Saurabh Srivastava
Saurabh Srivastava is one of India's leading IT entrepreneurs, Angel Investors and VCs. He chairs Infinity, India's first seed stage VC fund and co-founded the Indian Angel Network, India's largest Business Angel Network. He also sits on the Investment Committees/Boards of the Indian Government's National and several State VC Funds, on the Prime Minister's Innovation Council, the Planning Commission's Committee on Venture Capital and chairs the IT Ministry's Working Group on Software Export. He is a Government nominee on the EU India Round Table and the Task Forces for India's two largest states.
Saurabh founded one of India's trendsetting IT companies, which grew to US$ 800m, listed on LSE and was recently acquired by Steria, a large French company. He is a co founder and Past Chairman of NASSCOM (the Indian Software Industry Association) and the NASSCOM Foundation. He is the Chairman Emeritus of TIE, the world's largest organisation devoted to Entrepreneurship.
He is on the Advisory Board of the Imperial College Business School, London, an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at IIT Mumbai, holds a Masters Degree from Harvard University, a BTech from IIT Kanpur. Awards include 'the Distinguished Alumnus Award' by IIT Kanpur; an Honorary Doctorate in Technology by the University of Wolverhampton, UK and the Lifetime Achievement Award for IT. Recently, Saurabh has also been invited to be on the board of the National Research and Development Corporation.
Saurabh is based in New Delhi, India.
Hemant Jalan
Hemant graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India in 1979 with a degree in Chemical Engineering with Distinction, and then worked for Nucon industries in India and Europe for 7 years. During this period he was instrumental in setting up a major collaboration between Nucon and Zander of Germany for the manufacture and supply of compressed air filters and driers. He then did his MBA at IMD, in Lausanne, Switzerland in General Management, graduating with Distinction and also winning the Scholars Award.
Hemant joined The Generics Group plc, a technology and business consultancy company, based in Cambridge UK, in 1989. He developed some major new clients for Generics in the Engineering and Telecommunications industries, and also enabled the company to set up a new business activity targeted at the IT industry. During this period, he also led several teams working on the application of new digital technologies for the packaging industry.
Hemant returned to India in 1993, to become Managing Director and Chairman of Nucon Industries. Over the past fourteen years, he has been instrumental in developing the business of Nucon, both in the domestic Indian and international markets successfully and building a high-calibre operational team to run the business. Hemant now divides his time between Business development and Finance activities at Nucon, and advising European companies who would like to do business with Indian companies and vice versa. His strong technical background, coupled with international business experience, has been of significant benefit to clients in mapping out their market entry and development strategies and plans.
Hemant is now based in Hyderabad, India.
Walter Herriot
Walter has been the Managing Director of St John’s Innovation Centre Ltd since 1990. The Innovation Centre, based in Cambridge, is regarded as a model for incubators, particularly those linked to Universities, both nationally and internationally. The Centre is a social enterprise as all its profits are covenanted to St John’s College the sole shareholder with a view to re-investment in the educational activities of the College.
Prior to running the Centre Walter spent 18 years as a Manager for Barclays Bank, and was then Corporate Finance Director for Coopers and Lybrand in East Anglia. Walter is Chair of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce, The EEDA Enterprise Hubs in the East of England and Enterprise East (The Federation of Enterprise Agencies in the East of England). He is a member of the steering committee of the Greater Cambridge Partnership.
In 1999 Walter was awarded an OBE for services to businesses in the East of England and in 2002 was the Cambridge Evening News "Businessman of the Year". In 2006 he received the Queens Award for Enterprise Promotion and was appointed Visiting Professor at the University of Hertfordshire.
Walter is now based in Cambridge, UK.
Surendra Kumar
Surendra graduated from IIT Kharagpur with a degree in Engineering, following which he gained a Masters degree from IISc. Bangalore in Aerospace Engineering. After completing his masters degree, Surendra has been involved in the development and production of defence products based on high end aerospace technologies for over 35 years.
During his tenure in the Indian defence sector, Surendra has acquired deep expertise in developing and nurturing entire industries of national significance from nascent stage to adopt technologies and to develop and manufacture complete products. In his roles, he has managed a number of mission critical projects and programmes for over 20 years.
Surendra’s achievements also include building strong interfaces between the research and development agencies and industries to ensure seamless collaboration. He has effected transfer of technology in the areas of design, processes, materials & manufacturing technology and quality assurance related to aerospace engineering.
At present, he is involved as a Consultant and senior Advisor to a number of organizations in the fast growing Indian aerospace & defence sectors.
Surendra is now based in Hyderabad, India.