Category: mentors

Santosh Kumar-Innovation Head at Citi India, Entrepreneur 

Santosh Kumar is an IIMB Alumni with 2 decades of experience in FinTech & MediaTech. He is the Head of Innovation at Citi India Markets division.

He has 10 years of corporate experience leading global Fintech projects. Last 10 years as an Entrepreneur, he built 3 ventures & 2 of them got acquired. He is an International Innovation Awardee, Winner of Startup Chile Global Investment, and recipient of Equity grant from Govt of India.

He has been a Program Leader with SLP India, Advisory board of IFCCI Startups, Assocham Startups committee, and sits on the Exec board of YLC AIMA.

He is an endurance cyclist with over 70,000 kms under his belt and has completed 4 International championship rides – Paris to London Cycle Expedition, Beijing to Great Wall Bike Ride, Cambodia Angkor-Wat Biking, Taiwan Bike Championship.

Education:

• Executive Management Program, Business Management and Marketing- IIMB.
• MBA Finance Management- Symbiosis.
• Diploma In commodities Tading, Commodities Market, Commodities-Welingkar nstitute of Management.
• BSE’s Certificate of Derivative Exchange.
• Com-Bangalore University.

MJ Srikant- Communications Pro, Life Coach, Educator/Mentor, Media Advocacy.

Strategist and communication specialist with a perspective for normal and new normal.
correct strategy and effective communication makes difference in any situation. Their combined force has helped him in successfully managing public relations and communications for over 300 clients in 12 different sectors in the last 20 years. With the new normal unfolding in many versions in 2020, strategy is the key and cross-functional PR in a complex global scenario delivers in a challenging environment.

Srikant is a trusted communication professional with domain grip in media relations, digital transformations, integrated campaigns and market communications. He helps and builds powerful and positive narratives for the companies to claim market-winning positions by proving compelling and authentic content, which serve as differentiators.

He has worked with individuals, brands, companies and organisations in health, education, hospitality, technology and manufacturing business. He has navigated such a huge number of clients because he anticipates their needs and fulfil their demands.

His effective communication has built on the experience of dealing with 300 odd clients in diverse business models and constant interaction with stakeholders. Srikant’s strategic plan for the clients is constructed on foresight of opportunities, proactive anticipation and resourceful implementation.

Education:

• Post graduate-Business/ Commerce, General- Berhampur University

Suresh Narasimha-Idea stage investor in to student startups, Integrating CXO’s with startups; Deep tech.

Suresh invests in startups by students on campus with a vision to create unicorns from universities & make brightest students entrepreneurs.

To drive the vision, he runs a not for profit trust to promote entrepreneurship, a fund to invest in student startups (Up to 1.5 cr at idea stage) & a venture studio to handhold student entrepreneurs CoCreate Ventures, a VC fund integrated with Venturestudios, has invested in more than 28 student startups in last 1 year with 60% of the companies having girls as cofounders.

Founded several VC funded deeptech startups like TELiBrahma, Sensara & monkeybox. Suresh has launched Upaghna, for transforming traditional businesses to unlock value & working with several family offices.

He has more than 15 patents from US PTO & several awards around computer vision & communication. An avid reader & a student of Indian Aesthetics.

Shivananda Salgame-

Social Entrepreneur, Problem Solver and a Design Thinking Specialist with huge belief in unlimited human potential to make this world a better place. He is an effective communicator and motivator who identifies and leverages assets in teammates to reach organizational goals. An eternal optimist with a zeal to solve socially relevant problems at scale, which can improve quality of life and living at last mile.

Over the past 2 decades he has built and managed large scale multi-million dollar and multi-geography social enterprises, Programs, Projects and Businesses for Global clients. He has been mentor and guide to several hundred of his team members, which has helped him understand and appreciate human potential.

He quit his corporate job with a desire to be the agent for social change and start his journey as a Social Entrepreneur.  With single minded purpose of investing his time and effort to leverage technology to bridge the digital divide and his intense quest to find solutions to socially relevant problems at scale enabling largescale impact.

He co-founded ED-Tech Startup, Guru-G Learning Labs during 2013, with the focus towards empowering Teachers through Technology. Guru-G Learning Labs builds solutions to enable the teachers with technology to improve the quality of teaching-learning process in the classroom and make classrooms more engaging and enriching. The Start-up was one of the 10 selected from across the world by a Global Accelerator Unreasonable at Sea by Unreasonable Group, supported by Stanford d School, USA, for a global voyage –during 2013, www.unreasonableatsea.com. Travelling across 16 countries over 100+ days, with 650 students from 212 universities from 31 countries. The Start-up was recognised with People’s Choice Award at the first Startup India Event in January 2016.

Shivananda Salgame has been associated with several initiatives to improve quality of education and has been invited as speaker for several internationally reputed organizations. Shivananda Salgame is currently engaged in several initiatives both in India and USA, which include advising Start-ups in the Education, Healthcare and Social Innovation space. He is currently a Co-Founder of a US based Startup called ImpactX.

Vijay N-Co-Founder at Internet Mango Solutions 

An entrepreneur, Loves to engage with startups. Ardent open source lover and interested in building solutions, Keen on economics and admires founders who builds for India. Founder & CEO of InternetMango Solutions LLP.

InternetMango is a digital transformation concierge focussing on helping the organizations, port their Business Process, Customer engagement and Transactions to the Digital Economy through consulting Design, Development & Managing Applications of all kinds be it Web, Mobile or Cross-platform & Management of their Digital Infrastructure with the help of cutting edge technologies.

Expertise- MSME- as Technology solution provider/Consultant.

Education:

• B.Tech, Information Technology- Mangalam College of Engineering.
• General Management Program- IIT.

Pruthvi Banwasi-

He started his career from the YMCA, training children in a host of activities including sports. He then transitioned into the field of sales and marketing with HOTLINK and then advertising MAA BOZELL. Dabbling with event management roles with ENCORE saw him set up his own event.

management company, DIYA Events & Promos in 1997 which organized and coordinated an array of events – Private to Corporates, he has created and crafted events with the likes of Sushmitha Sen, Remo Fernandes, Sandeep Chowtha, Shubha Mudgal and many others.

He has spread the magic of Montessori by opening ten centers across Bangalore, A Primary school, a Teacher Training Program and OUR SPACE FOUNDATION – A school for Special Children. He also wears many hats; that of a trainer and educational consultant to many schools and institutions in Bangalore. Now heads Karnataka Council of Pre School (KCPS) as Secretary and is also a passionate actor.

Passionately acts in Theater through ‘Bangalore Little Theater-BLT’ (Vijay Padaki) – Tenali Rama, Robis Garden, Tiger Tiger and ‘Center For Drama-CFD’ (Prakash Belawadi) – Avasthe, Investigation and with Arjun Sajnanai – the recent Crossing to Talikota, byt Girish Karnad etc and also has acted in a few ad films, serials and Movies (Gori Tere Pyaar Mein with Kareena Kapoor and Sankshypth a short film which went to the Cannes awards, Badmash, Birbal, Aadya, Arishadvarga, Shakeela, Gantumoote, 3Devi and many more in the pipeline.

Now he is the Chief Entertainment Officer at THE FINER SIDE – An Art Gurukul based in Vajarahalli, off Kanakpura road.

Education:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Arts

Mukta Sharma-Entrepreneur Enabler, Project Management, Mentor & Coach – Start-up Ecosystem

25 years + of expertise across different Functions & Verticals with Operational Excellence, enabling INNOVATION. Managing end to end funding, Partnership Engagement & Outreach for start-ups.

Entrepreneurship & Innovation Eco-system – Currently supporting the Start-up ecosystem through Incubation, Outreach Initiatives & Partnership Engagements- NSRCEL, IIMB. Was a Founding Partner and later a Solo-preneur for over a decade in the space of L & D and Hiring for my Venture. Industry Exposure is in Agri & allied areas, Health care, Media, Core sector, Retail & Educational Institutions.

IIMBX – PRA – MOOC’s – Design and content of the entrepreneurship MOOC
L & D – Training Delivery & Content Development
Talent Sourcing for Middle & Senior Management levels.
Consulting – TNA, Recruitment Manual, Interview Templates, HR Handbook.

Education:

• Perosonnel Management, Marketing Management, Economics Statistics, Quantitative Techniques, Commerce- Institute of Management, Pune.
• Certified Recruitment Analyst from CAMI, US
• Certified Retention Professional from CAMI, US
• Organizational Excellence through Leadership, IIMB.

Krishna Kumar-A super-generalist who is a sought after educator by entrepreneurs, startup ecosystems, universities and corporations.

Krishna Kumar is the Co-founder and CEO of GreenPepper since 2007. He works with leadership teams of organizations to give extreme business value through digital transformation, talent hiring, and business model innovation. A super-generalist consulting professional who worked with 300 client companies in 15 years on mission-critical business areas.  He is an advisor to CXOs and entrepreneurs and also a mentor to startups in edtech, neobanking, and the talent marketplaces.

He has done 300 workshops on digital transformation, creative marketing, leadership, innovation, and growth, and a series of webinars for thousands of professionals on Business Skills, Career Building, Digital Innovation, Critical Thinking, Team Building and Human Behaviour.

He is a global speaker, Author of the book ‘Between Genes and Memes’, Voluntary Contributor, Expedition Champion.

Specialty areas-Digital transformation, Talent acquisition, Design thinking, Marketing, Working on Web3.

Education:

• MBA in International Finance- University of Calicut
• 45 MOOCs on marketing, design thinking, neuroscience, content marketing, growth hacking, artificial intelligence, financial modelling, and economics.

Iti Rawat- Keynote Speaker, E learning Evangelist, Women entrepreneur, Trainer.

Iti is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker, learning evangelist and a firm advocate of enabling women to gain financial independence. She is the founder of three trail-blazing organizations Thinkhall Training and Consultancy through which she strives to digitally skill India right opportunity to them,  WEFT Women Entrepreneurs Foundation , a not for profit body that supports women entrepreneurship in India and Womentastic the community based app to support financial independence of Women.

A retail experience enhancer by profession who is running ed tech platform www.thinkhallacademy.com with the zeal to develop industry relevant skills and provide jobs to adult youth in India.

I am the Founder & Director at Thinkhall Training and Consultancy – an award winning startup declared TOP5 for Diversity in 2019, 2020 and 2021 and the Company in Focus 2021 by Business Connect
I have also founded a not for profit organisation which helps women entrepreneurs to promote and scale up themselves Women Entrepreneurs For Transformation (WEFT). For this I have been awarded as Social Leader of the Year in 2019 by Indian Business Women Awards and Conference body and felicitated in Mumbai to Bangalore as Leader with a purpose in Future Women Leadership and Summit.

Education: 

• NIFT-PG Diploma, Merchandising, Marketing, Management-NIFT.
• Social Entrepreneurship, Pre-Incubatee-IIMB

Devaraj Srinivasan-Founder Director, Linkeddots

Devaraj Srinivasan (Dev) is the Director & Co Founder of Linkeddots. He has 32 years of experience in Product Engineering across Telecommunication, Semiconductor, Consumer, Medical and Transportation Industries.

A highly accomplished Technical and Business Manager with 21+ years of experience in Real time, Embedded & Telecom technologies. He currently holds a position as General Manager & Head of Telecom R&D Engineering in Telecom domain for one of the leading IT & Telecom Service Provider in India. Dev has been part of senior management team, leading technical and business team in 3 large organizations – Aurelec, Wipro & Cyient.

Specialties: Telecom-Wireless, Carrier VOIP, Enterprise, Optical & OSS. Account Management – Business Development, Project Delivery & consulting.

Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Communication Engineering and Advance Diploma in Management.