Class II: Second Wave Class
Sunisha Ahuja
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Reshma Anand
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Anupama Arya
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Divyata Ashiya
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Kartikeya Bharat Ram
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Tejpreet Chopra Singh
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Yashashree Gurjar
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Heramb Hajarnavis
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Anshul Krishan
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Adarsh Kumar
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Manoj Kumar
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Rajendra Misra
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Vikram Misri
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Vivek Pandit
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Rohitashwa Poddar
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Meher Pudumjee
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Roopa Purushothaman
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Sugata Srinivasaraju
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Krishnamurthy Sudarshan
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Nidhi Mani Tripathi
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Gautam Trivedi
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Alkesh Wadhwani
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Sunisha Ahuja is country director for India at Room to Read, which has so far set up 3500 reading rooms; the target is to set up 6000 reading rooms in the next five years. She was previously program director for the Asia Regional Office there. Before Room to Read, she was a technical specialist on early childhood development for Care India. Prior to that, Sunisha contributed in developing the national policy on the Education Guarantee Schools and Innovative and Alternative Education, a program that supports education of children in remote areas and children at risk. She was a senior consultant to the Deaprtment of Elementary Education in the Indian government. She started her career as a research and documentation officer with Mobile Crèches, an NGO working with children and families of migrant construction workers, where she eventually led the Delhi operations as program director. She has been working in the development sector since completing her masters in child development from Lady Irwin College, Delhi University. She is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Reshma Anand is founder and CEO of Earthy Goods. She founded Earthy Goods in 2007 with the aim of filling the gap of market access often encountered by resilient entrepreneurs and artisans who despite the odds, make quality products, give fair prices to local farmers and create local employment. Earthy Goods is possibly the first of its kind end-to-end solution provider for small and mid-sized social enterprises in rural India. She previously spearheaded marketing, business development, and fundraising at Development Alternatives. During this stint, she came face to face with issues faced by Indian entrepreneurial ventures-in private and developmental sectors, which is what inspired her to establish Earthy Goods. Reshma started her career with the FMCG giant Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL). She has an economics degree from University of Delhi and an MBA from IIM-Bangalore. She is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Anupama Arya is co-founder and managing director of Mobera Systems Pvt. Ltd. She previously lived in Silicon Valley, where she led software development and architecture initiatives at Lucent and Synoptic/Bay Networks. She has taught topics on advanced communication technologies at UC Berkeley and San Jose State University, and is a member of NASSCOM National Council of Emerging Companies; the National Governing Council of CII-Yi and learning co-chair CII-Yi National; the Indian Angel Network; TiE; and Forum for Woman Entrepreneurs. She is the recipient of the Athena India Leadership Award; Rotary International Young Achievers Award; "Award for Excellence-Women Entrepreneur of the Year 2007-08" by Software Technology Parks of India, Ministry of Information Technology; and "All India Outstanding Woman Entrepreneur for the Year Award" by the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council, Ministry of Information and Technology. Anupama has been profiled in a number of media articles and most recently was featured on the CNBC "Young Turks" program; invited to the Indo-German Young Leaders Council; and to the United Nations Global Summit for Young Leaders. Anupama has a bachelor in electronics and communication engineering and a MS in computer science. She is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Divyata Ashiya is managing director of investment management at Goldman Sachs Singapore. She is responsible for Goldman Sachs Asset Management's business development efforts across South East Asia, including coverage of central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and government and other financial institutions. Previously, Divyata was with the firm's equities division in London, with specific sales responsibility for Holland and Scandinavia. Prior to this, she worked in the corporate finance division of Lehman Brothers in New York, Hong Kong and Mumbai. Divyata received a BA from Amherst College, where she completed a senior thesis on the Indian diaspora; she also holds an MBA from INSEAD. Originally from Rajasthan, Divyata currently resides in Singapore. She is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Kartik Bharat Ram is deputy managing director of SRF Limited, a multi-business organization which is India's largest technical textiles business and also the market leader in refrigerant gases. Before taking up his current position in February 2007, Kartik had assumed various responsibilities across different verticals in SRF ever since he joined the company in 1993. He has had the opportunity to work on various projects within SRF which include working as a team member with McKinsey & Co as well as with Coopers and Lybrand on various improvement initiatives. He has had experience in commercial functions and started an e-procurement portal for B2B purchases which catered to over 20 companies. Kartik is presently the president of the Indian Blind Sports Association. He also had the opportunity of serving the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) as chairman of its Delhi State Council for the year 2007-08. Kartik is a graduate of Santa Clara University, California and earned an MBA from Cornell University in New York. He enjoys spending time with his wife and two children and is an avid golfer and winner of six pro-am Golf tournaments. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Tejpreet S. Chopra is the founder, president, and CEO of Bharat Light & Power, a clean power generation company. Until recently, Tejpreet was the president and CEO of General Electric in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Prior to that, he served as president and CEO of GE Commercial Finance in India. He has also held various positions in GE Capital Aviation Services. He is a participant of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and the Cornell University Council. He is a member of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders. Tejpreet has spoken at Asia Society's CEO Forum Series, the Economist's India Business Summit, the Wharton India Economic Forum, the Harvard Business School India Conference, and the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos 2011. Tejpreet holds a MBA degree from Cornell University and a BA honors degree in economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Yashashree Gurjar is group head for corporate social responsibility at the Avantha Group, which has been a pioneer in creating a corporate social responsibility (CSR) model relevant to the needs of today's emerging economy in India. Under Yashashree's leadership, the group companies have received several national and global awards for its Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives. She began her career in the field of social development in 1988 and has, since then, worked with the government and several NGOs mainly in the area of education, child rights and advocacy. She has been a speaker at several national and international forums and makes it a point to take the CSR philosophy to MBA students through guest lecturing in several management institutes. Yashashree holds a masters degree in arts from University of Pune, India, an executive MBA from the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, Philippines, and a post graduate diploma in cross-sector partnership from University of Cambridge, UK. She is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Heramb Hajarnavis works with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) in Mumbai where he is responsible for the Indian private equity business. Prior to KKR, Heramb enjoyed a 14 year relationship with Goldman, Sachs & Co., most recently serving as managing director and co-head of the Principal Investment Area (PIA) in India. Heramb's tenure at Goldman Sachs has included working in the New York, Hong Kong and Singapore offices across the firm's investment banking and private equity businesses. From 2001 to 2003, Heramb took a brief hiatus from Goldman Sachs and served as a member of the senior management team of Centennial Communications, a NASDAQ listed telecommunications services provider with operations in the US, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Heramb earned a BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he was part of the freshman crew team and completed his senior thesis under Nobel Laureate Prof. Robert Solow. Heramb also earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School where he was co-president of the South Asian Business Association. Heramb has served on the board of directors of various corporations in India including Sudhir Gensets Limited and TVS Logistics Services Limited. Heramb has also served on the Working Board of the Indian American Council and served as an executive member of the MIT Class of 1996. Originally from Pune, Heramb currently resides in Mumbai with his wife, Tina, and their children, Kavish, Keshav and Devika. Heramb's interests include reading, travel and golf. Heramb is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Anshul Krishan is managing director for investment banking at Goldman Sachs India. He joined Goldman Sachs as an analyst in 1999 in London and moved to Asia in 2005 having spent time in Hong Kong and Singapore since then and before relocating to Mumbai in 2008. Anshul has worked with key corporates and financial institutions across several continents, notably in the UK and Europe, South East Asia and most recently in India and helped originate, structure, and execute a range of financings through a variety of products in these regions. Anshul schooled at the Doon School in India before moving to the UK under a Sir Roy Marshall scholarship to the University of Hull from where he holds a BSc (honors) degree in economics. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Adarsh Kumar is CEO of Livelihoods Equity Connect, a fund that he set up to invest in the agricultural sector and promote models of connecting small farmers to mainstream markets. LEC seeks to create agricultural distribution companies in rural areas in which small farmers have equity stakes as well. Prior to LEC, Adarsh helped found AIACA, a membership-based body for the handloom and crafts sector that brings together the private sector, civil society and the government to find innovative solutions to bridging the divide between poor rural producers and mainstream markets. Prior to AIACA, Adarsh worked both at the Ford Foundation, where he worked on strengthening micro-credit institutions that serve the poor, and at the World Bank in Washington, D.C, where he worked on evaluating client satisfaction of welfare services in the Philippines. He holds a bachelors degree in business management from Georgetown University and a masters degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Manoj Kumar is the founding CEO of the Naandi Foundation, which feeds 1.2 million hungry children every day, provides safe drinking water to three million people in rural areas, runs 1726 schools guaranteeing quality education to over 200,000 children and works with over 20,000 small indigenous farmers to produce one of the finest organic speciality coffee. Manoj is a core member of the Citizen's Alliance to Fight Malnutrition in India, a high level advocacy group comprising young parliamentarians from across all political parties of the country. Manoj sits on the governing board of a number of organizations and is a Robert McNamara Fellow of the World Bank. He is a prolific speaker, a social business evangelist and a regular writer in national newspapers and magazines. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Rajendra Misra is the founder of the Change India Movement. He is also an angel investor in social entrepreneurship businesses. He previously founded SAHYOG, the Indian Council for Public-Private Partnership, which works with social entrepreneurs. Prior to his nonprofit work, he founded India’s first travel portal in 2000, which was acquired by ICICI Ventures. He acquired and renamed a telecommunications company as Tenet Telecom, which he grew with wholly owned subsidiaries in the US, Europe, and Japan. It was later merged with Hughes Software and acquired by Flextronics. RK is charter president of Rotary Bangalore IT Corridor and founder trustee of the environmental initiative Pragati. He is a member of the Karnataka government’s Empowered Committee on Infrastructure and is co-convenor of CII’s Infrastructure Committee. He received his undergraduate degree from IIT Kanpur and his postgraduate degree from Tokyo University and was a fellow of Harvard Kennedy School’s Leaders in Development program. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Vikram Misri is deputy high commissioner of India in Sri Lanka. Prior to his appointment, he spent nearly twenty years on diplomatic assignments as a member of the 1989 batch of the Indian Foreign Service. Most notably, he served in Islamabad, where he briefly led the mission when the officers senior to him were expelled by Pakistan; Tunis, where he also helped found Tunisia’s first polo club; and Brussels, where he was also special assistant to the ambassador. Vikram has also served on the staff of the Foreign Minister and Prime Minister of India and as the desk officer responsible for Pakistan affairs. Vikram was also counselor for congressional affairs at the Indian Embassy in Washington, DC. During this tenure, he was closely associated with the landmark 2005 visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the US and the subsequent consideration of the Indo-US nuclear legislation in the US Congress. Before joining government, he worked for three years in the advertising agencies Lintas and Contract, as well as for an independent advertising filmmaker. Vikram holds a bachelor's degree in history from Hindu College, University of Delhi and an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Vivek Pandit is a senior partner in McKinsey's Mumbai office, where he leads McKinsey's principal investing and telecom and technology practices in India. He is co-author of a book and author of several published reports on strategy and the outlook of the high-tech industry. He is a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry's National Committee for Private Equity and Venture Capital and advises several non-profit boards in education and healthcare. He is a member of the leadership council of the Center for Advanced Studies of India at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the board of governors of The Doon School, Teach for India, and St. Jude's Cancer Care Centers in Mumbai. Vivek resides in Mumbai with his wife, Priyanka, and their 3 children. Vivek received a dual master's in management and electrical engineering from Stanford University, where he graduated as a Valentine Fellow. He holds a BS in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, where he graduated magna cum laude. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Rohit Poddar is managing director of the Poddar Group, where he works in the realm of real estate, sustainable textiles, organic farming and ITeS. The Poddar Group of companies include Poddar Developers Ltd., Wearology Ltd., Eco-Shield LLC., Organically Grown LLC and Idhasoft Ltd. Rohit and his colleagues have, over the last four years, been responsible for transforming the family business from a commodities player into a virtual manufacturing, services and knowledge driven business, with an emphasis on environmentally sustainable practices. Previously, Rohit spent 10 years within the Poddar Group, in the textile and tire manufacturing companies, starting at the shop floor and working his way up the managerial ladder. Rohit holds a BS (Honors.) degree in engineering and business management from Kings College, UK. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Meher Pudumjee is chairperson of Thermax, Ltd. She previously held several senior management roles in the company, including vice chair and non-executive director. Soon after joining the company, she took over the responsibility, along with her husband, Pheroz Pudumjee, of managing a Thermax subsidiary company in the UK. She was primarily responsible for the functions of finance, procurement and general administration, apart from playing a role in new product development and planning. The company, which was making a loss at the time, saw a successful turnaround in four years. She joined Thermax as a trainee engineer in August 1990. Ms. Pudumjee is a member of CII Young Indians (Yi) and chairs the National "Employability" Initiative. She was honored with the Women in Business Young Achiever award by the Financial Express in 2006 and was the sole Indian delegate-speaker invited to the Asian Business Women's Conference in Osaka in 2006. The World Economic Forum in 2008 selected her as a Young Global Leader. She is a postgraduate in chemical engineering at the Imperial College of Science & Technology, London. Meher has a keen interest in music, especially western classical, and is a member of a Pune based choir. She is also a proud mother of a 14 year old boy and a 10 year old girl. She is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Roopa Purushothaman is the head of Everstone Research, the research effort of Everstone Capital. She is a member of the Indian prime minister's advisory committee for JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission). Previously, Roopa was a VP and global economist at Goldman Sachs. While at GS, Roopa co-authored the report Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050, along with other published papers on topics such as long-term growth in India, global trade, migration, women's employment and global aging and consumption patterns. Roopa holds a BA in ethics, politics and economics and international studies from Yale University and an MS in development studies from the London School of Economics. She is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Sugata Srinivasaraju is associate editor (South) with Outlook, India's premier newsmagazine. Sugata also writes a weekly column for the web edition of the magazine. Before joining Outlook, Sugata worked for the 'Hindustan Times' in Jaipur and the 'Deccan Herald' in Bangalore and also contributed to the Irish Times in Dublin. At 26, he was the youngest editor of Aniketana, a quarterly literary journal published by the academy of letters in Karnataka. Healso helped set up the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media in Bangalore. In 2000 he was awarded the British Chevening Scholarship in print journalism at the University of Westminster in London. He obtained his masters in English literature from the Hyderabad Central University and was a research scholar in the Department of Comparative Literature in the same university before he shifted to the Centre for Kannada Studies in Bangalore University. Sugata is a published author in Kannada and English. His most recent book is titled 'Keeping Faith with the Mother Tongue - The Anxieties of a Local Culture' (Navakarnataka, 2008). His book of translation, 'Phoenix and Four Other Mime Plays' (Navakarnataka, 2005), won the translation prize of the Karnataka Academy of Letters. His next book 'Pickles from Home - Further Notes on a Local Culture' will be published in 2010. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Krishna Sudarshan is managing director of the application development technology group of Goldman Sachs India. He joined the firm as a managing director in 2006 and is focused on the continued expansion of the application development capabilities. Krishna joined Goldman Sachs from Volante Technologies, a financial-services software firm in New York, where he had been co-founder, chief technology officer and head of development since 2001. His key areas of responsibility have been in all aspects of product development as well as the support of highly innovative software for the financial services industry. Prior to that, he held senior roles with NextSet Software, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Oracle. Krishna earned a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering from Bangalore University in 1987 and a master's degree in computer science from State University of New York in 1989. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Nidhi Tripathi is project director of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in Uttarakhand. She is an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officer of the 2001 batch. Prior to her present posting, she was district magistrate of Almora. Prior to that, she was chief development officer of Nainital District for two years. She also worked in the Manipur government as subdivisional magistrate/assistant division manager looking at the law and administration of different districts. Nidhi is especially interested in development of the poor through self help groups and NGOs, adopting the participatory development model. She is also interested in the holistic development of women and children in terms of their education, health and economic needs. Nidhi holds a masters degree in political science and history from Gorakhpur University and also holds an MPhil in international politics from JNU, New Delhi. She is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Gautam Trivedi is managing director of equities at Goldman Sachs India. Previously, he served as executive director in Asian equity sales in Hong Kong. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Gautam was vice president, corporate finance, for Reliance Industries Limited in Mumbai from 1999-2004. Before that, he worked as head of India sales for Jardine Fleming Limited in Hong Kong (1996-1998), at institutional equity sales for Credit Lyonnais Securities Limited (1995-1996) and as a research analyst for DSP Merrill Lynch Limited in Mumbai (1994-1995). Gautam has an MBA from the University of Southern California and a bachelor of law and commerce from the University of Bombay. He is fluent in 3 Indian languages and enjoys cricket, tennis, and yoga. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Alkesh Wadhwani is deputy director of Avahan, the AIDS initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in India, where he was one of the key members who helped conceptualize and implement the $258 million five year program-one of the world's largest HIV/AIDS prevention programs. Avahan provides services in more than 600 towns and cities in six of the worst affected states and national highways of India, serving more than six million at-risk individuals. Prior to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Alkesh worked in McKinsey & Company, Mumbai as a project manager for five years. He led strategy assignments with some of the largest banks in Singapore, UK and India. He was also involved in a year long effort by the McKinsey Global Institute in 2002 in identifying barriers to a 10% GDP growth for India. During 1992-97, Alkesh co-founded IIT InvesTrust, an equity broking form with seats on the BSE and NSE. He also worked in the Financial Institutions Group at Citibank. Alkesh completed his MBA at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta where he stood fourth in a class of over 150. He graduated in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, where he represented the institute at the bridge nationals. He is a Fellow of the second class of the India Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
