Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development (CIED)

Mr. Bharat Banka

Mr. Bharat Banka is Founder & Ex-CEO of Aditya Birla Private Equity (ABPE). Bharat had set up ABPE in 2009 by building team from scratch and raising $200m in domestic funds. During 20 years he was with the Aditya Birla Group, he had various stints as Head - Group Finance, EA to the Group Chairman and Head - Corporate Finance at Aditya Birla Finance. Before joining Aditya Birla Group, he was with the Indian joint venture of J.P. Morgan with ICICI.

He has diverse experience in business, strategy, principal investing, M&A, post-merger integration, capital markets & CXO-level roles brings unique value-creation abilities, commercial acumen for portfolio companies and strong team management skills. Mr Banka invests in early-stage start-ups and mentors entrepreneurs through Indian Angel Network (IAN) and CIO Angel Network (CAN) and as Charter Member at Venture Nursery (VN) and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).

His select mentee/investee start-ups: IHO (acquired by Aetna, US), OYO Rooms, Perpetuiiti Tech, Invenzone, TalView, HotelsAroundYou, etc. Most of them have raised next series of funding. He is a member of Advisory Board at RiiDL, incubator at Somaiya Vidyavihar, Mumbai. He is Senior Advisor to TVS Capital Funds and Advisor to Sterlite Technologies. He authored the column 'Bankanomics' for "The Entrepreneur", a Network 18 magazine for start-ups and is recipient of "Professional Achiever – Finance Sector" Award from the ICAI.

Prof. John Hoffmire

Prof. John Hoffmire, is a faculty member of the Said Business School and the Director of Programs at Oxford University and the University of Wisconsin. He is also the Chairman of Progress Through Business. Prof. Hoffmire had a twenty-year career in equity investing, venture capital, consulting and investment banking.

He is passionate about entrepreneurship and is helping to build a network of people, companies and other institutions interested in entrepreneurship. In 2012 Prof. Prof Hoffmire was awarded the Darwin Nelson Community Impact Award by Wisconsin Business Development for his ‘tireless efforts to expand the financial literacy and tax form preparation programmes that have benefited so many’.

Throughout his for-profit and non-profit career, he has helped to start and grow 35 companies, in addition to the hundreds of firms he has either financed or advised. He is also running the Impact Bond Fund for the University of Oxford. Prof. Hoffmire is also the Director of UW-Madison Centre on Business and Poverty.

MR. AJAY GOEL

Mr. Ajay Goel facilitates in connecting and nurturing the Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and PwD initiatives of the Foundation with the larger eco-system of Governments, Industries and Academics for ensuring scale and speed.

Prior to this, Mr Goel led the Foundation’s implementation of skills development in schools in partnership with State governments and design of community college, and other skill development schemes for higher education with Ministry of Human Resource Development and UGC.

He has worked for 24 years at NIIT Ltd in diverse areas of education & training, franchise management, corporate planning and international operations. Ajay is passionate about Integration of skill development and employability skills in formal education structures.

Mr. Tim Mathews

Mr. Tim Mathews is an Executive Director, Avocado Management Services Pvt. Ltd. an investment firm. He has been responsible for equity financing of many start-ups. He is an IIT, Madras and Washington University alumnus.

Mr. Sanket Sinha

Mr. Sanket Sinha has a very diverse experience in financial markets, varying from derivatives trading to setting up a financial technology start-up. Mr. Sanket started his career with Edelweiss Capital as a derivatives trader and was also a founding member of the Structured Products group at Edelweiss.

He later worked for Deutsche Bank as part of the South East Asia capital markets team focusing on structured finance transactions. Sanket later joined Inflexionpoint Group and managed the finance and fund raising activities for its Indian subsidiary called Iris Computers. Later, he started from scratch an SME financing focused NBFC called X10 Financial Services Ltd which is a subsidiary of Inflexionpoint Singapore. Sanket headed the Credit and Operations function at X10 Finance.

He is currently Fund Manager and Head of Private Investments at Lighthouse Canton, Singapore. He is a CFA charter holder and MBA from IIM Kozhikode.

Mr. Hemendra Mathur

Mr. Hemendra Mathur has over 19 years of experience in private equity, management consulting and banking industry in India, South Asia, South East Asia, Europe and USA. Investing experience in early stage and mid-sized enterprises in agribusiness, food supply chain & retail.

Previously consultant to the leading International / Indian corporates and the Government of India as well as state governments. Also, he is mentoring many start-ups and working closely with angel networks and incubators. Mr. Mathur is the Managing Director of SEAF India Investment Advisors, New Delhi.

Mr. Alok Gupta

With over 26 years of rich and varied experience in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry Mr. Alok as a parallel entrepreneur co-founded several ICT companies such as Samtech, airJaldi, and Pyramid.

As a past member of the National Committee on Information Technology for Confederation of Indian HYPERLINK "http://www.ciionline.org/" Industries(CII), Alok advised and provided deep insights into how can Indian Enterprises and Government leverage use of ICT and Information Security to compete and grow in the global economy.

As a member of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE) Alok mentors young entrepreneurs. Mr. Alok is also the President of the Alumni Association of Birla Institute of Management Technology and a founding member of Birla Alumni Association Network. Alok is a member of the IMS Law advisory committee. Mr. Alok is also the founding member of the Nasscom-DSCI Cyber Forensic Forum (DCFF) representing the Digital Forensic industry. Alok has been a frequent speaker at various events, workshops and forums in India and internationally and has been writing articles and columns for leading newspapers, magazines and has been covered on national newspapers, television and radio.

Mr. Gopal Mondal

Mr. Gopal Chandra Mondal did graduation and post–graduation in Commerce & M. Phil from Calcutta University & LLB from CCS University, Meerut. In last 14 years, he had worked in different Industries in different position.

Presently, Mr. Mondal is working as Director - Finance and Company Secretary in IDFC Foundation, a wholly–owned subsidiary of IDFC Ltd. He is also an Associate member of ICSI, ICAI, and ICSA (UK).

Mr. Mondal's various articles have been published in the professional Chartered Secretary & Management Accountant Journal. He is also a visiting faculty member of various Educational Institutions.

Mr. Venugopal Gupta

Mr. Venugopal Gupta is a start-up specialist and runs a venture acceleration program that helps early-stage start-ups build their ideas into sustainable businesses. He is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of “The Business Parables”.

He has more than eighteen years of start-up experience as an entrepreneur and an intrapreneur across logistics, private equity and venture incubation. As the CEO for a Venture Incubation initiative, he helped develop a pan-India incubation strategy and establish two incubation centres. Prior to this, he was Country Manager for an emerging market real estate private equity firm and Head of India Corporate Development for a global industrial real estate investment firm. His roles have spanned corporate development, joint ventures and building execution teams.

Mr. Venu holds an MBA from INSEAD and his story-based articles on business strategy have been featured by Forbes, INSEAD Knowledge, The Business Times (Singapore), The National (UAE) and other global business publications. He is also the author of the book “The Business Parables” and curates a large collection of stories from mythology, history and folklore that bear critical business lessons.

Prof. Jeremy Wade

Prof. Jeremy is the Founding Director of the Jindal Centre for Social Innovation + Entrepreneurship and an Assistant Professor at O.P. Jindal Global University. Originally from the United States, Jeremy began his career at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he helped supervise a portfolio of financial institutions in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis from 2008-2012.

Jeremy moved to Delhi, India in 2012 to gain a deeper understanding of the intersection of global finance, technology and social impact. Jeremy's vision to create a social impact centre and innovation lab focused on sustainable economic growth came to the fruition at O.P. Jindal Global University in 2014.

Mr. Geetha Krishnan

A 1993 graduate from Asia’s premier B-School (the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru), Geetha Krishnan is an independent consultant with Babson College, in the areas of entrepreneurship education and online learning. In a corporate career spanning over two decades, Geetha has played varied roles across diverse sectors such as academia, online learning and advertising. In his last role at the ISB, Geetha was the head of the profit centre comprising more than 50 Open Enrolment and five Long Duration Programmes. In this role, he worked across multiple stakeholders: with faculty members, to design programmes; with research agencies and marketing channels, to validate programmes and devise marketing strategies; with client organizations, to encourage them to nominate their managers to these programmes; and with programme participants and alumni, to ensure a virtuous improvement loop of enhancing the quality of the programme.

Geetha Krishnan has been the director for the 10,000 Women program in India since 2009. In this capacity, he has led the delivery of the program to more than 1,300 women business owners through more than 40 cohorts in multiple locations in India. Geetha was part of the global academic team at Babson that designed the integrated global curriculum for the program, both for the classroom format, and now for this online version. Geetha has also been involved in the design and delivery of multiple other programs under 10,000 Women, both in the classroom format and in the online format. He has also conceptualised and delivered multiple programs and mentoring initiatives for the 10,000 Women alumni in India.

Mr. Raghunandan Rajamani

Dr. Raghunandan Rajamani graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Mysore followed by M.Tech in IIT Madras and then Doctorate from IIT Delhi. His experience of 25+ years began in academics and subsequently for the past 17+ years in Entrepreneurship Development and Technology Business Incubation. He is currently the Executive Director of the Indian STEPs and Business Incubators Association (ISBA) an Association of which he was a founder Secretary and later also Vice President. He has been a member of high level expert committee of the Technology Development Board, Govt. of India, and Member of the Committee on Service Tax Exemption. He is an Advisor to the Uttar Pradesh Govt. promoted Society IT-UPVAN for promoting Incubators in the State of UP and also Executive Council Member of the State promoted Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society. He was instrumental in establishing the JSSATE – Science & Technology Entrepreneurs Park at Noida which he managed for more than a decade and this was the first Incubator to be setup under the umbrella of the Dept. Of Science & Technology, Govt. Of India (DST) in the year 2001. He was also one of the principal architects and Director (Operations) in Global Incubation Services, DST’s first IT Incubator at Bangalore.

The core focus areas of his entrepreneurship activity is in IT and Manufacturing sectors. Mentored over 50 start-up companies in both Incubators and managed the SEED funding initiatives. He has a rich experience in working with several agencies and governments such as the Department of Science & Technology, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Technology Development Board of Government of India, State Governments, the Ministry of Education & Research, Government of France, United Nations Development Programme, European Union to name a few.

Mr. Ananth Aravamudan

Mr. Ananth Aravamudan leads the energy practice at Villgro. His career spans over two decades of technology development, product R&D and more recently, deployments of technology-driven social impact programs. He was responsible for the creation of SELCO Foundation which looked into the use of renewable energy and sustainable technologies in the fields of education, agriculture and livelihood generation.

Ananth has an engineering degree from Bangalore University and was a fellow with Said Business School, University of Oxford.

Mr. Rahul Jain

Rahul Jain is an MBA from MDI Gurgaon and is a Fellow Company secretary. He is an Entrepreneur himself and Director in - Sundeep Global Ltd and SKI Ltd. His venture provide Education solutions worldwide which includes Business Simulations, Innovative learning tools, Courses, tutoring, training and consulting. He is also leading an NGO known as Sundeep Welfare trust doing lot of social contributions in the area of education, health and public development.

He is Mentor to IIM Ahmedabad (Incubation Centre - CIIE), consultant to Pearl Academy and also a visiting faculty for various Institutions and corporate trainer such as Maruti, Plan India, SBI, GIZ, IIM Raipur, IIT Delhi, IIT K, IIT Mumbai, ISB, MDI Gurgaon, NIFM, ICSI, ICAI, Fore School of Management, NSIT etc. for subjects including Finance, Accounting, Simulations, Entrepreneurship, Project Management, Personality Development etc. He has been speaker/presenter at various national and international conferences/seminars. He has consulted and mentored start-ups, companies and individuals, colleges on business planning, company analysis, industry analysis, market research and intelligence and on various strategic issues. He has already authored more than 20 ebooks.

Mr. Sanjay Lodha

Mr. Sanjay had his first tryst with entrepreneurship at the age of 20 when he, with his brother, developed and marketed a business accounting software for small businesses in 1990. After 2 years of running his successful tech start-up, his software was priced out of business by another (better funded) start-up, which, these days, goes by the name of TCS.

Sanjay went on to complete his Chartered Accountancy degree and joined the corporate world. While working as a consultant in Canada, Sanjay completed his MBA in Finance from the McGill University in Montreal and his CFA course. After 20 years as a banking professional and having worked across the globe, Sanjay has returned to India and has settled down with family in Mumbai and Noida.

Sanjay has invested in start-ups in the fields of Education, Mobile Ecosystem, Net communities and Rural Enterprise. He loves meeting people with bright ideas and sky-high ambition.

Mr. Sahil Verma

An alumnus of University College London, Sahil Verma is a commonwealth qualified lawyer specialising in international business laws, international investment law (including start-ups, accelerators, incubators, VC and PE), and dispute resolution. Sahil is a fully qualified lawyer in India, an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (London, UK) and a registered legal practitioner with the DIFC Courts (Dubai, UAE). He has experience of working on complex legal matters of various jurisdictions relating to contracts, M & A, corporate governance, deal structuring, investment law, dispute resolution, international trade law and competition laws. Sahil is also an arbitrator on the panel of CRCICA, ACIA and ACIMA.

Sahil is the Chief Legal Counsel of Innovation 360 Group which comprises of Innovation 360, a global innovation management consulting firm; TURN8 International Pre-Accelerator, Accelerator and Follow on VC Fund; and the Cribb, an international co-working and start-up hub. In addition to being in charge of legal, compliance, governance and regulatory matters, Sahil is part of the C team and handles business affairs in India and ASEAN.

Prof. Dhruva Chak

Prof. Dhruva Chak is an MA in Political Science from Lucknow University and a PGDBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, with 40 years of experience in Industry, Consultancy and Teaching. He has an excellent track record of nurturing start – ups and successfully launching consumer products and services which have stood the test of time He has held Top Management positions including CEO of the Hyderabad – based Gati Ltd. (a cargo major). Other positions held by him have included Country Head (Retail Vertical) and Regional Director with Tops Security. He has also held positions with Profit Centre responsibility as Assistant Vice President Sterling Resorts, General Manager Atlas Cycles and Zonal Manager, Shaw Wallace and Company as well as Zonal Manager, Best and Crompton Engineering Ltd.

His literary achievements include an award for poetry writing from the International Society of Poets, USA and 5 published books spanning fantasy, fiction, short stories and poetry.

Prof. R J Masilamani

Prof Masilamani has worked for thirty five years in industry mainly with the TATA group of companies and with J.Vs the group was associated with, including the Pepsico J.V. and the Timex J.V. He was the Managing Director of Timex Watches Ltd. from 1991 to 2000. He served as the Director General, Fertilizer Association of India from 2001-2002 and has been a consultant to several companies in the Automobile, Power and the Retail sectors.

Prof. Masilamani completed his BE (Mechanical) from Anna University and PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad. A Rank holder in IIMA, he was selected for the Tata Administrative Service, considered as one of the most prestigious industry cadres. He has taught various courses in Strategic Management and other general management courses in several leading business schools including IMT Ghaziabad, BIMTECH, Delhi University, and Fore School of Management. He was the Programme Director for MBA Telecom Management at Amity University and has conducted many Management Development programmes at leading corporates including NTPC, ONGC and Cognizant.

Prof. K R Chari

Prof. Chari is a Mechanical Engineer of the 1971 batch, followed with a Post-Graduation in Industrial Engineering. Prof. Chari was the Regional Director of National Productivity Council. He had trained more than 5000 engineers and supervisory staff and provided his technical advisory services to more than 500 industrial organizations, Central and State Government depts. and various establishments in the public and private sectors like BHEL, NTPC, HMT, Railways, Shipping, Mining, Power sectors etc. He was in the founding teams of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE).

Prof. Chari has very widely travelled and has covered more than 16 countries and is a panel expert on the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), Tokyo. He had represented India in Industrial Applications of Computers at Hong Kong in 1979 and in 1983 and 1991 he was the Indian representative in International forums at Tokyo, Japan.

Prof. Chari is currently working with BIMTECH, Greater Noida, and teaches the students ‘Operations Management’ and he is also the Dean- Students Welfare and Support Services.

Prof. Sanjiva Shankar Dubey

Prof. Dubey was a former IBM Asia Pacific Executive Internal IT till June 2016. An accomplished Practicing Academician (PA) who has spent three decades while working with IBM and Tata group. He has been a visiting professor since 1987 at XLRI, IIMs, BIMTECH, IMI and IMT Ghaziabad and few other leading Business Schools.  His other career milestones include CEO of Raffles Solutions, Bhilwara Infotech, and Project executive of IBM – Bharti Airtel IT Outsourcing project for 5 years. He started his career as GET with Tata Motors after his B Tech from campus and later moved to Tata Steel Jamshedpur, Jharkhand till 1995. He joined IBM in 1995 in Management Consulting group and became India Principal in 1997.

Mr. Shashank Bhagat

Mr. Bhagat has 26 years of entrepreneurial and managerial experience, and is the Group Chairman for the past 16 years. His experience encompasses operations in India, England, and the Philippines. Over the past decade-and-a-half, he has expanded the Group's operations, and diversified into new arenas. He has managed foreign partnerships with world-class firms like IDV (Diageo), and handled global brands like Gilbey's and Smirnoff. He is an innovator-thinker, who played a role in the government's ethanol-for-fuel program; serves on several companies' boards, and is affiliated to several chambers of commerce and industry.

He is a member of the governing body of Tourism and Hospitality Skill Council that was set up under the National Skills Development Corporation - a one of a kind Public Private Partnership company with the primary mandate of catalysing the skills landscape in India. The organisation's goal is to empower the youth of the country with skill sets which make them more employable and productive in their work environment.

Prof. Sunil Sangra

Prof. Sunil Sangra’s passions are Innovation, Creativity and Strategy. He has almost 30 years of rich C-Suite experience across functions and sectors. He has worked/consulted with leading organisations in India and the Middle East such as EXIM Bank of India, World Bank, LMW, OMZEST, Future Group and Essar to name a few. He has played multiple stints as an entrepreneur and has led the most successful IPO ever, in the Indian media industry, with subscriptions exceeding US $ 1 billion – book built by Merrill Lynch.

Sunil has co-designed and facilitated a Design Thinking workshop with Prof. Srikant Datar of Harvard Business School which included participation by senior faculty members from leading B-Schools and senior executives from the corporate sector in India. Sunil has been a keynote speaker at a NHRDN (the most respected national level HRD association in India) summit with ‘Building Diversity – Driving Innovation’ as the theme, and a faculty and mentor for the Goldman Sachs ’10,000 Women Entrepreneurs Program’. He offers Consulting, Training and Coaching services in the areas of Innovation, Creativity, Design Thinking and Strategy.