Our Jury for previous iDiya events
Anand Lunia
Executive Director and CFO, Seedfund
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Anand Lunia is the Executive Director and CFO at Seedfund. He has over 11 years of experience as entrepreneur, venture investor and corporate executive. Co-Founder of a leading e-learning company of India, Brainvisa, Lunia is also Executive VP, Operations, of Hurix Technologies (a Deloitte Fast 50 company focussing on publishing services). An MBA from IIM, his experience includes stints in Asian Paints, ICICI Treasury and Lionbridge. He is a guest faculty, biz-plan mentor and jury member at IIMs, IITs, SP Jain and NITIE and loves to motivate entrepreneurs, help them in structuring their finances, handle legalese and be a sounding board on day to day operations. |
Atreya Rayaprolu
Vice President, Intellecap
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Atreya Rayaprolu, one of Intellecap’s earliest employees, is focussed on Intellecap’s investment banking services. He has led various engagements with international funds, identifying investment potential in various sectors that positively impact social and rural development. On the sell-side, he works closely with enterprises to develop and maintain long-term strategic advisory relationships on realisation of strategic opportunities, optimisation of capital structure, and maximisation of ‘stakeholder’ value. Rayaprolu also advises clients on structuring social venture capital funds. |
| He has led the ‘India Development Gateway’ initiative, an incubation within Intellecap that focusses on facilitating capital allocation into scalable enterprises with a positive social or environmental impact. This initiative uses an innovative model of co-investments that attempts to bring a diverse international investor community into a marketplace. |
| Rayaprolu brings with him rich expertise in investment advisory along with a deep understanding of technology. Before joining Intellecap, he spent time at ICICI Bank, structuring and raising offshore funds focussed on making investments into Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in emerging economies. He holds a BTech and MTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and a PGPM from the Indian School of Business. |
Aruna Reddy
Co-Founder of Pearl Group
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Aruna Reddy is a Co-Founder of Pearl Group of companies which has interests into restaurants, product development and real estate. She played a pivotal role in operations management with focus on processes, systems and client requirements through ideation and refinement.
Aruna has an extensive cross-continent education, business and entrepreneurial experience. She has over 15 years of experience in strategic planning, development, new business start up, and project management with demonstrated initiative, creativity and success. She was with Oracle Corporation USA, managing and implementing ERP solutions. |
At ISB, she is responsible for strategic planning-new initiatives, incubation and development activities of the Entrepreneurship centre and to enhance the entrepreneurial culture within and outside ISB by giving students & entrepreneurs the opportunity to explore innovative ideas and develop practical entrepreneurial skills. She is also leading the initiative of establishing Enterprise Development Fund (PPP) to help lead a way to create a very substantial early stage financial eco-system supporting pervasive entrepreneurship development at ISB and network of Funds across the country. |
Chandra Shekhar Reddy Kundur
General Partner, Ventureast APIDC
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Chandra Shekhar Reddy Kundur is a General Partner with Ventureast APIDC. He has an extensive cross-continent education, business and entrepreneurial experience. Prior to venture capital, he was part of the brand management team responsible for one of P&G’s largest-ever detergent product introductions, Tide Liquid. He also has close to two decades experience in investing in real estate in India, with a particular focus on distressed properties. His diverse experience includes co-founding a multi-cuisine restaurant and angel investments in IT and biotechnology companies in India. |
| Kundur is a member of the AP State Biotechnology Advisory Committee. He has been an active participant, also as a member of the Board of Governors, in the continuing development and enhancement of the Hyderabad Public School system in Hyderabad, India. His other activities include yoga and marathon running. |
| He holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Management from IIM Bangalore and Master of Management degree (Marketing, Finance and Corporate strategy) from the Kellogg School of Management at the Northwestern University in Illinois, USA. |
Deepak Chandra
Deputy Dean
Indian School of Business, Hyderabad
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Deputy Dean at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Deepak Chandra is responsibile for understanding and interpreting the market/ industry needs and influencing delivery through School's knowledge creation and dissemination activities. Under his leadership, the CEE at ISB has evolved into a dominant provider of executive education in India and Asia. Chandra regularly consults private, public and government sector organisations on their learning and development strategy. He has worked with several firms in India and abroad, and helped them align capability development strategy to their strategic challenges. He has also created pioneering learning initiatives with reasonable returns on learning investments. To add to his experience in knowledge dissemination, Chandra also regularly teaches at leading business schools. He has also established and managed an education-consulting firm specialising in sales, marketing, and key account management. |
| Chandra is extremely passionate about education and has managed large education initiatives for underprivileged audiences, with support from the government and national and international development agencies. A true entrepreneur in spirit and soul, challenge and change are his two favorite motivators. |
Ganesh Rengaswamy
Vice President and India Country Director, Unitus
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Ganesh Rengaswamy has more than a decade of experience in executing firm-level strategies and undertaking independent revenue and growth initiatives for investing firms, Fortune 1000 clients, start-ups, and high-growth companies. He has global experience in venture capital, growth investing, and entrepreneurial and operating roles across consumer technology, financial services, internet/mobile, and retail IT services. Prior to joining Unitus in 2009, Rengaswamy was a Co-Founder of Travelguru.com—the online travel leader in hotels and vacations in India and South Asia— and launched India Investments for Greylock Partners, one of the oldest top-tier venture capital firms in the US. Previously, at Infosys Technologies, Rengaswamy managed mission-critical engagements for Fortune 500 clients and helped lead proposals of over USD 100 million. Before Infosys, he managed a private investment fund, where his most successful investments included Infosys and HDFC Bank. |
| Rengaswamy is a frequent speaker in several entrepreneurial and investing forums including TiE Chapters, IITs and IIMs. He holds a bachelors degree in Engineering from IT-BHU/IIT-BHU (India), an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a graduate degree in Finance and Systems Strategy from IIM-Calcutta. He is also a management advisor to several start-up businesses. |
Jagjit Chawla
Product Manager, Google India
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Jagjit Chawla is a Product Manager at Google India in Bangalore. He is responsible for working with the India engineering teams to develop innovative Google products and technologies that will bring the next wave of users online in India and around the world. Prior to joining Google, he has worked in companies such as Adobe and Infosys.
Chawla has a BTech in Electrical Engineering from PEC, Chandigarh and a MBA from Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. Outside his professional life, Chawla is a bike enthusiast and has travelled much of India on his bike. He works with NGOs to scale their impact with technology solutions and increased information transparency. |
Dr Krishna Tanuku
Executive Director, Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (WCED)
Indian School of Business, Hyderabad
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Dr Krishna Tanuku is currently the Executive Director, Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (WCED). After spending several years at the helm of various multinational companies, Dr Tanuku first began his association with the Indian School of Business three years ago. His role at the ISB has been of an Executive Advisor and Mentor. His contributions within the ISB have facilitated the alignment of the CoEs strategy, social responsibility initiatives, and operational plans within the overall ISB strategy. |
| Dr Tanuku has an illustrious career that spans over 25 years of global experience covering the US, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. His expertise covers multiple levels and aspects of global business creation and execution – from R&D to the creation of JVs and executive business management. His current passion is to help build next generation global enterprises based on innovative business and customer models of partnerships by leveraging capabilities and needs across multiple domains, segments and technologies that create sustainable and equitable business value. He is also a strong advocate of social equity and innovation for sustainable societies both in principle and spirit. |
Kartik Srivatsa
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Kartik Srivatsa is currently the Investment Manager at SONG Investment Advisors. SONG is an early stage venture fund backed by Soros, Omidyar Network and Google focussed on funding commercially sustainable SME businesses in India in sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, education and financial services. Prior to SONG, Srivatsa was with Light speed Venture Partners, a global venture capital firm with over $2 B under management where he was a founding member of the India practice. He was earlier a consultant with McKinsey and Company, advising corporations in the energy and information technology sectors across various functions.
Srivatsa received his B Tech in Mechanical Engineering and M Tech in Energy Technology, both from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras |
Pooja Warier
Co-founder and Director, UnLtd India
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Pooja Warier is the Co-founder and Director of UnLtd India that finds, funds and supports start up social entrepreneurs in India. She is also the Co-founder and Director of Journeys for Change that inspires leaders and social entrepreneurs to create more impact through learning from some of world’s most exciting change makers. She has a Masters in social work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai. |
K Ramachandran
Thomas Schmidheiny Chair Professor of Family Business and Wealth Management and Clinical Professor
Indian School of Business, Hyderabad
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Professor K Ramachandran is the Thomas Schmidheiny Chair Professor of Family Business and Wealth Management at the Indian School of Business. He specialises in the areas of entrepreneurship, strategy and family business and has over 33 years of experience as an academician. He obtained a PhD from the Cranfield School of Management, UK in 1986 on a comparative study of the small enterprise policies of Japan, UK and India. |
| Professor Ramachandran’s research on family business, entrepreneurship and strategy has been published extensively in reputed Indian and overseas journals. His consulting experience includes areas such as family business governance, professionalisation, succession planning, strategic planning, and identification of new opportunities for growth, corporate entrepreneurship and turn around strategies in family and non-family environments. He has written several management cases, and has conducted training programmes on strategic management and entrepreneurship for entrepreneurs and senior and top managers. He has been on various advisory committees of the Government of India, World Bank, Securities and Exchange Board of India on entrepreneurship and strategy. |
Sarath Naru
Managing Partner, Ventureast APIDC
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Sarath Naru is the Managing Partner of Ventureast APIDC. Ventureast provides funding across diverse industries like technology, biotech, healthcare, consumer goods and infrastructure services. A BTech from IIT Chennai and MBA (Finance) from University of Chicago, Naru has been actively involved with start up venture capital in India over the last ten years. He took over the management of APIDC – Venture Capital Limited in 1995, in the first effective privatisation of a financial institution in India. Prior to this, he built a trading and manufacturing business in USA and India. He also has worked in organisations like Procter & Gamble (in the area of brand management) and VST Industries. |
| Naru has been a past-secretary of the Indian Venture Capital Association, member of the Investment Committee of UTI Ventures and Avigo Ventures Dubai, Chairman of the Agri-Business Incubator at ICRISAT, Hyderabad, (elected the best incubator in India in 2006) and Board member of ICICI Knowledge Park Incubator. He is the Treasurer of the Association for Biotech Lead Enterprises (ABLE) and has been a past Committee Member of the Andhra Pradesh Chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). |
Sateesh Andra
Venture Partner, DFJ India
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Sateesh Andra is a Venture Partner with Draper Fisher Jurvetson(DFJ), India. He is currently on the Board of Directors at MetroMela, mGinger and Pressmart, and is a board observer for Cleartrip. With hands-on start-up experience and in-depth knowledge of the dynamics of VC funding, he has effectively leveraged India to create technology products for global markets. Andra started his Silicon Valley career in the early nineties and has extensive background in general management, marketing, product strategy, and technology development.
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| Prior to DFJ, Andra was the Founder and CEO of
Euclid Software, a leader in the IT Governance space. He has also served in
product marketing and engineering leadership roles at Tsqware (Conexant),
LSI Logic, VLSI Technology (Philips), and Wipro. He holds US patents in
Communications and Networking and has published several articles on Business
- IT Alignment. He is actively involved with TiE-ISB Connect, an annual
networking event for entrepreneurs and investors. Andra holds a Bachelor's
and Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering. |
Santosh Srinivas
Associate Director at the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development, Indian School of Business
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Santosh Srinivas, works as an Associate Director at the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (WCED) at the Indian School of Business (ISB, Hyderabad). An MBA from ISB, he has a professional experience of over 8 years with entrepreneurial experience in both for-profit, hybrid and not-for-profit sectors. He co-founded a Bangalore based non-profit organization which worked towards streamlining volunteerism, capacity building and consulting for corporates on their CSR initiatives. Continuing his pursuits in the development sector as an elected President of Net Impact chapter, he worked towards sensitizing change agents in using business to positively impact the society. After graduating from BITS (Pilani) with an Engineering degree in Computer Science, he joined Intel Technologies where he led cross-functional teams in diverse settings, including a program for fostering innovation across the Asia region. Post MBA, he took up entrepreneurial roles at a social enterprise and later at a NGO where he handled both strategy and operations.
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Sharu Govindrajan
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Sharu Govindrajan is one of the earliest team members of Elevar Equity and is actively involved with the India investments. She is an observer on the board of Swadhaar Fin Serve and Vistaar Livelihood Finance. She has also served as an observer on the board of Moksha Yug Access. In addition to this, she works closely with Grama Vidiyal Micro Finance.
Govindrajan graduated with Honors in Telecommunications Engineering and has an MBA from the Indian School of Business (ISB).
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Subramonia Sarma
Senior Director, PGP Projects
Indian School of Business, Hyderabad
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Director of PGP projects at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Subramonia Sarma mentors and supports students in their entrepreneurial aspirations, offers the elective PaEV as a practicum, organises and oversees ELP projects and internal business plan competitions. He has over 25 years of experience in supporting hi-tech entrepreneurs, and in evaluating projects, designing strategies and mentoring as a senior member of the Consultancy Cell of State Bank of India (SBI). Sarma was closely associated with SBI's cluster development initiative. He has also served as a Member of the Technology Mission on Oil and Oilseeds and on the SSI panel of the AP Chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). |
Varun Sahni
Country Director, Acumen Fund India
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Varun Sahni, India Director of
Acumen Fund, has focused on building, managing and investing in businesses for
low income communities for the past twelve years. He is responsible for all
India related investments, operations and business development activities.
Additionally, as part of the portfolio management team, Varun is jointly
responsible for the global portfoio of Acumen Fund. Prior to joining Acumen
Fund, he worked with both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations focusing
on enterprise creation across India. He has also been involved as an angel
investor in a number of companies in the Hospitality Services, Education, and
Food and Beverage sectors across India. He received an MA from Columbia
University in Political Economy. |
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