Mentors

Raghu Cavale has close to 26 years of experience spanning various industries. Presently Raghu heads the India business for Infosys where he has built up considerable experience in EPC, Energy & Utilities and Manufacturing. He is a member of the standards committee of Bureau of Industrial Standards for the standards for “Smart Grids”. He is also a part of many Government committee’s on Energy & Sustainability. Raghu is a visiting faculty at a few Universities. He has a post graduate degree in engineering from IIT.

Domain Expertise:

Reji is the President of India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF) since its inception in 2011 and is also the Chairman of Global Smart Grid Federation (GSGF) since 2016. He is an internationally renowned expert with over three decades of experience in the electricity sector in diverse functions covering the entire value chain and across continents. Reji played the pivotal role in formulation of the Smart Grid Vision and Roadmap for India (August 2013) and the launch of a National Smart Grid Mission (March 2015) by Government of India, issue of Model Smart Grid Regulations (June 2015) by Forum of Regulators; and issue of National Standards for Smart Meters (IS: 16444 -2015 and IS 15959 Part 2) and Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure (IS: 17017-2018) by Bureau of Indian Standards. He is presently advocating for a “Right to Electricity Act” that will ensure lifeline supply of electricity to all citizens in the country.

His current areas of research include: WiFi as Last Mile Connectivity Solution for Smart Metering, Smart Grids as Anchor Infrastructure for Smart Cities, Development of Smart City Maturity Model and Electric Vehicle Maturity Model, Grid Interactive Buildings and Campuses, Blockchain for Utilities; Future of Transportation; Policies and Business Models for Electric Vehicle Rollouts; and Interconnection of Regional Grids in ASEAN, SAARC and GCC countries.

Domain Expertise:

As the Secretary of Centre for Knowledge Sovereignty, a thinktank working in the space of data security, data sovereignty, data privacy, cybersecurity 2030 and knowledge sovereignty with special focus on defence, education, and information technology sectors, he has been instrumental in creating awareness in the country as well as globally on these important issues.

He has co-authored a Book Data Sovereignty The Pursuit of Supremacy. The First ever book on Data Localisation and Digital Colonisation from Indian perspective, Released on 21st May 2019 at Bombay Stock Exchange and then released in Delhi and across India. The book is now a reference guide in several institutions including IIM Vizag and part of discussions on this subject globally. Data Sovereignty the Pursuit of Supremacy , has circulated more than 30000 copies worldwide. The Book is read in defence establishment, placed in the library of the Parliament of India and in all major policy groups of India.

Domain Expertise:

Dr. Rahul Walawalkar leads the Emerging Technologies & Markets team with focus on energy storage, renewables, demand response and smart grid technologies as well as international markets. He is an acclaimed energy expert. Rahul serves on the Board of ESA and provides input to FERC & various state agencies. He has served on panels for US DOE and in working groups for IEEE & NIST.

Rahul holds a Ph.D. in Engineering & Public Policy, a MBA in Energy Management and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He is the recipient of numerous awards and is a member of various professional organizations including AEE, IET, IEEE and IAEE.

Domain Expertise:

Dr. Amit Paithankar cuurently serves as the Managing Director of Emerson Process Management India since 2011. Process Management branch boasts of three Centers for Engineering Excellence with over 3,000 employees and catering to global projects from India and is fully geared to serve any customers requirements for field instruments, control systems, associated services and advance control solutions. Before joining Emerson, Amit has held several significant roles in other multinational companies. Amit graduated as well as received his doctorate degree in Electrical Engineering from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), University of Mumbai, India.

Domain Expertise:

Mr. Rane is the owner at R.G.Rane Consulting Engineers. An IIT-Bombay alumn, he has about 36 years of experience in Systems Engineering & Product Development in the area of Power Electronics, Drives and Automation. Earlier he worked as the Head of Power Electronics & Automation Technology Centre at L&T Electrical & Automation, Mumbai.

Domain Expertise:

Abraham Samson is AVP & Global Sales Head- IoT for Digital Manufacturing Service Line at LTI. He is responsible for Business Development, Sales, Customer/ Partner Management, Analyst Interactions and Thought Leadership for MES & IoT solutions, on a variety of technology platforms for customers across six industry verticals. He also leads the security for critical infrastructure business, which completed the implementation of three Process Control Network (PCN) cyber-security projects, for global energy majors headquartered in the US and UK.

Domain Expertise:

Dr. Narayanan is currently the Co-Founder & Director at Ultimate AeroAqua Filters Pvt. Ltd. and Mitra Renewables Pvt. Ltd. Earlier he served as the Head- Competency Development at ABB India Ltd.,Bengaluru, where he was responsible for planning and implementation of strategic initiatives to develop experts in R&D, Engineering and Product Management functions across ABB India. He also managed the academic and external partnerships, creating platforms for innovation and collaboration.

Domain Expertise:

Vineet Kumar is a serial Social Entrepreneur, Social activist, Founder and President of Cyber Peace Foundation. Cyber Peace Foundation, an award-winning NGO and global think tank of cyber security and policy experts having HQ at Ranchi, Jharkhand, India, was formed with the vision of pioneering cyber peace initiatives to build collective resiliency against cyber crimes and global threats of cyber warfare. He has over 17 years of experience in the field of cyber security.

Domain Expertise:

Navin Honagudi is a Partner at Kae Capital. He has over a decade of experience in investing in early stage companies. Prior to joining Kae, Navin was with Reliance Venture Asset Management (RVAM), and served as the Board of Directors of Tessolve Services and Dhama Innovations and as Board Observer on Reverse Logistics, Suvidhaa Infoserve and Wellspring. Prior to Reliance Venture Asset Management, he was working with Darashaw and Company Private Limited (DCPL) in the Investment banking division. While at DCPL he was involved in end to end execution of mandates for public offers, private placement, loan syndication, etc for private and state owned entities. Navin has a degree in MBA and Engineering from Mumbai University.

Domain Expertise:

Dinesh is an Information Security Management professional working in the IT/IS domain for more than a decade on consulting projects in India and overseas.

Having extensive business experience in trading, manufacturing and IT sector he brings a unique blend of techno commercial expertise to offering advisory and strategic consulting services in Cyber Security.

He is a hands-on professional in Security Risk Management, GRC, Security Incident Investigation, Response and Management, SOC setup and Compliance with RBI and other national regulatory guidelines.

Domain Expertise:

Amit, a seasoned IT Leader, is passionate about driving high impact strategic outcomes for businesses leveraging his technology expertise, customer centricity, people leadership skills and business acumen. Amit is currently working as the Middle East, North Africa and India regions CIO (spanning 29 countries) for Baker Hughes GE. He additionally plays the roles of Digital Customer Experience leader and the dotted people leader for the MENAT and India IT teams. Amit is also on the board of PIDX(www.pidx.org) an Industry body that defines the electronic business standards for trading partners within the global energy industry.

Amit has more than 20 years of IT experience spanning IT Strategy and execution, P&L Leadership, Industrial Internet and ERP Consulting experience. Amit has completed his Management Education from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow in the year 2000 and his Degree in Electrical Engineering from V.J.T.I, Mumbai University in 1997. Amit is currently pursuing his PhD from IIM Lucknow in Marketing. The research is on the impact of customer to customer collaboration in online communities on Brand Loyalty.

Amit has completed the MDC training program from BHGE at Crotonville in December 2018. Amit is a graduate of the prestigious Executive Information Management Program from GE Crotonville. Amit has received multiple awards & appreciations for Leadership, Performance, Innovation and Teamwork during his stints with GE, CSC, Genpact and PwC. Some of the key awards received are the Best People leader award for GE Digital Technology Leadership Program participants, Strategic Initiatives Excellence Award from the GE O&G CEO, Diamond award from the CEO of Genpact, Employee of the Quarter Award at CSC and the award for Outstanding Performance at Genpact. Amit is a speaker at multiple Industry forums and B-Schools on various areas centered around Digital and Customer relationship management.

Domain Expertise:

Vikrant is a multifaceted leader with over 21 years of Industry experience in Automation, M2M / IoT, Analytics and Digitalization. He has had diverse roles across the value chain including Engineering, Consulting, Project Management, Sales, Business Development and Business Management. At Siemens, he advises strategic customers in Oil & Gas segment, on their journey from Automation towards Digitalization. In his previous stints, he was associated with Tata Power, ABB and IBM.

Vikrant is a Post Graduate in Business Management from Mumbai and successfully completed Executive Management from Singapore Management University. He has completed Under Graduation and Graduation in Electronics Engineering from V.J.T.I., Mumbai and Pune University, respectively. He is also a qualified Chartered Engineer from Engineering Council of UK, becoming the first youngest Chartered Engineer from India. He has achieved Fellowship of The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), UK, (one of 100 globally and only from India to achieve Fellowship at the age below 40 Years) and is a member of the IoT India Panel.

An active speaker at industry conferences and author of many papers in national and international conferences, Vikrant has been recognized as ‘IoT Thought Leader’ by IoT India Congress. Vikrant is also on Industry Advisory Committee of various engineering colleges, and mentoring various IoT Startups.

Domain Expertise:

Atul is an Industry leader with 22 Years of Experience working with leading Indian, European & American companies. He worked as trusted business advisor & partner for clients, providing solutions to meet their business objectives, This covers Energy & Utilities, Industrial / Chemical Products across Industries like Manufacturing, Metals, Mining, Real Estate, Agriculture, etc.

Atul was Regional Sales Leader for IBM Energy & Utility business covering Generation (Traditional as well as Renewables), Transmission, Distribution, Trading companies across India. During Siemens stint, he also worked on Energy Automation, Smart Grid & IT Management Systems portfolio for Utilities in India, Europe, US, Africa, South East Asia. He was one of the key contributors in Power System Control and Associated Communications Committee, LITD 10 & SCADA Working Group for BUREAU OF INDIAN STANDARDS (BIS).

As Transformation Consultant, he is currently working with Client CXOs to drive Corporate (Enterprise, SMB Companies) & Business Transformation using Digital Reinvention. He helps them create strategy on possible New Business Model with use cases for revenue growth, Business Development, Improved Sales, Partnerships/Channels and improved customer relationship / experience. Also supporting India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF) on research areas like Electric Vehicles, Grid Maturity Model, etc.

Atul is an alumnus of prestigious Institutes like IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A), Singapore Management University (SMU) & VJTI.

Domain Expertise:

Ashish is Founder of Bodhi Tree Ecosystem and Business development services (bodhi-tree.co) and Chief Product Officer at PicoNETS (piconets.com), an exciting hyperlocal CDN/Edge computing startup. Ashish is a creative, well-connected leader with expertise in Biz-Dev, Go to market, partner & developer relationships, ecosystems & programs across Wearables/ IOT, Mobile, Telco, IT/Tech, Location-based services (LBS).

He is a start-up advisor at Zonestartups (Mumbai, India) and at Supercharger Fintech Accelerator (Kuala Lampur, Hong Kong). He is also selected as Mentor of Change with Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, Govt. of India. He is also a start-up mentor for several of the IIT/NIT E-cell programs in the country.

Ashish is also a Member of IET-IoT India (The IET is one of the world's largest multi-discipline professional societies of engineers with more than 160,000 members in 127 countries).

Domain Expertise:

Jinesh Shah is the co-founder of Omnivore Partners, a venture fund investing in early stage Indian start-ups developing breakthrough technologies for food, agriculture and rural livelihoods. He is a Director for multiple Omnivore-backed startups, including Stellapps Technologies, Barrix Agro Sciences, Retigence Technologies and FR8. Previously, Jinesh was the Vice President and CFO at Nexus Venture Partners, one of India’s leading early stage venture capital funds, where he lead the finance organization and also few select portfolio investments. He earlier served in Finance roles with Datamatics (leading Treasury/M&A), Patni Computers (initiating the IPO process), and HCL Technologies (founding the BPO business). He is a Chartered Accountant with B.Com from R. A. Poddar College and an MMS (Finance) from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS).

Domain Expertise:

Ankur is a Vice President at Nirvana Venture Advisors. Prior to Nirvana, he was a part of the venture investment team at Mitsui Global Investments and Manipal CDC Ventures. He has deep investing and operating experience across consumer, technology and healthcare sectors. He is an MBA from IIM, Raipur and B.Tech. in Computer Science from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra. His past work experience includes an Investment Banking stint at HSBC and a Java developer role at Oracle. He is actively involved in mentoring tech-based startups all over the country and is associated with many incubators in the country including AIC-NMIMS at NMIMS, Mumbai.

Domain Expertise:

Vatsal is an Investment Director at Cornerstone Ventures Fund. He brings 8+ years of experience in Investment Management, Business Valuation, Portfolio Management, Mergers & Acquisition, Investment Banking and Management Consulting.

Most recently, he was part of Reliance Jio’s Strategy team, leading strategic investments in technology startups in India for the Reliance group. He invested in some of the fast growing areas of digital consumer content, ed-tech, industrial IOT, business intelligence, next-gen mobility, etc. He has evaluated several hundred startups in India and US across sectors; mentored startups at Jio GenNext accelerator to help them achieve sustainability and developed partnerships in the startup ecosystem.

He was actively managing investee companies of the group, helping them with business strategy, go-to-market solutions, product pricing and cashflow management. He led a team of analysts to manage the end to end transaction processes.

Prior to this, he was an Investment Banker at Baker Tilly Singhi (erstwhile Indian partner for Baker Tilly International), where he had advised several Indian corporates in their M&A transactions Additionally, he has worked as a Management Consultant with Ernst & Young (EY) India in their Business Consulting practice.

Vatsal is an MBA from IIM Lucknow (Finance & Strategy) and a Computer Science Engineer from Mumbai University.

Domain Expertise:

Abhijit currently serves as Head, Digital Experiences, Future Factory. His expertise is in the area of developing Strategic Technology Experiences with over 22 years of experience across Strategy,User Experience, Marketing, & Community Development. He also has accumulated 11 years of corporate experience and 11 years of entrepreneurial experience. He has worked with 100’s of clients (startups to large organizations),set and lead teams, and independently operated P&L across the associated ventures.

His focus areas include Customer Strategy, Competition Strategy, DataStrategy, Innovation Strategy, Value Strategy, Customer Need Analysis, Innovation Management, TrendsResearch, Customer Experience Audit, Customer ExperienceTesting, Competitive Analysis, Concept Design, Prototype Design,Visual Design, Interactive Experiences, Customer Awareness, Customer Appeal, Customer Ask, Customer Act and Customer Advocacy.

Abhijit is also currently the CEO of Estuary Labs and was the founder of Lonely Entrepreneur, a platform that supports businesses to solve their sales & marketing challenges.

Domain Expertise:

Prasad currently serves as the CEO of Gramkalyan, an Organization connecting the farmers and artisans with the consumers through our Trade Facilitation Centres (TFCs). Prasad is also an expert in Distributed Energy Resource, Distributed EnergyStorage, Power Resilience, Micro-grids and Grid Scale Energy storage. He has a fantastic understanding of the disruptive technologies that will work and disrupt the existing large players in Energy and Transport sectors. He also holds experience in financial modelling of these technologies to find out cost to end consumers.He played a key role in investing in Energy and Transport Disruptive technology companies and building new companies from scratch in Energy and Transport Disruption space by offering them technology as well as roadmap.

He earlier has worked as the MD and Founder at The Varhad Group, HSBC Securities and Capital and Power Finance Corporation Ltd. He has also served as an Advisor to Waterlife India and Gravity Power.

Domain Expertise:

Mr. Sharma is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology (Mumbai), having done his M.Tech.in Computer Science from the same institute. He has done his B.E.in Electronics & Communication from Shri Govindram Sakesaria Institute of Technology and Science, Indore.

After serving for 18 years, Mr. Sharma retired from services of L&T Infotech in June 2017. He was Vice President & Global Head for Consulting for past 8 years prior to retirement. Prior to this role, he was head of their Technology Center of Excellence (CoE) responsible for driving the technology innovation cycle, and ensuring technological excellence within the organization as a Head of Technology.

He has also worked with IT Majors, like, Syntel, Patni Computers, ACS in the areas of Software development and Project Management for over 15 years, in India and USA. He was also Reader (Associate Professor) with University of Indore in their School of Computer Science for about 5 years.

At present, he is a part-time faculty teaching Emerging Technologies and Strategic Management to final year MBA-Tech students at Mukesh Patel School under NMIMS, Mumbai.

Domain Expertise:

Venkat currently serves at the Head of IoT & MES Practice at LTI. He is also a strategic leader & business professional with experience of over 21 years in building Practice & Teams including engaging and fostering relationship with Global Clients & Partners for sales, marketing,business development in areas of digital, IoT , cyber security &project management combined with deep domain understanding across Industries.

He is also sssociated with Academia, and Institutes like Industrial Internet Consortium, VJTI, IEEE to engage in global IoT thought leadership as well as engage with global Analyst for strategic practice roadmaps. His main areas of strength include Strategic Business Management;Global Client Engagement; Operations Management & Business Roadmap.

Domain Expertise:

Dr Shankar Venugopal is a Vice President at Mahindra & Mahindra. Shankar leads technology innovation, intellectual property and technical capability building for Mahindra’s Automotive and Farm business. Prior to joining Mahindra, he has held global technology leadership roles at Cummins, Honeywell, Dow and GE. He holds a Ph.D from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and an executive management degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. He is a prolific inventor and holds ten international patents. He has created a proprietary innovation methodology – Innovation Flow – and has coached 1000+ innovators. Shankar’s focus is on driving sustainable technology innovations for the automotive and farm industry.

Domain Expertise:

Samir Pawaskar is an experienced and a respected Information Security (IS) professional with a proven track record in leading, managing and completing complex security projects. His is an expert on Governance (policy and compliance), Management of IS Projects and Operations, Control and Audit. He has accumulated 19 years of experience in Information Security and IT, covering Telecommunications (ISP), Government, Special Economic Zones, Hospitality, Ship Repair and Manufacturing. Samir also holds a broad list of certifications prominent among them being GICSP, CRISC, CISM, CISSP, CICA and ISO 27001 (Lead Auditor).

His key achievements include his role in Developed Qatar’s National Information Assurance (NIA) Policy v2.0 and Government Information Assurance (GIA) Policy v1.0. He managed the National PKI Project and established the PKI Management Authority and successfully licensed MoI as the first licensed CSP in Qatar. He was a part of the Steering Committee member Cyber Security for Critical Assets MENA Summit, UAE, 2015, Member Advisory Board Kingdom Cyber Security Forum, Saudi Arabia, 2015 and Member Advisory Board Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit, UAE, 2014. He has lead and managed Qatar Government’s cyber security policies, programs and projects.

Samir holds a B.E. in Electronics from VJTI, Mumbai and an MBA from Sikkim Manipal University of Health, Medical and Technological Sciences. He is also a member of Kokan Trust where he volunteers actively for various social causes.

Domain Expertise:

Mr. Rajesh Mane serves as Associate Vice President at Venture Catalysts. He is also an Angel Investor and serves as the Principal at 9Unicorns. He is head of sourcing startups & coworking facility at Venture Catalysts. He holds a degree from the University of London and studied engineering at VJTI, Mumbai. Post that, he Co-founded Airpix - Indias first drone company focused on civilian applications. Before joining Venture Catalysts, he cofounded Weekend Ventures - a community-driven platform for an early-stage tech startup that supported over 500 startups over span of 3 years. Mr. Rajesh Mane is a Co-Founder and also serves as the Chief Operating Officer at Airpix.

Domain Expertise:

Sanjiv has been keenly interested in new enterprise formation, and most of his career has been in early stage enterprises of various scales, rather than large established corporations. These include leadership roles with Sobha Developers Ltd, a real estate company, and FIRE Luxur, a Private Equity backed startup firm that scaled up to an employee strength of 130 and a turnover in excess of Rs.120 crores in his tenure. His experience spans all the critical departments that go into successful organisations – planning, sales, operations, post-sales relationship and financial management.

Currently, Sanjiv is Managing Partner at Citius Project Portfolio Consulting LLP and a mentor with AIC-Selco Foundation at Guwahati, contributing to the development of the Incubation team in terms of growth and development of incubatees. He holds a BE in Civil Engineering from VJTI Mumbai and also holds a Ph.D in Public Systems from IIM Bangalore.

Domain Expertise:

Arvind Krishnaswamy is an expert in corporate and digital strategy in the oil sector and has around 40 years experience. He worked with Bharat Petroleum Corporation and retired as its Executive Director, Corporate and Digital Strategy Division. His experience in corporate strategy invovled large scale corporate restructuring, change management, annual business plans, long term strategic plans, diversification into new businesses and anchoring new initiatives. His experience in digital strategy included programming, systems design, network planning and ERP Implementation.

He headed the startup initiative at BPCL and was a key member of the BPCL ANKUR Program for supporting startups. Under this program, he is invovled identifying startups to provide grants, mentoring and onboarding them into the oil ecosystem. Currently he is also an advisor and mentor to startups with kerala Start-Up Mission. He is also invovled with NGOs in Education, Disaster Mitigation and Civil Society spheres for the past 35 years. He holds a bacleros degree in Mathematics from Madras University and a MA in History from University of Mumbai.

Domain Expertise:

Aditya currently is the Vice President at Menterra Ventures and is responsible for adding game-changing startups to their portfolio. Earlier to this he was a Principal at SIDBI Venture Capital, where played an active role across the fund life cycle of Maharashtra State Social Venture Fund starting from sourcing & analysing, deal negotiation, presenting to Investment Committee, legal documentation up to deal closure for deployment of US$ 20 mn early stage VC fund. He also represents SIDBI VC on the board of portfolio companies and responsible for monitoring performance as well guiding founders in strategy formulation during their growth phase. He has also worked with other reputed organizations such as Kubera Cross-Border Fund, National Stock Exchange of India Ltd, etc.

Mr. Aditya Jadhav, CFA is an engineering graduate from VJTI and holds a post-graduation degree in management from Mumbai University. He is also CFA Charterholder with 10+ years of experience of working for leading mid-market PE fund and early stage VC Fund. He enjoys mentoring and nurturing young talent with entrepreneurial spirit and is mentoring founders funded by India’s first dorm room fund Campus Fund.

Domain Expertise:

Srinath Birur is currently associated with Excelsoft Technologies Pvt Ltd (Large EdTech Technology Provider, www.excelsoftcorp.com) as “Chief Innovation Evangelist” and is responsible for Evangelizing “Entrepreneurship Programs, Innovation Management and Delivering Entrepreneurship Skills”. He is associated with two other start-ups in mentoring and fund-raising opportunities. He is the “Chairman – Entrepreneurship Committee” at Australia New Zealand India Business Chamber (ANZIBC, www.anzindiachamber.com) and handles the Start-up ecosystem for Australia, India, UAE and Singapore regions. He is also actively involved with Lead Angels, Mumbai and is the Regional Mentor of Change, ATAL Innovation Mission, Niti Aayog. He was responsible for mentoring a couple of very good revenue generating startups during their growth phase. He has also worked with other reputed organizations such as Birla Group, TAFE Australia.

He is a Chartered member of TiE Hubli Chapter and is actively involved in TiE’s Global Nurture Cohort Program where he is currently mentoring two brilliant startups.

Mr. Srinath Birur is a MBA graduate and certified in Entrepreneurship Services from HP Global Education. He is also certified in TAE 1.4V from TAFE Australia. He carries a rich experience of 25 years in the startup ecosystem both in the Domestic and Global market. He is passionate and active in mentoring and nurturing founders and young talent with entrepreneurial spirit.

Domain Expertise:

Rani comes with over 30 years of experience in Human Capital Management across diverse, multicultural organizations. She has been in various senior leadership roles leading human capital strategy, leadership development, change management, organizational transformation, and M&A.

She has been a member of the executive committee of various business leadership teams with a sound understanding of business. Her experience spans across multiple and diverse industries like niche technology and engineering design services industry, manufacturing, and other services industries She has worked with large Indian global corporate groups like Mahindra & Mahindra, and Tata.

Rani has held and led Global Head Human Resources & Organization Development role with employees in the US, Europe, and APAC. Her last assignment was with Deloitte India where she led the leadership capabilities of Partners. She also institutionalized an integrated program of developing a leadership pipeline at the Firm level.

She is a mentor to young entrepreneurs and startups, developing business plans, understanding markets, and strategies. She has been coaching them and facilitating leadership and other competencies. She is a certified coach with ICF, Marshall Goldsmith Certified Coach, and a nominated member of the MG25 India project initiated by Marshall Goldsmith. She has over 10 years been a coach to C-Suite Executives and senior management leaders and has demonstrated credentials. She is certified in neuroscience and has insights into human behavior.

Domain Expertise:

Mr. Shirish Kulkarni is an industry veteran with large corporate experience of @ 30+ years helping the Small and Medium as a Business Advisor

Shirish has A unique mix of experience covering the current entrepreneurial advisory focus on streamlining and growth of Small and Medium businesses; and a vast experience in global organizations like KSB Pumps, TCS, BMC Software, Tata Motors, Geometric Sofware, Tata Consulting Engineers - for contributions in design consultancy, R&D center of an Indian automaker, internal customer management and support as a part of internal IT group, exposure to the end-to-end product development lifecycle from renowned organizations from inception to stabilization and finally inward / outward-looking experience in a services organization.

Shirish has a mastery in Conceptualising the Transformation Opportunity and Readiness for the organization, Building the Roadmap and enabling the Realisation – he has analysed @ 150+ businesses and has recently helped a manufacturing setup to transform it acquire global brands and a top-line increase of @ 300%.

Shirish is doing his research on EV Evolution : in the form of drivetrains, newer products / markets, pricing, adoption and in a process to set up CoE (Center of Excellence) as a part of the Industry <--> Academia relationships and playing an advisory role as part of various Incubation Centers

Domain Expertise:

Dr. Amit Sawant is an award-winning, customer-centric leader with extensive experience in enterprise and consumer space at Somatix, Dell, Riverbed, NetApp, and TCS with a strong track record of delivering ground-breaking products in the areas of data analytics, AI/ML, data management, SaaS, and security. Dr. Sawant is currently the Chief Operating Officer at Somatix where he drives the Product, Sales, and overall company strategy. He is also an Adjunct Faculty at the Institute of Product Leadership, and an Executive in Residence with North Carolina State University Office of Technology Commercialization and New Ventures.

Dr. Sawant is a subject matter expert and product evangelist. He has presented at over 100 academic and industry conferences and published over 40 journal articles and papers on topics ranging from data visualization and analytics to data storage and performance. Dr. Sawant also coaches other people through organizations such as Alchemist Accelerator, Product League, Plato, ProductCampRTP, and ADPlist; advises startups and entrepreneurial ventures at Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), NSF I-Corps; and provides consulting services at PennPAC, Coleman Research, GLG Insights, Third Bridge, Dialectica, and Lynk.

Dr. Sawant holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; a Ph.D. and M.S. in computer science (specialization in data analytics and visualization) from North Carolina State University; and a B.S. in computer science from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI).

Domain Expertise:

Sameer is a Senior Tech Leader & Entrepreneur in IT field. Having played multipleroles over last 30 years in large global MNCs, he is now assisting Start-up Ecosystem in India. He is an active Tech and Business Mentor for Start-ups and Innovation centers. He is also working on a new startup concept in stealth mode.

As a Solution Architect at BMC, he was involved in technically guiding large Agent-based, Real-time Streaming product that leveraged SaaS/Multi-Cloud environments. As a CTO of a large UK based Bank, he was responsible for establishing the Cloud migration vision of the Corporate Banking systems.

He has been driving innovation, injecting AI/ML within the solutions, bringing out the real IP and providing guidance in Patenting process in different organizations he worked.

Domain Expertise:

Dr.Saurabh N. Mehta, is an experienced professional engineer and educator with a demonstrated wireless system development history. As CAO, he is responsible for integrating academia and industry collaboration, bringing innovation and intrapreneurship in academia, and research programs, designing curricula, implementing academic planning and policies, human resource development, and educational training for Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Mumbai. His research interests are Wireless Networks, Embedded/IoT/Rfid Technology, and Educational Technology.

He has expertise as Consulting engineer to the industry in R&D and product development and he is an experienced professional in technical training, writing, course development, instructional design, and resource coordination.

Domain Expertise:

Shyam has a 25+ year track record of delivering profitable growth in dynamic environments. He sees himself as a thought leader challenging & improving the status quo; a storyteller pitching ideas and products; sometimes a change catalyst driving organization reimagination and, frequently a leader & manager enabling disciplined execution.

Shyam’s angel investments are typically through AIFs or crowdfunding platforms. The investments span sectors and are typically a bet on the founders confidence in their concept. Current investments include Boson Q Psi, ByteLearn, ConScent, CreditWise, Evenflow, EyeMyEye, Fleek, Honc, Jumbaya, Kalagato, Leher, napEazy, Picsniff, Tuttifruitti and Xook, amongst others. Exits include Single Dose.

In his latest role at TCS, Shyam helped build new ecosystems that create and accelerate customer value. His prior roles include leading Strategy & Governance for a $4B revenue pa BU, setting up and leading marketing for a $2B revenue pa BU, managing a $150+M services P&L, product management for 15+ apps, and managing the industry advisory group within a service unit. He has also held other delivery, solutions and sales positions..

Shyam has completed his bachelor’s in engineering from VJTI, Mumbai, India and his management program from ISB, Hyderabad, India.

Domain Expertise:

Muralidharan Ramachandran is an industry veteran with around 35 years of experience and currently an independent consultant providing vCIO vCISO and Digital Transformation Consulting services to enterprises and SMB’s. He currently is involved as CIO with a couple of companies apart from being in advisory roles to a couple of startup’s in the deep tech domain.

Domain Expertise: