Uday Phadke
Uday is co-founder and Executive Chairman of AcceleratorIndia, where he leads on cross-border technology and business acceleration projects for major clients. Uday's core expertise is focused on the creation and development of innovative technology-enabled businesses. Over the past 30 years, he has worked across a wide range of industries and market sectors in Europe, North America and Asia. He has deep hands-on experience of all the key functional areas of business, ranging from research & development to sales & fulfillment. His key strengths include: the ability to synthesize novel, innovative solutions which meet emerging or difficult market needs; and building linkages between small businesses and large corporates to accelerate market entry.
His primary role is the development of relationships with key customers and partners, in both Europe and India. His experience spans all four markets where A_I operates: engineering, cleantech, bio-pharma and media & telecoms. Over the past five years, Uday has been actively engaged in taking UK technology companies into the Indian market. He has developed a wide network of contacts at senior level in India to complement his extensive European network, and now divides his time between India and the UK.
Uday is also Chief Executive of Cartezia, a business he founded in 1997, which builds IP-enabled technology businesses in the UK. He is very active in the UK high-tech eco-system: he is Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Judge Business School at Cambridge University, Investment Champion for the Creative Industries Network at the Technology Strategy Board in the UK, and a Charter Member of TIE, the Global Entrepreneurship and Mentoring organisation.
Uday also teaches from time to time at the Universities of Cambridge, Southampton and York. He read engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge followed by a PhD in aerothermodynamics as a Rolls Royce-sponsored Research Fellow at Sussex.
Uday blogs on www.acceleratorindia.com; www.catalyzt.com; https://connect.innovateuk.org/web/creativektn and indiaincorporated.com.
Shailendra Vyakarnam
Shai is a Director and a co-founder of AcceleratorIndia. His experience and expertise in early stage company development, along with research and publications on entrepreneurship, books, public speaking and track record in education have provided a strong platform for the development of an entrepreneurial ecosystem on which AcceleratorIndia is able to build and through which its clients can benefit. His particular focus is on technology and biotechnology entrepreneurship, especially in building management capability.
Shai's role within AcceleratorIndia is two-fold. In Europe he champions the Indian innovation agenda highlighting opportunities. In India, he advises and actively engages in the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems and provides vital links to entrepreneurs, policy makers, educators and technology clusters. Due to his research and policy advice activities with Universities and research institutions, Shai also helps encourage and train future generations of smart business builders in the technology sectors, a key element of long term ecosystem development across UK and India.
Shai is the Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He also currently holds a Visiting Professorship at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and is on the Advisory Board of the Venture Center, Pune. He blogs on www.acceleratorindia.com; indiaincorporated.com; www.shaivyakarnam.blogspot.com and www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk.
David Pollock
David Pollock is a Director and a co-founder of AcceleratorIndia.
David has over 30 years’ experience advising international companies on executing strategic cross-border growth and financing transactions.
He has expertise in assessing and executing value creation in a range of sectors through cross-border growth and investment strategies. He has experience of advising blue-chip Indian companies on international financings from 1992 and knowledge of the Indian financial markets. He brings relationships and access at senior level to major Indian companies, private equity funds and banks.
He is also founder and a Director of Consilium Capital, a corporate finance advisory firm which advises quoted and unquoted companies on cross-border M&A and capital-raising involving India, MENA and other developing markets. Previously as a Director of Equinox Securities he advised unquoted technology companies on raising venture capital and M&A.
Before that, David was a board director of HSBC James Capel (now HSBC Investment Bank). As co-founder and then Head of International Equity Capital Markets, he led a team executing international share (GDR) and convertible eurobond issues for major European and Indian companies.
He was educated at Oxford University. He is a member of Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs).
Arun Muthirulan
Arun Muthirulan is a Co-founder and Director of AcceleratorIndia, where he is responsible for operations and project execution. His core expertise includes the ability to understand and build complex industry ecosystems and value chains, evaluate new business models and refine and adapt them to new contexts and package and create new business ventures, including the building of detailed commercial and operational models.
Arun’s primary role in AcceleratorIndia is the execution and delivery of customer projects and management of the operational aspects of the business in both Europe and India. His experience spans across the cleantech and media, computing & telecoms sectors where AcceleratorIndia operates. His current focus is on the Smart Grids and Renewables sectors.
Arun’s early career was in the IT services industry with Cognizant Technology Solutions managing complex, business critical, IT development and implementation projects across Europe, North America and India, working with blue chip clients such as Ford Motor Co, Dun & Bradstreet Corporation and Aetna Life Insurance Company.
Arun is active in the Cambridge entrepreneurial ecosystem where he regularly mentors and advises students and aspiring entrepreneurs from the Judge Business School and the University of Cambridge. Arun read Computer Science and Engineering at Madurai Kamaraj University in India and has an MBA from the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, specialising in Strategy and Entrepreneurship.
David Coates
David leads the Cleantech practice for AcceleratorIndia and is a member of the Core Team. The practice has the goal of assisting a broad range of UK cleantech companies access the growing markets in India for advanced solutions in the power, water and gas utilities sector. His expertise lies in combining networking & network community building, technology & innovation management and relationship marketing and he has an extensive background and track record in technology, innovation and strategy consulting.
David has an established career as an independent management consultant, with marquee clients such as the Technology Strategy Board, Clareo Partners, the British Council, IXC UK and MBDA. Prior to becoming an independent consultant David was a founder of the branding consultancy, Indigo Partners. He has held senior positions with organisations such as PA Consulting Group, Scientific Generics, Identica-Generics and Innovaro.
He is also part of the Future Agenda and Growth Agenda networks where he has been involved in a number of programmes for Shell GameChanger looking at the impact of innovation and technology on society over a twenty-five year timeframe, to 2030.
David’s early career was with the Ministry of Defence and De Beers Industrial Diamond Division in South Africa.
David has a PhD in materials science, is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the IoM3 and a member of the IMechE. He is also a Fellow of the RSA and St George’s House, Windsor.
Richard Cawdell
Richard is a member of the Core Team at AcceleratorIndia, and leads the HealthTech practice. The practice seeks to support health and med-tech companies understand and exploit the potential and diversity of the Indian markets. He has broad international business background in consultancy, telecommunications, and information systems, and has experience of technology enabled innovation in sectors ranging from healthcare, through media, retail, financial services, manufacturing and culture.
He has an extensive background in implementation and execution, including addressing systems, infrastructure, technology, security and IS governance issues in financial services in the City of London, firstly as Group I.T. Director of Exco (now Intercapital), and latterly responsible for technology within the Rothschild merchant bank.
His early career included market and product focused roles in high growth technology companies as well as consideration of the long term potential of communications technologies for BT. He was exposed to the brand led cultures of Grand Metropolitan (now Diageo) and Allied Signal, and the early development of technology R&D policy for broadband communications technologies and applications the European Commission.
Richard has maintained focus throughout his career on innovation and the stimulation and management of change. He graduated from the University of Sussex with a degree in Physics and Mathematics.
Tony Hart
Tony has more than 30 years of deep experience mainly in the IT, telecoms and media industry, in business development, marketing and sales roles for major US corporates such as DEC, Intel and Cisco, medium-sized UK companies such as RM PLC and Amino Communications, UK-based media technology start-ups such as Packet Vision, Culloma Technologies and Handheld Learning and consultancies such as Channel Dynamics and the Bathwick Group. He has a strong understanding of how companies, large and small, work and interact with each other, and has a well-developed network of industry contacts and relationships, especially in the technology sector.
Tony’s key skills are in developing and taking to market "whole" products and services, complete solutions to meet the needs of the customer, initiating and developing alliances and partnerships with complementary product and service vendors, and developing innovative sales and marketing programmes.
Tony is passionate about connecting ideas, people and companies to build business opportunities that are both commercially viable and beneficial to society. He is also an active supporter of Macmillan Cancer Support, having completed a number of treks and cycle rides.
Tony has an MA from Oxford and MBA from Henley Management College.
Kaushik Gala
Kaushik is India Principal at AcceleratorIndia, where he provides on-the-ground expertise for AcceleratorIndia's European clients, from a base in Pune, India. Based on his broad professional networks in, and a deep understanding of, various technology-intensive industries and their value chains– including relevant government agencies at the state and national levels, Kaushik helps AcceleratorIndia's clients tailor their product/service offerings to customer needs in the Indian context, design relevant pilots/trials for Indian markets and navigate the B2B business development challenges unique to India.
Kaushik's career includes a stint in IP management at Freescale Semiconductor in Texas, leading up to primary responsibility for mining of Freescale's patent portfolio. He then moved on to IPVALUE as Manager of IP Operations, to work on the mining, evaluation and commercialisation of patent portfolios of clients such as Xerox, PARC and British Telecom. Kaushik’s entrepreneurial venture, Moneyoga, sought to develop analytics and algorithmic strategies for India capital markets. Most recently, he played a key role at the Entrepreneurship Development Center, NCL Innovation Park in Pune with responsibility for business development, seed and PoC funding, and technology commercialization. In this capacity, he served on the BoD of a biotech startup, negotiated Series A financing with VCs, and advised investee companies on business models and strategy.
Kaushik holds a BE (Instrumentation) degree COE-Pune, MS (EE) from the University of Minnesota, and an MBA from the University of Texas.
Rosalind Hill Abrahams BA (Hons), ACA
Rosalind is a Director and co-founder of AcceleratorIndia.
She is a corporate finance specialist with over 25 years business experience in quoted and unquoted companies.
Since 1998, Rosalind has been a director of City based corporate advisory business, Beaumont Cornish Limited (BCL). BCL advises as Main Market Sponsor, AIM Nominated Advisor (Nomad), PLUS Markets Advisor and Broker to a wide range of companies many of which have operations throughout the world.
Rosalind’s directorship with BCL brings her substantial corporate advisory experience in listed companies to the AcceleratorIndia board. Where required, she provides a direct interface and access to the regulated services of BCL, complementing AcceleratorIndia's strategic advice to its Indian clients.
As a graduate in economics, Rosalind began her career with Ernst & Young and qualified as a chartered accountant. Post qualification she moved into the international investigations department and corporate finance. This led to a period of investment banking with J Henry Schroder Wagg (now Citigroup), where she concentrated on LSE-listed IPO’s and M&A transactions in the UK and USA.
A period of industry experience followed where, as Corporate Finance Director for listed technology group P&P plc, she reviewed hundreds of technology businesses and negotiated acquisitions in seven European countries. Prior to joining BCL, other experience included acting as MBO finance director for the London Electricity plc retailing business and working with Alliant Partners, a US based M&A advisory business focused on international technology companies.