Prashant Sankaran
CEO, Blueshift

Prashant has two decades of multiple industry experience spanning oil, banking, retail, technology and offshore BPO industries. Prior to Blueshift he served as the Chief Operating Officer of Indecomm Global Services, one of India's premier BPO company funded by Westbridge and IFC. His track record also includes setting up of Hewlett Packard's (Digital GlobalSoft) contact centre in India and growing it to a 2500+ people entity in 2 years. He has also worked in HR leadership roles with Motorola, Digital, Coats Viyella etc. Prashant brings to Blueshift a rare combination of deep people domain skills topped with proven competence in leading high growth, process driven businesses.

Chandra Prabhakar
Vice President - OnDemand Solutions, Ramco

Chandra Prabhakar has about 25 years of experience in the IT industry. She joined Ramco in 1992 and has worked on initiatives spanning mainframe, client server and e-commerce projects. Chandra had been a key member in the design of the application architecture of the 1st ERP product developed by Ramco Systems called ‘Marshall’. Subsequent to that she has been responsible for ERP implementation projects in Europe and spearheading the initiative resulting in CMM Level 4 certification of e-Commerce Division.
     Chandra has made significant contributions to Ramco Systems by heading the Ramco DecisionWorks initiative right from its conception in 2001. She currently heads the company’s OnDemand business. Her prior work experience includes key positions at CMC, Aptech and Advent Computer Services. An Honors degree in Mathematics, Chandra is a Post Graduate in Management from IIM Bangalore.

David Appasamy
Chief Communication Officer, Sify

David Appasamy has an in depth experience of over 25 years that spans Sales & Marketing Management, Advertising, Business Strategy & Management, Corporate Communications and Investor Relations Management across the hotel industry, advertising industry and Internet & Network services having served with ITC Sheraton, DDB Mudra and Sify Limited.
     He is currently the Chief Communications Officer of Sify Limited, India, responsible for Corporate Communications, Public Relations and Investor Relations for the company. He also oversees all the marketing initiatives of Sify.
     He is actively involved with the eBusiness Task Force of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and has been on the organizing committee of ‘CONNECT’, the major ICT conference and exhibition of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). He is also an active member of the International Chamber of Commerce’s eBusiness IT & Telecoms (EBITT) Commission.
     He was part of the International Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) Business Action in Support of the Information Society (BASIS) delegation at the World Summit for the Information Society in Tunis in 2005, and at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Greece in November 2006 where he addressed a workshop. He also spoke at the Closing Ceremony of the IGF on behalf of the ICC and global business.
     He is also the Vice Chair of the Internet and Telecoms Infrastructure & Services Task Force of the EBITT Commission of the ICC. He was a speaker in one of the main sessions of the Internet Governance Forum 2007 at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, and also spoke at a workshop on Policy Development.
     Appasamy has pursued Business Administration at IIM, Ahmedabad after graduating in Hotel Management.

Gopal 'GD' Shrikanth
Corporate Strategist & Executive Coach

Gopal (GD) Shrikanth is a Corporate Strategist and one-to-one CEO/Executive Coach and Technology Outsourcing Advisor for Entrepreneurs & CXOs. Initiated into Coaching by Prof. Marshall Goldsmith, GD is the first Indian to be awarded the ‘External Coach Certificate’ from Columbia, an Ivy League University in New York.
     GD is also a Wharton Fellows (a CXO level global community) and Alumnus of Wharton (AMP) and IIM-Bangalore (FTGMP). He is a member of several industry associations such as Worldwide Association of Business Coaches (WABC), International Coach Federation (ICF), International Association of Facilitators (IAF) & Project Management Institute (PMI). He has built a network of ‘CEO & Executive Coaches’ across the U.S., Canada, UK, Germany, Singapore, China, Australia & New Zealand to deliver ‘On-Call / On-Site’ coaching locally.
     GD has extensive experience in the areas of Leadership Evaluation, Mentoring, Learning & Development, Entrepreneurship, Change Management, Performance Management, Compensation & Benefits, Retention Strategies, Organization Restructuring, Business Process Re-engineering, Technology Program Management, Client Partnership, Geographic Diversification and M&A initiatives. He has coached several emerging leaders and held ‘people-care’ responsibilities of 2500 plus associates during his career.
    GD has a Leadership track record of 20 plus years across the Financial Services, Manufacturing & Technology domains, at MNCs such as Invensys IDC (Country Manager), Polaris-Citigroup (Senior Vice President & Center Head), Cognizant-D&B (Director & Vertical Head), EDS (Practice Head) and ANZ Grindlays Bank (Senior Manager-Projects & Planning).

Gowri Shankar Subramanian
CEO, Aspire Systems

Gowri Shankar Subramanian Subramanian is one of the co-founders of Aspire Systems, an Outsourced Product Development firm, and currently serves as its CEO.  In this position, he sets the strategic direction for Aspire and also oversees its day-to-day operations. Under his leadership, Aspire has grown at a CAGR of 63 percent over the past five years and has been ranked in Deloitte's list of fastest-growing companies in India and Asia-Pacific.
    He believes in the power of outsourcing to transform industries and fundamentally alter business dynamics. Having watched up-close how sub-contract manufacturing transformed the electronics industry and how IBM, Cisco, HP, and others gradually outsourced all their manufacturing operations, Subramanian firmly believes that software product building will go the same way and can be completely outsourced. This simple premise never fails to spark a substantial debate and it underlines everything that Aspire does.
    Subramanian has been named as an upcoming, young CEO by The Economic Times and as one of the top 20 executives in Information Technology by The WEEK. He is active in various industry associations and chairs NASSCOM's Regional Emerging Companies Forum in Chennai. He is also a Charter Member of TiE and a member of the Young Entrepreneurs Organization. An active speaker, he has presented in various industry events and conferences. He has been quoted extensively by leading publications on his views on Outsourced Product Development and is considered a thought leader in this space.
    He holds a Masters Degree in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University and Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from Pondicherry University. He is married, has a 7-year old son and is an amateur pilot still trying to get it right!

Nimish Soni
Managing Director - BPO, Cambridge Solutions India

Nimish Soni is the Managing Director of the BPO Division of Cambridge Solutions in India. Soni is the co-founder of Cambridge Integrated Services India Ltd. (formerly known as ProcessMind). Prior to his current role, he provided the vision and leadership in setting up India's first full service captive insurance BPO center for ADSI US, a subsidiary of American Financial Group (NYSE:AFG). Previously, Soni worked with Cap Gemini, E & Y in the USA as a Senior Consultant where he assumed a variety of roles as IT Strategy Consultant, Technology Consultant and Business Process Re-engineering Consultant for Fortune 100 clients such as AT&T, ALCOA, P&G, AFG and McDonnell Douglas.

Moorthi Chokkanathan
EVP & Global Head - Enterprise Solutions, Hexaware

Moorthi Chokkanathan heads the global Enterprise Solutions business at Hexaware. He is responsible for project delivery and has been a key player in driving Hexaware’s growth since 1998. He was instrumental in building the Enterprise Solutions and HR-IT practices at Hexaware. He also conceptualized and incubated HexaLab - Hexaware’s Innovation center.
    He holds a degree in B.Tech from IIT, Chennai and an MBA from the University of Madras. With over 24 years of experience in the software services and consulting field, Chokkanathan is a techno-commercial manager. His experience includes serving in various senior roles at global firms such as Decision Technologies in the U.S., and GTE in Australia.

Somasajeevan T K
EVP & Global Head - Talent & Change, Polaris Software Lab

Somasajeevan ‘Somas’ heads Talent & Change management at Polaris. He has an industry experience of over 25 years having played leadership roles in organizations such as EDS India, McDonalds, IMR, Indal as well as in the Tourism and Hotel industry, where most of the time he had the responsibility of building the organization from the scratch.
    He holds an MBA in General Management / Finance / Marketing, MSW in HRM, IR, Psychology, PGDPR and LLB. He has attended and conducted many International and National Level training programs and has the distinction of winning the prestigious ITM Corporate Excellence Award for 2006.
    Somas is very passionate about connecting with people, facilitating self development programs and plays a significant role in various management forums and educational institutions. His special interests are ‘People and their enormous potential’. Besides this he is deeply interested in counseling, mentoring, fitness, rhythmic breathing, meditation and in initiatives that integrate the corporate community with the social community. Somas is also an active member in MMA, NIPM, HRD, AMCHAM, HASH and many more such forums.

Sukumar Rajagopal
Senior Vice-President & Chief Knowledge Officer, Cognizant

Sukumar Rajagopal has over 20 years experience in the IT consulting industry, working exclusively on Global Delivery/Offshoring Model based projects. He has been with Cognizant for over 13 years and is serving as the Senior Vice President & Chief Knowledge Officer since Jan 2006. His responsibilities include Knowledge Management, Process Quality and Strategic Engagements functions. Most recently he served as Cognizant's Vice-President in charge of the Manufacturing & Logistics Practice in North America.

Rajagopal is an avid blogger and his interests include - knowledge management, software engineering body of knowledge (SWEBOK), technology management, anthropology & culture, management theory & practice and team building. He takes keen interest in public speaking and holds Competent Toastmaster (CTM) and Competent Leader (CL) certification from Toastmasters International - a leading worldwide organization devoted to improving communication and leadership skills.

An IEEE member, he was amongst the first 200 people in the world to pass the IEEE Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP) exam. Rajgopal holds a Bachelors degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani, India and has completed an Executive Development Program at the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.

Suresh Veluchamy
Co-founder & CTO, Einksoft.com

Suresh Veluchamy is the co-founder and CTO of Einksoft.com, an electronic signature software company for Title insurance and Real estate companies in the U.S. He identified electronic signatures as key to the Title insurance and Real estate industry's drive to go paperless. Based on the gaps identified after researching competing products, he started this company with industry veterans. He raised over half a million dollars from various Angel investors in the U.S. An electronic signature product and a U.S. patent were successfully developed and filed as a result. He is the lead inventor of this pending U.S. patent. Veluchamy has led ProUCL software development project - a statistical risk assessor softwarethat has filled a niche segment not addressed by industry leader SAS. In addition, he has developed niche software products in data mining and legal case management areas.

He has lived and worked in the U.S. for the past 9 years. Veluchamy has interacted with Vice-presidents and Presidents of Fortune 500 Title insurance companies, Real estate companies and top officials in the State including Deputy Secretary, State of Nevada.

He has graduated with two master's degrees; one in Computer Science and another one in Applied Statistics from University of Nevada, Las Vegas and a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering from CEG, Anna University.

MG Raghuraman
Head, Business Operations (Chief Operations Officer), MphasiS, An EDS Company

MG Raghuram started his career in Indian Railways in 1979. In his 22 years of career in the railways, he has worked in various zones of railways and garnered experience across various domains of Steel Foundry, Manufacturing, Technology Transfer, Maintenance of Diesel Locomotives and Rolling stock, Inventory Management, Automation of processes, Development of MIS, Operations and Strategy Management. In the latter part of the railways career, he led several projects on automation and development of MIS, fuelling interest in an IT career for the future.

He lest Railways in 2000 to join Mphasis-EDS and has been here ever since. He is one of the recognized experts on Transition and Offshoring IT services across the towers of Application Management / Software development and ITO Infrastructure outsourcing. He was heading major Telecom accounts in EDS in the Applications space before he moved to Infrastructure outsourcing as President in 2008. Currently he is the Head - Business Operations & COO at Mphasis.

Having completed his schooling from Sainik School, Amaravathi Nagar, Raghuram graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the Council of Engineering Institutions, London. He has an MS in software Systems from BITS Pilani and is a certified Six Sigma Green Belt. He is also a certified PMP.

Raja Krishnamoorthy
Director HRD, Talent Maximus India Private Limited

Raja Krishnamoorthy has done his Master of Management Studies from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management, Bombay, 1975. Started with Mukund Iron & Steel as Management Trainee and Personnel Officer; Was with ITC Welcome Group as Personnel Manager and Regional Personnel Manager, and subsequently, with Enfield India Limited as General Manager (Human Resources). Between June 2000 and March2002, worked actively with Polaris software lab Ltd, a 2600 people organization as consultant and President - Human Resources. From July 2002 till August 2005 he was leading the Consulting and training Division -as Principal Consultant- at ProLease India Pvt. Ltd- part of the Washington DC based Interpro group. Currently he heads the Consulting and Training Division and directs the HRD function at talent Maximus.

Balaji Venkitaramasubramanian
Director - HR, HCL Technologies

Balaji Venkitaramasubramanian, Director - HR, Financial Services Line of Business has been with HCL for about five years and brings with him an experience of over a decade and a half across Industries covering the entire HR spectrum and has led change initiatives through Personal Visioning, Value clarification, Team transformation and Leadership Development. Prior to joining HCL he was heading HR for one of the Delivery Centers of Citigroup's fully owned subsidiary, Citicorp Overseas Software Ltd (COSL)

In his current role he is part of the HR leadership in HCL Technologies and has been part of the team which is credited with the roll-out of the "employee first" agenda across HCL. He heads HR for the Banking Financial Services and Insurance Verticals, comprising of close to 6000 employees. His role also involves driving the HR agenda into the next phase of transformation in which the HR organization is looking at aligning itself towards delivery and operational excellence.

He also designs, customizes context specific HR interventions across Financial Services Line of Business.

Balaji is also a qualified practitioner in Large Scale Transformation models - Dannemiller Tyson Associates, Action Research - Case western Reserve University-Ohio State and Psychometrics.