Sandeep is the Founder and Managing Director of the Kaizen Private Equity, India’s first education-focused private equity fund. He leads overall fund strategy, investment analysis, fund raising and relationship management with many of the Fund’s clients and investors. He has 17 years of professional experience, which spans from consulting, operations leadership and investment management. Sandeep is regarded a thought leader in the private equity space and regularly contributes by speaking at conferences and private equity panels.

Sandeep is a trained engineer having acquired his apprenticeship as a railway officer at Jamalpur Gymkhana and later on, graduated with a MS in Civil Engineering from the University of Delaware. During his undergraduate studies at Jamalpur, he designed, set up and operated an adult education program for factory workers and hospital staff for three years.

Anand Sudarshan is MD & CEO, Manipal Education. He is based in Bangalore, India, and he is responsible for all education business of Manipal Education & Medical Group.

Prior to his current position, Anand was President, Adea International (a wholly owned subsidiary of Adea Solutions, Inc, Dallas TX), responsible for all global (non-US) business of the IT Services & Solutions company. Anand had taken on this position, subsequent to the merger of Netkraft Private Limited, Bangalore, India (where he was CEO), with Adea Solutions, Inc in July 2004. Netkraft / Adea International is a CMMI Level 5 Company.

Anand has served as a featured speaker at a number of industry business and technical events in Asia, Europe and the United States. He has authored several articles in leading trade publications and was named as one of the top ten stars of the Indian IT industry by Dataquest, a top Indian IT industry publication. Anand also participated in the CII-EXIM Award for Business Excellence in India, which is the Indian equivalent of the Malcolm Baldridge Award. He is an IFPUG member, Jury Member of Polestar Foundation, is an active member of Confederation of Indian Industry and Nasscom.

Khozem Merchant is President, Pearson India, the country office of the global media and education group. Before taking up his present position in January 2008, Khozem was for nearly two decades a journalist with The Financial Times, the global business newspaper published by Pearson. His last journalist role was FT Mumbai Correspondent from 2000 to 2006, when he moved from editorial to the commercial side of the FT, taking up a role as director, business development for the Financial Times in India. As the Head of Pearson India he is the key representative across Pearson’s interests in India, which include Penguin India, Pearson Education India, the Financial Times, Pearson Assessments and Testing.

Mihir Sheth is the Founder and MD of Springboard Financial Services, the country's first dedicated training loan provider. Springboard partners with training institutes imparting skill development courses and offers loans to students in need of financing.

Prior to Springboard, Mihir worked with the Unique Identification Authority of India in various roles ranging from field research, communications, outreach and project management. Before joining UIDAI he worked in the Investment Banking division of Lehman Brothers (then Nomura International), based out of their Hong Kong office. In that role, he specialized in M&A and capital markets advisory for Asian financial institutions. He has also previously worked at Credit Suisse in their London office, and at IDFC Private Equity in Mumbai.

Mihir graduated from Harvard College with a BA in Economics and is an avid squash player

Prashant Bhonsle has total of 16 plus years of experience in diverse industries like Financial Services, Office Automation, Telecom, FMCG and Pharmaceuticals. The organizations include some of the fortune companies along with a few who are the fastest growing in their domains such as ICICI, Canon, RPG, Pepsi and Cadila. He has held various positions in Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Credit, Customer Service and Operations across different geographies in the country.

In financial services, he worked with ICICI Bank Limited for about five and a half years at various positions across India. Prashant started his ICICI career as a business head for mortgages for Gujarat & Maharashtra regions respectively and went on to become a National Head - cross sell for all retail loans including Credit Cards. He was leading a team of more than 600 people stationed across 350 branches in the country and was responsible for top line revenue of Rs. 120 billion. He was also instrumental in setting up and growing Post Office channel for sourcing retail asset business to a volume of Rs. 400 crores in two states Maharashtra & Rajasthan.

Mr. Ambarish Datta is the Managing Director of the BSE Institute Ltd.

Prior to taking up this assignment he headed the Technology Aided Learning group at Reliance Retail Limited. During which he was responsible for a nationwide roll out of e-learning and blended learning programs covering a wide range of learners for shop floor staff to senior managers.

Prior to his stint with Reliance Retail he has handled various portfolios in the IT and learning solutions space. He has over 15 years of experience in sales & execution of technology solutions. Extensive domain knowledge in SCM, Retail, BFSI, eLearning Solutions & Manufacturing businesses. Well versed with global technological progress and trends with proven experience in developing custom software solutions & new product development and the ability to design complex solutions for mission critical business needs.

He has done his SMP from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

Sumeet Mehta, Chief Executive Officer, Zee Learn Ltd. has been associated with Zee’s Education business for over three years. He joined the group as Chief Operating Officer of Zee Interactive Learning Systems (ZILS) in 2007 and then took over as Chief Executive Officer in January 2008 prior to ETC Networks Ltd.’s merger with ZILS. Since then, he has been at the helm of the Education business of ETC Networks Ltd. till its merger with ZEEL in January 2010. Prior to joining Zee’s education business, Mr. Mehta was with Procter & Gamble Ltd. for over eight years in various brand management roles across Asia Pacific based in Mumbai and Singapore. Under his leadership, the turnover of Zee’s education business has grown from Rs. 250mn in 2008-09 to projected Rs. 400mn in FY 2010-11. During this period, Zee Learn’s education network has grown to over 30 Mount Litera Schools, over 700 Kidzee Preschools and more than 25 Zee Institute of Creative Art (ZICA). He has led the company to develop best-in-class pedagogies in schools and preschools, namely Litera Octave and Illume respectively. Under his guidance, Zee Learn has recently forayed into School Solutions business and Public Private Partnerships with Government in addition to its existing franchise and school partnership businesses.

Dilip is currently the Managing Director & CEO of the National Skill Development Corporation, (NSDC).   NSDC is a Public Private Partnership mandated to create, fund, enable and incentivise skill development and upgradation capacity in India. The objective of NSDC is to  skill 150 million people in India by 2022,   by fostering private sector investment and initiatives into  training and skill development in the  20 high growth as well as  the unorganized sector.

NSDC which is funded by the National Skill Development Fund, (NSDF), has been set up with the objective to serve as a nodal point for private sector investments for skill development.  NSDC has also been entrusted with the responsibility of creating systems for Standards and Accreditation, creation of a Labour Market Data Base and identification of skill gaps.

Previous to this Dilip was Director General of the advocacy group for the automobile industry in India, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).   Dilip  was responsible for setting the technical, economic and social responsibility agenda,   including training and development for the automobile industry in the context of globalization and an increasingly borderless world. He also represented SIAM on various Government Committees as well as on the board of the National Skills Development Corporation and the Steering Committee of the International Motorcycle Manufacturers Association. Dilip is also on the Governing Council of  a Management School.

Prior to his stint with SIAM, Dilip was the Deputy Director General,  and was  responsible for Industry Sectors and Associations Council - (ASCON) covering, Agriculture, Life sciences and ICT in the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).  He was also the CII spokesperson and coordinated CII’s international work relating to the ASEAN.

Dilip’s last assignment was with CII, and he was part of an India team working on the competitiveness of Indian Industry with Prof Michael Porter, Harvard Business School. He has also served as Regional Director for the Southern Region of CII.  He worked in industry prior to joining CII.

Anant jointly leads the management of Milestone Religare and has more than 19 years of overall work experience of which around 17 years were in the financial services & the Indian PE & VC capital markets. In his earlier organization he was overseeing US$ 225 mn investments into sectors including manufacturing, auto components, life sciences, media and entertainment. Earlier to this he served at JM Financial as Executive Director, IL&FS Investment Managers, UTI Exchange & BOI Finance.

He is a B.E. Mechanical from PDA Engineering College, Gulbarga University, Karnataka, Executive Special Management Programme from IIM Calcutta.

Amitabh has over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience. Amitabh is presently the Chairman and Group Managing Director  of Macmillan Group in India . He was previously the CEO of Educomp Investment Management Limited managing the India education fund, a venture fund by Educomp. Amitabh is a serial entrepreneur, he founded Study places India’s premier portal for education which was acquired by Educomp, and prior to that he co-founded Cymbal Corporation. Cymbal Corporation was a global services company, providing systems integration and outsourcing solutions to its clients in telecom industry, which got sold to Patni Computer Systems for $68 million. Amitabh also served as Vice President, product management and operations, in Firsttofile. Before starting StudyPlaces.com he worked for Airwide Solutions as GM India. Amit is a SLOAN fellow and MS in management from Graduate Schools of Business, Stanford University. He also holds a B.Tech degree from Punjab Engineering College (India) where he was the university silver medallist.

Amitabh has senior executive experience involving deep operational and financial understanding of strategic levers for the Internet and Education sector.  Amitabh brings with him a very rich experience in product management and strategic leadership.

Prabhat is the co-founder of Sarla Holdings Private Limited, which owns and runs a chain of top rated K-12 International Schools in India under the brand name of ‘Pathways’.

Born in 1969 in a Delhi based traditional Jain family, Prabhat pursued the commerce stream and was a bright student. He started his career in the family-run stone business, which was based out of Udaipur, Rajasthan. He was instrumental in expanding the business which now covers all segments in the value chain viz mining, manufacturing and export distribution of marble and natural stones. He represented the dimensional stone industry at various levels and forums.

In 1999 Prabhat shifted his base back to New Delhi with an aspiration to expand the family business. Filtering through different opportunities the family decided to make foray in the education space. With a focused vision to create an institution second to none and which remains relevant and current for times to come, Prabhat and his brothers did an extensive research on school education. It was this enticing journey of ‘unlearning and learning’ spanning over 2 years through which the pedagogical model of a world class international school evolved and thus was founded the first Pathways World School in 2003.

Prabhat is member of various bodies and councils in the field of education. His key interest areas are strategic planning and finance. He was instrumental in raising private equity for the company in 2009-10 for further expansion.

Prabhat aspires to continue this journey of research and learning and gradually expand the school chain in different parts of India.

Luis has been involved in setting up 2 companies. In 2002, Luis set up IDFC Private Equity. In 2010 he stepped down as President & CEO and remained as Chairman till the end of 2011.  IDFC Private Equity won many awards, including Infrastructure Investor’s “Asian Infrastructure Fund Manager of the Year 2009” and PEI’s “Best Private Equity Firm in India – 2009”.   He was earlier a Partner at ChrysCapital. Prior to that, he spent 11 years in sales and trading and was a key member of the start-up team at HDFC Bank, India’s leading private sector bank. He has also worked at HSBC, Citibank, KPMG and Price Waterhouse.

Luis co-chairs the Global Advisory Board (Asia Cabinet) of the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago and is Chairman, Board of Advisors, Centre for Civil Society. He was a Director of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA) and was Co-Chairman of the Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (IVCA), where he led the transformation of the association. Luis was a member of the World Economic Forum's Expert Committee on Infrastructure Investing.

Luis received an MBA from the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).

Luis is currently busy driving his wife and two kids crazy. He spends his time advising a few not-for-profit education and healthcare initiatives and a few early stage companies.

Mr. Praveen Chakravarty, CEO- Investment Banking and Institutional Equities brings with him over 16 years of corporate and public policy experience. He is a financial services professional of repute, a public policy enthusiast and an active angel investor. Prior to joining AnandRathi, he took a break from corporate life and was on an assignment with the Government of India’s prestigious Unique Identity Project.

Previously, Praveen was the COO and Managing Director of BNP Paribas Securities India, where he launched BNP Paribas’ equities business in India. Immediately before that, he was the Founder & Director of Thomas Wiesel India where he set up and ran Thomas Weisel’s business in India. Praveen’s earlier work experience include Product Management stints at Microsoft and IBM.

Praveen is also an active investor in various starts-ups as a co-founder of the Mumbai Angels Network. He is an active public policy enthusiast, specifically in areas of electoral reforms, Education and Youth Employability.

He received his MBA from the Wharton School and an undergraduate degree from BITS Pilani.

Krishnan Ganesh is the Founder & CEO of TutorVista.com (www.tutorvista.com), a personalized, 24/hour online tutoring and test prep service. Ganesh founded TutorVista.com in 2005 and serves as the company's CEO. He is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the company's business operations.

Ganesh created TutorVista.com to help provide students, from kindergarten to the graduate level, with individualized learning programs taught by world class experts. These experts are based in India, known as the educational hotbed, and are responsible for producing the world leaders in all subjects across the board.

A seasoned entrepreneur, Ganesh has a strong history of starting green field ventures and helping them develop into robust and successful entities. Ganesh began his career as Founder & CEO of IT&T Limited, India's premiere IT and network services company, where he took the company public in 2000. After eight years at IT&T, he then went on to become the CEO of Wipro British Telecom/Bharti British Telecom where he turned around a drowning company on the brink of bankruptcy into a cash break even company. His next venture was as CEO & Founder of CustomerAsset / ICICI OneSource, India's top BPO company, where he developed the company's staff from zero to 4,000.

Ganesh has a post-graduate degree from the Institute of Management in Calcutta as well as a Mechanical Engineering degree from Delhi University. Ganesh currently serves as a member of the visiting faculty at Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (Mumbai), Indian Institute of Management (Calcutta) and Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad. As an educator, he has also conducted workshops on the topics ranging from Managing Exponential Growth, Entrepreneurship Challenges in Today's World, and Motivating Employees in High-tech Industries.

Diwakar is a founding member of Brand Capital. Since its inception in 2005,he helped Times Group to set up & grow Brand Capital (earlier called Times Private Treaties)with the help of significant Private Equity Investments across sectors, and across regions.He has a track record of building and mentoring teams and organizations that succeed & outperform.

Diwakar is a Fellow Chartered Accountant, apprenticed at Ernst & Young and received his MBA (Marketing & Finance) from Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi.

Diwakar has more than 17 years of experience in Investment Banking, Fund Management, Consulting, Brand Development & Management, International Trade, Marketing & Sales having worked with Corporates and some of the top Consulting Firms, in India and abroad.

Diwakar is currently pursuing his Doctorate in Private Equity and regularly contributes by sharing his thoughts at VC / PE conferences, brand and industry forums. He enjoys reading, traveling, watching theatre, supporting art and spending time with the family.

Seema Jhingan, a Senior Partner at LexCounsel, Law Offices, has more than seventeen years of experience. She has extensively advised in areas including Mergers & Acquisition, Telecommunications, Media & Entertainment, Venture Capital & Private Equity, Education, Licensing & Franchising, Software/IT, General Corporate and Commercial. Seema has substantial expertise in representing investors, developers, VC/PE funds, international corporations, sponsors/lenders and other strategic investors involved in the establishment, development and financing of infrastructure, education, IT and satellite projects in India.

Seema is recognized for her capability of structuring innovative investment models and has considerable transactional experience in representing investors, corporations and education companies on regulatory and licensing issues, complex acquisitions and divestments, investment structuring and exits, international collaborations and debt/equity funding, tax structuring and related documentation in the education sector ranging from formal sector (K12 to higher education) to non-formal sector (vocational programs, skill development, test prep, support services, content and multimedia providers and other unregulated areas).  

Additionally, Seema has been designated as a leading lawyer in the area of IT, Telecommunications & Media, by Asia Law and Practice and is a regular speaker at global and domestic forums. Seema is an author of several papers and published articles.

Rohit is the CEO and Co-founder of Classteacher Learning Systems. Prior to founding Class Teacher in 2000, Rohit worked for a couple of years with Accenture in India. Rohit mentors the product development team at Classteacher and is passionately involved with expanding the thought leadership evolved through a decade of research .

He has been speaking about education technology in various national and international conferences and seminars and has been consistently driving a vision around how a successful technology model is built around rethinking the role of the educator and an inspiring leadership in the school.

Rohit holds a Bachelors in Technology from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and an MBA in Finance and Strategy from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.