recognized as one of the “Iconic Entrepreneurs of India” in a document published by National Knowledge Commission, Government of India.
He serves as a member of Board of Governors of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Krishnan is a post-graduate from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi University.
5. R Ramraj
R. Ramaraj is a Senior Advisor with Sequoia Capital India. Prior to Sequoia Capital India, Ramaraj co-founded Sify (SIFY), the first Indian internet company to list on NASDAQ. Prior to co-founding Sify, Ramaraj was in managment roles with Microland and Sterling Cellular. Ramaraj holds a B. Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Madras and a M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.
Ramaraj, was the Co-Founder and CEO of Sify Limited, the pioneer and leader in Internet, Networking and eCommerce Services in India. Sify was the first Indian Internet company to be listed on the Nasdaq National Market in the US (NASDAQ : SIFY).
Ramaraj was recognized as the ‘Evangelist of the Year’ at the India Internet World Convention in September 2000. And in 2001, in a CNET.com poll in India, Ramaraj was voted the IT Person of the Year 2000. He was invited by the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan to be a member of UN’s Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG).
He was a Founder Director of Microland Ltd before a stint in cellular telephony as Director, Sterling Cellular up to 1996.
Currently Ramaraj is associated on a part time basis, as a Senior Advisor at Sequoia Capital and is a member of the global Board of Trustees of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs). Ramaraj is the first Indian to be invited to the Board of directors of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
6. Ashok Banerjee:
Prof. Banerjee teaches Corporate Financial Reporting, Corporate Finance, Corporate Restructuring, Quantitative Applications in Finance and Trading Strategies in PGP (Post Graduate Programme) at IIM Calcutta. He has published many articles in various national and international journals. He was also involved in various consulting projects involving sectors like education and tourism.
Prof. Banerjee is the coordinator for the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) of IIMC. He was instrumental in launching Tata Social Enterprise Challenge – a joint initiative of IIMC and the Tata Group. Prof. Banerjee established the incubation unit at IIMC and the Institute has started incubating four social enterprises. These social enterprises have been chosen by a team of faculty, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and alumni. He was representing IIMC in the negotiation with the Department of Micro and Small Scale Enterprises and Textile (MSSET), Government of West Bengal to develop entrepreneurial culture in Bengal. Prof. Banerjee was the signatory to a tripartite agreement signed among the Government of West Bengal, IIMC and TiE, Kolkata where IIMC will provide support as a knowledge partner of the state government.
7. Saibal Chattopadhyay:
Dr Saibal Chattopadhyay is the current director of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C) with more than 30 years of rich academic experience in India and abroad.
Dr Saibal Chattopadhyay has done his Ph.D in Statistics from University of Connecticut, Storrs, U.S.A and MS (Statistics) from the same institution after his M Sc (Statistics) from University of Calcutta.
Dr Chattopadhyay has more than 30 years of academic experience in India and abroad including over 15 years with IIM Calcutta. Since 2001, he has been working as Professor in the Operations Management Group at the institute.
He joined the top B-school as Associate Professor, Operations Management Group in the year 1997. Prior to this, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics, Presidency College, Calcutta where he started his career as Lecturer in 1983.
He has also been visiting Professor at Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, U.S.A; Department of Statistics, University of Connecticut at Stamford, U.S.A.; and Department of Statistics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, U.S.A.
His research interests include ‘Sequential methods in estimation and in selection and ranking problems’, ‘Multistage sampling methods in environmental health and in clinical studies’; and ‘Quantitative techniques in advanced marketing research’.
Dr Chattopadhyay has also provided consultancy to various projects across different sectors in public and private domain.
8. Biju Paul:
Biju Paul Abraham is Professor of Public Policy in the Public Policy & Management Group of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He did his B.A and M.A. from the University of Kerala, his M.Phil. in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and his Ph.D. in Public Policy from King’s College London. He was UGC Junior Research Fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University from 1988 to 1990 and Nehru Centenary Fellow at King’s College London between 1991 and 1995. His teaching and research interests include international governance issues, and assessment of risks affecting firms as a consequence of changes in the socio-political and regulatory environments. He teaches courses on ‘Country Risk Analysis’ and ‘The Environment for International Business’ at IIM Calcutta. He was co-editor of the book Good Governance, Democratic Societies and Globalization published by Sage in 2004 and co-author of the book The Intelligent Person’s Guide to Good Governance published by Sage in 2009. He is at present a member of the Board of Governors of IIM Calcutta.
9. Pradeep Gupta:
Pradeep Gupta is the chairman and managing director of CyberMedia, India’s leading specialty media house and a public company with an ICT focus. CyberMedia is an integrated media group with presence in Market Research, Consulting and Advisory Services, Media BPO Services, Events, TV, Online Portals, and Media Publishing.
Pradeep is a first generation entrepreneur, and along with his family launched CyberMedia in 1982. He is an industry veteran of over 30 years, and is recognized for the key leadership role he has played in promoting the interests of the globally dispersed Indian IT-ITeS industry. He is also a Founder Director of SQL Star International and Member of the TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Global Board. Until recently he was the President of TiE Delhi Chapter and successfully oversaw hosting of the TiE Entrepreneurial Summit (TES) 2010 (December 21-23).
Pradeep completed his Engineering from the IIT Delhi (1975) and he also holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the IIM Calcutta (1977).
He has received national awards for his championship of the disabled, and alumni awards for entrepreneurship. He is also an Angel investor and a mentor to a number of entrepreneurs.
