Anil Bakht,
Managing Director,
Eastern Software Systems

Anil holds a degree in Computer Science from University of Toronto , Canada . He lived in Canada for 12 years working for organizations such as ESSO Petroleum and Bank of Nova Scotia before returning to India in 1985. After coming back to India he joined CMC Limited and was with the company for 5 years. During his stay with CMC he was responsible for the company's foray in the area of Bank Automation with his deep background in Banking. Later he took over as Head of Marketing for CMCs Northern Region. He also had a brief stint as General Manager of WTI, a Joint Venture between Westinghouse and Tatas. Anil along with Sanjay, founded Eastern Software Systems in 1990. Anil has been passionate about the need for development of Indian Intellectual Property Rights in the Global Software arena. He was a member of the "Task Force on Information Technology" set up by the Prime Minister of India. His inputs formed a part of the Task Force's recommendations, many of which have been implemented at the National Level. Anil is also recognized as a voice of the mid sized IT businesses in India , and writes frequently for various publications. More recently, He is a part of NASSCOM (www.nasscom.org) Task Force on INNOVATION IN IT COMPANIES IN INDIA.

Ms. Anuradha Acharya, Founder & CEO of Ocimum Biosolutions

Ms. Acharya is the founder CEO of Ocimum Biosolutions, an innovative life sciences R&D enabling company. The company was founded in the year 2000 and boasts of 2 European acquisitions, GD business of MWG Biotech of Germany and the BioMolecules Division of Isogen Life Sciences from The Netherlands. Ocimum today has over 2000 customers worldwide and operates under 3 main business units of BioIT, BioMolecules and BioResearch. Ocimum was recently funded by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private Equity arm of the World Bank.

Prior to founding Ocimum Biosolutions with two other partners, Subash Lingareddy and Dr. Sujata Pammi, Ms.Acharya has had rich experience in the Telecom, IT and entrepreneurship arenas. She worked for a startup in the telecommunications space called Mantiss Information and a consulting firm called SEI Information where she helped create a social networking site for entrepreneurs. Both Mantiss and SEI were based in Chicago, IL. Her experience is backed by education at premier institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur, India (IIT) and University of Illinois where she has two Post Graduate degrees in Physics and MIS.

She is a regular in technology forums and round tables and one of the well known first generation entrepreneurs in the Indian life-sciences space. She was named by Red Herring Magazine to the list of "25 Tech Titans under 35" in 2006. Ocimum has received several awards including "Fastest Growing Life Sciences Company in India", "IT Innovation Award" by NASSCOM and has been named to the Deloitte list of Fastest Growing companies in Asia, three years in a row.

Ms. Deepanwita Chattopadhyay, CEO – ICICI Knowledge Park

Ms. Deepanwita Chattopadhyay is a postgraduate in Electronics Engineering from the Department of Radio Physics & Electronics, Calcutta University. After brief stints at the Centre for Applied Research in Electronics, IIT, Delhi and the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, BITS, Pilani, she joined the telecom advisory practice of ICICI Bank Ltd. in 1994. As a telecom consultant she advised both government agencies and the private sector on telecom regulation& policy, convergence issues, market forecasts and entry strategies. Her experience with knowledge driven sectors and interest in networking and knowledge management led her to head ICICI Knowledge Park, the first professionally managed wet lab Research Park in India. As Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Knowledge Park, Ms. Deepanwita Chattopadhyay is responsible for creating an innovation and knowledge hub in India and the region. Her current interests are in setting a process for nurturing innovative companies and developing a sustainable innovation cluster.

Ganesh Natarajan
Chairman,
Zensar
  

Dr. Ganesh Natarajan is Deputy Chairman and Managing Director of Zensar Technologies Limited, a Global firm that transforms Technology and Processes for Fortune 500 companies.

Ganesh has been elected Vice Chairman of NASSCOM, India's premier IT and BPO Association in April 2005. He also chairs the Outsourcing Forum of the Confederation of Indian Industries in Western India. He is a member of the Board of Governors of NITIE Mumbai.

Ganesh is an alumnus of NITIE, IIT Bombay and the Harvard Business School. He is the author of three McGraw Hill Books on Business Process Reengineering and Knowledge Management and recent publications on the IT industry and inspired leadership

Rishikesha T. Krishnan, Professor of Corporate Strategy,Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Rishikesha T. Krishnan is a Professor in the Corporate Strategy & Policy Area at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB), India. His research interests are in the areas of strategy, innovation and competitiveness. He is currently the Chairperson of Research & Publications, and of IIMB's Centre for Development of Cases & Teaching Aids. He was earlier the Chairperson of the Postgraduate Programme in Management at IIMB.

Prof. Krishnan has been a consultant to, or conducted management development programmes for, British Telecom, Daimler Chrysler, Wipro, Siemens, Sasken Communication Technologies, the Murugappa Group, the Aditya Birla Group, Kochi Refineries and the Governments of India and Karnataka.

Prof. Krishnan worked for four years as the General Manager of a small high technology company in the telecom sector from 1987-91. During this period, he also co-founded a software company working on specialised engineering application software. From March 2001 to October 2001, he worked with a software product start-up in the knowledge management space founded by an IIMB alumnus.

Prof. Krishnan obtained the M.Sc. degree in Physics (5-year integrated programme) from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur and the M.S. degree in Engineering-Economic Systems (now Management Science & Engineering) from Stanford University. His doctoral qualification was obtained from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, where his thesis proposal won the outstanding thesis proposal award instituted by the Industrial Finance Corporation of India.

Prof. Krishnan is currently a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) National Panel on Intellectual Property, R&D, Technology and Innovation. He is a member of the executive committee of the Strategic Management Forum of India, and on the board of the Indian Institute of Health Management Research, Jaipur. He is an active member of Globelics and Asialics, international fora that focus on the understanding of innovation systems and competitiveness. Apart from papers published in academic journals such as the International Journal of Technology Management, Science Technology & Society, and the Economic & Political Weekly, his articles have appeared in the Economic Times, Business Line and the Financial Express. He has presented his research at seminars at a number of reputed institutions such as Stanford University, London Business School, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology and Jawaharlal Nehru University.

 
Sanjeev Aggarwal
Managing Director - Investment Advisor

Sanjeev Aggarwal is a co-founder of Helion and serves on the Boards of Amba Research, Anantara, Make My Trip, Mindworks Global and United Lex. Prior to Helion, Sanjeev was the Founder and CEO of Daksh, having been with the company from its inception in 2000 to its acquisition by IBM in 2004. Sanjeev ran the company as its CEO till June 2006. Daksh was a pioneer in BPO sector in year 2000 and had over 20,000 employees by June, 2006. During this period, Daksh was rated as the World’s Best Managed BPO company (Black Book of Outsourcing) and was ranked as the #1 employer in Indian BPO market by IDC. Sanjeev was chosen “Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the year” in 2002.

Prior to founding Daksh, he worked for 15 years with leading technology companies serving the domestic Indian market. Sanjeev led the Strategic Initiatives at Motorola India. He worked with Digital Equipment Corporation in delivering technology solutions and was recognized as the “Decathlon Winner”, a recognition given to top 1% managers worldwide. He also served as the CEO of 3COM India.

Sanjeev has a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering and an MBA.

Sharad Sharma
CEO - R&D
Yahoo! India
  

Sharad Sharma is the CEO of Yahoo! India R&D. He has over 21 years of experience in the enterprise software and wireless infrastructure sectors. Prior to joining Yahoo!, he was involved in buyout activities focused on taking mid-sized software product companies private. Previously, he was the India General Manager and corporate Vice President of Product Operations at Symantec (formerly VERITAS) and was responsible for the turnaround of the VERITAS operations in India. He was earlier a co-founder and CEO of Teltier Technologies, a New Jersey based wireless infrastructure start-up that became the leader in the Presence and Availability Management space and is now part of Cisco. Sharad has managed product development teams at Lucent Technologies both in US and in India. He also setup AT&T's, and later Lucent's, R&D operations in India in mid-90s. Sharad examines the transformation challenges facing the industry in his blog Orbit Change Conversations.

 

 

Updated on: 05 Nov, 2007