India’s Largest Angel Network

Abhishek Ganguly

Abhishek Ganguly, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, is 33 year old and a Business leader with a proven track record of more than a decade in the Sports, Lifestyle and Retail industry.

He has had a successful stint of 3 years in Reebok during its early phase in India. There he started with Supply Chain and Planning and then got into Sales & Retail. Those days being early days for organized Retail in India, meant lot of challenges in every aspect of the business. Having worked on various parts of the value chain, Abhishek considers this stint as baptism by fire for him into the Indian business environment. At the time he moved out of Reebok in 2005, Abhishek was heading the Southern Region for the company. Opening one exclusive store a day with a strong partner network, Reebok became the largest Sports brand in the region and eventually in the country touching 45% market share. Coincidently, India remains the only country where Reebok is the market leader in the Sports category.

Post that Abhishek joined Puma’s start up team in South Asia as the Director- Sales & Marketing. He was the second employee for the company and has been responsible for setting up the Sales, Marketing, Retail, Product, Souring and Planning functions in the company. Building teams, offices, manufacturing set up, Stores, franchisee network at a fast scale, Puma soon became the Most Desirable Sports Lifestyle brand in South Asia. Puma connected to target consumers through its strong Retail presence, innovative product offering and quirky marketing campaigns. This resulted in a huge growth in revenues in the last 6 years and with strong profitability. Currently the brand has 180 exclusive stores and 1400 Multi brand stores in South Asia.

Establishing Puma from scratch to success is Abhishek’s biggest achievement. Currently, he is the Executive Director in the company, where he heads the Sales and Retail functions. He also got involved in setting up Puma’s cricket business. Eventually Abhishek went on to become the Global Cricket Head for Puma, an additional role for him in the company for the last one year. Puma has been able to establish a clear positioning in cricket in all the relevant nations with an exciting range of products, players association, team sponsorships and marketing campaigns.

Abhishek has a penchant for startup situations and businesses. His acumen to understand business dynamics coupled with a strong commercial sense gives him the strategic purpose in business scenarios. And with a background of hands on experience in various facets, he has the “Operator’s Insight”. Abhishek has exposure to multiple consumer products and experience in managing various sales channels- Direct Retail, various wholesale networks and online commerce.
Although having a busy corporate life, Abhishek has been the brain and inspiration behind setting up of Media Moments, a Public Relations, Communications and Digital Marketing company. This company is run by Abhishek’s wife, Poonam Ganguly, and has offices in Bangalore and Delhi. In a short span of two and half years the company has become one of the leading PR / Communications company in Lifestyle and Fashion space in India with more than 40 leading clients.

Over and above Sport and Retail, Abhishek is keenly interested in New Age Media & Technology and innovative Marketing concepts.

Afzal Oomerbhoy

Afzal Oomerbhoy, is the third generation businessman from the 96 year old Ahmed Oomerbhoy Group, manufacturers of the first consumer packaged Edible Oil brand known as Postman Oil. Working as a partner along with his brothers Afzal Oomerbhoy was responsible for expanding the AO Group from Edible Oils to cosmetics, frozen foods and a large scale distribution house. Under their management and entrepreneurial efforts, the brand of Postman oil commanded the largest market share seen in the Indian Food Industry and became synonymous with the word Cooking Oil in India and the Middle East. Taking on from the Edible Oil business, he expanded the Oil portfolio to include India’s first (Even before Marico) consumer packaged coconut oil known as AO Coconut Oil. Another collaborative industry set up under Mr. Oomerbhoy was the formation of Bombay Soap Factory or BSF. Initiated on the basis of created a all round FMCG group, this company became the outsourcing hub for soaps, cosmetics and glycerine for multinational houses such as Johnson & Johnson, Parke Davis & Mueller Phipps. However the largest  entrepreneurial and independent venture undertaken by Afzal Oomerbhoy was the formation of India’s first large scale Export Oriented Cold Storage facility known as Hindustan Cold Storage or HCS located in Thane.HCS specialized in processing and exporting its entire production of  frozen food meat, fish and shrimp products to the Gulf, Japan, USA and Europe and till today is involved in heavy trade within this sector. Currently away from family business, Afzal Oomerbhoy and his Son have leveraged the established reputation and contacts and capitalized on
developing trade operations in current and new markets and develop new product lines. Mr. Oomerbhoy has also been a mentor and an inspiration for many small scale industries within the community who have expressed the desire to explore the export market and become established and
consistent food companies. Mr. Oomerbhoy has done his College from St.Xaviers College, Mumbai and B.B.A. from University of Houston, Texas.

Areas of Interest :

• IT products and services
• High end BPO services
• Leading edge technology in areas such as telecommunications and embedded domains
• Retail
• Consolidation opportunities in domestic IT products and services
• Media & Entertainment
• Consumer Services/Products
• Education
• New Media
• Export
• Import
• Agriculture
• Manufacturing
• Real Estate
• Travel and Tourism
• Entertainment
• Pharma etc.
   

Email: farooq@faoventures.com

Ajai Chowdhry

Mr. Ajai Chowdhry, one of the six founder members of HCL began an exciting journey three decades ago with a dream to give India its very own microcomputer. HCL, India’s original IT garage start-up founded in 1976, today is a Rs 25,267 crores global enterprise and Mr. Ajai Chowdhry has been a key force in driving the growth of HCL.

Under his leadership in 2009 ‘The IT Task Force’ set up by the Ministry of IT & Communications, Government of India, submitted a comprehensive report to the Government. The Task Force Chaired by Mr. Chowdhry had participation from heads of various associations including Mr. Som Mittal of NASSCOM and Mr. Kiran Karnik.

In cognizance of his contribution in championing the cause of the domestic Indian IT market and relentless efforts towards the cause of electronics in India, Mr. Ajai Chowdhry has been awarded the ‘Electronics Man of the year by ELCINA-EFY for the year 2010’. He has also been conferred the Honoris Causa Doctorate of Science (D. Sc.) in the year 2010 by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee for his thought leadership for the development of an unmatched ecosystem for IT products, computer hardware and software domain in the country. Mr Ajai Chowdhry has also been honoured with the CNBC Asia Business Award 2010 for the Viewers Choice category reinforcing once again the acknowledgement of his vision and leadership by the common man. More recently, he is bestowed with the "India Innovator of the Year Award" by Honorable Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee at the 6th edition of the CNBC TV18 India Business Leader Awards 2010, in recognition of his vision for HCL as an “entrepreneurial incubator”.

Mr. Ajai Chowdhry has been enlisted among ‘India's Most Powerful Brand Builders’ and has been adjudged among ‘India Inc’s Most Powerful CEOs’ by The Economic Times. Mr. Chowdhry has also been invited to Co-Chair the Advisory Group for Research and Development, in the Electronics Hardware Sector (CAREL) by the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India. In 2010, Co-chairing the ‘World Economic Forum on Africa’ in Tanzania, he shared his vision to empower people across the developing continent of Africa through Information Technology.

Mr. Ajai Chowdhry is an avid reader and fond of Jazz and fine arts. He and his wife Kunkun live in New Delhi and have also created a Charitable Trust called ‘Swayam’ which is committed to provide education support to deserving children of various HCL employees who cannot afford good education.

Ajay P Lavakare

Ajay Lavakare is the Executive Chairman and founder of RMSI Pvt. Ltd, one of India’s leading geospatial information services and solutions companies. He established RMSI in 1992 as a joint venture with Risk Management Solutions (RMS), California, USA.  
Ajay is also senior vice president and managing director of RMS. From 2006 to 2009, he spent three years in California developing a new business initiative for RMS, focused on creating a range of data services, products and solutions to help insurance and reinsurance companies improve the quality of their exposure data used in catastrophe risk modeling.
Prior to founding RMSI, Ajay worked in Tokyo with Kumagai Gumi Ltd., a leading Japanese architecture/engineering/construction company.
Ajay has a Bachelor of Technology degree in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (New Delhi, India) and a Masters degree in Structural Engineering from Stanford University (California, USA).
Ajay is a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Delhi chapter. He speaks Japanese and his other interests include travelling, tennis, entrepreneurship, and Indian & Western classical and jazz music. He lives in New Delhi with his family.

Areas of Interest :

• IT products and services
• HIgh end BPO services
• Leading edge technology in areas such as telecommunications and embedded domains
• Retail
• Consolidation opportunities in domestic IT products and services
• New Media
• Data/Analytics/Information Products and Services.

Ajit Surana

Mr. Ajit Surana has had an illustrious academic career. He is a Chartered Accountant as well as an MBA from the prestigious Wharton School. He started Dimensional Securities and is its Managing Director. He started Dimensional Securities from scratch. Dimensional Securities and its associates are one of the leading brokers with membership on the leading exchanges in India across all the segments. Dimensional Securities has a presence in several cities of India and offers a wide spectrum of financial services. He has been in the broking business for over 20 years and has a wealth of experience. Mr. Ajit Surana has been very active at various BSE/SEBI committees. He was instrumental in setting up the Derivatives segment of BSE as well as its Index Committee. He was on the Governing Council of the Derivatives Segment for 3 years. He was also a member of the J.R.Verma Committee constituted by the SEBI on Risk Containment measures in the Indian Stock Index Futures Market. He also represented BSE on the Technical Committee on Derivatives of the SEBI and was on the Board of AMNI (body representing stock brokers) for four years. Mr. Ajit Surana is the founder and currently the President of the Wharton Alumni Association of India. He has been instrumental in making the Wharton Alumni Association the most active alumni club in India among all the leading US business schools. In fact, in recognition of his efforts he was elected to the Wharton Alumni Association Board, USA ---- the first one from India. The Wharton Alumni Association was the first recipient of the best International Club 3 years ago. Mr. Ajit Surana continues to be one of the leading lights on the Index Committee of The Stock Exchange, Mumbai as well as Mumbai Angels.

Ajoy Khandheria

Mr Khandheria has over 15 years of experience in building telecommunications businesses. Mr Khandheria has invested in several successful companies, including Advanced Fibre Corporation (AFCI). He has also been an active angel investor for the past four years. Besides investing, Mr. Khandheria has built successful global businesses for large corporations, such as Harris Corporation, ItalCable, and small companies including ConvergeLabs, where he was the founder and CEO. He currently advises several large successful companies including U T Starcom, Hughes Software Systems, and ipUnity. He was also one of the founders of a successful telephone company in India.

Ajoy has an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley and an electrical engineering degree from M.S. University, Baroda, India.

Areas of Interest :

• Leading edge technology in areas such as telecommunications and embedded domains
• Consolidation opportunities in domestic IT products and services

Algy Williams

For the past 25 years Algy has worked in video games, graphic design, television animation, special effects and post-production.

In January 2010, Algy joined innovative start-up Every1Mobile (E1M) as CEO. E1M is a next generation mobile social networking company delivering products and services to “The Next Billion” consumers in developing markets.

In 1999 Algy Williams (51) set up Babel Media, the leading services company to the interactive entertainment industry. Under Algy’s leadership, Babel grew from three employees on the South Coast of the UK to a venture capital backed international business with a current headcount of 400 (FTE) in Brighton, Montreal, Delhi and Los Angeles. He has been a leading advocate of the outsourcing business model to the games industry and continues to shape the outsourcing agenda with international publishers, hardware manufacturers and mobile carriers.

Babel’s clients include almost every major company in interactive entertainment including Sony, Sega, Microsoft, Disney, LucasArts, Nokia, Warner Bros, Vodafone, Nintendo, Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard. The company was voted Best Games Outsourcing Company in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2008.

In June 2008, Babel Media was sold to Quatrro BPO Solutions, led by Raman Roy. Algy remains on the Board of the Company and is a significant shareholder.

Prior to Babel, Algy set up Labyrinth Productions in 1993, from which he produced a major CD ROM game called “Drowned God” for Time Warner Interactive as well as educational and themed entertainment installations. Previous to Labyrinth, Algy was Managing Director of CAL Ltd, one of Europe's leading television design and post-production companies working for the BBC, Channel Four, Amblin Entertainment and numerous international advertising agencies.

Algy holds degrees in English and History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar. He is married with two children.
 

Areas of Interest :

• IT products and Services
• High end BPO Services
• Leading edge technology in areas such as telecommunications and embedded domains
• Media & Entertainment
• New Media
• Education

Alok Mittal

Alok is a first generation entrepreneur, now in the venture capital business. Alok heads up venture operations for Canaan Partners in India, with focus on internet, technology and BPO space. Alok is also a founding member of Band of Angels India - an organization comprising successful entrepreneurs looking to invest in seed stage businesses. Prior to this, Alok cofounded JobsAhead.com, a leading job portal which was acquired by Monster.com. Alok is an active charter member of TiE Delhi. Alok is a computer science graduate from IIT Delhi and, postgraduate from UC, Berkeley.

Areas of Interest :

• IT products and services
• High end BPO services
• Leading edge technology in areas such as telecommunications and embedded domains
• Internet, Wireless, Mobile

Amal Pramanik

Amal heads up the UK business of Imperial Tobacco, one of the leading global tobacco companies. UK is Imperial Tobacco’s home market where it has a market leading position with yearly local profit of over Rs. 4800cr (at £600m, it is over 20% of Imperial’s global profit). Prior to UK, Amal was the head of Imperial’s Netherlands business and was also a director of various international subsidiaries.

Amal graduated from IIT Kharagpur and did his post graduation degree from IIM Ahmedabad. In his very successful career spanning over c25 years, Amal has held various senior sales and marketing and IT roles in ITC, NIIT, Pepsi, Gillette and now Imperial Tobacco and worked in India, Australia, Netherlands and UK.

Before immigrating with his family to Australia in 2000, Amal was the head of oral care business (Oral B) of Gillette for India and neighboring countries.

Amal has key strengths in his ability to negotiate large commercial arrangements/ deals, his ability to test robustness of ideas and proposals, his commercial acumen and thorough understanding of business processes & culture in different parts of the world and also his ability to help teams set strategic direction and enhance performance.

Email: A_pramanik@hotmail.com

Amit Sharma
to be updated soon