-
Mentors
Startup Mentors – EduStars Mentor Network
Alok Lahoti, Executive Vice President, Macmillan PublishingAlok has over seven years of leadership experience with Macmillan, a global educational solutions provider. He has worked with a variety of customers ranging from schools to colleges and universities. He has handled curriculum content and reference material, both of the printed and the digital type. He has also worked onassessments, teacher training programs, e-Learning and teaching resource portals.
Besides Education, Alok has rich experience in industries as diverse as Telecom and Infrastructure, Packaging, Automotive and Consulting of 25 years. He has worked with names like A.F. Ferguson, Exide, Sifycorp amongst others. He is an intrapreneur and has handled two startups and two turnaround cases in his career. His passion is to bring new products and services in the concept stage to life and to make them reach their true potential.
Alok is a Mechanical Engineer from IT-BHU with Distinction and a PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad.
Dilip Chenoy, MD & CEO, National Skill Development Corporation
Dilip is currently Managing Director & CEO of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). The NSDC is a Public Private Partnership whose objective is to skill 150 million people in India by 2022 by fostering private sector investment and initiatives in training and skill development in 20 high growth sectors and the unorganized segment.
He is also on the Governing Council of a Management School.
Prior to NSDC, Dilip was Director General of the advocacy group for the automobile industry in India, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), where he was responsible for setting the technical, economic and social responsibility agenda for the automobile industry. He also represented SIAM on various Government Committees as well as on the board of the National Skill Development Corporation and the Steering Committee of the International Motorcycle Manufacturers Association.
Before joining SIAM, Dilip was Deputy Director General responsible for Industry Sectors and Associations Council (ASCON) covering, Agriculture, Life sciences and ICT in the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Dilip was the CII spokesperson and coordinated CII’s international work relating to the ASEAN.
Prior to his last assignment in CII, Dilip was part of an India team working on the competitiveness of Indian industry with Professor Michael Porter, Harvard Business School.
He worked in industry prior to joining CII.
Meena Ganesh, CEO and MD, Pearson Education ServicesMeena Ganesh is the CEO and MD of Pearson Education Services, which includes innovative and successful brands like TutorVista, leading online tutoring company, and Edurite, provider of technology-based solutions and digital content. Under her leadership, the company has made a successful foray into the school management space and emerged as the fastest growing school chain in India.
Prior to this, Meena was the CEO of Tesco’s operations in India, the Tesco Hindustan Service Center. Tesco is the world’s third largest retailer with a revenue base of nearly $100bn and 400,000 people. She was also on the Global Retail Council of Tesco, an elite group of about 50 people who run the operations of Tesco worldwide. She also has the privilege of being the only Indian, and one amongst four women on this Council.
Before coming on board Tesco‚ Meena co-founded one of India’s pioneering BPO companies: Customer Asset, which she sold to ICICI OneSource. She was the Chief Operations Officer of Customer Asset and helped build the organisation to nearly 4,000 people‚ servicing large corporate customers in UK and US markets.
During her five-year association with Microsoft India‚ she set up multiple business units for them‚ including Microsoft Consulting‚ Internet and Application Development/Business services units. She was with PricewaterhouseCoopers and with NIIT during the initial 11 years of her career.
This PGDM holder from IIM Calcutta has a graduate degree in Physics from the Madras University.
Narendra Bhandari, Director, Intel Software & Services Group – Developer Relations Division (Asia Pacific)Focussed on developing the software solutions market across Asia Pacific, Narendra drives engineering, marketing and business relationships with software organizations, academia and software developers in the Asia Pacific region across consumer and enterprise segments. Narendra joined Intel in 1993 and has worked in the areas of systems software, CAD tools and 3D graphics. After returning to India from the United States in 1998, he was the general manager of the Internet Solutions Group, working with e-business solution providers. Narendra also awarded the highest honor for groups, the “Intel Achievement Award (IAA)” for delivering high-performance graphics software. He has written technical papers in IEEE and ACM publications. Narendra earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Bangalore University in 1990, followed by a Master’s degree from Arizona State University in Computer Science.
D Sudhanva, Founder CEO of Excelsoft & Past Chairman, CII Mysore Zone Mr. D Sudhanva holds a bachelor’s degree in Instrumentation engineering, and a Masters in Electrical engineering. He has earlier worked for companies like Kirloskar electric, Wipro Infotech, and as a senior consultant with Worldbank. He started his first business after his stint at the World Bank – it was in the area of developing enterprise class engineering design software applications in the areas of “Energy and Infrastructure”. Later, her sold the business in year 2000-2001, and founded Excelsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd, a company in the business of providing “technology based solutions for the education and training sectors world-wide. He is currently the founder and CEO of Excelsoft head-quartered in Mysore, with development centers in Hyderabad, NOIDA and Bangalore. Excelsoft was VC funded by UTI Venturer Funds in 2001, had raised about 500,000 USD and later exited delivering approximately 55 times their investment. Currently, two PE funds from US and Singapore have active investments. Last year Excelsoft completed an acquisition of Singapore based technology company, specializing in developing Apps for smart phones and tablets. Excelsoft provides e-learning technology solutions to the following business verticals: Educational Publishing, Higher Education, vocational training, Primary & Secondary schools, corporate learning and development sectors. In addition, Excelsoft’s trust/foundation has established a few model schools and Vocational Training centers.
He was also the past chairman of CII, Mysore Zone, and worked on, and chaired several CII committees in the Karnataka state and southern region. He has been a member of the board of University of Mysore and several education initiatives like EDUSAT, an active member of several academic organizations.
Mr. D Sudhanva’s current interests are in different sectors of Education, particularly design of innovative learning experiences, enabled by use of current technological advances.
Vijay Shukla, Managing Partner, Eduvisors
Vijay is a ‘parallel entrepreneur’ and has co-founded Eduvisors, India’s largest education sector focused business consulting and research services company; Setu Ventures, a firm that provides professional and financial assistance to early stage companies and entrepreneurs and ValueFirst, India’s leading enterprise mobile data services company.
Vijay has over 16 years of industry experience and he earlier worked with Steel Authority of India, E&Y and Glaxo SmithKline and he specializes in the areas of strategy, business development, consulting and engineering.
Vijay’s passions are in the areas of education, value creation, technology and entrepreneurship.
An engineering graduate from IT-BHU and MBA from XLRI, he has mastered the ‘art’ of evaluating business strategies and organizational processes through his career with working in the domains of public sector, entrepreneurship, information and mobile technology, FMCG and management consulting services.
Prize Sponsored By
