Ambarish Datta

Mr. Ambarish Datta is the Managing Director of the BSE Institute Ltd.

Prior to taking up this assignment he headed the Technology Aided Learning group at Reliance Retail Limited. During which he was responsible for a nationwide roll out of e-learning and blended learning programs covering a wide range of learners for shop floor staff to senior managers.

Prior to his stint with Reliance Retail he has handled various portfolios in the IT and learning solutions space. He has over 15 years of experience in sales & execution of technology solutions. Extensive domain knowledge in SCM, Retail, BFSI, eLearning Solutions & Manufacturing businesses. Well versed with global technological progress and trends with proven experience in developing custom software solutions & new product development and the ability to design complex solutions for mission critical business needs.

He has done his SMP from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

Amitabh nagpal

Amitabh has over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience. Amitabh is presently the Chairman and Group Managing Director  of Macmillan Group in India . He was previously the CEO of Educomp Investment Management Limited managing the India education fund, a venture fund by Educomp.

Amitabh is a serial entrepreneur, he founded Study places India's premier portal for education which was acquired by Educomp, and prior to that he co-founded Cymbal Corporation. Cymbal Corporation was a global services company, providing systems integration and outsourcing solutions to its clients in telecom industry, which got sold to Patni Computer Systems for $68 million.

Amitabh also served as Vice President, product management and operations, in Firsttofile. Before starting StudyPlaces.com he worked for Airwide Solutions as GM India. Amit is a SLOAN fellow and MS in management from Graduate Schools of Business, Stanford University. He also holds a B.Tech degree from Punjab Engineering College (India) where he was the university silver medallist.

Amitabh has senior executive experience involving deep operational and financial understanding of strategic levers for the Internet and Education sector.  Amitabh brings with him a very rich experience in product management and strategic leadership.

Anand Sudarshan

Anand Sudarshan is an education sector advisor. In addition to his role as Advisor, TVS Capital Funds, he is the Founder & Director of Sylvant Advisors Private Limited. Sylvant focuses on providing a range of advisory services to institutions, enterprises & investors, with a strong focus on the education sector.  Anand is also an independent director at Manipal Global Education Services Private Limited (MaGE). Till June 2012, he was Vice-Chairman & Managing Director of MaGE, with whom he has had a distinguished career since May 2006.

Anand also actively supports Government of India in policy formulation, and is a member of select Committees & Task Forces of the Planning Commission of India as well as the Ministry of Human Resource Development (India's Education ministry). He is a founding member of EDGE (an education sector forum and think-tank) and the Vice-Chairman of EDGE's Vision Group. He is also a member of CII's (Confederation of Indian Industry) and FICCI's (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry) national committees on Education.

Prior to his stint at MaGE, Anand was President, Adea International (a wholly owned subsidiary of Adea Solutions, Inc, Dallas TX), responsible for all global businesses of the IT Services & Solutions company. Anand was also the one of the co-founders of the Microland Group and also served in several senior capacities in The Computer Point.
Anand has a Bachelor of Engineering degree (B.S Degree) in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India, and a PGDM (M.B.A Degree) from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India. 

Anant Kulkarni

Anant jointly leads the management of Milestone Religare and has more than 19 years of overall work experience of which around 17 years were in the financial services & the Indian PE & VC capital markets. In his earlier organization he was overseeing US$ 225 mn investments into sectors including manufacturing, auto components, life sciences, media and entertainment. Earlier to this he served at JM Financial as Executive Director, IL&FS Investment Managers, UTI Exchange & BOI Finance.

He is a B.E. Mechanical from PDA Engineering College, Gulbarga University, Karnataka, Executive Special Management Programme from IIM Calcutta.

Aseem Chauhan

Mr. Aseem Chauhan is the Chancellor of Amity University Rajasthan, Chairman of Amity University, Lucknow Campus, and the Additional President and Board Member of the Ritnand Balved Education Foundation, the umbrella organization of the Amity institutions, which currently have over 85,000 students in 240 programs. He is also the CEO for Amity Innovation Incubator and Amity capital Ventures.

Mr. Chauhan has extensive experience in venture capital and leveraged buyouts and has made investments of over $ 1 billion globally. He was formerly with AEA Investors, a multi-billion dollar private equity firm in New York which invests funds for current and former Fortune 100 CEOs and wealthy families across the world. Prior to this he was at Philadelphia Ventures, providing early stage venture capital to biotech and hi-tech start-ups.

Mr. Chauhan holds degrees in Engineering, Finance and Strategic Management from The Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania and is an alumnus of the prestigious Jerome Fisher Program in
Management & Technology.

Dilip Chenoy

Dilip was till recently, Managing Director & CEO of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). The NSDC is a Public Private Partnership whose objective is to skill 150 million people in India by 2022 by fostering private sector investment and initiatives in training and skill development in 20 high growth sectors and the unorganized segment.

During his over five years at NSDC, the NSDC approved the funding of over 250 organisations and 38 Sector Councils. The NSDC partners trained over 5 million persons and placed over 62% of them. The 38 Sector councils created over 1500 competency standards and collaborated with over 2000 schools in 13 states as well as 31 universities to introduce industry led assessment and certification in the institutions.

He is Chairman of the Board of Management of the Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology and  also on the Governing Council of a Management School. Prior to NSDC, Dilip was Director General of the advocacy group for the automobile industry in India, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).  He also represented SIAM on various Government Committees as well as on the board of the National Skill Development Corporation and the Steering Committee of the International Motorcycle Manufacturers Association.

Before joining SIAM, Dilip was Deputy Director General responsible for Industry Sectors and Associations Council (ASCON) covering, Agriculture, Life sciences and ICT in the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Dilip was the CII spokesperson and coordinated CII’s international work relating to the ASEAN.

Prior to his last assignment in CII, Dilip was part of an India team working on the competitiveness of Indian industry with Professor Michael Porter, Harvard Business School. He worked in industry prior to joining CII.

@DilipChenoy

Diwakar Dadoo

Diwakar is a founding member of Brand Capital. Since its inception in 2005,he helped Times Group to set up & grow Brand Capital (earlier called Times Private Treaties)with the help of significant Private Equity Investments across sectors, and across regions.He has a track record of building and mentoring teams and organizations that succeed & outperform.

Diwakar is a Fellow Chartered Accountant, apprenticed at Ernst & Young and received his MBA (Marketing & Finance) from Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi.

Diwakar has more than 17 years of experience in Investment Banking, Fund Management, Consulting, Brand Development & Management, International Trade, Marketing & Sales having worked with Corporates and some of the top Consulting Firms, in India and abroad.

Diwakar is currently pursuing his Doctorate in Private Equity and regularly contributes by sharing his thoughts at VC / PE conferences, brand and industry forums. He enjoys reading, traveling, watching theatre, supporting art and spending time with the family.

Khozem Merchant

Khozem Merchant is President, Pearson India, the country office of the global media and education group. Before taking up his present position in January 2008, Khozem was for nearly two decades a journalist with The Financial Times, the global business newspaper published by Pearson. His last journalist role was FT Mumbai Correspondent from 2000 to 2006, when he moved from editorial to the commercial side of the FT, taking up a role as director, business development for the Financial Times in India. As the Head of Pearson India he is the key representative across Pearson’s interests in India, which include Penguin India, Pearson Education India, the Financial Times, Pearson Assessments and Testing.

Krishnan Ganesh

Krishnan Ganesh is the Founder and Chairman of TutorVista.com (www.tutorvista.com), a personalized, 24 hour online tutoring and test prep service. Ganesh founded TutorVista.com in 2005 and serves as the company's CEO. He is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the company's business operations.

A seasoned entrepreneur, Ganesh has a strong history of starting greenfield ventures and helping them develop into robust and successful entities. Ganesh began his career as Founder and CEO of IT&T Limited, India's premiere IT and network services company, where he took the company public in 2000. After eight years at IT&T, he then went on to become the CEO of Wipro British Telecom/Bharti British Telecom where he turned around a drowning company on the brink of bankruptcy into a cash break even company. His next venture was as CEO and Founder of Customer Asset/ICICI OneSource, India's top BPO company, where he developed the company's staff from zero to 4,000.

Ganesh has a post-graduate degree from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta as well as a Mechanical Engineering degree from Delhi University. Ganesh currently serves as a member of the visiting faculty at Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (Mumbai), Indian Institute of Management (Calcutta) and Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad. As an educator, he has also conducted workshops on the topics ranging from Managing Exponential Growth, Entrepreneurship Challenges in Today's World, and Motivating Employees in High-tech Industries.

Luis Miranda

Luis has been involved in setting up 2 companies. In 2002, Luis set up IDFC Private Equity. In 2010 he stepped down as President & CEO and remained as Chairman till the end of 2011.  IDFC Private Equity won many awards, including Infrastructure Investor’s “Asian Infrastructure Fund Manager of the Year 2009” and PEI’s “Best Private Equity Firm in India – 2009”. He was earlier a Partner at ChrysCapital. Prior to that, he spent 11 years in sales and trading and was a key member of the start-up team at HDFC Bank, India’s leading private sector bank. He has also worked at HSBC, Citibank, KPMG and Price Waterhouse.

Luis co-chairs the Global Advisory Board (Asia Cabinet) of the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago and is Chairman, Board of Advisors, Centre for Civil Society. He was a Director of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA) and was Co-Chairman of the Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (IVCA), where he led the transformation of the association. Luis was a member of the World Economic Forum's Expert Committee on Infrastructure Investing.

Luis received an MBA from the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).

Mihir Sheth

Mihir Sheth is the Founder and MD of Springboard Financial Services, the country's first dedicated training loan provider. Springboard partners with training institutes imparting skill development courses and offers loans to students in need of financing.

Prior to Springboard, Mihir worked with the Unique Identification Authority of India in various roles ranging from field research, communications, outreach and project management. Before joining UIDAI he worked in the Investment Banking division of Lehman Brothers (then Nomura International), based out of their Hong Kong office. In that role, he specialized in M&A and capital markets advisory for Asian financial institutions. He has also previously worked at Credit Suisse in their London office, and at IDFC Private Equity in Mumbai.

Mihir graduated from Harvard College with a BA in Economics and is an avid squash player.

Prabhat Jain

Prabhat Jain is the Director of Pathways School. He was born to a Delhi-based traditional Jain family, and joined his family-run stone business where he was instrumental in expanding the business.

In 1999, he decided to make the foray into the education space. With a focused vision to create an institution second to none, Mr. Prabhat and his brothers did an extensive research on school education. This enticing journey of 'unlearning and learning' spanned over 2 years and the model of a world class international school evolved in 2003 named the Pathways World School.

Mr. Prabhat is member of various bodies and councils in the field of education. He was instrumental in raising private equity for the company in 2009-10 for further expansion. He aspires to continue his research and gradually expand the school chain in different parts of India.

Prashant Bhonsle

Prashant Bhonsle has total of 16 plus years of experience in diverse industries like Financial Services, Office Automation, Telecom, FMCG and Pharmaceuticals. The organizations include some of the fortune companies along with a few who are the fastest growing in their domains such as ICICI, Canon, RPG, Pepsi and Cadila. He has held various positions in Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Credit, Customer Service and Operations across different geographies in the country.

In financial services, he worked with ICICI Bank Limited for about five and a half years at various positions across India. Prashant started his ICICI career as a business head for mortgages for Gujarat & Maharashtra regions respectively and went on to become a National Head - cross sell for all retail loans including Credit Cards. He was leading a team of more than 600 people stationed across 350 branches in the country and was responsible for top line revenue of Rs. 120 billion. He was also instrumental in setting up and growing Post Office channel for sourcing retail asset business to a volume of Rs. 400 crores in two states Maharashtra & Rajasthan.

Praveen Chakravarty

Praveen Chakravarty is the ex-CEO of an investment bank, a 2012 Eisenhower Fellow, founding trustee of India's first data journalism initiative IndiaSpend and board member of Centre for Civil Society, India's highest ranked thinktank globally. He is a regular oped contributor on politics and policy for the Business Standard and Mint.

Rajesh Bhatia

Mr. Rajesh Bhatia is the Managing Director of Tree House Education and Accessories.
He holds a bachelor of engineering degree in computer science from MS University, Baroda and masters of business administration from Pune University.
Mr. Bhatia has approximately 11 years of experience in the education industry. He has been associated with the Company since its inception. He oversees the day to day operations of the company.

Rohit Pande

Rohit is the CEO and Co-founder of Classteacher Learning Systems. Prior to founding Class Teacher in 2000, Rohit worked for a couple of years with Accenture in India. Rohit mentors the product development team at Classteacher and is passionately involved with expanding the thought leadership evolved through a decade of research.

He has been speaking about education technology in various national and international conferences and seminars and has been consistently driving a vision around how a successful technology model is built around rethinking the role of the educator and an inspiring leadership in the school.

Rohit holds a Bachelors in Technology from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and an MBA in Finance and Strategy from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

Rustom Kerawalla

Sandeep Aneja

Sandeep's passion for investing in innovative companies drove him to establish Kaizen Private Equity in 2009. As the Founder of the fund, he has been instrumental in building the firm's knowledge and client network across U.S, Europe and Asia. He believes in forming trusted partnerships with companies and their management teams on a shared commitment to achieve excellence and growth.  Sandeep’s passion is to work closely with entrepreneurs who have a deep sense of purpose and a solid plan for identifying and “owning” emerging white spaces and leveraging initial “ownership” to build highly valuable differentiated companies.

One of his professional commitments is to promote and improve the overall human capital development environment, by investing in companies that have a progressive impact on the economic growth of societies. Sandeep has been a part of the venture capital and private equity industry since 2002 and has been credited with numerous successful transactions in the US and in India. Some of his prior investments include Reconnex, (sold to McAfee) Bridgestream (sold to Oracle), Clairmail (sold to Monitise), LassoLogic (sold to Sonicwall), and Xactly Software. He sits on the boards of various education companies and is a frequent speaker on emerging education trends globally.

He has a MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

Seema Jhingan

Seema Jhingan, a Senior Partner at LexCounsel, Law Offices, has more than seventeen years of experience. She has extensively advised in areas including Mergers & Acquisition, Telecommunications, Media & Entertainment, Venture Capital & Private Equity, Education, Licensing & Franchising, Software/IT, General Corporate and Commercial. Seema has substantial expertise in representing investors, developers, VC/PE funds, international corporations, sponsors/lenders and other strategic investors involved in the establishment, development and financing of infrastructure, education, IT and satellite projects in India.

Seema is recognized for her capability of structuring innovative investment models and has considerable transactional experience in representing investors, corporations and education companies on regulatory and licensing issues, complex acquisitions and divestments, investment structuring and exits, international collaborations and debt/equity funding, tax structuring and related documentation in the education sector ranging from formal sector (K12 to higher education) to non-formal sector (vocational programs, skill development, test prep, support services, content and multimedia providers and other unregulated areas).  

Additionally, Seema has been designated as a leading lawyer in the area of IT, Telecommunications & Media, by Asia Law and Practice and is a regular speaker at global and domestic forums. Seema is an author of several papers and published articles.

Shantanu Prakash

Sharad Talwar

Sharad Talwar is a senior management professional with diverse experience of over 24 years with some of the most admired corporations in the country. His academic credentials include a management degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and an engineering degree from IIT Kharagpur, having graduated with top honours from these institutions.  

Sharad's career span includes stints at MNC's and leading Indian corporations. In his last role he was  Site Director, Operations with Convergys Inc ( a $ US 2.8 billion corporation ). Prior to that, he has held important positions at Dell, GE Capital, and HCL Hewlett Packard among others.

He has proven competencies in General Management, Marketing, Product Management, Sales, Operations, Business Strategy, running large start-up projects, turnarounds, Six Sigma and competency building. During his impactful tenures, Sharad has been involved in leadership roles across industries such as IT, IT enabled, market research and education.

Sharad now heads IndiaCan, a joint venture between Educomp, India's pioneering education company, and Pearson, the world's largest education services provider. This joint venture targets one of the country's biggest opportunities training young people. IndiaCan is a skilling and employability company which uses innovative technology solutions and VSAT delivery platform for scalability and consistent delivery of trained manpower, thereby mitigating paucity of good trainers in remote areas. IndiaCan's bottom-of-the-pyramid strategies in partnership with Government of India initiatives using technology, state of the art content and relevant international certifications - reach out to some of the most remote areas of the country in J&K, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Orissa, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan et al'. As the head of IndiaCan, Sharad is responsible for rolling out from concept to execution, the JV's strategy to provide employability linked and skill based education to youth across the country.

Sumeet Mehta

Sumeet Mehta, Chief Executive Officer, Zee Learn Ltd. has been associated with Zee’s Education business for over three years. He joined the group as Chief Operating Officer of Zee Interactive Learning Systems (ZILS) in 2007 and then took over as Chief Executive Officer in January 2008 prior to ETC Networks Ltd.’s merger with ZILS. Since then, he has been at the helm of the Education business of ETC Networks Ltd. till its merger with ZEEL in January 2010. Prior to joining Zee’s education business, Mr. Mehta was with Procter & Gamble Ltd. for over eight years in various brand management roles across Asia Pacific based in Mumbai and Singapore.

Under his leadership, the turnover of Zee’s education business has grown from Rs. 250mn in 2008-09 to projected Rs. 400mn in FY 2010-11. During this period, Zee Learn’s education network has grown to over 30 Mount Litera Schools, over 700 Kidzee Preschools and more than 25 Zee Institute of Creative Art (ZICA). He has led the company to develop best-in-class pedagogies in schools and preschools, namely Litera Octave and Illume respectively. Under his guidance, Zee Learn has recently forayed into School Solutions business and Public Private Partnerships with Government in addition to its existing franchise and school partnership businesses.