Investing in India: A 20/20 Perspective

Keynote Speakers

Sam Pitroda
Former Advisor to Rajiv Gandhi and Chairman of WorldTel and C-SAM Inc

Mr. Sam Pitroda has spent four decades in the world of telecommunications helping bridge the global communications divide. His professional career has been divided between the three continents of North America, Asia and Europe . His strategy of using telecommunications in nation building has been internationally acclaimed.

In the 1960s and 70s he was involved in developing digital switching systems in the United States which went on to become the key to global networks to integrate voice and data. In the 1980s, Mr. Pitroda, as Advisor to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi helped transform Indian's telecommunications and information technology infrastructure. He was the first founding Chairman of the Telecom Commission in India . He also oversaw National Technology Missions related to Drinking Water, Literacy, Immunization, Oil Seeds and Dairy. In those roles he helped transform India 's developmental policies and philosophy.

In the 1990s, he worked out of Europe where he collaborated with the International Telecom Union (ITU) to help develop telecom infrastructure in developing countries to reduce the global telecom gap. During a major part his career Mr. Pitroda has been deeply involved in using telecommunications as means to expediting the process of development and nation building.

As an entrepreneur he has owned and run several companies in the U.S. and Europe . As an inventor Mr. Pitroda owns more than 75 worldwide patents. Mr. Pitroda is widely featured in print and television media worldwide for his contribution to telecom development.

Kanwal Rekhi
Managing Partner, Inventus Capital Partners, Founder of TiE, Silicon Valley Entrepreneur

Mr. Rekhi is a managing partner in Inventus Capital Partners, a Silicon valley based cross border, US/India early stage technology venture capital fund. He is also a past Chairman of Board of Trustees, TiE.

Born in Rawalpindi , Pakistan in 1945, Mr. Rekhi moved with his family to India at the time of the partition, in 1947. Mr. Rekhi was the third of eight children of an Indian army officer. He grew up in Kanpur , India and did his B. Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay in Electrical Engineering. He came to the US in 1967 for graduate studies and did his MSEE from Michigan Technological University in 1969. He held various technical jobs in the computer industry between 1969 and 1982. Mr. Rekhi came to the Silicon Valley as one of the pioneering Indians in 1971.

Mr. Rekhi was the founders of Excelan, a computer networking company in 1982. In 1985 he was named President and CEO of the company. Excelan went public on the NASDAQ in 1987 and merged with Novell in 1989. Mr. Rekhi stayed with and joined the Board of Directors of Novell and was named an executive vice-president and the Chief Technology Officer of the company. Mr. Rekhi retired from Novell in 1995. Mr. Rekhi also served as the CEO of CyberMedia, Inc. from March 1998 till Sept 1998.

Mr. Rekhi was named Entrepreneur of the Year in 1987 by the Arthur-Young/Venture magazine. In 1994, Mr. Rekhi was named to the Board of advisor to the President of Michigan Tech. Mr. Rekhi was honored with a Doctorate in 1997 in Business and Engineering from Michigan Tech. He is a former president of TiE, a not-for-profit organization based in Silicon Valley that promotes Entrepreneurship among the Indus people. Mr. Rekhi is also on the board of Community Foundation of the Silicon Valley .

Mr. Rekhi is actively focused on helping young entrepreneurs get started. He is currently involved at the board level in Versata, Sierra Atlantic, Ensim, Kaboodle and Instantis. In the past he has been involved with over 50 start-ups in the Silicon Valley, including Exodus Communications, CyberMedia, Apptivity, Zietnet, PlaceWare and Ambit Design, Versata, Instantis and Sierra-Atlantic.

Mr. Rekhi is an active supporter of his alma maters IIT Bombay and Michigan Tech.; He is also active in Foundation for Excellence (FFE) and Centre for Civil Society of India, based in New Delhi. Mr. Rekhi married Ann Holt in 1971 and became a US citizen in 1975. He and Ann have two grown children, a daughter and a son.

Panel Speakers

Arun Bansal
Managing Director, UBS

Arun Bansal heads up Debt Management Strategy Group (DMSG) at UBS. DMSG specializes in advising investment banking clients on analytical issues surrounding asset/liability management, debt funding, liability management and derivatives. For the past fifteen years, Arun has advised numerous US and international corporations, banks and insurance companies on a variety of corporate finance topics including foreign exchange issues and ALM strategies

Arun joined UBS from Salomon Smith Barney, where he worked for six years and headed a corporate finance advisory group, called Global Services Unit of Financial Strategies. Prior to joining Salomon, Arun worked as Vice President at Bank of America and Bear Stearns

Arun has taught at University of Connecticut and New York University in their graduate business schools. He has a Ph.D. from Stern School of Business at New York University and holds a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Mintoo Bhandari
Managing Director, The View Group

Mr. Bhandari is the principal founder and a Managing Director of The VIEW Group.  He has deep experience as an investor in private and public enterprises in both the United States and India .  He was an early participant in the sourcing, execution and development of transactions and enterprises in the Indo-US corridor.  The View Group is today a leading investor in business services companies, seeking to invest approximately $10-20m per transaction in companies which seek to link the US and Indian economies.  A professional investor since 1987, Mr. Bhandari was with the Harvard Management Company prior to founding VIEW in 1992.  As part of the Harvard Private Equity Group, he was involved in private equity investments across a wide range of industries.  He later managed two public markets funds for Harvard, a risk arbitrage fund and a traditional hedge fund.  Prior to joining Harvard, Mr. Bhandari played a role in the management and growth of his family's business and worked in mechanical design and software engineering roles at UTC-Carrier and C.S. Draper Laboratories, a defense contractor specializing in military navigation and control systems.  He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and an S.B. in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

David O. Beim
Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Business School, Columbia University

Professor Beim joined Columbia Business School’s faculty after a 25-year career in investment banking. His work experience includes 10 years in corporate finance at First Boston, where he founded and ran the project finance group, two years as executive vice president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, 10 years as head of investment banking at Bankers Trust Company and three years as a partner at Dillon Read. He teaches corporate finance, international banking and emerging financial markets, and in 1995 he received the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence. He also serves as coordinator for the business ethics theme in the curriculum and adviser to the Integrity Board. His research interests include debt pricing and the banking industry.

Amarnath V. Bhide
Lawrence D. Glaubinger Professor of Business, Columbia Business School

Professor Bhidé has published widely in the area of entrepreneurship, strategy, contracting and firm governance. Among his eight Harvard Business Review articles are “Efficient Markets, Deficient Governance,” “How Entrepreneurs Craft Strategies That Work,” “Bootstrap Finance: The Art of Start-ups” and “Hustle as Strategy.” He also recently completed a book, The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses, which builds on systematic studies of successful entrepreneurs, cases, teaching notes and his Harvard Business Review articles. Bhidé is a former senior engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, vice president of E. F. Hutton and associates fellow at Harvard Business School

Bharat Desai
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Syntel Inc.

Bharat Desai, Chairman, CEO and founder of Syntel, Inc. (NASDAQ: SYNT), a global information technology services company, has been named "Entrepreneur of the Year" by the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he earned an MBA in 1981. Mr. Desai founded Syntel in 1980 with a $2,000 investment. Today, Syntel is publicly-traded on NASDAQ, has more than 5,000 employees in global centers around the world and a market capitalization in excess of $750 million. Syntel provides information technology solutions to leading corporations around the globe.

Dinyar Devitre
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Altria Group Inc.

Dinyar S. Devitre's career with the Altria family of companies began in 1970 at Godfrey Phillips India, Ltd., an affiliate of Philip Morris International (PMI) in Bombay, India. Later, he was assigned to Melbourne, Australia, where he served as Marketing Services Manager, Asia Pacific, for PMI. In 1974, Mr. Devitre was transferred to New York and appointed PMI's Regional Coordinator, Asia/Canada. Two years later, he returned to Godfrey Phillips India, Ltd., as General Manager. In 1980, Mr. Devitre was appointed Regional Director, PMI Asia, based in Hong Kong, and a year later was appointed a Vice President. In 1984, he was named President, PMI Asia.

Mr. Devitre returned to New York in 1990, where he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer, PMI. In September 1992, Mr. Devitre was named Executive Vice President, PMI, and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Philip Morris K.K., based in Tokyo, Japan. He was appointed Senior Vice President, Corporate Planning, Philip Morris Companies, in 1995. He was appointed to his current position in March 2002, after returning from a senior management position with Citigroup in Europe.

Born in Jamshedpur, India, Mr. Devitre earned a B.A. degree at St. Joseph's College in Darjeeling, India, and an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. Mr. Devitre is a member of the Board of Directors of Kraft Foods. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Lincoln Center, and is a Trustee of the Asia Society.

Seth Freeman
Chief Executive Officer, EM Capital Management, LLC and EM Capital, Inc.

Mr. Freeman is the co-founder and CEO of EM Capital Management, LLC, an emerging markets fund manager and sponsor of private funds investing in India.  EM Capital Management, LLC is a Registered Investment Advisor regulated by the SEC.  EM Capital India, based in New Delhi is managed by Mr. Dhruba Gupta, former Deputy Treasurer of the International Monetary Fund.  In addition to serving as the India platform for EM Capital Management's investment implementation, EM Capital India assists international firms, including funds, corporations, institutional and individual investors in entering India and in resolving complex cross-border situations.

Mr. Freeman is the founder of EM Capital, Inc., the emerging markets merchant-banking, restructuring and distressed assets advisor and turnaround manager.  He has over twenty-two years experience as an advisor, investor and senior executive of start-up, high-growth and troubled companies and real estate projects. Mr. Freeman is one of fewer than 700 Certified Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors in the world. He is a Director and Vice President of the Turnaround Management Association (TMA) Northern California Chapter and a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute and TMA International Committees and Associate Member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and founding sponsor of "INSOL World", the journal of INSOL International. He served as the 2001 Chairman of the Editorial Board of the "Journal of Corporate Renewal".  He regularly speaks at major investment conferences pertaining to emerging markets, private equity, insolvency and asset-based financing.  He has written numerous articles and has been quoted in leading business publications on these subjects. Mr. Freeman holds an MBA in International Management from Thunderbird.

Shiva Ganapathy
Managing Director, Citigroup

Mr. Shiva Ganapathy is presently a Managing Director with Citigroup in New York.  He has been a member of  the firm's Financial Markets business since 1988 and has held several key positions.  Mr. Ganapathy has considerable experience in international financial markets and has lived and worked in a number of countries. 

Mr. Ganapathy is keenly interested in market development and has been on several Central Bank committees, including those set up by the Reserve Bank of India, and has been consulted by IBRD, IMF, DFID, et al, in this regard.  He was also a founding member of the market development committee of the National Stock Exchange of India.  Mr. Ganapathy has spoken and written extensively on the subject and was a contributing author to capital market handbooks published by Euromoney and McGraw-Hill.
 
Mr. Ganapathy received his Bachelor's degree in Engineering with honors from Madras and a Master's degree in Industrial Engineering from NITIE, India.  In addition, he received a second Master’s degree in Finance from Carnegie Mellon University.  Mr. Ganapathy also attended the London School of Economics and is a recipient of the prestigious Chevening Scholarship for Leadership and Excellence, awarded by the British Foreign Office.

Abraham George
Founder, The George Foundation and Chairman, e-MedexOnline LLC

Dr. Abraham M. George is the founder and the principal benefactor of The George Foundation. Born in Kerala , India , and trained at the National Defence Academy in Kadakvasla (similar to West Point ), he served as an artillery officer in the Indian Army before being honorably discharged as a Captain. Subsequently, he migrated to the U.S. , and obtained an M.B.A in Economics, M.S. in Finance, and Ph.D. in International Finance and Banking from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Dr. George is currently the Chairman at eMedexOnline LLC, a medical diagnostic software company in the U.S. His professional career included: Chairman of Multinational Computer Models, Inc. (MCM), a financial software applications company he founded; a Vice Chairman at SunGard Data Systems, a New York Stock Exchange listed company that bought MCM; and a Managing Director at CS First Boston, a global investment bank.

After over 20 years of absence from India , Dr. George returned in 1995 to start several humanitarian projects. In order to have the freedom to carry out his ideas and concepts, and to demonstrate the obligation on the part of private individuals of financial means to make contributions to the needy segment of the society, he decided not to seek any external funding for his projects during the initial ten years of the foundation's activities. Now that several of the projects he has started have made a good beginning, The George Foundation is seeking additional funds from donors to expand its humanitarian work.

David Good
Chief Representative – North America, Tata Group

David Good joined the Tata Group as their North American representative in February 2005.  He joined the US State Department in 1971 after graduating in political science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. During his 34 years in the Foreign Service he served in the State Department, the US Information Agency and in diplomatic postings in India and West Asia . He was made the US consul general in Mumbai in 1999 and held the position until 2002. Good retired in 2004 as director of the Department's Washington DC Office of India, Nepal , Sri Lanka , Bhutan and Maldives Affairs.

Rajesh Hukku
Chief Executive Officer, i-flex solutions

Rajesh Hukku is Chairman and Managing Director of i-flex® solutions. Since 1992, he has led the transformation of i-flex solutions, from a player primarily in the emerging markets, into India's first global software product company.

For his role in scripting India's first global software product success story, he was conferred the prestigious Ernst & Young 'Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2002' in the Information Technology, Communications and Entertainment category. Hukku is the recipient of the Government of India's most prestigious IT award - 'The Dewang Mehta award for Innovation in IT'. He also received the 2004 Global Entrepolis Award, an honor bestowed on Asia's emerging technopreneur. More recently, for his contribution to IT transformation in Chile, he was conferred the 'Order Bernardo O Higgins - Great Official' - the highest civilian honor conferred on a foreign national by the Chilean Government.

Ritesh Idnani
Vice President and Chief Sales Officer, Progeon, An Infosys Company

Mr. Idnani heads the Global Sales Organization at Progeon and is based in Bridgewater, New Jersey. He has been with Infosys since 1999. In his last role at Infosys, he was the Sales Head for the Banking and Capital Markets vertical, Infosys’ largest business unit. Prior to Infosys, Ritesh set up the financial services risk management practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers and before that, spent several years with Citigroup in their corporate and investment bank.

As a member of the executive management team at Progeon, Ritesh is responsible for building and executing on the go-to-market strategies for Progeon’s business strategy. Ritesh also oversees the strategic business objectives of the company including new opportunities identification, market-led solutions development and monetization, sales strategy and customer relationship management. He brings to the table nearly a decade of experience in assisting global corporations choose processes to outsource, implement governance models and manage and drive the performance of their outsourcing relationships.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics and accounting and an MBA majoring in Finance and Marketing

Sandeep Kaujalgi
President and Chief Executive Officer, i-Vantage, Inc.

Sandeep Kaujalgi brings more than thirteen years of experience in driving P&L units, sales and marketing, offshore outsourcing, and strategic planning to i-Vantage. Sandeep's background includes experience with Siemens Ltd as a Strategic Planner and subsequently their Country Manager for Siemens Nixdorf in South Asia . Sandeep then moved to manage Business Development for Infosys Technologies Limited in their Canada and Eastern North America Division. As VP of Sales for Virtusa Corporation, Sandeep started the Enterprise Division and grew it to more than 50% of company revenue in less than 2 years. Sandeep was also the Regional Head for Syntel Inc for Northeast US & Canada .

Sandeep is the Founder & Chairman of Collabor Inc (a Intellectual Property led Services Company) and is on the Advisory board of The Boston Group (an eLearning Company).

Sandeep is a past member of the IT Advisory Council to the Government of Karnataka (Bangalore) and a current member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. He has written about and spoken on Offshore Outsourcing in many forums. Sandeep has a Master's degree in Management Studies and a Bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering.

Rajiv Khanna
Partner, Greenberg Traurig and President India - America Chamber of Commerce

Rajiv Khanna is a shareholder at Greenberg, Traurig LLP and focuses his practice on M&A, outsourcing transactions, corporate finance, project finance and general corporate work. Mr. Khanna is also President, India-America Chamber of Commerce, a bi-national chamber of commerce that is the focal point of U.S. investment into India. He routinely hosts visiting dignitaries from India, including the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister, other senior cabinet members, head of India's Federal Reserve Bank, and heads and high level representatives of almost all the major business houses of India.

Mr. Khanna is also regularly invited to speak at and chair many major conferences and seminars relating to cross border transactions. He was elected to the Executive Committee of the Delhi High Court Bar Association at the age of 23 and was the youngest person ever to hold that position.

Mr. Khanna has a bachelors degree in business and an LL.B. degree (an equivalent of JD) from University of Delhi, and has a Master of Law degree from University of Miami School of Law where he was first in his class.

Anil Kumar
Founder & Managing Partner, Virtus Global Partners

Anil Kumar is the founder and managing partner of Virtus Global Partners.  Over his career, he has helped over 60 companies with their growth and investment strategy including fundraising, M&A, investment banking and management consulting. Over the last year, Mr. Kumar has participated in several cross border private equity transactions in the travel, technology, auto-components and retail sector.

Prior to founding Virtus Global Partners, Mr. Kumar was a Principal with Jina Ventures where he specialized in deal structuring, valuation and investment opportunities identification for cross border transactions between US and India. Prior to this, he was a Director with Alvarez and Marsal, a turnaround and restructuring firm, where he implemented operational and financial restructuring services for clients. Before this, Mr. Kumar was a Senior Manager with KPMG Consulting where he led merger integration and turnaround engagements for media, telecommunication and finance companies including Bertelsmann, Sony, AOL and Time Warner. In this role he also implemented a $600 million royalty collection system for world’s largest performing rights society. Kumar received his Bachelors degree from Birla Institute of Technology in India and MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School.

Anjali Kumar
General Counsel, The Acumen Fund

Prior to joining Acumen Fund as General Counsel, Anjali Kumar served for three years as Associate Manager of Legal for the Robin Hood Foundation’s Management Assistance team. In addition to managing the legal needs of Robin Hood’s grant recipients, she provided management and technical assistance, strategic planning, board recruitment and board development services. Ms. Kumar was previously a corporate attorney with Shearman & Sterling, spending time in their London, New York, Paris and Rome offices and focusing on international corporate securities, project development and project finance work. She holds a BA in Biomedical Ethics from Brown University & a JD from Boston University School of Law.

Sreedhar Menon
Chairman, Viteos Capital Market Services Limited
Former Deputy President and Member of the Board of American Express Bank Ltd.

Sreedhar Menon is currently Chairman of the Board , Strategic Advisor and an equity partner of VITEOS Capital Market Services Limited, who provides knowledge based and full fledged administrative services and end to end solutions to the Hedge Fund Industry.
 
Mr. Menon’s previous engagements were as a Partner and Vice Chairman of RRE Ventures, LLC (RRE), a venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurial information technology companies, as Managing Director in the Emerging Markets Group at Lehman Brothers Inc, New York, NY,  and as Deputy President and a Member of the Board of American Express Bank Ltd, with whom he had an International career spanning 34 years.

Mr. Menon has served as a Member of the Board of Directors of U.S.-India Business Council, Asean-U.S. Business Council and as President of India-America Chamber of Commerce in New York.  Currently, Mr. Menon is a Member of the International Advisory Board of the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Menon is the Sponsor of the Jagdish Bhagwati Chair in Indian Political
Economy at Columbia University in the City of New York and the Founder of the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a Member of the Board of Trustees of George Foundation Inc, New Jersey, a public charity engaged in the alleviation of poverty in India through education, employment, empowerment of women and promotion of health and clean environment.
Mr. Menon received his Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Kerala, India in 1959.

Joydeep Mukherji
Director, Sovereign Ratings Group, Standard & Poor's

Joydeep Mukherji joined the Sovereign Group of Standard & Poor's in 1996 and works with credit ratings in Asia and the Western Hemisphere . Prior to joining Standard & Poor's, he worked for five years in both corporate and investment banking in Canada with CIBC Wood Gundy, working mainly with asset securitization. He has also worked as an economic consultant to the Asian Development Bank in the Philippines and briefly as a financial journalist with the Globe and Mail in Canada . After graduation, he worked as an Intern in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and subsequently as an aide to the Treasurer of Ontario.Joydeep received his B.A. (Economics) from the University of Toronto and his Master's in Public Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in Princeton University. He speaks French, Spanish, and Bengali.

Suresh Nichani
Chief Operating Officer, Niteo Partners

Suresh Nichani is the Chief Operating Officer of Niteo Partners. He founded Exinom Technologies, Inc. in 1995 and served as the company's President and CEO until it's November 2003 acquisition by NEC Solutions ( America ), which merged Exinom with Niteo Partners.

Mr. Nichani is one of the early visionaries to recognize the enormous potential of business intelligence and the Internet and how they would transform the way business is conducted in the new global economy. As a result, he has been recognized for his leadership in the industry for both his personal and technical contributions.

Prior to Exinom, Mr. Nichani was a program manager for Cincinnati Bell Information Systems, where he leveraged his years of experience in telecommunications and systems integration. He also held the position of Vice President of Sales and Marketing for ITC Infotech, a subsidiary of the ITC group of companies. It was there that his vision for Enterprise Intelligence took shape, leading to the founding of Exinom.

Kavuru Samba Siva (K.S.) Rao
Member of Parliament, Andhra Pradesh India

Mr. Rao has spent over 20 years addressing the economic, cultural and social issues facing the people of India, specifically the state of Andhra Pradesh (AP). Mr. Rao was fist elected in 1984 to the Lok Sabha, and is currently serving as an member of parliament (MP) for his 4th term. During these years, he as served in numerous committees including: All India Congress Committee, Executive Council, All India Youth Congress (AICC), Committee on Subordinate Legislation, Committee on Estimates, House Committee, Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee, Ministry of Finance’s Consultative Committee, Standing Committee on Finance, Ministry of Surface Transport’s consultative committee, and Consultative Committee of Petroleum & Natural Gas. He has represented India as a member of the delegation to U.N. General Assembly, in 1987; AICC delegation to China in 1991; and delegation of friends of Soviet Union in 1987.

He is the chairman of several trusts, including Kavuru Charitable Trust, Gudivada and Progressive Educational Trust, that promotes social welfare throughout Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Rao has personally donated resources to increase the availability of clean drinking water and health care services in impoverished areas.

Mahesh Saladi
Chief Financial Officer, First Atlantic Capital

Mahesh Saladi began his career in 1978 and held various positions with Dredging Corporation of India, a government of India undertaking, and Editing Concepts and Subsidiaries, a New York-based firm. Prior to accepting a full time position with First Atlantic in 1992, Mr. Saladi was a Vice President and Senior Consultant at RKB Consulting Group, Inc. and provided services to First Atlantic as a consultant since 1989. Mr. Saladi holds a master's degree in Accounting and Banking.  
In 1998 Mr. Saladi founded Softnet International, LLC, a technology and business solutions which Mr. Saladi currently holds the title of Chairman and President. The company that spans two continents, with a major presence in the United States (New York) and India and has since made significant investments in technological and telecommunications infrastructure to ensure adequate capacity to sustain growing business needs.

Mr. Saladi is actively involved in the structuring of investments in India and has established extensive relationship with India’s leading conglomerates and prominent industrialists.  Mr. Saladi is a member of Council of Foreign Relations, Private Equity CFO Association, as well as the TiE Tri-State organization.

Sanjeev Sanyal
Director, Global Economic Research, Deutsche Bank

Mr Sanjeev Sanyal is an Adjunct Research Fellow at IPS. He has spent the last decade studying Asia's emerging economies and financial markets. He is currently based in Singapore as Director, Global Markets Research at Deutsche Bank. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank in 1997, he worked as an economist with Societe Generale-Crosby. He also maintains a number of other attachments: he is a Director of the Green Accounting for Indian States Project; Chief Regional Advisor, Asia-Pacific to the John Templeton Foundation; Advisor to Aavishkaar (a micro-venture capital fund).

Mr Sanyal has a BA(Hons) from Delhi University and two Masters' degrees from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
Publication include:
"Demographics, Savings and Hyper-growth", Sanjeev Sanyal, Global Markets Research, Deutsche Bank July 2005

Singapore: Asia’s Global City?, Sanjeev Sanyal, in Manu Bhaskaran, ed., Proceedings of Fourth Singapore Economic Roundtable, Institute of Policy Studies, 2005

The Value of Timber, Carbon, Fuelwood and Non-Timber Forest Products in India's Forests, Sanjeev Sanyal, Sinha, Sukhdev and Gudimeda, GIASP Monograph 1, The Energy & Resources Institute, 2005

Foreign Inflows & Macroeconomic Policy in India, Sanjeev Sanyal and Vijay Joshi, in Barry Bosworth et al, eds., India Policy Forum Vol. 1, Brookings Institution & NCAER, 2004

India's Changing Households, Sanjeev Sanyal, Global Markets Research, Deutsche Bank, 2004

Michael Schneider
Executive Vice President, Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc.

Professionally, Mr. Schneider is widely recognized as a visionary in the field of infrastructure development. He has been at the forefront of the infrastructure industry's activities in public-private partnerships and privatization, and has directed a number of highly innovative transportation infrastructure delivery and procurement programs. Under his leadership, Parsons Brinckerhoff was instrumental in the development of the State Route 125 Tollway in San Diego , California , the first new privately owned and operated toll road in the western U.S.

Mr. Schneider has worked throughout the United States , the Middle East, Latin America, Europe and Southeast Asia . His expertise in the planning and development of transportation systems and facilities has been applied to corridor studies and feasibility assessments, alternatives analyses, investment strategies, economic and financial evaluations, and large-scale transportation improvement plans. He has worked extensively in highway and toll road development, urban mass transit (bus and rail), and in the development of innovative financing programs for infrastructure.

Mr. Schneider has a master's degree in urban and regional planning and a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles . He has written extensively on delivery methods, planning issues, and innovative financing for major infrastructure, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences.

Ron Shah
Founder and Managing Partner of Jina Ventures, Inc.

Mr. Shah is the founder and managing partner of Jina Ventures Inc, a leading private equity firm and investment bank focused on US-India transactions. In the last year, Jina Ventures participated in a variety of blockbuster private equity deals in India including MakeMyTrip.com, UMA Precision, Liners India and Universal Transformers. Jina Ventures has recently announced a major partnership with HWL Limited to bring Japanese Capital to India Private Equity.

Prior to founding Jina, Mr. Shah was with Trenwith Securities, where he successfully advised HP, Kodak and other Fortune 20 clients on international acquisitions and divestitures. Prior to Trenwith, Mr. Shah served as Principal at a $500 million hedge fund where he led over 45 private equity investments in US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Mr. Shah currently sits on the Board of Directors of "Third Eye Emerging Capital Limited", a SEBI registered FII platform for investing in Indian public securities. In addition, he sits on the Board of Directors of JC MedDev USA, Good Karma USA and Amtrex International India. Mr. Shah has his MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Sonal Shah
Vice President Goldman Sachs, Founder Indicorps, India Abroad "Person of the Year"

Ms. Shah is currently a Vice President at Goldman, Sachs and Co. She is also co-founder of Indicorps ( www.Indicorps.org ), a U.S.-based non-profit organization offering one-year fellowships for Americans of Indian origin to work on specific development projects in India. Indicorps designs and develops projects with local organizations in advance to maximize the impact and to foster an exchange of ideas and expertise. Indicorps' aim is to cultivate a new generation of Indian-American leaders in the United States that have a better understanding of India , can understand the challenges of development and be the catalysts for change.  

Sonal Shah was the Associate Director for Economic and National Security Policy at the Center for American Progress. She worked on trade, outsourcing and post conflict reconstruction issues. Prior to joining the Center, she was the Director of Programs and Operations at the Center for Global Development managing the daily operations and serving as a strategic adviser to the president. She also developed and managed policy and advocacy programs for the Center. Before that she worked for eight years at the Department of Treasury on various economic issues and regions of the world. She was the Director of the office covering sub Saharan Africa, worked in Bosnia and Kosovo after the war, and served as the senior adviser to the Under Secretary and Assistant Secretary at the Department of Treasury during the Asian financial crisis.

Ajay Sharma
Director, Merrill Lynch, Private Equity Group

Ajay Sharma is a Director in Merrill Lynch’s Private Equity Group. He has originated and led fund raising mandates for private equity firms in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Mr. Sharma has worked with some of the top general partners around the globe including: Terra Firma Capital Partners, Capital Royalty Partners, TDR Capital, ICG Capital, Crimson Asia, MD Sass, Avista Capital Partners, H&Q Asia Pacific, Ripplewood Partners, Sterling Stamos, and Merrill Lynch, among others. Mr. Sharma has been with Merrill Lynch since 1995 and was formerly with Merrill Lynch’s Asset Backed Finance Group. Mr. Sharma received a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Rutgers College (with Honors) and an M.B.A. in Finance from Columbia Business School (with Honors). Before receiving his M.B.A., Mr. Sharma was a Senior Consultant with Andersen Consulting.

Medini Singh
Associate Professor, Columbia Business School, Columbia University

Professor Singh comes to the School from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. At Tuck, Singh taught the MBA core course in operations management for the last six years. He has also taught MBA electives on time-based competition and simulation modeling. Singh has also taught in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he won the 1991 Teacher of the Year Award. His research interests are in the areas of modeling, analysis and optimization of manufacturing and service systems. His current research focuses on the impact of demand and supply uncertainties on the performance of supply chains. Singh has published numerous articles on the impact of yield, demand and supply uncertainties on the performance of manufacturing systems. He has also consulted for several Fortune 500 companies.

Sreenath Sreenivasan
Dean, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University

Mr. Sreenivasan is a journalism educator at Columbia University and an expert on convergence journalism - teaching journalists to work in multiple media formats such as print, TV, radio and online.

In July 2005, he became Dean of Students at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism , overseeing student affairs. In this, his 13th year of teaching, he continues to run, and teach in, the new media/Web journalism program . He also teaches workshops in "Smarter Surfing: Better Use of Your Web Time" in newsrooms and educational institutions around the US and abroad. In the New York City area, Mr. Sreenivasan can be seen regularly on WABC-7 -- every Thursday at 6:20 a.m. for the station's "Tech Guru" segments, discussing technology trends and gadgets on "Eyewitness News This Morning" and every Saturday morning at 7:45 for "Sree's Top Three". In April 2002, he hosted and co-produced a half-hour WABC documentary about technology called "Computers 101." He guest hosts segments of "Asian America" on PBS, a nationally syndicated English program about Asian American affairs.

As a freelance journalist, he has written for The New York Times, Business Week, Popular Science, Time Digital, National Journal, India Today, Newsday, Bloomberg, Forbes.com, Sesame Street Parents, Rolling Stone. He has been published in several other periodicals, including the Fiji Sun (in which he got his first byline at 15), and has been a freelance producer for the "Nightly Business Report" on PBS and a reporter and editor in India for The Sunday Observer and Business Today.

Mr. Sreenivasan has a Master of Science degree in journalism from Columbia; a Bachelor of Arts in history from St. Stephen's College, Delhi; a high school diploma from Marist Brothers High School in the Fiji Islands; a sixth-grade diploma from P.S. 6 in Manhattan; a kindergarten diploma from Mosow; and a birth certificate from a Catholic hospital in Tokyo.

Thoranath Sukumaran
Senior Vice President, Financial Advisor, Morgan Stanley

Mr. Sukumaran holds a Masters in Economics and P.G. Diploma in banking from the Institute of Bankers, London.  He has worked in the financial services industry for  over 20 years, including some of the major international financial centers like, New York, London, Dubai and Mumbai.  Before joining Morgan Stanley, Mr. Sukumaran held positions with Citigroup and American Express Bank, mainly in wealth management and corporate finance.  He has been working with High Net Worth families providing solutions to all of their financial needs and with “Middle Market” corporations in their efforts to raise growth capital and globalize operations.

Paul E. Tierney
Associate Professor, Columbia Business School, Columbia University

Paul E. Tierney, Jr., is an investment professional who has spent his life in various forms of international, entrepreneurial finance. After serving as a Peace Corps volunteer and graduating as a Baker scholar (MBA) from the Harvard Business School, he helped establish a venture-capital business in New York and later moved to London as a founding principal of a major European merchant bank. Subsequently, he became a partner in the U.S. investment banking firm of White Weld & Co., which was acquired by Merrill Lynch in 1978. At that point, Mr. Tierney cofounded the predecessor of his current equity investment firm, Darwin Capital Partners, managing a spectrum of hedge funds and operating investments in Latin America and the United States. One of these was Coniston Partners, a large strategic block-investment partnership. Mr. Tierney is a director of United Airlines and Liz Claiborne and has previously been the chairman or a director of other public companies as well as a number of educational and philanthropic entities. His primary not-for-profit activity is that of chairman of TechnoServe, an international economic development organization in Africa and Latin America. Areas of interest: economic development in the third world, education, entrepreneurship, and reading and discussing the classics.

V. N. "Tiger" Tyagarajan
Executive Vice President, Genpact

Mr. Tyagarajan is credited as one of the pioneers who transformed GE Capital International Services (now Genpact) into a high-end business services and technology solutions company that today serves global enterprises in the banking & finance, insurance, manufacturing, transportation and business-services sectors. In 1999 he became CEO of Genpact, significantly expanding its service offerings and operations. In October 2002, he transferred within GE to its multibillion-dollar Commercial Equipment Finance division, serving as Senior Vice President, Six Sigma and Global Operations. Mr. Tyagarajan rejoined Genpact in February 2005 as Executive Vice President and is based in New York City.

Mr. Tyagarajan began his career with the Unilever Group in India, then joined Citibank as VP & Auto Business Director, Global Consumer Banking. He came to GE in 1994 as General Manager - Risk Management at Countrywide and went on to become CEO for GE Capital's Global Consumer Finance & Auto Financial Services operations in India.

Mr. Tyagarajan has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and an MBA, majoring in Finance and Marketing, from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. 

Sandeep Tyagi
Managing Principal and Founder, Inductis

Sandeep Tyagi, Managing Principal and Founder of Management Consulting and Outsourcing firm–Inductis, has been responsible for setting the firm’s direction, sustaining a winning culture and developing new business opportunities since 2000. Inductis, since then, with its unique mix of world-class business consulting and state-of-the-science analytical capabilities & infrastructure has been helping diversified financial services companies in the areas of marketing optimization and risk management. The firm serves a range of industries, and is committed to an innovative model of sharing risk and rewards with clients. Inductis has a 100 people strong base in India to support its clients’ growing need for high-quality, low-cost analytics.

Mr. Tyagi has been advising Fortune 100 clients and executives at leading companies about high-end analytics, outsourcing, marketing strategy and technology for more than a decade. Prior to founding Inductis, he was a partner at the Mitchell Madison Group (MMG), an eminent global strategy consulting firm. He was the leader of MMG’s Pricing and Product Design Practice and co-leader of the eCommerce Practice.  While at MMG, Sandeep led strategy engagements in the areas of investment optimization, risk analytics, reengineering and new product development.

Marketing Partners: