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.

Mr. Amol Arora (B.E. (Delhi College of Engineering), MBA (University of California, Irvine, USA), P.G. Researcher in Education Leadership & Management at University of Nottingham, UK) is the Vice-Chairman & Managing Director of SHEMROCK & SHEMFORD Group of Schools. He is a visionary person with a multi-dimensional personality.

Mr. Amol Arora is the prime force behind building the SHEMROCK brand on the strength of its franchise model and also in transferring the same stress-free and fun-filled learning environment to SHEMFORD Futuristic Schools. As a tribute to his contribution to the education fraternity in India, Mr. Amol Arora has been honoured for “Outstanding Contribution to the Indian Education System” by the Independent Schools Federation of India in 2006. He also received “Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2006” Award by the Lt. Governor of Delhi. He is a regular speaker at various Educational Leadership Conclaves, Conferences and Seminars in the country, including VCCircle, TiE, ICSI, Eduvision, DIDAC, World Education Summit (WES), One Globe, India Learning Expo etc.

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. 

Ashish Rajpal is the founder of iDiscoveri. Ashish left an international corporate career to pursue his passion for education. His interest include the human learning process, teacher development, innovation, and organizational leadership. Over the past decade, Ashish has led the creation and scale-up of XSEED - a path-breaking innovation that has improved learning for close to half a million children in almost 1000 schools across the country.

Ashish holds an MBA from XLRI and a Master's degree in Mind, Brain & Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he was a student of Prof. Howard Gardner. Ashish is also a practicing teacher who teaches Grade 4 Science. In 2008 he was recognized by Education World as one of 50 top leaders changing education in India.

Prior to Next Education, Beas Dev Ralhan has been an entrepreneur (co-curricular activities focused firm - FreshPixel Labs), Investment Manager (Onicle), Technology Leader (Head of Research - Technology , PartyGaming) , Consultant (Technical Architect , Infosys - Retail, Distribution and CPG practice) and Programmer (PartyGaming, Cysphere.com, Retort, Tata Infotech Limited). Beas Dev Ralhan has completed his Integrated MSc programme from IIT Bombay and his MBA from London Business School.

Deepesh Garg has over 17 years of deal-making experience. He co-founded o3 Capital in 2007 and has been a key strategic leader and financial advisor to a range of companies in the Consumer and Internet & Digital Technology practice. Deepesh is a B.S. graduate from Rajasthan University and holds an MBA degree from K.J. Somaiya. 

@Deepesh_o3

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.

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.

For last 15 years of his passion & excellence for guiding students to achieve the epitome of success in various competitive examinations has given coaching a new dimension in India.

Pramod was born & raised in Kota. He received his B.Tech degree from IIT, Delhi in the year of 1993. Same year he founded Career Point to impart quality education for engineering & medical aspirants. He pioneered the Kota Coaching System and introduced the concept of group coaching in India. It is his vision and initiative, by virtue of which Kota has reached to a respectable status in the arena of coaching for IIT-JEE, AIEEE, Pre- Medical and NTSE, KVPY Science Olympiad examinations.

Pramod is the mentor of thousand of IITians, NITians, Doctors and Scholars. Today, He is nationally renowned for developing and implementing the effective teaching and learning methodologies to get the maximum output in competitive examinations. As a career author and councellor, he writes for various publications, leading news dailies and conducts seminars & workshops.

Dr Dravid is a widely respected Management professional who had held various senior positions with a common thread of skill building, OD interventions, designing of HR Strategies and incubating start ups as major strength areas. His work experience in various roles such as consultant, Adviser and Director/VP with various blue chip companies in India and Middle East makes his profile a unique one in terms of different competencies.  He had, at a corporate level worked with the entire group in devising core HR strategies and processes and he is perhaps one of the few professionals having in depth exposure to methods such as Hay's system of Job Evaluation and Dr Robert Kaplan's Balanced Scorecard having had implementation experience in both. His stints in India also include roles as OD and general management consultant with Tata Consultancy Services and Centre for Organization Development- both premier consultancy houses.

Dr Dravid has served as Managing Director of an IT offshore development center in Chennai.

The sectors that Dr.Dravid has been associated with include Fertilizers and Chemicals, Telecom, IT, Reinsurance and Apparel exports. An organizational Behavior and Training management qualification coupled with degree in Business management, Psychology and doctorate in Behavioral Sciences Dr Dravid combines academic excellence with sharp hands on style of management.

As a HR professional Dr Dravid has the unique background of handling strategic HR issues in some of the most challenging environments, design and development of HR systems and extensive training at middle and senior levels of management.

Presently Dr. Dravid works with IL&FS as Chief Operating Officer  and is actively involved in skill building initiatives for the below poverty line segment. Under his leadership IL&FS has trained and placed over 200,000 youth  in different verticals.

Raj Grover is a proficient CEO turned entrepreneur with extensive experience across global organizations viz. Nestle, Wrigley’s, HMV and Rupert Murdoch Group. In his illustrious career, he has led multifold growth across India and International markets, built global brands, incubated business, spearheaded financial turnarounds, technology and product innovation.

Early 2000, Raj realized the growing aspirations of young parents and in alliance with a leading brand co-modeled the concept of affordable-up-market, ‘Boutique International Schools’. Few years later, Raj took another leap of faith, this time in the Low Cost Affordable Schools, demonstrating a whole new opportunity to build high quality, low cost, sustainable schools.

Both these initiatives, applauded as game changers have created a whole new category and being recognized as the most sought after, scalable models inspiring many entrepreneurs and established brands in the education sector.

Raj is of the firm belief that, solution to all global issues; economic and social, present and future depends on a responsible and effective schooling system. He is committed to creating a scalable and sustainable model around this. The one, that ‘Breaks the Mold’ and ‘Re-Invent’s’ to prepare students deal with the uncertain challenges, complexities and opportunities of the 2050 era.

Mr. Ram Kishan Verma, an edupreneur synonymous with success in cracking IIT-JEE, was born in a small village in the Kota district in the state of Rajasthan. He excelled throughout his schooling, in himself clearing the IIT-JEE and as an Electrical & Electronics Engineering student at IIT-Madras. After completing his B.Tech. in 1994, he joined BHEL as a Trainee Engineer .

Following a brief stint at BHEL, destiny brought him into coaching education which at that time was emerging in Kota and he joined a reputed coaching institute in Kota as part of the Physics Faculty in 1995 and continued there till 2001. Through his sincerity, dedication and hard work, he earned respect from his students and became very popular amongst the student fraternity, as RKV Sir , for his in-depth subject knowledge, unmatched teaching skills and passionate aptitude for the coaching profession.

The dream of becoming an edupreneur resulted in the genesis of Resonance, founded by Mr . R.K. Verma in 2001 at Kota itself. Since then, Resonance has taken leaps and bounds forward under his leadership and his persistent quest to take it to the pinnacle of success & excellence.

Mr. Ryan Pinto is CEO of the Ryan International Group of Institutions. One of India's youngest social entrepreneurs in the K-12 education sector, he has grown the Ryan International Group of Institutions (RIGI) in India and overseas, to over 125 institutions, educating more than 250,000 students. Mr. Pinto hopes to transform "traditional" schools into dynamic, interactive learning environments that benefit not only students, teachers and direct stakeholders, but also their communities, cities and country. He strongly advocates the use of technological tools to educate each and every child of India. Mr. Pinto was instrumental in the inception of the Ryan Group's international curriculum schools, the Ryan Global Schools, and in establishing the group's highly successful overseas schools in the United Arab Emirates.

Amongst numerous other awards, Mr. Pinto was recognized most recently as one of Asia’s Emerging Business Leaders by WCRC & Ernst & Young held in London, UK. He studied at Warwick University and Aston University, and received a master's degree in business and entrepreneurship from Cass Business School, London.

Samudra has been working in the field of Education since the last 15 years. He along with his co-founders established LearningMate in the year 2003. Since then the company has grown to become one of the premier Education Solutions company globally. LearningMate employs over 450 people in the United States, Canada, India and the UK and serves a global clientele comprised of education publishers, online schools, universities, government agencies, non-profits and education consortia. Education solutions created by LearningMate today impact millions of learners across the world.

LearningMate recently won the Red Herring's Top 100 Asia at Hong Kong, which is the list that has become a mark of distinction for identifying promising new companies and entrepreneurs across Asia. In May, this year LearningMate was also awarded the Platinum Award at the Global IMS Conference in Toronto, for the most innovative learning product for GoClass, its cloud hosted mobile learning platform.

An alumnus of the acclaimed Industrial Design Center at IIT, Mumbai, Samudra's past includes significant work in the world of design and communications, before he channeled his creative energies into addressing instructional processes that help people learn. Prior to founding LearningMate, Sam (as he is better known) helped establish and manage the custom eLearning content development operation for Aptech Limited (later known as Mentorix). Besides this, Samudra brings a wealth of knowledge in management, processes, delivery, and implementation of eLearning as well as valuable relationships across the world. Based in Mumbai, Sam is responsible for guiding the vision of the company. In addition he personally manages LearningMate's strategy planning and investor relations.

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.

Sanjay is an expert in business innovation and process transformation and has extensive experience of leading transformation projects across several industries and organizations. He has experience in technology, textiles and outsourcing services industries and has worked in USA, India and Singapore.

Prior to starting iProf, Sanjay was a managing director with New York based business restructuring firm LMCO. As part of his role at LMCO, he oversaw restructuring at prominent organizations such as Silicon Graphics and Great wide. He has led several organizations through transformation phases as a CEO. He was the CEO of USD 600M textile firm Dan River in the United States. Dan River's transformation under he has been featured in several business periodicals and is a University of North Carolina Business School case study. In addition to Dan River, Sanjay has also been the CEO of BPO organizations Colwell and Salmon, Cartel; and manufacturing firm Best and Baker.

Earlier in his career, Sanjay has worked with AT&T Wireless and Motorola when they had just entered the Indian market. He was also part of the founding team at outsourcing firm Epicenter Technologies. His first job was as an IAS officer.

Sanjay is an MBA (Gold Medalist) from IIM, Ahmedabad and holds a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT, Mumbai.

Sanjeev Duggal is the CEO and Director of Centum Learning and Co-Chairman of FICCI Skill Development Forum.

Sanjeev, with his unwavering commitment to creating employability in the country, coupled with his entrepreneurial flair and passion for developing people, has shaped the mandate of Centum Learning.

Centum Learning has figured among the Top 15 Leaders in Training Outsourcing Worldwide for four consecutive years. It was also conferred with the Excellence in Training Award at the World HRD Congress 2010 & 2011; UK India Skills Forum Award 2010 and featured in the Sales Training Watch List 2012.

Prior to joining Centum Learning, Sanjeev created and led India's premier training and consulting organisation, which spearheaded several initiatives aimed at creating employability skills in multiple domains.

His thought leadership on subjects like -"People, Capability and Development, Skilling and Employability in India", at national and international forums have been recognized by industry, government leaders and media. He was a visiting faculty at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. He is also an honorary trustee of a leading international Human Rights NGO called Breakthrough.

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.

Tridibesh is the Founder and CEO of Edusys Services Pvt Limited, a leading global test prep and certification technology platform company with offices in US, UK, India, Germany, Hong Kong and Singapore. Boot-strapped by Tridibesh in 2005 with an investment of Rs. 3 lakhs, Edusys currently has 150,000+ customers from more than 3,500 companies and over 150 countries. In 2011, Edusys was ranked the 5th fastest growing IT company by the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India Program, and in 2012 Edusys was awarded the Top 100 Asia Red Herring Award - which recognizes the top 100 entrepreneurial companies in Asia-Pacific Region. The company has always been profitable and recently got growth funding from Sequoia Capital.

Tridibesh has done his Senior Mangement Program from Wharton Business School, MBA from IIM Lucknow and Mechanical Engineering from IIT - BHU. Before Edusys, he had worked several companies including IBM, American Express, Wachovia Bank, TCS and Unit Trust of India. An accomplished trainer, Tridibesh has personally taught classes in fields like adult learning techniques, project management, negotiation, quality, human resources, risk management and Information Technology to hundreds of students in US, UK, Australia, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, UAE and other countries.

He was also the founder and CEO of ExcelAtExams.com, an education venture which he sold to IMS in 2001.

Mr, Vinay Pasricha, Chairman WLC College India, has been instrumental in the conceptualization, growth & development of the institution over the last two decades. Under his stewardship, WLCI has developed a stellar reputation for academic excellence in the country and carved its distinct niche within industry.

Mr, Pasricha, a graduate in Engineering is also an alumni of the Harvard Business School. An entrepreneur and an innovator, he has several firsts to his credit, In 1993, he established a software company and laid the foundation of a pioneering executive training organization. He launched Orange Technology -one of the first providers of ERP Solutions and then established WLC College India Iin 1995.

A visionary, he has pioneered many innovative practices in the field of professional education which have received widespread acclaim within the industry, His Quality products. His extensive experience in executive education & training, prompted him to launch a unique Traineeship Program for Business students in 1999, a revolutionary attempt to make professional education practically relevant to the needs of employers. Over 17 years, WLCI has provided more than 16,000 skilled professionals to the world.

Mr. Pasricha’s interest lies in enhancing content and developing new & innovative training systems. As Chairman, WLCI, he is involved in specifically creating methods of identifying, developing and evaluating hob specific competencies. He is avidly interested in continually aiding organizations with focus on Knowledge Domain and Industry Relevant Skills.