Bangalore: IDG Ventures India today announced the appointment of Kiran Karnik, Ex- President, NASSCOM, to its Global Advisory Board. On his joining IDG Ventures Global Advisory Board, Karnik said, "Entrepreneurship is in a very exciting stage in India. Services have been India's forte. Now we can look forward to the next set of great product and internet companies to come out of India."

Speaking on this occasion, Sudhir Sethi, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director, IDG Ventures India said, "His experience and leadership in the global market as well as insights into building businesses globally from India will be immensely valuable for our portfolio companies and partners to leverage upon".

Other advisors on the board are Dr. N Balasubramanian, Dr.K B Chandrashekar, Arjun Malhotra, Dr. Sridhar Mitta, Dr. Jagdish Sheth and Dr. V Sumantran.

Karnik was President of NASSCOM till January 2008. During his six years at NASSCOM, Karnik was widely recognized as a thought-leader and guiding force for the Indian IT industry. He is credited for promoting "Brand India", especially by show-casing India's technological strength to the world.

In his four decades of career, Karnik was awarded the Padma Shri in 2007 and Business Week named Karnik as one of the 'Stars of Asia' in 2004. He was also selected as Forbes magazine's 'Face of the Year 2003', for being a driving force behind India's off shoring wave. Presently, he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Council to Prime Minister of India.