Speaker Bio:  

Ajit Balakrishnan
Founder & CEO, Rediff.com
Ajit Balakrishnan is the Founder, Chairman & CEO of Rediff.com. He co-founded and is a director of Rediffusion-Dentsu, Young & Rubicam, one of India s largest ad agencies. Balakrishnan sits on the government committee reviewing the Indian Information Technology Act. He also co-chairs the Confederation of Indian Industry Task Force on eCommerce. Balakrishnan is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and is currently the chairman of its Board of Governors.
Dr. Ganesh Natarajan
Vice Chairman and CEO, Zensar Technologies
Dr. Ganesh Natarajan is Vice Chairman & CEO of Zensar Technologies, a Global firm that transforms Technology and Processes for Fortune 500 companies. He is also President of the IT Sector and a member of the Management Board of the 3.25 billion USD RPG Group . An alumnus of IIT Bombay and the Harvard Business School, Ganesh is the National Chair for Confederation of Indian Industries - IT and ITES Committee and a fellow of the Computer Society of India. He also chairs the Higher Education forum of the Confederation of Indian Industries in Western India. He is a member of the Board of Governors of NITIE Mumbai and member of the Executive Council and Chairmens Council of NASSCOM. Ganesh 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. He was recognized by Ernst & Young for exceptional entrepreneurship and has received many awards for outstanding innovation and leadership.
Jeya Kumar
CEO, Patni
Mr. Jeya Kumar as Chief Executive Officer, manages the overall business strategy and global operations of Patni. His responsibilities include defining and executing the company’s long-term strategy focused on growth, profitability, customer leadership and operational excellence. Jeya has more than 25 years of global experience spanning several geographies. Prior to Patni, Jeya was CEO of MphasiS Limited. Earlier, he was Senior Vice-President of Sun Microsystems and a member of Sun Executive Management Group (EMG). At Sun, Jeya was head of a $5 billion-a-year Services business. He has also held various management and executive positions with global firms including Apple Computers Inc. and National Semi-Conductor Corporation. Jeya has a Masters of Business degree from Curtin University, Australia; Bachelors of Business degree from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia and postgraduate diplomas in Computer Science, Management Studies and Marketing Management. He has also attended the Advanced Management Program at Oxford University.
Ambareesh Murty
Country Manager, eBay India
Ambareesh Murty is the 35 year old Country Manager of eBay India. A member of the eBay Asia Pacific Leadership team, Ambareesh is responsible for the eBay portfolio in India consisting of the eBay India Marketplace & the eBay India Motors Marketplace. Ambareesh joined eBay India in December 2005 and has held a variety of senior executive roles in eBay India over his tenure. Most recently he was the Director – Marketing & Operations. In the course of his career, Ambareesh has worked for over 5 years as a packaged goods marketer with Cadbury Schweppes PLC with several successful brand initiatives under his belt. He also spent a couple of years with Prudential ICICI, a leading financial services player in India as VP Marketing & Customer Service. Ambareesh gets the entrepreneurial psyche first hand as he took time off from corporate life to pursue his own career adventure, setting up a successful financial training & advisory firm in Bangalore, India. Ambareesh holds a B.E. in Civil Engineering from the Delhi College of Engineering and a MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta . In his free time, he closely follows football, loves to read and is taking his first steps towards becoming a collector of Discworld memorabilia.
Kailash Katkar
CEO, Chairman and Managing Director, Quick Heal Technologies
Kailash Katkar is Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Quick Heal Technologies. He is the founder of Quick Heal Technologies, and is responsible for managing sales, marketing, customer services, technical support and order administration functions nationwide. In his initial role he established a nationwide dealers and distributor network in major cities of India. Quick Heal Technologies now has 16 branches all over India. This is done under the successful management of Mr. Kailash. Oct 11,2003: Rotary Recognition award: Mr.Kailash Katkar for his exemplary contribution in the field of IT as a promising and emerging Entrepreneur. July 29,2002: Received Entrepreneurs International Honors for his significant achievement as a First Generation Entrepreneur on 9th Entrepreneurs Day 29th July 2002.
Himanshu Goyal
Country Manager Career Education, IBM Software India
Himanshu Goyal heads Career Education, Academic Initiative, developerWorks and Globalization initiatives for IBM India/South Asia. Under these initiatives, he is responsible to evangelize skill and certify on the IBM Software to Engineering Students, Faculties, Developers and senior IT professionals in the Industry. Under Globalization he is responsible for the availability of IBM software in local languages in India/South Asia. He is a passionate speaker at conferences involving ICT and contributes to community building and learning activities for masses in his free time. He is an active writer in this space and connects with developers with his famous anecdotes on "how we are series". Himanshu was last running the Software Large Deal business for IBM Software Group. In 2001, Himanshu co-founded a Digital Publishing Solutions, a company in Pune with private funding, which did digital archivist work including curation and digitization of publisher content and developed an award winning DRM (Digital Rights Management) solutions for eBook publishers for protected and on demand eCommerce. In 1999, he joined Adobe Systems in India, to oversee the sales operations of Adobe. Being the 2nd employee in country, he initiated Key customer programs, which enabled good foundation of their business in India. Himanshu has an engineering degree in Computer Science from batch of 1995.
Beerud Sheth
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Webaroo (SMS GupShup)
Beerud is a co-founder of Webaroo. Prior to Webaroo, Beerud founded Elance, the pioneer of the worlds largest online services marketplace. He played various leadership roles at different stages of the companys growth, including developing product and business strategies, product management, marketing & business development, and remains on the board of directors. Prior to founding Elance, Beerud worked in the financial services industry; modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and before that at Citicorp Securities. His graduate research, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning software agents for personalized news filtering. Beerud earned an M.S. in computer science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology & a B.Tech in Computer Science IIT Bombay, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal.
Dr L. S. Kanodia
Chairman and Founder, Datamatics Group
Dr. Lalit Surajmal Kanodia, Chairman of Datamatics, is often referred to as the father and architect of the Indian Software and Offshore Services Industry.He had predicted correctly the emergence of India as the back-office hub for document processing, tax and finance processing for corporates across the world.He has held the position of Chairman (Western Chapter) of the Electronic & Computer Software Export Promotion Council, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India. He has been an Executive Member of NASSCOM, the apex body of the IT-BPO industry in India, Executive Committee Member of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), and Past President of the Management Consultant Association of India. Dr. Kanodia was also on the Board of Directors of several large conglomerates.Through Dr. Kanodia visionary zeal, Datamatics has been ranked by NASSCOM among the top 20 BPO companies in India. The company was also ranked third globally among document processing outsourcing providers and among the Top 50 Best Managed Companies worldwide, out of 872 companies from 63 countries, by the Black Book of Outsourcing in 2006. Dr. Kanodia completed his Doctorate in Management from the MIT after a post-graduation in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Hrush Bhatt
Founder & Director, Product and Strategy, ClearTrip
Hrush is one of our founders and is responsible for the definition of Cleartrips corporate strategy and implementation of the Cleartrip.com web site.Hrush graduated from Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Economics and History. Returning to India in 1998, Hrush worked with Plexus Technologies for a year, serving as lead designer and founding their ecommerce strategy practice. While at Plexus, Hrush also served as lead consultant for the launch of Indiatimes.com. In 1999, Hrush co-founded Paper Plane, a boutique consulting firm focussed on business strategy and design in the online space. Hrush has had several firsts in the Indian market, including the first online air-ticket auctions and the first travel site site to be integrated with a GDS for air ticket bookings.
Prashant Ranade
CEO & President, Syntel
Prashant Ranade was appointed CEO of Syntel in February 2010, after serving on Syntels Board of Directors since 2007.His areas of expertise include sales, marketing,engineering and research & development for products, projects and services businesses.Prashant has a strong history of transforming organizations through a strong focus on customer centricity, innovative service/ product offerings,operational excellence and employee engagement to drive value creation.Most recently, Prashant served as President and CEO of Siemens Logistics & Assembly Systems, Inc.Prior to that, Prashant was Senior Vice President of Service at Siemens Medical Solutions, where he was responsible for doubling the company’s profitability and growing revenues at triple the market rate during his five year tenure.He has also held leadership positions at Rockwell Automation and Siemens AG, where he began his career over thirty years ago as an engineer, before working his way up to General Manager of its automation division. Throughout his career, Prashant has demonstrated outstanding leadership skills, the ability to understand and translate new technologies into global product strategies, and deep domain knowledge in healthcare. and life sciences, high-tech engineering and manufacturing, and supply chain and logistics automation. Prashant holds a B.S. in Engineering from IIT Bombay, an M.S. from the University of Cincinnati, and an MBA from Xavier University, Cincinnati. © 2010 Syntel Inc.
Vishwas Mahajan
Former CEO-Compulink, Member of Sr Mgmt Glodyne
Vishwas Mahajan, 48, is the co-founder & ex-CEO of Compulink Systems Ltd, a leading consulting and IT organization that is helps its customers ‘orchestrate performance in their organization Vishwas last degree was MBA from SIBM,( Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, one of Indias leading business schools). He has recently been awarded Distinguished Alumni of his alma mater. Prior to founding Compulink, he has been associated with various organizations including PSI Data systems, Hinditron, Digital Equipments (India) Limited and Key Information Technology (Dubai) in multiple roles and functions. He co-founded Compulink with his friend 12 years ago and it is one of the few companies from India that is focused on products. He has led Compulink from bootstrap phase to VC investment to taking it public. Compulink is now slated to merge with another company “Glodyne and this means that his entrepreneurial journey has run a full circle. He is now a member of senior management team at Glodyne with varying responsibilities. For Glodyne, he led its acquisition of $200 million US company and has completed integration project. His interest in leadership has led him to undertake training and research in this and he is recently certified as Level 1 Global Facilitator for 9 Conversations in Leadership “ a program in leadership development by ˜Worldsview Consulting“ South Africa. Active with local and global industry bodies and associations, Vishwas is the Coordinator for NASSCOM SME forum and also a Charter member of TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs). Vishwas is married to Smita, a Bharat Natyam dancer and teacher and has two daughters.
Ashank Desai
Founder and Ex-Chairman, Mastek
Ashank Desai, Founder and Ex-Chairman of Mastek, is the chief architect of catapulting Mastek into the Top 20 software companies in India. Mr. Desai is a leading light of the IT industry in India. He is the founder member and ex-President of National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM). He has also been the Vice President of ASOCIO (Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organisation). He is the only Indian to be presented with the Honourable Contributors Award for his outstanding contribution to ASOCIOs growth in 1994. Mr. Desai, M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai (ranked 3rd among Technology and Science Institutes by Asiaweek in its Special Report on Asias Best Universities 2000) and MBA from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad (ranks among the Top 5 management institutes in India), was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award by IIT, Mumbai for his contribution as a software entrepreneur.
Dr. Vinay Kulkarni
V P & Head of Knowledge Mgmt & Innovation, Geometric
Dr. Vinay Kulkarni is Vice President and Head of Knowledge Management & Innovation at Geometric. He is responsible for enhancing the organizations competence in identified technical areas; for building partnerships with institutions to source expertise and talent; knowledge management and innovation initiatives within the company; and for extending the companys problem solving capability. He has over 20 years of experience in the field of CAD/ CAM products and technologies. Before taking on the current role, Vinay worked in various capacities at Geometric including Software Developer, Project Manager, and Product Manager, COO of Geometric Technologies, Inc., and Business Unit Head of Desktop Products & Technologies Group. He has also been involved in bootstrapping some of the products and technologies. Prior to Geometric, he worked as Research Engineer at IIT, Mumbai and as Graduate Engineer at Larsen & Toubro, Mumbai. Vinay has a Doctorate in Computer-aided Manufacturing from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai and has a patent to his credit. He has also guided work resulting in three other patents for the company. In his leisure time Vinay enjoys trekking, reading and gadgets!
R. Sriram
Entrepreneur, Mentor, Consultant, Entrepreneur
Sriram’s passion for books was serendipitous and led him to establish various bookstores – he started with Landmark in Chennai, set up Walden in Hyderabad and then the Crossword chain. He co-founded Crossword with Ms. K. Anita in 1992 and helped build it into India’s leading bookstore chain. He arranged for the buyout of Crossword by the current owners Shoppers’ Stop Ltd. in 2000 from the initial investors India Book House Ltd. He stepped down from Crossword in August 2006 and co-founded “Next Practice Retail”, which offers business design, incubation and consulting services for consumer and retail businesses. He serves as an Independent Director on the Boards of Camlin Limited and Camlin Alphakids Limited. Sriram is President of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Mumbai, the global not-for-profit organization that fosters entrepreneurship. He serves on the advisory boards of Pratham Books, the non-profit trust that seeks to publish high-quality books for children at an affordable cost in multiple Indian languages, and SNEHA - the non-profit Society for Nutrition, Education & Health Action for women and children in urban slums. Sriram advises and mentors individuals and firms, and is particularly interested in entrepreneurship, customer based innovation, business strategy & incubation, social entrepreneurship and next practices. While at Crossword, Sriram established the Crossword Book Awards, now known as the Vodafone Crossword Book Awards, to annually recognise and reward the best Indian writers and books, which he continues to oversee. He has curated the Kala Ghoda Literature Festival from 2005 to 2010. Sriram has been a visiting faculty at IIM A and a guest lecturer at IIM L and other business schools as it helps him keep learning. He remains a student and a book evangelist.