Atul Nishar
Founder & Executive Chairman, Hexaware Technologies

Atul Nishar has rich experience in promoting, setting up and managing information technology companies. He is the driving force of the group's strategic direction and marketing focus and under his leadership, Hexaware Technologies, which he founded in 1990, has grown into a multi-million dollar global software services and solutions corporation. He founded Aptech Limited in 1985 (and was the Chairman till recently when the promoter's stake was divested), which has now grown into a leading global IT Training company spread across 52 countries. He is also a Co-Founder of Infinity Technology Investments Pvt. Ltd. - a leading Venture Capital Fund.

As an active and known figure of the Indian IT industry, Atul Nishar has been associated with NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Service Companies, the apex body of software and service companies in India ) for several years in various capacities and became its Chairman for Year 2000. He continues to be on the Executive Council of NASSCOM. He is also a Charter Member of The Indus Enterpreneurs (TiE), a Member on the Government of Maharashtra Chief Minister's Steering Committee on Information Technology and Biotechnology, and an Expert Member on the Information Technology Committee of Indian Merchants Chamber (2002-2003).

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Sujit Banerjee
Partner, BlueRun Ventures

Sujit Banerjee joined BlueRun Ventures in February 2003 and is based in Menlo Park , where he focuses on semiconductor, material science and energy companies.He is also active in exploring investment opportunities in India. Sujit is on the Board of Directors of CyOptics, Deeya Energy, MagSil, NexPlanar, Petra Solar and SliceX.

Prior to joining BlueRun Ventures, Sujit was a Principal with TL Ventures and previous to that worked as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch in the Global Technology Group. Past experience includes positions as Manager in the PriceWaterhouse High Technology consulting practice and Engineer with Synoptics Communications.

Sujit received his M.B.A. from the Wharton Business School , where he was Chairman of the Wharton India Economic Forum, and holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with Eta Kappa Nu academic honors.

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Venetia Kontogouris
Managing Director, Trident Capital

Venetia Kontogouris has been associated with Trident Capital since 1995. She joined Trident Capital in 1999 as a Managing Director. Prior to Trident, Venetia was an executive from 1983 to 1995 of Dun & Bradstreet Corporation and related entities including IMS Health Incorporated and Cognizant Corporation. She was also President of Enterprise Associates, LLC, the venture capital division of IMS Health Incorporated, where she represented Enterprise Associates in respect of its partnership interest in Information Associates and Information Associates-II (Trident's Fund II and Fund III). Prior to that, Venetia was Senior Vice President, Venture Development, at Cognizant Corporation, where she represented Cognizant in the Information Partners Capital Fund formed by Dun & Bradstreet and Bain Capital. Venetia has held executive positions in new product development and marketing at D&B and sales management positions at AT&T and IBM. She has also launched her own start-up telecommunications company.

Venetia 's current directorships include Advantec, DepotPoint, Elucido, Infotrieve, Invention Machine Corporation, Lifesnapz, Microland, MingleBox, Neilsoft, Outsource Partners International, Odyssey Logistics & Technologies and Teranode.

Venetia earned her B.A. from Northeastern University and her M.B.A. from the University Of Chicago Graduate School Of Business . Venetia serves as a member of the Board of Overseers at Northeastern University .

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Kapil Viswanathan
CEO, PreMedia Global

Kapil oversees growth strategies, sales, and finance for PreMedia Global, which he founded in 2005 .    PreMedia Global (PMG), is a leading provider of end-to-end content solutions for the publishing market. PMG combines functional expertise, technology and global resources to provide cutting-edge offerings across key market segments. With 800 people across 5 locations in the U.S. and India, PMG represents over 50 years of publishing services experience     Kapil's past experience includes leading global sales for a business unit of Tata Consultancy Services , where the effectiveness of his strategies earned him a place in the corporate Think Tank. He holds a Masters Degree in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School

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Prashant Agrawal
Founder, Indipepal.com

Prashant Agrawal started Indipepal.com in June of 2008. Indipepal is India's first social portal with deep content on politics, defense and the non-profit sector. With offices in Bangalore and Mumbai, Indipepal has grown to over thirty people and become India's top political website.

Prior to Indipepal, Prashant led Asian investments for a US based hedge fund. He was based in Mumbai and invested in markets between Dubai and Hong Kong. Prashant began his career in the NYC office of McKinsey and Company and moved with them to Mumbai in 2002. During his McKinsey tenure he was actively involved in the non-profit sector. He served as the first project leader of the American Indian Foundation and was instrumental in its development. He also led the team that developed the blueprint for the India entry strategy for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Prashant also is a contributing editor to GQ India and their business columnist. He also occasionally writes columns for the WSJ. His Op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, the Times of India, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, DNA, and the Mint.

Prashant graduated with a JD/MBA from Columbia University and received an undergrad degree from Columbia University.

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Prof. Amar Bhide
Lawrence D. Glaubinger Professor of Business, Columbia Business School

Amar Bhidé is the author of The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World , (Princeton University Press 2008) and The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses (Oxford 2000), Bhidé been studying entrepreneurship for about twenty years.

Bhidé is a Member of the Center on Capitalism and Society and spearheaded the launch of its eponymous journal, Capitalism and Society (published by the Berkeley Electronic Press) which he now edits (with Prof. Edmund Phelps). He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) .

Bhidé served on the faculties of Harvard Business School (from 1988 to 2000) and the University of Chicago 's Graduate School of Business. A former Senior Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company and Vice President at E.F. Hutton, Bhidé served on the staff of the Brady Commission which investigated the stock market crash. Bhidé earned a DBA (1988) and an MBA with high distinction as a Baker Scholar (1979) from Harvard. He received a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1977.

Bhidé has several publications in the areas of entrepreneurship, strategy, financial markets and firm governance. His eight Harvard Business Review articles include "Efficient Markets, Deficient Governance," "How entrepreneurs craft strategies that work," "Bootstrap Finance: the Art of Start-ups," and "Hustle as Strategy." His work on financial markets and governance includes "The Hidden Costs of Stock Market Liquidity" in the Journal of Financial Economics and articles in the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance. Other publications include Of Politics and Economic Reality (Basic Books: 1984) and numerous articles in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The LA Times.

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Vinod Bhat
Co-founder & CEO, Saavn and Managing Partner, [212 Media]

Vinodh Bhat is a co-founder and a Managing Partner of [212]MEDIA, which owns and operates a portfolio of new media ventures serving niche, underserved or fragmented audience segments.

Saavn brings the best of Bollywood and Indian entertainment to the world. As the largest digital distributor in Bollywood, Saavn owns the digital rights to thousands of movies, music tracks, music videos, ringtones and graphics. Saavn programs, packages and distributes its exclusive catalog and new Bollywood releases to more than 75 global media companies including Time Warner Cable, Verizon Wireless and Apple's iTunes. Saavn is a joint venture of [212]MEDIA and Hungama Mobile, and the company has offices in Mumbai, London, New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto.

Vinodh began his career at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ), where his experiences centered on advising and financing media & telecom companies such as Voyager, Earthlink, and AT&T. After DLJ, he co-founded and served as Director, Sales & Business Development of Simile, a new media software and services company that advised the business units of Time Warner, McClatchy, Scripps, and Hearst.

He graduated from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia with a B.S. in Finance and Marketing and was an Echols Scholar.

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Mira Kamdar
Author, Planet India

Award-winning author Mira Kamdar's latest book is Planet India : The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World (Scribner 2008). The book has been translated and published in Hindi, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, French and Chinese. The French edition, published by Actes Sud in January 2008, was translated by Andre Lewin, former French ambassador to India and translator of Pavan Varma's Being Indian. Kamdar's critically acclaimed memoir, Motiba's Tattoos: A Granddaughter's Journey from America into her Indian Family's Past was a 2000 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection and won the 2002 Washington Book Award.

Mira Kamdar's work has appeared in publications around the world, including Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, World Policy Journal, Times of India, Daily News & Analysis, Outlook, Tehelka, The Guardian online and YaleGlobal, the online publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. She has provided expert commentary and been interviewed for radio and television outlets as diverse as CNN International, Bloomberg TV, the BBC, National Public Radio, TV Ontario, Public Radio International, Headlines Today, South Asia World, and TV Asia.

Mira Kamdar is a 2008 Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society in New York and a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute. She is a regular speaker at high-level international gatherings, and has addressed audiences on India and global affairs at venues as diverse as the Asia Society in New York and in Mumbai, J.P. Morgan Private Bank, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, the University of Washington School of Business, Lehman Brothers, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Altria, the Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, and various World Affairs Council chapters.

Mira Kamdar was born in Seattle , Washington . She received her B.A. from Reed College (Phi Beta Kappa), and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley . She was a Thomas J. Watson Fellow in 1980 and a Danforth Graduate Fellow in 1981-85. She has lived in France , Japan , South Korea and India , and is fluent in French and Hindi. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

Kamdar is represented for speaking engagements by American Program Bureau (www.apbspeakers.com). Her literary agent is Sterling Lord, Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. (www.sll.com).

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Sharad Devarajan
Co-Founder, CEO & Publisher of Virgin Comics LLC and Virgin Animation Pvt. Ltd

Mr. Sharad Devarajan was the Co-Founder, CEO & Publisher of Virgin Comics LLC and Virgin Animation Pvt. Ltd, a set of companies he originally founded with Sir Richard Branson, author Deepak Chopra and filmmaker Shekhar Kapur. Recently Mr. Devarajan, alongside his partners, Gotham Chopra and Suresh Seetharaman completed a management buyout of Virgin Comics and renamed the Company, Liquid Comics (www.LiquidComics.com). Mr. Devarajan oversees all aspects of the Company's business and worldwide operations. Similar to Japanese Manga and anime, the Company's mission is to redefine a new wave of Indian themed character entertainment and permeate this new vision to audiences around the world. The Company uses the medium of comic book publishing as its development vehicle to incubate intellectual properties for theatrical live-action films, animation, merchandise and gaming. Beyond Indian themed content, the Company also creates new stories for multiple media platforms with leading filmmakers, actors, musicians and personalities including Deepak Chopra, Shekhar Kapur, John Woo, Guy Ritchie, Hugh Jackman, Ed Burns, Dave Stewart, Nicolas Cage, Sachin Tendulkar, John Mostow, Duran Duran and more.

Mr. Devarajan is also a Producer / Executive Producer on a number of theatrical live-action film projects based on Virgin's comic properties including, The Sadhu; the Warner Bros. film adaptation of Gamekeeper with director Guy Ritchie and producer Joel Silver; Virulents with New Regency and Twentieth Century Fox and The Leaves with Summit Entertainment. He is also a Creative Director on the upcoming MMO game being developed by Sony Online Entertainment based on Virgin's hit comic series, Ramayan 3392 A.D.

Prior to Virgin, Mr. Devarajan was Co-Founder & CEO of Gotham Entertainment Group, South Asia 's leading comic publisher that pioneered the South Asian publishing activities for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Cartoon Network and Warner Bros. In 2004, Mr. Devarajan worked with Marvel to reinvent Spider-Man as an Indian boy growing up in Mumbai. Unlike traditional translations of western characters into foreign markets, the new series, “Spider-Man: India ” was heralded as the industry's first “trans-creation” sparking a trend in “reverse globalization” for character entertainment companies.

For his accomplishments, Mr. Devarajan was featured as CNNfn's 'Maverick in The Morning' and profiled in numerous media including Businessweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and NPR's Fresh Air. He holds a BFA from Syracuse University and an MBA from Columbia University .

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Angela Chitkara
Founder & CEO, US-India Corridor

Angela Chitkara is Founder and CEO of US-India Corridor, a media strategy and public relations consultancy firm that focuses on international companies with India exposure.

She has trained and worked as a television journalist for more than a decade in the United States , London , South Africa , Singapore , and India , serving in various roles from a News Associate to News Editor. Angela served as a News Editor and anchored and reported on the global markets for CNBC in Mumbai. She managed daily editorial meetings and set up the first multilingual local and international assignment desks for CNBC in India . CNBC bureaus around the world were able to depict a more current and accurate story of an emerging India and its role in the global economy.

She has served as a political researcher to the late Louis Rukeyser during the 2000 US Presidential Election cycle and co produced the 2004 US Presidential Elections from Singapore for CNBC Asia. She produced the first LIVE hit on the Tsunami for the NBC network from India in 2004. In 2006, she produced the Mumbai blasts coverage for the NBC network globally. In November, 2008, she provided LIVE commentary on MSNBC during the Mumbai Attacks.

Angela holds a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University 's School of International and Public Affairs. She also contributes as a volunteer to Pratham USA , one of India 's largest non-profit organizations, in raising awareness about their Read India Initiative.

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Anjula Acharya
Co-Founder & CEO, Desi Hits!

Anjula is "the" face of Desi Hits! and serves as spokeswoman for the company.   Her extensive experience in the fields of advertising and recruiting, and an ear for music, position her well to propel Desi Hits! into the public eye.   Anjula was a founding partner of the Forsyth Group Executive Venture Search North America, where she led strategy and delivery for the emerging technologies practice.   Prior to this, she co-founded Merchant McKenzie, a new media and entertainment search firm, and placed talent for companies such as Walt Disney Internet Group and Universal Pictures International.   As an associate director at TMP Worldwide, heading up IT and HR divisions in London , Anjula managed sizable teams, P & L responsibilities, and worked strategically with the CEO and board on the development and direction for Monster.com .  She launched her career at one of the most distinguished B2B publishing houses in the UK and transitioned into search when recruited by Mercer Gray, a tech-focused senior-level executive search firm.

Anjula holds a B.A. with Honors in Theatre Arts and Communications from Middlesex University . She enjoys writing and just completed her first fiction novel about the second generation South Asian experience.

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Aseem Chhabra
Board Member, South Asian Journalists Association

Aseem Chhabra is a freelance writer in New York City who writes on a variety of topics, but focuses on entertainment and arts stories. He serves on the board of SAJA (South Asian Journalists Association).

Aseem has been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Time Out New York and The Courier Journal. He contributes to several Indian-American publications, including India Abroad, and its sister website, Rediff.com, and he writes a weekly New York column for Mumbai Mirror. His byline has appeared in India in The Telegraph, The Hindustan Times, The Times of India, India Today and the Indian edition of Cosmopolitan.

Over the years, Aseem has interviewed an assorted mix of people, especially in the arts -- Satyajit Ray, Om Puri, Mira Nair, Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar, Ismail Merchant, Gurinder Chadha, Yash Chopra, Subhash Ghai, Padma Lakshmi, James Ivory, Richard Gere, Glenn Close, Forest Whitaker, Costa Gavras, Gael Garcia Bernal, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Vikram Seth and Rohinton Mistry.

He has covered the South Asian community in North America from the mid-1980s, during the heyday of the Khalistan movement, to the hate crimes following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

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Euan Rellie
Founder and Sr. Managing Director, Business Development Asia LLC .

Euan Rellie is joint founder and Senior Managing Director and is based in New York. Since founding BDA in 1996, Mr. Rellie has been based in Singapore, New York and London and has worked across China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, India and the Middle East. From 1990 to 1996 he worked in the Corporate Finance Department of Schroders, the leading UK investment bank now part of Citigroup, and was based in New York, London and Singapore. For most of this period, Mr. Rellie worked on behalf of Western multinationals, assisting them in their international development.

In 1995 and 1996, he was Head of SE Asia Execution for Schroders' Asia-Pacific Regional Advisory Group. Mr. Rellie's clients in Asia have included BUPA, DuPont, Hanjin, ICI, Intel, Kraft Foods, Lubrizol, Nalco, Parker Hannifin, Philip Morris, Reuters, Rohm and Haas, Sara Lee and Tenneco. He was educated at Eton College and Cambridge University (BA Hons, History) and is a Corporate Finance Specialist Registered Representative.

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Anil Kumar
Managing Director, Virtus Global

Anil Kumar is the Founder and Managing Director of Virtus Global Partners. Mr. Kumar brings over 14 years of experience advising mid to large size companies with their growth and investment strategy. He specializes in cross border mergers and acquisition advisory, investment banking and management consulting.

Mr. Kumar's representative experience at Virtus Global Partners include: leading the purchase of Samuels Jewelers on behalf of Gitanjali Gems, debt financing for Ultra Stores, sale of Front Office Technologies to Glodyne, India entry strategy for Jean Claude Biguine and fund advisory for 13i Capital. He has participated in several other cross border transactions between US and India in the retail, technology and auto-components sector.

Prior to Virtus Global Partners, Mr. Kumar was a Director with Alvarez & Marsal LLC, where he implemented financial and operational restructuring services for energy and textile clients such as NEGT and Warnaco. Before this, he was a Senior Manager with KPMG Consulting where he led merger integration engagements for media and finance companies including Bertelsmann, Sony, AOL and Time Warner.

Mr. Kumar holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School and a BE from the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, India.

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Inder Soni
Principal & Senior Analyst, Porter Orlin LLC

Porter Orlin is a global value-oriented long/short equity fund. Inder joined Porter Orlin in 2004 from The Chatterjee Group, a former Soros affiliate where he focused on India related investments. Prior to TCG, he was with ZSC a venture capital firm and with McKinsey and Company in its New York Office. Inder began his career with Exabyte, a data storage provider to IBM, Hewlett Packard, and Sun Microsystems. He holds a BS and MS degree in Engineering from The University of Michigan, and an MBA with Beta Gamma Sigma honors, from Columbia Business School. He was born in India and graduated from high school in Thailand.

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Ashish Chugh
Investment Professional, Bay Pond Hedge Fund

Ashish Chugh is an investment professional at Bay Pond Partners, a $1.5B hedge fund within the Wellington Management Company, a Boston based investment management firm with over $400B of capital under management. Prior to Wellington, Ashish worked as an Associate at the Blue Chip Venture Company, a venture capital/private equity firm. Before business school, Ashish worked as an engineer at IBM in Toronto and Hitachi in Tokyo.

Ashish has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelors of Applied Sciences in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

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Prof. Partha Mohanram
Philip H. Geier Jr. Associate Professor of Business, Columbia Business School

Professor Mohanram's research has been published in the leading academic journals including the Accounting Review , Journal of Accounting Research , Journal of Accounting and Economics and the Review of Accounting Studies . His research focuses on the valuation of stocks, corporate disclosure and earnings management. His research has examined the valuation of Internet stocks, the calculation of cost of capital, the use of fundamental information in the valuation of growth stocks and the manipulation of earnings to maximize executive compensation. He has also studied the impact of Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD) on the functioning of financial analysts. His research has been cited often in the business press and he has appeared on CNBC to discuss his research on growth stocks. He serves on the editorial board of the Accounting Review . Mohanram teaches financial statement analysis to MBAs and executive MBAs, with an emphasis on exposing students to the potential manipulations of financial statements. He also teaches in Columbia's executive education programs. He is currently the coordinator of doctoral program for the accounting group, and has served on the dissertation committees of several students.

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Nishith Acharya
Executive Director, Deshpande Foundation

Nishith Acharya is Executive Director of the Deshpande Foundation, a prominent American philanthropy focused on economic development, health and education in India and the United States. Nishith leads the Foundation's strategic planning, grant making, evaluation and advocacy efforts for a wide array of causes, issues and partner organizations. Foundation projects include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Indian Institute of Technology, Public Health Foundation of India, Ashoka Fellows programs and the "Sandbox", an innovative foundation development lab. Nishith is a US Board Member of the Akshaya Patra Foundation, the world's largest non-profit school lunch program and also a Foundation partner.

Nishith was previously Chief Executive Officer of Youth Tech Entrepreneurs, a non-profit that developed technology and business education curriculum for students at the high school level. During his tenure as CEO, YTE grew from 400 students to well over 1500, and published three innovative curriculums that teach students project management and entrepreneurship in the areas of web design, networking and Java programming.

Nishith also served five years as a Presidential Appointee in the Clinton Administration, where he worked with the Administrator and Deputy Administrator of the US Agency for International Development, managing scheduling and logistics, while also managing outreach for USAID programs in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, and initiating an effort to utilize the Internet to improve international disaster assistance. Nishith also worked for Education Secretary Richard Riley on literacy initiatives and as Associate Director of Scheduling & Advance for the President's Office of Scheduling & Advance. Prior to serving in the Clinton Administration, Nishith was appointed to the Massachusetts Governor's Advisory Commission on Immigrants and Refugees during Governor William Weld's Administration.

In the community, Nishith has served as President of the Network of South Asian Professionals of Boston, and on the Board of Directors of the Network of Indian Professionals of North America. He was Co-Chair of TiECON 2005, the annual conference of the Indus Entrepreneurs and the largest entrepreneurship conference on the East Coast. He also serves on the Boards the Indian American Leadership Initiative, the Mayor of Boston School Readiness Project, LeadBoston, the BU Global Health Initiative, as well as various committees of the Democratic Party locally and nationally.

Nishith has a Master's in Public Administration from George Washington University and a BS in Political Science from Northeastern University.

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Nabil Laoudji
Management Consultant / Social Entrepreneur

Over a period of twenty months, Nabil helped to launch the India office of TechnoServe, a US-based nonprofit development consulting firm.  Nabil's main activities were around helping to set up the organization's infrastructure (e.g. IT, accounting), establishing its operations (e.g. secure legal status, recruit staff), and developing its project pipeline (e.g. develop proposals).  Nabil and his team worked in a fluid business environment, where poor infrastructure and a challenging legal environment served as daily obstacles to success.  Today TechnoServe India has six full-time employees, and is helping dozens of rural entrepreneurs to build businesses in poor rural communities.

Previous to his work at TechnoServe, Nabil served as a Senior Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, an international management consultancy.  At Booz Allen, Nabil focused on helping organizations to manage change.  Most notably, Nabil served on a small team to help Egypt's Ministry of Finance to launch an import-facilitation center, which today expedites 48% of Egypt's goods imports.

Today Nabil is focused on technology entreprneurship in emerging markets, particularly in North Africa, his home region.  Nabil holds a joint degree in Finance and International Relations from the College of William and Mary.

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Aroon Shivdasani
Executive Director & Founding Member, Indo-American Arts Council, Inc.

Aroon Shivdasani's laughter and joi de vivre are her signatures. She believes life is not a dress rehearsal, embraces life completely and intensely. She has lived in India, England, Canada and the United States, travelled extensively all over the world, is interested in every aspect of life and has friends of all cultures, ages and religions.

Executive Director and founding member of the Indo-American Arts Council, Aroon is passionate about its mission to build an awareness of Indian artists and artistic disciplines(performing, visual, literary and folk arts) in North America .

A Masters Degree in English literature and drama, Aroon has worked in marketing, advertising, media research, taught both school and college, run a theatre company in Canada, been a docent at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, been Editor of the Junior League Newsletter, acted, danced, painted, thrown pots, worked in ceramics and stained glass. She left her position as Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing & English literature and VP of her husband's marketing company, to take on her current position in 1998.

Immersed in the arts, Aroon concieved and produced the first Festival of Indian Theatre in North America, annual Playwrights Festivals in conjunction with the Lark Theatre, several film premiers, two annual film festivals one of New Films from India at MOMA and the other of Indian Independent & Indian diaspora films, an annual Erasing Borders visual art exhibition, as well as myriad fascinating theatre, film, dance, music, literary and fine arts events under the auspices of The Indo-American Arts Council.

Equally passionate about humanity, Aroon has always supported and worked for social causes through the arts: raising money and awareness for FREA India (front for rapid economic advancement of India), The Spastics Society, SAKHI(prevention of domestic violence), CRY (child relief and you), Project India (the street children of Bombay), victims of the Maharashtra and Gujarat earthquakes, prevention of communal violence in Gujarat, the Tsunami and several more. Aroon was an active participant in the raising of money and final placement of a Jagdish Bhagwati Chair for Indian Politics & Economy at Columbia University.

President of the Indo-American Arts Council Board of Directors, Aroon sits on the Boards of the Queens Museum of Art, The Lark Play Development Company, Nayikas Dance Company, Rave Magazine, Save Bombay Group. Aroon also sits on the Advisory Boards of several other art and charity organizations, as well as the juries of the Emmys, beauty contests, grants, art, film and theatre contests.

She has received Outstanding Citizen awards from the City of New Rochelle, NY in 1988 "for the organization and execution of a French Fete to commemorate the 200th anniversary of New Rochelle"; the NY State Assembly in 2001 "for working to build an awareness of Indian artistic disciplines in New York City, to raise money & social conciousness for domestic violence victims, earthquake victims and the victims of AIDS"; from the City Council, NYC in 2002,"for exemplary service to the community"; and an Honor & Appreciation award from the Gathering International Health Professions Network, Greater Hudson Valley "for untiring efforts to serve the community".

Aroon's priority above all is her family: the one she was born into and the one she has nurtured with her husband Indur and daughters Sacha and Misha. Their unconditional love and support is her grounding.

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Venkatesh Raghavendra
Senior Director of Philanthropy, American India Foundation

Venkatesh (Venky) Raghavendra is currently the Senior Director of Philanthropy at the American India Foundation and works out of AIF's New York office.  Prior to joining AIF Venky worked in Washington DC with the global citizen sector organization "Ashoka: Innovators for the Public".  While at Ashoka Venky promoted social entrepreneurship in India and several other Asian countries.  He engaged leading business entrepreneurs in the U.S. to invest in social entrepreneurs and their innovations.  Earlier, in the late 80s and early 90s Venky co-founded an organization in the rainforests of South India to create livelihood opportunities for indigenous communities through eco-tourism and adventure-tourism.  Through activities such as hiking, canoeing & rock-climbing Venky was able to build awareness about the rich but fragile ecosystem of the Western Ghats of South India.  He played an active role in replicating this new paradigm of community-owned sustainable social enterprises across the country.

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Prof. Gita Johar
Meyer Feldberg Professor of Business, Columbia Business School

Gita Johar has been a professor at Columbia Business School since 1992 and is currently the Meyer Feldberg Professor of Business. She received a PhD in Marketing from New York University in 1992 and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta in 1985. Gita has an interest in understanding marketing challenges faced by social enterprises in developing countries and has developed an MBA course called “Global Marketing Consulting for Social Enterprise” to guide MBA students wishing to bring their expertise to these problems. Gita's research is in the area of consumer psychology. She has published extensively in the area of consumer responses to marketing communications and to temptations in the marketplace. Her recent research examines consumer self-regulation in terms of goal setting and attainment, lay theories of control, and superstition.  Her research has been published in leading marketing and psychology journals. Gita is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Marketing Research as well as the International Journal of Research in Marketing and a past Associate Editor of the Journal of Consumer Research . She serves on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Consumer Research and Journal of Consumer Psychology . She has been a visiting professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, INSEAD, and the London Business School. Besides the social enterprise marketing course, Gita teaches “Advertising, Branding and Creativity” to MBA students and Research Methods and Consumer Behavior to PhD students.

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Kurt Orlofski
President, Wockhardt USA, Inc. & Morton Grove Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Kurt Orlofski, CPA, CMA, is the President of Wockhardt USA, Inc. and Morton Grove Pharmaceuticals, Inc. since April 2007. Previously, Mr. Orlofski was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Pliva, Inc., the US subsidiary of the global specialty pharmaceutical company Pliva. He was responsible for all Pliva US businesses including USD300m of generics business. Prior to this, Mr. Orlofski was the Senior Vice President of Global Business Development at Alpharma Human Pharmaceuticals.

His areas of expertise include pharmaceutical general management, operations and quality management, sales and marketing in generics, new business unit start-ups, product acquisition, brand and generic in and out licensing of products and technology, business unit and asset sales and acquisitions including integration, contract manufacturing deals in and out, and negotiation and execution of supplier and customer supply agreements.

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Dr. Ajit S. Shetty
Chairman & Managing Director, Janssen Pharmaceutica N.V. and President, Worldwide Operations, Johnson & Johnson

Dr Ajit S. Shetty currently serves as president of Worldwide Operations for Johnson & Johnson. He is also Chairman of the Board of Directors at Janssen Pharmaceutica NV (a Belgium-based subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson) where he was the Managing Director for 8 years until last November.

In addition to his roles at Janssen Pharmaceutica and Johnson & Johnson, Dr Shetty is Chairman and member of the Board of Directors of several external boards in Belgium. He was named the “Manager of the Year 2004” by Trends and the Flemish Management Association. End 2008 he was awarded Right Honourable Sir and received the Title of Baron by King Albert.

Dr Shetty received his Ph.D. in metallurgy and a Bachelor's degree in natural sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge University, UK, and his MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

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Harcharan (Harry) Singh
President, Glopec International

Harcharan (Harry) Singh has over 35 years of professional experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry encompassing various Corporate positions and entrepreneurship.

In 1990, he founded Glopec International Inc, a global Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients/Fine Chemicals trading company and was instrumental in USFDA approvals of many Indian pharmaceutical companies. Subsequently, he has been an equity investor/ Director in several companies including RA Chem Pharma, India, Eirgen Pharma, Ireland, Concord Biotech, India and Synovics Pharma Inc, US.

Harry's previous Corporate positions include General Manager & COO, Tata Pharma, India and Director, Lederle International, India. He also serves on the Board of St Michael's Hospital, Toronto which is one of Canada's leading hospitals.

Harry is a B. Tech from the India Institute of Technology, Madras, India and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India.

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Rama K. Rao
Executive Director & Head of Finance, Oncology Global Development Group, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.

Rama Rao is the Director and Head of Finance of the Oncology Business Unit at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. Rama previously served as the CFO & VP of Finance for Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada.  He has over 20 years of business experience of which approximately 16 years have been with the pharma companies Eli Lily and Novartis.  His career spanned countries like India, Switzerland, Belgium, Bahrain, US and Canada in roles of increasing responsibility in International Banking, Treasury, Financial Planning, M&A, IT, Logistics and Engineering.

He graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Engineering from the India Institute of Technology, Delhi, India followed by a Masters in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, India and an MBA from INSEAD, France.

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Debjit A. Ghosh
Managing Director, Huron Consulting Group

Mr. Ghosh is a Managing Director with the Life Science Advisory Practice of Huron Consulting Group based in New York City . He assists pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies in the U.S. and abroad on matters of risk related to sales, marketing, and commercial operations. Mr. Ghosh has more than 16 years of experience as a consultant to the industry and has held positions at Merck & Company and Pharmacia/Pfizer.

In addition to his professional experience, Mr. Ghosh is routinely called upon to present at industry conferences in both the U.S. and abroad and is assisting multi-national companies with matters of risks related to their operations in India . He has a Bachelor's degree in the Biological Sciences from Rutgers University in New Brunswick , NJ , a Masters in Health Sciences from New York Medical College , and a Masters in Applied Statistics from Columbia University .

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Prof. Marti G. Subrahmanyam
Charles E Merrill Professor of Economics & Finance, Leonard N. Stern School of Business

Professor Subrahmanyam has published numerous articles and books in the area of corporate finance, capital markets and international finance. He has been a visiting professor at leading academic institutions in Australia, England, France, Universita Guido Carli LUISS, Rome, Italy, Singapore Management University and Churchill College, Cambridge University.

He has served as a consultant for several corporations, industrial groups and financial institutions in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. He also sits on the boards of several companies including the ICICI Bank Ltd.(NYSE:IBN), Infosys Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:INFY),Metahelix Life Sciences (P) Ltd, Nomura Asset Management Inc, and the board of advisers of Apollo Management L.P. He serves as an advisor to international and government organizations including the Securities and Exchange Board of India. He has taught extensively on executive programs in more than twenty countries around the world.

Professor Subrahmanyam currently serves or has served as an Associate Editor of the European Financial Management , Journal of Banking and Finance , Journal of Business and Accounting , Journal of Finance , Management Science , Journal of Derivatives , Journal of International Finance and Accounting , and Japan and the World Economy . He is the Editor of an academic journal specializing in derivative securities and markets entitled Review of Derivatives Research . His research interests include valuation of corporate securities, options and futures markets, equilibrium models of asset pricing, market microstructure and the term structure of interest rates. He has published several papers in these areas in many of the leading international journals in economics and finance, including Econometrica , The Quarterly Journal of Economics , Journal of Finance , Journal of Financial Economics and The Review of Financial Studies . His recent books include Recent Advances in Corporate Finance (Irwin, 1985) and Financial Options: From Theory to Practice (Dow Jones-Irwin, 1992). He is currently working on a new book, Interest Rate Derivative Products .

Professor Subrahmanyam has won several teaching awards including, most recently, New York University's Distinguished Teaching Medal in 2003.He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, a post-graduate diploma in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and a doctorate in Finance and Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Madhu Vuppuluri
President, Essar America, President & CEO, Essar Steel Minnesota

Mr. Madhu Vuppuluri has been with the Essar Group since 1994 as a member of the senior management team. At present, Madhu heads Essar’s business interests in the Americas. Over last several years, Madhu has been instrumental in building Essar’s presence in the Americas in the BPO and steel sectors. Amongst the more notable acquisitions to Madhu’s team’s credit are – Aegis Communications Inc, a BPO company with over 4,000 employees in United States of America. In steel, Madhu led the $ 1.6 billion acquisition of Canadian TSX listed - Algoma Steel Inc. in June 2007 and followed by the acquisition of Minnesota Steel Inc - a 1.4 billion ton iron ore resource - in September, 2007. He also led the business development initiative to establish a 2 million ton per annum capacity hot rolled coil steel plant in Point Lisas, Trinidad. Madhu also successfully closed several project and acquisition related, multi-billion dollar financings for Essar.
Madhu has over two decades of leadership experience in finance, strategy and planning functions in manufacturing and service industries.

Madhu holds an MBA degree from Columbia Business School, Masters in Financial Management from Bajaj Institute of Management - Mumbai and a degree in Law from Hyderabad, India. He serves on the boards of Essar Steel Algoma Inc, Essar Steel Minnesota LLC, Essar Steel Caribbean Ltd and Aegis Communications Group Inc. and is based out of the Essar New York office.

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Rajesh Menon Pudukulangare
Partner, Banking & Capital Markets Infosys Consulting

Rajesh Menon is a Partner with the Banking & Capital Mkts  (BCM) practice of Infosys Consulting. He also leads the Governance, Risk & compliance (GRC) practice within Infosys consulting and  manages the solutions program within BCM consulting.

Rajesh has been advising leading wall street firms and banks  across a variety of themes within the GRC space. These include Anti Money laundering, Trade surveillance, Employee surveillance, Policy Life cycle Management etc. Over the past few years, he has been assisting clients in moving from siloed risk & compliance programs to adopt Enterprise wide risk & compliance programs thereby improving their effectiveness while ushering in greater cost efficiencies and optimization through incorporation of risk based approaches. Other areas of expertise include securities operations and wealth management.

Rajesh has authored several papers in the GRC space which have been published in leading industry journals and textbooks, his views on current industry trends have been quoted by industry analysts and media  He is a member of the Editorial board for “Finsights”- Infosys BCM's quarterly publication of thought papers on themes such as wealth management, securities operations, payments and GRC.

Rajesh has over 15 years of experience working in the financial services industry. Prior to Infosys, he was a Senior Manager with Stock Holding Corporation of India , the largest custodian & depository participant in India .  Rajesh holds a Masters in Financial management from Jamnalal Bajaj University of Management studies, India .

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Sudhakar V. Balachandran
Assistant Professor of Accounting, Columbia Business School

Professor Balachandran is interested in performance measurement, corporate governance and valuation. These three subjects are sometimes referred to collectively as shareholder value management. Specifically, he studies how firms use performance measures to align the interests of managers and shareholders and create shareholder value. Balachandran, who has more than 10 years of business experience, is a former management consultant at Ernst & Young and manager at Baxter Healthcare Corporation. He teaches the core course on managerial accounting, for which he was given the Dean's Award For Teaching Excellence in 2006.

Prof. Balachandran has a BS from Northwestern University and an MBA and DBA from Harvard.

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Dr. A.M. Gondane
Deputy Consul General, Consulate General of India, New York

A.M. Gondane, Ph.D., joined Indian Foreign Service in 1985. He has worked in Indian Embassies in Damascus , Baghdad , Vienna and Ankara in various positions.  In New Delhi , he was Director of West Asia and SAARC Divisions. He also was responsible for training foreign diplomats at the Foreign Service Institute.  He was Joint Secretary (Coordinator) for the 14 th SAARC Summit held in April 2007.  He also worked as Officer on Special Duty to the Deputy Speaker of Indian Parliament. 

Mr. Gondane has been a Visiting Fellow at the Henry L Stimson Centre, Washington , DC in 2006, where his Paper on “Terrorism in South Asia ” was published. 

Mr. Gondane has edited two books and written articles on social development issues earlier.  His book “The Arrival” was published in 2006. Mr. Gondane's hobbies include Indian music, painting and Urdu literature.

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David P. Good
Chief Representative, North America, Tata Sons, Ltd.

David Good joined the Tata Group on February 1, 2005, as their corporate representative in North America after completing a 34-year career with the U.S. Department of State. His last position with the State Department was Director of the Office of India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives Affairs, following a three-year stint as American Consul General in Mumbai (Bombay), India from 1999-2002. During his career in the Foreign Service, he also served as Public Affairs Officer at the American Embassies in Tel Aviv, Israel ; in Amman , Jordan ; in Kuwait City , Kuwait ; and at the American Consulate General in Jerusalem .

From 1997-1999, he was Director of the Office of North African, Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs at the U.S. Information Agency in Washington, and responsible for U.S. Government education, exchange and information programs across the Middle East and South Asia. From 1989-1991, he was Spokesman and Director of Public Affairs at the Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Bureau of the State Department. He served in previous assignments in Calcutta and New Delhi , India and in Abu Dhabi , United Arab Emirates .

He is married to the former Ila Jasani of Calcutta and has two daughters: Mallika, who is a recent MA graduate of George Washington University , and Maya, who is a senior at Smith College . They make their home in Virginia , near Washington , D.C.

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Rajesh Sinha
Marketing & Business Development, Thermax Inc.

Rajesh Sinha has worked in the Marketing & Business Development function at Thermax since 1991. Geographically, Rajesh has established his company’s operations at several locations in India & International offices including Brasil, Bangladesh, etc., before taking on the US assignment. He currently heads Thermax Brazilian subsidiary and is responsible for Business Development for the Energy business at Thermax, Inc in the US.

Thermax is an India based ISO 9000 certified US$ 1.0 billion publicly listed engineering organization primarily present in the fields of energy (boiler, heating and energy conservation products, projects and services), environment (solid waste, effluent treatment and air pollution control), and exports (presence in over 75 countries). Thermax has its core businesses configured on a business-to-business platform deriving success largely out of thriving alliances with worldwide sales & service franchisees, collaborators, fuel supply partners, energy services cos. etc. principally for industrial and commercial establishments. The company runs its global operations through various subsidiaries; Thermax, Inc being the local US subsidiary.

Rajesh Sinha is a Mechanical Engineer, batch of 1991 from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India and has studied Strategic Market Planning at the leading management school in India, Xavier Labor Research Institute,Jamshedpur.

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Ranjana Khanna
Assistant Secretary General, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry

With over three decades of a distinguished career with extensive experience in both Public and Private Sectors in India and internationally, Ms. Ranjana Khanna holds a Masters in Physics, and an MBA with specialization in Marketing and Finance. Before heading the FICCI office in the US , she was Senior Director handling Americas , Tourism, Civil Aviation, Corporate Communications and Special Projects at FICCI headquarters in New Delhi . Starting her career with the State Trading Corporation of India she holds direct hands on international marketing experience for a wide range of products and projects, both from India and heading their international office. She joined the India Tourism Development and as Vice President headed diverse top management functions such as Marketing, Task Force, Corporate Communications, HRD, Personnel and Industrial Relations.

While working with Indian Organizations and reputed International organizations in Senior Management positions, she had travelled extensively gaining extensive insights in dealing with different markets through their stages of economic development.

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