Kanwaljit Singh is a co-founder of Helion and has over 20 years of experience in the areas of venture investing, marketing and business development across multiple sectors in India. He serves on the Boards of Jigrahak Mobility, Hurix Systems, Amba Research, Asian CERC and Textual Analytics Solutions. Prior to Helion, Kanwal was a Director and co-head of The Carlyle Group's India venture operations for 4 years. At Carlyle, he helped define the strategy for Carlyle India, invested in over half a dozen Companies and worked closely with the portfolio Companies to help them accelerate their business.

Prior to Carlyle, Kanwaljit worked for 13+ years in the marketing and business development functions of Intel Corporation and Hindustan Unilever Ltd. (a subsidiary of Unilever, plc). As the Head of Marketing for South Asia at Intel, he spent about three years in building the Intel brand in India which included corporate branding, channel and OEM marketing and PR. Kanwaljit also spent over 10 years with Hindustan Unilever Ltd. in various jobs including sales, brand management and product innovation. He was rated as one of 25 'hottest young managers' by Business Today, a leading Indian business magazine in 2002.

Kanwaljit has a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Punjab University and an MBA in Marketing and Finance from Faculty of Management Studies, New Delhi.
 

Ashmeet is a seasoned executive in Foundation Capital with a combination of 15 years of experience in enterprise software and core systems technology. His experience spans line-of-business management, product strategy and engineering at start-up and large companies. His recent responsibility has been with VMware (acquired by NYSE:EMC) where he ran their flagship product, ESX Server. At VMware, he grew ESX Server from early pilots by over 1000% to widespread worldwide deployment in mission critical systems by Fortune 500 companies. Prior to VMware, Ashmeet was CEO of Sidana Systems, a successful enterprise-software company that pioneered Docsan for publishing ultra-large (terabyte) documents. He bootstrapped Sidana Systems from inception through growth to its acquisition by Doclinx. Ashmeet began his professional career at Hewlett-Packard and later Silicon Graphics, holding various key technology roles. In addition to an MBA from the Wharton School, Ashmeet received an MSCS from Stanford University.
 

Mr. Arjun Sekri is the Founder & CEO - Daily Bread for past 4 years. Daily Bread was floated as an equal joint venture between Cafe Coffee Day and Arjun Sekri, who was a Hong Kong based investment banker, and currently operates, own and franchisee outlets in Bangalore, besides presence in modern trade.

Daily Bread stocks about 50 varieties in breads alone, with another 100 in pastries and desserts. Daily Bread is now retailing in four formats: shop-in-shops in hypermarkets and supermarkets, standalone stores, dine-in concept and live bakeries. With Britannia picking up a 50 per cent stake in the company, Sekri hopes to accelerate his growth plans.

Prior to starting Daily Bread, he was an investment banker with the following financial institutions.
 

• Equity Capital Markets Group with Credit Suisse First Boston in Hong Kong,

• Mergers & Acquisitions Group with Citigroup in New York,

• Leveraged Buy-Outs Group with J.P. Morgan in New York,

• Entertainment Finance Group with Bank of America in Los Angeles
   

Education:
MBA in Finance & Economics with Distinction from the Stern School of Business at New York University, BBA in Finance & Accounting with Distinction from the University of Florida.

Contact details:
Arjun Sekri
Chief Executive Officer
CCD Daily Bread P Ltd. 43, 4th ' B ' Cross, 5th Block
Koramangala Industrial Area, Bangalore - 560095
Tel    : 080 - 2563 1302 / 2563 1304
Fax   : 080 - 2563 1305
Email : asekri@dailybread.cc

Balaji Pasumarthy the Chief Catalyst of Businessgyan is a first generation entrepreneur. He has first hand experience of setting up new businesses and is a keen observer of organizations in the startup and growth phase. He has himself setup Golden Square Business Centre a trend-setter in it's industry segment in Bangalore, Golden Square has acted as a launch pad for more than 250 companies in Bangalore, by providing them with Serviced Offices. He is also the person behind Businessgyan Business Digest. Businessgyan a monthly business magazine, focuses on providing inspiring and useful articles to managers and entrepreneurs. Businessgyan has an excellent reach in Bangalore and is a very effective B2B medium. www.Businessgyan.com the business portal is a place for conversations and connections on business.Once a business is built Balaji takes a hands off approach and operations are run by efficient and professional managers. Balaji's personal strengths are his insights into business strategy, and a strong belief in fundamentals and processes. He writes a regular column called the 'Spark' in Businessgyan on these topics.

His latest startup is Space4groups.com which provides large communities a ready to use Portal Platform that is meant exclusively for them and is easy to use.Entrepreneurship is his passion, he studies and interacts with a lot of startups, he is the founder of E-club. A self help group for entrepreneurs based out of Bangalore.He is also the Regional Director for BNI, a Marketing Network that powers local businesses by connecting them to potential customers. Balaji a Competent Toastmaster, has been an entrepreneur most of his career and had a stint with the Unilever Group before taking the plunge into entrepreneurship. He did his PGDM from IIM- Bangalore and B-Tech in Chemical Engineering from IIT- Madras.

Contact Details:
Phone : 080 - 22243860
Mobile : 9845027710
Email   : balaji@businessgyan.com
 

K Kumar is currently a Professor of Entrepreneurship in the N.S. Raghavan Center for Entrepreneurial Learning at IIMB. He had earlier served as a Visiting professor in the Corporate Strategy and Policy are at IIMB before taking over his current position. His research and teaching interests are in the area of entrepreneurship and strategic management of new ventures, both in the entrepreneurial and large corporate settings. He has a keen interest in the strategic issues impacting the growth and consolidation in the information technology and related service industry. He is actively involved in consulting with many corporate organizations and entrepreneurial ventures, guiding them in the areas of strategy, resource mobilization, organization building and managing growth.

Kumar has over 18 years of experience in the industry in various capacities. He was the first CEO of Trigent Software Ltd, a mid-sized, Bangalore based software services company, between 1995 and 2001 and later served as its President between 2005 and 2006. His previous assignment was that of Management Consultant at Tata Consultancy Services for over four years, wherein he was involved in assisting many corporate and family business in building and implementing strategies to cope with the liberalized and globalized environment.

He started his career with a two-year stint as a Marketing Officer with Crompton Greaves Ltd, responsible for marketing a wide range of power equipment. He spent the next three year during his career as an entrepreneur, and successfully co-promoted two ventures in the services and consumer products domains. He also served as a Product Manager at Computer Point (I) Ltd, responsible for developing a nascent market for PC based software solutions, before moving on to pursue doctoral studies at IIMB.

Kumar has a B.E. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (Madhurai University) and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management for IIMB. He is Fellow of IIMB (equivalent of a Ph.D), with specialization in corporate strategy.

Contact Details:
Phone : 080 - 26993277 ( O )
             080 - 25287098 ( R )
E-Mail  : kumark@iimb.ernet.in

A 1989 pass out from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, with Honors in M. Sc. (Math) and B. E. (Electrical and Electronics Engineering) had the entrepreneurial spirit from time of leaving college and started the first avatar of the present day Asian CERC called Dataline and Research Technologies Ltd (DaRT). This company was the first in the country to pioneer the concept of online access to financial information and was also registered as the first market data provider in the country. The evolving needs of the market led this company to pioneer Order Routing and Risk Management Systems for financial trading on the Internet. Today Asian CERC commands more than 80% of the market share in both financial information dissemination and providing technology solutions for securities trading. Sanjay has been at the helm of affairs of Asian CERC since the time of its inception. Currently he plays the critical role of MD as well as the Software Architect.

Mr. Sanjay Padode has also worked on large projects in implementing paperless offices, office automation and workflow management for clients in securities market, stock exchanges, government, banking, infrastructure and private sector. He has traveled widely to many countries for heading software projects. He has strong business development, sales, consulting, recruitment, project management, design and implementation skills.

He also took over the mantle of managing IFIM B-School in the year 2000. Since then the school has grown and has been ranked as one in top 30 amongst all B-Schools of the country. Helped the B-School in building its own private hi-tech campus in the Electronic City in Bangalore.
 

Laura is the Executive Director of the Wadhwani Foundation, and National Entrepreneurship Network, a new foundation that accelerates entrepreneurship in emerging economies, with an initial focus on India. The foundation invests in non-profit efforts that inspire, educate or support new entrepreneurs; or create an environment in which they can succeed. Prior to joining the foundation, Laura was the Vice President responsible for development and business-social bridging programs at Ashoka, an organization that identifies and supports leading social entrepreneurs around the world.

Before joining Ashoka, Laura both founded and invested in start-up companies. Laura was the founder and CEO of a venture-backed women's health internet start up; founder and Vice President of Business Development at Delos Womenshealth, a private, venture-backed women's health care company; and an Associate, investing in health care start-ups, at Highland Capital Partners, a venture capital firm in Boston, Massachusetts. In the early 1990's, Laura helped launch a merchant bank in Moscow, Russia for the investment firm Aldrich, Eastman & Waltch. One of Laura's most challenging jobs was, as a fresh graduate, selling insurance door-to-door in eastern Kentucky. Laura holds a B. A. in Biology from Harvard University.